Some years back I decided for the first time in a very long time to read the Bible through cover to cover (I suggest you do that too!). I was sort of surprised, although I shouldn’t have been, by the centrality of the idea (or doctrine) of creation to the narrative of God’s dealing with his people. In fact, the history of redemption is meaningless apart from the centrality of the doctrine of creation to it. This is profound, and to borrow from the hippie party days of the 1970s, very heavy. I’m afraid I can’t do it justice in a short blog post, but I’m gonna try.
These thoughts were impressed anew upon me when I read a piece titled, “What We Forget about Creation: How Augustine Expands Our Vision.” The author, Gavin Ortlund, points out something so glaringly obvious that everyone seems to miss it: that many think the early chapters of Genesis “are important . . . primarily to set the stage for the real business of Christian theology—those issues involved in the doctrine of redemption.” Boy oh boy, does that nail it. The only real interest in the creation accounts seems to be fodder for the debate with Darwinists. How utterly wrong-headed that is cannot be stated strongly enough. The first sentence of this paragraph from Ortlund almost comes off as funny, if it wasn’t so sad:
In the church we have often emphasized life as a Christian without reference to life as a human being. But the categories of sin and salvation are only comprehensible in light of the prior category of creation—the assertion, “I am a sinner” is a further specification of the assertion, “I am a creature.” Furthermore, if redemption involves not a repudiation of our original creaturely mandate but rather a reorientation toward it (e.g., Col. 3:10, Eph. 4:24), then the doctrine of creation not only precedes and undergirds the doctrine of redemption, but informs it. We are not just saved from something (sin), but saved to something (imaging God).
Since the horrific events in Las Vegas many in the media have been obsessed with trying to figure out the motives of the psychopathic killer who killed close to 60 people in cold blood and injured about 500 more. More important to me, however, than what caused this evil mad man to do what he did, is the question of why evil exists at all.
Everyone knows that randomly killing and shooting hundreds of people is wrong, but WHY is it wrong? Why do we know the wrongness of it, that evil is, well, evil? There are very few possible answers. Here are three, and there really are not any more: (more…)
This coming All Saints Day (otherwise known in America as Halloween) Protestant Christians celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the church door at Wittenberg, and the Western world would never be the same again. Luther discovered that a salvation apart from the works of the law was available by faith in Christ alone. He discovered this truth in his study of Romans. In chapter 3 Paul says:
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
I was reminded of the power of this “alien righteousness” recently as I was listening to a talk given by Michael Reeves as he was describing the “joyful exchange,” our sin for Christ’s righteousness. I believe many Christians live out their faith daily without having ever having heard of or experienced the wonder of this exchange.
In case you’re not familiar with the Burning Man Festival, it happens in the Nevada desert every year for nine days around Labor Day. And what a nine days it is.
I initially thought the title was a bit retrograde, a pre-feminist name for an event so post-modern that it goes full circle to become totally pagan. Look at the pictures and you’ll see what I mean: Woodstock on post-modern steroids. But shouldn’t it be called Burning Person Festival? My daughter quipped that maybe it is totally feminist after all because feminists want to burn men. I’ll confess, I hadn’t thought of that. But I think more is going on with the name, as I’ll conjecture below.
I recently saw this title to an article and it instantly got my attention. One of the great shortcomings of the modern Evangelical church is it’s lack of focus on the Old Testament. When I ask friends and family if they have read the Old Testament, all of it, I get hemming and hawing, and excuses. I’ll hear that it’s confusing, or hard to understand, or they imply it’s not really relevant to their faith. They are wrong on all counts. This points to a massive failure on the part of leaders in the Church. Commenting on a book about the dying Old Testament, the author of the piece confirms this:
[M]ost American Christians are relatively ignorant of basic truths about the Bible, particularly the Old Testament—and that trends in sermons and worship are contributing to the problem. For the most part, the Old Testament is ignored, and even when it isn’t, only a narrow selection of familiar texts are read, sung, or taught.
Why is this such a huge deal? Because without an understanding of the Old Testament we can’t understand Jesus! Our Lord himself rebuked his disciples after the resurrection with these words from Luke 24:
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
I bet those are two words you’ve likely never encountered in church before. What in the world do indicative and imperative have to do with Christianity? You won’t find the words in the Bible, but you will sure find what they represent, and if they get mixed up all kind of problems will creep into a Christian’s life. First let’s start with definitions, and we’ll do it in order because it matters very much which one comes first and which second in the Christian’s life.
Indicative: of, relating to, or constituting a verb form that represents the denoted act or state as an objective fact
Imperative: of, relating to, or constituting the grammatical mood that expresses the will to influence the behavior of another, expressive of a command, entreaty, or exhortation
In short, the indicative states something that has happened, e.g., Jesus died for our sins, and the imperative exhorts us to do something, e.g., be holy. In Christianity the former always comes before the latter because the fundamental fact of Christianity is the gospel, the good news that we are saved apart from obedience to the law. If we let the indicative come first, the law for us becomes like an unpleasant drill sergeant.
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