Blog and Mablog

INTRODUCTION:
Considering the book of Ephesians a chapter at a time is a little bit like taking pictures of the Rocky Mountains from outer space. There is no hope of covering everything; there is perhaps some hope of stirring up a desire in you to give yourself to a lifetime of meditating on the themes of this book. As we learn later in this epistle, the Church is the bride of Christ. As she is gloriously adorned for her husband on her wedding day, she wears a golden crown, made up of all the Scriptures. If that image be allowed, the book of Ephesians should be understood as one of the central jewels in it.

THE TEXT:
“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ . . .” (Eph. 1:1-23).

EPHESUS THE GREAT:
Ephesus was a harbor city on the west coast of modern Turkey It was the capital city for Proconsular Asia, and contained one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—the temple of Artemis (or Diana). It is a ruin today because the harbor silted up. But in Paul’s day, a street called the Arcadian Way ran about half a mile east from the harbor, where it connected with the cross street called Theater Street. The theater itself—where the riot occurred (Acts 19:29) was straight across the street at the intersection. The city had a population of roughly 250,000. The city was a center of great learning, as well as of great superstitions (Acts 19:19). Paul lived there from A.D. 52-54, and this letter is written about ten years later from prison in Rome.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
Paul identifies himself as an apostle by the will of God, and salutes the Ephesian saints as being faithful in Christ Jesus (v. 1). He blesses them with grace and peace from the Father and the Son (v. 2). The Spirit is not mentioned by name because He is that grace and peace. A blessing is pronounced upon the Father of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the source of all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ (v. 3). The first mentioned blessing is the fact that we were chosen in Christ to be holy before the foundation of the world (v. 4). We were chosen to be holy, not because we were holy. He predestined us in love to be adopted by Jesus Christ and brought to God, and He did this because it was what He wanted (v. 5). The result of this is so that the glory of His grace would be praised, not vilified (v. 6). We have redemption through His blood, which means forgiveness for sin, according to His riches of grace (v. 7). This is a mountain of grace, but He did not just dump it on us; He showered with grace in all wisdom and prudence (v. 8). He lavishes with precision. God intended this within His own counsels for a long time past, from before when the world was made, but has now unveiled the mystery to us (v. 9). That mystery was that, when the time was finally right, God would gather everything in heaven and earth up into Christ (v. 10). In Christ, absolutely everything is recapitulated or summed up. God does everything as He wishes, and His wishes included making us His heirs (v. 11). Paul is describing himself here as inundated by the first wave of this grace (v. 12). But Gentile Ephesians not fear that this grace will run out—they also heard and believed and were sealed (v. 13). They were sealed by the Spirit, who is the earnest payment or first installment of their final inheritance (v. 14).

Ever since Paul heard of their faith in Jesus and love for the saints (v. 15), he has not stopped giving thanks for them (v. 16). His prayer for them included some remarkable requests—that the Father of glory would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in their knowledge of Christ (v. 17). He asks further that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened to the extent that they would  really “get” the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (v. 18)—a real down-is-up truth. Another thing was the greatness of His power for believers (v. 19), the kind of power that was evidenced in the resurrection and ascension (v. 20). That ascension placed Christ far above all current and future authorities (v. 21). Everything was placed under His feet (v. 22), and He was made head over everything for the Church. That Church is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything (v. 23).

THE TRUE NATURE OF PAUL’S PRAYER:
We are told here that Jesus was exalted to the highest imaginable place—it says that He was raised far above every other authority in the cosmos (v. 21). But this is not why Paul asks for the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened. That is not the thing that staggers us; everyone expects God to be “far above” everything. The thing that would require a special anointing from the Spirit to “get” is the coupling of this exaltation of Christ with the honoring of His bride. Consider what Paul is actually saying here. First, before the foundation of the world, God chose us (v. 4), loved us (vv. 4-5), predestined us (v. 5), blessed us (v. 6), lavished grace upon us (v. 8), and so on. Second, Paul specifically says that he is asking that the Spirit would open their eyes so that they might understand how great and glorious Christ’s inheritance is in the saints (v. 18). And third, we are told that Christ fills absolutely everything (v. 23), but in the same breath we are told that we in the Church are His fullness (v. 23). So the issue is not the exaltation of Christ; the issue is the corresponding exaltation of the Church in Christ. If we get just a portion of what Paul is talking about here, we will buckle at the knees. If we are to learn this without collapsing, God will have to do it. Your condition before conversion and your condition now can only be compared to Christ in the tomb and Christ at the right hand of Almighty God.

There are two great themes in Ephesians—the reconciliation of all things in creation to Christ, and the reconciliation of all nations in Christ. All the practical teaching is simply learning how to live as if these two great themes are true.

When we think of manna, we tend to think of daily provision, or the fact that manna was the Lord Jesus in a type. This is all good, but there is a good deal more. Recall also that when the manna was gathered, it was to be gathered for that day—sufficient unto the day is the grace thereof.

But there was one place where the manna would last, where it would not rot the same way it would in the tents of the Israelites. That place was inside the ark of the covenant, under the mercy seat. There, in that place, the bowl of manna was a bowl of mercy (Ex. 16:33). And it was not a small bowl either; it was not a small museum piece morsel, kept for sentimental reasons. God had them store up about 3/5 of a bushel within the ark of the covenant. His grace is sufficient.

God’s provision comes to you where you are, and the grace He provides is to be used by you as it comes. But never forget that there is a store of it, a plentiful store of it, inside the ark of the covenant. Never forget that God can keep what You need, and you cannot—even if you got it from God originally. In this life, grace comes on the fly and you may use it as it comes. But in your inheritance, grace is stored up, and it does not diminish.

When you pray on Tuesday afternoon for grace, that is your daily manna. Here, at this Table, we are at the mercy seat, and our provision does not and cannot fail. So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.

As we watch the global economy, we are often dismayed or shocked. We are not dismayed or shocked at the fact of disaster—we live in a fallen world, and we know that disasters happen from time to time. But we are watching a slow-motion, self-inflicted, suicidal disaster. God has struck our leaders with a judicial blindness.

And this makes us wonder how we should live, what we can do. If we have been forgiven, chosen by Him in love before the world was made, what should we be doing? What does wisdom at the individual level look like?

There are a number of things you can and should do—organize your affairs, pay down your debt, and so on. But these really are common grace activities that you can read about elsewhere. I urge you to acquaint yourselves with the state of our financial crisis, and not to believe any financial promises that any politician makes. Conduct your affairs with prudence. That’s all good.

But there is another set of preparations I would urge you to think about. As you arrange your affairs, think about setting aside some money for loving your brothers. If we hit genuine hard times, we will be called to love each other and that will take resources. Our church has a deacons’ fund to help those in need; why not start a similar fund family by family?

I do not want to be (or to sound) alarmist here because hard money conservatives have been catching the last train out for my entire adult life. You can only cry wolf so many times. But, as in the story, there really are wolves out there. Being prepared for them is not the same thing as having a paranoid belief in them.

"A return to heathen midmight is an impossibility. Those who walk in darkness now are doing so in a world suffused with light. This is hard to do -- you have to remain blind or hide in root cellars. There are ways to stay out of the sunlight, but they are difficult to accomplish . . . The task of evangelism, now that Christ has risen, is not so much to run around at night, poking our flashlights into corners and cellars. Rather, the task of evangelism is more like pulling back curtains" (Heaven Misplaced, pp. 70-71).

"A preacher must have a systematic plan of regularly reading through the whole Bible, with a portion from both the Old and New Testaments being read each day" (Murray, How Sermons Work,  p. 17).

Here is a loose collection of thoughts about the Elephant Room imbroglio. I don't pretend to comment as an insider at all, but I can say that my perspective and sympathies are basically the same as Justin Taylor's. If anybody wants what I consider to be a fair and judicious take on the whole thing, I would refer you there.

So what's for me to talk about then? I want us to consider some of the larger issues that I think are in play out here in the wider world, and boy, are they in play.

First, the whole initial point of the Elephant Room was to demonstrate how to have manly disagreements between brothers, and the result of this attempt has been a very unsightly fracas between brothers. It is has struck me as being beyond ironic that the prototype model for irenic disagreement has turned into a fireball. It reminds of those old film reels with a guy standing on a barn with batman wings, with a large crowd below in response to the publicity, gathered there to see him fly. And then something else happens.

I am not saying anything yet about what T.D. Jakes believes -- more on that in a bit. Modalism is a big deal, rejecting one of the primaries of the faith. But before we get there, this controversy is about something else -- the center of this disagreement is between those who trust Jakes when he says he is not a modalist and those who don't trust him. For various reasons -- even though it is very important -- this question is not one of the primaries of the faith. It is a judgment call, not a doctrinal call, and the people who are differing over it are very close doctrinally. This therefore needs to be processed very carefully.

For example, I take it that John Mark left Paul's first missionary journey because he was of the circumcision party, and was distressed that Paul had preached the gospel to the first Gentile out in his native Gentile habitat. Those Gentiles who heard the Word prior to this had been in the orbit of Jewish life somehow, related to the synagogue. Mark couldn't handle cold-calling on the Gentiles, and so he left Paul's entourage at the next stop (Acts 13:13). After this, the Jerusalem Council met, and settled the question for good and all (Acts 15:6-29). Mark apparently accepted the decision of the council, and Barnabas believed that he had accepted it, and Paul didn't think so (Acts 15:37-39). Now the council had decided the issue of circumcision, with Paul and Barnabas both in agreement. But the council did not decide one way or the other on the issue of whether Mark now "got it." They said nothing at all about Mark's trustworthiness. Paul and Barnabas agreed on the doctrinal question before the house; they disagreed on how reliable Mark was.

This situation is at least comparable. James MacDonald thinks that Jakes has honest-and-for-true left modalism. Others, for reasonable reasons, don't think so, or they think it would be prudent to wait and see a bit longer. When Paul declined to work in ministry with Mark on the very next go-round, he was not anathematizing him forever -- later in his life he said that Mark was quite useful to him (2 Tim. 4:11). This need not have been a late admission that Barnabas had been in the right. Paul didn't want to take Mark on the next trip, which does not have to be a banned-for-life attitude. Mark might have straightened out right away, or it might have happened later. Maybe Barnabas was right, and maybe Paul was. My sympathies in that situation, as in our situation, are with Paul. But in saying this, I am not siding with Paul against Barnabas on circumcision.

So the mistake that can be made here is that of confounding the relative importance of the two issues. If it is confounded, you get the substance matter of the one controversy and the voltage from the other one. Being a naive judge of character is not the same thing as denying the Trinity, and being suspicious in circumstances like this one is not in the least bit pharisaical.

The second big issue here is the racial component. Justin Taylor was quite right to say that the race card has been played in this controversy in some disturbing ways -- in ways calculated, as I believe, to paralyze any fruitful work of reconciliation. This, in my view, was poorly done.

I have written elsewhere about how it might someday come to pass that Americans will have an adult conversation about race relations. We are clearly not there yet, but allow me to say just one or two things about it. And I will preface this by acknowledging that I am writing this as a white man. The consolation should be that if what I write is true, then the truth of what I say is not white at all, not even a little bit. I have throughout my adult life spoken as a white man, but I have never managed to say a white truth.

Some might wonder why white Reformed Christians unloaded on Rob Bell right away, but they were much slower to do so with T.D. Jakes. Didn't this expose the black pastors who were critical of the invitation to Jakes to the charge that they were trying too hard to do acceptable theology in the white man's world? This could be the result of a double-standard, but it might also have a more honorable basis. Speaking for myself, it is much easier for me to see what Rob Bell and his skinny jeans are up to. As soon as I see the schtick, I know. But when something arises from outside my cultural environment (which is north Idaho, white people, and trees), it takes a bit longer for me to get up to speed. But once you are up to speed, and everything is translated, the response really should be identical. I don't believe in "ready, fire, aim," but that doesn't mean that it is never time to fire.

At the same time, when responsible concerns like this are raised, by someone who doesn't have to get up to speed like I do, I believe that everyone who on all sides of the controversy should at a minimum treat it with respect. To dismiss such an agonized and heartfelt lament as sucking up to whitey quite frankly took my breath away. That was just not good.

So if the white inner circle guys are delayed in their responses, those playing the race card can say that these black pastors are desperately trying to earn their way into the inner circle. But if the white guys are right there with them, then the same card can still be played -- saying that the black critics are just so many hand puppets. This is because the race card is a joker. You can play it whenever and however you feel like it. There are some very good reasons for removing that card from this game.

For some, delayed reaction might also have an understandable but less honorable cause. If the race card was played on some conscientious black pastors who had legit concerns about Jakes, how much more likely would it be played on white Christians who went after Jakes? In short, when people create double-bind, damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenarios, the game is called gotcha. When a lack of racial involvement together is called bigotry and engaged involvement is called tokenism, then it seems to me that somebody has a bad case of the cutes. Do that to me a couple of times, and I will just give you my card and ask you to give me a call when you have reached a final decision about what you want us to do.

The third issue is the real elephant in a completely different room. I speak, of course, in my self-appointed role as Girard's fundamentalist cousin. This is the question of ego, rivalry, mimetic envy, glory, names and numbers. The atmosphere of this controversy fairly crackles with all that stuff. When a controversy escalates in the way that this one has, when something blows up through the ceiling like this, less attention ought to be paid to the burned-out match on the floor, and more attention to the gas leak that filled the room up with fumes.

I am in no way pointing fingers here, but rather asking everybody involved to do a double motive-check, and to do it without any cameras in the room. I would urge all the relevant parties to get into the same room, face-to-face, and hash it out. Again, no cameras. In fact, it would be best if nobody out here in TV land even knew about the meeting/s. And last, I would urge everyone involved to consider any lack of eagerness to do this as a possible indication of their level of responsibility in the whole affair. This controversy exploded in a portion of the church that considers accountability to be a very good word. I hear it extolled at conferences, and lauded in books. But accountability you can just walk away from isn't accountability. And accountability is not provided by a peanut gallery, or live streaming. "And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain" (Gal. 2:2). This needs to be addressed with no possibility of anybody trying to play to the nickel seats -- "but privately."

And last, T.D. Jakes may be an open modalist, a coy modalist, a modalist-in-transition, or an ex-modalist. Right? If he is on the right path, then he needs a Barnabas to walk him through the thicket of suspicions. That is what Barnabas did for Saul. But the way this happened in the New Testament had nothing in common with our modern practice of rushing to play the victim.

"And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way . . ." (Acts 9:26-27a).

One of the reasons why we know that Saul was truly converted was because verse 27 doesn't record him as feeling sorry for himself, or have an account of anybody accusing the disciples of verse 26 of having a harsh and critical spirit. The reason they were afraid of him was because of his prior behavior -- because he had been killing and jailing them -- and Saul's repentance, being true, knew this. If T.D. Jakes is coming out of modalism, or has come out of it, then praise God. If he is no longer a heretic, that's great, but he then knows he was one. Coming out would be true repentance, and entirely a good thing. But true repentance would also take full responsibility for the concerns of those who have any remaining suspicions. These suspicions were created, not by the suspicious folks with hearts like beef jerky, but rather by T.D. Jakes in his heretical days. So I am not just looking for Jakes show himself Nicene -- which I am perfectly willing to let him do. That would be lovely. But in the meantime I am also looking for him, and for his companions who have adopted the role of Barnabas, to show a deeper understanding of where this whole thing came from.

And I think that's enough for now.

For the last few days, Nancy and I have been at the Desiring God pastors' conference in Minneapolis, and our time here has been wonderful. We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the other speakers, and hearing them speak, and the hospitality of the saints here has been exceptional. Our particular thanks to John Piper, for his continued generosity to us.

This time well spent at DG is also (no doubt) part of the reason I have not been blogging about Newt losing in Florida, not to mention my passing by the Rogue Elephant Room in almost complete silence.

You can interpret it in other ways if you like. You could treat my silence over Romney carrying Florida as me not wanting to pressure test my optimistic eschatology beyond what it could bear. That's a possibility.

And you might guess that I have been silent about the Elephant Room fracas because I have spotted an even bigger elephant outside the room, and am trying to get a bead on that. Could be something in that.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God, as the poet put it, and it will flame out like shook foil. The world is only a set of blinders for the blind. In all other respects, the world is front-loaded with God's glory. And in order for us to see that glory, really see it, the world has to get thicker -- not thinner.

C.S. Lewis, in his wonderful way, shows us this in the second half of The Last Battle, and throughout The Great Divorce. The world really is "transparent," and it is such through being really solid. The world is that which enables us to see God's glory, and those who try to help this process along by treating the world as ephemeral and wispy are making a great mistake. The world does not need to be diluted to help God's glory shine through. Do you glorify the jeweler by smashing the diamonds?

God has chosen how to reveal Himself. The Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God, not that they obscure it. They obscure it only for the obscurantists.

Thinning out the world, gnostic style, does not glorify God. Focusing on the world as it is, without reference to Him, does not glorify Him. But seeing what He has done, the way He has done it, with matter packed tight, does glorify Him. This is why Christian hedonism doesn't not climb up to the Beatific Vision by means of a material ladder in order to then kick the ladder away. We will always have bodies, and God will always speak to us in this way. It can only get more solid -- in the great words of Newton's hymn -- "solid joys and lasting pleasures, none but Zion's children know."

I am happy to announce the winner of the great Newt poster caption contest. But first the honorable mention . . . Alan, with "Newt -- a passionate conservative."

The bronze was taken by Rich Hamlin -- "Because it takes a lot of Big Ideas before you get the right one."

The silver goes to Angie B -- "Annuit Coitus."

And the gold, which is the prize-winning poster, goes to Kirsten Miller -- "Newt -- he's all about term limits."

Congratulations to Kirsten, and if she would be so kind as to email us her ground address (office@christkirk.com), we will send the poster on her way.

I just finished reading (again) John Bunyan's great book Grace Abounding, and it made me think of the Lord's kindness to me over the years. Bunyan recounts in great detail the morbid pathologies that had him by the throat for some years when he first came under conviction of sin. The thing that struck me this time through was how dependent on detailed argument everything was -- reminding me of Chesterton's observation that a madman is not someone who has lost his reason, but rather someone who has lost everything but his reason.

My temptations over the years have been in different areas, but they have been dependent upon certain premises, doctrines, and arguments. And, like Bunyan, the deliverance came by that means also.

I grew up in a post-WW2 vertebrate evangelical home. And then, a few decades later, when the rest of evangelicalism went to mush, my family, like dinosaurs in a valley that time forgot, continued to live in exactly the same way they had been.

The emphases of the home I grew up in -- for which I continue to thank God -- were absolute faith in the Scriptures, an emphasis on practical obedience, a commitment to the foundational necessity of the new birth, and a contrarian bent. It didn't matter what everybody was saying, it mattered what God was saying.

All the things that we weren't -- Calvinist, postmillennial, and paedobaptist -- changed for me over the years. But they all grew out of the good soil that God gave to me in a wonderful family. And that good soil has not changed -- Scripture is absolute, we should do what God says to do, the new birth is not optional, and it doesn't matter what "they" say.

So there were great blessings that came with these emphases, but as I encountered them there were also some real problems. One of the central ones was a kind of perfectionism -- here's the verse, what's the problem? -- a moral perfectionism that collided with the ongoing realities of sin and temptation. John Owen, it turns out, knew a lot more about the human heart than did glib devotional writers. If you believe that the Bible teaches that every Christian can (easily) dunk a basketball, then it causes a certain amount of consternation when you can't get anywhere near the rim. What usually happens is that a bunch of thoughtful church leaders (for everybody is in the same tough spot) decide to lower the net. But in my family, there was too much intellectual honesty to lower the net -- the Bible said what it did, and so do it already. This had a tendency to drive all the consternation inward, which is fertile ground for hypocrisy. You can't talk about the nature of temptation honestly, but you can talk honestly about what the Bible requires. In effect, this sets up a vise, enough to crack any heart.

All the doctrinal shifts that happened to me came (as I have now come to believe) out of this tension. I wanted my life to line up with what the Bible taught, and not just in the realm of ethics. I wanted what was happening to me, and what was happening in the world around me, to be what the Bible was talking about. I wanted everything to be integrated, and internally consistent, and I wanted it to happen without forcing the Bible to say things it didn't say. That meant, in effect, that I had to stop saying certain things that I was saying.

There were three great doctrinal shifts. I didn't see the coherence of them at the time, but later I could see exactly how God had blessed me. The first great shift happened in the mid-eighties, when I became postmillennial. The second occurred in the late eighties, when I became a Calvinist. And the third happened in the early nineties, when I became a paedobaptist. In between the second and third one, I came to a Calvinist understanding of sanctification, in distinction from my earlier perfectionism.

First, postmillennialism. I had some time before abandoned any kind of detailed eschatological understanding. I had been some sort of historic pre-mill guy before. This is a bad spot for a pastor to be in. I remember telling somebody that Jesus was coming again sometime, and not to push me. That was all I knew. So I was a non-millennialist. I was aware of some of the glorious promises in Psalms and Isaiah, but I had no shelf to put them on. One day I was reading a postmill book (which was interesting, but which I did not find really all that persuasive), and he quoted 1 Cor. 15:25-26 -- for He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. In every other eschatological system I knew of, the first enemy to be destroyed is death. But He must reign, at the right hand of the Father, until all His enemies are subdued. And then He will return personally, and destroy the last enemy standing -- death. Something snapped in my head and heart, and within a very short space of time, an optimistic eschatology fluttered together in my head. All the verses I had no shelves for were suddenly shelved, stored and labeled. This was the only paradigm shift that I went through that was any fun at all -- and it was a lot of fun. Whee! about sums it up.

But after I was postmill, I had a problem. I now believed that the Great Commission was going to be successfully fulfilled, and yet the condition of the modern church was (as it seemed to me) pretty pathetic. The earth was going to be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea -- but not at this rate. Some time before I had read Finney's Lectures on Revival, and had been turned off -- not only from Finney, but from the whole idea of revival. If that was what revival was, I didn't want any. But now I knew that if the world was to be converted in the way that I now believed it was going to be, that historians would describe it as a great revival. This caused me to check out a non-Finneyite understanding of revival, meaning that I started to look at the earlier Calvinistic revival preachers -- Edwards, Whitefield, et al. It was around this time that I read Iain Murray's great book, The Puritan Hope.

I was deeply prejudiced against Calvinism. I liked reading Calvinistic authors on anything but Calvinism. I really liked the Kuyperian tendency to apply the Bible to everything. That was great. What I didn't like was how they applied the Bible to the center of my pride -- my free will, my precious. But by various means, my prejudices were battered down, and I became willing to consider it. I recall praying one time, telling the Lord that I was willing for this to be true (awfully big of me, I know). But it was a big deal, because before that I time, I had simply not been willing. I wasn't a Calvinist at that time, but I had surrendered the point. There were many things that went into this, but I was preaching through Romans at the time. When I began the series, I wasn't, and when I ended, I was. I remember telling one of our elders that I didn't know what I was going to say when I got to "those chapters." But when I got there, I recall thinking to myself something like "what the hell," and just saying what Paul said. Not very saintly, I know, but that's what happened.

Coming to a Calvinistic soteriology was humbling, and that humbling soon extended to my understanding of sanctification. My perfectionism was crucified with the Lord Jesus, and I was free. The tension was removed, but without watering down what Scripture calls us to, and expects from us.

I was now (technically) a Reformed Baptist, but didn't get plugged into that circle for various reasons. One of them was that (while I was still struggling with Calvinism), I got a flyer in the mail about a Reformed Baptist conference in western Washington. I was going to be teaching in Seattle at around the same time, so I decided to hit this conference very briefly on my way home. I did so, listened to part of one talk, got a book or two at their book table, and hit the road for home. Shortly after this, all the Reformed Baptist pastors in the Northwest got an anonymous letter from a concerned brother, warning them about me, and about how I was spying out their liberty. This was pure Calvinism indeed . . . afraid of persuading anybody of anything.

I had been brought up (in a baptistic home) believing in covenantal succession -- because Scriptures were absolute, and God made promises to a thousand generations. That's what it said. So I was an odd kind of baptist. I had read various things by paedobaptists, but they had all bounced off. But then someone mentioned an essay by Rob Rayburn on covenant succession, and what he did was connect the water to what I already understood the Bible to teach. Put your water where your mouth is, Pastor Rayburn seemed to be saying. That rocked me, and knocked me clean over.

At every stage, there were a number of other factors, but a constant throughout has been the kindness of God. And one thing, consistently, has been how one thing leads to another. He who says A must say B, if he is willing, and that only happens if God makes him willing.

I just finished reading (again) John Bunyan's great book Grace Abounding, and it made me think of the Lord's kindness to me over the years. Bunyan recounts in great detail the morbid pathologies that had him by the throat for some years when he first came under conviction of sin. The thing that struck me this time through was how dependent on detailed argument everything was -- reminding me of Chesterton's observation that a madman is not someone who has lost his reason, but rather someone who has lost everything but his reason.

My temptations over the years have been in different areas, but they have been dependent upon certain premises, doctrines, and arguments. And, like Bunyan, the deliverance came by that means also.

I grew up in a post-WW2 vertebrate evangelical home. And then, a few decades later, when the rest of evangelicalism went to mush, my family, like dinosaurs in a valley that time forgot, continued to live in exactly the same way they had been.

The emphases of the home I grew up in -- for which I continue to thank God -- were absolute faith in the Scriptures, an emphasis on practical obedience, a commitment to the foundational necessity of the new birth, and a contrarian bent. It didn't matter what everybody was saying, it mattered what God was saying.

All the things that we weren't -- Calvinist, postmillennial, and paedobaptist -- changed for me over the years. But they all grew out of the good soil that God gave to me in a wonderful family. And that good soil has not changed -- Scripture is absolute, we should do what God says to do, the new birth is not optional, and it doesn't matter what "they" say.

So there were great blessings that came with these emphases, but as I encountered them there were also some real problems. One of the central ones was a kind of perfectionism -- here's the verse, what's the problem? -- a moral perfectionism that collided with the ongoing realities of sin and temptation. John Owen, it turns out, knew a lot more about the human heart than did glib devotional writers. If you believe that the Bible teaches that every Christian can (easily) dunk a basketball, then it causes a certain amount of consternation when you can't get anywhere near the rim. What usually happens is that a bunch of thoughtful church leaders (for everybody is in the same tough spot) decide to lower the net. But in my family, there was too much intellectual honesty to lower the net -- the Bible said what it did, and so do it already. This had a tendency to drive all the consternation inward, which is fertile ground for hypocrisy. You can't talk about the nature of temptation honestly, but you can talk honestly about what the Bible requires. In effect, this sets up a vise, enough to crack any heart.

All the doctrinal shifts that happened to me came (as I have now come to believe) out of this tension. I wanted my life to line up with what the Bible taught, and not just in the realm of ethics. I wanted what was happening to me, and what was happening in the world around me, to be what the Bible was talking about. I wanted everything to be integrated, and internally consistent, and I wanted it to happen without forcing the Bible to say things it didn't say. That meant, in effect, that I had to stop saying certain things that I was saying.

There were three great doctrinal shifts. I didn't see the coherence of them at the time, but later I could see exactly how God had blessed me. The first great shift happened in the mid-eighties, when I became postmillennial. The second occurred in the late eighties, when I became a Calvinist. And the third happened in the early nineties, when I became a paedobaptist. In between the second and third one, I came to a Calvinist understanding of sanctification, in distinction from my earlier perfectionism.

First, postmillennialism. I had some time before abandoned any kind of detailed eschatological understanding. I had been some sort of historic pre-mill guy before. This is a bad spot for a pastor to be in. I remember telling somebody that Jesus was coming again sometime, and not to push me. That was all I knew. So I was a non-millennialist. I was aware of some of the glorious promises in Psalms and Isaiah, but I had no shelf to put them on. One day I was reading a postmill book (which was interesting, but which I did not find really all that persuasive), and he quoted 1 Cor. 15:25-26 -- for He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. In every other eschatological system I knew of, the first enemy to be destroyed is death. But He must reign, at the right hand of the Father, until all His enemies are subdued. And then He will return personally, and destroy the last enemy standing -- death. Something snapped in my head and heart, and within a very short space of time, an optimistic eschatology fluttered together in my head. All the verses I had no shelves for were suddenly shelved, stored and labeled. This was the only paradigm shift that I went through that was any fun at all -- and it was a lot of fun. Whee! about sums it up.

But after I was postmill, I had a problem. I now believed that the Great Commission was going to be successfully fulfilled, and yet the condition of the modern church was (as it seemed to me) pretty pathetic. The earth was going to be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea -- but not at this rate. Some time before I had read Finney's Lectures on Revival, and had been turned off -- not only from Finney, but from the whole idea of revival. If that was what revival was, I didn't want any. But now I knew that if the world was to be converted in the way that I now believed it was going to be, that historians would describe it as a great revival. This caused me to check out a non-Finneyite understanding of revival, meaning that I started to look at the earlier Calvinistic revival preachers -- Edwards, Whitefield, et al. It was around this time that I read Iain Murray's great book, The Puritan Hope.

I was deeply prejudiced against Calvinism. I liked reading Calvinistic authors on anything but Calvinism. I really liked the Kuyperian tendency to apply the Bible to everything. That was great. What I didn't like was how they applied the Bible to the center of my pride -- my free will, my precious. But by various means, my prejudices were battered down, and I became willing to consider it. I recall praying one time, telling the Lord that I was willing for this to be true (awfully big of me, I know). But it was a big deal, because before that I time, I had simply not been willing. I wasn't a Calvinist at that time, but I had surrendered the point. There were many things that went into this, but I was preaching through Romans at the time. When I began the series, I wasn't, and when I ended, I was. I remember telling one of our elders that I didn't know what I was going to say when I got to "those chapters." But when I got there, I recall thinking to myself something like "what the hell," and just saying what Paul said. Not very saintly, I know, but that's what happened.

Coming to a Calvinistic soteriology was humbling, and that humbling soon extended to my understanding of sanctification. My perfectionism was crucified with the Lord Jesus, and I was free. The tension was removed, but without watering down what Scripture calls us to, and expects from us.

I was now (technically) a Reformed Baptist, but didn't get plugged into that circle for various reasons. One of them was that (while I was still struggling with Calvinism), I got a flyer in the mail about a Reformed Baptist conference in western Washington. I was going to be teaching in Seattle at around the same time, so I decided to hit this conference very briefly on my way home. I did so, listened to part of one talk, got a book or two at their book table, and hit the road for home. Shortly after this, all the Reformed Baptist pastors in the Northwest got an anonymous letter from a concerned brother, warning them about me, and about how I was spying out their liberty. This was pure Calvinism indeed . . . afraid of persuading anybody of anything.

I had been brought up (in a baptistic home) believing in covenantal succession -- because Scriptures were absolute, and God made promises to a thousand generations. That's what it said. So I was an odd kind of baptist. I had read various things by paedobaptists, but they had all bounced off. But then someone mentioned an essay by Rob Rayburn on covenant succession, and what he did was connect the water to what I already understood the Bible to teach. Put your water where your mouth is, Pastor Rayburn seemed to be saying. That rocked me, and knocked me clean over.

At every stage, there were a number of other factors, but a constant throughout has been the kindness of God. And one thing, consistently, has been how one thing leads to another. He who says A must say B, if he is willing, and that only happens if God makes him willing.

The apostle Paul tells TItus to rebuke and exhort with all authority (Tit. 2:15). In short, Titus is called to a fatherly role. There is the possibility of tyranny in the church, like what Diotrophes did (3 Jn. 9-11), and there is also the possibility of leaders getting walked on (1 Tim. 4:12). What is needed in the church today is a true fatherly voice. Many of our ecclesiastical troubles can be attributed to our rebellious anxieties over fathers, coupled with a desperate need for them.

I have a new book coming out this May entitled Father Hunger. I will be leaving for the Desiring God pastors' conference shortly, where I will be addressing some of these same issues. Our elders at Christ Church have approved a series of sermons on fatherhood for this spring, and we are going to have an outreach campaign revolving around that basic issue. We must never forget that Jesus came to bring us to the Father, and this is why, incidentally, the recent dust-up over the soft modalism/modalism in transition/not-quite-sure-what-it-is-exactly of T.D. Jakes was not over a bunch of nothing. Those who raised the issue, and those who are pressing it now, are quite right. We need to be brought in repentance to the Father, and surely it should matter whether or not there is one to be brought to. It is a big deal.

In Father Hunger, I describe fatherlessness as the central malady of our time. It gets into everything. A thirty-second perusal of presidential politics should make that point in the civil realm.

And here the post might take what appears to be an odd turn, but I really don't think so. One of the reasons that Nate's fiction is selling so well in the secular market is that it consistently addresses this point so pointedly.

In the midst of a bunch or other adventures, Leepike Ridge is about a fatherless boy coming to a father. The 100 Cupboards trilogy -- here, here, and here -- tells the story of a boy who (technically) has a father, but not really, coming to find his real father. And of course that theme weaves throughout the other multiple adventures that are served up. But the restoration at the end is the restoration of fatherhood. And now, in the Ashtown series (a projected five volumes), the same thing is happening again.

The protagonists are fatherless children introduced to us in The Dragon's Tooth. The second of the series -- The Drowned Vault -- is not released yet, but having read the manuscript, I am at liberty to tell you all that it is a hummer. And also that the father theme grows more pronounced, and in profound ways.

All of this is to say that one of the central ways we can speak to our generation is through our stories. Do you know any fatherless children? Do they have birthdays?

If you are convinced, as I am, that C.S. Lewis gave many tens of thousands their first taste of what Christ is really like through his Narnia stories, then this opportunity to speak of the Father through fathers to a rising and hurting generation is a prime opportunity. This is not a low-impact arena.

The apostle Paul tells TItus to rebuke and exhort with all authority (Tit. 2:15). In short, Titus is called to a fatherly role. There is the possibility of tyranny in the church, like what Diotrophes did (3 Jn. 9-11), and there is also the possibility of leaders getting walked on (1 Tim. 4:12). What is needed in the church today is a true fatherly voice. Many of our ecclesiastical troubles can be attributed to our rebellious anxieties over fathers, coupled with a desperate need for them.

I have a new book coming out this May entitled Father Hunger. I will be leaving for the Desiring God pastors' conference shortly, where I will be addressing some of these same issues. Our elders at Christ Church have approved a series of sermons on fatherhood for this spring, and we are going to have an outreach campaign revolving around that basic issue. We must never forget that Jesus came to bring us to the Father, and this is why, incidentally, the recent dust-up over the soft modalism/modalism in transition/not-quite-sure-what-it-is-exactly of T.D. Jakes was not over a bunch of nothing. Those who raised the issue, and those who are pressing it now, are quite right. We need to be brought in repentance to the Father, and surely it should matter whether or not there is one to be brought to. It is a big deal.

In Father Hunger, I describe fatherlessness as the central malady of our time. It gets into everything. A thirty-second perusal of presidential politics should make that point in the civil realm.

And here the post might take what appears to be an odd turn, but I really don't think so. One of the reasons that Nate's fiction is selling so well in the secular market is that it consistently addresses this point so pointedly.

In the midst of a bunch or other adventures, Leepike Ridge is about a fatherless boy coming to a father. The 100 Cupboards trilogy -- here, here, and here -- tells the story of a boy who (technically) has a father, but not really, coming to find his real father. And of course that theme weaves throughout the other multiple adventures that are served up. But the restoration at the end is the restoration of fatherhood. And now, in the Ashtown series (a projected five volumes), the same thing is happening again.

The protagonists are fatherless children introduced to us in The Dragon's Tooth. The second of the series -- The Drowned Vault -- is not released yet, but having read the manuscript, I am at liberty to tell you all that it is a hummer. And also that the father theme grows more pronounced, and in profound ways.

All of this is to say that one of the central ways we can speak to our generation is through our stories. Do you know any fatherless children? Do they have birthdays?

If you are convinced, as I am, that C.S. Lewis gave many tens of thousands their first taste of what Christ is really like through his Narnia stories, then this opportunity to speak of the Father through fathers to a rising and hurting generation is a prime opportunity. This is not a low-impact arena.

"But when the sun rises, it does not happen the way a light comes on in a room when you flip the switch. The sun rises slowly. At first, you don't know that anything has happened. It may be just as dark as it was a moment ago, but maybe not. And some time later, you notice that the eastern sky is not what it was. There is some kind of light there. The stars that were visible all night begin to disappear. Soon there is just one left -- the morning star, the planet Venus, the last indication that day is coming. The next event is for the sun to actually rise, for the day to come. Christ was born at night, and His birth was the arrival of the morning star" (Heaven Misplaced, p. 69).

"But when the sun rises, it does not happen the way a light comes on in a room when you flip the switch. The sun rises slowly. At first, you don't know that anything has happened. It may be just as dark as it was a moment ago, but maybe not. And some time later, you notice that the eastern sky is not what it was. There is some kind of light there. The stars that were visible all night begin to disappear. Soon there is just one left -- the morning star, the planet Venus, the last indication that day is coming. The next event is for the sun to actually rise, for the day to come. Christ was born at night, and His birth was the arrival of the morning star" (Heaven Misplaced, p. 69).

"God does not send messengers who confuse and bamboozle his people with displays of their learning -- or their lack of it" (Murrary, How Sermons Work, p. 13).

"God does not send messengers who confuse and bamboozle his people with displays of their learning -- or their lack of it" (Murrary, How Sermons Work, p. 13).

I have said kind things about Ron Paul in the past, and I will continue say them in the future. He continues to be one of the people I could vote for when Ringling Bros. finally brings the gaudy parade to my state. But he whiffed it last night in the debate when asked how his faith would affect his behavior in office. He said that it wouldn't. Not only did he whiff it, but Santorum jacked it out of the park. Santorum said, quite rightly, that the Constitution is the how of America, and the Declaration is the why. He said that government doesn't give us our rights -- God does that -- and he said that the government's role is to protect God-given rights. This was a dead-on bull's eye.

Ron Paul's formal position is therefore secularist. Now, of course, like all secularists, he is unable to actually keep these "disparate" elements of his worldview in separate compartments. The thing is impossible. But when you think you can do it, the result is generally a lot of confusion. Now I also believe that Ron Paul is as honest as white paint, and that he has told us plainly his actual thoughts on this. But this just means that he is honestly schizophrenic on this topic. That doesn't make him lonely, it just makes him wrong. The secularist experiment is a fraud, and is lying around on the floor in a shambolic ruin.

In a breakfast discussion this morning, a friend astutely observed that this is why we probably ought to back away from our talk of constitutional rights. The Constitution was assigned to protect them; the Constitution was not given to us so that it might assign them. The Constitution was made for the rights, not the rights for the Constitution. Let's speak of God-given rights.

I really appreciated the clarity in Santorum's remarks. I appreciated the lack of confusion. God honors it when He is confessed.

I have said kind things about Ron Paul in the past, and I will continue say them in the future. He continues to be one of the people I could vote for when Ringling Bros. finally brings the gaudy parade to my state. But he whiffed it last night in the debate when asked how his faith would affect his behavior in office. He said that it wouldn't. Not only did he whiff it, but Santorum jacked it out of the park. Santorum said, quite rightly, that the Constitution is the how of America, and the Declaration is the why. He said that government doesn't give us our rights -- God does that -- and he said that the government's role is to protect God-given rights. This was a dead-on bull's eye.

Ron Paul's formal position is therefore secularist. Now, of course, like all secularists, he is unable to actually keep these "disparate" elements of his worldview in separate compartments. The thing is impossible. But when you think you can do it, the result is generally a lot of confusion. Now I also believe that Ron Paul is as honest as white paint, and that he has told us plainly his actual thoughts on this. But this just means that he is honestly schizophrenic on this topic. That doesn't make him lonely, it just makes him wrong. The secularist experiment is a fraud, and is lying around on the floor in a shambolic ruin.

In a breakfast discussion this morning, a friend astutely observed that this is why we probably ought to back away from our talk of constitutional rights. The Constitution was assigned to protect them; the Constitution was not given to us so that it might assign them. The Constitution was made for the rights, not the rights for the Constitution. Let's speak of God-given rights.

I really appreciated the clarity in Santorum's remarks. I appreciated the lack of confusion. God honors it when He is confessed.

"God's grace is a tsunami that will carry us away and deposit us in places we would not have anticipated -- and all of it good. We analyze this carefully and say that we want our grace to be true and pure water, just like that tsunami, but we want it to be a placid pond on a summer day that we can inch across gingerly, always keeping one pointed toe on what we think is the sure bottom of our own do-gooding morality. As the old blues song has it, everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to cross the Jordan, but nobody wants to get wet" (Heaven Misplaced, p. 68.).