I haven’t yet read Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation, but this review really resonates with me.

I love being a passenger on a road trip, but usually I’m not (I like driving too, but you simply don’t see as much when you have to always look ahead). Affordable trains would be a great blessing to my family, I think.

Those who read and write or those who buy and sell?

Only the day after I posted this I realize that I have left out a real motivation for adopting brackets to help people properly read the Bible. Most important of all, of course, is not Jeremiah or the Epistle of Straw, but the Gospel. And here is where things can go really wrong if we don’t teach people what is the essential content of the Gospel, rather than the effects of the Gospel. The problem is that the passages that directly bear on the preaching of the Gospel are most often the ones that demand bracketing to avoid misleading people.

To wit:

Matthew 4:23

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of [justification by faith alone receiving the imputed active and passive obedience of the Messiah of] the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people (see also 9.35; 24.14; 26.13).

Mark 1.1

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God [which, in case you miss it as you read the next sixteen chapters, is intended to teach you that the content of this Gospel is justification by faith alone receiving the imputed active and passive obedience of the Christ].

Mark 1.14-15

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel [–which, as he explained of the record, was not the message the the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand but rather that justification is by faith alone receiving the imputed active and passive obedience of the Messiah].

Luke 9.1-6

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere [Of course, this means that, since they are not false teachers preaching another gospel which is no gospel at all, they must have preached that justification is by faith alone receiving the imputed active and passive obedience of the Messiah; don’t get confuse the disciples commission to “proclaim the Kingdom of God” with their “preaching the Gospel,” since the former was a separate proclamation–a consequence only of the latter].

This gives us an idea of how to work the Gospels but the problem is even greater in Acts. If one assumes that the sermons contained in Acts are supposed to be specimen’s to Luke of the content of the proclamation of the Gospel, then we need to insert a lot more material.

More sarcasm of course. The issue here is not whether the bracketed content is true but whether it is properly “the gospel,” (assuming one cares what the Bible says about the term). For my inspiration, go here, especially the wonderful sermon linked under point six.

While many will defend the Bible is unfailingly true, due to it’s divine inspiration, I think it is time to deal honestly the problem of its lack of clarity. For whatever reason, God did not give the ancient languages a simple literary device that we all now use: brackets. With brackets, the obscure places in Scripture could be rendered harmless to those who have not already been told what the Bible can and cannot say.

Let me give some examples with the bracketed messages I’m thinking about:

Luke 1.6

And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord [though actually this is only true according to a legal fiction and in no way meant to explain to you anything about their actual behavior since “righteous” only means morally perfect and nothing less].

Romans 5.8

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners [but remember we still are sinners], Christ died for us.

James 2.8-11

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law [and my whole point, really, is not to get you to stop showing partiality but to make you realize that you can’t obey the Law anyway so you should flee to Christ].

Genesis 18.22-25

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” [Of course, Abraham knew that really no one is righteous and that if God judged justly then everyone should perish.]

Jeremiah 10.23-25

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Correct me, O Lord, but in justice [I mean, in mercy];
not in your anger [I mean, in your justice], lest you bring me to nothing.
Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not,
and on the peoples that call not on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob;
they have devoured him and consumed him,
and have laid waste his habitation.

Psalm 7.8

The Lord judges the peoples;
judge me, O Lord, [not] according to my righteousness [but according to your mercy]
and [not] according to the integrity that is in me [but according to your grace].

For those who didn’t get it, the entire post above is sarcasm.

From Exodus 33.12-34.8:

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Reminder to self: Add this passage to my argument that the moral law commands faith in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.

What do we expect God to tell Moses? “Sorry, Mo, I’m busy republishing the Covenant of works right now, so forgiveness isn’t on the table”? No, the revelation of God’s glory involves God’s mercy as well as his justice and it is a revelation of the character of the two tablets of the Law. Period. God revealed himself as forgiving and Moses believed God’s word and requested forgiveness. Go and do likewise; do this and you will live.

By the way, this demonstrates the point I made earlier that Rich Lusk’s writing is an excellent source of exegetical and theological insige even when provoked by a boatload of false claims. I’ve loved that passage for years but completely overlooked this application.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4,

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Parents, do you remember a time when you suddenly realized, in some public place, that you had lost track of your child? Remember you head snapping up and whirling back and forth as you scanned the area and called a name?

If you are or have ever been the parent of young children, you know the feelings you get when, in some strange place, you suddenly loose track of one of them and don’t know where he is or how long he has been gone.

One significant reason why you panic is you know that your children look at adults as authority figures and not all are worthy of respect. You have to watch over your children to protect them from being misled and deceived by those who would do them harm.

Likewise, Paul associates Christian immaturity with the danger of being misled by false teachers. Children are prone to be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”

Paul wants to see his congregations mature to the point where he doesn’t have to worry about them as much–where he can be more confident that they are firmly rooted and grounded and can withstand the winds and the waves. He wants them not only to hear the word preached by evangelists, pastors, and teachers so that they will reach maturity—“until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

What’s tricky about this passage is the application: It is very easy to run further into the problem when one tries to solve it. How could a person pursuing maturity in recognizing sound doctrine end up being tossed about?

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil (Romans 16.17-19).

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted (1 Tim 1.8-11).

Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain (1 Tim 6.1-5).

The stress here on doctrines is not on a written formula. There are times those must be dealt with, but that is not Paul’s primary interest in a great many of his letters. Rather, his point is behavior. Being tossed about means causing divisions and creating obstacles. It means ceasing to be obedient. According to Paul’s letter to Timothy, it even includes all manner of lawlessness. Not only are parent-abusers, murderers, philanderers and homosexuals, etc, against the law, they are also contrary to sound doctrine and to the Gospel. According to Paul’s same letter it also means slave submitting to their masters rather than rebelling and introducing a world of quarrels about mere words and controversies.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will (1 Tim 2.22-26).

Again, notice the emphasis on behavior. Whatever Timothy is dealing with, he must make sure that he deals with it in a way that does not simply multiply controversies and quarrels. He has to remain gentle.

(By the way, some English translations refer to “youthful lusts” rather than “youthful passions.” That’s an accurate word to use but you have to remember that in context Paul isn’t talking about what we usually associate with lust. The unlawful desire here is not for sexual adventure but for fame in controversy.)

And this is my point. Typically, a young man who has powerful youthful passions tries to reach maturity by studying theological minutiae. What he studies may involve nothing but the truth and may be needed in certain circumstances, but 99 times out of 100, he finds those circumstances in his dorm room gab session or on an internet bulletin board, or in the comment system of the blog he lusts to hate. He is not following Paul’s prescription for maturity but becoming exactly what Paul is warning about in this passage. The point is not to have more reason to bicker with people, but to mature into ways of peace.

Of course, there are times that we must exhort people to be faithful to Biblical teaching rather than go after strange teaching. But let’s not miss the fact that Paul is constantly worried about people arguing and quarreling over words for no good reason.

Early in his ministry, John Williamson Nevin preached:

We do not suppose indeed that the visible unity of the Church demands a single visible head, like the pope of Rome, who is justly styled Antichrist for this very pretension.

Later, though I don’t think he ever came to deny this statement, Nevin became convinced that the Pope was not the antichrist most dangerous to American Protestantism.

Rather, the real antichrist in North America was to be found in Protestant sectarianism. Nevin’s scathing series in the Mercersberg Review, later published as a book, as The Antichrist, or the Spirit of Sect and Schism. It is well worth reading. Even though it was written a century and a half ago, it remains quite relevant to the current scene.

I recommend this not as a response to the OPC report, since no one really needs such a reply. I recommend it because all of Lusk’s “responses” in my experience, are actually excellent positive statements teaching us about the treasures we have in Christ, giving us great lessons in how to read the Bible, and showing us the way to properly do theology. Rich is great preacher and writer, addressing difficult topics in a way that is clear and easy to understand. I’m looking forward to his next installment.

My review copies of the ACT 3 Review were delivered to my door this morning. The Act 3 Review is the publication of John Armstrong’s ministry, Act 3, which used to be known as Reformation & Reviaval. (I looked on his site, but could only find pictures of the old cover of the Reformation & Revival Journal. So I asked jennifer to take this picture.)

The reason I got review copies is because I have a lengthy book review published in the magazine–a review of D. G. Hart’s book on John Williamson Nevin. But there are plenty of other things in the Review, which make it well worth purchasing and reading. The theme is “Becoming Missional Christians and Churches” (I was not aware of this when I wrote my review but decided to take a slant that fits in rather well, I think). Authors include Andrew Sandlin, Joel Beeke, and articles include titles like, “Classical Propositions for Pop Churches,” “Confessional Subscription,” “Christian Existence and the Mission of the Church,” and “Cornelius Van Til’s Concept of Man as Analogue of God.” Looks like interesting reading.

My apologies for the rushed and incomplete post. Hopefully it is now fixed.

Since December of 2005; but if it wasn’t for Chris, I would be none the wiser. Friedman is my favorite anarcho-capitalist writer after Rothbard (to whom he may consider himself an antithesis for all I know). Not only does he have some intriguing ideas in political economy but he introduced me to Icelandic Sagas. That, by itself, puts me forever in his debt. (I notice he has a novel called Harald which sound quite Nordic/Icelandic).

Ideas.