There is much on my mind, so I will try to share what is on my heart as clearly as I can.
A couple of days ago I had a very soul-shaking conversation with one of the pastors I go to church with. It was one of those conversations where the lights just flashed on and you are left for a very long time waiting for your eyes to adjust; it's like coming out of a movie theater in the middle of a bright summer day after being in the dark for over 2 hours. This pastor is a rare breed. He has a large amount of discernment AND he is extremely tactful. Most pastors are either very tactful and as discerning as a blade of grass or they are very discerning but usually end up putting both feet in their mouth so you really don't hear what they said until weeks later. Fortunately this pastor is both insightful and tactful, as is most of the leadership at the church I go to, so this was a very productive conversation.
We talked a lot about what God's call on my life is and how to go about moving forward with that. I had to confess that I don't have a clue about a lot of things right now as far as life direction, which is at least a starting place of sorts. It felt very good to have my complaints and reservations about different things validated before being encouraged to think about what to do and how to go about doing it feeling the way that I do about certain things.
If this is somewhat vague, I apologize; it is something I want to share but can't fully talk about as I don't quite understand it all yet myself.
A big part of what has moved my soul from having this conversation is that this pastor really believes that God is real and can do incredible things. He is a guy who puts his money where his mouth is. Perfect? No. But he is someone who takes himself pretty lightly and Scripture very seriously, which is something I have a ton of respect for. If I had to be honest, most of the people I know who are professing evangelicals I would not say believe that Scripture alone is our only source of doctrine and practice. When people I meet do go to Scripture and they hold to certain things that a lot of subcultural Christianity doesn't hold to, I respect what they say and truly feel free to talk openly.
I kind of feel challenged to believe that God is very real and can, and will, do incredible things. There is a time to dissent from one's culture, but there is a time to shut up and actually be the change you wish to do. I am much more inclined to be lazy, point fingers, and complain than to actually do something so the tactful prodding I recieved was much needed.
The older that I am getting the more I realize that my parents, especially my Dad, is really not stupid afterall. Going through the teenage years I had this eerie feeling that my parents watched one too many episodes of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Law and Order" to have a balanced view of the world; the whole paradigm of life being very good but the world being a very scary place. My Dad is definitely a lot more Type A than I am, but I am seeing that he and I are much more alike than I would ever imagine. My mom and I are also a lot alike as well, so I would likely recommend that whoever dates me should look at my parents if they want to see what I will very likely be like when I am older. LOL. I am being serious though.
My parents have always been the blood-and-guts of Christianity in my life. They have lived with me, and everyone they cross paths with, in the blood-and-guts of the everyday life and the painful hard stuff that comes up in each others lives. I don't know that I have ever had too many deep conversations about faith with my Dad, but I do not think I have, or ever will, meet a man who is as much the hands and feet of Christ as he is.
Yesterday was an absolutely terrible day. I woke up feeling kind of frazzled, "on the wrong side of the bed", and the day slowly went downhill from there. Nothing seemed to be going as it needed to, which only made by already bad day much worse. I have a pretty burnt out feeling overall in life right now, so I am trying to fight against the sheer apathy that I could easily have right now. I did not plan to go to college when I graduated from high school, as I barely got out of high school. I agreed to try to go to college for a semester and if I hated it I would quit. I ended up continuing with college and graduating, but I honestly feel like it is huge smack in the face for me to actually have stepped out on a limb to try to do something and then end for my first seven months since graduating either not having a job at all or ending up working at a job that I don't need a degree to do and don't get any extra pay for having the degree.
On the whole, I have had a very rude awakening since graduating from college. I have definitely learned that I do not want to ever be in a business field of any kind for a career, lol. That's for sure.
In some ways I feel like I am acting like the older son in the (misnamed) parable of "The Prodigal Son". "I have been slaving for you all of these years and this is what I get!?" I am generally the type of person to not up and openly rebel against God; my sickness is that I try to put God in debt to me and feel like He owes me something. And when things don't go how I think they should, I get mad about it. It is hard to sort through how much of what I am thinking and feeling is justifiable and how much of it is me having a sinful attitude. Who knows.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Hanging in the Balance Part 2
Getting an Article Published
A few months ago I was invited to write an article for a theology journal/international dialogue for the denomination I grew up in. I had mixed feelings about being asked to do this, but I prayed about and decided to do it. I had forgotten about doing the article and recently received an email from the new editor of the journal asking about some things related to editing.
The editor and I have exchanged several emails, trying to work out the details of how to state what I am trying to say in an unambiguous way. This has been a very long and tedious process, but has been/is a good process. Editors have a hard job because they need to help to make the article as readable and understandable as it can be but do it in a such a way that they are faithful to the author's ideas and wording. The editor of the journal I am writing for has managed to do both, which I have been very pleased with. Everything is still in the process of getting worked out before it goes to press, but so far so good.
I have no idea when the article will be released, although I would guess that it will be in the Fall edition.
I also got approved to have writing privileges on a local seminary's blog a few weeks ago. I had made a response in the comment section of a blog post, a rather long response, and have gotten to talk to a lot of people at the seminary because of this. I have not thought too hard about writing an article for the blog, but it may be something I do in the future.
On Becoming My Parents
The older I get the more I realize that I am becoming more and more like my parents. And I am okay with becoming like them, at least in most ways.
I have had a sort of rude awakening into the "real world" since graduation and have come to understand my Dad in new ways. I guess a lot of it is just maturing in general, but I do see and understand their concerns about a lot of life issues in much larger ways.
Both of my parents are by no means perfect or without character faults, as no one is either of these things, but I do see them in new ways.
Church and the State
I have been thinking a lot about the nature of the State lately. I don't feel as though I have much clarity on the matter as to any of the specifics, other than that there is a very distinct role of the State that differs greatly from the Church. In saying this, I must clarify this and state that the State is also God's servant, and God has not given the State the sword in vain. Maintaining this balance is tough, and it is easy to fall into many ideological traps that are thrown at us even though what we are told is the "biblical" way to be in relation to the State.
Enough for now...
A few months ago I was invited to write an article for a theology journal/international dialogue for the denomination I grew up in. I had mixed feelings about being asked to do this, but I prayed about and decided to do it. I had forgotten about doing the article and recently received an email from the new editor of the journal asking about some things related to editing.
The editor and I have exchanged several emails, trying to work out the details of how to state what I am trying to say in an unambiguous way. This has been a very long and tedious process, but has been/is a good process. Editors have a hard job because they need to help to make the article as readable and understandable as it can be but do it in a such a way that they are faithful to the author's ideas and wording. The editor of the journal I am writing for has managed to do both, which I have been very pleased with. Everything is still in the process of getting worked out before it goes to press, but so far so good.
I have no idea when the article will be released, although I would guess that it will be in the Fall edition.
I also got approved to have writing privileges on a local seminary's blog a few weeks ago. I had made a response in the comment section of a blog post, a rather long response, and have gotten to talk to a lot of people at the seminary because of this. I have not thought too hard about writing an article for the blog, but it may be something I do in the future.
On Becoming My Parents
The older I get the more I realize that I am becoming more and more like my parents. And I am okay with becoming like them, at least in most ways.
I have had a sort of rude awakening into the "real world" since graduation and have come to understand my Dad in new ways. I guess a lot of it is just maturing in general, but I do see and understand their concerns about a lot of life issues in much larger ways.
Both of my parents are by no means perfect or without character faults, as no one is either of these things, but I do see them in new ways.
Church and the State
I have been thinking a lot about the nature of the State lately. I don't feel as though I have much clarity on the matter as to any of the specifics, other than that there is a very distinct role of the State that differs greatly from the Church. In saying this, I must clarify this and state that the State is also God's servant, and God has not given the State the sword in vain. Maintaining this balance is tough, and it is easy to fall into many ideological traps that are thrown at us even though what we are told is the "biblical" way to be in relation to the State.
Enough for now...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Hanging in the Balance Part 1
I have been meaning to write for a long time but have been prevented by various causes, some of which has been laziness, most of which has been that I haven't had the time.
A lot of what is written in this post are random thoughts that came together. I wrote far more than I intended to and did not get to any of the topics I really wanted to write about. My mind is heavy, and has been for the past two weeks.
There is more to come, but for now, enjoy some ramblings...
I have had to deal with another death recently, the death of a friend from church. It was a very unexpected death, a car accident. The man always seemed to be thankful for everything in life. He didn't pretend that life was always rainbows and butterfly's, but He did have a sense of real joy and appreciation for all of life. My heart feels grief in a very deep way. My Black Dog has been following rather closely these past two weeks because of this. A lot of other things I have been stressing about lately probably haven't helped this either, but overall my Black Dog seems to not be following me around as much as it used to. Grief and anger are definitely appropriate emotions to stressors in life, something I am finally getting used to understanding.
Since I recieved the Lord I have noticed that I have become much more broken and much more healed as a person the longer that I walk with Him. It's funny because although I am often convinced that I know what is what in life, I am getting to a place more and more where I know that I really don't have a clue about anything other than that I need God. It is kind of strange that, while coming to faith in Christ is something we must do by crying out to Him, we are so hard-bent to attribute our being saved to our own free will and ability. I do believe in Reformed Theology in regards to salvation, but even a biblical Arminian knows that apart from a miraculous gift of God opening our hearts to come to Him, even if it is just to the possibility of being able to come to Him, we have NO HOPE. I think when we attribute our salvation to anything except for God's grace, we rob Him of glory. When we say that we, as DEAD people, can lift ourselves out of our graves without any help and come to God, we just show that we know NOTHING of what it means to be saved. This does not mean that we are not saved when we do this, but it does show that we do not at all understand how hopeless we were (and are) and how amazing and gracious God's gift of salvation truly is.
Even the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed that a person cannot come to Christ without the assistance of grace. Isn't it, then, strange that the people who proclaim to be justified by faith alone apart from works will often deny this?
It has often been stated that while the Church had long ago decided that man does, in fact, need God to give Him grace to Him, that the Reformation was largely about the extent of man's need for grace.
How all of the reformers before Calvin were "Calvinists" before the man was born, is an interesting thing. The same thing goes for how there were "Arminians" in the Church before Jacobus Arminius ever stated His doctrine in 5 Points.
Oddly enough still, "those silly Calvinists who put all of their doctrine into a 5-Point System" only did so in response to a 5-Point System made by a person in the Church who had strayed from what the Church already traditionally taught without the make-up of "the 5 Points of Calvinism". Sadly, most people don't know this, nor do they care.
I have had a lot of stress over a friend of mine who has been suffering (for years) with mental health issues. He is a brilliant person in many ways; He has a true gem of a mind and intellect. However, he is often raved by the "madness" I have known in times past and does not realize how desperately he needs help. There isn't much good in trying to help someone who doesn't want to be helped or know that they need it. It breaks my heart to see them continuing to struggle, but there is little that I can do but pray and cry. This situation has broken my heart in many ways.
Even in getting help for mental health issues, it is hard to define what "help" is and how it is given. I definitely know that medication is necessary for some people, as is therapy, but, in my opinion, the whole field of psychology and psychiatry is largely all a matter of grey areas, with very little that we actually know. I had a psychology teacher in my Human Services degree program that taught us how to examine scientific evidence in a way that we could actually see and note what the evidence itself stated as opposed to what people have interpretted the evidence to mean. There lies a big difference between what we actually know and what we assume we know from science. Science is not a bad thing in itself, but when scientists answer the wrong question with the data they gather, nothing they do is of any real value.
I take a medication for mental health and neurological reasons that helps very much. The older type of this type of medication can cause people to have tardive dyskinesia if the medicine is used for a prolonged period of time. The newer type of medication is supposed to decrease the risk of having tardive dyskinesia, as is advertised, but the truth is that no one has lived long on these medications to actually find out, as the drugs haven't been out long enough to tell. The drug is supposed to do better at not having this to occur, but truthfully no one knows. It may not. The new drugs certainly have other benefits that the older versions lack, but I could very well end up dealing with the same side effects that people who took the older versions sometimes have.
My point is not whether or not I will have to deal with drastic side effects, or whether or not it bothers (I haven't really thought about, to be honest), but that getting help in the mental health world, regardless of from whom, is, for the most part, a walk in the dark. If you are just hopeless enough to stumble through the dark with a doctor for long enough, eventually you might get helped. I am very grateful for the help I have recieved, but I can't pretend that any part of this process is easy in any sense at all. What do you tell someone who is asking you what getting treated for mental health reasons is like? There is a vast difference of opinion of "brain treatment" from those who deal with "brain issues" as a real part of their everyday life and those who work in this field professionally. A person can't "clock out" from their brain or take a vacation if they need to: it's always there with you. I do not say this for the purpose of disparaging those who work in these fields who have never had any real-life experience in dealing with these issues themselves, but I am stating that a person who suffers from these issues has a very different picture of what "getting helped" means.
I graduated from college with a degree in the helping profession but I am still sorting out a lot of the things I learned. Quite frankly, I don't know what "helping" someone means, what it looks like, or what the overall goal is. I know I need the Gospel; I also know I need medication. Where does "helping" someone end and giving them more tools to run from God begin? How does a Christian interact as a genuine Bible-Believer with a field built largely upon secular humanism? I don't really have any answers in all of this in any sense. I will say that people who are not spiritually discerning and analytical people will find that most secular education is severely damaging, if not damning, to the souls of those who are truly seeking to know God. That is not to say that a person will lose their salvation in college, it may just mean that they will arrive in heaven having lived their life with some very confused beliefs thrown in with the Gospel.
Thank God for Grace and for His Providence. I know nothing, except the following:
"The terrors of Law and of God
with me can have nothing to do.
For My Savior's obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view."
-Augustus Toplady
More to come...
A lot of what is written in this post are random thoughts that came together. I wrote far more than I intended to and did not get to any of the topics I really wanted to write about. My mind is heavy, and has been for the past two weeks.
There is more to come, but for now, enjoy some ramblings...
I have had to deal with another death recently, the death of a friend from church. It was a very unexpected death, a car accident. The man always seemed to be thankful for everything in life. He didn't pretend that life was always rainbows and butterfly's, but He did have a sense of real joy and appreciation for all of life. My heart feels grief in a very deep way. My Black Dog has been following rather closely these past two weeks because of this. A lot of other things I have been stressing about lately probably haven't helped this either, but overall my Black Dog seems to not be following me around as much as it used to. Grief and anger are definitely appropriate emotions to stressors in life, something I am finally getting used to understanding.
Since I recieved the Lord I have noticed that I have become much more broken and much more healed as a person the longer that I walk with Him. It's funny because although I am often convinced that I know what is what in life, I am getting to a place more and more where I know that I really don't have a clue about anything other than that I need God. It is kind of strange that, while coming to faith in Christ is something we must do by crying out to Him, we are so hard-bent to attribute our being saved to our own free will and ability. I do believe in Reformed Theology in regards to salvation, but even a biblical Arminian knows that apart from a miraculous gift of God opening our hearts to come to Him, even if it is just to the possibility of being able to come to Him, we have NO HOPE. I think when we attribute our salvation to anything except for God's grace, we rob Him of glory. When we say that we, as DEAD people, can lift ourselves out of our graves without any help and come to God, we just show that we know NOTHING of what it means to be saved. This does not mean that we are not saved when we do this, but it does show that we do not at all understand how hopeless we were (and are) and how amazing and gracious God's gift of salvation truly is.
Even the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed that a person cannot come to Christ without the assistance of grace. Isn't it, then, strange that the people who proclaim to be justified by faith alone apart from works will often deny this?
It has often been stated that while the Church had long ago decided that man does, in fact, need God to give Him grace to Him, that the Reformation was largely about the extent of man's need for grace.
How all of the reformers before Calvin were "Calvinists" before the man was born, is an interesting thing. The same thing goes for how there were "Arminians" in the Church before Jacobus Arminius ever stated His doctrine in 5 Points.
Oddly enough still, "those silly Calvinists who put all of their doctrine into a 5-Point System" only did so in response to a 5-Point System made by a person in the Church who had strayed from what the Church already traditionally taught without the make-up of "the 5 Points of Calvinism". Sadly, most people don't know this, nor do they care.
I have had a lot of stress over a friend of mine who has been suffering (for years) with mental health issues. He is a brilliant person in many ways; He has a true gem of a mind and intellect. However, he is often raved by the "madness" I have known in times past and does not realize how desperately he needs help. There isn't much good in trying to help someone who doesn't want to be helped or know that they need it. It breaks my heart to see them continuing to struggle, but there is little that I can do but pray and cry. This situation has broken my heart in many ways.
Even in getting help for mental health issues, it is hard to define what "help" is and how it is given. I definitely know that medication is necessary for some people, as is therapy, but, in my opinion, the whole field of psychology and psychiatry is largely all a matter of grey areas, with very little that we actually know. I had a psychology teacher in my Human Services degree program that taught us how to examine scientific evidence in a way that we could actually see and note what the evidence itself stated as opposed to what people have interpretted the evidence to mean. There lies a big difference between what we actually know and what we assume we know from science. Science is not a bad thing in itself, but when scientists answer the wrong question with the data they gather, nothing they do is of any real value.
I take a medication for mental health and neurological reasons that helps very much. The older type of this type of medication can cause people to have tardive dyskinesia if the medicine is used for a prolonged period of time. The newer type of medication is supposed to decrease the risk of having tardive dyskinesia, as is advertised, but the truth is that no one has lived long on these medications to actually find out, as the drugs haven't been out long enough to tell. The drug is supposed to do better at not having this to occur, but truthfully no one knows. It may not. The new drugs certainly have other benefits that the older versions lack, but I could very well end up dealing with the same side effects that people who took the older versions sometimes have.
My point is not whether or not I will have to deal with drastic side effects, or whether or not it bothers (I haven't really thought about, to be honest), but that getting help in the mental health world, regardless of from whom, is, for the most part, a walk in the dark. If you are just hopeless enough to stumble through the dark with a doctor for long enough, eventually you might get helped. I am very grateful for the help I have recieved, but I can't pretend that any part of this process is easy in any sense at all. What do you tell someone who is asking you what getting treated for mental health reasons is like? There is a vast difference of opinion of "brain treatment" from those who deal with "brain issues" as a real part of their everyday life and those who work in this field professionally. A person can't "clock out" from their brain or take a vacation if they need to: it's always there with you. I do not say this for the purpose of disparaging those who work in these fields who have never had any real-life experience in dealing with these issues themselves, but I am stating that a person who suffers from these issues has a very different picture of what "getting helped" means.
I graduated from college with a degree in the helping profession but I am still sorting out a lot of the things I learned. Quite frankly, I don't know what "helping" someone means, what it looks like, or what the overall goal is. I know I need the Gospel; I also know I need medication. Where does "helping" someone end and giving them more tools to run from God begin? How does a Christian interact as a genuine Bible-Believer with a field built largely upon secular humanism? I don't really have any answers in all of this in any sense. I will say that people who are not spiritually discerning and analytical people will find that most secular education is severely damaging, if not damning, to the souls of those who are truly seeking to know God. That is not to say that a person will lose their salvation in college, it may just mean that they will arrive in heaven having lived their life with some very confused beliefs thrown in with the Gospel.
Thank God for Grace and for His Providence. I know nothing, except the following:
"The terrors of Law and of God
with me can have nothing to do.
For My Savior's obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view."
-Augustus Toplady
More to come...
Why post this? Simply because I can...lol.
This short clip is one of many reasons why I strongly dislike liberal politics. Why post this, you ask?
The clip speaks for itself.
The clip speaks for itself.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
America's debt to John Calvin by John Piper
(This article was originally posted in WORLD magazine, July 4, 2009.)
In this year of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I don’t know of a better place to read about his impact on America than Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism given at Princeton Seminary in October 1898. Kuyper was a pastor, a journalist, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
John Calvin and Martin Luther were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation. Why do fewer people speak of Luther’s culture-shaping impact on America, but for centuries Calvin has been seen in this light? Kuyper argues,
"Luther’s starting-point was the . . . principle of justifying faith; while Calvin’s . . . lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. . . . [Hence] Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life."
It is the personal pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty that makes all the difference. This means that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence.” This “fundamental thought of Calvinism” shaped all of life. “It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang.”
For example, Calvin’s doctrine of “vocation” follows from the fact that every person, great and small, lives “in the Divine Presence.” God’s sovereign purposes govern the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone’s work. This yielded the Protestant work ethic. Huge benefits flow from a cultural shift in which all work is done earnestly and honestly with an eye to God.
Or consider how Calvinism breathed an impulse of freedom into modern history. The decisive principle
"was the sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. A primordial Sovereignty which eradicates in mankind . . . a threefold . . . supremacy, viz., (1) the sovereignty of the State; (2) the sovereignty in Society; and (3) the sovereignty in the Church."
God’s sovereign claim on every person and every sphere of society relativized all other claims. It began with the churches.
"The sovereignty of Christ remains absolutely monarchical, but the government of the Church on earth becomes democratic to its bones and marrow. . . No church may exercise any dominion over another, but . . . all local churches are of equal rank."
This impulse of freedom spread to the political sphere. Calvin and his heirs had a strong predilection for republican government—and an aversion to monarchy. A benevolent dictatorship would be ideal in a sinless world. But in a sinful world, it brings the horrors of tyranny. “Call to mind . . . that Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights.”
We ask: Why then did Calvin endorse the death of Servetus for heresy? How was this part of his liberating impulse? Kuyper’s answer is helpful.
"I not only deplore that . . . I unconditionally disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal after-effect of a system, grey with age, which Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet been able entirely to liberate itself."
A thousand years of abuses are not thrown off overnight. But the impulses of liberty, flowing from the decisive principle of the all-embracing sovereignty of God, proved to be unstoppable. “Calvinism has liberated Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England, and in the Pilgrim Fathers has provided the impulse to the prosperity of the United States.”
Kuyper closed his lectures with a claim that for many today sounds preposterous. Do not write him off. Get the book Lectures on Calvinism, and test these words, spoken to Americans in 1898.
"In the rise of your university education . . .; in the decentralized . . . character of your local governments; . . . in your championship of free speech, and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this . . . it is demonstrable that you owe this to Calvinism and to Calvinism alone."
In this year of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I don’t know of a better place to read about his impact on America than Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism given at Princeton Seminary in October 1898. Kuyper was a pastor, a journalist, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
John Calvin and Martin Luther were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation. Why do fewer people speak of Luther’s culture-shaping impact on America, but for centuries Calvin has been seen in this light? Kuyper argues,
"Luther’s starting-point was the . . . principle of justifying faith; while Calvin’s . . . lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. . . . [Hence] Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life."
It is the personal pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty that makes all the difference. This means that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence.” This “fundamental thought of Calvinism” shaped all of life. “It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang.”
For example, Calvin’s doctrine of “vocation” follows from the fact that every person, great and small, lives “in the Divine Presence.” God’s sovereign purposes govern the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone’s work. This yielded the Protestant work ethic. Huge benefits flow from a cultural shift in which all work is done earnestly and honestly with an eye to God.
Or consider how Calvinism breathed an impulse of freedom into modern history. The decisive principle
"was the sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. A primordial Sovereignty which eradicates in mankind . . . a threefold . . . supremacy, viz., (1) the sovereignty of the State; (2) the sovereignty in Society; and (3) the sovereignty in the Church."
God’s sovereign claim on every person and every sphere of society relativized all other claims. It began with the churches.
"The sovereignty of Christ remains absolutely monarchical, but the government of the Church on earth becomes democratic to its bones and marrow. . . No church may exercise any dominion over another, but . . . all local churches are of equal rank."
This impulse of freedom spread to the political sphere. Calvin and his heirs had a strong predilection for republican government—and an aversion to monarchy. A benevolent dictatorship would be ideal in a sinless world. But in a sinful world, it brings the horrors of tyranny. “Call to mind . . . that Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights.”
We ask: Why then did Calvin endorse the death of Servetus for heresy? How was this part of his liberating impulse? Kuyper’s answer is helpful.
"I not only deplore that . . . I unconditionally disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal after-effect of a system, grey with age, which Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet been able entirely to liberate itself."
A thousand years of abuses are not thrown off overnight. But the impulses of liberty, flowing from the decisive principle of the all-embracing sovereignty of God, proved to be unstoppable. “Calvinism has liberated Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England, and in the Pilgrim Fathers has provided the impulse to the prosperity of the United States.”
Kuyper closed his lectures with a claim that for many today sounds preposterous. Do not write him off. Get the book Lectures on Calvinism, and test these words, spoken to Americans in 1898.
"In the rise of your university education . . .; in the decentralized . . . character of your local governments; . . . in your championship of free speech, and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this . . . it is demonstrable that you owe this to Calvinism and to Calvinism alone."
Life is Short
Earlier this morning I found out that a friend from church died in a car accident. Normally it takes me a long time to process things through, but for some reason upon hearing the news it hit me immediately like a ton of bricks. I could say something like "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away", all of which is true, but isn't what I need at the moment. He is gone and I find myself rudely awakened by the brevity of life that I am all too often unaware of, both of my own inevitable death and the death of every single person until Christ so chooses to return. As Christians we do not grieve as those who have no hope; there is a redemption that will soon be fully realized and those who have gone before us will be resurrected. We do not grieve as those who have no hope, but we still grieve.
I find comfort in the fact that even Jesus wept; we too are okay to let ourselves feel the weight of our sorrow or anger if we need to do so. God has promised that He will never leave us or forsake, which is good news for messed-up people living in a messed-up world. I cannot make it without the blessing of Christ following me and keeping me.
My sorrow feels heavy right now so I am going to not write much more, but I wanted to share with you all a song called "Life Means So Much". It is a powerful song; one that reminds that life is short and the life truly does mean so much.
Every day is a journal page
Every man holds a quill and ink
And there's plenty of room for writing in
All we do is believe and think
So will you compose a curse
Or will today bring the blessing
Fill the page with rhyming verse
Or some random sketching
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Life means so much
Life means so much
Every day is a bank account
And time is our currency
So nobody's rich, nobody's poor
We get 24 hours each
So how are you gonna spend
Will you invest, or squander
Try to get ahead
Or help someone who's under
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Life means so much
Life means so much
Has anybody ever lived who knew the value of a life
And don't you think giving is all
What proves the worth of yours and mine
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Every day is a gift you've been given
Make the most of the time every minute you're living
-Chris Rice
I find comfort in the fact that even Jesus wept; we too are okay to let ourselves feel the weight of our sorrow or anger if we need to do so. God has promised that He will never leave us or forsake, which is good news for messed-up people living in a messed-up world. I cannot make it without the blessing of Christ following me and keeping me.
My sorrow feels heavy right now so I am going to not write much more, but I wanted to share with you all a song called "Life Means So Much". It is a powerful song; one that reminds that life is short and the life truly does mean so much.
Every day is a journal page
Every man holds a quill and ink
And there's plenty of room for writing in
All we do is believe and think
So will you compose a curse
Or will today bring the blessing
Fill the page with rhyming verse
Or some random sketching
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Life means so much
Life means so much
Every day is a bank account
And time is our currency
So nobody's rich, nobody's poor
We get 24 hours each
So how are you gonna spend
Will you invest, or squander
Try to get ahead
Or help someone who's under
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Life means so much
Life means so much
Has anybody ever lived who knew the value of a life
And don't you think giving is all
What proves the worth of yours and mine
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much
Every day is a gift you've been given
Make the most of the time every minute you're living
-Chris Rice
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