Jared Longshore's Blog, page 37

A Poor and Contrite Spirit

One of the temptations that naturally comes with God’s blessing is that of thinking that you got that blessing by your own strength. We imagine that the blessings are just out there for the taking, and, hey, I woke up early, I stayed up late, I used my resources in the right way and that’s how I got where I am. 

The Apostle Paul puts a stick of dynamite in that way of thinking when he says, “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it” (1 Corinthians 4:7)?

This temptation is strong because we do reap what we sow. Proverbs does say, “the hand of the diligent shall rule.” But, where did you get your seed? Where did you get your diligence? Where did you get your field? 

We who want to work each day for the Lord, we who want to do good works unto him, must pay close attention to what God says through Isaiah. God says, ” Where is the house that ye build unto me? . . . For all those things hath mine hand made, And all those things have been, saith the Lord: But to this man will I look, Even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, And trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). Consider your last week. Have you been poor in spirit? Have you worked knowing that you have absolutely nothing to offer apart from God’s daily active kindness toward you? Have you trembled at His Word?

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Something Greater Than the Temple Is Here

One sabbath, as the disciples walked in a field, they plucked grain to eat. The Pharisees didn’t like this. They charged the disciples with doing what was unlawful on the sabbath. Jesus’ response was to say, “Haven’t you read in the law how the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are blameless” (Matthew 12:5)? After establishing this truth he said to the Pharisees, “But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.” 

Now you might say, “Oh to be there with Christ on that day. What glory it would have been to walk in those fields with him, the greater temple, how wonderful it would be to eat that grain alongside him.” But I say to you, here you are, and something greater than the temple is here. Here you are and you will eat something greater than what the disciples ate that day.

Paul says “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16)?

As you come to eat this bread and drink this cup, you will spiritually feed upon Christ crucified. As the priests in the temple would eat their portion of the sacrifice. So you as a royal priesthood today are assembled as the new covenant temple, and you will eat of the sacrifice. 

Imagine how giddy the disciples must have been as they tasted that grain on that sabbath day and heard Jesus vindicate their fellowship with him. And come now with that kind of gratitude and gladness, taste this bread on this sabbath day knowing that something greater than the temple is here. Come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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How to Avoid Developing a Complex

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Not all complexity is bad. Complex wines are enjoyable enough. Complex math problems produce some very helpful tools. But we are not to be consumed with the complex, or taken captive by it as if it were always a good thing. A man enamored with the complex will soon find that he has a complex. He does not enjoy untangling knots, but rather enjoys being tangled up in them.

Take the Gnostics from Irenaeus’ day. They had their supreme god who sat atop a divine hierarchy of other gods, one of these lesser gods goes rogue and out pops a semi-divine ignorant being who forms the material world as we know it, and then goes to calling himself the real and only god. You read of these Gnostics and say, “How did you come up with this heavenly heretical chess board in the first place? The fact is, false doctrine can only get that complex when the guys making it up really want to sin. “Hmmmm,” the say, “if I run the equation that way, then voila! I can sin.” The Gnostics were known for luring away married women from their husbands. Their hearts were all tangled up and their doctrine followed.

So what about you? You may find yourself in relational knots, mental knots, emotional knots, or financial knots. Whatever the knot is, the way out is simple faith and obedience. God untangles the knot. To him belongs the secret things—the diagram of all of the moves that need to be made. Our job is to execute, to do the next good work that God has set in front of us. You can’t solve this math problem in your head. But you can take the step God has prepared for you. Daily, straight-forward obedience. Not easy, but simple enough.

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His Broken Body, Yours

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Many Christians will say that Christ saves in the way that one man delivers another from a ditch by throwing down a rope. There is certainly some truth to the illustration. Hannah told us that our God raises the poor out of the dust (1 Samuel 2:8). But this image is not entirely sufficient. And I don’t merely mean that the image falls short on the sovereignty of God, as if what is needed is simply to add that Christ ties the rope around our lifeless bodies, and hauls us up by grace alone. That is true enough. But it still fails to capture an essential message of this table.

As the Heidelberg Catechism says, “[God] wishes to assure us by this visible sign that we come to share in his true body and blood through the working of the Holy Spirit as surely as we receive with our mouth these holy tokens.” Do we receive this bread? Does this wine enter us? In the same way, we actually participate in Christ’s true body and blood. Again the catechism says, “all his sufferings and his death are our own as certainly as if we had ourselves suffered and rendered satisfaction in our own persons.”

Is this bread yours? Well, yes it is. It is quite clearly yours. After you eat, there is no doubt it is yours. It is in you. And likewise, are Christ’s sufferings and death yours? Is the payment and satisfaction of Christ’s shed blood truly yours? Indeed. As much as this wine which you will drink is yours, so is the blood of Christ and all his benefits yours. His broken body: yours. His blood: yours. His death: yours. His justification: yours. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 2 — A Living Liturgy

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For our second installment of parental horse sense, I’d like to talk about a living liturgy. Not a monotonous one. Not a dead one. Not one that everyone in the home hates. It will require energy, of course. And therein lies the rub. This home marked by a living liturgy banishes laziness so the lazy will be more than little uncomfortable with it. But a living liturgy mustn’t be like the first day at boot camp with Sargent steel-face scowling down at you. 

Fathers and mothers must follow the liturgical gladness of their Father in heaven which G. K. channels here in his typical Chestertonian fashion—

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Now, we all know that this bar is set quite high. You’re already tired and you want to hasten to remind me that you are no child with “abounding vitality.” Ah, yes, but your Father is younger than you. And the same power that conquered the grave now resides in you. And I didn’t title this series of posts “7 quick and easy fixes to your parenting challenges” so I manifestly cannot be charged with click bait. That said, where do we begin to implement this liturgy that aims to be a light yoke like our Master’s?

Start with family worship. Do it when it works for you family. With several children in the house, I have found right after a meal to work well. The table is still full of plates and lasagna smears. Often the children are still eating. Baths are in our future and there’s only 45 minutes until heads in beds, so I’m killing two birds (the finish up what’s on your plate bird and the let’s sing a psalm together bird) with one stone. Nothing in the Bible against that. I dare say it has a ring of wisdom to it. 

Don’t be long-winded if you’re leading this family worship. Read a short passage of Scripture, sing a psalm or hymn (two if the kids and momma are enjoying themselves), ask a catechism question (and if you have one set to music this part goes much better), and pray. Often, we go around the table with each child praying a one or two sentence prayer of thanksgiving. We know how easy it is to get out of sorts after a long day. Nothing like being reminded that God has given us all sorts of undeserved gifts. The thanksgiving prayers are often blessed by God to increase thanksgiving—remember this is a living liturgy.

Add to your family worship times, a solid bed time routine. In general, make it a practice that the kids hit the hay at the same time every night. Read them a book. Pray for them. And bless them. Our children go to bed with father’s hand on their head and something like “The Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you” or “The Lord crush Satan under your feet” or “May your children possess the gates of their enemies.” 

Work an education and sports liturgy. It is your God-given duty to educate your children. This responsibility is yours and not the state’s. So we must not begrudge sitting down after dinner and helping with homework. Make it a comfy chair if that helps. Go all the way and make it a comfy recliner. But be there for the kids when they’re not sure what the next step is on that math problem. 

Sports is a world of training hard work, self-control (especially emotional self-control), teamwork, physical strength (and mental), and overall character. Sport takes time. Some families certainly make sports an idol. Don’t do that. But do step back and notice all that your children are getting if the athletics are done right. For one, they learn authority and how to respect coaches. They also learn how to lose and not chunk their Gatorade like a fitsy toddler. They learn how to crucify their pride when they are the best on the court. The list of lessons could go on. Don’t let the sports control your liturgy. You will need to be flexible with your family rhythm of course. But if you’re home liturgy is going haywire and looking like some hit and miss wild Methodist revival camp meetings with you as a traveling itinerant minister missing church for travel baseball tournaments, then just pull the plug and get back to the family fundamentals.

Sabbath well. God has given us one day in seven to keep holy to the Lord. That means call the sabbath a delight. Create a culture in the home where everyone is looking forward to Sunday. It is the day, let the earth rejoice(!), when no one may do laundry or school work. It is the day we appear before the Lord as a family to rejoice with the saints. 

As you establish and maintain a living liturgy in the home, make small tweaks as necessary, not large ones. If you know that things have gotten away from you in the home, don’t institute 17 laws of the Medes and the Persians right away. Don’t make the mistake of Rehoboam and go to talking about your thighs being as thick as your father’s finger and what not. Nobody wants it. You’re in the new covenant. The family has been set free. The family has be Pentecosted.

The Apostle Paul is very clear that fathers must bring up their children. But notice that is the nurture and admonition of the Lord, not of that schoolmaster that ruled the church in the wilderness. You are to raise up your children through this happy and vibrant liturgy without provoking them to wrath. 

The secret to the whole thing is that your soul be right before the Lord. If father and mother have the joy of the Lord, if they are trusting God for their children, then that gladness spills over. It is just down right hard to remain a grump when others in the family are having a wholesome and good time. Laughter feeds laughter. Self-control nurtures self-control. Gloom and laziness breed themselves as well. 

So make a plan, a liturgy of grace, rooted in the forgiveness of Christ’s cross, a plan that is full of good things that doesn’t ride anyone into the ground; then execute that plan by grace through faith looking for energy from the God who says to the sun every morning, “Do it again.”

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A Feast of Fat Things

Isaiah said, “And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things” (Isaiah 25:5). The mountain to which Isaiah referred is the mountain to which we have come. Hebrews says that we are come “unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumberable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22). You are at no normal assembly this morning. You have gathered today on Mount Zion where the LORD himself now serves up meat and drink. We would be fools not to drink deeply and eat to the full. 

But you must be prepared for this feast. So to that end, here is a short list of exhortations so that you would be sent forth from this feast today having taken in the abundance spread out on the table.

First, confess your particular sins. You need not use euphemisms when you kneel in confession. Do not generalize. Search your last week. And admit what you did, and when and where you did it. Do the same with the things you have left undone.

Second, during our time of congregational prayer, pray fervently with your mind fully engaged. We often don’t give the Lord our full attention in prayer. But there he is, giving us His. 

Third, sing robustly. The angels are here. And more importantly, the One who beats your heart and washed your sins is here. We sing to Him. So sing aloud with your lips and your soul.

Fourth, receive the Word in hope and lively faith. We stand for the Scripture Readings because we are receiving Truth directly from the source. The Words entering your ears are a fire and a hammer. Listen knowing that you will be warmed, you will be reconstructed. Then heed the Word preached. Hang on every word, looking for applications to your life and family. 

You are at a feast on the mountain of the LORD, a feast of fat things and wine well refined.

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 1 – Raise the Bar and Lighten Up

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One of the problems with being at war is that all of the men have to pick up swords. In Nehemiah’s day, they had the wisdom to take up a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. But we are tempted today, and understandably so, to take up a sword for each hand. Now there is a young, valiant father out there who upon hearing this double-fisted battle talk replies with, “And let the church say, Amen!” Yes, it is good to be a man. There is a part of me that gives this young father the amen he seeks. We can point to innumerable instances of cowardice and effeminacy that make all of the good men want to fight even harder, perhaps a sword in the right and a double-headed battle axe in the left.

But while we engage in our current culture war, we must raise up the next generation (hence, the trowel). The children are the weapons after all, the arrows in the mighty warrior’s hand. The man who is not diligent to raise up his children doesn’t know the first thing about the culture war he claims to fight. Even a wise man, one familiar with Psalm 127:4, can easily drift from raising up his children in the way they should go given his dismay at the present battles—”They did what at Drag Queen Story Hour?” But sitting in disbelief night after night and actively raising the kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord are two different things.

These things being what they are, I plan to write a series of posts here covering some up-the-middle parenting practice, some parental horse sense that is always in need of review and especially so given our wackadoo times. As you read and implement these principles, as you do some child-building—something constructive in our deconstructive age—keep saying in the back of your mind as you go about that work, “Not today, Satan.”

Without further ado, our first lesson is Raise the Bar and Lighten Up. I picked up this phrase from Doug Wilson, though I can’t remember where I read it. This is good common sense but it is not easy to implement. 

One the one hand you have the parents who raise the bar and tighten up. They know there is a standard. There is a standard for room cleanliness, for grades, for sport performance, for singing, for Latin vocabulary quizzes. These parents know we live in a world of gold and silver medals, and everyone doesn’t get a trophy, Bucko. But dad and mom are wound so tight that they and little Bobby are about to crack. Bobby is headed to a life in which he thinks he never does anything right, what a loser. Or, he is headed to a life where he’s going to cast that standard into the dumpster and give way a belly of passion. Now you don’t want Bobby to take either of those diverging roads do you? Surely not. So take a deep breath, remember we’re living in the new covenant, and you’re not the fourth member of the Trinity.

But this is only one of the ditches into which you might fall. On the other side of the road, you have parents who stay loose and lower the bar. We don’t want too much weight on the little lad. “I remember how hard my dad was on me; I swore I would never be that guy.” So Tim (this is Bobby’s friend from across the street) gets all the bubble gum he wants. He eats ice cream before dinner whenever he pleases. And, oh, yes, don’t worry about your D+ in Math, Tim, all of your classmates making those A’s and B’s are just prideful. Little Tim is being raised to lack self-control. He will find himself in his early twenties way too good at watching porn and playing the latest video game, without the muscles required to endure trial, suffer long, and finish the race. He won’t be able to love anyone with that sacrificial love which is the chief thing (1 Corinthians 13). 

Your job as a parent, and particularly a father, is to hold the line joyfully. Acknowledge the standard without the slightest bit of anxiety. Encourage the growth that you see. And take your child from where he is, not from where you wish he’d be. He does have to carry his own load. You can’t diagram the sentence for him. But the father is the covenant head and must carry that load. In short, if your kid is not meeting the bar, then it is your job to go to him (and in a way that he is not cringing to have you there with him) and reassure him of what is true. Remind him of grace, and peace, and truth, and that he will get the job done; you’re sure of it.

The doctrinal foundation to all of this is law and gospel. An old Southern Presbyterian, James Henley Thornwell, once said, “The Gospel, like its blessed Master, is always crucified between two thieves—legalists of all sorts on the one hand and Antinomians on the other.” Our goal is not really to find a middle ground between legalism and lawlessness. The goal is not to hold to the standard and be tight half of the week, and let the standard fall and lighten up for the other half of the week. The goal is to raise the bar and lighten up all the way through, whether we’re talking about personal Bible reading, singing in corporate worship, or setting a pick on the basketball court. No matter which way you turn, you will always be dealing with law and gospel. And your job as a parent is to teach through logos, ethos, pathos, and example how to live well amid law and gospel.

In the first place, the bar—the law—is warranted, ” But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16). In the second place, the raised bar is fitting, ” When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11). So a father should beam with delight when his toddler first cleans up her spot at the table. But we don’t dish out high praise when this same child performs the same feat when she is twelve. This means you must have a general sense of where your child is at in the game. You must be a good bar setter and you need to raise the bar in Solomon-like wisdom.

With this knowledge of the standard, you must believe the gospel. You will have no lightness without it. Christ has died for you. Christ has died for your children. We still fall short. But when we do, we don’t experience suffocating, life-sucking condemnation (Romans 8:1). God is our Father and mercy awaits us new every morning (Lamentations 3:21).

The key ingredient to this challenging first lesson in parental wisdom is faith. Faith does not disregard God’s bar, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). But we do not uphold a heavy burden. We have come to Christ, his yoke is easy, his burden is light. 

So raise the bar and lighten up.

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Aim at Heaven

The Christians who are resolved to make a mark for Christ in this world must be commended for their resolution. You need only open your eyes for a second to see the futility and folly all around us. Amid that folly, our goal is to see salvation spring up from the ground. We anticipate the budding forth of redemption and not without warrant. The prophet Isaiah said, “Let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation. And let righteousness spring up together” (Isaiah 45:8). 

But we must remember what happens prior to the growth of wheat in the fields and grapes on the vine, and that is: rain from heaven. Just before Isaiah spoke of salvation springing forth from the earth, he said, “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness” (Isaiah 45:8). 

Christ has ascended into heaven, and our salvation is in him. All blessing comes from the Father through the heavenly seated Son to us by the Spirit. God rains down righteousness upon us. He pours out grace upon grace. He rejoices over us with loud singing. Our job is to listen. He is our Heavenly Father. So turn your ear up. He makes his face to shine upon you. Turn your face up and behold his glory without a veil. If you do, you will be most useful in this life. In other words, C. S. Lewis was just right when he said, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next . . . Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” 

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The Brave New World Says Your Children Don’t Belong To You Anymore

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The spirit of the age is not content with you simply forgetting the truth. You must be educated in falsehood. You must say the pronouns. You must speak the error. You must not worship your God and you must worship the false god being presented to you. This debased mind has wormed its way into our legal analysis, particularly and most recently via Obergefell v. Hodges.

Obergefell held that the right for same-sex couples to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person. That reasoning is, of course, nonsensical. It is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of circles to have no sides. Triangles, according to nature, are free to have points. These liberties are inherent in the shapes themselves. You have such liberties, but the liberty for you to be a giraffe at the zoo is not numbered among them. Moreover, by granting the citizenry a faux and fabricated “right,” the state attempts to strip her citizens of a fundamental one, namely family rights—and this will be explained further momentarily. Obergefell, then, is a gateway drug that results in the state exercising more and illegitimate authority over the people who are strung-out like crackheads needing another faux-right fix. This pattern leads to the dissolving of what truly belongs to you. 

Parenthood is inextricably connected to marriage, so if you toy with marriage, scratch that, if you put a stick of dynamite in marriage and blow it to smithereens, then you inevitably do the same to parenthood. Not long after Obergefell ruled that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marriage, there was an attempt to say that same-sex couples had the right to be parents to children who popped up amid their “marriage.” Now, a normal man would ask, “How in the world does a child pop up in a same-sex ‘marriage?’” Well, in the case of a lesbian relationship, one of the ladies can be artificially inseminated with a random man’s semen. Yes, writing things like that gives you the Orwellian shakes. But, this is what happened in the real world. The Supreme Court case was called Pavan v. Smith. 

Coming up to the Supreme Court from the state of Arkansas, Pavan v. Smith involved a lesbian couple, one of whom was artificially inseminated with a random man’s semen. According to Arkansas, the inseminated woman would be listed as a parent on the birth certificate, but not that woman’s lesbian partner. The ladies wanted both of their names listed as parents on the birth certificate. The Supreme Court of the United States found that Arkansas law had made “birth certificates more than a mere marker of biological relationship,” and they ruled in favor of the lesbian couple. In a per curium decision, the Supreme Court said the following: 

“For the purposes of birth registration,” that [Arkansas] statute says, “the mother is deemed to be the woman who gives birth to the child.” . . . And “[i]f the mother was married at the time of either conception or birth,” the statute instructs that “the name of [her] husband shall be entered on the certificate as the father of the child.” 

. . . There are some limited exceptions to the latter rule—for example, another man may appear on the birth certificate if the “mother” and “husband” and “putative father” all file affidavits vouching for the putative father’s paternity . . . But as all parties agree, the requirement that a married woman’s husband appear on her child’s birth certificate applies in cases where the couple conceived by means of artificial insemination with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.[1]

In other words, the Supreme Court found the Arkansas Code to require the husband of a pregnant woman to be named on the child’s birth certificate, even if he was not the biological father. Then the Supreme Court sunk in the hook, “Arkansas has thus chosen to make its birth certificates more than a mere marker of biological relationships: The State uses those certificates to give married parents a form of legal recognition that is not available to unmarried parents. Having made that choice, Arkansas may not, consistent with Obergefell, deny married same-sex couples that recognition.”[2]

Interestingly, the Arkansas Code stands amid a long legal tradition of assuming that the husband of the pregnant woman is the father. This presumed paternity only stands to reason within the structure of heterosexual marriage. This tradition accords with the sacredness of the marriage institution. But when that sacred institution is mocked and a foolish imposter poses as the genuine article, any attempt to carry over presumed paternity is tomfoolery on its face. The imposter of same-sex marriage lacks the essential components to beget children and thus any natural paternity or maternity for that matter is by nature itself excluded. 

The Pavan case signals a rising change in legal reasoning. Parenthood is less and less being conceived of as a natural status, a sacred right and duty. It is being reduced to a status which comes into existence by mere intention. Intent-based parenting means that you can be a father if you intend to be, and this means that humans will be tasked with the job of determining such intent. So you may very well intend to be father to your child, but maybe someone else does, too. That someone else could have more victim identities than you do. Some of you, in fact, are straight, white, and male, which means you need to sit down and be quiet while we elevate other voices.

Now you might object here and say, “Parental rights don’t seem to be based on intent because in the case above the parental rights were based on ‘same-sex marriage.'” But here’s the problem with that objection. “Same-sex marriage” is not real. No such thing exists. It is a vapor. No, vapor is real. “Same-sex marriage” is less than a vapor; it is a no-thing. The objection above amounts to saying, “Parental rights are based on unicorns.” The true basis in Pavan v. Smith is the “want to” of the lesbian couple (not to mention the fear and folly of the justices). 

Statism permeates this intent-based parenting for it redefines a pre-political institution into a post-political one. Now conservatives are whole-heartedly against such a set up. But most do not see how we have left the door open for such a development. Say the state comes knocking on your door. They are there for your children, and they explain to you that your children do not belong to you anymore. How do you respond? “Well,” you say, “I would respond by pointing to my 12 gauge and kindly reminding the state that the children do indeed belong to me.” If this is your response, then God bless you and may your tribe increase. But aside from the shotgun, on what grounds do your children belong to you? I see two insufficient ways that conservatives would answer this question.

The first insufficient way, and my guess is this would be the less common response, is to claim that the children belong to you because you claim they do—“I feed them. I’ve agreed to be their father. They’re under my roof, aren’t they?” This claim puts the grounding at the level of individual consent (the parent) rather than state consent. The problem is that such reasoning is still based on intent, albeit individual intent. This individual intent approach will inevitably grow into statism for it founds the very category of fatherhood and motherhood merely on the human will. 

The second insufficient way that conservatives would respond to the DCF agent at their door is as follows. The father would say, “These are my kids because they have my eyes, can’t you see?” His argument would run along biological lines, “I don’t need a theology degree. And I don’t need a political science degree. I slept with their mother however many years ago and nine months later this little one came out.” This rationale grounds parental authority in the paternity test and it is rooted in the notion of blood. Americans far and wide maintain the notion that blood is thicker than water. They understand kinfolk. But this approach, while grasping an essential and significant point, is insufficient. Many people may be surprised that I claim this second attempt to ward off the state’s encroachment is insufficient. What is the problem with merely claiming the biological or blood relation?

Let me say first that the biological or blood relation is remarkably important. God has designed the world to run this way. The covenantal solution that I commend is not at odds with the biological or natural family. They are in need of no reconciliation for they are good friends, close friends. I in no way want to introduce discord into a harmonious relationship. Moreover, we are in a time where our nation is being given over to a debased mind to do what is contrary to nature. Christians, then, need to give three cheers for nature, and that includes the natural family. The Apostle Paul understood how important kinfolk is, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3). But the Apostle Paul also knew there was something that was more significant even than kinsmen according to the flesh. John the Baptist knew that God had a way of creating children supernaturally, “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). In other words, covenant family and the natural family are intended to be one in the same. Even so, the covenant family entails more than simply the biological.

Let me take another stab at detailing our present predicament, coming at it from another angle. This illustration may seem a little far afield, but stick with me. It will circle back around and hopefully land home. I’m going to tell you about four men in a bar: Christian Man, Rational Man, Postmodern Man, and Pagan Man. The man who grounds his parental authority merely in blood is the same man as Rational Man in the coming illustration. And take careful note of that word merely in the previous sentence. Mere Blood Man and Rational Man (who in essence are the same man) do not have the necessary resources to fight the good fight that is manifestly upon us. Far too many Christians have drifted to think and live as mere Rational and/or Blood Man and hence, we are in the trouble that we are in. Now for the illustration.

A Christian and a Rationalist walk into a bar. As they sit, they observe that there is in fact a blue chair beside them. Both men are agreed on the point, but for very different reasons. The Christian man explains that the chair is blue because God has made it so. God sustains it. And God’s gracious hand so works that the two men can ascertain through human reason that it is so. Rational Man chuckles at the religious fervor of his friend and says, “Bud, the chair is blue, and it is self-evident that the chair is blue. I do not need all of this mumbo jumbo about God, creation, providence, and the present operation of his kindness in order to ascertain the simple fact that this most certainly is a chair and it is blue.” This is the situation in which Americans have found themselves for some time. It was Christians and those who had some common sense. And everything was quite peaceful in this bar.

But eventually Postmodern Man walks into the bar and joins the conversation. He tells the two friends that they need to lighten up. The object in question may be a blue chair to them. But it might be a yellow sofa to someone else, and to another it might even be a green futon. Who is to say? To each their own, as the saying goes. Now Christian Man and Rational Man both know that Postmodern Man is out to lunch. But they have decided to put up with him. It seemed fine enough to put up with him because he was not holding a gun to anybody’s head. He was just being a very strange man. At the end of the day, while the intellectual unity is falling apart in this friendly establishment, no one is throwing chairs or breaking beer bottles yet. We have been meandering along in this situation for a good while now also. But a new development is upon us.

A fourth man has walked into the bar and he goes by the name Pagan Man. As he enters, that old western duel music begins to play, the bartender ducks down behind the bar and the ladies scatter. He looks at the three men in the bar and says, “You are all wrong. That object there is a pink elephant. And you will all acknowledge it to be a pink elephant or off to the Gulag with you.” Postmodern Man, who has been smoking the wonky weed this whole time, stands up to say, “Hey bro, lighten up because . . .” but he was swiftly backhanded in the mouth by Pagan Man, after which he fell to the ground mumbling something about it being OK because to somebody somewhere that slap was an act of love. Rational Man, observing the present threat, begins to inch closer and closer to Christian Man. He’s starting to think he needs to hang his observations on something more than human reason. Christian Man is the only stable citizen in the bar who will stand up to the Pagan who insists that we all now call down up, the sun the moon, and Bruce Jenner a mother.

If I might put it in a nutshell, we Christians have walked far too many miles thinking like mere Rational Man. We have been living as if life on earth is unhitched from the heavenlies. And the chickens have now come home to roost. 

With the rise of Pagan Man, we have been reminded that man cannot truly decouple life on earth from the heavenlies. You might as well attempt to disengage the Old and New Testaments, the soul and the body, the Spirit and the Word. It shocks us to see that Pagan Man calls upon his heavenly deities. He is hooked up to the wrong side of the heavenlies, but hooked up he is.

The only way forward is to call upon the Living God, remembering that your children are yours because the God of heaven gave them to you—“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: And the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalm 127:3). 

Your children are yours, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the LORD. The household is supernatural. It is the product of a divine action. To object to it, or to attempt to dissolve it, is not only contrary to nature. It is demonic rebellion against the Living God who rules the kingdom of men. It is an attempt to disband the covenant. One reason the present attempt to undo the family is seeing such success, is because Christians have for some time now disbanded the covenant themselves. The Brave New World says that our children don’t belong to us anymore. And they’re getting away with this heretical doctrine because Christians have forgotten the God of heaven, the One from whom children come. 

(This post is an excerpt from my new book The Case for the Christian Family. It is available for purchase here.)

[1] Pavan v. Smith 582 U.S. 2 (2017). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-992_868c.pdf.

[2] Ibid., 4.

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He Is No Stagnant God

Too often we imagine a stagnant God. We assume that if we come to him all will be bubbling streams and chirping birds on an English countryside. But this is far from what Scripture tells us about our Consuming Fire.

Jesus shows us the Father. And there he is one moment touching lepers; the next walking on water; the next banishing demons into swine; the next riding roughshod over the Pharisees’ sabbath; the next flipping tables in the temple. We forget that the disciples had to keep up with him. We forget that we have to keep up with him.

Christ had and has no problem making his followers lives uncomfortable. It is not that he makes our lives a drudgery, not at all; neither does he place meaningless burdens upon us. But he does keep getting into the fray, not only a conflict mind you, but a conflict on the move, a difficulty that is going somewhere. And on every page of this adventure novel we find the subtext —”Remember Lot’s Wife.” It is always blood on the doorpost or death’s angel, through the Red Sea or Pharaoh’s chariots, into Canaan’s Land or die in the dessert.
Going back is not an option. Standing still isn’t either. But can you really go forward? There’s not only storms ahead, but bigger ones. There’s not only sacrifices out there in front of you, but greater sacrifices than you’ve yet made. And just when you’re thinking there’s no energy left, when you’re about to call it quits, your King rides ahead with a laugh, saying, “Follow me.”

There’s no use delaying. There’s no use doubting. Our King won’t have any of that.

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