Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 4

Chestertonian Gospel

Practical Christianity 1

Prayer: Father, please open our eyes to Your glory this morning. We know that compared to your glory, our eyes can barely see. So please give us Your Spirit so that we would see Your glory in this Word and then illumine everything around us by this Word. Please do this for the glory of Christ, and because we ask in His name, Amen.

Introduction
Today we’re beginning a series on Practical Christianity. We will be covering topics like what does the Bible say about Heaven & Hell, Divorce & Remarriage, Baptism, as well as Prayer and Family Worship. A lot of these topics will be practical in the sense that they will tackle Christian practice, but they will also be practical in the sense that they will be applicable to every Christian, topics every Christian should have a working knowledge of. This first message is on the potence of a what we might call a Chestertonian Gospel. And this really is the cornerstone of all practical Christianity. This is how the gospel begins to impact everything.

G.K. Chesterton was a Roman Catholic who famously saw the beauty and extravagance and personalism of God’s world. Life is an epic adventure, an extravagant stage, an outrageously stunning canvas of God’s glory. As Chesterton once put it, “One elephant having a trunk was odd, but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.” 

Chesterton pointed out the glory in what many only consider ordinary, and in particular the glory of repetition: “The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. 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. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”

Unfortunately, Chesterton believed that Calvinism was a plot to bury all that glory in a pile of fatalism (He knows better now). But the Bible teaches that the doctrines of grace (Calvinism) recovered in the Reformation go hand in hand with this exuberance. Sovereign grace brings the glory into sharp relief. 

Robert Capon put it this way, “The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two hundred proof grace – bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started. Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale, neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

Summary of the Text
Scripture tells the story of our salvation like a grand adventure. We are all like lost orphan children, trapped and imprisoned in the great dungeon of sin and death (Gal. 4:3). And just when all hope seemed lost, God sent His Son, born of Eve just like us yet without sin, made under the law just like us, yet no law breaker, to lead the great prison break, and bring us home to His Father – not only to bring us home but to be adopted as sons (Gal. 4:4-5). Not only have we been adopted, but God has given us the very same Spirit that fills His Son, teaching us to call Him “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). This means that we are no mere servants but true and full sons, and royal sons, with a full inheritance at that (Gal. 4:7). Do you live like this is true? Do you make breakfast as a redeemed-slave-made-nobility? Do you clean your room and computer program like the son of the High King?

Rags to Riches
Imagine that one of your ancestors was adopted by a Great King, but through pride and greed was tricked by an enemy and betrayed the King and was disinherited, banished from the Kingdom, and all his descendants were sentenced to work as slaves ever since. But one day a letter arrives at your slave hut, and it is an official legal document, a will and testimony with a deed to a castle. But it isn’t just any castle, it’s the castle of the King your ancestor betrayed, and the will restores all that was lost, making you a lord in the kingdom, and it is signed and sealed in the blood of the Great King’s Son with the words “Debt Paid In Full.” 

That is what the gospel is. The gospel is the “good news” that what we thought we had lost forever, what we thought was impossible, has been found and completely restored – the gift of living forever as God’s favored nobility. Do you look at the world around you as the entry way of eternal life? We almost lost everything – apart from Christ, all is lost – but in Christ everything is restored, everything is grace and gift. Every day is Christmas. And obedience is the gift of serving the King. Disobedience is ingratitude; obedience is life. 

Double Imputation
Theologians call the legal transaction that saved us “double imputation.” The gospel is that what is rightfully ours (sin, guilt, and judgment) inherited from Adam has been reckoned to Jesus Christ on His cross, and what was rightfully His (righteousness, holiness, and the inheritance of God), since He was completely sinless and obedient – that has been reckoned to us by faith alone. “For He [God] hath made Him [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him [Christ]” (2 Cor. 5:21). “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). This double imputation is only possible because Christ came as a new Adam, a new covenantal head. So just as by Adam’s sin, we all inherited sin and death, so by Christ’s righteousness, all who trust in Him inherit His righteousness and life (Rom. 5). 

But do you hear this and does it pierce your heart? Does it make you sing? You were on death row, and the King You betrayed traded places with you. Every bite of food, every breath you take – it’s all grace, it’s all mercy, all undeserved gift, which makes every detail shine: it’s all treasure: your house, your car, your body, your food, your yard, every blade of grass, every rock or pebble – it could have not been. You could have not been, and you could be under the curse of sin and death. It might have all been lost. But in Christ you are free and alive, and that makes everything a gift, everything glorious, everything treasure. 

Before the Foundation of the World
But there is one more significant piece that really makes a big difference. The Bible teaches that all of this was planned before the foundation of the world: “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world… having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ… That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ… in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will: that we should be to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:4-6, 10-12). 

“Sovereign grace” is God’s eternal plot to save. This underlines the glory. Every detail was planned by God. Every detail is His artistry. Your childhood, your family, the people, all the side characters, all the plot development. It was all written for your salvation, that we should be to the praise of His glory. 
 
Conclusions
Chesterton thought that this doctrine of predestination (Calvinism) was a terrible thing because he thought it turned God into a monstrous puppeteer and destroyed the beauty and excitement of Christian life. But Scripture says just the opposite. God’s absolute sovereign grace underlines two things about our salvation: It was utterly impossible for us, and it is all His mercy (Eph. 2:5-9). We were dead, and God made us alive. That is the beginning of the most epic adventure prepared for us. 

If God were not absolute goodness and beauty and life, we might grant that His absolute sovereignty could be a downer. But if the most brilliant, creative, and perfectly gracious and personal Author is telling the story, how could the story be anything less than wonderful? We are His characters. This world is His canvas, His symphony. This story is His surprise party. Open your eyes. Nothing is ordinary. We live in a magical world of sunsets and glaciers; grapes that turn into wine; mountains that explode and rise out of the sea; and oceans that foam and churn; wind and rain and snow; and the menagerie of colorful creatures flying, leaping, spinning, croaking. And we have been forgiven and crowned as kings and queens, inheriting it all. 

All our doubts come down to one central fear: but what if God isn’t good? And the answer to that is: He sent His Son for you. He sent His Son to make us His sons. Open your eyes. Look at the grace all around you. Look at the glory. Open your mouth: taste and see that He is good. 

Prayer: Father, please do not let us to become religious curators of a theological museum. Do not allow Your gospel to become mundane or ordinary. Please keep the wonder and the glory of Your grace fresh in our hearts all our days, so that our neighbors might know Your glory, so that our children and grandchildren will be even more amazed than we are, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, who taught us to pray…

Practical Christianity 1

Chestertonian Gospel

Prayer: Father, please open our eyes to Your glory this morning. We know that compared to your glory, our eyes can barely see. So please give us Your Spirit so that we would see Your glory in this Word and then illumine everything around us by this Word. Please do this for the glory of Christ, and because we ask in His name, Amen.

Introduction
Today we’re beginning a series on Practical Christianity. We will be covering topics like what does the Bible say about Heaven & Hell, Divorce & Remarriage, Baptism, as well as Prayer and Family Worship. A lot of these topics will be practical in the sense that they will tackle Christian practice, but they will also be practical in the sense that they will be applicable to every Christian, topics every Christian should have a working knowledge of. This first message is on the potence of a what we might call a Chestertonian Gospel. And this really is the cornerstone of all practical Christianity. This is how the gospel begins to impact everything.

G.K. Chesterton was a Roman Catholic who famously saw the beauty and extravagance and personalism of God’s world. Life is an epic adventure, an extravagant stage, an outrageously stunning canvas of God’s glory. As Chesterton once put it, “One elephant having a trunk was odd, but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.” 

Chesterton pointed out the glory in what many only consider ordinary, and in particular the glory of repetition: “The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. 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. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”

Unfortunately, Chesterton believed that Calvinism was a plot to bury all that glory in a pile of fatalism (He knows better now). But the Bible teaches that the doctrines of grace (Calvinism) recovered in the Reformation go hand in hand with this exuberance. Sovereign grace brings the glory into sharp relief. 

Robert Capon put it this way, “The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two hundred proof grace – bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started. Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale, neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

Summary of the Text
Scripture tells the story of our salvation like a grand adventure. We are all like lost orphan children, trapped and imprisoned in the great dungeon of sin and death (Gal. 4:3). And just when all hope seemed lost, God sent His Son, born of Eve just like us yet without sin, made under the law just like us, yet no law breaker, to lead the great prison break, and bring us home to His Father – not only to bring us home but to be adopted as sons (Gal. 4:4-5). Not only have we been adopted, but God has given us the very same Spirit that fills His Son, teaching us to call Him “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). This means that we are no mere servants but true and full sons, and royal sons, with a full inheritance at that (Gal. 4:7). Do you live like this is true? Do you make breakfast as a redeemed-slave-made-nobility? Do you clean your room and computer program like the son of the High King?

Rags to Riches
Imagine that one of your ancestors was adopted by a Great King, but through pride and greed was tricked by an enemy and betrayed the King and was disinherited, banished from the Kingdom, and all his descendants were sentenced to work as slaves ever since. But one day a letter arrives at your slave hut, and it is an official legal document, a will and testimony with a deed to a castle. But it isn’t just any castle, it’s the castle of the King your ancestor betrayed, and the will restores all that was lost, making you a lord in the kingdom, and it is signed and sealed in the blood of the Great King’s Son with the words “Debt Paid In Full.” 

That is what the gospel is. The gospel is the “good news” that what we thought we had lost forever, what we thought was impossible, has been found and completely restored – the gift of living forever as God’s favored nobility. Do you look at the world around you as the entry way of eternal life? We almost lost everything – apart from Christ, all is lost – but in Christ everything is restored, everything is grace and gift. Every day is Christmas. And obedience is the gift of serving the King. Disobedience is ingratitude; obedience is life. 

Double Imputation
Theologians call the legal transaction that saved us “double imputation.” The gospel is that what is rightfully ours (sin, guilt, and judgment) inherited from Adam has been reckoned to Jesus Christ on His cross, and what was rightfully His (righteousness, holiness, and the inheritance of God), since He was completely sinless and obedient – that has been reckoned to us by faith alone. “For He [God] hath made Him [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him [Christ]” (2 Cor. 5:21). “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). This double imputation is only possible because Christ came as a new Adam, a new covenantal head. So just as by Adam’s sin, we all inherited sin and death, so by Christ’s righteousness, all who trust in Him inherit His righteousness and life (Rom. 5). 

But do you hear this and does it pierce your heart? Does it make you sing? You were on death row, and the King You betrayed traded places with you. Every bite of food, every breath you take – it’s all grace, it’s all mercy, all undeserved gift, which makes every detail shine: it’s all treasure: your house, your car, your body, your food, your yard, every blade of grass, every rock or pebble – it could have not been. You could have not been, and you could be under the curse of sin and death. It might have all been lost. But in Christ you are free and alive, and that makes everything a gift, everything glorious, everything treasure. 

Before the Foundation of the World
But there is one more significant piece that really makes a big difference. The Bible teaches that all of this was planned before the foundation of the world: “according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world… having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ… That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ… in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will: that we should be to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:4-6, 10-12). 

“Sovereign grace” is God’s eternal plot to save. This underlines the glory. Every detail was planned by God. Every detail is His artistry. Your childhood, your family, the people, all the side characters, all the plot development. It was all written for your salvation, that we should be to the praise of His glory. 
 
Conclusions
Chesterton thought that this doctrine of predestination (Calvinism) was a terrible thing because he thought it turned God into a monstrous puppeteer and destroyed the beauty and excitement of Christian life. But Scripture says just the opposite. God’s absolute sovereign grace underlines two things about our salvation: It was utterly impossible for us, and it is all His mercy (Eph. 2:5-9). We were dead, and God made us alive. That is the beginning of the most epic adventure prepared for us. 

If God were not absolute goodness and beauty and life, we might grant that His absolute sovereignty could be a downer. But if the most brilliant, creative, and perfectly gracious and personal Author is telling the story, how could the story be anything less than wonderful? We are His characters. This world is His canvas, His symphony. This story is His surprise party. Open your eyes. Nothing is ordinary. We live in a magical world of sunsets and glaciers; grapes that turn into wine; mountains that explode and rise out of the sea; and oceans that foam and churn; wind and rain and snow; and the menagerie of colorful creatures flying, leaping, spinning, croaking. And we have been forgiven and crowned as kings and queens, inheriting it all. 

All our doubts come down to one central fear: but what if God isn’t good? And the answer to that is: He sent His Son for you. He sent His Son to make us His sons. Open your eyes. Look at the grace all around you. Look at the glory. Open your mouth: taste and see that He is good. 

Prayer: Father, please do not let us to become religious curators of a theological museum. Do not allow Your gospel to become mundane or ordinary. Please keep the wonder and the glory of Your grace fresh in our hearts all our days, so that our neighbors might know Your glory, so that our children and grandchildren will be even more amazed than we are, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, who taught us to pray…

The Theistic Evolution Virus

[I did an online debate with “Redeemed Zoomer” recently and below is a slightly revised version of my opening statement.]

Introduction 
While I do believe that Theistic Evolution is not compatible with biblical Christianity, I do want to say at the outset that I don’t believe that this means no one who holds to Theistic Evolution can be saved. I believe there have been many sincere Christians who have erroneously believed that God used macro evolution to create everything that has come into existence, and many of them are in Heaven now and they know better. 

At the same time, by saying that theistic evolution is not compatible with biblical Christianity is to say that it is inconsistent with Scripture and reason and therefore ultimately unhelpful, antagonist, and long-term utterly cancerous and destructive to the Christian faith, and yes, I’m talking about Francis Collins.

Defining Terms
I want to define my terms a little further before proceeding. I’m here arguing against theistic macro evolution, that is, the idea that God in some way Providentially super-intended “the addition of new or novel traits (neomorphs) within a population when the ancestors neither had those traits nor the genetic information to code for them.” Here, I’m quoting Dr. Gordon Wilson’s definition and I will be drawing heavily from his work on the scientific side of things going forward and throughout this debate. I highly commend his book Darwin’s Sandcastle to everyone.

No one denies the reality of micro evolution, what Wilson describes as “the rearrangement, redistribution, removal, or remodeling of existing genetic information” in various “kinds” of creatures. This was designed by God the Creator to allow for families and kinds of creatures to adapt to different environments, which can certainly include a very wide variety of physical traits (e.g. compare the Russell terrier to a Bernese Mountain dog). But no true “neomorph” has come into existence in that great variation. Size, shape, colors, hair length and numerous other details shift and change, but no dog has ever yet grown feathers or a turtle shell or sprouted a trunk. And despite Darwin’s great hope in the fossil record, nothing has turned up. And that is because his theory is illogical and utterly impossible and flatly contradicts the text of Genesis and Scripture as a whole. 

The Theological & Scriptural Case
So let’s begin with Scripture: Theistic evolution posits that God used the “natural” process of natural selection, mutation, adaptation, and billions of years of suffering, violence, death, and destruction to bring about the current state of the world. But it does not make it better to say that “God used” violence and death to create the world. It does not make it better; it makes it worse. Some might point to the Biblical doctrine of Providence that God works all things together for good, including evil to try to justify theistic evolution, or what Joseph told his brothers: what evil men meant for evil God meant for good. 

But if Genesis 1 is a poetic description of the evolutionary process, what does “good” even mean? If the fifth day describes millions of years of mutation, suffering, violence, and death of sea creatures and birds, and God saw all of that and said it was good – what does “good” even mean? This introduces massive moral confusion into the text. This point is underlined on the seventh day and the final appraisal of all of creation: And God saw all that He had made and behold it was “very good.” The whole point is that there is no evil in the world. But if God is evaluating millions or billions of years of mutation, suffering, violence, extinction, and death, that introduces a radical category confusion of goodness to the Bible. 

When God providentially works His good purposes out of contrary evil purposes later in history, He as at war with those evil purposes. But theistic evolution blesses them. Theistic evolution must say that the fact of the strong preying on the weak is “good.” But the Bible teaches that death is an enemy, an enemy to be destroyed, and a very crucial point is that it is an enemy that Jesus conquered in His death and resurrection. God is at war with death. 

The biblical doctrine of supernatural creation insists on a base line of goodness and perfection. And in that first week of the universe, death and suffering and violence were not present, but that also means they were not at all natural. It is utterly abhorrent to call violence, suffering, mutation, and death “natural.” The whole point of the curse of sin and death is that it is a curse. It is unnatural. It is not the way it’s supposed to be. To call millions or billions of years of predation, suffering, and extinction “natural” is to make the Fall normal. It has become what seems natural and normal to fallen men, but as Romans 8 says, all of creation has been subjected to futility, not willingly, and it groans in eager expectation to be delivered from the bondage of corruption – from the curse of sin and death. If you try to press that groaning back into the billions of imaginary years prior to the existence of Adam, when did it begin to groan? When was it subjected to bondage? Theistic evolution in effect says that that world has always been cursed, always groaning. And somehow the curse is good. But if that is the case, then why did Jesus have to die? He didn’t have to die. God could have just used more theistic evolution to “evolve” our fallen natures into unfallen ones. If He can use natural processes to turn rocks into buffaloes, then He could do the same thing turning sinners into saints. 

The Bible clearly teaches that death did not enter the world until Adam sinned: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Closely related would be Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death.” The death of men and animals did not happen until man sinned. 

Finally, as far as Scripture goes, the Bible also clearly teaches that the earth is relatively young. The Hebrew word for day “yom” is almost always used to describe an ordinary 24 hour day, and when it isn’t, the context is very clear that it isn’t. In Genesis 1, Moses knows that someone might ask about the length of days given the fact that the sun, moon, and stars are not created until day four, so Moses tells us exactly how long the days were: there was evening and there was morning, the first day, the second day, the third day. How did God cause an evening and a morning before there was a sun? The same way He spoke the sun and moon into existence from nothing. We also know that the Bible intends to describe how young the world is because Jesus explicitly says that Adam and Eve were created at the beginning of the world (not after billions of years):“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mk. 10:6). 

A Failed Scientific Theory
Theistic evolution is also repugnant to reason and science and is an attempt to salvage a completely failed scientific theory. And here, I want to be clear that faithful scientific research and study is a central mission of biblical Christianity. The Dominion Mandate given to Adam and Eve includes the use of obedient reason, research, and examination of creation’s evidence. 

But theistic evolution contradicts reason and science beginning with its flagrant disregard for the Second Law of Thermodynamics or Entropy which states that things in nature tend to move from order to disorder – energy spreads out and becomes less useful over time. And no Big Bang, even set off by God, can give us zebras, solar eclipses, and J.S. Bach. Not only is this true in general, it is also true in particular with regard to information. Nothing in this world naturally goes from no information to some additional information by itself. Give the universe billions of years, and the ocean will not carve up an exquisite sand castle on a beach in Fiji. Leave an old IBM computer buried in a land fill, and give it billions of years, and it will not become a MacBook Pro or an AI supercomputer. But these are the ludicrous assertions of evolution. 

Natural selection and mutations only account for the rearrangement, redistribution, removal, or remodeling of existing genetic information. As Cornell University professor John Sanford has demonstrated through his ground-breaking work in genetics, genetic mutation has never been demonstrated to mutate in a truly new and beneficial way. Mutations are always deteriorations, even if some tiny fraction of them happen to aid in survival. Likening the beauty of the universe to bacteria developing immunity to penicillin is pretty hilarious.  

Furthermore, Darwin’s great hope in the fossil record has been a colossal disappointment, including to such famous Darwinian paleontologists as Stephen J. Gould who in one moment of honesty admitted, “The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Most species exhibit no directional change… 2. a species do not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’” To which Gould and others have attempted to cover this lack with what they call “punctuated equilibrium,” which is a technical scientific term for “we couldn’t find any missing links.” And that’s because they don’t exist, and that is because all the families of creatures were spoken into existence by the Word of God from nothing as distinct supernatural acts. 

Conclusion
So theistic evolution is incompatible with biblical Christianity because it is unfaithful to Scripture’s central story: God created a good and sinless world which was rocked by the sin of the first man, and that sin brought the great curse of sin and death into this world. This sets up the Grand Narrative of God’s war against evil, culminating in the sending of His Son who lived a sinless life of obedience, died as a new Adam in our place, bearing the first Adam’s curse, and when He cried ‘it is finished,’ the power of the curse was broken, and at the resurrection, a new creation began to fill the world. Theistic evolution makes peace with sin and suffering and death and even blesses it. Theistic evolution plays fast and loose with God’s clear word on the age of the earth and the distinct creative acts of God in the successive days of creation. And finally, theistic evolution is offensive to biblical Christianity because it is repugnant to reason, defies fundamental laws of science, and is trying to prop up a theory that even its own advocates admit lacks evidence. 

I will leave you with one additional thought: we are living in the cultural and scientific fallout of evolutionary science. While a distinctly Christian worldview has managed to persist in bits and pieces, a culture that aborts millions of babies in the name of health care is the fruit of evolutionary science. A culture that celebrates hormone blockers for kids and mastectomies for teenage girls is the fruit of evolutionary science. And if all that were not enough, we just emerged from several years of scientific and medical madness in the Covid scam. From playing god in labs with gain of function research to the mass hysteria over a bad flu virus to the experimental vaccines and all the demands to “trust the experts” and “follow the science,” the scientific community has utterly beclowned itself. The same scientific establishment that has been predicting catastrophic rising sea levels and melted polar ice caps has been soberly insisting that we evolved from cat fish. This puts us in a very dangerous place since I certainly do not want to throw the baby of true science out with all this delusional bathwater. I’m grateful for antibiotics and good vaccines, but evolution is a mind virus in our cultural system and theist evolution is a particularly virulent strain. 

Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

Confessing the Sins of our Land

In Scripture there are categories of sin that defile the land. These are often called abominations – moral pollutions that cause blood guilt, like a curse resting on the people of that land. For example, when there was an unsolved murder in Israel, the elders of the nearest city would bring out a heifer and kill it and wash their hands in the blood of the heifer swearing a vow that they were innocent of the blood and with a prayer to God to have mercy on them, and Scriptures says that God would forgive them of the bloodguilt. Of course, if the vow was false, they would be calling down a curse upon themselves.

Jesus seems to be alluding to this principle even as He is dying on the cross: “Father, forgiven them for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). In that case, Jesus is the murder victim, but He is also the sacrificial heifer, and the true elder of the city of Jerusalem. Pilate tried washing his hands and the Jews tried claiming His blood, but only those who would turn and repent would be forgiven by Christ’s blood. Ultimately, when Jerusalem refused to repent, all the faithful fled from the city, leaving the land polluted, and God sent His fierce judgment and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. 

But while the righteous remain in the land, there is real protection even for those still in their sins. Just as God would not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah while there were three righteous left in the city, Christians are true salt and light in our cities. 

This is one of the reasons why we confess sin corporately every Sunday. We are not merely confessing our own sins, we are also confessing the sins of our land, of our city and nation, and we are washing our hands in the blood of the innocent Christ so that the curse may not come upon our land and all men might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. 

This is why we often finish our prayer of confession with the words, “we know if we in the church regard any iniquity in our hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual.” We are acknowledging that if we are washing our hands in this blood but hiding sin, we will be calling down a great curse on our land.

Photo by Dustan Woodhouse on Unsplash

Thoughts on Dominion & AI

Introduction
It’s always great to have C.R. Wiley on CrossPolitic, and last Thursday was no exception – talking J.D. Vance and the new Trump administration vibe shift, but ultimately landing on the topic of Artificial Intelligence and a new book he is currently working on. 

Chris helpfully sketched the current lay of the land, and he has clearly read a whole lot more than I have in the field. Broadly speaking, we are currently at the point of what many refer to as “narrow” AI where super computers can run complex algorithms sifting, sorting, and analyzing data, but limited to particular applications: examples would include learning and playing Chess, self-driving cars, and Siri or Alexa assistants. The potential blessings of these tools are immense: AI analysis of medical knowledge is already producing breakthroughs in advanced diagnoses and treatments. AI language analysis and translation tools are likely to finish Bible translation into every known language in the next decade or so. World evangelism will also become even more feasible and potent, when AI translation assistants can be used in villages where languages are spoken that virtually no one knows.

The Major Question
The major question for many (and goal for some) is whether Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is possible and what Christians should think about it. This is where computer intelligence may autonomously shift between tasks it wasn’t directly assigned, solve novel problems on its own, understand different contexts, and use some measure of abstract thinking. This is where questions of artificial “sentience” come in. Could machines develop “minds of their own?” The concern for AGI has been well documented in Sci-Fi novels and movies for many years, from That Hideous Strength to iRobot to Minority Report and so on. While many within the industry have raised these concerns, others are lauding the possibilities, particularly the transhumanist movement, which envisions a utopian future, sometimes called the singularity, where human nature blends with technology into a cyborg immortality and universal world peace, harmony, and infinite progress. Elon Musk is among some futurists to celebrate this possibility. Sounds like Heaven and the resurrection only without the need of Jesus, His Spirit, much less His death and resurrection. Which of course is full blown idolatry and a false humanist religion.   

It has occurred to me that this is nothing less than the old Babel dream: to build a city and tower reaching to Heaven. And notice that the Babel project began with the unification of language and tongues (Gen. 11:1). This is why the super human translation and interpretation tools of narrow AI naturally suggest the transhumanist singularity to autonomous men. And it’s worth noting that God does not say what they are attempting is impossible, but rather, just the opposite: “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Gen. 11:6). It appears that God has actually embedded some measure of this potential humanist idolatry in His creation and in the intelligence that He has bestowed in our bearing of His image. 

While we may hope that God has also embedded various “kill switches” in His creation that render the ultimate possibility of the transhumanist dream impossible, we should also consider the possibility that it will require the active resistance of His redeemed humanity, as C.S. Lewis sketches in the heroic community of St. Annes in That Hideous Strength. At the same time, as Lewis also suggests in the same novel, we must also not underestimate the influence and participation of other beings, angelic or demonic or otherwise. To what extent might some AGI be nothing short of modern witchcraft and sorcery, calling down deep heaven and the powers of darkness? The fact that God’s law prohibits these things is a standing warning not to underestimate them.

Super Smart Beasts  
As I mentioned on CrossPolitic, I’ve been working my way through John Lennox’s fascinating study of AI — 2084, and it strikes me that while I deny that human beings will ever create fully human intelligence since that would require a human soul made in the image of God, and only God can create His image and does so through a particular biological process, I do believe that there are massive possibilities in simulated intelligence that may approach the kind of being and sentient powers of independent personality found in the animal kingdom. 

Therefore, we ought to think about taking dominion of AI and the ethical dilemmas posed by AI as analogous to our duties toward animal life. They can and should be trained, used with wisdom and stewardship, and where they can or do harm, take precautions and require justice accordingly. 

Note: I am not saying that AI computers or even certain limited forms of AGI robots will *be* animals. I am suggesting that we think of them in that biblical and ethical category. I suggest we think of them as super smart beasts, perhaps even beasts that are smarter and more powerful than us in some respects. But this has actually been the assignment from the beginning: God created mankind to exercise dominion over all of creation, especially all of the animals, even the very crafty dragons and serpents and powerful Leviathan (see Gen. 3, Job 41). From the beginning we were supposed to be dragon trainers, and short of that, dragon slayers. 

Animals have various levels of independent sentience, intelligence, and creativity. Animals function with various instinctive and genetic “programs,” but many animals are capable of adaptation, learning, and even personality. The animal kingdom also provides analogies for the ways in which AI technology serves mankind in our vocations and work as well as tools that extend and multiply our labors. Think of the way that animals “drove” our carts, wagons, chariots and plows for centuries. They were/are sentient creatures that needed training, discipline, and maintenance, but they multiplied our speed and power. And sometimes they were dangerous, lethal, and turned on us and had to be put down. 

So, for example, with regard to the ethics of AGI, in the famous ox goring law of Exodus 21, an ox that kills a human is to be put to death. Therefore, a machine that causes the death of a human being should be destroyed. The law continues: if the ox was “known” for its violent tendencies, the owner of the ox is also liable for the death. Therefore, the programmer/manufacturer of a machine that was known for its potential to harm human beings is liable for the harm that it causes, if sufficient precautions were not taken to prevent harm, whether life, property, privacy, reputation, etc.

Conclusion
It seems to me that a more robust theology of human dominion over all of creation and all animal creatures will fill out our duties with regard to robots, AI, and various simulated intelligences. We should see them as potentially powerful tools and resources capable of extending and expanding our abilities to make the earth fruitful in every way, but like wild beasts, they need to be carefully tamed, trained, sometimes caged and chained, and occasionally put down.

My cohost Chocolate Knox also helpfully suggested along the same lines that we also must remember that much of what we think of as “non-sentient” is not as inert as we materialistic moderns often assume. Our older medieval fathers knew that the world is not just atoms and molecules, but it is full of the life and glory of its Maker. While we reject every form of pantheism, the Bible clearly teaches that mountains and rivers and forests sing the praises of their Creator. All of creation “groans” in eager expectation for the redemption of the sons of God. 

All of creation: chemicals, oceans, hurricanes are not just impersonal forces, they may have far more “intelligence” and personality than we realize. When we mix chemicals together, there is more going on than mere machinery. While the alchemists may have been wrong in many ways, their broader worldview may have been more right. And we still don’t really know how the angels come into all of this. Scientists have only just “decoded” the bare human genome, some 3.2 billion pairs of “letters” in the DNA alphabet. But that kind of information is embedded in all of creation, that kind of intelligence. And it is there for us to study, explore, multiply, and make fruitful in every way. It is there for us to take dominion with wisdom, until the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 

Establishing the New Jerusalem

Acts 28:1-16

Prayer: Father, we are here asking You to pour out Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon our town. We pray that Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead would be placarded before us today through Your Word so that we would not be able to look away, so that every stronghold of sin would be destroyed and Your Kingdom would come in our families and nation, as it is in Heaven. And we ask for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction
If I told you a story about a persecuted people sailing a vast distance to a strange new world to establish a new way of life and forming a new nation in the process, what does that make you think of? It may apply to the founding of many nations, but for many of us, it sounds like the founding of America. At the time it looked weak and desperate, but we look back on it as actually momentous and glorious and heroic.

In the ancient world, Homer’s Odyssey traced Odysseus’ beleaguered voyage home after the Trojan War, and Virgil self-consciously channeled Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad in his Aeneid and the legendary founding of Rome (a new Troy) by the Trojan hero Aeneas. Perilous voyages, miraculous escapes, and surprising hospitality mark these national legends of pagan virtue and piety. It probably would not have been lost on a first century audience that Paul’s journey to Rome had some of the same echoes. This is the story of the ambassador of the High King of Heaven coming to Rome to establish New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God.

The Text: “And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness…” (Acts 28:1-16)

Summary of the Text
As the ship breaks apart, 276 souls swim or float to the shore of the island of Malta, about 50-60 miles south of Sicily, where they were met by natives who received them kindly and kindled a fire in the midst of a cold, winter rain (Acts 28:1-2). When Paul joined in gathering sticks and feeding the fire, a poisonous viper came out of the heat and bit him, and while the natives assumed this was an omen of his guilt, Paul shook off the snake and was unharmed and the natives acclaimed him as a god (Acts 28:3-6). One of the chief men of the island, Publius, lodged Paul and his companions for three days, and while they were there, Paul healed his father and many others (Acts 28:7-10). 

After three months on the island, a ship sailing under the sign of Castor and Pollux took them to Syracuse on Sicily, and from there, the ship worked its way up to Rhegium, past the legendary location of Scylla (a multi-headed monster in a cave) on one side and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool) on the other, and on up the Italian coast to Puteoli, where they met with Christian brothers for a week (Acts 28:11-14). From there, they continued north, welcomed by more brothers about halfway, before finally arriving in Rome under house arrest (Acts 28:15-16). 

True Dominion by the Spirit
The church has frequently misunderstood our mission of dominion and has frequently veered between fleshly power and spiritual irrelevance. When I asked Ben Shapiro why he didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah, he said because the Messiah is clearly a political figure who is supposed to establish a new political order. Many Christians would say Shapiro was wrong: Jesus only came to establish a spiritual kingdom. But Paul would look Shapiro in the eyes and say: “What are you talking about? He is and He did.”

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, it really was His triumphal entry, and when they crucified Him on that Roman cross, mocking Him and crowning Him with thorns, He really was enthroned in this world, in history. At that moment, He was the King of kings and Lord of lords. This was proven and proclaimed with power in His resurrection from the dead three days later. And so here, Paul, the servant of the King of kings, is being escorted to the capital city of an empire to announce the terms of their surrender. 

This is no desperate attempt to survive. Paul rode a storm to Rome, all expenses paid; he is not really under house arrest: he’s being welcomed and lodged by the King. Rome belongs to Jesus Christ. And from the shipwreck to the snake bite to the ensign of the ship to the city of Rome, nothing can stop him. He may look like a weak prisoner, but he is being escorted by the authority and healing power of the High King.  

As Herbert Schlossberg said, “The Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters.” Or as Chesterton put it, “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” This is true dominion in history by the power of the Spirit. Do you think this way? Do you believe like this? Do you talk like this? I talked to a man this week who spent time in prison for peacefully protesting abortion. He and 23 other prolifers were pardoned by Trump two or three days after the inauguration. A number of pardons were announced right away, and Cal explained that everyone had to wait because he was having a very fruitful Bible study with his cell mate and he couldn’t be released until they finished the gospel of John. Everything that happens is in service of the King. 

When Christians have to go to the hospital, we are being sent by the King. When weather cancels our plans, the King has given us a different assignment. Why did God allow a viper to bite Paul? So that he would receive an appropriate welcome, so they would listen to his message.

Applications
Jesus said that some of His emissaries would “take up serpents” and not be harmed (Mk. 16:18), and so sometimes that has been the case, as happened here. But the Bible says the primary reason was as a sign confirming the Word of the gospel (Mk. 16:20), and the word of the gospel is for the healing of the mostly deadly snake bite: the poison of sin. The poison of sin is the curse that separates us from the King. The poison of sin is what makes us fear death and suffering. The King has cared for us, giving us life and health and so many good things, and we have all rebelled against the King. That is the poison of sin; it is the insanity of our selfishness, the madness of our pride, the self-destruction of hating the One who made us, rejecting His plan, His goodness, demanding our own way, demanding to be our own King, demanding our own glory, our own comfort, our own Kingdom. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop doing it. This is the poison of sin.

This poison and its healing was pictured in the Old Testament when many Israelites complained and were bitter against God, accusing Him and Moses of evil – so God sent by poisonous snakes to bite many them to picture the poison of their sin and rebellion and many were dying (Num. 21:6). And God told Moses to make a bronze serpent pierced on a pole, and all who looked at the bronze serpent were healed (Num. 21:9). 

And Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:14-15). This is not merely a spiritual reality; this is the center of the renewal of human life, the healing of families and nations, the healing of the world. What is it that brings this healing? Seeing Christ lifted up on Calvary like a poisonous snake and impaled. 

Do you think of it like that? Jesus said that when He was lifted up, He would be lifted up like a poisonous snake and pierced through. Why was Christ lifted up like a poisonous snake and killed? Because God made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). God made Him to be sin. Why? So that our sin could be killed. This is what the gospel proclaims: your sin, your lies, your wrath, your lust, your envy, your impatience, your bitterness, your selfishness was laid upon Him and when the Romans drove the spikes into his hands and feet, your sin was pierced through, your sin was impaled. This is the healing of every family and every nation. If you look at the Cross and see Christ become your poisonous snake and all of your sin, then the poison cannot harm you and you can shake the snake off into the fire.  

Sin is not only the poison that separates us from God; it also separates us from one another. This is why Scripture says that in the Cross, God was killing the enmity that exists between us (Eph. 2:16). This is why one of the marks of this healing in families and nations is hospitality and friendship (e.g. Acts 28:2, 7, 14-16). Jesus came eating and drinking, and by His death has reconciled us to Himself, and God has welcomed us to His table and fellowship. While it may not look like much, we sit at the Lord’s Supper as His nobility and royalty and friends (Rev. 1:6). Do you believe that? Therefore, we have fellowship with one another because we have fellowship with Him through His blood (1 Jn. 1:7). Here, Christ grants Paul a royal welcome by complete strangers on an island and the brothers along the way. We welcome one another because Christ welcomes us. We forgive one another because we have been forgiven much.

The New Testament clearly teaches that we are to view fellow Christians as “brothers.” This does not obliterate our duties to our natural family or nation, but while we are to do good to all men, we are to especially minister to those in the “household of faith” (Lk. 8:21, Gal. 6:10, Eph. 2:19). This is a sign of true conversion that you love the saints, who are your brothers (Col. 1:4, 1 Jn. 3:14). But this friendship and hospitality are not ends in themselves, they are for encouragement and refreshment along the way on the mission of the King. We are not here “for community.” We are a community because we are here for the mission. We are establishing New Jerusalem: we do this by announcing that the Messiah has come and by His death and resurrection has reconciled us to God and one another, and all things are being made new: All of Christ, for All of Life, for All of Moscow, for all the World.

Prayer: Our gracious God and Father, Your Word says that it is faith that overcomes the world, and so we ask for that potent faith: eyes to see what You see, hearts loyal to what You are doing, and so please give us great wisdom and fruitfulness to a thousand generations here in this place. And we ask for it by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ… 

The Master of the Ship

Acts 27:1-44

Prayer: Father, when storms gather, it is tempting to panic, to think that You are not in control, and we can begin listening to other voices, tempting us to find a false peace for ourselves. So we ask You to bind our hearts now to You. Please use this Word to reassure us and recommit us to obedience no matter what, in Jesus name, Amen.   

Introduction
When the earth was filled with wickedness, and every imagination of the thoughts of men were evil, God sent the biggest storm in the history of the world and saved Noah and his family (Gen. 6-7). When the Lord led Israel out of Egypt, He caused a great storm to descend upon the Red Sea, parting the waves for Israel to pass through (Ex. 14). When Jonah ran from the Lord, He sent a great storm to hunt him down. “Fire, and hail; snow, and vapor; stormy wind fulfilling His word” (Ps. 148:8).

This is one of the great themes of the gospels: Jesus falls asleep in the boat in the midst of a storm and when the experienced fishermen panic and wake Him, He commands the storm to become calm (Mk. 4:41). At another time He walks out to the disciples on the sea in the midst of a storm, as though He were taking an evening stroll (Mk. 6:48). And as we come the climax of the story of Acts, we see the Lord Jesus once again commanding storms to do His will. We serve the God of great adventures (the kind that can make you feel sick), but He is the Master and He knows what He is doing. And faith obeys; faith rides in the ship of obedience.

The Text: “And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus’ band…” (Acts 27:1-44)

Summary of the Text
Finally, Paul is sent to Rome with a number of other prisoners, under the care of a courteous Roman centurion named Julius (Acts 27:1-3). From Sidon, the first ship carries them north of Cyprus along the coast of southern Turkey/Asia Minor (Acts 27:4-5). From there, they find another ship sailing to Italy and make it as far as Crete as winter is coming on (Acts 27:6-8). While Paul warned them not to continue, the centurion was persuaded by the master and owner of the ship to at least attempt to make it to a better harbor, when an infamous Mediterranean storm system called Euroclydon struck them (Acts 27:9-14). Forced to let the ship drive in the storm for many days, the sailors lost all hope (Acts 27:15-20). 

Finally, after many days in the storm, Paul announced that an angel had appeared to him and declared that all hands would be saved, although the ship would be lost, and on the fourteenth night, they neared land and dropped anchor (Acts 27:21-29). When some sailors attempted to escape in a life boat, Paul warned them that the only way to survive the storm was to stay in the ship, and after the soldiers obeyed Paul, he urged them to have a little food, and broke bread with them (Acts 27:30-38). In the morning, they drove the ship aground, and while the soldiers were inclined to execute the prisoners, the centurion spared them for Paul’s sake, and as the ship was breaking apart, all 276 souls were able to swim safely ashore (Acts 27:39-44). 

Who is the Master of the Ship?
This story illustrates well the entire story of Acts (and the history of the world). Who is the main Actor? Who is driving the action of the story? The Jews and Romans repeatedly think that they are in charge, but Acts demonstrates unmistakably that it is the risen Jesus and His Spirit at work in every detail. Men constantly think they are in charge through their money and armies and technologies, but they are not. And here, the Romans think they are in charge and are following their Roman protocols for sending prisoners to Caesar (Acts 27:1), but very quickly, the Roman centurion is completely out of his depth (ha) and must rely on the expertise of the master and owner of the ship, who very clearly are also not really in charge (Acts 27:11). And soon, everyone appears to be at the mercy of the great storm called Euroclydon (Acts 27:14). But Euroclydon is not just a random force of nature: Jesus is the Lord of all of Creation – even the wind and waves obey Him (Mk. 4:41, Ps. 107:25-29). Euroclydon obeys Jesus. Jesus is the main Actor. He is in charge of history.

The Romans thought they were sending prisoners to Rome. The ship master and owner thought they were taking goods for sale and trade and delivering passengers. But the Lord Jesus was taking His servant Paul to Rome to preach the gospel to Caesar (Acts 23:11, 25:10-11). In fact, Paul seems to indicate that his personal survival was never in doubt (remember, Jesus had appeared to him and said he must stand before Caesar, Acts 23:11, 24). So when Paul stands up to encourage the ship’s crew after many days, he announces that he has now secured from God the safe passage of everyone else aboard. By the end of this story, everyone is following the instructions of Paul, the servant of Jesus – Paul is the true ship master and Christ is the true owner of the ship because Paul (and all of creation) belongs to Him (cf. Acts 27:23). 

Applications
Clearly Julius the Centurion is a well-meaning but foolish Roman who learned to trust and obey Paul. This is what all Romans needed to learn to do. Unless Rome trusted in the Messiah Jesus and listened to His servants (the apostles), Rome would be lost just like the ship. In the end, after a couple of centuries, many did believe in Christ, but like this shipwreck, the empire was lost while many swam to safety. 

America is no different in this respect – we are nation like Rome that can fall, but we have been given far more grace, far more blessing, far more light than ancient Rome. We were not founded by pagan idolaters but by evangelical and Reformed Christians. If the centurion represents the best of Roman piety, a sort of friendly foolishness, America is the prodigal son spitting on the grave of our fathers, wasting our lavish blessings on drugs and hookers, RVs and fashion. And God has sent the Great Euroclydon of Sexual Madness, full of lies and hubris and violence, and we have been driven by this storm for several decades now. Our current cultural moment is a brief reprieve, but Trump is not the Master of the Storm. The fundamental question is whether we will actually repent and turn to Christ, whether we will actually turn and obey Him, or will we keep listening to the “ship masters” that got us into this mess?     

It’s remarkable that the only way to survive the storm was to stay in the ship that was going to be destroyed (Acts 27:31). When land was in sight, the sailors wanted to take their chances in the lifeboat, which makes good human sense, but Paul said that if they did that they would perish. To put it another way, anyone who wanted to save his life would lose it, but those who were willing to lose their lives in obedience would save them (Mt. 16:25).

We do not usually receive visions like Paul, but we have the clear word of God in Scripture. When you haven’t been listening, sometimes you get to the point where Wisdom says, “you should have listened to me.” You should not have gone your own way. And sometimes you get there after much harm and much loss. But the Word of the gospel comes in the midst of the storm and it says: “Be of good cheer, fear not, have courage, believe God, and obey.” 

In the storms of disobedience, it can seem so complicated, but obedience parts the clouds. Tell the truth. Be kind to your wife. Submit to your husband. Obey your parents. Confess your sin; forgive those who have sinned against you. Obedience is the greatest adventure. The Lord Jesus is the Master of the Ship and the Master of the Storm. He knows what He is doing. 

Prayer: Father, I pray that you would show us the ways we get off this point. Please show us where we think we are obeying, when we are actually not. Show us where we preparing lifeboats in case obedience doesn’t seem to be working. And Father, have mercy on our nation. Turn the hearts of our rulers fully to You. Take away our arrogance, and grant us the courage and confidence of humility before You. Through Christ…

Building the Next Generation of Families

Logos School Worldview Assembly

Introduction
Psalm 127 famously says that unless God builds the house, the builders labor in vain and unless God guards the city, the watchmen stay awake in vain. Only God can build sturdy houses and families, and only God keeps and establishes cities and nations. And the two things go together: nations are families and tribes bound together in a particular place. Families are the building block of society, or the “nucleus” of society, which is where we get the notion of the “nuclear family.” So when we talk about the next generation of families, we’re also talking about the next generation of cities and nations.

Psalm 127 says that even intense work ethics or anxiety won’t do it: getting up early or staying up late or stress eating. These things do not build families and keep cities safe. They are not the true productive engine that God uses to build generations.  

Psalm 127 says that God builds houses and guards cities through the gift of children. They are the inheritance of the Lord; they are His fruitful reward. An inheritance is a gift passed down to future generations for the purpose of launching new generations further. In the Old Testament, the first born son usually received a double portion of the inheritance because it was his job to carry on his father’s house and to care for his parents in their old age. But Psalm 127 says that children are God’s inheritance – they are God’s “double portion” for us to build the next generation. God gives children for building houses and watching cities. 

It also says that the fruit of the womb is God’s reward. The word “reward” is also sometimes translated as wages or payment. This means that children are wealth. This is because human beings are the most valuable resource in the universe. They are the most valuable resources because they are the only part of creation made in the image of God. Abortion is a great and wicked evil, but it is also a form of madness and insanity. We are destroying the most valuable resource in the universe, just flushing it down the drain. How many brilliant scientists, painters, mathematicians, painters, composers, or inventors have we killed?

The Psalm closes by calling children arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior, and it explains that they make men happy and unashamed because they join their fathers standing for goodness and beauty and truth in the city gates. Children are weapons and reinforcements. Children are the ordinary way that God builds houses and guards cities. 

Thinking in Generations
So, how do we build the next generation of families? You can think of this in at least two ways: First, be the inheritance, reward, and reinforcements of your parents (and grandparents). Second, prepare to welcome and raise your own children. And the first is actually the best way to do the second: you prepare best to welcome and raise your own children by being the best inheritance, reward, and reinforcements to your parents now. 

A generation in the Bible is about forty years (modern sociologists say 25-30 years), and an average lifespan is around 2 generations. Your most productive years are probably 30-70-ish. That means your first 30 years are largely resource gathering. You are gathering all your supplies: this is initially your education (knowledge of a number of subjects, vocational skills like communication, basic math, reading, following directions) but you are also gathering personal skills (exercise, eating, sleep, time management, meeting deadlines) as well as and spiritual and moral commitments (daily Bible reading, prayer, confession of sin, worship on the Lord’s Day). And ordinarily, this is when you will marry and begin having your own children. Who you marry will make a massive impact on your future. And you will be doing all of this while your own parents are in the middle of their most productive years. And if you think about, they are pouring most of their productivity into you. They are pouring themselves out for you.  

One way you can think about being the inheritance, reward, and reinforcements of your parents is by loading up as much as you can during your first 30 years. They are pouring into you; are you being a good steward of their sacrifices? Your diligence, hard work, joyful spirit, and faithfulness to Christ in these years is an enormous blessing to your parents. A company where the workers stay busy and joyful is way more productive than a company where the managers have to constantly check on the workers or one where the workers are constantly screwing stuff up. What kind of house are you building? What kind of city are you becoming? Unlike ordinary bricks, you can resist what God is building or you can receive what God is building. So what is general attitude to what you are being given? Is it resistant or receptive? Is it grateful or is it resentful?

Recent American Generations
Sociologists have named the last number of generations in America: 

The Greatest Generation (also known as the G.I. Generation) – Born 1901-1927: Known for their experiences during the Great Depression and World War II. 

The Silent Generation – Born 1928-1945: Named for their conformist attitudes or their comparative silence when set against the activism of youth in later generations. 

Baby Boomers – Born 1946-1964: Characterized by the post-World War II baby boom, known for significant cultural shifts and economic growth. 

Generation X – Born 1965-1980: Often described as the “latchkey” generation, coming of age during a time of economic transition and cultural change. 

Millennials (also known as Generation Y) – Born 1981-1996: Known for growing up with digital technology and experiencing major events like the 9/11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, and the rise of social media. 

Generation Z (also called Zoomers) – Born 1997-2012: The first generation to grow up with the internet and smartphones as a given, noted for their digital fluency, diversity, and pragmatic approach to issues. 

While these categories are interesting and can be helpful and descriptive, one of the temptations is to divide generations and then defend various failures or tensions between them. The Boomers act like this because of the Silent Generation… or Zoomers are like this because Gen X… 

But a more biblical vision of generations sees far more continuity. There are real sins and failures across generations, but God’s plan is for His mercy to extend through generations. So for example, using the biblical length of a generation (40 yrs), there’s only been about 150 generations since Adam and 6 generations since the founding of America. If the Lord’s mercy were to literally extend to a 1000 generations, that would take us to around 36,000 A.D., which would put all of us at the very, very beginning of human history. And most of us will get about 2 generations worth to build and plant. What are you building? What are you planting? Are you building what God is building? What will your generation be known for?

Applications
At the end of Malachi, it says this, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6). And four hundred years later, the angel told Zechariah that his son John would be that Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to their children (Lk. 1:17).

So a central effect of the gospel of Christ is the reunion of generations, the healing of generational tensions and curses. Parents sin against their children, and children sin against their parents, and this can happen more broadly across generations: for example, abortion was legalized in 1973 under the Boomers and Gen X. But one of the great plays of Satan is to create animosity and enmity between the generations, creating bitterness and resentment. But the blood of Christ was shed to grant forgiveness and healing, to remove the curse of sin between generations, so that we can get back to building strong houses and productive cities and nations to a thousand generations. Forgive your parents. Confess your sins against your parents. And think big. Think long. Think of your descendants in 36,000 A.D. What do you want to leave them? What will your generation be remembered for?

The Light That Opens Blind Eyes

Acts 26:1-32

Prayer: Father, we confess that we are the problem. We are wrong and only You are right. We are blind, and only You truly see. But we are arrogant and prideful and we think we are brilliant and powerful, when everything we have is from You. Teach us true humility so that we may see ourselves and our lives accurately. Open our blind eyes by Your glorious light. Amen.

Introduction
Imagine you find yourself lost at sea in a small boat nearly dead. And by some chance you find a map and your coordinates, and you have reason to believe you might be able to make it to an island. But your dehydration causes you to badly misread the map and you think you’re supposed to be sailing north, and there you go spending the last of your energy heading north, but after a while the clouds suddenly part, the sun comes out, and it becomes blazingly obvious you are very much sailing south. 

Now imagine you collapse in despair and happen to glance at the map, only to realize that you were supposed to be going south the entire time, and as you look up, the island is in the distance. This is what some have called a eucatastrophe – a sudden, favorable resolution to a dire situation. Paul’s conversion was a eucatastrophe, as has been every conversion to Christ ever since, and it will be the great theme of history to the end of the world — so that all the glory will go to Christ.

The Text: “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself…” (Acts 26:1-32).

Summary of the Text

This is now the third time Acts records the conversion of Saul/Paul to Christ. He explains to Agrippa that he grew up as a strict Pharisee, the Jewish sect known for their hope in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 26:1-8). He held his convictions so fiercely that he persecuted the Christians who followed Jesus of Nazareth, even approving of their deaths, until he was confronted by Jesus in a blinding light on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:9-15). Jesus commissioned Paul to become a witness of His resurrection, to open the eyes of the Gentiles from darkness to light, to turn them to God in repentance (Acts 26:16-20). Paul says it was that ministry to the Gentiles that caused the Jews to seize him in the temple and try to kill him, even though that ministry is nothing other than a fulfillment of the Old Testament (Acts 26:21-23). While all of this was a bit much for Festus, King Agrippa was almost persuaded to become a Christian, and both rulers agreed that Paul might have been freed if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar (Acts 26:24-32). 

A Light From Heaven

A central part of Paul’s testimony is that he is preaching none other than the message of the Old Testament: the hope of the promise made to the fathers and the twelve tribes, the suffering of Christ, and His resurrection as the first fruits of the great resurrection (Acts 26:5-8, 22-23). To return to our illustration at the beginning of the message: what Paul came to realize suddenly is that he had been very wrong about the map, but the map was never wrong. In this case, the Old Testament was the map, but because of Paul’s sinful blindness, he misread the map and saw Jesus and the Christians as enemies. But when Jesus appeared to him, obviously alive from the dead, Paul realized that the very thing he had always hoped for (the resurrection) had actually happened in Jesus of Nazareth. And while Paul was going the wrong way, it turned out to be exactly the way the Scriptures said blind men would go, until the Messiah gave him light (e.g. Is. 42-43). 

According to the Scriptures

In 1 Cor. 15, Paul reviews the gospel which saves, and it is particularly remarkable for his emphasis on the Scriptures: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). It’s not just that it really happened; it’s that it really happened according to the Scriptures. And Paul is making the same point here: he is on trial because of the hope of the promise made to the fathers, “saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come” (Acts 26:6-7, 22). Which, if you think about it, means Paul is underlining the fact that God was right all along, and Paul was wrong. He’s saying, “we were wrong about the map!”

Applications

When is the last time you changed your mind about something because of what you read in the Bible or heard in a sermon? It is easy to read your Bible and listen to sermons primarily to find what you already agree with. There is nothing quite so hard as trying to convince someone that they are wrong when they really believe they are right. Paul was so sure he was right he persecuted Christians. Everyone believes they are right; this is how human beings function. But humility knows it is all entirely dependent on God. Apart from God, our eyes are blind; apart from Christ, we are slaves of Satan and sin (Acts 26:18). In this world, there are only blind slaves and formerly blind slaves. And only the Bible is always right.

The central message of the Cross is God is right, and man is not. And God has always been right, and God has been pleased to make known His infallible truth through fallible men: through prophets and preachers and Scriptures. Paul calls this the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor. 1:21) “so that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:29) “that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:5). Worship is the vanguard of the Reformation of the world, and the foolishness of preaching is the tip of the spear. There is much work to be done, but it must be driven by this humility.  

So this is the message that opens blind eyes, softens hard hearts, delivers from the power of Satan, and grants forgiveness and holiness to sinners: Jesus of Nazareth was tortured on a Roman Cross until He died, and when He suffered, He was suffering for our sins, just like the Old Testament said He would. He was buried, and they rolled a stone over the mouth of His grave and set a guard, but on the third day, the stone was rolled away, and Jesus came back to life in that same body that had been killed, just as the Old Testament prophets had said that He would.

And I ask you the question Paul asked Agrippa: Do you believe the prophets? Notice that question: Do you believe the Old Testament? Of course we now have the New Testament also, confirming this gospel, but the question is probing something deeper: do you believe that God has always been right? Do you believe that since Adam’s sin, mankind is blind and wrong? Do you believe that we are the problem and Christ is the only solution? Believe and you are saved. Believe and you are a Christian. Have you believed? Come and be baptized. Are you baptized? Come to His table. 

Prayer: Father, please do whatever it takes to turn us to Yourself. Please don’t let us continue in any false way. Show us our blindness and lies, especially the ones we are proud of, the ones we think are virtues. And please use the Bible to show us so that we will not put our trust or hope in anyone but You. We ask this in the strong name of Jesus, who taught us to pray… 

On Getting Along with Other Christians

Mt. 13:24-30

Introduction
The New Testament gives us several images for thinking of the Church: a bride, a building (temple/house), a body with different parts, but also soils, as well as this picture of the kingdom as this field full of wheat and tares. Today we are talking about ecumenicalism – or getting along with other Christians, especially other Christians that are hard to get along with, which incidentally includes you and me. 

Chesterton was once asked by a newspaper to answer the question what is wrong with the world, and he wrote the words: “Dear Sir, I am, sincerely G.K. Chesterton” and turned it into the newspaper. The point is that when we begin talking about getting along with other people, we should always begin with a cheerful acknowledgment that we are all (all of us) pieces of work. Lewis says somewhere that while we may lament that we have to put up with many difficult people, we should remember only God has to put up with all of us. 

Summary of the Text
The striking thing about this parable is that Jesus cheerfully insists that the plan is to leave many tares mixed in with good wheat until the harvest. Our instinct and the instincts of the servants in the parable is to get rid of all the tares, but the householder says that’s not a good idea because it will tend to uproot a bunch of the wheat with the tares (Mt. 13:28-29). It won’t be safe, the Master says, until the time of the harvest (Mt. 13:30). Now a few verses down, Jesus explains the parable: the householder who sowed the good seed is Jesus, the field is the world, the wheat is the children of the kingdom, and the tares are the children of the evil one, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels (Mt. 13:36-40). Jesus says that at the end of the world, the Son of man will send his angels to gather out of his kingdom all the things that offend and do evil and cast them into Hell, and then the righteous shall shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Mt. 13:41-43). 

Some like to point out that the field is the world, and therefore, they do not believe that this parable applies to tares in the church or in the kingdom, but at the end, Jesus specifically says that he will send his angels to gather all the offensive things “out of his kingdom.” So I take “the world” to be referring to this age, or the time before the final judgment, but also the same place where God’s kingdom is coming and growing (like a mustard seed, like leaven in a loaf – Mt. 13:31-33). 

Faith Holds Them Together
One of our problems is that we often want things to be simplistic. There is a sense in which everything really is simple: Heaven and hell, God and the devil, righteousness and wickedness. But this simplicity is not the same thing as being simplistic. We are to be childlike but not childish. 

So childlike faith holds these different images together (bride, building, body, field). Theologians have also given us the categories of visible and invisible church, or what we might call the historical and eschatological church. The visible/historical church is the church in history; the invisible/eschatological church is the church as she really is in heaven now and at the end of history. The visible/historical church is still full of blemishes and tares, but the eschatological church will be pure, holy wheat. Now in history, Christ is washing His bride with the water of the word, scrubbing out every spot and wrinkle and blemish until she is completely holy and glorious and spotless (Eph. 5:25-27). God is building a temple, and the temple is a body. And this body Scripture says has more honorable parts and less honorable parts, and some parts need to be covered up to make them modest (1 Cor. 12:23ff).    

The work of unity with other Christians – ecumenicalism – means recognizing that we are dealing with this process. And apparently God is a lot more patient than we are. Our instinct is to rip out the tares, but God says that would be more harmful to the wheat. Our instinct is to do radical surgery on the blemishes, but Jesus is taking His time. This doesn’t mean we pretend everything is fine, but it does mean patience and gospel street smarts.

Applications
Love Covers a Multitude of Sins: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12). “A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame” (Prov. 12:16). “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends” (Prov. 17:9). “And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).

This applies to your marriage. This applies in your church. This applies to extended family. This applies to other churches. This applies to social media. When you cover sin in love, it means you drop it into the volcano of the Cross. Which means you may not haul it back out again the next time it happens. 

Remember: God has covered many of your sins in love. “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin.” (Ps. 85:2).

Love Confronts Some Sins: This does not mean we never address sin or lies or slander, but it does mean that we accept that the general plan is to leave a lot of tares and blemishes and weaknesses. Nevertheless, there are certain high-handed, scandalous sins and accusations that must be dealt with. Paul addressed the man who was sleeping with his step-mom in 1 Corinthians 5. And Paul was also very clear about preaching on what tares are: sexual immorality, extortioners, revilers, the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom. 

Jesus said that you should confront some sins one on one to try to win your brother (Mt. 18). But you should only do this after you have removed the log from your own eye – “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” If you have sought to restore a brother and you do not succeed, often you should just drop the matter. Matthew 18 is not a conveyer belt. Sometimes you just let it go. 

And sometimes you try again and bring a brother or two along as witnesses – but these are witnesses not merely to try to prove that guy wrong, but honest witnesses to hold you accountable. And sometimes, if he’s still raging, maybe you tell it to the church for formal discipline and excommunication. 

But we live in a world that generally doesn’t practice church discipline at all, and then when a church rediscovers this, it often over corrects and starts excommunicating people for wearing the wrong shirt to church or disagreeing with the leadership about something. Generally, you should reserve formal excommunication for 10 Commandment sins that everyone sees. And lots of other stuff may just end up meaning you need some space. 

Jesus is Lord of His Church: The story of David is a really remarkable demonstration of ecumenical love. For lots of David’s life he was on the run from his father in-law King Saul, but he refused to return evil for evil, and when Saul died, David wrote a song about him full of lament and honor. 

Our job is not to make sure the field of the world is pure. Our job is not to make sure the bride has no wrinkles. Our job is to love the people right in front of us. Deal with personal sin and purify your wife and kids and then be encouraging one another in your local body. 

Generally speaking, when men lead their families and churches, our orientation is toward a mission or goal and we work shoulder to shoulder. Women tend to relate face to face (nurturing), but men tend to relate shoulder to shoulder (mission). 

Most ecumenical work is best done with this masculine bent: with some kind of particular mission or goal. Let’s end abortion in our city or county. Let’s get evangelical Christians elected to office. Let’s teach men how to lead their families. But lots of modern ecumenical work is effeminate. It’s trying to get along rather than trying to accomplish a mission. Jesus gave us a mission. We must not throw elbows and sometimes we need to get out of range of other elbows. And sometimes the elbows are blemishes and weaknesses, and sometimes they are tares. But Jesus is Lord of His field.