Category Archives: What’s going on

Yuck!

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Any ideas what happened to this blog? The monthly archives look fine. I can’t tell how this mess is possible.

Part Two

OK, I tried to copy the Jollyblogger by adding the scripts from badged.net in my posts.  I experimented with this one.  It stripped out everything but the ending script tag which somehow reached out to the middle of the side column and rammed it into the main column.  I still don’t understand it, but that was the cause.  Fixed now.

New business

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scrollandquill.gifI’m having second thoughts about having a business blog. I think I’d rather simply refashion this one somewhat. In any case, I’m doing everything at once as I transition into the bivocational world. I already have a project and am working on getting another one under way. It is one of those “Don’t look down; keep climbing” periods in my life.

Among other things I haven’t done yet involves spelling out services and, as best is possible, rates. So far, I know I’ll be offering manuscript review (my wife has actually had a small business called the Write Review, so this is easy), ghost-writing, manuscript creation out of other materials (notes, audio, etc–this was basically one of my main duties as an assistant pastor last year), and illustrations (though a contact).

I can’t say that this isn’t tainted with some regret. Starting a business like this at my age to support a family of six is doable, I think. And, I’ve done this enough times (both before and during the pastorate) to have a reputation enough to hope to compete with the single college student who can underbid me in hourly rate (you get what you pay for and all that). But I’m now looking back on life and realizing I could have really capitalized on work I did and built up an even better rep by offering services at a lower rate. Back before Jennifer and I had children and when we both worked, I could have afforded to really offer some skills (though I’ve improved since then) at a lower rate. Maybe our time in seminary could have been done more easily when it was time to go….

Sadly, I really didn’t “get it.” At the time. Generating a business simply did not occur to me. I tried to 1) simply get steady work and 2) get rich from some great book I would write (Why didn’t that intimidate me? I couldn’t tell you.). I had a lot of connections and I realize now that I didn’t utilize them. If anything, I expected them to bring opportunities to me. Youth is wasted on the young.

But I’m not too worried about it now. I was reading John Calvin’s 1536 Institutes this morning before church and came accross this piece of wisdom:

…even while we walk in the Lord’s ways by the leading of the Holy Spirit, to keep us from forgetting ourselves and becoming puffed up, something imperfect remains in us to give us occasion for humility, to stop every mouth before God and to teach us always to shift all trust from ourselves to him…

For some unaccountable reason it has become scandalous to some Presbyterians to point out that good works are necessary in believers as means of obtaining final salvation. But the full truth is even more scandalous: our sins are also means of our salvation.

Paul is quite clear about this. When he writes that

in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

there are two things to remember. First, Paul certainly includes our own sin in this list. Second, Paul is not merely saying that we stay in the love of Christ despite these things. The phrase could bear that meaning but the context militates against it. We remain in Christ’s love through these things. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

All things. Even our sins are means to bring us to glory. This was Paul’s message. It would be easy to see how someone might think Paul was encouraging sin. In fact he was accused of preaching “why not do evil that good may come?”

So paradoxically, even though I can see when I might have done things differently and had an advantage, I have to believe this is the right time.

Just to give you an idea of what I’m trying to do, here are a few agencies I found on the web:

More later

Seminar report, 1

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This Saturday I had the privilege of speaking to a group about a couple of things that I care a great deal about, both related to worship.

In the morning I spoke on the order worship, on the assumption we should worship according to the Bible. I started by asking, “If God has already forgiven why ask for forgiveness?” (“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” –1 John 1.9). I made the esoteric point that God can no more forgive us for uncommitted sin than he can condemn us for the same. But moved on to the fact that justification establishes a relationship in which we are continually forgiven (This is actually the traditional doctrine–WCF 11.5: “God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified.” Forgiveness occurs in time (both as we commit sin and, in another sense, when we confess known sin.) That distinction is why we baptize for forgiveness of sins when sins have already been forgiven as in the case of adult believers (Acts 2). All of this was to make one point that would allow us to think clearly about worship: We are not permitted to use God’s eternity or the once-for-all work of Christ to flatten out the cycles of sin and repentance in the Christian life.

That being the case, I next asked “What happens when we meet God?” Specifically, what happens in the new covenant era (I feared OT precedents would not be accepted). I pointed out we had two major theophanies in the NT, one to a godly apostle and the other to a blasphemous unbeliever: Saul of Tarsus and the Apostle John. Both were ushered into God’s presence and, despite their differences both fell apart. Both had be restored. (At this point i mention that, in the Old Covenant era, Isaiah 6 follows the same pattern.) Thus we see for the Apostle John that a justified saint is still reminded to deal with their sins when he meets with God. He dies and must be raised.

Does this apply to corporate worship? I pointed out that what is true of John in Revelation 1 is true of the whole church represented by John in Revelation 1-4 (call to worship, deal with sin, called into heaven through a door). I then read what the book of Hebrews tell us about our own assemblies (Heb 10.19-25; 11.18-29). Revelation and Hebrews both show us the NT application of OT types, the worship situation we see in Revelation 4 and 5 reminds us of the Tabernacle and Temple.

At this point it would have been natural to go to Leviticus and show the order of worship there, but I knew I was going to preach on that the next day, so I held back. Instead I pointed out the role of trumpets in their function and in their place in the pattern of Revelation (1.10; 4.1; ch 8-15). According to Exodus 19.13, 16, 19 God’s presence on Sinai was announced by the blast of a trumpet. And then, when God’s presence moved to the newly constructed Tabernacle, God had two silver trumpets made which summoned the people to worship and warfare (Numbers 10.2-10). I argued that the Trumpets represented God’s voice–that having been called into God’s presence and having dealt with sin, God next shows us His Word being proclaimed. The voice of trumpet summons to worship and stands for the word of God.

What come next in Revelation are “bowls.” Given the correspondences with OT worship, these would correspond to drink offerings. This is also the part of the vision where John is shown the marriage supper of the lamb (ch 19). So we move from a call to worship, to a dealing with sins of the Church, to a vision of God’s word being proclaimed, to one of eucharistic fellowship.

Then the book comes to an end with a benediction (Revelation 22.14ff).

I brought my presentation to an end by looking of the significance of John’s declarations that he was “in the Spirit” on the Lord’s day (Revelation 1.10; 4.2). While this could have special prophetic meaning, I think it also refers to the Spirit-possessed sanctuary (Haggai 2.1-9; Exodus 40.34-38; 2 Chron 7.1-3) where God was objectively present. The story of Pentecost in Acts 2 means that the Spirit has not fallen on buildings or stones or animal corpses, but on people. Thus, I suggested that John 4 isn’t so much a statement about the metaphysical nature of God, like “spirit” is a substance, but an assertion that the Holy Spirit will no longer only be found at Jerusalem. That eventually, God’s presence in worship will be available wherever God’s people gather in corporate worship.

This entry is already longer than I meant it to be, so I’ll continue it later.

Merry (Calvinist) Christmas!

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The Festivals of Christ and the Saints. Moreover, if in Christian Liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord’s nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly (The Second Helvetic Confession—1566).

God bless us, every one.