Pastors should blog:
...to write ...to teach ...to recommend ...to interact ...to develop an eye for what is meaningful ...to be known
Showing posts with label Preaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Preaching. Show all posts
6 Reasons Pastors Should Blog by John Piper
Here's food for thought about blogging. Check out the whole article, but here are his 6 reasons:
Pastors should blog:
Pastors should blog:
The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton
Reading this book about Saint Thomas Aquinas by GKC was an odd experience for me. First, I was reading about a man whom I knew very little about, which gave me a great perspective. Some actually consider this book the best book about Aquinas to be written. But what made this truly odd was that I possibly thought as much about GKC as I did Aquinas as I read. GKC has such a brilliant mind, and thus, writing style, that I had to refrain from highlighting every sentence. To learn a fact about one man while admiring, and being amazed by, the man writing about the man is a unique encounter for me. Hopefully in the following quotes you will see what I mean.
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
British Psychology Society
I came across an interesting blog tonight: The British Psychological Society Research Digest Blog. There were several articles I found provocative.
Possession is 9/10 of the Law (even for adults):
In one study, trying to determine how 2 year olds determine ownership, they observed that whoever is identified as having the item first is the owner, no matter what. The only exception they could see was if it was explicitly stated the "owner" gave the item as a wrapped gift to the second person. Then the children identified the second person as the owner. The researchers concluded:
Illustrations and Object Lessons - A Math Lesson for Preachers:
In a study that found practical examples used to teach abstract functions in Math class were more debilitating for students when they were required to perform the same function in a new situation -- simply: "Students taught with the metaphorical aid of water jugs, slices of pizza or tennis balls in a container, were unable to transfer what they'd learned." The study concludes:
Possession is 9/10 of the Law (even for adults):
In one study, trying to determine how 2 year olds determine ownership, they observed that whoever is identified as having the item first is the owner, no matter what. The only exception they could see was if it was explicitly stated the "owner" gave the item as a wrapped gift to the second person. Then the children identified the second person as the owner. The researchers concluded:
"...the most important next step was to find out where young children get this rule about first possession from. They surmised that it could be learned from hearing utterances like ‘‘It’s her doll, she had it first’’, or it could be innate, the product of a "cognitive system dedicated to reasoning about ownership."
Maybe there's something innate that God gave us to bring us back to him when we consider who "owned" us first.Illustrations and Object Lessons - A Math Lesson for Preachers:
In a study that found practical examples used to teach abstract functions in Math class were more debilitating for students when they were required to perform the same function in a new situation -- simply: "Students taught with the metaphorical aid of water jugs, slices of pizza or tennis balls in a container, were unable to transfer what they'd learned." The study concludes:
"Kaminski's team said that although concrete examples might be more engaging, it seems they may also constrain students' ability to transfer relevant knowledge to a different situation.
The researchers concluded: "If a goal of teaching mathematics is to produce knowledge that students can apply to multiple situations, then presenting mathematical concepts through generic instantiations, such as traditional symbolic notation, may be more effective than a series of 'good examples'.""
The thought that immediately came to my mind is how we attempt to teach children and youth the more ethereal truths of Scripture (i.e. God's being, the Trinity, regeneration, prayer, etc) with our own "slices of pizza and tennis ball" analogies. However, after considering that almost 66% of teens leave the church and their faith after they leave youth group, maybe there is some insight into this study that is relevant for Bible teachers and youth pastors: if we want Disciples of Christ to possess a usable and transferable knowledge of a transcendent God, maybe we shouldn't try so hard to make him "understandable". Sometimes the abstract and the Mystery that is our Creator and Savior is essential to embrace.The researchers concluded: "If a goal of teaching mathematics is to produce knowledge that students can apply to multiple situations, then presenting mathematical concepts through generic instantiations, such as traditional symbolic notation, may be more effective than a series of 'good examples'.""
The Detergent Church by Doug Giles
Wow! Don't know what to think completely, but this guy is on fire! Check out this article by columnist Doug Giles from Townhall.com called The Detergent Church. He offers 10 suggestions to "help the church cease to stink and thus cause our nation to maybe, just maybe, continue to be the great experiment it is." Here's the list, but check out the article for the explanations.
Here's what Giles says, in part, regarding the first point above:
1. Get men who dig being rowdy back in the pulpit.
2. Could we have some sound doctrine, por favor?
3. Preach scary sermons (at least every fourth one).
4. Get rid of 99.9% of “Christian” TV.
5. Quit trying to be relevant and instead become prophetic contrarians, I’m talking contra mundus, mama!
6. Put a 10-year moratorium on “God wants you rich” sermons (yeah, that’s what we need to hear nowadays, you morons, more sermons about money, money, money!).
7. Embrace apologetics and shun shallow faith.
8. Evangelize like it’s 1999.
9. Push lazy Christians to get a life or join a Satanic Church.
10. Demand that if a Christian gets involved in the arts that their “craft” must scream excellence and not excrement.
"If your church is remotely serious about salvaging society then here’s a little raw 411 for you, el pastor: You’re not going to change the USA by being nice but by being bold. And to be bold boys you must have high doses of holy testosterone. Matter of fact, in Moses’ day you couldn’t be a priest if you didn’t have cojones (see Deut. 23:1-4). I say we, the Detergent Church, start kickin’ it old school again and retable that deuteronomic prerequisite for current ministers and wannabes; i.e. you don’t get to lead if you don’t have your boys intact."
To read his thoughts on points 2-5, check out his second article here. A third one is on the way. Can't wait.Biblical Origami
It's interesting (and frustrating) for me to listen to preachers present some "insight" from Scripture as if they were a balloon-artist clown or some origami genius. The illustration for this is that bizarre trick with a US $20 bill and the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Have you seen this one?
When you fold the bill as shown above, you can see a drawing of the Pentagon burning on one side and the Twin Towers in flames on the other. Also, the words "United" and "America[n]" are displayed, which happened to be the two airlines whose planes where hijacked and crashed into the towers. Chilling! Even more curious is that this bill was actually newly introduced into circulation about 1 year before these events happened.
Is this coincidence, a sinister plot, or something completely other? I don't know. But the fascination and speculation and novelty of it all is almost identical to what some preachers offer on a Sunday morning after folding one verse on top of another and turning the whole thing sideways to show you some amazing point never-before seen in Scripture.
It's as if we reject the heresy of the Di Vinci Code, yet practically repeat the scandal by our "creative" hermeneutics. When we "unlock" some interesting connection between words or some obscure Old Testament verse and a New Testament one, we boldly trot it out for viewing to impress our audience. There are many who will believe almost anything.
If you look at the website linked to the "$20 Bill", you will see people who react in hundreds of ways, including those who say this is proof the US government was behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The church is no different today. We have leaders who are more expert with magic tricks and Japanese art forms than actually exegeting the Word of God. It is the unfortunate result of a culture that has forgotten critical thinking or even the basic principles of logic, let alone foundational Christian orthodoxy that should serve as a guide for us.
LAY IT FLAT, LOOK AT IT IN BRIGHT LIGHT, ANALYZE ITS EVERY DETAIL and then hold it up unaltered for all to marvel at. Let's start there and see what God does when we actually take Him at His Word, at face value!
When you fold the bill as shown above, you can see a drawing of the Pentagon burning on one side and the Twin Towers in flames on the other. Also, the words "United" and "America[n]" are displayed, which happened to be the two airlines whose planes where hijacked and crashed into the towers. Chilling! Even more curious is that this bill was actually newly introduced into circulation about 1 year before these events happened.Is this coincidence, a sinister plot, or something completely other? I don't know. But the fascination and speculation and novelty of it all is almost identical to what some preachers offer on a Sunday morning after folding one verse on top of another and turning the whole thing sideways to show you some amazing point never-before seen in Scripture.
It's as if we reject the heresy of the Di Vinci Code, yet practically repeat the scandal by our "creative" hermeneutics. When we "unlock" some interesting connection between words or some obscure Old Testament verse and a New Testament one, we boldly trot it out for viewing to impress our audience. There are many who will believe almost anything.
If you look at the website linked to the "$20 Bill", you will see people who react in hundreds of ways, including those who say this is proof the US government was behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The church is no different today. We have leaders who are more expert with magic tricks and Japanese art forms than actually exegeting the Word of God. It is the unfortunate result of a culture that has forgotten critical thinking or even the basic principles of logic, let alone foundational Christian orthodoxy that should serve as a guide for us.
LAY IT FLAT, LOOK AT IT IN BRIGHT LIGHT, ANALYZE ITS EVERY DETAIL and then hold it up unaltered for all to marvel at. Let's start there and see what God does when we actually take Him at His Word, at face value!
Preaching from the World
There are two places to stand when you preach, and I'm not talking about "in front of" or "behind" the pulpit. I'm thinking "In the world" or "in the Word". Now this is not the typical "we should be in the World but not of it" kind of posts. This has to do with starting points.
Some preachers position themselves by standing in the World: understanding it, its culture, current events, immediate fads and fashions, pressing circumstances/ "breaking news", etc., and then lean into the Word to find something to bring out for the World they live in.
The opposite position is standing in the Word: understanding it, its culture, historical events, pressing truths, and timeless perspective, etc., and then leaning out to the World to offer it to others, saying "Come up here and see for yourself."
The clearest way to tell where a preacher is standing is to measure how much time he spends in a sermon head-down, drawing your attention to what's in the Word, or head high drawing word-pictures and telling funny stories or contemporary parallels/analogies to things in the Word.
Some of you might be objecting, "But you have to apply the Word!" I heartily agree. I think it was Spurgeon who said a sermon should be 50% interpretation and 50% application. The critical distinction is mistaking applications, analogies, illustrations, etc., for interpretation. If you haven't said what the Word says, you can't apply it accurately.
When a preacher short-circuits the process of digging deep and offering his hearers something substantial before heading to the contemporary parallel or insightful example, like a mother who serves a child a plate of food and then cuts it into small pieces so the child can manage it by himself, the preacher ends up just tossing bite-sized nuggets or appetizers to the "children", and ultimately ruining their appetite for God's Word.
Additionally, depending on the preacher, the World they are standing in may have extreme deficiencies. If a preacher is saturated by regional, cultural distinctions (South, West Coast, etc), economic or racial concentrations (predominately White, Latino, Middle Class, or economically poor), rural, cosmopolitan, etc., then much of his preaching is only going to be incestuous (taking from a particular lens and projecting that same lens onto Scripture and holding it back up for his people to see). This can be clearly seen in the Liberation Theology church of Barack Obama, the Health and Wealth preaching of some megachurch, or even as extreme as the "Redneck Bible".
Or maybe a preacher has not so isolated himself into one culture as clearly as this, but simply falls into the more common "Western/American" cultural lens. So when you hear a preacher explain a verse from the Bible, you wonder, "How would an African woman hear that? Or a Filipino Boat Person?" This is the hazard of preaching from the World. If the universal truth of God's Word is not explained first, the application becomes the truth and people walk away thinking the Bible teaches their worldview or cultural distinction.
But when you preach from the Word, you can interpret what it says and then apply it in a relevant way to your immediate audience, whether a group children in Sunday School, young mom's Bible Study, or a large outreach event in a third-world country. The meaning of Scripture is communicated faithfully, and the application of Scripture presented accurately and powerfully.
Finally, for those who would object that this doesn't seem to take sufficient consideration of the audience, including their lack of familiarity with Christianity or ability to comprehend hard, theological concepts, I would suggest that this may indicate that you haven't understood these enough yourself if you can't explain them simply and clearly to the youngest audience member without sacrificing Biblical truth for cultural relevance. Quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
The Bible may be even the most complex of all "complexities", if you will. But that's why it's so critical for preachers to give it simply (the simplicity that comes after wrestling through it, not the simplicity that comes by avoiding it).
Some preachers position themselves by standing in the World: understanding it, its culture, current events, immediate fads and fashions, pressing circumstances/ "breaking news", etc., and then lean into the Word to find something to bring out for the World they live in.
The opposite position is standing in the Word: understanding it, its culture, historical events, pressing truths, and timeless perspective, etc., and then leaning out to the World to offer it to others, saying "Come up here and see for yourself."
The clearest way to tell where a preacher is standing is to measure how much time he spends in a sermon head-down, drawing your attention to what's in the Word, or head high drawing word-pictures and telling funny stories or contemporary parallels/analogies to things in the Word.
Some of you might be objecting, "But you have to apply the Word!" I heartily agree. I think it was Spurgeon who said a sermon should be 50% interpretation and 50% application. The critical distinction is mistaking applications, analogies, illustrations, etc., for interpretation. If you haven't said what the Word says, you can't apply it accurately.
When a preacher short-circuits the process of digging deep and offering his hearers something substantial before heading to the contemporary parallel or insightful example, like a mother who serves a child a plate of food and then cuts it into small pieces so the child can manage it by himself, the preacher ends up just tossing bite-sized nuggets or appetizers to the "children", and ultimately ruining their appetite for God's Word.
Additionally, depending on the preacher, the World they are standing in may have extreme deficiencies. If a preacher is saturated by regional, cultural distinctions (South, West Coast, etc), economic or racial concentrations (predominately White, Latino, Middle Class, or economically poor), rural, cosmopolitan, etc., then much of his preaching is only going to be incestuous (taking from a particular lens and projecting that same lens onto Scripture and holding it back up for his people to see). This can be clearly seen in the Liberation Theology church of Barack Obama, the Health and Wealth preaching of some megachurch, or even as extreme as the "Redneck Bible".
Or maybe a preacher has not so isolated himself into one culture as clearly as this, but simply falls into the more common "Western/American" cultural lens. So when you hear a preacher explain a verse from the Bible, you wonder, "How would an African woman hear that? Or a Filipino Boat Person?" This is the hazard of preaching from the World. If the universal truth of God's Word is not explained first, the application becomes the truth and people walk away thinking the Bible teaches their worldview or cultural distinction.
But when you preach from the Word, you can interpret what it says and then apply it in a relevant way to your immediate audience, whether a group children in Sunday School, young mom's Bible Study, or a large outreach event in a third-world country. The meaning of Scripture is communicated faithfully, and the application of Scripture presented accurately and powerfully.
Finally, for those who would object that this doesn't seem to take sufficient consideration of the audience, including their lack of familiarity with Christianity or ability to comprehend hard, theological concepts, I would suggest that this may indicate that you haven't understood these enough yourself if you can't explain them simply and clearly to the youngest audience member without sacrificing Biblical truth for cultural relevance. Quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
The Bible may be even the most complex of all "complexities", if you will. But that's why it's so critical for preachers to give it simply (the simplicity that comes after wrestling through it, not the simplicity that comes by avoiding it).
A Whole Lotta' Shaking Goin' On
Dad's are notorious for letting little Jimmy sit on his lap and "take the wheel". I remember when I had my first shot at it. I was probably about 8 or 9. We were on a straight stretch of road and my dad let me sit on his lap, at first with his hands and mine on the wheel. He asked me if I thought I could do it, and with all my naive enthusiasm, I said yes, so he took his hands off the wheel. To be continued...
A couple years ago I took my nephew (then around 7) to Disney World. We rode the "car ride" - you know the old fashioned cars that have a motor and are forced to go around the track at about 2 mph following a rail down the middle of the road. Of course, I let him "drive". Well, my nephew did the same thing I did when I was roughly his age sitting on my dad's lap with my hands on the wheel of a real car.
...well, I had watched my dad drive and clearly saw his hands vibrating on the wheel, as if he was moving the wheel back and forth. So as soon as my hands were alone on the wheel, I started jerking the wheel back and forth, to my mother's gasps and shouts at my father to grab the wheel. My nephew "drove" the car at Disney World the exact same way: by jerking the wheel left and right like we were a pinball bouncing back and forth against the middle rail. But I let him be since there was no real danger.
So what's the point besides a charming boyhood memory? Well, I find this a clear analogy to much modern-day preaching. There are preachers who look at the art of preaching and think if they imitate certain tasks (voice intonation, posture, turning to a couple verses connected by a common word/theme, having a certain outline/structure to what is being talked about, etc), they are actually preaching when all they are really doing is jerking those in the seats around, and possibly threatening their well-being.
There is a clear and critical distinction between knowing how to preach and imitating the act of preaching. Regrettably, in many cases, the preacher himself does not notice the difference. The outward elements may look almost identical; like my hands shaking the wheel and the wheel shaking my dad's hands looked identical to me. But the difference is who's doing the shaking.
Some preachers have learned some powerful techniques to "turn on" a crowd. They are doing the shaking. But a true preacher has learned how to turn the crowd on to God and His Word. And here, there may be shaking, but the preacher is simply doing his best to hold on and aim straight while God does His job.
What may appear to be a minor distinction is actually a world of difference.
A couple years ago I took my nephew (then around 7) to Disney World. We rode the "car ride" - you know the old fashioned cars that have a motor and are forced to go around the track at about 2 mph following a rail down the middle of the road. Of course, I let him "drive". Well, my nephew did the same thing I did when I was roughly his age sitting on my dad's lap with my hands on the wheel of a real car.
...well, I had watched my dad drive and clearly saw his hands vibrating on the wheel, as if he was moving the wheel back and forth. So as soon as my hands were alone on the wheel, I started jerking the wheel back and forth, to my mother's gasps and shouts at my father to grab the wheel. My nephew "drove" the car at Disney World the exact same way: by jerking the wheel left and right like we were a pinball bouncing back and forth against the middle rail. But I let him be since there was no real danger.
So what's the point besides a charming boyhood memory? Well, I find this a clear analogy to much modern-day preaching. There are preachers who look at the art of preaching and think if they imitate certain tasks (voice intonation, posture, turning to a couple verses connected by a common word/theme, having a certain outline/structure to what is being talked about, etc), they are actually preaching when all they are really doing is jerking those in the seats around, and possibly threatening their well-being.
There is a clear and critical distinction between knowing how to preach and imitating the act of preaching. Regrettably, in many cases, the preacher himself does not notice the difference. The outward elements may look almost identical; like my hands shaking the wheel and the wheel shaking my dad's hands looked identical to me. But the difference is who's doing the shaking.
Some preachers have learned some powerful techniques to "turn on" a crowd. They are doing the shaking. But a true preacher has learned how to turn the crowd on to God and His Word. And here, there may be shaking, but the preacher is simply doing his best to hold on and aim straight while God does His job.
What may appear to be a minor distinction is actually a world of difference.
Preaching Analogies
Here are two analogies of modern-day preaching that might help explain where I see the error in what happens with the handling of the Word.
The Mosaic -
The Word of God as a whole, and its parts divided in logical paragraphs/texts, is an amazing picture of God and His work in Human history. In many ways, these historical vignettes are laid out like a mosaic picture. Yet, when a preacher turns to a text and picks up a particular tile (interesting word, phrase, or Greek translation of such) to examine it and hold it up for his audience to review, and then moves on to the next little nugget of intrigue, etc., 
one ends up with simply a collection of colorful tiles at the end of the event, and not much more. Ultimately, these are pretty, but not barely as inspiring, nor reflective of anything coherent toward a view of God or His work.
Oranges -
I recently saw a calendar with pictures of "food art", which I honestly found amazing. Unfortunately, using food to make art has very limited usefulness. If we, as preachers, view our audience as mere spectators, or people looking to be amused like a crowd gathered around a mime or other street performer, then we will merely use our platform like a milk crate surrounded by the sounds of ooh's and aah's as we present our "creative" product, sculpted out of food intended for nourishment.
The Mosaic -
The Word of God as a whole, and its parts divided in logical paragraphs/texts, is an amazing picture of God and His work in Human history. In many ways, these historical vignettes are laid out like a mosaic picture. Yet, when a preacher turns to a text and picks up a particular tile (interesting word, phrase, or Greek translation of such) to examine it and hold it up for his audience to review, and then moves on to the next little nugget of intrigue, etc., 
one ends up with simply a collection of colorful tiles at the end of the event, and not much more. Ultimately, these are pretty, but not barely as inspiring, nor reflective of anything coherent toward a view of God or His work.Oranges -
I recently saw a calendar with pictures of "food art", which I honestly found amazing. Unfortunately, using food to make art has very limited usefulness. If we, as preachers, view our audience as mere spectators, or people looking to be amused like a crowd gathered around a mime or other street performer, then we will merely use our platform like a milk crate surrounded by the sounds of ooh's and aah's as we present our "creative" product, sculpted out of food intended for nourishment.
But if we view those who gather in the sanctuary, seated in front of a pulpit (called "the sacred desk" in older days) as fallen souls hungry to "taste and see" that the Lord is good, then we should do nothing more to improve or decorate our subject matter than to simply squeeze out its essence as purely and thoroughly as possible with human hands and offer these thirsty souls a cold drink.
Ten Shekels and a Shirt
Here is a post on my friend Walter's site that links a great sermon about the distinction between humanism (the chief end of man is to be happy) and true Christianity (the chief end of man is to glorify God); and how the first can almost indistinguishably seduce our motivations all the while we believe we are holding to the second. It is by an old-fashioned style preacher and the message is well worth listening to. I highly recommend it. Thanks for posting it Walter.
Originality in the Pulpit
I collect quotes and have a computer file where they are all organized. Today as I was looking up one to offer to a friend, I re-read this one and just had to air it out and hang it on the line for the rest of you. A.W. Tozer was a prophet of his time, and ours, I believe. Reading what he writes generally makes me want to shout AMEN!
Where is the serious man?
"Some preachers have such a phobia for repetition and such an unnatural fear of the familiar that they are forever straining after the odd and the startling. The church page of the newspaper almost any Saturday will be sure to announce at least one or two sermon topics so far astray as to be positively grotesque; only by the most daring flight of uncontrolled imagination can any relation be established between the topic and the religion of Christ. We dare not impugn the honesty or the sincerity of the men who thus flap their short wings so rapidly in an effort to take off into the wild blue yonder, but we do deplore their attitudes. No one should try to be more original than an apostle." God Tells the Man Who Cares, 144.
I actually see this today quite often when preachers toss out some "novel nugget of truth" which can quite easily be found in an email forward that everyone gets in their daily junk folder. These catch phrases, these slogans, these one-liners, these mantras, these sound bites, these witty contrivances that are intended to accomplish the equivalent of a oratorical sugar high, most often just make me sick to my stomach.Where is the serious man?
The Devil's Gauntlet by Os Guinness
For the life of me I cannot recall which blog I was reading that strongly recommended this little pamphlet, but I believed them and bought it -- and loved it. Guinness actually wrote this in 1989 and it is just as relevant today as I'm sure it was back then. The subtitle is "The Church and the Challenge of Society." Guinness opens by stating, "Speak intelligently for more than two minutes and with more than one thought in each, and you are considered dangerously intellectual and unspiritual.... We must forswear simple answers to tough questions and be prepared to pray, think and sweat intellectually in order to see where we are and what the Lord would have us do. One of the most momentous of these questions is this: How should the church today be related to society today?" (3).
He explains, "The purpose of this pamphlet is to set out first principles and general guidelines" related to this issue. Guinness then offers (1) 2 Perspectives, (2) 2 Principles, (3) 2 Great Deficiencies, (4) 2 Reminders of where we are today, (5) 2 Requirements in relation to society, and (6) 2 Requirements in relation to the Lord.
In summary:
1 - "Society is always and everywhere two things at once: God's gift to us and the Devil's gauntlet thrown down before us, to challenge us to worship him and not Christ.... The world is simply our hearts writ large. Our hearts are simply the world writ small. So our view of society needs to be deeply realistic."
2 - There is both a protagonist and antagonist relationship with society. Christ is over all and over against all. "In short, God and the world stand crosswise. We are in the world, but not of it. To be faithful to him, we have to be foreign to the world."
3 - We have broken the link between belief and behavior and between the private and public world of faith. "From the Hallmark-card theology of a thousand churches to the nauseating nonsense of PTL, American evangelicalism is awash in a sloppy, sentimental, superficial theology that wouldn't empower a clockwork mouse, let alone a disciple of Christ in the tough, modern world."
4 - "...the United States is approaching the close of a generation-long crisis of cultural authority [remember this was written in '89]. After the great sixties' lurch in directions liberal, radical and secular came the great eighties' counter-lurch in directions conservative, traditional and religious. Now, with the failure of both revolutions on their own terms, we enter the showdown years that will reveal which faiths, which world views and which moral principles are going to prove decisive in shaping the nation over the next generations."
5 - We need a Christian mind and a public philosophy. "Failure to 'think Christianly' is the Achilles' heel of English-speaking evangelicalism.... When will we face the fact that our deep-rooted anti-intellectualism is worse than ineffective? It is sub-Christian, disobedient, antispiritual and unloving. Only when we root out the last traces of it can we hope to exercise the public influence that faithfulness to Christ demands." "Christian justice is not justice for Christians. It is justice for everybody.... The public is tired of the trench warfare over religion and public life. But if we are not careful, the danger is of a great sea change in public attitudes. Instead of faith and freedom being viewed as blood brothers, as they have been for two hundred years, they will come to be viewed as in opposing corners--with titanic implications for the gospel and for the nation."
6 - What we need most is "God Himself... - a proclamation of the Word and a visitation of the Spirit." "Having visited almost all the countries in the English-speaking world, I would say that I know none where the churches are more full and the sermons more empty than in America.... I am never hungrier and rarely angrier than when I come out of an American evangelical church after what passes for the preaching of the Word of God.... The real problem is that in what is said there is almost no sense of announcement from God; and in what is shown, there is almost no sense of anointing by God."
Referencing a speech by Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative strategist, called 'Taking Stock',
"Even if we conservatives win our entire agenda, we've lost." He shocked his audience further. "Yes," he said, "abortion, school prayer...win them all, and we will still have failed." Why? Because social change has changed too much, political change can change too little. Culture is flowing away faster than any piecemeal action can remedy. Nothing short of a total cultural transformation of America will do. Curiously, evangelicals a generation ago would have taken that as a truism. But in a day when political activism is in vogue, many who used to pray confidently, realistically and practically for revival no longer have that hunger for a visitation from God."
"The ultimate factor in the church's engagement with society is the church's engagement with God."
And I shout, "AMEN!"
He explains, "The purpose of this pamphlet is to set out first principles and general guidelines" related to this issue. Guinness then offers (1) 2 Perspectives, (2) 2 Principles, (3) 2 Great Deficiencies, (4) 2 Reminders of where we are today, (5) 2 Requirements in relation to society, and (6) 2 Requirements in relation to the Lord.
In summary:
1 - "Society is always and everywhere two things at once: God's gift to us and the Devil's gauntlet thrown down before us, to challenge us to worship him and not Christ.... The world is simply our hearts writ large. Our hearts are simply the world writ small. So our view of society needs to be deeply realistic."
2 - There is both a protagonist and antagonist relationship with society. Christ is over all and over against all. "In short, God and the world stand crosswise. We are in the world, but not of it. To be faithful to him, we have to be foreign to the world."
3 - We have broken the link between belief and behavior and between the private and public world of faith. "From the Hallmark-card theology of a thousand churches to the nauseating nonsense of PTL, American evangelicalism is awash in a sloppy, sentimental, superficial theology that wouldn't empower a clockwork mouse, let alone a disciple of Christ in the tough, modern world."
4 - "...the United States is approaching the close of a generation-long crisis of cultural authority [remember this was written in '89]. After the great sixties' lurch in directions liberal, radical and secular came the great eighties' counter-lurch in directions conservative, traditional and religious. Now, with the failure of both revolutions on their own terms, we enter the showdown years that will reveal which faiths, which world views and which moral principles are going to prove decisive in shaping the nation over the next generations."
5 - We need a Christian mind and a public philosophy. "Failure to 'think Christianly' is the Achilles' heel of English-speaking evangelicalism.... When will we face the fact that our deep-rooted anti-intellectualism is worse than ineffective? It is sub-Christian, disobedient, antispiritual and unloving. Only when we root out the last traces of it can we hope to exercise the public influence that faithfulness to Christ demands." "Christian justice is not justice for Christians. It is justice for everybody.... The public is tired of the trench warfare over religion and public life. But if we are not careful, the danger is of a great sea change in public attitudes. Instead of faith and freedom being viewed as blood brothers, as they have been for two hundred years, they will come to be viewed as in opposing corners--with titanic implications for the gospel and for the nation."
6 - What we need most is "God Himself... - a proclamation of the Word and a visitation of the Spirit." "Having visited almost all the countries in the English-speaking world, I would say that I know none where the churches are more full and the sermons more empty than in America.... I am never hungrier and rarely angrier than when I come out of an American evangelical church after what passes for the preaching of the Word of God.... The real problem is that in what is said there is almost no sense of announcement from God; and in what is shown, there is almost no sense of anointing by God."
Referencing a speech by Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative strategist, called 'Taking Stock',
"Even if we conservatives win our entire agenda, we've lost." He shocked his audience further. "Yes," he said, "abortion, school prayer...win them all, and we will still have failed." Why? Because social change has changed too much, political change can change too little. Culture is flowing away faster than any piecemeal action can remedy. Nothing short of a total cultural transformation of America will do. Curiously, evangelicals a generation ago would have taken that as a truism. But in a day when political activism is in vogue, many who used to pray confidently, realistically and practically for revival no longer have that hunger for a visitation from God."
"The ultimate factor in the church's engagement with society is the church's engagement with God."
And I shout, "AMEN!"
Book List for Preachers
Here's a great list of recommended books for preachers by Albert Mohler. I'm always a fan of top book lists, and this one fits well within my interests. If you want to get me birthday present (March 31), here's a great place to start!
Application in Preaching
Here is a great article on applying the truths of God's Word when preaching expositionally. Sometimes it is hard to see how the Word is applied in a sermon that seems "heady". But this may be because one simply does not see the application. Here is an excerpt (but the whole article is worthwhile):
"When I preach the Word, I am called to expound the Scriptures, to take a passage of God's Word and explain it clearly, compellingly, even urgently. In this process, there are at least three different kinds of application which reflect three different kinds of problems we find in our own Christian pilgrimage. First, we struggle under the blight of ignorance. Second, we wrestle with doubt, often more than we at first realize. Finally, we sin whether through direct disobedient acts, or through sinful negligence. All three of these we long to see changed in us and our hearers every time we preach God's Word. And each gives rise to a different kind of legitimate application.
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One final note. Proverbs 23:12 says "Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge." In English translations, it seems that the words translated "apply" in the Bible almost always (maybe always?) have reference not to the preacher's work (as homiletics teaches us) nor even to the Holy Spirit's (as systematics rightly teaches us) but to the work of the one who hears the Word. We are called to apply the word to our own hearts, and to apply ourselves to that work.
That, perhaps, is the single most important application we could make next Sunday for the benefit of all of God's people."Church Shopping, Part 2: Biblical Preaching
Do you pick a candy bar based on its packaging or the taste of its contents? Do you eat the candy bar or just lick the wrapper? You will get some chocolate regardless of which you choose, but whether you end up just looking at it, sampling it, or consuming it depends on your approach? These are simply analogies to much of today’s “Biblical” preaching. When it comes to preachers and the Bible, there are vast differences in what they provide, regardless of what they promise. In my career as a “church shopper” I have come to realize that there are about four ways preachers can handle the Bible within the Evangelical world. I categorize the four approaches as follows:
1) The Life Coach – This is the kind that sees every text as a key to a better life. It focuses more on living in the 9-5 world and balancing the many responsibilities of family, work, finances, etc. There are phrases and statements in Scripture that are plucked from their branches and offered as savory bites of refreshing nourishment for the weary soul. The structure and content of this sermon is based on either common sense or popular self-help principles, including positive thinking, crisis management, and achieving your personal potential for success. These may not be contrary to Scriptural teachings on the surface (since integrity, hard work, peace, and kindness are valuable characteristics in making life productive and enjoyable), but ultimately are disconnected from their roots. Difficult issues and explicitly theological/doctrinal themes are pushed to the side. It’s not as much about having a Christian worldview as having Christian tools to use. Ultimately, this approach would be beneficial regardless if the audience member is a Christian or not. This is a very “Seeker Sensitive” approach. To put it another way, this is like “Duct Tape” Christianity; meaning you can use it to fix almost any problem (or even as fashion accessories nowadays). It’s very practical and comes in a variety of colors. All you need is one roll and you’ll be set for life!
2) The Painter – This sermon addresses things that are widely “Christian”, making broad strokes to paint a pretty picture of a generalized Christian worldview, but doesn’t necessarily connect it directly to any specific text. The preacher uses broad themes and principles of Christianity that many people already understand and doesn’t give many details beyond the chosen truth he’s attempting to expound. Common themes are forgiveness, authenticity, loving others, being light in a dark world, etc. Here, there are discussions of doctrinal/theological truths presented in simple, if not vague, terms more designed for elementary school age children than adults of the faith (i.e. “hell is a place where God is absent”). The sermons are filled with catchy truisms and quaint folk wisdom that serve as spiritual sugar highs (they give you a rush of energy and optimism, but fade quickly when the complexities of life confront those fed a constant diet of such sweetness). This method settles for simplistic (not simple) solutions and avoids the substance of the Christian faith that many conclude are just messy details. This approach can be identified by the conclusion “Good sermon, wrong text.” It may even be a lot like a Chinese buffet – you’ll leave feeling stuffed, only to be hungry again in an hour.
3) The Philosopher – This is the kind of preacher that uses the Bible as a book removed from reality (containing real characters and real lives and real lessons in a very real history) in order to mine its deeper, overarching meanings. There is a lens overlaid on the text that finds a similar truth under every verse. It is a complex truth that is supported by a “deeper” reading of the text. Sometimes I would characterize John Piper in this camp. He sees his “Christian Hedonism” in every jot and tittle – even if it’s a stretch. He presents this as a revolutionary insight to the depth of God’s wisdom revealed in His Word. Everything is connected to it. There is one nail that the hammer of every book pounds on, so to speak. This method can be seen in the preachers of the “Health and Wealth Gospel” as well. The problem is that in its claim of presenting a complex truth simplified, they are doing the exact opposite – presenting a simple (singular) truth complexly (as if something so profound would never have been uttered by Jesus in a single sermon or comment to his disciples, but rather has only been discovered by such a thorough framework constructed by a particular theologian/ preacher). This approach definitely appeals to slices of the Christian population, like one-issue politicians can appeal to a very energized base. But its greatest hazard is a lack of balance.
4) The Baker – I would illustrate this approach with the image of a bread baker. Ultimately, you want someone to smell the aroma and hunger for a taste in order to walk away fed and satisfied. This will draw them to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Yes, there are eggs and flour and yeast and salt (all the essential components). But you don’t want the people to eat the raw eggs or dry flour. You must present it as a complete product with every element in place. This approach takes a text and breaks it down into its key ingredients, including the cultural, historical, and grammatical elements. It balances the weight of these components on the primary truth of the text and allows them all to rest on and compound the force of that truth in order to persuade the hearers of the original intent of the text. It starts with the final product, the primary truth, and then slices it and presents the “recipe” in order to seduce the audience to partake. There are many preachers who find delight in the theological “dirty work” of preparing a sermon, so much so that they bring their floured aprons to the pulpit. They show with explicit detail and great passion every sing ingredient, but fail to actually bake the bread and let me smell it, let alone taste the warm, soft, fresh “essence of life” that this bread truly is.
There is insight that study will reveal. There is practical help that God offers for everyday living. There are sweet nuggets of giddy relevance in the Word. It is witty, true, concise, profound, and all the things that preachers want to be. I get the sense today that most preachers want the focus to be on them and how they are doing their “job” or inspiring “their” people or growing “their” church. However, the greatest sermon I have ever heard is one in which I completely forgot about the preacher because I was so consumed by the text. God fed me because the preacher broke the Bread of Life and stepped aside for me to partake (Thanks, Chris McGarvey). O that there would be many more “Bakers” in the Kingdom!
Interpreting Scripture
Between Two Worlds has a great post regarding Wayne Grudem's advice about interpreting Scripture. Some great guidelines for preachers.
The Thick Darkness of Sermon Preparation
If there is a verse that might describe the act of sermon preparation for a preacher, I think it would possibly be Ex 20:21. Here God has just led the Israelites out of bondage and has brought them to Mt Sinai to receive His law. Verse 18 states "When the people saw the thunder and lightening and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.'" So Moses goes to "prepare his first sermon" in verse 21:
How difficult the climb, how dark the destination, how lonely the labor to meet with God in order to bring His Word to His people!
But, how glorious and life-giving the message!
"The people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was."
How difficult the climb, how dark the destination, how lonely the labor to meet with God in order to bring His Word to His people!
But, how glorious and life-giving the message!
word AND SPIRIT!
OK, so as much as I advocate for the power of the Word of God to affect change in people's lives, this article is a great example of how the Word alone (or more accurately, the Word read by a blind man without the Spirit) will not necessarily change anything. That seems so difficult to write in light of my very strong conviction. I think for Christians, who are indwelt by the Spirit of God, the Word of God is simultaneously made alive and active in their hearing/reading of it. That's why preachers must preach the Word. But for an unbeliever, simply reading the book cover-to-cover, so to speak, will not necessarily guarantee conversion or any other greater impact, apart from God's enlightening of it by His Spirit - the man is still blinded and unable to comprehend spiritual truth, as Paul explains.
So that's the explanation for A.J. Jacobs who spent a year of his life trying to live by every rule in the Bible. He's going to publish a book about his experience, but here is an interview with him about it.
Of course, there are points I would love to rebut from his experience. One in particular is his conclusion that you should pick and choose which parts work for you - sort of a "cafeteria-style" of religion. Jacobs states: "It’s all about picking the right parts. You want to take a heaping serving of the parts about compassion, mercy and gratefulness—instead of the parts about hatred and intolerance." My question is where in the Bible dos it ever teach hatred or intolerance? I have read the whole thing as well and never found these parts. He does illustrate this point with the man being the head of the household and making decisions. Somehow this is a bit of a stretch (and probably a bias in Jacobs) if he thinks this is "hatred" or "intolerance".
I did like what he had to say about the impact the "rules" had on his life for the year. He explains, "We all talk about freedom of choice, but there’s something very attractive about freedom from choice. Religion provides structure, mooring, anchoring." He says he felt very unmoored when the year was over. This makes sense to me.
A very interesting experiment in the social usefulness of Scripture, apart from its intended purpose of revealing the character/nature of God and His ways in order to facilitate a relationship with our creator. I'm not sure I need to read Jacobs' book, as much as I need to read more of God's.
So that's the explanation for A.J. Jacobs who spent a year of his life trying to live by every rule in the Bible. He's going to publish a book about his experience, but here is an interview with him about it.
Of course, there are points I would love to rebut from his experience. One in particular is his conclusion that you should pick and choose which parts work for you - sort of a "cafeteria-style" of religion. Jacobs states: "It’s all about picking the right parts. You want to take a heaping serving of the parts about compassion, mercy and gratefulness—instead of the parts about hatred and intolerance." My question is where in the Bible dos it ever teach hatred or intolerance? I have read the whole thing as well and never found these parts. He does illustrate this point with the man being the head of the household and making decisions. Somehow this is a bit of a stretch (and probably a bias in Jacobs) if he thinks this is "hatred" or "intolerance".
I did like what he had to say about the impact the "rules" had on his life for the year. He explains, "We all talk about freedom of choice, but there’s something very attractive about freedom from choice. Religion provides structure, mooring, anchoring." He says he felt very unmoored when the year was over. This makes sense to me.
A very interesting experiment in the social usefulness of Scripture, apart from its intended purpose of revealing the character/nature of God and His ways in order to facilitate a relationship with our creator. I'm not sure I need to read Jacobs' book, as much as I need to read more of God's.
Mike Bullmore on Preaching
One of my preaching professors from Seminary is now a pastor of a church affiliated with the Sovereign Grace community. He recently preached to preachers about preaching and you can download and listen to his comments for free, if you are interested. I truly respect him and look forward to listening myself.
UPDATE:
OK, so I have now listened to this presentation and am all the more insistent that you listen, especially if you are a preacher! Bullmore articulates solid foundation combined with great practicality covered in a deep passion that is evident in his tone and content. I do remember much of this from my class with him at TEDS, but there is much that is new and beneficial. There isn't a minute of wasted commentary in this 1 hour session. From his beginning quotes to his final answers to participant questions, all is worth noting. I only wish there was a transcript of this so I could meditate more on it. There is much that underscores other posts I have included here. A wonderful, concise, valuable resource for preachers!
UPDATE:
OK, so I have now listened to this presentation and am all the more insistent that you listen, especially if you are a preacher! Bullmore articulates solid foundation combined with great practicality covered in a deep passion that is evident in his tone and content. I do remember much of this from my class with him at TEDS, but there is much that is new and beneficial. There isn't a minute of wasted commentary in this 1 hour session. From his beginning quotes to his final answers to participant questions, all is worth noting. I only wish there was a transcript of this so I could meditate more on it. There is much that underscores other posts I have included here. A wonderful, concise, valuable resource for preachers!
Bryan Chapell on Preaching
Here is a great interview of Bryan Chapell on expository preaching worth browsing over. I also came across a great resource for preaching by Chapell on the university website where Chapell teaches. You can actually take a college-level course on Christ-centered Preaching for free by watching video lectures or reading the lecture notes from Chapell.
The Role of Reading in Preaching
In conjunction with my review of Neil Postman's Book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and my post on Unschooled Scholars, I offer these thoughts on the act of preaching. I do not know, nor does he reveal, the theological persuasion of Neil Postman; and honestly it probably does not matter. His observations are credible enough as an historian. He explains, "No clearer example of the difference between earlier and modern forms of public discourse can be found than in the contrast between the theological arguments of Jonathan Edwards and those of, say, Jerry Falwell, or Billy Graham, or Oral Roberts (popular TV preachers in 1985). The formidable content to Edwards' theology must inevitably engage the intellect; if there is such a content to the theology of the television evangelicals, they have not yet made it known" (56). The great revivalists in America, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles Finney, were profound intellectuals as well as masterful preachers. Edwards was an academician who "spent long hours each day in his study. He did not speak to his audiences extemporaneously. He read his sermons, which were tightly knit and closely reasoned expositions of theological doctrine" (54). It is reported that he even read in monotone his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which sparked the first American Great Awakening. Finney "had been trained as a lawyer, wrote an important book on systematic theology, and ended his career as a professor at and then president of Oberlin College" (55).
Postman catalogues quite thoroughly how "the churches in America laid the foundation of our system of higher education" (55). Among the schools founded by various denominations in the 18th and 19th centuries are Yale, Harvard, the University of Tennessee, Washington and Jefferson, Lafayette, Colgate, George Washington, Furman, Denison, Wake Forest, Hobart, Trinity, Kenyon, Wesleyan, Emory, Depauw, Williams, Middlebury, Amherst, and Oberlin.
What I find pertinent in Postman's work is the the concept of exposition. I am an advocate for expository preaching, as opposed to topical. You can review my previous posts on this subject. What Postman contributes to this discussion is his persuasive support from a completely different angle. He explains, "I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether" (121). This is in line with G.K. Chesterton's famous assessment: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but rather has been found difficult and left untried." But is this the image that current preachers convey (whether on TV or elsewhere)?
The fact that Scripture is typographical (word-based) [it is not a picture book], which carries with it an automatic context, logic, and propositions, how is it possible for preaching that is supposedly rooted in Scripture to not fit the same mold.
Postman catalogues quite thoroughly how "the churches in America laid the foundation of our system of higher education" (55). Among the schools founded by various denominations in the 18th and 19th centuries are Yale, Harvard, the University of Tennessee, Washington and Jefferson, Lafayette, Colgate, George Washington, Furman, Denison, Wake Forest, Hobart, Trinity, Kenyon, Wesleyan, Emory, Depauw, Williams, Middlebury, Amherst, and Oberlin.
What I find pertinent in Postman's work is the the concept of exposition. I am an advocate for expository preaching, as opposed to topical. You can review my previous posts on this subject. What Postman contributes to this discussion is his persuasive support from a completely different angle. He explains, "I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether" (121). This is in line with G.K. Chesterton's famous assessment: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but rather has been found difficult and left untried." But is this the image that current preachers convey (whether on TV or elsewhere)?
The fact that Scripture is typographical (word-based) [it is not a picture book], which carries with it an automatic context, logic, and propositions, how is it possible for preaching that is supposedly rooted in Scripture to not fit the same mold.
"From Erasmus in the sixteenth century to Elizabeth Einstein in the twentieth, almost every scholar who has grappled with the question of what reading does to one's habits of mind has concluded that the process encourages rationality; that the sequential, propositional character of the written word fosters what Walter Ong calls the 'analytic management of knowledge.' To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and over generalizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another" (51).
If a preacher, as biblical scholar and reader first, is doing any of this, how is it that a sermon bears no marks of this work? Postman explains, "For two centuries, America declared its intentions, expressed its ideology, designed its laws, sold its products, created its literature and addressed its deities with black squiggles on white paper" (63). I would broaden this claim, highlighting Christianity being codified from its earliest form with written words (including propositional truth, etc), and even larger, based on Jewish written Scriptures. In the beginning was the Word! The word, first oral, then written, is foundational to our faith. It should be foundational to our pulpits, both the content and form. But this requires much study, as any diligent reader knows.
In Peter Adam's Speaking God's Words, Moses is highlighted as the first preacher. His sermons are an exposition of the law "Moses undertook to expound this law" (Dt 1:5); applies his text to his readers, and exhorts the people to obey (or propositional, to use Postman's language) "So now, Israel, give heed to the statues and ordinances that I am teaching you..." (Dt 4:1, etc). Remember, Moses then wrote down this law and had the priests put it in the Ark of the Covenant. And all subsequent ebbs and tides in the history of Israel corresponded to their following or their forgetting what was written. Revivals and deliverance came when the Law (the Written Word) was found and followed. This pattern of exposition and exhortation with application is exactly what happened in Nehemiah 8 when the city of Jerusalem was rebuilt. "Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up.... [The priests] read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read" (8:5).
Adam explains, "Because they are words that God has spoken, they have all the power of God, the speaker, behind them and within them. Our role is not to make God's words powerful through our speaking, but to help people recognize the power and significance of those words" (55). This is where the power of expositional preaching comes from. The Word alone has power to change lives. My words can do nothing. Only to the extent that my preaching is an exposition of God's Word is it powerful to those who hear it. Maybe it can be summarized that a theology of preaching must include a theology of reading, or typography. If this is true, Neil Postman has contributed to my theology of preaching. Thank you Neil.
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