Faster Unto Thee

Piper's "Don't Waste Your Cancer"

Everywhere I turn, I run into someone else who has cancer. From family and friends to parishoners to casual acquaintances, the list keeps growing.

John Piper understands what it means to have cancer, as he has had it himself. Below is an article from John Piper that I have found extremely helpful to me as a pastor. The truth in it can be applied to any situation of suffering. But beware: his assertions, if embraced, will strike a death blow to selfishness, and that always hurts.

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Don't Waste Your Cancer

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By John Piper February 15, 2006

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[Editor's Note: Our friend, David Powlison, of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, who also was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, has added some helpful expansions to John Piper’s ten points. Indented paragraphs beginning with "DP:" are written by David Powlison.]

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.

DP: I (David Powlison) add these reflections on John Piper’s words the morning after receiving news that I have been diagnosed with prostate cancer (March 3, 2006). The ten main points and first paragraphs are his; the second paragraphs are mine.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

DP: Recognizing his designing hand does not make you stoic or dishonest or artificially buoyant. Instead, the reality of God’s design elicits and channels your honest outcry to your one true Savior. God’s design invites honest speech, rather than silencing us into resignation. Consider the honesty of the Psalms, of King Hezekiah (Isaiah 38), of Habakkuk 3. These people are bluntly, believingly honest because they know that God is God and set their hopes in him. Psalm 28 teaches you passionate, direct prayer to God. He must hear you. He will hear you. He will continue to work in you and your situation. This outcry comes from your sense of need for help (28:1-2). Then name your particular troubles to God (28:3-5). You are free to personalize with your own particulars. Often in life’s ‘various trials’ (James 1:2), what you face does not exactly map on to the particulars that David or Jesus faced - but the dynamic of faith is the same. Having cast your cares on him who cares for you, then voice your joy (28:6-7): the God-given peace that is beyond understanding. Finally, because faith always works out into love, your personal need and joy will branch out into loving concern for others (28:8-9). Illness can sharpen your awareness of how thoroughly God has already and always been at work in every detail of your life.

2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

DP: The blessing comes in what God does for us, with us, through us. He brings his great and merciful redemption onto the stage of the curse. Your cancer, in itself, is one of those 10,000 ‘shadows of death’ (Psalm 23:4) that come upon each of us: all the threats, losses, pains, incompletion, disappointment, evils. But in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses: sometimes healing and restoring the body (temporarily, until the resurrection of the dead to eternal life), always sustaining and teaching us that we might know and love him more simply. In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise: James 1:2-5, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39.

3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.

DP: God himself is your comfort. He gives himself. The hymn “Be Still My Soul” (by Katerina von Schlegel) reckons the odds the right way: we are 100% certain to suffer, and Christ is 100% certain to meet us, to come for us, comfort us, and restore love’s purest joys. The hymn “How Firm a Foundation” reckons the odds the same way: you are 100% certain to pass through grave distresses, and your Savior is 100% certain to “be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.” With God, you aren’t playing percentages, but living within certainties.

4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

DP: Paul describes the Holy Spirit is the unseen, inner ‘downpayment’ on the certainty of life. By faith, the Lord gives a sweet taste of the face-to-face reality of eternal life in the presence of our God and Christ. We might also say that cancer is one ‘downpayment’ on inevitable death, giving one bad taste of the reality of of our mortality. Cancer is a signpost pointing to something far bigger: the last enemy that you must face. But Christ has defeated this last enemy: 1 Corinthians 15. Death is swallowed up in victory. Cancer is merely one of the enemy’s scouting parties, out on patrol. It has no final power if you are a child of the resurrection, so you can look it in the eye.

5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

DP: Cherishing Christ expresses the two core activities of faith: dire need and utter joy. Many psalms cry out in a ‘minor key’: we cherish our Savior by needing him to save us from real troubles, real sins, real sufferings, real anguish. Many psalms sing out in a ‘major key’: we cherish our Savior by delighting in him, loving him, thanking him for all his benefits to us, rejoicing that his salvation is the weightiest thing in the world and that he gets last say. And many psalms start out in one key and end up in the other. Cherishing Christ is not monochromatic; you live the whole spectrum of human experience with him. To ‘beat’ cancer is to live knowing how your Father has compassion on his beloved child, because he knows your frame, that you are but dust. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. To live is to know him, whom to know is to love.

6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

DP: What is so for your reading is also true for your conversations with others. Other people will often express their care and concern by inquiring about your health. That’s good, but the conversation easily gets stuck there. So tell them openly about your sickness, seeking their prayers and counsel, but then change the direction of the conversation by telling them what your God is doing to faithfully sustain you with 10,000 mercies. Robert Murray McCheyne wisely said, “For every one look at your sins, take ten looks at Christ.” He was countering our tendency to reverse that 10:1 ratio by brooding over our failings and forgetting the Lord of mercy. What McCheyne says about our sins we can also apply to our sufferings. For every one sentence you say to others about your cancer, say ten sentences about your God, and your hope, and what he is teaching you, and the small blessings of each day. For every hour you spend researching or discussing your cancer, spend 10 hours researching and discussing and serving your Lord. Relate all that you are learning about cancer back to him and his purposes, and you won’t become obsessed.

7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

DP: Our culture is terrified of facing death. It is obsessed with medicine. It idolizes youth, health and energy. It tries to hide any signs of weakness or imperfection. You will bring huge blessing to others by living openly, believingly and lovingly within your weaknesses. Paradoxically, moving out into relationships when you are hurting and weak will actually strengthen others. ‘One anothering’ is a two-way street of generous giving and grateful receiving. Your need gives others an opportunity to love. And since love is always God’s highest purpose in you, too, you will learn his finest and most joyous lessons as you find small ways to express concern for others even when you are most weak. A great, life-threatening weakness can prove amazingly freeing. Nothing is left for you to do except to be loved by God and others, and to love God and others.

8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

DP: Show the world this different way of grieving. Paul said that he would have had “grief upon grief” if his friend Epaphroditus had died. He had been grieving, feeling the painful weight of his friend’s illness. He would have doubly grieved if his friend had died. But this loving, honest, God-oriented grief coexisted with “rejoice always” and “the peace of God that passes understanding” and “showing a genuine concern for your welfare.” How on earth can heartache coexist with love, joy, peace, and an indestructible sense of life purpose? In the inner logic of faith, this makes perfect sense. In fact, because you have hope, you may feel the sufferings of this life more keenly: grief upon grief. In contrast, the grieving that has no hope often chooses denial or escape or busyness because it can’t face reality without becoming distraught. In Christ, you know what’s at stake, and so you keenly feel the wrong of this fallen world. You don’t take pain and death for granted. You love what is good, and hate what is evil. After all, you follow in the image of “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” But this Jesus chose his cross willingly “for the joy set before him.” He lived and died in hopes that all come true. His pain was not muted by denial or medication, nor was it tainted with despair, fear, or thrashing about for any straw of hope that might change his circumstances. Jesus’ final promises overflow with the gladness of solid hope amid sorrows: “My joy will be in you, and your joy will be made full. Your grief will be turned to joy. No one will take your joy away from you. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy will be made full. These things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves” (selection from John 15-17).

9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

DP: Suffering really is meant to wean you from sin and strengthen your faith. If you are God-less, then suffering magnifies sin. Will you become more bitter, despairing, addictive, fearful, frenzied, avoidant, sentimental, godless in how you go about life? Will you pretend it’s business as usual? Will you come to terms with death, on your terms? But if you are God’s, then suffering in Christ’s hands will change you, always slowly, sometimes quickly. You come to terms with life and death on his terms. He will gentle you, purify you, cleanse you of vanities. He will make you need him and love him. He rearranges your priorities, so first things come first more often. He will walk with you. Of course you’ll fail at times, perhaps seized by irritability or brooding, escapism or fears. But he will always pick you up when you stumble. Your inner enemy - a moral cancer 10,000 times more deadly than your physical cancer - will be dying as you continue seeking and finding your Savior: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is very great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose” (Psalm 25).

10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

DP: Jesus is your life. He is the man before whom every knee will bow. He has defeated death once for all. He will finish what he has begun. Let your light so shine as you live in him, by him, through him, for him. One of the church’s ancient hymns puts it this way:

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger
(from “I bind unto myself the name”).

In your cancer, you will need your brothers and sisters to witness to the truth and glory of Christ, to walk with you, to live out their faith beside you, to love you. And you can do same with them and with all others, becoming the heart that loves with the love of Christ, the mouth filled with hope to both friends and strangers.

Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Pastor John

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Keller on Identifying Idols

From the interview with Timothy Keller, author of Counterfeit Gods, in Christianity Today (Nov. 19, 2009, page 71):

How does someone identify their idols?

Look at your daydreams. When you don't have to think about something, like when you are waiting for the bus, where does your mind love to rest? Or, look at where you spend your money most effortlessly. Also, if you take your most uncontrolled emotions or the guilt that you can't get rid of, you'll find your idols at the bottom. Whenever I hear someone say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," it means that person has something that is more important than God, because God forgives them. If you look at your greatest nightmare - if something were to happen that would make you feel had not reason to live - that's a god.

Deliberately Shaping our Children

My family and I spent last week at our conference's annual Family Camp. The week always has its spiritual highlights and fun, and this year was no exception. The sermons from Phil Jerome and the seminar by Dr. Jay Wile were great, and the recreation and fellowship was refreshing.

            With that great review in mind, you might be surprised to hear me say that every year as Family Camp comes around I always think, "Is it worth it?" You see, getting ready for camp takes time, money, a lot of work, and disrupts our family's schedule. It is by no means convenient or easy to go. And our cabin at the campground...is it really worth owning and maintaining it since we only use it 1-3 weeks out of a whole year? And while camp is fun, it is not really a vacation, even though some people use some of their vacation time to attend. We work at camp! There is always the temptation to skip events like Family Camp for the easier life at home.

            But every year at Family Camp, after just one day, I always say to myself, "Yes, it is worth it." Why? It is worth it because my daughter is having positive spiritual experiences that have the potential to shape her for life. By bringing her to camp and putting her in the classes, bringing her to worship services and more, she encounters the Lord in ways that she would not if we stayed home. There is something special about Christian camping done well. Research statistics continue to demonstrate that Christian camp experiences have a profound, positive effect on children, often resulting in deep commitments to Christ.

            If there is one thing I want for my daughter it is for her to become a strong disciple of Jesus. Anything short of that will be a failure. Part of our strategy to foster that is to place her in environments where the Lord can work in her heart in deep ways. Camp is part of that strategy.

            Our vision as a church is to build distinctively Christian families. To see that happen, we must be deliberate in shaping our children's spiritual lives. What are you doing to deliberately shape your children or grandchildren for the Lord? Do you talk with them directly about the Lord, read the Bible and pray with them, keep them steady in church, and do things like send them to camp? Spiritual formation does not happen by accident. Read again Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and rethink what you need to do and start today.

New Blog by Bishop Donald N. Bastian

Bishop Emeritus Donald N. Bastian has a new blog, Just Call Me Pastor. It should prove worthy of regular visits.

Bastian was a Bishop in the Free Methodist Church of North America and then the first Bishop of the Free Methodist Church of Canada. His pastoral wisdom and writing style make for good reading. Pastors will want to visit his blog along with laypeople who wish to benefit from a seasoned minister's reflections on ministry, theology, and the Christian life.

His book God's House Rules was reviewed here a few years ago. His sermons on Christian family life are still available as Mp3 files through that post as well.

Mohler on "How Not to Raise a Pagan"

Dr. Albert Mohler delivered a powerful sermon entitled, "How Not to Raise a Pagan" during his November 6, 2008 visit to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The sermon's text is Deuteronomy 6. Here is my transcript of a portion of the sermon's introduction:

We are witnessing the loss of a generation. It is not comprehensive, by God's grace, but it is, nonetheless, monumental.

There has always has been a pattern that is discernable within the Christian Church of some period of loss among the young when they later  reconnect to the church, but study after study is indicating to us that we are now not experiencing the recovery of a generation that somehow in our complacency we had assumed would happen. The reality is that when most of our high school graduates from our families leave our homes they also leave the church. They also leave any substantial connection to the Christian community. They may have some tacit affiliation or allegiance to the Christian faith but in terms of their lives they live and they think like pagans. We are watching the rise of a pagan generation from within, supposedly, Christian families. And this is coming at the same time that we are witnessing the re-paganization of the culture around us. There is no other way with biblical eyes that we can describe what we are witnessing. As we look around us and we see the contours of this culture, we begin to understand if we listen to the messages, overt and covert, subtle and obvious, when we listen to the advertising, when we – if we dare – dip into the social media and listen to the conversation that is going on, when we listen and we watch and we see, we see the re-paganization of a people all around us. To our utter tragic shock and pain and concern we also see the re-paganization of much of what calls itself the church. We see re-paganization in the form of embraced idolatries, we see re-paganization in terms of the kinds of compromises that Israel was warned never to commit with the Canaanites and with the peoples around her. We see the Christian church now flirting with kinds of amalgams, the kinds of concessions, the kinds of accommodationisms, the kinds of syncretisms, that Israel was warned over and over again that it must avoid at all spiritual costs.  And we also have the testimony that Israel at times did not avoid these things to its own peril and we are witnessing in what may be a Babylonian captivity of the church because of our willful re-paganization and because of our lack of a prophetic confrontation not so much just externally with the paganization of the culture around us, but with our own children who are being taken captive by the spirits of the age.

I don't want to raise pagans. I know you do not want to raise pagans. Many of you in this place today are already parents. Most, by far of you, will one day be parents. You do not want to be the parents of pagans. But if you are not strategic and careful, if you do not heed the Word of the Lord you will raise pagans by default. For others will raise them as pagans out from under you.

Teaching Children Modesty

Before my daughter came (she is now 4 1/2) I thought that the big push for modesty in clothing would come when she neared her teens and became tempted by whatever questionable fashions would be in style at the time. But I was wrong. Teaching modesty had to begin this past year as we picked out clothing for her. You see, many of the clothing styles for little girls are based on current trends among teen girls and young adult women - ridiculously tight pants riding low on the hips, baring the midsection, shirts so tight they looked like they were spray painted on, etc.  These styles are not cute on a small girl (nor on a young adult) but sexualize her and teach her that to dress pretty is to dress provocatively.  Fortunately, our daughter does not like to wear tight clothing as it restricts her very physical play, but that could change if we do not insist on modesty even now.

Teaching modesty to children is lost on most of Christians in America, excepting the Amish, Mennonites , and a few other very conservative groups. Many girls from evangelical churches dress just as provocatively as girls who do not attend such churches. In our hyper-sexualized culture the difference between dressing attractively and provocatively has been lost.

Over at Moore to the Point, Dr. Timothy Paul Jones has a great post on Clothing at the Character of the Christian.  Jones writes,

So why am I so unyielding on this issue? Simply this: The clothes that our children wear do not merely cover the nakedness of their flesh; they shape and reflect the contours of our children’s souls.

Jones also offers some action points for parents:

(1) Set clear standards and say no. This isn’t easy. A few weeks ago, I said no to a ballet leotard because it didn’t meet our family’s standards for modesty. No other leotards were available at the dance supply store. As such, my veto resulted in a rather unpleasant chain of events that ended with some crying and behavioral consequences—and with a clear awareness that we will not compromise our family’s standards. Truthfully, I wanted to say yes. In the short term, it would have resulted in far less stress to give the go-ahead to that particular leotard. But, as Hannah’s father, I bear primary responsibility before God for my child’s spiritual formation. And so I said no—firmly, gently, in love—because the long-term building of Hannah’s character matters more to me than the momentary calm that compromise could have achieved.

(2) Recognize that what is emblazoned on your children’s clothing is likely to be expressed at some point in their behavior. If the child’s t-shirt says “Blame It On My Sister,” why are parents shocked when their son eventually tries to avoid responsibility for his actions, even if that means resorting to deception? If you purchase clothes for your son that declare his ideal day to consist of sleeping, eating, and playing video games, why be surprised when he’s living in your basement two decades from now, still expecting you to pay his bills while he sleeps, eats, and plays video games? “But what the shirts say—they’re just joking,” parents respond. “You’re not supposed to take them seriously!” And perhaps the clothing manufacturers do intend such statements to be taken with a grain of salt. But history suggests that, what one generation smirks at, the next generation accepts as an inescapable state of affairs.

(3) Admit that the need for peer popularity is over-rated. Another primary cop-out from parents: “But my child has to dress this way to fit in at school.” In the first place, such a statement implies that the authority of the peer group matters more than the wisdom of the parents or the Word of God. In the second place, this implies that you would want your offspring to “fit” into a group that evidently bases its valuation of a child on that child’s clothing. Yet, even if we bypass these faulty foundational principles, there’s still a problem with this line of thinking: The idea that this type of peer popularity is necessary for healthy development is a recent phenomenon, rooted more in the social function of the American school system than in any perennial truths about human nature. In fact, despite decades of family fragmentation, the way that a child is accepted in his or her family remains far more important for the child’s development than acceptance or rejection at school. I’m not suggesting here that you should work to make your child unpopular with peers—but such acceptance is far less crucial than we’ve been led to believe.

Read the whole thing. It is worth your time, especially if you are a parent.

Ravi Zacharias on Contemplation

I must confess that while I subscribe to the A Slice of Infinity newsletter from Ravi Zacharias  International Ministries, I often delete it. The issues are always good and written by various team members of RZIM. But with all that I have to read in a given day, they are often too long. But today's caught my eye, convicted my soul, spoke to contemporary ministry, and spoke to my commitment to reading through the whole Bible this year with the ESV Study Bible reading plan (Download Daily Bible Reading Plan ESV pdf ). Here it is, written by Zacharias himself:

Think on These Things

 One of the tragic casualties of our age has been that of the contemplative life--a life that thinks, a life thinks things through, and more particularly, thinks God’s thoughts after Him. A person sitting at his or her desk staring out the window would never be assumed to be working. No! Thinking is not equated with work. Yet, had Newton under his tree, or Archimedes in his bathtub, bought into that prejudice, some natural laws would still be up in the air or buried under an immovable rock. Pascal’s Pensees, or “Thoughts,” a work that has inspired millions, would have never been penned.

 What is even more destructive is the assumption that silence is inimical to life. The radio in the car, Muzak in the elevator, and the symphony entertaining callers "on hold" all add up as grave impediments to personal reflection. In effect, the mind is denied the privilege of living with itself even briefly and is crowded with outside impulses to cope with aloneness.

 Aldous Huxley’s indictment, “Most of one’s life... is one prolonged effort to prevent thinking,” seems frightfully true. Moreover, the price paid for this scenario has been devastating. As T.S. Eliot questioned:

Where is the life we have lost in the living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to dust.

 Is there a remedy? May I make some suggestions for personal and corporate benefit? Nothing ranks higher for mental discipline than a planned and systematic study of God’s Word, from whence life’s parameters and values are planted in the mind. Paul, who loved his books and parchments, affirmed the priority of Scripture: “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). And Psalm 119 promises that God’s statutes keep us from being double-minded.

 The church as a whole and the pulpit in particular must challenge the mind of this  generation. The average young person today actually surrenders the intellect to the world, presuming Christianity to be bereft of intelligence. Many a pulpit has succumbed to the lie that anything intellectual cannot be spiritual or exciting.

 Thankfully there are exceptions. When living in England, our family attended a church where preaching was taken quite seriously and one-hour sermons to packed auditoriums were the norm. Cambridge, being rife with skepticism, demanded a meticulous defense of each sermon text. I mention this to say one thing. When we were leaving Cambridge, our youngest child, who was nine years old, declared the preaching of this church to be one of his fondest memories. Even as a little boy he had learned that when the mind is rightly approached, it filters down to the heart. The matter I share here has far-reaching implications. We do a disservice to our youth by not crediting them with the capacity to think. We cannot leave this uncorrected.

 The Bible places supreme value on the thought-life as that which shapes all of life. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he,” Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin’s gravity lay at the level of the idea itself, not just the act. Paul admonished the church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he wrote: “[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). The follower of Christ must demonstrate to the world what it means not just to think, but to think justly. That is, in the words of aging David to his son Solomon, to “acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject  you forever" (1 Chronicles 28:9).

 Let us serve the God of creation with both hearts and minds. After all, it is not that I think, therefore, I am, but rather, the great I Am has asked us to think, and therefore, we must.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Boys to Men

Dr. Vern Poythress of Westminster Theological Seminary, a man who is both a mathematician and a  biblical scholar, has much of his work posted on a joint site with Dr. John Frame.  Today I stumbled across an interesting piece he wrote called, "How I Have Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men."

In this article, Poythress discusses a problem in western culture, namely our culture's lack of a means or a rite that signifies their transition from boyhood to manhood.  Borrowing from the Jewish tradition of Bar Mitzvah (Son of the Law), he created a coming of age ritual he calles "Bar Jesus" (Son of Jesus).  Just like a Jewish boy must meet certain educational and character requirements before qualifying for the Bar Mitzvah, so Poythress' sons had to meet certain criteria as well.  Knowledge of the Bible, understanding of doctrine, langauge study in both Greek and Hebrew, and more were required.  If all the criteria are met around age 13, then the Bar Jesus ceremony is given in the presence of many guests.  At that point, the boy, now acknowledged to be a man, yet still under the authority of his parents, gains greater freedom and responsibility under their watchful care.

This is a fascinating idea and has great implications for Christian parents who wish to raise their children in contrast with the world. In particular, I can see homeschooling families make great use of such a rite.  What attracts me the most to this idea is how intentional and deliberate Poythress is in trying to shape his boys into Christian men.  To be thoroughly Christian there must be significant knowledge of the Bible, theology, and more for without that a person will not think like a Christian and therefore will not behave like a Christian should. Poythress' plan seems to hit all the main areas that would shape a boy's mind and heart.

What do you think?  How could a coming of age ritual help be employed in your child's life?  In our churches?  How might one create a "Bat Jesus" (daughter of Jesus) plan for a daughter?  What would be the differences?

Check out Poythress' article and consider how you might be more deliberate in raising your children to be strong men and women of God.

One Year Daily Bible Reading Plan

I have never used one of the read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans before, but in 2009 I plan to.  In the back of my new ESV Study Bible is a daily reading plan that intrigues me because because after it moves through the Pentateuch canonically, it then moves chronologically through the history of the Old Testament.  To make the readings fit the pattern of the four daily reading categories of Psalms and Wisdom Literature, Pentateuch and the History of Israel, Chronicles and Prophets, and Gospels and Epistles, there are four books that are included twice: the Psalms, Isaiah, Luke, and Romans. 

If you would like to try this plan but have not yet purchased an ESV Study Bible, you can see the online version at www.esv.org, and even subscribe to the feed there. And here is the Download Daily Bible Reading Plan ESV pdf , provided by Justin Taylor.

What I am hoping to gain in using this plan are several things.  First, a good bird's eye view of the Bible as a whole.  Second, to benefit from quantity.  I typically focus on fine details in a text, so being forced to keep up a faster pace than normal will help me gain from the other side of the quality/depth vs. quantity issue than I usually do.  Third, I plan on looking for how the Bible expounds on a few themes - the nature of human depravity and the nature of the atonement.  Or to put it another way, what is the basic problem-solution issue that undergirds the whole of biblical theology.  Fourth, I am curious how reading the prophets chronologically might shed light on changes in Israel's spiritual problems.  Fifth, a plan such as this will keep me from intentionally or unintentionally skipping portions of the Scripture.

What do you think?  What are some other benefits from reading through the Bible in a year?

Wise Words for Degree Junkies

Thoughts from The Imitation of Christ, chapter 2, by Thomas A' Kempis.   His words are in bold italics:

Everyone naturally desires knowledge, but of what use is knowledge itself without the fear of God?  We must not confuse the acquiring of knowledge with holiness, nor let the natural desire for knowledge overtake a desire to grow in holiness, but seek knowledge as an aid to it.

Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception.  Learned men always wish to appear so, and the desire recognition for their wisdom.  The desire to be addressed as "Doctor" or the use of a degree to impose upon people or to feed a weak self image must be destroyed.  Seek a degree to be useful in God's kingdom, if such is the will of God for you, but do not seek it for status.

The more complete and excellent your knowledge, the more severe will be God's judgment on you, unless your life be the more holy.  Do not neglect your sanctification while gaining academic knowledge.  Always study as a disciple of Christ, to become more like him, not merely for intellectual curiosity or for academic recognition.

If you desire to know or learn anything to your advantage, then take delight in being unknown and unregarded.  Do not use your schooling in a manipulative way to advance yourself.  Learn, serve, produce, but be content to work in an obscure corner of God's kingdom.  Do not flash your credentials for profit, but let the Lord direct employers, etc. to you.  And if you remain unknown, be content with being faithful in your obscure corner.

Packer on Being an "Adult Catechist"

Since I have revised a catechism myself, any mention of catechisms or  catechizing catches my attention.  Over at the ESV Study Bible website there is a video called ESV Panel Discussion in which J.I. Packer is interviewed along with two others. Packer is one of the best evangelical theologians of our time, and certainly one of the more articulate. 

Packer was asked by moderator Justin Taylor about his role as the theological editor for the ESV Study Bible and also about how that connects to his self deisgnation as an adult catechist.  Here is my transcript on his response.

The ministry of a catechist, an adult catechist, is something which the church of the early centuries understood very well.  Every church worth its salt had an adult catechist to instruct inquirers. And the catechism ministry first to adults, and more recently to children, has fallen very much into disuse in our time.  And it is my privilege, I think, first of all to appreciate its importance, and then myself to try and model it in the writing and the teaching that I do, and then, in this particular project, to contribute to other people entering into the ministry of the adult catechist and certainly many more people profiting from that ministry on paper.  Because that is what the ESV Study Bible really is. Catechists teach people the truths that Christians live by and teach them how to live by those truths.  That is what the material in the ESV Study Bible taken as whole actually does.  That’s the benefit that the reader of the Study Bible will get from the articles on Christian doctrine, on Christian ethics, on Christian faith and life, and a Christian stance in relation to any number of errors and alternatives that our time has produced.  So that in fact it is a catechizing document.  It gives you the equivalent of a one volume commentary on the Scripture, it give you these marvelous study aids in the form of the maps and the pictures, which are really outstanding, and then on top of that it gives you the material that shows you at basic level how it all applies to life.  I think it’s the first study Bible that the world has seen that has taken on board this catechizing vision and has set itself to fulfill this catechizing task.  And that means that it will be doubly useful, it will do all that previous study Bibles have done and much beside.  And when on thinks of pastors and situations where they can only have a very few books, well, the Study Bible will really serve as, um, a compendium of Christianity to resource their living, and their teaching, and to make the purchase of other books, which is out of their reach anyway, that much less necessary.  And I’m thrilled, frankly, as I look back on what we’ve achieved, and think of how useful its going to be in future years. Yes, I’m an enthusiast.

Loving the UFC and Jesus

The September 29, 2007 issue of World  ran an article about Christian fighters in the  Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and touched on whether or not there is conflict between enjoying mixed martial arts and being a Christian.

The article highlighted Randy Couture, the just-resigned heavyweight champion of the UFC who came out of retirement to reclaim the heavyweight belt in March of 2007 (at 43 years old!) and then defended it  successfully this past August.  Couture is a professing Christian, as is former welterweight champion Matt Hughes  and former middleweight champion Rich Franklin.  While all three demonstrate a need to move on in their sanctification, their faith in Christ does seem genuine.

Certainly competing in any professional sport raises issues for a Christian athlete.  What about competing on Sunday (there are still a few of us who believe in some version of a Christian sabbath, you know)?  Should a Christian be a part of an organization that entices lust to promote itself through the use of scantily clad cheer leaders, ring girls, etc.?  And should a Christian compete in something that is inherently violent?  Football certainly is violent and martial arts even more so, since the way one wins in martial arts is by striking and grappling with an opponent. 

But what about the viewers, the lovers of the sport?  It is easy to see the lure of the sport.  Two men train as hard or harder than any other athletes in the world to master the necessary grappling and striking techniques and be in top physical condition.  When they clash, anything can happen, and viewers are treated to impressive demonstrations of skill and power.  Enjoying a demonstration of what the human body can be trained to accomplish is part of the draw for spectators of any sport.  But here is my question, and I ask it as one who is a big fan of the UFC: by enjoying a particularly violent sport am I engaging in something that dishonors Christ and hinders my sanctification?  Is there something wrong with being a Christian and watching the UFC? 

What do you think?