Category: Random Thoughts

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Better Than I Imagined…

I told someone recently that the pastorate is harder than I expected, but more rewarding than I imagined. As I continue to grow in wisdom I find myself more confident in counseling and exercising my daily pastoral duties. It is rare to be in a position where you taste so many rewards and hardships in such a small amount of time.

This morning before I arrived at the office, I had already received two phone calls dealing with two extremely different issues. They weren’t difficult counseling matters, but my parishioners wanted to hear something sound. They have grown to expect more than the typical cliches. I felt rewarded in directing them.

As I drove to the office I realized that Peter’s reaction on the Mount of Transfiguration is much like the calling of a minister. “Why can’t I just rest in my ministerial successes and build a few tents on the mountain?” But the pastoral life is not lived in the mountain alone. We need to grasp–as ministers–that Jesus treasures our labors in the valley. The glory of the mountains is only an eschatological glimpse of the pastoral ministry. Brokenness is everywhere. The valley is where we live. Once in a while God will transport us to the mountain, in the meanwhile, we need to keep looking up to see that transfigured image. Peter had the right idea, but it just wasn’t the right time.

The pastoral ministry is glorious. I have the privilege of being involved in the many new beginnings of human life (baptism and marriage) and the death before life dimension of it as well (funerals). The ministry is more transfiguration than valley. It’s just that along the way to the mountain there are many hills, many sessions, many rebukes, and many sorrows. The joy of ministry is carrying parishioners to the mountain, and persuading them at times that there is a mountain, even when the hope of reaching it is dying.

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Baptism Random Notes

A theology of Bridal maturation would not dichotomize, but rather strengthen the spiritual and fleshly nature of the covenant under a new creation.

Also, covenant theology is also expansion theology. By making limitations to the New Creation one is decreasing the glory of the new. Hebrews makes the point that the New Creation is more glorious and greater than the Old Creation by making it more inclusive.

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How do you pronounce “Gresham Machen?”

For those who have wondered, here is the man himself explaining it:

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest “The first syllable is pronounced like May, the name of the month. In the second syllable the ch is as in chin, with e as in pen: may’chen. In Gresham, the h is silent: gres’am.”

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Reading Blogs

I am a voracious blog reader. I read approximately 10 blogs a day. I go through a similar blog liturgy every day. Blogs can be fresh and challenging at times, while they can also be disturbingly infantile. This is why I am very selective in what I read and though no one is craving for my blog readership I want to list a couple of things that absolutely frustrate me about blogs–though some may not share my frustration:

First, blogs which contain any variation of  “continue reading” will not be on my top ten list. The only rare exception to this rule is probably Tim Challies’ blog, which I read frequently. Yet, I rarely if ever click on the “Keep Reading” link. My impression is that if it didn’t make it on the front page then it isn’t all that important. I am generally right about this.

Second, long posts are laborious. Unless it is an article you have written or a lengthy quotation, these posts are generally unnecessary. Save it for a book. Save it for yourself. Or better, divide the lengthy piece into five posts. It means you will have material for the whole week.

Third, pugilistic writing is obnoxious and there should be a law against it. Certain bloggers love the attention they receive from their theological punches. They write inflammatory theo-speak to attract inflammatory people. As one counselor put it: Quit it! There is nothing wrong with offering critiques and taking someone to task over some comment, but to make this the central emphasis of your blog is just repugnant.

Fourthly, if you want my faithful readership then blog frequently and effectively. Blog something everyday. Get into the habit of doing so. Blog quotes you read, a link you found helpful, a you tube video you found amusing or a brief summary of your day. If you blog once every week or once every other week you will have lost my interest. Blogs require consistency to attract readers.

As one who has been blogging for almost seven years I have learned quite a bit about this modern art…I beg you to take heed to my words.

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My Office

As I sit down in my office I am staring at hundreds of books on the floor. They–that is the books–all desire an eschatology of hope. They want to be raptured into a shelf and neatly ordered according to author or in whatever way my brain works these days. In light of our new baby who will be arriving in this world in just a few weeks, I have been graciously persuaded that maintaining two offices is not the best idea. Fortunately, my church office is quite spacious and adding a few more bookshelves will not be problematic. My office is little by little being beautified and organized. It will become soon enough a weekly sacred space to think, write, and meditate.

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On Reading the Past

Reading is a societal aspect of life. In one sense, reading is life. We are trained from our earliest days to read the world. This is what our Dutch Reformed forefathers referred to worldview. We are trained to look at the world and interpret it according to our backgrounds, contexts, etc. Some never develop their reading skills and thus are left to foolishness or a certain inability to communicate with the world around them. Western Civilization did triumph in developing a sophisticated sense of reading, especially in that its past works have become resources, and in many ways, the primary sources for modern and classical education. Nevertheless, classics– or the writings of the past– however profound and philosophically saturated it may be, and however foundational to the civilizations of the future they still do not contain  the last word. In 1,000 years will Plato and Socrates still be the high class of philosophy or will they be one among many of the greats? My suspicion is these names will only be mentioned in passing. Their theories will have been refined or rebuked. Plato may be replaced by Plantinga…we’ll see.

Updated:

After much discussion of this on facebook, my good friend John Fraiser summarizes:

We might be confusing a couple of things in this discussion. Unless it is considered a holy book, the average person isn’t reading anything anyone wrote 1,000+ years ago. That fact says more about our culture than those who wrote 1,000+ years ago. Whether or not the average person reads ancient literature is hardly a measure of it’s value. Even if Plato’s thought is largely rejected (as it certainly is – Uri’s right about this), it will still be valuable for putting the history of thought in perspective. Even bad ideas deserve to be studied if they have been held widely enough and long enough. In the sense of understanding the history of ideas, Plato will and should be read till kingdom come. And all the while, no one will really believe him.

What Uri seems to be concerned about is whether Plato’s influence of our current thought will wane. On this point I think he’s right: it won’t last. Though his influence on contemporary thought is still present, it continues to dissipate. But even if his influence should vanish entirely, he will still be read for monumental role in the history of the world.

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Festal Laughter

Peter Leithart quotes sections of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Dialogic Imagination and Rabelais and his World. In his discussion of laughter in the Medieval Ages, Bakhtin talks about how laughter invaded certain celebrations in the Church Year. In particular, he references the paschal laughter:

During the paschal days laughter was traditionally permitted in church. The preacher permitted himself risque jokes and gay-hearted anecdotes from the church pulpit in order to encourage laughter in the congregation — this was conceived as a cheerful rebirth after days of melancholy and fasting.

The problem with most American churches is that laughter is a part of the overall message conveyed on Sunday morning. However, it is not a laughter grounded in a historic event–such as the resurrection–but a laughter grounded in the silliness of random events in the news or sports. Laughter, when synonymous with biblical joy, must always be grounded in paschal joy. Only the resurrection permits us to laugh without the after thought that our laughter is in vain.

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Ligonier’s Conference…

I just got back from Ligonier’s Pastor Conference. Ligon Duncan spoke on God-centered evangelism. Pastor Steve Lawson did a remarkable job explaining the heart of expository preaching. R.C. Sproul spoke on evangelism and several other topics.

I have just bought the ticket for the James White vs. Shelby Spong debate at Disney. They will be discussing the topic: Is Homosexuality compatible with Christianity?