Mannheim Steamroller Christmas

Permit me a light post. Last week was my wife’s birthday and we went to hear Mannheim Steamroller in concert downtown at the Warner theatre in our nation’s capital. They are an instrumental music group known more for their multiple Christmas albums than anything else. Anyway, it was awesome and they are just as good in concert. As the name of this blog attests, I love Christmas and their album titled Christmas is my favorite Christmas album ever.

Enoch walked with God…

My favorite Old Testament character is Enoch. We know so little of him yet we have so much to learn from him. Enoch made it into the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11:5!  The record in Hebrews tells us he was “pleasing to God.” He was so pleasing to God that God “took him” to be with himself and together they enjoyed fellowship in heaven unobstructed by the effects of sin.

Enoch lived in a wicked world and yet still walked with God. What exactly does it mean that “Enoch walked with God?” Over the years I have come to appreciate older expositions of Scripture. It seems that men of an earlier generation had more time to contemplate the fullness of the scripture record and expound the text. One such exposition of the short Enoch in Genesis is by Marcus Dods. In his exposition titled The Book of Genesis, Dods expounds the phrase “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:24). He writes,

The phrase is full of meaning. Enoch walked with God because he was His friend and liked His company, because he was going in the same direction of God, and had no desire for anything but what lay in God’s path. We walk with God when He is in all our thoughts; not because we consciously think of Him at all times, but because He is naturally suggested to us by all we think of; as when any person or plan or idea has become important to us, no matter what we think of, our thought is always found recurring to this favorite object, so with the godly man everything has a connection with God and must be ruled by that connection.

Enoch reminds us that it is possible to live a godly life in a sinful world.

The importance of the resurrection

In the Sunday school class I teach we are studying 1 Corinthians. As I work my way through chapter 15, I have become more and more impressed on how Paul’s treatise on the message of the gospel and the doctrine of the resurrection is in fact the climax and major theme of the epistle. Paul addresses several problems in the church in chapters 1-6 and then in chapters 7-16 addresses questions they had asked of the apostle. What becomes clear is that much of their disunity flowed out of bad theology. They had misunderstood the message and ministry of the gospel (1:18-4:21) and it led to factions in the church. The church was preoccupied with all kinds of things except what was essential to right faith and practice. Their misunderstanding of the gospel manifested itself by failing to see the ramifications of the doctrine of the resurrection which some in Corinth were denying. Paul corrects their deficiencies of the nature of the gospel when he unpacks 15:1-4 in the rest of the chapter. Paul made known to them the gospel by declaring that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried, and was raised from the dead three days later, according to the scriptures. He then demonstrated the folly of what was at stake if there was no resurrection, namely, that Christ therefore was not raised and that they were still in their sins.

One might wonder if the doctrine of the resurrection was so essential to his message, why did Paul wait so long to introduce it. Today I read Calvin’s commentary on chapter 15. He wrote, “Paul did not wish to introduce a subject of such importance, until he had asserted his authority, which had been considerably lessoned among the Corinthians, and until he had, by repressing their pride, prepared them for listening to him with docility.” 

Well said.

Δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ and N. T. Wright

Noted Greek scholar Dan Wallace has recently posted an essay on the New Testament expression “righteousness of God” (δικαιοσυύνη θεοῦ) as found in Romans. In the essay Wallace is critical of N. T. Wright’s recent work titled Justification which was released this past May. Wright is an ardent proponent of the New Perspective on Paul.

Happy Reformation Day!

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the castle church doors at Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, starting a chain reaction leading to the Reformation. This year also marks the 500 year anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. I am currently reading two new books on Calvin published in this anniversary year, one by Bruce Gordon simply called, Calvin, and the other by W. Robert Godfrey titled, John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor. For those of you in the Washington D.C. area, a local church is hosting a 6 week lecture series titled “Calvin in the Capital” on Thursday nights. There are two more lectures left in the series. I made the first one and it was superb.

2012? 2009 has enough trouble of its own!

The 2012 phenomenon that is prevalent in the popular culture holds to a series of cataclysmic events that will occur on the earth in 2012 ushering in the end of the world as we know it. These events are rooted in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which ends December 21 or 23, 2012. These events are derived partly from astronomical, partly from myth, and partly from supposed prophetic utterances of extraterrestrial visitors. As usual, it doesn’t take long before what is popular in the culture creeps into the church.

A decade ago, many Christians were petrified of Y2K. I won’t rehash how foolish many ended up looking before a watching world. Now, some Christians are speculating that perhaps the second coming of Christ will coincide with the 2012 phenomenon. A couple of weeks ago I was working on a sermon from Mark 13:1-13. Jesus had just commented on the temple’s imminent destruction (13:1-2) when his disciples asked him a two part question: when would these things happen and what sign would signify the end (13:3-4)? Jesus’ response in 13:5-8 is a simple one: We must not be deceived into speculating about the end of the age based on world events.  We can be confident that many things will transpire: false Christ’s will appear (13:6), there will be wars and rumors of wars (13:7), and there will be national uprisings, earthquakes and famines (13:8). But these are not the sign of the end, but mere birth pangs.

The one thing we can know with complete assurance is what Jesus goes on to say in 13:9-13, namely, that we will be persecuted. We don’t know when Jesus is returning and we should not try and calculate the date. However we are to know the following regarding these last days: we will be persecuted (13:9), the gospel must be proclaimed (13:10), we are to trust in God’s power (13:11), we will be betrayed by those close to us (13:12), we will be hated (13:13a), but by the grace of God, we will be preserved by God (13:13b). So, worry about 2012? 2009 has enough trouble of its own.

God’s strong call

Justin Taylor over at the Gospel Coalition has just posted a blog about the calling of John Piper into pastoral ministry. While it should be read by anyone considering pastoral ministry, it is a profitable read for any believer.

The motive of repentance: love to God

  

I am reading the book, The Doctrine of Repentance by the great Puritan writer, Thomas Watson. In it Watson gives six elements of true repentance:

• Sight of sin
• Sorrow for sin
• Confession of sin
• Shame for sin
• Hatred for sin
• Turning from sin

In the last element of true repentance, “Turning from sin,” Watson makes the point that turning from sin must be rooted in the right reason. He writes,

A man may restrain the acts of sin, yet not turn from sin in the right manner. Acts of sin may be restrained out of fear or design, but a true penitent turns from sin out of a religious principle, namely, love to God. Even if sin did not bear such bitter fruit, if death did not grow on this tree, a gracious soul would forsake it out of love to God (p. 54).

The gospel that divides

This morning I was studying Mark 13 in preparation for a sermon and was confronted with something that I must confess I give little thought to. Jesus had been “informed” by one of his disciples about the splendid stones and buildings that made up the temple complex (13:1). Jesus replied that all the stones that made up the temple would be torn down (13:2), a prophecy fulfilled in AD 70. He was then asked a two-part question by his disciples that in effect was, When will the end come and what will be the sign of the end (13:4)? Jesus then exhorted them not to misinterpret global events (13:5-8) and to be ready for coming persecution (13:9-13).

It was the source of this promised persecution that I had read many times over but to which I had lately given little contemplation. In verse 12 Jesus said, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.” Then in verse 13a, Jesus added something that is often not heard in pulpits today when people are invited to consider the claims of Christ, namely, “You will be hated by all because of My name.”

Church history validates the prediction of Christ regarding martyrdom through the agency of family members. (For that matter, church history also demonstrates how church members have “handed over” its own to suffering and death). The gospel message does divide, or to quote the Savior from another passage,

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matt 10:34)

The Church’s relationship to the New Covenant

This past week I attended the second annual “Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics” held at Baptist Bible Seminary in Clarks Summit, Pa. This year’s theme revolved around the dispensational understanding of the new covenant. For those of you familiar with the issue, you know that the church’s relationship to the new covenant has been one of the most debated issues among dispensationalists. Dispensationalism maintains a distinction between the church and Israel, leading to various ways of interpreting the church’s relation to the new covenant. These interpretations range from the church sharing in the blessing of the new covenant, to the church not sharing in the new covenant at all, to the proposal of two separate new covenants, one for Israel and one for the church.   

We know that God promises a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer 31:31-34). From our new testament (or new covenant) we know that the book of Hebrews cites the new covenant (Heb 8), and we know that in the upper room the night before he died, Jesus said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). So how does one handle such a difficult interpretive issue as the church’s relationship to a covenant made with the house of Israel?

Dr. Rod Decker presented a paper at the council titled “The Law, the New Covenant, and the Christian.” It is a treatment of Hebrews 7-10, a section which contains the longest treatment of the new covenant in the New Testament. It is an excellent paper, a model of good exegesis, and a cogent treatment of the issue. It is a bit technical but well worth the read.