Justin Taylor's Blog, page 124
January 9, 2014
Joni Eareckson’s Tada’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: The Double Standard of Disability Laws
Joni Eareckson Tada has a strong op-ed in Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal arguing that the the celebrated ideals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) has crumbled under a double standard. It was originally designed, she notes, “to guarantee the basic rights of Americans with disabilities.” But now that the fear of disability “is allowed to influence legislation to allow people with disabilities to kill themselves, the notions of personal autonomy, freedom and dignity that the ADA championed take on a grim irony.”She takes us on a brief survey of our culture of death, starting with assisted-suicide laws to now infants with disabilities, and even children with incurable diseases. Joni notes that “while a disabled person’s civil rights are recognized under federal law, those rights are nullified when confronted with stereotypical notions about the ‘tragedy’ of a disabled person’s existence.”
Life is the most precious and foundational right of humanity. Society’s unwritten moral law has always led us to save our children—and certainly not to allow them to destroy themselves. . . .
What kind of society do we want? If we are seeking a good society, then we do well to defend the rights of the helpless—not nullify their rights in order to destroy them. It benefits all of us to minister to those who are hurting, not to agree with them that life isn’t worth living.
You can read the whole thing here (subscription or login may be required).
The Gospel According to Joshua
In the latest issue of Modern Reformation, I have an article on “The Gospel according to Joshua” (which subscribers can read here).
In the closing section, I look at why the physical-spiritual contrast is a true but inadequate way to compare the work of Joshua and Jesus (who share the same name).
Some interpreters look at Joshua and Jesus through the contrast of physical fulfillment and spiritual fulfillment.
Joshua, they note, is promised covenant prosperity: protection from God’s enemies and success in all his endeavors (Josh. 1:5-8). Jesus, however, gives up physical comfort and protection in order to serve as our final sacrifice.
Joshua leads the conquest of a physical land through physical war; Jesus rules a spiritual kingdom where we fight with spiritual weapons as “sojourners and exiles” (1 Pet. 1:21).
This observation is true, so far as it goes.
It helps us to remember that in this world we are not promised physical safety or success.
It reinforces the crucial truth that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
But the physical-spiritual contrast is ultimately inadequate.
We must remember that the story is not finished.
There is another act to come in this divine drama.
Christ will return and he will physically (as well as spiritually) defeat all of his enemies once and for all. “Unlike the wars of old that led only to more bloodshed and misery, Christ’s global judgment and victory when he comes again will truly be the war to end all wars (Matt. 3:11-12; 24:27-25:46; Rev. 17:1-20:15).”*
We will enter into the Promised Land, which is no longer restricted to a strip of land in the Middle East but is now expanded to include the whole earth (cf. Matt. 5:5; Rom. 4:13).
Christ himself will wipe every tear from the eyes of our new resurrection bodies as we live securely in his presence forevermore (Rev. 21:4).
One greater than Joshua has appeared and will one day return again.
And on that day, all will see that the battle truly does belong to the Lord.
[* Michael Horton, "Notes on Joshua," ESV Gospel Transformation Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013).]
25 Ways Peter Kreeft’s 4-Volume History of Philosophy Is Different from All the Others
The prolific popular-level philosopher, Peter Kreeft of Boston College, has a four-volume history of philosophy coming out in March.
Professor Kreeft explains what makes these volumes different:
It’s neither very long (like Copleston’s twelve-volume tome, which is a clear and helpful reference work but pretty dull reading) nor very short (like many skimpy one-volume summaries) but just long enough.
It’s available in separate volumes but eventually in one complete work (after the four volumes – Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Contemporary – are produced in paperbound editions, a one-volume clothbound will be published).
It focuses on the “big ideas” that have influenced present people and present times.
It includes relevant biographical data, proportionate to its importance for each thinker.
It is not just history but philosophy. Its aim is not merely to record facts (of life or opinion) but to stimulate philosophizing, controversy, argument.
It does this by aiming above all at understanding, at what the old logic called the “first act of the mind” rather than the third: the thing computers and many ”analytic philosophers” cannot understand.
It uses ordinary language and logic, not professional academic jargon or symbolic logic.
It is commonsensical (and therefore is sympathetic to commonsense philosophers like Aristotle).
It is “existential” in that it sees philosophy as something to be lived, and tested in life. It concentrates on the questions that make a difference to your life.
It dares to be human and, therefore, occasionally funny or ironic.
Like the “Great Books,” it assumes that philosophy is not about philosophy but about reality; about wisdom; about life and death and good and evil and man and God and “stuff like that,” rather than mere analysis of language. It cooks edible meats rather than just sweeping the floor of garbage.
It tries to be simple and direct and clear in showing how deep and dark and mysterious the questions of philosophy are. It combines clarity with profundity, as neither “analytic” nor “continental” philosophy yet does (though they’re both trying).
It sees the history of human thought as more exciting, more dramatic, than military or political history. Its running thread is “the great conversation.” It lets philosophers talk to each other.
It takes the past seriously. It does not practice “chronological snobbery.” Our ancestors made mistakes. So do we. We can see ours best by reading them.
It will stay in print forever or till the Cubs win the World Series and the world ends.
It gives more space (16-20 pages) to the 10 most important philosophers, medium space (5-15 pages) to the next 20, and only a little space (2-4 pages) to the other 70.
It’s not “dumbed down.” It doesn’t patronize.
It can be understood by beginners. It’s not just for scholars.
It’s usable for college classes or by do-it-yourselfers.
It takes every philosopher serious, but it’s not relativistic. It argues (usually both pro and con), because it believes in Truth.
It does not deliver platitudes. It emphasizes surprises. For “philosophy begins in wonder.”
It includes visual aids: charts, cartoons, line drawings, and each philosopher’s face.
It gives not just the what but the why: why each philosopher asked the questions he did, and the rationale for the answer he gave.
It includes many memorable and famous quotations, in boldface type.
It prepares readers for reading the philosophers themselves, by warning them what to expect.
January 8, 2014
Free Narrated Version of Pilgrim’s Progress for Kids
A film version of Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim’s Progress, using the book’s artwork and a narration:
How to Stop Being a Boring Preacher
Most of us tend to gravitate to abstractions.
We say, “Men tend to choose lesser pleasures and reject greater ones.”
But Newton says, “The men of this world are children. Offer a child and apple and bank note, he will doubtless choose the apple.”
We say, “Men are foolish to fret so much over material things when they will inherit eternal riches.”
But Newton says:
Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, “My [carriage] is broken! My [carriage] is broken!”
This is not merely a matter of style. It is a matter of life and vitality.
It is a sign to your people that your mind is healthy and a means to awakening their health.
Sick minds can only deal in abstractions and cannot get outside themselves to be moved by concrete, external wonders.
And you will never be a tender person toward your people if you merely communicate the heaviness of unhealthy concepts and theories rather than the stuff of the world in which they live.
January 6, 2014
How the Snowpocalypse of 1850 Led to Spurgeon’s Conversion 164 Years Ago Today
164 years ago today—January 6, 1850—15-year-old Charles Spurgeon was trudging up Hythe Hill in Colchester, on his way to church. When the blizzard prevented him from going further, he turned the corner and made his way into a small Primitive Methodist Church on Artillery Street.
He recounted the story hundreds of time, each time a bit differently. But here is one of his most vivid recollections:
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, when I was going to a place of worship.
When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel.
In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people.
The minister did not come that morning: snowed up, I suppose.
A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach.
He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. The text was, ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth’ [Isa 45:22].
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.
There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text.
He began thus:
‘My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, “Look.”
Now that does not take a deal of effort. It ain’t lifting your foot or your finger; it is just “look.” Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says.
Then it says, “Look unto Me.”
‘Ay,’ said he, in broad Essex, ‘many of ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You’ll never find comfort in yourselves.’
Then the good man followed up his text in this way:
‘Look unto Me: I am sweating great drops of blood.
Look unto Me; I am hanging on the Cross.
Look: I am dead and buried.
Look unto Me; I rise again.
Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand.
O, look to Me! Look to Me!’
When he had got about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes, he was at the length of his tether.
Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger.
He then said, ‘Young man, you look very miserable.’
Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck.
He continued: ‘And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’
Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ.’
There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ.”
January 3, 2014
George Herbert, “The Pulley”
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.
Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie,
Contract into a span.”
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
“For if I should,” said he,
“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be.
“Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.”
—From The Temple (1633)
For more on Herbert (1593-1633), see Gene Veith’s book, Reformation Spirituality: The Religion of George Herbert and John Piper’s talk, “Saying Beautifully As a Way of Seeing Beauty: The Life of George Herbert and His Poetic Effort.”
Malcom Muggeridge on the Self-Destruction of 20th Century Western Man
. . . it has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself.
Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created
his own boredom out of his own affluence,
his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
his own vulnerability out of his own strength;
himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies;
until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.
—Malcolm Muggeridge, Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith, ed. Cecil Kuhne (Ignatius Press, 2005), 16.
HT: Ravi Zacharias
Jeff Vanderstelt on Gospel Fluency
I could listen to Jeff Vanderstelt all day.
Some of his best teaching is on “gospel fluency”—which will eventually be a book published by Crossway, along with a book by Jeff on living as a community in Christ. In September 2013 he taught through the gospel fluency material at the Austin Stone Institute. This would be worth your time to watch.
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