Growing In Grace

Many years have passed since the infamous  Screwtape Letters. After Wormwood was able to calm his uncle and avoid being devoured, he slowly advanced up the ranks. Eventually he moved into a different role where he organized mass attacks on Christianity as a whole. In his farewell memo he seeks to pass on the particulars of his most successful strike.  As I am quickly approaching retirement it is my aim to document what is perhaps the most effective campaign I was able to employ against the Enemy's book. Of course there have been many great attacks on the Enemy's book over the years. Anything we can do to weaken their perverse love for that evil text will vastly improve our efforts.  I am reminded of the many we led astray by focusing our attacks on convincing certain "scholars" to deny the reliability of the Enemy's book. We bolstered the platform of men like Bart Ehrman which enabled us to turn many away from even reading the book. Many children who grew ...

On my drive home today while at a stoplight I noticed a bumpersticker on the car in front of me which read: "Just say NO to Negativity."  It made me wonder, when the phrase was first coined did the originator crack a wry smile? Were they able to think past the end of their nose so as to see the irony? Perhaps they were having a bit of fun with those who would glom on to the phrase without thinking it through? I wonder if the driver understood that they were advertising the denial of negativity with the use of a capitalized negation? There are, of course, only two possibilities: either they fully understood the word play and employed it with ironic intentionality, or, perhaps more likely, they merely loved the idea of promoting positivity and so their use of a negative for negating negativity went unrecognized. If the phrase was used in ignorance we could join in with the cry, "Precision of language," a repeated phrase from the great young adults dystopian nov...

In the first installment we considered how the Bible portrays God's providence as governing all his creatures and their actions, which includes both "the Good and the Bad." We saw how both Naomi and Job declare God's providential control even over evil events which they experienced. And we started to ask the question, how do those texts fit with the many declarations of God's holiness and his inability to be tempted by or to tempt anyone to evil.  (See previous post here ) The Ugly Theologians have wrestled with these questions for years and the best explanation, in my opinion, is known as the Two Wills of God. At first glance the idea that God has two wills seems like theologians are accusing God of being bi-polar or something, but let's take a closer look at why this language has been used. Clearly it is God's will that people should not commit murder. This is, after all, one of the 10 Commandments - "You shall not murder" (Ex 20:13). Th...

Recently we preached through Ruth and my love for the literary masterpieces of the Old Testament has been rekindled. Ruth is a book loaded with puns, wordplay, and double entendre which are all woven together to tell a wonderful story. For this post I want to focus on one of the central theological themes woven through Ruth - the doctrine of Providence. The Good  The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, “God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.” This teaching is found in many places throughout the Bible but Proverbs provides some punchy examples: Proverbs 16:1 “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.  Proverbs 16:33  “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” In all three examples ...

I recently finished reading the excellent little book by Alan Jacobs titled  How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds. In this post I will review some of the highlights of the book and make some applicational comments along the way. Towards the beginning of the book Jacobs quotes T. S. Eliot, "when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend to substitute emotion for thoughts." (1)  In our emotionally charged and polarized world it certainly seems that Eliot was right on target. It is grieving that in our cultural moment disagreeing with someone comes with a knee jerk emotional response and a painting of the other person as the slimiest demogorgon imaginable. Why do we react to things we do not understand the way we do? Since we cannot possibly think about every decision we need to make in a given day our survival depends on having groups which help us to think. Jacobs writes, "Thinking independently, solitarily, 'for ourselves,' is ...

Hidden in Plain Sight Anyone who has ever seen a young child attempt to hide by covering their eyes has enjoyed a heart warming laugh. They are sitting on your lap with your hands holding their sides to keep them from falling over as they throw their little hands up to hide their eyes convinced they are invisible. We find that adorable in an 18 month old, but how it would look if it were someone the age of Shaquille O' Neal? Of course the initial problem would be how well you would fair with having someone the size of Shaq sitting on your lap, but I digress. Clearly a young child does not yet understand that just because they can't see you it does not mean you can't see them. Adults know better, or do they? Romans 1:18-32 speaks of what is true of all people in their natural state. In particular look at: Romans 1:21 - "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hear...

I talk about the gospel - a lot! And there are countless reasons why I put such a great emphasis on this central truth. I have written about this before (http://trevorbinkley.blogspot.com/2012/12/things-of-first-importance-why-i-make.html) and today I want to write about it again. There are so many passages that could be referenced to support the centrality and importance of the gospel, but let's look at the passage referenced in the title of this post: 1 Peter 1:10-12  Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to l...