Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 171

Monday Morning Humor

With baseball entering its second half, it's worth taking a few minutes to re-watch the best comedy sketch of all time.

And here's one more you've probably seen before. These days it's hard to find comedy this clean and this clever.

One of the Best Puritan Lines Ever

"Repentance is the vomit of the soul."

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) in Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices

50 Extraordinary Church Buildings

Whether they are beautiful, ugly, or odd, I love looking at churches.

Here's one bloggers photo essay on the 50 Most Extraordinary Churches of the World.

I like 2 and 43 for the view, 45 for simple beauty, 46 for proximity to me right now, 27 and 50 for the cost, and 5 for its Christ-the-transformer-of-culture motif. If I were an arachnid I'd like 39.

Glory of God: God's Glory and Our Giving

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of…the generosity of your contribution… (v. 13)

God loves a cheerful giver, which according to the old preacher's joke means that if you aren't happy giving your money away, keep giving until you are. Actually, it means something much more serious. Our generosity has profound potential to bring God glory. Miserliness, on the other hand, has great potential to sour the effect of the gospel in our lives and others.

In assessing you own level of generosity or stinginess ask yourself, "Does my lifestyle lead others to give thanks to God for his glory?" (v. 12) Do people see how your sacrificial giving and say, "Wow! Praise the Lord for her generosity. It's amazing how she trusts God and loves his kingdom." Or do they marvel at how someone so loved by God could be so greedy? Ask yourself, "Does my lifestyle demonstrate obedience to the gospel to the glory of God?" We worship a God who gives freely and lavishly (v. 15). Is this kind of giving reflected in your checkbook? Finally, ask yourself, "Does my lifestyle keep the free flow of grace going to the glory of God?" (v. 14)  People have given to us. Will we clench their grace tightly or let it flow freely to someone else? Let money slip through your fingers into ministry and let God get the glory.

The What and Why of Hyper-Calvinism

The title is not going to set the world on fire, but it's nevertheless a very good book: The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689-1765. The book was written by Peter Toon (1939-2009) and first published in 1967; it includes a preface by the ubiquitous J.I. Packer. This is a scholarly, densely footnoted, technical little tome. But it contains simple, valuable lessons. Packer says, "The story is a cautionary tale with timely lessons for those who seek a revival of Reformed Christianity to-day" (8).

I see three lessons, given in increasing order of importance.

1. Toon shows, as Ken Stewart has more recently, that the Reformed faith is not completely uniform. This isn't to say there's not a basic continuity from Calvin to Beza to the Puritans to Old Princeton to the present day. But at many points in Reformed history it's not been neat or clear what the Reformed position is.

2. Toon gives a solid definition of Hyper-Calvinism and it's not the same as being really, really Reformed. In common parlance, Hyper-Calvinist simply means "I think you are too much of a Calvinist." But that's not a fair use of the term. Historically, Hyper-Calvinism has referred to a set of theological conclusions and practices, none of which mark any of today's leading Calvinists.

Here's Toon's summary (with some paragraph breaks added):

[Hyper-Calvinism] was a system of theology, or a system of the doctrines of God, man and grace, which was framed to exalt and honour and glory of God and did so at the expense of minimising the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners to God. It places excessive emphasis on the immanent acts of God–eternal justification, eternal adoption and the eternal covenant of grace. In practice, this meant that "Christ and Him crucified", the central message of the apostles, was obscured.

It also often made no distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God, and tried to deduce the duty of men from what it taught concerning the secret, eternal decrees of God.

Excessive emphasis was also placed on the doctrine of irresistible grace with the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration but also in conversion as well. The absorbing interest in the eternal, immanent acts of God and in irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended.

Finally, a valid assurance of salvation was seen as consisting in an inner feeling and conviction of being eternally elected by God. So Hyper-Calvinism led its adherents to hold that evangelism was not necessary and to place much emphasis on introspection in order to discover whether or not one was elect. (144-45)

So the main tenants include: little attention to message of the cross, no free offer of the gospel to call, no summons for men to be born again, a highly introspective doctrine of assurance, and collapse of the hidden and revealed will of God. This was Hyper-Calvinism, not simply being seriously Reformed.

3. Most important, Toon explains how a healthy Calvinism became an unhealthy Hyper-Calvinism. His cites four reasons for the rise of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity.

First, after 1660 orthodox Calvinism was under siege. "The religious leadership of the nation was lodged firmly in the hands of men who were either Arminian or moderately Calvinistic in theology" (146). Given this opposition, many Calvinists adopted a bunker mentality. They saw themselves as the small remnant that still clung to the apostolic faith. As their faith became increasingly defensive, it became rigid and less attractive.

Second, the intellectual environment of the time was one that great emphasized the role of reason in religious faith. Consequently, the Hyper-Calvinists applied strict logic to biblical doctrines that led to unbiblical conclusions. If election is true and grace is really irresistible, why both with the free offer of the gospel? This was rational logic, but not biblical logic.

Third, many of the leading Hyper-Calvinists were "capable of making extreme changes in thought" (147). They had no patience for nuance or tension. They were prone to extremes. They latched onto one way of thinking and felt like the only safe course of action was to take that thinking all the way to the edge.

Fourth, they were not very intelligent. That may sound cruel, but listen to Toon:

The Hyper-Calvinists were sincere men of average intelligence, but they lacked a prophetical and discerning spirit. They keenly desired to glorify God and mistakenly believed that God was more glorified by the exaltation of free grace in the pulpit and the printed page, than in the evangelism and conversion of men. They became so obsessed with the defence of what they regarded as sound doctrine that the evangelistic note of Scripture as basically an overture by God towards sinners was muted. (148)

We often have a populist view of theological error, that most mistakes come from people too smart for their own good. But that's not always the case. Many serious errors creep into the church because pastors and leaders are not sufficiently careful, discerning, and intelligent to see subtle misdirections in emphasis and logic.

These four errors are always real temptations for God's people, not least of all for Calvinists. We must be careful thinkers, beholden to biblical texts not to logical deduction. We must beware of our own personalities at times and on guard against an us-against-the-world ethos. Most critically, we must be sure there is no embarrassment over conversion and the call of the gospel to repent and believe. A cautionary tale indeed.

Two Different Approaches to Virtual Integrity

Sometimes you can learn a lot by seeing two different people tackle the same problem in very different ways.

The problem is virtual integrity. How can we avoid the sort of online stupidity Anthony Weiner committed? Alexandra Samuel, blogging for the Harvard Business Review, offers one approach in "The Three P's Of Online Indulgence." Dan Lohrmann, Chief Technology Officer for the state of Michigan, suggest another way in his piece "Can Online Indulgence Be Managed?" Neither piece is terribly long. Read Samuel's, and then read Lohrmann's response.

Here's the gist, from Lohrmann:

There seems to be a never-ending supply of stories in the news about educated adults, people "who should know better" or even leaders in society getting into serious trouble because of their virtual-world behavior. From politicians to pastors to K-12 teachers, negative aspects of the Internet can emerge in unlikely ways – even using "helpful" tools such as email, Twitter, Facebook and Craigslist. The real-world results are showing up all around us: broken relationships, shattered careers and even jail time.

What's to be done? Ms. Samuel goes further, "But you can manage the personal and professional risks of online indulgence by remembering the 3 Ps: Principled, Private and Planned."

This is where I part ways with the respected Harvard Business Review blogger. I wonder: Can we really control online vices in this way? The overall effect of her words is to compartmentalize each of us into two (or more) distinct identities using online privacy. This approach may work for a time, but surely leads to eventual disaster. In a sense, this guidance is turning online privacy into the "potion" that allowed Dr. Jekyll to change into Mr. Hyde in the famous book "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886.

Read the whole thing. And you may be interested in Dan Lohrmann's book Virtual Integrity.

Kings of Judah: Ahaziah, Athaliah, and the Promises of God

2 Chronicles 22:1-23:21

"Behold, the king's son! Let him reign, as the Lord spoke concerning the sons of David. (23:3b)

The Christian life starts with the promises of God. He makes claims about himself and gives us promises. Then, having trusted in those promises, we respond in faith and obedience to God's commands. But it starts with the promises of God.

Sometimes, however, the promises are hard to believe, like during Athaliah's reign. The dark days started with Ahaziah. In his one year reign, he managed to do evil, get entangled with the house of Ahab, and get himself killed while visiting Joram. Once dead, his wicked mother, Athaliah, assumed the throne and promptly murdered all the royal princes in order to secure her own power. For seven years it looked as though God's promise to David had failed. No one from his line would ever again sit on the throne. No covenant, no Christmas, no Christ!

But God's promise had not failed. Jehosheba and Jehoiada had secretly hid away one royal prince, Joash, and presented him as king in his seventh year. Just like Moses and Jesus, Joash was hidden away from a cruel tyrant and then revealed as the deliverer of God's people.  Athaliah was killed and Joash began to reign. God had kept his promise. He always does.

Is it Okay for Christians to Believe in the Doctrine of Hell But Not Like It?

It takes a certain courage to look at what the Bible teaches, not like it all that much, and still believe it. I am thankful for brothers and sisters who believe in hell or believe in complementarianism or believe in election and reprobation or believe homosexuality is a sin despite their internal protestations. It's a good sign when we take our stand on the Bible even when we'd prefer to take our stand somewhere else.

But it's a better sign when we take our stand on the Bible and learn to love where the Bible stands.

Take hell for example. Should Christians rejoice in the doctrine of hell? That's a loaded question that does not allow for a simplistic answer. On the one hand, if God does not want any to perish, neither should we (2 Peter 3:9). Paul has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart at the thought of his Jewish brothers falling under God's curse (Rom. 9:1-3). It is natural and right that we should be sad to think of people we love suffering in hell. So in one sense it is appropriate for Christians to say "I don't like the idea of hell."

But be careful. It's never safe to dislike the truths God has revealed. We should actually like what the Bible teaches. We may struggle to get there–we may not immediately resonate with the hard parts of the Bible–but the goal is to get to the place where we can. The law of the Lord should be our delight. We should tremble under the word of God, not begrudgingly accept it. Hell is a hard doctrine to embrace, but God sends people to hell for his glory. The punishment of the wicked in hell vindicates God's honor (2 Thess. 1:5-12), avenges the persecuted church (Rev. 6:10), exposes the utter sinfulness of sin (2 Peter 3:11-13), upholds divine justice (Rev. 19:1-2), and makes known the riches of his glory to vessels of mercy (Rom. 9:22-23).

To admit that God says hard things is admirable honesty. But to profess our dislike for what he does or wish that he were a different kind of God who did things in a different way–even if we come around to accept these ways in the end–is not the right kind of humility. It's one thing to say to unbelievers and skeptics, "I struggled with the same questions you're asking." It's another to throw God under the bus, admitting "I don't like hell anymore than you do. I'd take it out of the Bible if I could. But it's in there, so I can't deny it."

God is good and his ways are always right. It is a measure of our maturity that we not only affirm the truth of God's word but rest in the goodness and rightness of it. Christians should have anguish in heart at the thought of eternal suffering, but we should also see the glory of God in the Bible's teaching on eternal punishment.

Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing is one way to put it (2 Cor. 6:10), even with the doctrine of hell.

Monday Morning Humor

Was it a long, hard weekend? Are you not quite ready to face another week? I have good news for you. Herewith, no one but THREE embeds. Odds are at least one will be funny.

HT: Twenty-Two Words

Have you seen this one? It's, uh, different, but you'll laugh, and then wonder why you're laughing.

HT: Michael Duffy

And finding Brian Regans clips I haven't seen is always a pleasant surprise.

HT: Where I Am

Why Do You Have to Be So Precise?

J.I. Packer:

Richard Rogers, the Puritan pastor of Wethersfield, Essex, at the turn of the sixteenth century, was riding one day with the local lord of the manor, who, after twitting him for some time about his "precisian" ways, asked him what it was that made him so precise. "O sir," replied Rogers, "I serve a precise God."

If there were such a thing as a Puritan crest, this would be its proper motto. A precise God–a God, that is, who has made precise disclosure of His mind and will in Scripture, and who expects from His servants a corresponding preciseness of belief and behavior–it was this view of God that created and controlled the historic Puritan outlook. The Bible itself led them to it. And we who share the Puritan estimate of Holy Scripture cannot excuse ourselves if we fail to show a diligence and conscientiousness equal to theirs in ordering our going according to God's written Word. (Puritan Papers Volume 2, 246-47)

If ever there were a Christianity that cut against the grain, this is it. Those who embrace "precisian" ways will always be in a different spiritual universe from those who find the Bible to be unclear, theological exactness to be a distraction, and the norms of Scripture to be far from normative.

May the spirit of the Puritans never die; for it is, in large part, the Spirit of God.