How does one fail to keep the law?

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In Acts 7 Stephen preaches to those “who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

What does this mean? Did they try real hard but fail to measure up? Did they struggle to keep the law but find it was too difficult? Did they find that the law demanded absolutely perfect obedience without offering the forgiveness of sins, so that it was impossible to keep?

No.

They hated it and did not want to keep it and rejected and killed those who spoke of it on God’s behalf:

“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Another great thing the Bible doesn’t say

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So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the preaching of the word.

Or maybe the classification system is just more caste guesswork

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Kids, who are gifted with one talent or the other, are just as likely to fail in life as succeed, revealed a new study.

As part of one of the most extensive studies carried out, research found that out of 210 gifted children, only 3% were found to fulfil their early promise.

Professor Joan Freeman, said that of 210 children in her study, “maybe only half a dozen might have been what we might consider conventionally successful.”

via Gifted kids as prone to failure as to success – Lifestyle – DNA.

The whole rest of the article is nothing but anecdotes and speculation. The firm data is that the classification given to a child in the education system is worthless for the purposes of knowing anything about your child’s future.

How many children are classified at the other end and fail throughout life because they are led to think that they will?

Again: take the red pill.

As the education bubble nears explosion: “We will keep our caste system airtight.”

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Phillip L. Clay, M.I.T.’s chancellor, said in an interview that a college degree was probably not required for Ms. Jones’s entry-level job in the admissions office when she arrived in 1979. And by the time she was appointed admissions dean in 1997, Professor Clay said, she had already been in the admissions office for many years, and apparently little effort was made to check what she had earlier presented as her credentials.

“In the future,” he said, “we will take a big lesson from this experience.”

via Dean at M.I.T. Resigns, Ending a 28-Year Lie – New York Times.

According to Wikipedia:

Marilee Jones (born June 12, 1951) is a former dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the co-author of the popular guide to the college admission process Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2006).[1] The book received critical acclaim and Jones was featured on CBS, National Public Radio, USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,[2] and The Boston Globe.[3] Jones resigned from her position in 2007 when it became known she had fabricated her academic degrees from Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on a job application in 1979 and she had added a fabricated degree to her resume from Albany Medical College sometime “after she was hired.”[4] The Times characterized Jones’s earlier prestige as “the guru of the movement to tame the college-admissions frenzy.”[5] The Boston Globe called her “the most celebrated and outspoken admissions dean in America.”[6] …

In 2001, Jones received MIT’s Excellence Award for Leading Change, which recognized Jones’s leadership as dean of admissions. An excerpt from the presentation reads:

Because of Marilee’s leadership and passion, the message of: “science in the service of mankind,” now resonates among generations of students. She helps students understand that they have a responsibility as members of society, to utilize their skills and talents to make a difference in the world. Marilee has also been visionary in her approach towards admissions strategies and processes, incorporating faculty and alumni perspectives, and the concerns and interests of prospective students and their parents.[24]

Jones also received MIT’s Gordon Y. Billard Award “for special service of outstanding merit performed for the Institute”[25] in 2006.

The NY Times piece also reports:

Rachel Ellman, who studies aerospace engineering, said, “I feel like she’s irreplaceable.”

Ms. Jones had received the institute’s highest honor for administrators, the M.I.T. Excellence Award for Leading Change, and many college admissions officers and high school college counselors said yesterday that whatever her personal shortcomings, her efforts deserved respect.

“She’s been working and presenting a lot of important ideas about our business,” said Rod Skinner, director of college counseling at Milton Academy, the Massachusetts prep school. “What I’m hoping is that the quality of the research and the book will hold up.”

Ms. Jones was hired by the admissions office in 1979 to recruit young women, who at the time made up only 17 percent of the institute’s undergraduates, compared with nearly half today.

Since she entered the field, admissions to M.I.T. and other elite institutions have become increasingly competitive, and she made her mark with her efforts to turn down the flame of competition.

But don’t worry the educational establishment is dealing carefully with the important lessons learned here:

Jones’ case demonstrates flaws in the hiring and promotion systems currently in place at MIT. It may be unreasonable to expect the Institute to thoroughly check the background of all new employees at all levels. But it is the Institute’s responsibility to find a practical solution so that this kind of situation does not arise again.

Right. We can’t let people know our academic requirements are nothing but union gates to artificially lift up our prestige and pay scales. We can’t let people know that our education system is just another caste prison that exists for the sake of those who are presently in power.

Take the red pill, people.

What kind of society will be able to help those in need?

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I’m not capable of listing every quality of such a society. But I do know one prerequisite:

Each individual must, all things being equal, believe it is a duty, privilege, and/or virtue to produce more than he/she consumes.

Is there any chance at all that such a society can continue to exist under the rule of a welfare state?  When politicians forcefully take from some and give to others (in the hopes of their continued support in voting and propaganda) what kind of society is formed?

Not the kind that will actually support the needy.

Repost: The problem in the contemporary Reformed Evangelical churches

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The problem in many contemporary Evangelical Reformed churches is the widespread and institutionalized disbelief that faith and faith alone justifies a sinner in God’s sight. Faith cannot be sufficient. There must be some ritual and some existential crisis, some courageous act of commitment, which puts one right with God.

The secondary problem is the (not as widespread) relunctance to warn God’s people, professing believers, that they must continue in faith in order to be saved, that a true faith not only rests on Christ, but treasures the promises and trembles at the warnings in God’s Word. Thus, once one has made the heroic leap of faith into a justified state, one must never ever be warned or exhorted to pursue what God has promised and reject the temptations of unbelief.

This combination means that anyone who affirms sola fide will find himself the victim of untrue claims that he doesn’t exhort his congregation to faith and repentance rather than leaving them complacent. It also means, that when it is admitted he in fact does make such exhortations, he will be accused of “legalism” and again be portrayed as an enemy of the Gospel.

FOR FURTHER READING:

Making the Bible safe for humanity

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DANGEROUS AND UNCLEAR:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

MUCH BETTER:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with the church. For in one Spirit we were all converted by the Gospel and regenerated in our hearts into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

When the verdict is already decided (repost)

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One of the things that strikes me, now that I reflect upon it, is how utterly impossible it would be for Jesus to make any headway with those who didn’t want to hear his case against the Pharisees. When you are in power you always have plausible deniability. And, in this case, being in power might mean only having a choir to preach to. Think about the hopeless situation that Paul was in:

And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

Can you imagine the sinking feeling in Paul’s stomach if he had any thought at all of reaching these people? Everyone around Paul had just witnessed Paul brutalized for simply speaking against the charges brought against him. Everyone saw 1. a man in high position use his office to assault an innocent man (whether Paul was guilty of any charges was irrelevant; he was permitted by law to defend himself from accusations), and 2. The victim of the assault call the man a bad name, accuse him of wrongdoing in the commission of the crime they had all just witnessed, and predict divine retribution. And, as good godly men defending the Gospel they all immediately spoke up against the manifest sin of 2 and ignored 1 altogether. Truly, you can tell who is “in” and who is “out’ by who gets to have their sins, real or imagined, forgiven.

No wonder then that Paul simply began evading the issue, brought up an issue that would divide the group, and went on to appeal to Caesar.

Funny, this doesn’t look very gracious

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Every once in a while I see someone post a historic writing about justification by faith alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that makes me feel like I am being commanded to crawl up a long stone flight of stairs on my knees to kiss a relic when I have reached the top. What is the point of glorying in justification by faith when faith is then defined as requiring extraordinary piety and assurance of salvation is made doubtful? I’m reminded of a conference I attended where a speaker criticized this tendency:

But what kind of faith is sola fide faith? There is a certain quality to this saving faith, and there is the spurious faith and there is the pretentious faith. Then the pulpits want us to begin examining our faith. Then we have to “bring up” our faith. Before you know it, everybody thinks that he or she is not saved. “How can I really and truly be saved?” To find out, come back next week and the preacher will make you feel guilty, by golly. Week after week the people are berated, bullied, and tortured in their consciences on the presupposition that God is as niggardly as the preacher believes Him to be. God only saves with the greatest possible reluctance. When somebody manages to squeak into the kingdom, He snaps His fingers and says, “Shucks! Another one made it. I was hoping that he would be deceived into thinking that he had saving faith when he really didn’t have it.” The whole notion of God is distorted, as if Paul preached a Gospel so full of qualifiers that faith becomes a new work–and outdoes what the most wicked, abominable, self-righteous Pharisee (as our own Reformed fathers viewed the Pharisees) ever taught about works that had to be performed to enter the kingdom of God.

Another speaker:

When you read some books, even some reformed books about assurance, they will say something like this, that anyone can have assurance provided he continues in godliness for a certain space of time. How long? Five minutes good? Does it have to be ten? Does it have to be a year or two of godliness before you can have any assurance? And I began to wonder what do you do with somebody who has struggled against sin, who falls into sin, terrible sin, wants to flee from them, finds himself terribly attracted to them, can a person like that have assurance of salvation or does that wait until much later on after he has already conquered his terrible sins that he is struggling against? But then how do you conquer sin when you have no assurance? How do you battle against sin when you are not sure that God loves you? When you are not really sure that Christ died for you? And when you’re not really sure that you are one of his people, how could you ever fight against sin? What power would you have to fight with if you are not really sure that he has given you his Holy Spirit?

And again:

I’ve be in situations where many times I’ve had occasion to speak to Christian young people, covenant young people who have grown up in evangelical homes, good church kids, well established, well taught and there are a hand full of topics that can get a room full of young kids to go deathly quiet, deathly quiet. And one of them, one of the two, is assurance of salvation. Becau (se we have 350 years of our tradition requiring people to twist in the wind for an appropriate period to time before they can go through a crisis, convulsive experience and say, “I’m saved.” This model has been developed. We take a snippet from the Bible: The Apostle Paul was converted that way. He has a convulsive, Damascus road experience and it is wonderful when that happens. But we have made the Damascus road, convulsive, conversion experience the norm. And all over America you will have somebody come in to a special Sunday evening service, the former Hell’s Angel who has $300 a day crack cocaine, killed three people, scrambled his brains with a little egg whisk, he was on death row and the governor pardoned him and then led him to the Lord and now he is traveling around the country telling people about Jesus. And he is a mess. All right? He is a forgiven mess but he [is a mess]. And all these covenant kids are thinking “Ah man why can’t I have that?”Because your parents were obedient! Your parents brought you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Your testimony is supposed to be boring. It is! Glory to God for boring testimonies.

In short, if you are a believer, you are supposed to be confident God loves you and to follow him as trustworthy (which includes: faithful to continue to forgive all your sins all the rest of your life until you are perfected in the next one). You are not supposed to be told that you might have the imputed righteousness of Christ if you study enough or flagellate yourself enough or do any other works (!).

I get so far away from this I forget that it really happens. But then I see a quote from a Puritan or Pietist (not that there weren’t good Puritans and Pietists who did better than this) and legalism as grace has been a real problem in the Church.

It can even distort an Evangelist’s message.