If you‘re not an informed voter after today, don‘t blame me. And don‘t blame the folks resonsible for the following links. (I will likely be updating this page over the next few days until the election.)

Guy Benson & Mary Katharine Ham

The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama — A huge, slow-loading page of YouTube videos and commentary; apologies to dial-up readers.

Justin Taylor

What Is the Freedom of Choice Act?
Ballot Box Blues
Exegeting Obama on Homosexuality

The Witherspoon Institute

Obama's Abortion Extremism
Obama and Infanticide
When is it Acceptable for a ''Pro-Life'' Voter to Vote
   for a ''Pro-Choice'' Candidate?
Pro-Life Politicians Have Made a Difference, Pro-Life
   Laws Work

Albert Mohler

The Abortion Question and the Future
Radio Commentary Series on Election 2008

Wall Street Journal

A Liberal Supermajority —the prospect of a Democratic victory may be more seriously threatening than you realize.

Bret McAtee

Socialists Everywhere

Mark Steyn

Holding All the Cards

Gene Veith

Obama’s Constitutional Theory —in which the Obamessiah expresses his desire to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.” This is what makes Obama the most dangerous.

If you read none of the above, please read the following:

John MacArthur

Politics, Activism, and the Gospel

R. C. Sproul

Principles for Voting (text) (audio)

And finally, although this election is very important and there is much at stake, let us keep it in perspective. Be sure to read Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting by John Piper.

Updates:

Dan Phillips

Go third-party? Or don't vote?

Jason Robertson

Not Just a Right

Fred Butler

Christians, Conscience, and Third Parties

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

PETITIONARY HYMNS
POEM X. Desiring to be given up to God
Augustus Toplady (1740–1778)

O that my heart was right with thee,
And lov’d thee with a perfect love!
O that my Lord would dwell in me,
And never from his seat remove!
Jesus, remove th’ impending load,
And set my soul on fire for God!

Thou seest I dwell in awful night
Until thou in my heart appear;
Kindle the flame, O Lord, and light
Thine everlasting candle there:
Thy presence puts the shadows by;
If thou art gone, how dark am I!

Ah! Lord, how should thy servant see,
Unless thou give me seeing eyes?
Well may I fall, if out of thee;
If out of thee, how should I rise?
I wander, Lord, without thy aid,
And lose my way in midnight’s shade.

Thy bright, unerring light afford,
A light that gives the sinner hope;
And from the house of bondage, Lord,
O bring the weary captive up,
Thine hand alone can set me free
And reach my pardon out to me.

O let my prayer acceptance find,
And bring the mighty blessing down;
With eye-salve, Lord, anoint the blind,
And seal me thine adopted son:
A fallen, helpless creature take,
And heir of thy salvation make.

—The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Sprinkle Publications, 1987).

Psalme 42 (Geneva Bible)
To him that excelleth. A Psalme to give instruction, committed to the sonnes of Korah.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

A+B=C. I reject C. Therefore, B is false.

If I stated the preceding syllogism in an argument in those plain terms, you’d immediately see and point out at least one obvious fallacy (there are actually two). You would never think of making such an absurd statement yourself. Yet I have encountered it on several occasions in discussions with relatively intelligent people who are really quite serious.

The two fallacies (both probably having technical names unknown to my rhetorical ignorance) are these:

1. I reject C, therefore B is False. This is the most obvious fallacy, ascribing authority to yourself. You reject C. So what? Irrelevant. Now, if you can explain why C must be rejected, maybe you’ll be on to something.

2. A+B=C. Are you sure? Or is this possibly a non sequitur? Does it necessarily follow that A, combined with B, leads to C?

I’ll give you a couple of examples.

In a recent conversation about genealogies, I disclosed that my maternal grandmother’s family has been in this country since before the American Revolution. I stated that a pair of brothers from that family had, in fact, been given land in Canada by George III for “acts of loyalty to the Crown.” Apparently, this is something that should embarrass me (it does not).

Well, the conversation turned to the legitimacy of the Colonial rebellion. I have no settled opinion on that, but I do not believe the rightness of the insurrection is at all obvious. This provoked the A+B=C argument.

“If the colonists hadn’t rebelled,” it was said, “we’d all still be speaking English!” No, not really. Said he, “We’d still be English subjects.” A=subjection to England. B=no revolution. C=continued subjection. A+B=C. Subjection to England is unacceptable, therefore, the Revolution must have been right and necessary.

We apply the two questions above. First, was subjection to the King really — from a biblical perspective — intolerable? Maybe, but you will have to establish that based on facts, not your own feelings. Second, does it necessarily follow that the colonies could not have gained their independence by other means? The answer to that is an obvious no. Those arguments are invalid. That doesn’t mean that the American Revolution was an illegitimate rebellion; it only disposes of that argument.

For another example, many people respond to the doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints, or “eternal security,” with something like this: “If you can never lose your salvation, you could get saved and then do whatever you want!” The implication is that without the threat of damnation hanging over our heads, we would most likely live licentiously. A=salvation. B=no threat of hell. C=an unsanctified life. A+B=C. An unholy life is unacceptable, therefore, the threat of damnation must continually hang over us all.

Fallacy checking, we ask, is that really unacceptable? At first, it would seem so. The idea of a redeemed person living in sin is certainly not to be found in Scripture. But what of a regenerate person doing “whatever he wants”? If we throw out the so-called “Free Grace” view — which we most certainly will — and see how the Bible describes genuine believers, we see that the believer is a new creature, filled with the Holy Spirit, whose desire is to be pleasing God; so a regenerate person doing whatever he wants will be living in obedience to God’s Word. Therefore, while in this case A+B does in fact =C, C should not be rejected. The doctrine of Perseverance does not encourage licentiousness. In fact, it guarantees increasing holiness.

Think about it: do you ever argue for or against a truth statement based on its possible consequences rather than its intrinsic truth or falsehood? Don’t do that.

Before retiring last night, I typed out my thoughts on the election. I had pretty much decided not to post them, but for better or worse, here they are.

Well, it’s over. Now that Obama has been President, here is what we have to look forward to.

Legal, unlimited abortion will now be the law of the land. Overturning Roe v. Wade is now meaningless. Obama has vowed to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Justin Taylor explained what this means in a post I linked to last week:

So to summarize this act--which again, Barack Obama has promised to sign as his first order of business in the White House--abortion on demand will become codified, all regulations and restrictions will be stripped away, Christian hospitals and physicians will not have a choice regarding the performance of abortion (since their accrediting agencies are approved by the federal government), teenagers will not have to tell their parents about an abortion, and prolife taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions at any stage of the pregnancy for any reason.

Many of us have long understood that the only way to end abortion is not to change the law (though we certainly favor that), but by changing hearts. Well, folks, now that’s all we’ve got. The legal battle is over, and we have lost.

We all know that Obama is a Marxist, pure and simple. There’s no denying it. He also knows that the Constitution denies the government the power to “redistribute wealth.” No problem, he says. We’ll just toss the Constitution. We need to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.” This is the man who is now empowered to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States — the appointed guardians of the Constitution. He who has expressed his desire to deconstruct the constitution will take an oath to defend the Constitution, and immediately launch an attack against it.

The implications of this philosophy extend much further than economic freedom. This means that every liberty is up for grabs. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, everything. The day is swiftly approaching when we will have to choose to obey God rather than men, and pay the price for it.

We have elected a murderer and a thief, a man who despises the very principles on which this Republic was built. Indeed, he hates God. No, not the god in whom he professes faith. That god is alright with him. But that is not the God of the Bible.

What does that mean? What it means should cause us to fall on our faces and cry out to God for mercy; for it means that we are a nation of murderers and thieves.

God, have mercy!

In spite of the gloomy tone, I do know that God is still sovereign, that Jesus is Lord, and that I can still count on his promises. If the first century church could live under Caesar, I can live with an Obama Presidency. I can live even if the Republic crumbles entirely. Because my hope is not of this world.

1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

—Psalm 121

I promise this is not going to become a political blog. But since politics is a part of the life of every citizen, and it is a Christian’s duty to be a good citizen, politics will be addressed here from time to time. Especially now. I do promise, though, that I will get all this off my chest and out of my system very soon and get back to more pleasant things. But I warn you: this may not be pretty. Lovers of soft, gentle words may want to move on.

Everyone out who wants out? Okay, here we go: some more post-election lamentations.

1. Voting your conscience.
   As opposed to voting for John McCain of course; because McCain is [fill in the blank]. I know all too well that McCain was no great conservative hope; but seriously . . .
   
   
   1. “McCain or Obama, what’s the difference?”
      What an ignorant question. What a willfully ignorant question, and in many cases, I believe, a dishonest question. So ignorant and/or dishonest that doesn’t even merit an answer. Go read the record for yourself. If you still can’t see it, my condolences on your lobotomy.
   2. The “lesser evil.”
      Those of you who eschewed voting for “the lesser of evils” in favor of a third-party or independent candidate, I’ve got news for you. Unless you wrote in “Jesus Christ,” you voted for a lesser evil. A vote for any of the apostles would have been a vote for a lesser evil. Your best option in any election will always be a lesser evil. When your wife chose you over those other guys she (I hope) chose the lesser evil. (Will the ladies please invert that proposition.) So the difference between you and me is not that only one of us voted for a lesser evil, but that only one of us will admit it. Oh, there is one more difference. I voted for a candidate that could conceivably have defeated the greater evil. Which brings me to my next point: yes, I voted pragmatically.
   3. The pragmatic choice.
      Pragmatism is not a dirty word. Read the Proverbs and take note that wisdom often seems very pragmatic. Yes, there are times when ethics trump pragmatic considerations, but simply charging “Pragmatism!” is a meaningless accusation. We ought always to be pragmatic. Consider the pragmatism of William Wilberforce in accepting incremental advances against slavery. If he had continually demanded immediate, total abolition, and had been willing to settle for nothing less, who knows when — or if — slavery would have been abolished in the British Empire? But as it happened, we credit abolition of British slavery to Wilberforce’s perseverance and willingness to take what he could get when he could get it. Yet, if he had been running for office today, you would have voted for the guy standing in the corner, ideally perfect, but with no audience, constituency, influence, or hope of ever having any; because a vote for Wilberforce would be “pragmatic.”
   4. I voted pragmatically and voted my conscience.
      I am frankly sick of the pseudo-pious pontifications to the contrary. My conscience required that I vote to defeat Obama. It did not require that I “make a statement,” “send a message,” or make any other such token gesture. It required that I do something that was potentially effective, not merely symbolic. It did not require me to do something that would give me a warm feeling inside. I’m afraid many of you are confusing good feelings with a clear conscience. Many times a clear conscience comes with conflicting emotions, like those I had when I voted for John McCain, and George W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George H. W. Bush before him; but my conscience was clear. On the other hand, I could have voted for another candidate who I dearly wish could have had a chance, and gotten some personal satisfaction out of it; but my conscience would not have been clear, because I would have done nothing of substance at all.
2. I’m a racist, I suppose.
   I am not the least bit excited that Obama is black. I couldn’t care less. I don’t think this is a wonderful day in American history because we have elected a black President. This in no way indicates any improvement in “race” relations. The very fact that people are making a big deal about it proves that. The fact that vast numbers of people, by their own admission, voted for Obama because of his color, and that others who could not vote for him wish that they could have because of his color tells me that color holds a place of significance that it should not. When the day comes when people no longer speak of “race” at all, especially as a factor in making choices between individuals, then I will recognize that something important has happened. I do not think of Obama as a black man. I think of him as an extraordinarily evil man. There’s nothing exciting about that.
3. America may just have reached the point of no return.
   If Obama is successful in instituting the draconian changes he has promised, this Republic is as good as dead. And why not? Perhaps God is sending his own message. Perhaps he is saying, “Alright, you cherish your right to sin? I’m going to take away your liberty to do righteously. You want a little bit of socialism? I’ll give you a Marxist President, with friendly majorities in both houses if Congress. You want to kill babies? You’re going to kill them until you’re sitting old and alone, with no one to teach in your schools, no one to do your scientific research, no one to staff your hospitals, no one to work in your factories, no one to farm the land, no one to man your military and defend your borders, no one to care for you, no one to pay the taxes to fund your socialist utopia. I’m going to give your once-great nation to whomever has the strength to take it; and you, and the few children you do have, will serve them. They will circumscribe the limits of your freedom. They will tell you what may do, what you may say, and how you may worship. You asked for it.”
4. Finally, government is not the answer.
   Maybe now Christians will take seriously this exhortation. It is way past time for those who call themselves conservatives to start playing the part and stop looking to government for salvation.

I will be praying for this new President, and I hope you will, too; but I will not simply be praying some vague prayer that God will bless him. I will be praying, as James White suggests in this YouTube video, for his salvation. I will be praying that God will remove his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh and grant him repentance. Until that happens, I will be praying for his failure. I will be praying that God will restrain him and prevent him from accomplishing any part of his evil agenda.

I will definitely be praying for long life for every Supreme Court Justice.

Yesterday was to be my last political post of the season. I intended to move on to something else today, but to tell the truth, I’ve hardly been thinking of anything else. But I’m not going to write about it any more. I’m not quite going to let it drop, though, either. I’m going to fire one more round, albeit vicariously. Here you go: read this, and pretend I wrote it.

On a lighter note, as of last evening, the ad on the right was still up on Technorati. And sometimes I think I get behind.

Next week: no politics at all, I promise, and as little as possible after that.

John Adams is quoted as saying, “No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.”

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

God Saying to the Soul, that He is its Salvation
by Philip Doddridge (1702–1751)

alvation, oh, melodious sound,
 To wretched dying men;
Salvation, that from God proceeds,
And leads to God again.

Rescued from hell’s eternal gloom,
From fiends, and fires, and chains;
Raised to the paradise of bliss,
Where love and glory reigns.

But, oh, may a degenerate soul,
Sinful and weak as mine,
Presume to raise a trembling eye
To blessing so divine?

The luster of so bright a bliss
My feeble heart o’er bears;
And unbelief almost perverts
The promise into tears.

My Savior God, no voice but Thine,
These dying hopes can raise;
Speak Thy salvation so my soul,
And turn its tears to praise.

My Savior God, this broken voice,
Transported shall proclaim;
And call on the angelic harps,
To sound so sweet a name.

—Worthy Is the Lamb (Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

salme 49
(Geneva Bible) To him that excelleth.
A Psalme committed to the sonnes of Korah.
1 Heare this, all ye people: giue eare, all ye that dwell in the world,
2 As well lowe as hie, both rich and poore.
3 My mouth shall speake of wisdome, and the meditation of mine heart is of knowledge.
4 I will incline mine eare to a parable, and vtter my graue matter vpon the harpe.
5 Wherefore should I feare in the euil dayes, when iniquitie shall compasse me about, as at mine heeles?
6 They trust in their goods, and boast them selues in the multitude of their riches.
7 Yet a man can by no meanes redeeme his brother: he can not giue his raunsome to God,
8 (So precious is the redemption of their soules, and the continuance for euer)
9 That he may liue still for euer, and not see the graue.
10 For he seeth that wise men die, and also that the ignorant and foolish perish, and leaue their riches for others.
11 Yet they thinke, their houses, and their habitations shall continue for euer, euen from generation to generation, and call their lands by their names.
12 But man shall not continue in honour: he is like the beastes that die.
13 This their way vttereth their foolishnes: yet their posteritie delite in their talke. Selah.
14 Like sheepe they lie in graue: death deuoureth them, and the righteous shall haue domination ouer them in the morning: for their beautie shall consume, when they shall goe from their house to graue.
15 But God shall deliuer my soule from the power of the graue: for he will receiue me. Selah.
16 Be not thou afrayd when one is made rich, and when the glory of his house is increased.
17 For he shall take nothing away when he dieth, neither shall his pompe descende after him.
18 For while he liued, he reioyced himselfe: and men will prayse thee, when thou makest much of thy selfe.
19 He shall enter into the generation of his fathers, and they shall not liue for euer.
20 Man is in honour, and vnderstandeth not: he is like to beasts that perish.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
—James 1:2–4

Life is hard. Working for a living is hard. Marriage is hard. Raising children is hard. Sometimes, just getting up in the morning is hard. Are you thankful? You should be. I don’t mean you should not grieve and mourn over serous calamities, or even cry out to God for deliverance. I mean, can you recognize God’s hand at work, stripping away your independence, self-sufficiency, and pride, strengthening your faith, and trusting him to work all things together for your good, thank him and be joyful?

These are hard questions for me. I think I have experienced my share (what is my share, exactly?) of trials, and I think I can honestly say that I have learned to be content and thankful for lessons learned and for the providence of God in those situations. I do pretty well, I think.

But wait; what did James write? “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you look back on various trials, and see how God has worked through them . . .” No, he wrote, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials . . .” When, not after. This is a hard pill to swallow, and I’m afraid I haven’t quite choked it down yet.

Here is where I’d like to have a nice, inspirational, devotional book-like conclusion, but I’m afraid I haven’t one. It’s only the grace of God that brings me around to see in hindsight what I’m too selfish or stupid to see at the moment. Needle-point that and hang it on the wall.

Who is the Holy Spirit? I’m afraid that is a question that many Christians would have difficulty answering. Why is that? I think there are two causes: first, the Bible says far less about the Holy Spirit than it does about God the Father or Christ. The Spirit’s role is so entirely subservient that his business is never to attract attention to himself. Second, so many of the voices we hear speaking of the Holy Spirit are far from biblical, making him into the virtual center of the Godhead and Christian life, and a magician who exists to amaze us with signs and wonders. So on the one hand, we have the Bible saying less than we might like about the Spirit, and on the other hand, an abundance of extra-biblical nonsense about him. That profusion of error and the resulting confusion, I think, often causes Christians who do not accept that error to neglect learning even what Scripture does reveal of the Spirit.

In his book, Knowing God, J. I. Packer looks at the Gospel of John and helps us to gain a biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit.

[I]n his account of our Lord’s last talk to his disciples, [John] reports how the Savior, having explained that he was going to prepare a place for them in he Father’s house, went on to promise them the gift of “another Comforter” (Jn 14:16 KJV).
   Note this phrase; it is full of meaning. It denotes a person, and a remarkable person too. A Comforter—the richness of the idea is seen form the clarity of rendering in different translations: “counselor” (RSV), “helper” (Moffatt), “advocate” (Weymouth), one “to befriend you” (Knox). The thoughts of encouragement, support, assistance, care, the shouldering of responsibility for another’s welfare, are all conveyed by this word. Another Comforter—yes, because Jesus was their original Comforter, and the newcomer’s task was to continue this side of his ministry. It follows, therefore, that we can only appreciate all that our Lord meant when he spoke of “another Comforter” as we look back over all that he himself had done in the way on love, and care, and patient instruction, and provision for the disciples’ well-being, during his own three years of personal ministry to them. “He will care for you,” Christ was saying in effect, “in the way that I have cared for you.” Truly a remarkable person!
   Our Lord went on to name the new Comforter. He is “the Spirit of truth,” “the Holy Spirit” (Jn 14:17, 26). This name denoted deity. In the Old Testament, God’s wordand God’s Spirit are parallel figures. God’s word is his almighty speech; God’s Spirit is his almighty breath. Both phrases convey the thought of his power in action. The speech and the breath of God appear together in the record of creation. “The Spirit [breath] of God was hovering over the waters. And God said . . . and there was . . .”(Gen 1:2–3). “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, the starry host by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth” (Ps 33:6). John told us in the prologue that the divine Word spoken of here is a person. Our Lord now gives parallel teaching, to the effect that the divine Spirit is also a person. And he confirms his witness to the deity of the personal Spirit by calling him the holy Spirit, as later he was to speak to the holy Father (Jn 17:11).
   John’s Gospel shows how Christ related to the Spirit’s mission to the will and purpose of the Father and the Son. In one place, it is the Father who will send the Spirit, as it was the Father who had sent the Son (see 5:23, 26–27). The Father will send the Spirit, says our Lord, “in my name”—that is, as Christ’s deputy, doing Christ’s will and acting as his representative and with his authority (Jn 14:26). Just as Jesus had come in his Father’s name (5:43), acting as the Father’s agent, doing the Father’s works (10:25; 17:4, 12)) and bearing witness throughout to the One whose emissary he was, so the Spirit would come in Jesus’ name, to act in the world as the agent and witness of Jesus. The Spirit “proceedeth from [para: ‘from the side of’] the Father” (16;28 KJV). Having sent the eternal Son into the world, the Father now recalls him to glory and sends the Spirit to take his place.
   But this in only one way of looking at the matter. In another place, it is the Son who will send the Spirit “from the Father” (15:26). As the Father sent the Son into the world, so the Son will send the Spirit into the world (16:7). The spirit is sent by the Son as well as by the Father. Thus we have the following set of relationships:
   1. The Son is subject to the Father, for the Son is sent by the Father in his (the Father’s) name.
   2. The Spirit is subject to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Father in the Son’s name.
   3. The Spirit is subject to the Son as well as to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Son as well as by the Father. (Compare 20:22: “He breathed on them and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”)
   Thus John records our Lord’s disclosure of the mystery of the Trinity: three persons, and one God, the Son doing the will of the Father and the Spirit doesn’t the will of the Father and the Son. And the point stressed is that the Spirit, who comes to Christ’s Disciples “to be with you forever” (14:16), is coming to exercise the ministry of the comforter in Christ’s stead. If, therefore, the ministry of Christ the Comforter was important, the ministry of the Holy Spirit the Comforter can scarcely be less important. If the work that Christ did matters to the church, the work that the Spirit does must matter also.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 66–68.

Continuing from where we left off yesterday, J. I. Packer laments the general ignorance of the person and work of the Holy Spirit among Christians.

   It is startling to see how differently the biblical teaching about the second and third persons of the Trinity respectively is treated. The person and work of Christ have been, and remain, subjects of constant debate within the church; yet the person and work of the Holy spirit are largely ignored. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is the Cinderella of Christian Doctrines. Comparatively few seem to be interested in it.
   Many excellent books have been written on the person and work of Christ, but the number of books worth reading on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, even in this charismatic era is small. Christian people are not in doubt as to the work that Christ did; they know that he redeemed us by his atoning death even if they differ among themselves as to what exactly this involved. But the average Christian, deep down, is in a complete fog as to what work the Holy Spirit does.
   Some talk of the Spirit of Christ in the way that one would talk of the spirit of Christmas—as a vague cultural pressure for making bonhomie and religiosity. Some think of the Spirit as inspiring the moral convictions of unbelievers like Ghandi or the theosophical mysticism of a Rudolf Steiner. But most, perhaps, do not think of the Holy Spirit at all, and have no positive ideas of any sort about what he does. They are for practical purposes in the same position as the disciples whom Paul met at Ephesus—“We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2).
   It is an extraordinary thing that those who profess to care so much about Christ would know and care so little about the Holy Spirit . Christians are aware of the difference it would make if, after all, it transpired that there had never been an incarnation or atonement. They know that then they would be lost, for they would have no savior. But many Christians have really no idea what difference it would make if there were no Holy Spirit in the world. Whether in that case they, or the church, would suffer in any way they just do not know.
   Surely something is amiss here. How can we justify neglecting the ministry of Christ’s appointed agent in this way? Is it not a hollow fraud to say that we honor Christ when we ignore, and by ignoring dishonor, the One whom Christ has sent us as his deputy, to take his place and care for us on his behalf? Ought we not to concern ourselves more about the Holy Spirit than we do?

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 68–69.

J. I. Packer answers the question, “Is the work of the Holy Spirit really important?”

   Important! Why, were it not for the work of the Holy Spirit there would be no gospel, no faith, no church, no Christianity in the world at all. In the first place, without the Holy Spirit there would be no gospel and no New Testament.
   When Christ left the world, he committed his cause to his disciples. He made them responsible for going and making disciples of all nations. “Ye . . . shall bear witness,” he told them in the upper room (Jn 15:27 KJV). “You will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth,” were his parting words to them on Olivet, before he ascended (Acts 1:8). Such was their appointed task, but what sort of witnesses were they likely to prove? They had never been good pupils; they had consistently failed to understand Christ and missed the point of his teaching throughout his earthly ministry; how could they be expected to do better now that he had gone? Was it not virtually certain that, with the best will in the world, they would soon get the truth of the gospel inextricably mixed up with a mass of well-meant misconceptions, and their witness would rapidly be reduced to a twisted, garbled, hopeless muddle?
   The answer to the question is no—because Christ sent the Holy Spirit to them, to teach them all truth and so save them from all error, to remind them of what they had been taught already and to reveal to them the rest of what their Lord meant them to learn. “The Counselor . . . will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will speak only what he hears” (that is, he would make known to them all that Christ would instruct him to tell them, just as Christ had made known to them all that the Father had instructed him to tell them . . .
   The promise was that, taught by the Spirit, these original disciples should be enabled to speak as so many mouths of Christ so that, just as the Old Testament prophets had been able to introduce their sermons with the words, “Thus says the Lord Jehovah,” so the New Testament apostles might with equal truth be able to say of their teaching, oral or written, “Thus says the Lord Jesus Christ.”
   And the thing happened. The Spirit came to the disciples and testified to them of Christ and his salvation, according the promise. . . . Hence the gospel, and hence the New Testament. But the world would have had neither without the Holy Spirit.
   Nor is this all. In the second place, without the Holy Spirit there would be no faith and no new birth—in short, no Christians.
   The light of the gospel shines; but “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor 4:4) and the blind do not respond to the stimulus of light. As Christ told Nicodemus, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (Jn 3:3; compare v. 5). . . .
   What follows, then? Should we conclude that preaching the gospel is a waste of time and write off evangelism as a hopeless enterprise, foredoomed to fail? No, because the spirit abides with the church to testify of Christ. To the apostles, he testified by revealing and inspiring, as we saw. To the rest of us, down the ages, he testifies by illuminating: opening blinded eyes, restoring spiritual vision, enabling sinners to see that the gospel is indeed God’s truth, and Scripture is indeed God’s Word, and Christ is indeed God’s Son. “When he [the Spirit] comes,” our Lord promised, “he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (Jn 16:8 RSV).
   . . .
   Paul points the way here: “When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the Testimony of God in lofty words of wisdom. . . . My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:1–5 RSV). And because the Spirit does bear witness in this way, people come to faith when the gospel is preached. But without the Spirit there would not be a Christian in the world.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 69–71.

How are we to respond to the Holy Spirit? According to Packer, how we respond to the Word he has given, the extent to which we believe and apply it, is the measure of our response to the Spirit.

Do we honor the Holy Spirit by recognizing and relying on his work? Or do we slight him by ignoring it, and thereby dishonor not merely the Spirit but the Lord who sent him?
   In our faith: Do we acknowledge the authority of the Bible, the prophetic Old Testament and the apostolic New Testament which he inspired? Do we read and hear it with the reverence and receptiveness that are due to the Word of God? If not, we dishonor the Holy Spirit.
   In our life: Do we apply the authority of the Bible and live by the Bible, whatever anyone may say against it, recognizing that God’s Word cannot but be true, and that what God has said he certainly means, and he will stand behind it? If not, we dishonor the Holy Spirit, who gave us that Bible.
   In our witness: Do we remember that the Holy Spirit alone, by his witness, can authenticate our witness, and look to him to do so, and trust him to do so, and show the reality of our trust, as Paul did, by eschewing the gimmicks of human cleverness? If not, we dishonor the Holy Spirit. Can we doubt that the present barrenness of the church’s life is God’s judgment on us for the way in which we have dishonored the Holy Spirit? And, in that case, what hope have we of its removal till we learn it our thinking and our praying and our practice to honor the Holy Spirit? “He shall testify . . .”
   “He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 71–72.

It ain’t exactly new, but I think he’ll like this.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

PRAISE TO CHRIST
Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

Jesus, the Christ of God,
   The Father’s blessed Son,
The Father’s bosom Thine abode,
   The Father’s love Thine own.

Jesus, the Lamb of God,
   Who us from hell to raise,
Hast shed Thy reconciling blood;
   We give Thee endless praise.

God, and yet man, Thou art,
   True God, true man art Thou;
Of man, and of man’s earth a part,
   One with us Thou art now.

Great sacrifice for sin,
   Giver of life for life,
Restorer of the peace within,
   True ender of the strife.

To Thee, the Christ of God,
   Thy saints exulting sing,
The bearer of our heavy load,
   Our own anointed King!

True lover of the lost,
   From heaven Thou camest down,
To pay for souls the righteous cost,
   And claim them for Thine own.

Rest of the weary, Thou!
   To Thee, our rest, we come;
In Thee to find our dwelling now,
   Our everlasting home.

—Horatius Bonar, Hymns of Faith and Hope, First Series (James Nisbet & Co., 1878).

Psalme 56 (Geneva Bible) To him that excelleth. A Psalme of David on Michtam, concerning the dumme doue in a farre countrey, when the Philistims tooke him in Gath.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

As regular readers may easily observe, this blog has become little more than a journal of “What I’m Reading Now.” I don’t really know why I started blogging, but it has become for me a stimulus to thought, and for the last six months, as I’ve posted every day, a means of disciplining myself to continue regular reading. I think this is a good purpose, and one I’d like to refine a bit.

Rather than simply rambling through one book after another, with no apparent rhyme or reason, I’m thinking of devoting each weekday to a theme. For example, I have several books I want to read on such subjects as the Canon of Scripture, textual criticism, hermeneutics, etc, so one day could be devoted to Bibliology. Church history could be one, and current issues another (for example, I still need to finish The Courage to be Protestant).

This is where you, gentle reader, come in. I will entertain your suggestions of possible categories or themes. What topics interest you? Leave your suggestions in the comments or email me here. Your input is appreciated.

God himself does not change. He is as he always has been and will always be. But many Christians who would affirm that statement believe, on the basis of circumstances and experience, and even on the basis of a few passages of Scripture, that God does change his mind. How shall we answer them? J. I. Packer writes, “God’s purposes do not change.”

“He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind,” declared Samuel, “for he is not a man who should change his mind” (1 Samuel 15:29). . . .
   Repenting means revising one’s judgment and changing one’s plan of action. God never does this; he never needs to, for his plans are made on the basis of a complete knowledge and control which extend to all things past, present, and future, so that there can be no sudden emergencies or unexpected developments to take him by surprise. “One of two things causes a man to change his mind and reverse his plans: want of foresight to anticipate everything, or lack of foresight to execute them. But as God is both omniscient and omnipotent there is never any need to reverse his decrees” (A. W. Pink). “The plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations” (Ps 33:11).
   What God does in time, he planned from eternity. And all that he planned in eternity he carries out in time. And all that he has in his Word committed himself to do will infallibly be done. . . . No part of his eternal plan changes.
   It is true that there is a group of texts (Gen 6:6–7; 1 Sam 5:11; 2 Sam 24:16; Jon 3:10; Joel 2:13–14) which speak of God as repenting. The reference in each case is to a reversal of God’s previous treatment of particular people, consequent to their reaction to that treatment. But there is no suggestion that this reaction was not foreseen, or that it took God by surprise and was not provided for in his eternal plan. No change in his eternal purpose is implied when he begins to deal with a person in a new way.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 79–80.

I was reminded, as I read the passage that follows, of what David Wells has written on the imminence vs. the transcendence of God. That God is a personal, relational God is emphasized much these days. But what of his greatness and glory, his majesty?

[M]ajesty is a word which the Bible uses to express the thought of the greatness of God, our maker and our Lord. “The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty. . . . Your throne was established long ago” (Ps 93:1–2). They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works” (Ps 145:5). Peter, recalling his vision of Christ’s royal glory at the transfiguration, says, “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet 1:16).
   In Hebrews, the phrase the majesty twice does duty for God; Christ, we are told, at his ascension sat down “at the right hand of the majesty in heaven” (Heb 11:3; 8:1). The word majesty, when applied to God, is always a declaration of his greatness and an invitation to worship. The same is true when the Bible speaks of God being on high and in heaven; the thought here is not that God is far distant from us in space, but that he is far above us in greatness, and therefore is to be adored. “Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise” (Ps 48:1). “The Lord is the Great God, the great King. . . . Come, let us bow down and worship” (Ps 93:3, 6). The Christian’s instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God.
   But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby. We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God. When the person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty.
. . . We are poles apart from our evangelical forefathers at this point, even when we confess our faith in their words. When you start reading Luther, or Edwards, or Whitfield, though your doctrine may be theirs, you soon find yourself wondering whether you have any acquaintance at all with the mighty God whom they knew so intimately.
   Today, vast stress is placed on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are—weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! Our personal life is a finite thing . . . But God . . . is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He has us in his hands; we never have him in ours. Like us, he is personal; but unlike us, he is great. In all its constant stress on the reality of God’s personal concern for his people, and on the gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, patience and yearning compassion that he shows toward them, the Bible never lets us lose sight of his majesty and his unlimited dominion over all his creatures.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 82–83.

When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power — like God must feel when he's holding a gun. —Homer Simpson

People often fail to see God as he is because they think of him as they think of themselves. We hear people say things like “How could God . . .” or “My God would never . . .” Barack Obama, in an interview about his religious beliefs, said, “I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.” And why not? Because Barack Obama would not do that (or so he believes, anyway).

We often think of what is possible in terms of what we can do, or what is naturally possible. With that kind of mindset, it isn’t ridiculous at all to think that God might feel more powerful if he had a gun, just as we do. But of course, no weapon of any kind could make God be or feel more powerful, because he is already omnipotent (all-powerful). Our thoughts of God are, as Luther said to Erasmus, “too human.”

J. I. Packer, looking at Isaiah 40, considers what we would see if we accurately compared ourselves to God and the things he has done.

   Look at the tasks I have done, he says. Could you do them? Could any man do them? “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basked, or weighed the mountain on the scales and the hills in a balance” (v. 12). Are you wise enough, and mighty enough, to do things like that? But I am, or I could not have made this world at all. Behold your God!
   Look now at the nations, the prophet continues: the great national powers, at whose mercy you feel yourselves to be. Assyria, Egypt, Babylon—you stand in awe of them, and feel afraid of them, so vastly do their armies and resources exceed yours. But now consider how God stands related to those mighty forces which you rear so much. “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; . . . Before him all the nations are as nothing: they are regarding by him as worthless and less than nothing” (Is 40:15, 17). You tremble before the nations, because you are much weaker than they; but God is so much greater that the nations that they are nothing to him. Behold your God!
   Look next at the world. Consider the size of it, the variety and complexity of it; think of the nearly five thousand millions who populate it, and of the vast sky above it. What puny figures you and I are, by comparison with the whole planet on which we live! Yet what is the entire mighty planet by comparison with God? “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a net to live in” (Is 40:22). The world dwarfs us all, but God dwarfs the world. The world is his footstool, above which he sits secure. He is greater that the world and all that is in it, so that all the feverish activity of its bustling millions does no more to affect him that the chirping and jumping of grasshoppers in the summer sun does to affect us. Behod your God!
   Look, fourthly, at the world’s great ones—the governors whose laws and policies determine the welfare of millions; the would-be world rulers, the dictators and empire builders, who have it in their power to plunge the globe into war, think of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar; think of Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler. Think, today, of Clinton and Saddam Hussein. Do you suppose that it is really these top men who determine which way the world shall go? Think again, for God is greater that the world’s great men. “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing” (Is 40:23). He is, as the prayer book says, “the only ruler of princes.” Behold your God.
   But we have not finished yet. Look, lastly at the stars. The most universally awesome experience that mankind knows is to stand alone on a clear night and look at the stars. Nothing gives a greater sense of remoteness and distance; nothing makes on feel more strongly one’s own littleness and insignificance. And we who live in the space age can supplement this universal experience with our scientific knowledge of the actual factors involved—millions of the stars in number, billions of light years in distance. Our minds reel our imagination cannot grasp it; when we try to conceive of unfathomable depths of outer space, we are left mentally numb and dizzy.
   But what is this to God? “Lift you eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Is 40:26). It is God who brings out the stars; it was God who first set them in space; his is their Maker and Master—the are all in his hands and subject to his will. Such are his power and his majesty. Behold your God!

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 86–88.

This week we’ve read of some of the attributes of God related to his majesty. Now, how shall we apply these things? Packer repeats three questions from Isaiah.

   1. “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.” (Is 40:25 RSV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about God. . . . This is where most of us go astray. Our thoughts of God are not great enough; we fail to reckon with the reality of his limitless wisdom and power because we ourselves are limited and weak, we imagine that at some points God is, too, and find it hard to believe that he is not. We think of God as too much like what we are. Put this mistake right, says God; learn to acknowledge the full majesty of your incomparable God and Savior.
   2. “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed away from my God?” (Is 40:27 RV). This question rebukes wrong thoughts about ourselves. God has not abandoned us any more than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of his sheep. It is as false as it is irreverent to accuse God of ever forgetting, or overlooking, or losing interest in, the state and needs of his own people. If you have been resigning yourself to the thought that God has left you high and dry, seek grace to be ashamed of yourself. Such unbelieving pessimism deeply dishonors our great God and Savior.
   3. “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Is 40:28 KJV). This question rebukes our slowness to believe in God’s majesty. God would shame us out of our unbelief. “What is the trouble?” he asks. “Have you been imagining that I, the Creator, have grown old and tired? Has nobody ever told you the truth about me?”
   The rebuke is well deserved by many of us. How slow we are to believe in God as God, sovereign, all-seeing and almighty! The need for us to “wait upon the Lord in meditations on his majesty, till we find our strength renewed through the writing of these things upon our hearts.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 88–89.

Saturdays on the blog are normally reserved for things ranging from trivial to frivolous to foolish. Today, due to the out-dated nature of my offering, we can add irrelevant. As promised, I have refrained from political outbursts for the last week. Well, almost, anyway. Technically, I should wait ’til tomorrow; but tomorrow is the Lord’s Day, and as this post is both frivolous and political, I’d best get it out of my system today. It’s not much—pretty lame, actually—but I reckon it’s worth the price of admission.

The Presidential election was too close to call.  Neither McCain nor Obama had enough votes to win.

There was much talk about ballot recounting, court challenges, etc., but a week-long ice fishing competition seemed the sportsmanlike way to settle things. The candidate that caught the most fish at the end of the week would win the election. After much discussion, it was decided that the contest take place on a remote lake in northern Minnesota.

There were to be no observers present, and both men were to be sent out separately to return at 5 P.M. with their catch for counting and verification by a team of neutral parties.

At the end of the first day, McCain returned with ten fish.  Soon, Obama returned with no fish.  Well, everyone assumed he was just having an unlucky day or something, and hopefully, he would catch up the next day.

At the end of the 2nd day McCain came in with twenty fish and Obama came in again with none.

That evening, Harry Reid got together secretly with Obama and said, “I think John McCain is cheating.  I want you to go out tomorrow and don’t even bother with fishing.  Just spy on him and see how he’s cheating.” The following night, Reid asked Obama, “Well, tell me, how is McCain cheating?”

Obama replied, “Harry, you're not going to believe this, but he's cutting holes in the ice!”

Experience matters.

See you in church tomorrow.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

The Life Look

O God,

I bless thee for the happy moment
when I first saw thy love fulfilled in Christ;
   wrath appeased, death destroyed, sin forgiven,
      my soul saved.
Ever since, thou hast been faithful to me:
   daily have I proved the power of Jesus‘ blood,
   daily have I known the strength on the Spirit,
      my teacher, director, sanctifier.
I want no other rock to build upon than that I have,
   desire no other hope than that of gospel truth,
   need no other look than that which gazes
      on the cross.
Forgive me if I have tried to add anything
      to the one foundation,
   if I have unconsciously relied upon my knowledge,
   experience, deeds, and not seen them
      as filthy rags,
   if I have attempted to complete what is perfect
      in Christ;
May my cry be always, Only Jesus! only Jesus!
In him is freedom from condemnation,
   fullness in his righteousness,
   eternal vitality in his given life,
   indissoluble union in fellowship with him;
In him I have all that I can hold;
   enlarge me to take in more.
If I backslide,
   let me like Peter weep bitterly and return to him;
If I am tempted, and have no wit,
   give me strength enough to trust in him;
If I am weak,
   may I faint upon his bosom of eternal love;
If in extrremity,
   let me feel that he can deliver me;
If driven to the verge of hope and to the pit
      of despair,
   grant me grace to fall into his arms.
O God, hear me, do for me more
   than I ask, think or dream.

—from The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennett, editor (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002).

Psalme 63
(Geneva Bible)
A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
9 But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth;
10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last Monday, I wrote a little about my intentions for the future of this blog. You offered some suggestions in the comments and via email, which I have considered, and I have decided on a schedule that I hope to stick to, more or less, for as long as it works. (How’s that for commitment?)

For a while now, I have been reserving Mondays for posting my own thoughts on whatever has been on my mind, or blog notes (such as this post). That will continue. I may take up the challenge to write a series on “How to Be a Christian.” Hopefully, I can come up with a less scary title.

Tuesday will be for Theology Proper, continuing with Knowing God for now.

Wednesday, I’ll tackle Bibliology, beginning, I think, with The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce.

Thursday will Church History Day. I’ve got a couple church history sets I’d like to get into, as well as a few biographies and Iain Murray titles lined up, so we’ll have no shortage of material there.

Following the suggestion of “Good Fridays,” I’m going to dedicate Fridays to Gospel-centered material. Now, at least, I know what soteriology is.

Saturdays have been mostly frivolous to this point, and probably will still be at times, but I hope to give Saturdays to a mixture of other topics, such as current issues, and Church and Christian life.

Thanks for your input. It is, as always, welcome and appreciated. Now, I’ve got some reading to do.

Theologians divide the attributes of God into two categories, communicable and incommunicable. That God created man in his image means that man was given qualities corresponding to the attributes of God. However, not all of God’s attributes were included in this image. Incommunicable attributes are those for which there is no corresponding quality in his image in created man. These attributes were not communicated to Adam. They include aseity (self-existence) and infinitude (unlimited by time or space). Communicable attributes are those that God communicated to man in creation. They are his moral qualities.

God’s communicable attributes are the image of God in us. That image, and therefore those attributes, were lost or damaged in the fall. A part of God’s redemptive plan is the renewal of those communicable attributes (2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10).

Among those communicable attributes is wisdom. It should be clearly seen that fallen man is lacking wisdom. It is equally clear that God wants to give us wisdom. Scripture, particularly the book of Proverbs, exhorts us repeatedly to “get wisdom.” The New Testament also instructs us to seek wisdom (Ephesians 5:15-17; James 1:5). But how can we get wisdom? J. I. Packer offers two prerequisites for receiving this gift.

   1. We must learn to reverence God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” . . . Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God’s holiness and sovereignty . . . acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.
   2. We must learn to receive God’s Word. wisdom is divinely wrought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God’s revelation. “Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,” declares the Psalmist; I have more insight than all my teachers”—why?—“for I meditate on your statutes” (Ps 119:98–99).
   So Paul admonishes the Colossians, “ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . . with all wisdom” (Col 3:16). How are we of the twentieth century to do this? By soaking ourselves in the Scriptures, which, as Paul told Timothy (and he had in mind the Old Testament alone!), “are able to make you wise for salvation” through faith in Christ, and to make us “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:15&ndashl17).
   Again, it is to be feared that many today who profess to be Christ’s never learn wisdom, through failure to attend to God’s written Word. . . . How long is it since you read right through the Bible? Do you spend as much time with the Bible each day as you do even with the newspaper? What fools some of us are!—and we remain fools all our lives, simply because we will not take the trouble to do what has to be done to receive the wisdom which is God’s free gift.

—J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press, 1993), 101–102.

I’ve begun reading The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce. The logical place for a book with that title to start is with a definition* of the word canon, and so it does. First, it’s not a really big gun. That would be a cannon. Scripture is, of course, a really big gun—the big gun—of religion and theology; but that’s besides the point.

   The word ‘canon’ has come into our language (through Latin) from the Greek word kanōn. In Greek it meant a rod, especially a straight rod used as a rule; from this usage comes the other meaning which the word commonly bears in English—‘rule’ or ‘standard’. We speak, for example, of the ‘canons’ or rules of the Church of England. But a straight rod used as a rule might be marked in units of length (like a modern ruler marked in inches or centimeters); from this practice the Greek word kanōn came to be used of the series of such marks, and hence to be used in the general sense of ‘series’ or ‘list’. it is this last usage that underlines the term ‘the canon of scripture’.
   Before the word ‘canon’ came to be used in the sense of ‘list’, it was used in another sense by the church—in the phrase ‘the rule of faith’ or ‘the rule of truth’. In the earlier Christian centuries this was a summary of Christian teaching, believed to reproduce what the apostles themselves taught, by which any system of doctrine offered for Christian acceptance, or any interpretation of biblical writings, was to be assessed. But when once the limits of holy scripture came to be generally agreed upon, holy scripture itself came to be regarded as the rule of faith. For example, Thomas Aquinas (c 1225–1274), says that ‘canonical scripture alone is the rule of faith’. From another theological perspective the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), after listing the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, adds: ‘All which are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.’ These words affirm the status of holy scripture as the ‘canon’ or ‘standard’ by which Christian teaching and action must be regulated. While the ‘canon’ of scripture means the list of books accepted as holy scripture, the other sense of ‘canon’—rule or standard—has rubbed off on this one, so that the ‘canon’ of scripture is understood to be the listof books which are acknowledged to be, in a unique sense, the rule of belief and practice.

—F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity Press, 1988), 17–18.

That is what the canon is. If Scripture is to be our “rule of faith and life,” it behooves us to know how it is that we came to recognize our Bible, in its present form, as the Word of God. And that is what this book is about.

This Thanksgiving Day, I break from the weekly schedule* to reflect on the goodness of God. I have so much to be thankful for. First, I’m thankful that he saved me, and for all that is consequential to that one cataclysmic event. Second, that I obtained favor from the Lord†, and all that is consequential to that.

I think that covers everything of real importance.

Today’s “gospel” is hopelessly man-centered. It is Your Best Life Now, or the horrible old cliché, repeated by Rick Warren in The Purpose of Christmas, “When the Romans nailed Jesus to a cross, they stretched his arms as wide as they could. With his arms wide open, Jesus was physically demonstrating, ‘I love you this much! I love you so much it hurts! I’d rather die than live without you!’” It is a gospel that is all about us, with Christ as a means to an end — our salvation, in the evangelical version, and in the liberal version, our personal satisfaction and fulfillment.

John Piper challenges us to examine our gospel, and see if the true gospel isn’t much more than we think.

Today—as in every generation—it is stunning to watch the shift away from God as the all-satisfying gift of God’s love. It is stunning how seldom God himself is proclaimed as the greatest gift of the gospel. But the Bible teaches that the best and final gift of God’s love is the enjoyment of God’s beauty. “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 276:4). The best and final gift of the gospel is that we gain Christ. “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). This is the all-encompassing gift of God’s love thorough the gospel—to see and savor the glory of Christ forever.
   In place of this, we have turned the love of God and the gospel of Christ into the divine endorsement of our delight in may lesser things, especially the delight in our being made much of. The acid test of biblical God-centeredness—and faithfulness to the gospel—is this: do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? Does your happiness hang on seeing the cross of Christ as a witness to your worth, or as a way to enjoy God’s words forever? Is God’s glory in Christ the foundation of your gladness?
   From the first sin in the Garden of Eden to the final judgment of the great white throne, human beings will continue to embrace the love of God as the gift of everything but himself. Indeed there are ten thousand gifts that flow from the love of God. The gospel of Christ proclaims the news that he has purchased by his death ten thousand blessings for his bride. But none of these gifts will lead to final joy if they have not first led to God. And not one gospel blessing will be enjoyed by anyone for whom the gospel’s greatest gift was not the Lord himself.

. . .
The sad thing is that a radically man-centered view of love permeates our culture and our churches. From the time they can toddle we teach our children that feeling loved means feeling made much of. We have built whole educational philosophies around this view of love—curricula, parenting skills, motivational strategies, therapeutic models, and selling techniques. Most modern people can scarcely imagine an alternative understanding of feeling loved other than feeling made much of. If you don’t make much of me you are not loving me.
   But when you apply this definition of love to God, it weakens his worth, undermines his goodness, and steals our final satisfaction. If the enjoyment of God himself is not the final and best gift of love, then God is not the greatest treasure, his self-giving is not the highest mercy, and the gospel is not the good news that sinners may enjoy their Maker, Christ did not suffer to bring us to God, and our souls must look beyond him for satisfaction.
   This distortion of divine love into an endorsement of self-admiration is subtle. It creeps into our most religious acts. We claim to be praising God because of his love for us. But if his love for us is at bottom his making much of us, who is really being praised? We are willing to be God-centered, it seems, as long as God is man-centered. We are willing to boast in the cross as long as the cross is a witness to our worth. Who then is our pride and joy?

—John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Crossway, 2005), 11–12.

During the 1960s there came a shift in American thinking. While individualism that had always been a part of the American mindset, morals and ethics had previously been subject to a higher authority than the individual himself. Now, self became the authority and source of all values. Self realization became the ultimate purpose in life.

That a new cultural direction was in the making was becoming evident in many ways. By the 1980s, for example, a large majority had begun to think that what was worthwhile in life had nothing to do with its normal routines such as getting up each day and going to work. Nor with the tradition responsibilities of marriage and the raising of children. Rather, life is about its more exotic moments. It is not about what happens on Monday through Friday, but what happens on the weekends. Its real meaning, and its real rewards, are found when the self, unencumbered by routine and responsibility, can be found, nurtured, and satisfied. Two-thirds of Americans began to think a lot about their selves. A great majority, 80 percent, forsook the older traditional ways of looking at life, certainly the older ethical norms, and began to search for new rules by which to live. About half wanted new experiences. They also wanted new freedoms, even trivial ones, like being able to dress the way they wished, unrestrained by convention. They also were looking for more excitement and new sensations.
   Thus it was that the individualism in which you should think for yourself, decide for yourself, provide for yourself, and work to serve others in personal of civic ways had ended up as something rather different. This older individualism has turned inward. Now it is about finding the self for yourself, discovering you inner potential for you own benefit, esteeming your self, and developing now ethical rules that serve the discovery of the self.
   It is not unreasonable to think that this turn in our culture would have found resistance among the religious. And it did at the more liberal end of Protestantism, ironically enough, but evangelicals fell head long into this new way of seeing life.
   It could be heard, in the 1980s and 1990s, every time Robert Schuller’s cherubic countenance appeared on television. He was moving in a new direction, even though he also claimed to be traditionally Protestant. He announced that his new self-focused preoccupation was no less than a new Reformation. He went on to construct the whole of Christian faith around the self and its discovery.
   . . .
   And so it came into our pulpits. In sermon after sermon over the last two or three decades, preachers of an evangelical kind have latched onto this cultural way of thinking. Self-talk, it seemed, would be a natural springboard into salvation talk. Even if it never actually got to salvation, there was enormous benefit to be had along the way. So, why not venture along this path? Imagining themselves to be speaking the language of their congregations, and being quite au courant, these preachers actually ended up buying into a worldview that is deeply hostile to Christian faith. They seemed not to notice that feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as actually being good. In fact, people often feel good about themselves in moments when they should not. Some feel good about themselves in moments of great self indulgence, of revenge, and certainly in moments of inebriation. Is this not the warning that we should have heeded? Should we not have notices this?
   When evangelical churches entered this new universe of the self, they left the moral world behind. The evangelical church, which takes seriously its responsibility to steward the gospel, should have been the first to seen this because the gospel makes sense only in a morale world. Sin, after all, is not simply feeling bad about ourselves. It is violating what is right in God’s law and character. Those who inhabit this self-word look only for therapy, not for forgiveness and regeneration. Recovery, in fact, is their was of speaking about regeneration. It is all about human technique and not about miraculous intervention. All of this was apparently lost on evangelicals who stumbled after one another in their earnest pursuit to recast their faith in this new language from the culture.

—David F. Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World (Eerdmans, 2008), 136–138.

We now live in a world in which self is the purpose and goal of all endeavors, and the arbiter of morals and ethics. The church at large has bought into this same mindset, albeit with spiritualized language. The great problem of mankind is not sin, but low self-esteem, or some other self-deficiency; so the “gospel” that is preached has no power to save anyone.

I reioyced, when they sayd to me, We wil go into the house of the Lord. (Psalme 122:1 Geneva Bible)

HYMN 23 Part 1. (L. M.)
Absent from the body, and present with the Lord. 2 Cor. v. 8.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

ABSENT from flesh! O blissful thought!
What unknown joys this moment brings!
Freed from the mischiefs sin has brought,
From pains, and fears, and all their springs.

Absent from flesh! illustrious day!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay;
And I can feel my fetters broke.

Absent from flesh! then rise, my soul,
Where feet nor wings could never climb,
Beyond the heav’ns, where planets roll,
Measuring the cares and joys of time.

I go where God and glory shine,
His presence makes eternal day:
My all that’s mortal I resign,
For angels wait and point my way.

—from The Psalms & Hymns of Isaac Watts. Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book I: Collected from the Holy Scriptures

Psalme 70
Geneva Bible.
To him excelleth. A Psalme of David to put in remembrance.
1 O God, haste thee to deliuer mee: make haste to helpe me, O Lord.
2 Let them be confounded and put to shame, that seeke my soule: let them bee turned backewarde and put to rebuke, that desire mine hurt.
3 Let them be turned backe for a rewarde of their shame, which said, Aha, aha.
4 But let all those that seeke thee, be ioyfull and glad in thee, and let all that loue thy saluation, say alwaies, God be praised.
5 Nowe I am poore and needie: O God, make haste to me: thou art mine helper, and my deliuerer: O Lord, make no tarying.

Grace be with you, and Peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.