Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 5

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. 

Keeping Your Heart in the Long Slog

Acts 25:1-27

Prayer: Father, we bow before Your glorious name. We confess that we are self-centered creatures and so often we can only think of ourselves. But we acknowledge this world, this story, our lives are for Your glory. So we ask for your Holy Spirit to be given to us now so that we might not miss the point, so that our hearts might be truly turned to You, and by beholding Your glory, may this word be a real encouragement to our hearts. Glorify your name in the preaching of this word, and may we go from this place praising you. Amen.

Introduction
This is a longer stretch of text describing the ongoing political grind surrounding Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea. This is something of the quiet before the final storm of the end of Acts (literally). But it contrasts with all the action of most of the book: prison breaks, healings, mass conversions, and controversy all to (seemingly) land with a thud of several years in a prison – a long slog. 

Where is the fruitfulness of this? Sometimes the assignments of God are intense (moving, job changes, sickness, starting businesses, marriage, war, etc.); sometimes He acts in open and obvious ways and answers to prayer. But sometimes the assignments of God and His answers to prayer include a lot of waiting, patience, and maintenance obedience. And that can sometimes tempt us to discouragement, doubt, anxiety. But He is still at work. And sometimes the assignment is your heart, your attitude, your walk with the Lord. Yes, maybe you are waiting. Are you waiting faithfully? Stop blaming your circumstances, your spouse, your children, your job – you are responsible before God. We just said that we lifted our hearts up to the Lord. What did you lift up? Is it a fearful heart? A discouraged heart? An angry heart? A bored, disinterested heart? 

The Text: “Now when Festus was come into the province, after three days he ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem…” (Acts 25:1-27)

Summary of the Text
The new Roman governor Festus immediately visited the Jews in Jerusalem, and they asked him to send Paul to them for a trial in Jerusalem, renewing the determination to ambush Paul on the road and kill him (Acts 25:1-3, cf. 23:14). Festus insisted that the Jews come and press their charges in Caesarea, which they did, and when Paul answered, Festus asked if Paul wanted to go to their court in Jerusalem (Acts 25:4-9). Paul insisted that he was innocent, and though he was willing to face death if he deserved it, he appealed to Caesar, and Festus granted the request (Acts 25:10-12). Now as Festus was preparing to send Paul to Rome, King Agrippa and his sister Bernice came to pay Festus honor, and Festus explained to them Paul’s situation (Acts 25:13-21). Agrippa asked to hear Paul, and so he was brought out again, and Festus explained the backstory, asking advice about what he should write Caesar (Acts 25:22-27).

Absolute Sovereignty & Real Freedom & Responsibility 
It’s remarkable to note how close to death Paul had come: he barely escaped a mob (Acts 21:21), the Jewish council would have apparently killed him (Acts 23:10), more than forty men took vows not to eat until they had killed Paul (Acts 23:14), and now two years later, another plot has emerged to murder Paul (Acts 25:3). That would have been plenty to tempt Paul to be anxious, stressed, worried, or discouraged. Paul sometimes asked for prayer that he would be bold and not delivered over to his enemies (Rom. 15:30-31, Eph. 6:19).

Now remember that Paul received a supernatural word from the Lord, “Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome” (Acts 23:11). But even with that clear word, notice that Paul has not been an inactive participant. He didn’t get the word from God and then sit back and watch. The absolute sovereignty of God does not displace human freedom and responsibility – even when there doesn’t seem to be a lot you can do. For Paul, this meant two years of waiting, punctuated with occasional hearings and testimony before corrupt politicians.

The Westminster Confession says, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (III.1) Sometimes people ask: do you believe in predestination or free will? Do you believe in the sovereignty of God or human responsibility? And we say, the biblical answer is: yes. We believe in both. 

“For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).

How is this possible? He is God. How is anything possible? Nothing is outside of God’s control, and His control includes the choices and decisions of “second causes.” “Second causes” include things like prayer, preaching, telling the chief captain about a plot to murder you, defending your reputation, waiting patiently for months and years, obeying and having a good attitude today, exhausting appeals, and finally appealing to Caesar. God is sovereign; you are responsible for what you are responsible for.   

Christian Life & Ministry
We are not told a lot about these two years in Paul’s ministry, but they seem relatively less exciting and significant – seems like it was a long slog. It could have been tempting to Paul to be discouraged that nothing much seemed to be happening. Remember all the early parts of Acts: prison breaks, being let down out of a window in the middle of the night, many conversions and miracles. Sometimes we are tempted to think of the times of the prophets and apostles as constant miracles and wonders, but sometimes they just spent two years in prison with occasional requests to preach to corrupt politicians looking for bribes. 

This underlines the sovereignty of God and the seasons of Christian life and ministry. Sometimes your life and your spiritual life can seem particularly exciting, and other times it can feel like plodding, like nothing is happening. Or maybe it feels like you’re going backwards. Maybe it feels like you’re on one of those walking sidewalks but it’s going the wrong way. 

And maybe you say, well, it would be less discouraging if I had a word from God that said, “Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” You might say it would be helpful if you had a clear word from God that everything will be alright. But you do have a similar word: “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). What is God doing? Preparing you for eternal glory. What was God doing when you were 7 or 17 or 27 years old? Sometimes it may have been obvious, but sometimes it was not very obvious at all. But God was still at work, and what He is doing is a good work.

Applications
Think, pray, and work generationally: What’s 2 years or 10 years or even 100 years compared to eternity? Our duty is to disciple all the nations. Our mission is to disciple Moscow, Idaho. We want to see Moscow city council publicly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. We want all cities, counties, states, and nations to do so. And this task, the Lord told us, is like a tiny mustard seed that goes into the ground and slowly but surely grows into a great tree. In the middle ages, they sometimes built cathedrals over the course of hundreds of years. Jesus said it is like leavening a large batch of dough. It takes time, but there is important action happening during that time. Your God is still active; He is sovereignly working all things. You are responsible for what you are responsible for. Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not (Gal. 6:9).

Preach the gospel and the faithfulness of God to yourself – to your own heart: sometimes your slippery soul is the assignment. “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). Guard your heart – because life is pouring it out of it. Jesus said something similar: it is not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out of his heart. It’s easy to blame Hollywood, the economy, your parents, your boss, your spouse. But Jesus says there is a river flowing out of your heart. Are you guarding it? Is it life and joy and kindness? Or is it fouled and filthy with angst and bitterness and worry. Preach the gospel to yourself. Preach the faithfulness of God to yourself. Preach the glory of God to yourself. Have you ever noticed how often the Psalmist talks to himself? Do you ever talk to yourself? 

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance” (Ps. 42:5). “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103:1-2). “Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul” (Ps. 146:1).

But you don’t guard your heart and soul by trying to grab hold of it – that’s like trying to fish barehanded. You guard and tame your heart by opening all the windows and letting the light of Christ shine on it. And that light is the love and faithfulness and sovereignty of God. Jesus was crucified, buried, and on the third day rose from the dead for you and your salvation, for you and your eternal joy, for you and the healing of all the nations. Preach that message to your heart. Open up the windows of your heart and let that brilliant light shine in. And you do this by being in the Word regularly. Open the blinds by opening the word. And then you tell your soul to sing praises. Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Prayer: Father, please press all of this into the corners of our hearts. Please do not let us be distracted or get off the point. You are good and faithful and true, and nothing our hearts desire compares with You. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You. So please give us this Sabbath rest, the rest of worshiping you, praising you, and so make our hearts fountains of life, so that we might not grow weary in doing good. We ask for this in the strong name of Jesus, who taught us to praying, singing…

He Has Given Us Bread

Jesus said, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Mt. 21:22). And the apostle says, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 Jn. 3:22). 

These are verses that make Reformed Christians a bit nervous. We do not believe in some kind of health and wealth gospel. We do not believe that God is a cosmic vending machine, that we should expect God to deliver whatever comes into our minds. 

James anticipated this: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (Js. 4:3). And James says that is what causes many fights and wars: lust and envy and worldliness. God is not interested in feeding our lusts or helping us compete with worldly standards of success. 

But Jesus still presses the point: what man of you, if his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone? How much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask (Mk. 7:9-11). So there it is again: God wants His people to ask for good things, and He wants to give His people good things – good things like buildings to worship in. We have been asking God for a building for decades, and our Father has not given us a stone. Thanks be to God. 

And as if to make the point even more emphatic, Jesus gave us this meal. Here, not only does He give us bread, but He gives us the bread of life. He gives us Himself, by Whom all things exist. He’s giving us this living bread, in this glorious place, with these precious saints. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32)

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

On Trial for the Judgment

Acts 24:10-27

Prayer: Father, I ask that you give us Your Holy Spirit this morning so that we might have a true sense of Your holiness and purity and justice. Please use this Word like a great mirror so that we might see ourselves accurately. I pray that You would not allow any of us to look away until we see Your Son Jesus for who He truly is and have peace in Him. And we ask in His name, Amen.

Introduction
How do you handle false accusations? Do you get angry? Do you crumple into a ball of sorrow? Someone has said that when you are falsely accused you should not hate your accuser since even if that accusation is false, there is much that you could be justly accused of. Here, Paul faces pagan courts, false accusations, and political corruption, but instead of Paul being consumed with wrath or despair, he speaks with poise and courage, and at one key moment, he causes the judge to tremble. Who’s on trial exactly? 

The doctrine of justification by faith alone is the Christian doctrine of peace, joy, and courage. It is what allows Christians to sleep at night, answer false accusations, and face trouble with a grin. The doctrine of justification by faith means that in the face of accusation and trouble, we already have the final judgment, the true verdict, full acceptance, full vindication brought into the present. The just live by faith – faith in God’s justification. Apart from this justification, the final judgment is fearful, and so is every other trouble. And in that panic, you will become unjust. 

The Text: “Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered, Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation…” (Acts 24:10-27)

Summary of the Text
After acknowledging Felix’s long service as governor (Acts 24:10), Paul proceeds to explain that it was only twelve days ago that he went into the temple peaceably and none of the Jews’ accusations can be proven (Acts 24:11-13). Paul says that what they call a “heresy” is simply the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, culminating in a resurrection of the dead, and therefore he strives to walk blameless in that faith (Acts 24:14-16). Paul says that he came to Jerusalem to bring an offering, and he was actually ceremonial clean in the temple (not profaning the temple) when he was interrupted by certain Jews – none of whom are present to testify as eyewitnesses (Acts 24:17-19). The men present had only been witnesses of the Jewish council, and the only thing he said there was that he was on trial because of the resurrection of the dead (Acts 24:20-21). 

Felix, knowing something of the Christian faith, deferred a decision, saying he would wait until Lysias came down to testify but commanded that Paul be kept with relative comfort and freedom (Acts 24:22-23). Some days later Felix and his Jewish wife requested that Paul speak to them about faith in Jesus, and as Paul explained the gospel to them, Felix became afraid and sent Paul away (Acts 24:24-25). Felix’s political colors show as he often called for Paul, primarily hoping for a bribe, and so Paul was left in prison for two years, even after Felix was succeeded, as a favor to the Jews (Acts 24:26-27). 

Heresy & Catholicity
Paul specifically answers the charge that he follows the “heresy of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5, 14). While this Greek word for “heresy” could mean something relatively neutral like “sect” or “party” (e.g. Acts 5:17, 15:5), it also meant a division or schism between the faithful and unfaithful: “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. 11:19). “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject” (Tit. 3:10). It is listed among the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:20), and it is the destructive teaching of false teachers (2 Pet. 2:1).

This is in contrast to what Paul says he actually believes which is everything in the law and prophets with a hope in the resurrection (Acts 24:14-15). This corresponds roughly to the end the Apostles’ creed: “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” If heresy is schism/division, orthodoxy (right faith/worship) is true catholicity/unity. The word “catholic” literally means “whole” or “universal.” This is what we mean by the “holy catholic church.” While people commonly use “catholic” to mean “Roman Catholic,” we mean the “whole Christian church” or the “true universal church.” We believe that the Roman Catholic church actually divided from the universal church. The early Reformers all labored to show that the true catholic church followed Scripture more closely and did not submit to the Pope as a universal pastor. 

So Paul insisted that he was holding the “whole” revelation of God, which now included the death and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, those who rejected Christ were “dividing” God’s revelation and becoming sectarian and heretical. This is the case for Jews who reject Christ as Messiah, and this is true of “Christian” groups that have abandoned the fullness of Scripture. The “holy catholic church” is holy because it is committed to all of Scripture applied to all of life. All of Christ for all of life. 

The Hope of the Resurrection 
Our text mentions the final judgment three times: “the resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:15), “touching the resurrection of the dead I am called into question” (Acts 24:21), and “as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled” (Acts 24:25). We confess this in the Creed every week as well: “from thence He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.”

When Paul pressed this point home, it clearly touched some kind of nerve in Felix, and he trembled with fear. It was evidently not enough to convince him to repent and believe or even do basic justice, as he continued holding Paul, hoping for a bribe, and doing favors for the Jews. But Felix trembled and sent Paul away. 

The Bible says that there will come a day when everyone will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and the secrets of our hearts will be laid bare: “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (Rom. 2:16). “for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). All the secret thoughts, the selfish motivations, the lies, the cheating, the manipulating, the conniving, all our big and little heresies – all the things you think no one knows about – will be manifest before the judgment seat of Christ. 

This is why Paul tells Felix that this is why he constantly presses to have a clean conscience before God and men (Acts 24:16), and presumably this is why Felix trembles. 

Applications
So how can sinners have a clean conscience before God? “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14) 

Far too many people think that being a Christian means “being good,” and yes of course we do want to be good and serve God. But being a Christian is fundamentally about the constant problem we have that we are not good. You can’t serve the living God with dead works. All our good works are like “filthy rags” (Is. 64:6) – tainted with selfishness, greed, pride, lies, manipulation. All our good works (trying to match God’s holiness) are “dead works.” And you can’t serve the living God with dead works. 

So our consciences need to be purged, cleansed, and sprinkled clean. Our consciences are like the hands that offer us to God, and sin is the puss, the mold, the gangrene, the rot and filth on our hands. And this is why even our good works need to be washed clean. If our hearts/consciences are not clean, our best works are still dead works. 

So this is the good news of Jesus Christ: He died and rose again so that anyone who asks can be forgiven and have a clean conscience. Good works with a bad conscience are dead, but good works with a clean conscience are sprinkled clean. They are justified. Remember the tax collector and scribe – who went home justified? The one who knew he needed mercy.  

And this is the key to fellowship and joy in a marriage and family. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin… If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:7, 9). This is how you strive for a good conscience before God and men. This is how you are always ready for the resurrection and the final judgement – confession of sin and forgiveness brings the light of the final judgment (for believers) right into the present. 

But of course it is perfectly possible to mouth the words of confession and forgiveness like the scribe – I thank thee that I’m not like other men. But you can tell you’re doing that because you don’t go home justified. You don’t end up with peace in your heart and usually there’s very little peace in your home. So, this is the charge: look to Christ seated on His throne in majesty. He is holy and true and pure. And there are holes in His hands. 

Prayer: Father, whatever is in the way of true humility, please rip it out of our hearts and hands. We need the peace and joy and courage of your justification, and we know that we cannot have it so long as we grab hold of our own goodness. So do whatever it takes. And we ask in the might name of Jesus, who taught us to pray…

Racism, Homophobia, Leftist Framing, and other Real & Imagined Sins

Introduction
The political Left is a Christian heresy. From Rousseau to Nietzsche and from Darwin to Marx and all of their cultural and political descendants, one of the common elements between them all is a disingenuous and deceptive assumption of certain Christian principles or ideals while jettisoning the unifying fabric of the whole. This goes back to the Garden of Eden, when the serpent attempted the first “leftist framing” – “then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). It was full of half-truths, or better: the Devil took the shell of truth and replaced the kernel. In other words, “leftist framing” is all Mormon. Mormonism, like all heresies, steals Biblical words and concepts, redefines them, and then tries to pass them off as the genuine article. 

Rousseau did this when he claimed that people were basically good, blamed human society for social ills, and then pretended to be able to build a better, freer society. Darwin did it when he claimed that everything evolved over millions of years from single cell organisms, and ta-da! complex organization and function emerged from simplicity, chaos, and mutation, while pretending that this understanding would produce technological and scientific advance. And Marx did the same, pretending to reject Christianity, while assuming certain standards of Christian morality and justice. Nietzsche perhaps came the closest to actually embracing the kind of nihilism that fully rejects Christianity but even he pulled the punch, glorifying strength, courage, nobility, and heroism, even while rejecting the transcendent standard that would give those virtues their, well, virtue. 

A Little Help from Dabney
And the same thing is true of modern leftist framing. Using Marxist categories of oppressor and oppressed, and systems of power and hegemony, the leftist framework recasts the ultimate struggle as racial and sexual, blaming white male Christendom for patriarchal oppression (and basically all the evil in the world, from the crusades to slavery) and seeks to “empower” and “liberate” so-called racial and sexual minorities. R.L. Dabney called this in the late 19th century with the rise of so called “first wave” feminism and “women’s rights,” beginning with the hard push for the right to vote. Dabney recognized that the whole set up was a revolutionary attack on Christianity despite their redefinition of terms:

“We must then make up our minds in accepting Women’s Rights to surrender our Bibles, and have an atheistic Government. And especially must we expect to have, presiding over every home and rearing every group of future citizens, that most abhorrent of all phenomena, an infidel woman; for of course that sex, having received the precious boon of their enfranchisement only by means of the overthrow of the Bible, must be foremost in trampling upon this their old oppressor and enemy. Its restoration to authority is necessarily their “re-enslavement,” to speak the language of their party.”

Dabney pointed out that this “language of their party” weaponized the whole notion of “rights” and “equality” and “liberty.” He acknowledged that the founders of America certainly did affirm a kind of universal rights and equality for all men and women, but “when our wise fathers said that liberty is an inalienable, natural right, they meant by each one’s liberty the privilege to do such things as he, with his particular relations, ought to have a moral title to do; the particular things having righteous, natural limitations in every case, and much narrower limits in some cases than in others.”

And so here is the “leftist framing” of so-called first wave feminism. It takes a word, a concept and guts it of its Biblical definition, replaces those guts with foreign, even contradictory notions, and then, playing off the definitional ambiguity, swings that Frankenstein concept around like a cat-o-nine-tails, cowing reasonable Christian people with the accusation that they are “misogynists” and “fascists,” haters of all women and liberty. 

But as Dabney labors to demonstrate it is not the “women’s rights” radicals that love and honor women. They are actually the misogynists. They are the true haters of women and liberty. He writes, “this movement on the part of these women is as suicidal as it is mischievous. Its certain result will be the re-enslavement of women, not under the Scriptural bonds of marriage, but under the yoke of literal corporeal force. Instead of being what the Bible makes her, one with her husband, queen of his home, reigning with the gentle scepter of love over her modest, secluded domain, and in its pure and sacred retirement performing the noblest work done on this earth, that of molding infant minds to honor and piety, she will reappear from this ill-starred competition defeated and despised, tolerated only to satiate the passion, to amuse the idleness, to do the drudgery, and to receive the curses and blows of her barbarized masters.”

And we have done this to our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.

The Modern Leftist Gaze & the Fear of God
And so it is the same down to the present day. From the false accusations of misogyny, the radicals graduated to accusations of “racism” and “homophobia” and “antisemitism” and so on. But the reason why the accusations have generally worked is because Christians and good-hearted folks knew that there was a real sin called hating women, spiteful treatment of people because of their race or religion, or treating even evil sinners with malice. But when the revolutionaries have been weaponizing Christian concepts for so long it can become tempting to become so fed up with it that you come to think of the true concepts as the “leftist framing.” 

This is clearly happening as recently I kicked a small bee’s nest when I affirmed that while leftists have tried to weaponize “homophobia,” it is nevertheless a sin to treat a homosexual with spite and malice. In a biblically just society, homosexuality would be suppressed and criminalized by law. That is not homophobic. It is not homophobic to affirm the sinfulness of homosexuality, and the fact that unrepentant homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. But the reason why that largely false accusation has been weaponized to some extent in our formerly Christian land is because everyone knows that the Bible requires a basic level of civility be extended to all people, even those who need to be firmly restrained in their evil lusts.

It is absolutely necessary for Christians to have the kind of thick skin and fear of God that doesn’t care about the leftist gaze, the guilt-shaming of the left that has no actual concern for women, different races, much less true social or criminal justice. But in our determination to not care what they think, we must absolutely care what God thinks. We must care what the Word of God says, and we must not allow the gaze of the bitter right or the noticing of the malicious right to matter to us either. Just because the left has used fake sins to create a Pharisaical cancel culture, does not mean that when real sins arise and are confronted biblically that anyone has succumbed to cancel culture and leftist framing. It is not cancel culture to discipline a church member for true malice or spite. And just because they have also weaponized the concept of “hate,” doesn’t mean there isn’t a sinful form of it.

Conclusion
When Paul confronted Peter for preferring his own people and parted ways with Barnabas for preferring his nephew, that was not a turf war or cancel culture or succumbing to leftist framing. It was a faithful man confronting serious theological and strategic error. And the Church was better for it. But there were no doubt many who saw Paul’s hardline stance as “brother wars” and “infighting” and “unnecessary division.”  

Barnabas was known as the “son of encouragement” and no doubt many thought that Paul was being overly zealous, perhaps becoming a bit jealous of Barnabas’s rising influence in the fledgling Christian movement. And why couldn’t Paul just pull Peter aside after the fellowship meal privately? Why did he have to confront Peter in front of everyone? Talk about divisive. Talk about cancel culture. No, not really.

Sometimes faithfulness doesn’t care what it looks like. Sometimes faithfulness simply speaks the truth and lets the pieces fall where they may. The truth is the only way to actually reject the leftist framing. It is to insist that God’s Word is the standard, regardless of how the left has weaponized it, regardless of how offended and exasperated the right is by the left. We serve the Lord God, not the petty grievances of political factions. And of course that may mean that we’re all Christofascists and homophobes and racists, and we must not care in the least about such false accusations, provided the accusations are completely false.