Justin Taylor's Blog, page 314

God and Man on the Scale

J. I. Packer:

"I think of the two pans of an old fashioned pair of scales. If one goes up, the other goes down.

Once upon a time folks new that God was great and that man by comparison was small. Each individual carried around a sense of his own smallness in the greatness of God's world.

However, the scale pans are in a different relation today. Man has risen in his own estimation. He thinks of himself as great, grand and marvelously resourceful. This means inevitably that our thoughts about God have shrunk. As God goes down in our estimation, He gets smaller. He also exists now only for our pleasure, our convenience and our health, rather than we existing for His glory.

Now, I'm an old fashioned Christian and I believe that we exist for the glory of God. So the first thing I always want to do in any teaching of Christianity is to attempt to try and get those scale pans reversed. I want to try and show folks that God is the one of central importance. We exist for His praise, to worship Him, and find our joy and fulfillment in Him; therefore He must have all the glory. God is great and He must be acknowledged as great. I think there is a tremendous difference between the view that God saves us and the idea that we save ourselves with God's help. Formula number two fits the modern idea, while formula number one, as I read my Bible, is scriptural. We do not see salvation straight until we recognize that from first to last it is God's work. He didn't need to save us. He owed us nothing but damnation after we sinned. What he does, though, is to move in mercy. He sends us a Savior and His Holy Spirit into our hearts to bring us to faith in that Savior. Then He keeps us in that faith and brings us to His glory. It is His work from beginning to end. God saves sinners. It does, of course, put us down very low. It is that aspect of the gospel that presents the biggest challenge to the modern viewpoint. But we must not forget that it also sets God up very high. It reveals to us a God who is very great, very gracious and very glorious. A God who is certainly worthy of our worship."

How to Disagree While Being Both Faithful and Winsome

Cherish the Book Publishers—You'll Miss Them When They're Gone

A good Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal on how self-publishing e-Books may be good for authors but not-so-great for the reading public.

So What Do the Cops Do with All Those Illegal Fireworks They Confiscate?

This:

("NYPD Video: Bomb Squad technicians today destroyed approximately 5,000 pounds of confiscated fireworks at the NYPD firing range in the Bronx.")

How to Write Useless Sentences and Boring Reviews

John Stackhouse: "The one thing worse than not mentioning something is mentioning it badly—by which I mean, mentioning it in such a way that the reader doesn't know what you're saying."

John Starke on writing a good book review: "(1) Forget everything you learned in seminary. (2) Answer the question everyone is asking. (3) Don't over-summarize. (4) Show the consequences of an idea.

Both posts are worth reading.

New Word to Add to the Lexicon (And to Avoid in Practice): The Humblebrag

The Wall Street Journal interviews the inventor of the Humblebrag twitter feed.

Definition: "a humble brag is basically a specific type of bragging that masks the brag in a faux-humble guise."

I don't think this was highlighted on the Humblebrag feed, but here's a good example from Andrew Sullivan talking about his British accent:

I remember my first months in Harvard classrooms, gob-smacked by how my contributions, however lame, were invariably treated with respect because my accent framed them.

Sounds self-deprecating—until you realize that he's highlighting his Harvard education and that his classmates were captivated by him almost from day one.

It's tempting to point out evangelical examples—but the more edifying thing is probably for us to be aware of the tendency in our own hearts to highlight our achievements and to work against the lure of the praise of man.

Finding God in the Cancer Clinic

Mike Pohlman:

Cancer clinics (if I may adapt one of C.S. Lewis' more recognized phrases) are God's megaphone to a chronically amused people. Through cancer clinics, God brings the significance of the present and the weight of glory to bear on us in ways unlike anything else. Few things, by God's grace, capture the mind and the heart like an oncology waiting room. And we need to be captured by God — pulled away from the numbing effects of the world.

Our default instinct is to avoid pain, grief, and sorrow by covering these emotions with fun, levity, and leisure of all kinds. And I'm not immune to this sinful weakness that leaves me anesthetized to God. In other words, I need the cancer clinic waiting room because I need God.

You can read the whole thing here, and in so doing can pray for Mike's dear wife Julia.

Refocusing Focus on the Family

Sarah Pulliam Bailey's Christianity Today cover story is on Focus on the Family and their attempt to transition the ministry into the 21st century by being more focused on helping marriages and families and being less politically-oriented and personality-driven.

God-Centered Missional Adoption and Orphan Ministry

The resurgence of the church's interest in orphan ministry has been extremely encouraging. For those exploring this or engaged in it already, I wanted to mention a few new resources worth considering:

1) Daniel Bennett's A Passion for the Fatherless: Developing a God-Centered Ministry to Orphans. Designed for both individuals and small group or Sunday School study, this looks like a very nice blend of theological foundation and practical suggestions for implementation.

The Uniqueness of Christian Orphan Care
Compassion, the Disenfranchised, and the Orphan
God's Glorious Grace and Orphan Care
A Theology of adoption
Blessings, Missions, and Orphans
When Not to Care for Orphans
The Greatness of Godly Affliction
Decision Making in Orphan Care Ministry
The Orphan and the Church
Church Leadership and an Orphan Ministry
The Components of a Church's Orphan Ministry
The Components of a Church's Adoption Ministry

2) For those in the painful waiting process of adoption, Luke and Trisha Priebe's devotional will be warmly welcomed: Trust, Hope, Pray: Encouragement for the Task of Waiting. Here's a blurb I wrote about it:

Jesus tells us that there is sorrow that comes with the birthing process but great joy when the baby arrives (John 16:21). And though there are differences, the adoption process is filled with a similar pattern of sadness and then joy. In fact, the pain of waiting can be even more difficult than physical birth pangs. In this 365-day devotional the Priebes have provided the church with a wonderful gift to serve waiting couples with gospel grace and hope. I trust that God will use this book in ways beyond what we can ask or imagine as the church pursues adoption for the glory of God.

3) The 2011 National Conference for Together for Adoption is October 21-22 in Phoenix. Check out their website for all the details. I'm confident this will be rich teaching and equipping.

4) A new book I haven't yet seen but sounds good:

Adopt Without Debt: Creative Ways to Cover the Cost of Adoption. Dan Cruver says: "I've been waiting for a book like this for almost a decade. The reality has been that finances are often the biggest obstacle to adopting a child. Thanks to Julie Gumm that reality is going to change."

Depressing and True (Unless There Is Time Beyond Time)