Josh King

Genesis 14 & Blessed?

Think of someone you regard as very blessed. Who are they? Why do you think them blessed? Is it because they have good health, a nice job, wonderful kids, and a white picket fence? Is it because they are talented, have a lot of friends, and seem to succeed at whatever they put their hands to? There is a sense in which this person is blessed, but such a person can be blessed in a lesser sense and cursed in a greater one.

“Blessed” has a strong usage and a weak one. It seems with few exceptions “blessed” is used in the reduced, weaker manner. When was the last time you referred to a persecuted missionary as blessed? Jesus did (Matthew 5:10). This may be a horrifying indicator of Western Christianity adulterous heart. The American dream is apparently more blessed than the Great Commission.

Biblically, and most truly someone is blessed if the favor of God is upon them, if they enjoy God Himself, if they are reconciled to God. So why I wouldn’t argue against someone referring to a person who has been gifted and is enjoying God’s providence and common grace as “blessed”, I am disturbed that we may not realize that they may be cursed in the greatest of ways. “What does it profit a man to gain the world and forfeit his soul?” Our eyes are hazed over such that we cannot see what it means to be truly blessed? Thus we long for flat screens more than the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Abram here passes on being “blessed” by a worldly king. He is able to do so because of faith in the promises of God. Because the King, the Possessor of Heaven and Earth had blessed him, Abram was able to pass on the trivial Cracker-Jack prizes of this world.

I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God. – John Piper

Another Crack at The Shack

I have hesitated despite requests to write a review of The Shack. Most of what I would wish to say has already been said by others. So I will simply continue to point you to such reviews. Trevin Wax writes perhaps the best review of the Shack I have read so far. Especially insightful are his statements concerning the immunity to critique on the grounds of The Shack being fiction.

When you deal with non-fictional characters, you inevitably open yourself up to criticism.

Let’s say you meet an author who wants to use your grandparents as the main characters in a novel. The author tells you that the narrative will be fictional, but that your grandparents will have the starring roles. Sounds great! you think.

But when the manuscript arrives in your hands, you discover that the story does not accurately represent the personalities of your grandparents. The relationship between them is all wrong too. Grandma berates Grandpa. Early on, they run off and elope (which is totally out of character). At one point, they contemplate divorce.

When you complain, the author responds, “Remember? I told you it would be fictional.”

“Yes,” you say, somewhat exasperated, “I knew the story would be fictional, but I thought you would get my grandparents right. The grandparents in your story aren’t anything like my grandparents.”

“Who cares?” the author responds. “It’s a work of fiction.”

“Well, I care,” you say, “because people will put down this book thinking that my grandparents were like the way you portrayed them.”

My biggest problem with The Shack is its portrayal of God. I understand that the book is a work of fiction, not a theological treatise, and therefore should be treated as fiction. But the main characters are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are actual Persons. To portray God in a manner inconsistent with his revelation to us in Scripture (and primarily in Jesus) is to misrepresent living Persons.

When people put down The Shack, they will not have a better understanding of the Trinity (despite the glowing blurbs on the back cover). They will probably have a more distorted view of God in three Persons.

HT: Between Two Worlds

The Doctor: More Than Negations

What then are the characteristics of the Christian? May God the Holy Spirit grant us understanding here, not only that we may derive assurance, but that we may see something of the glory of being a Christian, the wonder of it all, the amazing thing that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. What is a Christian? It is obvious that he is the exact opposite of the non-Christian, the man we have already considered. But that is not a good way of describing a Christian, although it is done far too often. The Christian’s position is essentially positive; and we must follow the Apostle as he puts it in positive terms. The Christian is not merely a man who no longer does what he used to do. Of course that is true of him, but that is the very least you say about him; that is introduction, that is preamble. What we have to say about the Christian is essentially positive, gloriously positive. God forbid that we should be giving the world the impression that we are mere negations, that we are simply people who do not drink, who do not go to cinemas, who do not smoke, and do not do this and that. What a travesty of Christianity that is, and especially in the light of all the glorious positives that the New Testament puts before us. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 17

Tolle Lege: The Prayer of the Lord

Readability: 1

Length: 124 pgs

Author: R.C. Sproul

By God’s grace I am stumbling along learning the sweet grace that is called prayer. The Prayer of the Lord was a great refresher in prayer. Sproul goes line by line through the Lord’s prayer reminding us that we are learning from the Master teacher. Jesus is not simply our Master, our Lord, He is the Master teacher of prayer. There disciples clearly saw a connection between Jesus’ ministry and His prayer life, thus of all the questions they might have asked, one that they must know from our Lord is how to pray. If you have grown familiar with the Lord’s prayer, or your prayer life is in poor estate I counsel you to buy this little and gently readable book for your soul’s deep and abiding joy in communion with God.

The Doctor: Trinitarian Wrought Salvation

On Romans 8:3-4:

Notice that here, as everywhere, the Apostle mentions the names of the Three Persons of the blessed Holy Trinity. “God sending his own Son’, and the end of the statement is, ‘We walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The real explanation of the trouble in most Christian lives is the fact that believers start thinking about salvation in terms of themselves, and not in terms of God, the Holy Trinity, and what God has planned and prepared before time. They start by looking into themselves, and they spend their lives doing so. If they but looked at Him, looked out and saw it all there, then they would humble themselves and be filled with praise to God for ever having brought them into relationship with his great and glorious plan. This is the way to look at salvation: ‘God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that…’. Work that out, I say! Let us spend our whole lives in looking at that and working that out. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 6, p. 312

Genesis 13 & I Wish I Were More Farsighted

“For we walk by faith not by sight” – 1 Corinthians 5:7

Abram walked by faith, Lot by sight:

I am nearsighted, doubly so. One is an effect of sin, the other is sin. First let’s talk about the one that is an effect. I think I first got the hint when driving at night; the lights were blurry, not clear like they used to be. Then I discovered that it was hard to read signs. One night I put a hand over my left eye… my 20/20 vision was gone. I can read a book just fine. As I type I can see this computer screen easily, it is the Lord’s Prayer that hangs across the room that gives me fits. This is an effect of my greater blindness – I can see my computer so easily, it is the Lord’s prayer that gives me fits, doubly so.

Man is born in darkness, spiritually blind. In addition Satan works with this blindness (1 Corinthians 4:4). The saints are called out of this darkness into light (Colossians 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9). We are called to be farsighted. Prior to regeneration we were driving down the road of life, we may even have like to thought it was a ‘spiritual’ road, but the signs were a blur. We might have convinced ourselves they said “heaven” or “happiness” but it was a lie. We were nearsighted, concerned only with the passing things of this world (I John 2:15-17). We were consumed with the worries of traffic or entertained by the red 53 Chevy truck next to us, or infatuated and lusting after the cute blonde next to us. We could only see the immediate, the passing, the wasting, the empty, the vain, the hopeless, the ending, the dying… darkness and lies.

Oh, but our glorious heavenly Father, by the working of His Holy Spirit and the promises of the gospel called us out of darkness into light, he gave us new eyes so that we could see the light of the knowledge of glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He is transcendent, eternal, true, everlasting, never ending, unfading, glorious, immutable, and faithful.

Sin is a haze I must always fight. Sin robs me of this glorious vision. This is the opposite of how I should live. This present world is meant to be a blur, the next crystal clear. Right now we see it, like a preview, in breaking and redeeming men as the gospel advances and robs the hearts of men. We see it in His Holy Word as the Spirit gives us sight. We see it by faith. But the greatest effects of God’s redemption are yet to come. This present body shall be destroyed and a new one be given. Both of my eye problems will be remedied. I will with my very eyes look on the Lord of glory (Job 19:25-26, 1 John 3:2).

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. – 1 Corinthians 5:1-10

Busted Myth #2: God Can’t Look at Sin

In case you’re wondering what the first myth was, it concerned the cliché “forgive and forget. ” That little post brought a few more dumb spiritual slogans to mind birthing a miniseries. While “forgive and forget” is profoundly detrimental to the human soul and the image of God, there is a slogan that perhaps grates me more—“God can’t look at sin”.

There’s a sense in which this is true, however, I think this sense hardly ever is intended. Why anyone is zealous to tout this little slogan is beyond me. The image I get is of an effeminate God with a weak stomach who looks at sin the same way a two-year-old “princess” would look at her brother’s freshly found slug. The idea that God responds to sin with a whiny “yucky” is repulsive to me. The reasoning behind this little slogan is usually that because God can’t look on sin, you, being sinful, cannot go to heaven unless you’re first cleansed from your sin. We wouldn’t want to ruin God’s vision after all. It’s not God’s justice, righteousness, wrath, anger, or holiness that’s the issue, but rather a defect in His eyesight.

God’s eyes are not closed. If they were I would really feel sorry for Jesus because he would have bumped into a lot of stuff since this world is full of sin. But he didn’t. Jesus saw sin, exposed sin, and called it what it was, just like His Father.

Where does this foolery hail from? A bad reading of Habakkuk 1:13. Funny that a book so few Christians read should sprout such a widely spread slogan. If they would just read the rest of the verse it would be obvious what the author intended. The God who cannot look at wrong is looking at traitors. Looking here means looking on with approval, with apparent blessing. The essence of being blessed is to have the glorious and gracious face of God shinning down on you (Numbers 6:22-27). For God to look on you is for you to have His favor and for Him to be gracious in His disposition toward you. Habakkuk is lamenting that God seems to be looking at sin—apparently condoning it and blessing it, and that this goes against His very character. God cannot look at sin with approval—this is what Habakkuk is anchoring his lament in.

God sees sin (Gen 6:5); and yet, He turns his face from it (Deuteronomy 32:19-20), but remember the way the imagery is used here. To be blessed is to have God’s face and to be cursed is for His benevolent face to be turned from you. Instead of benevolence, God’s face is directed against sin and sinners in wrath (Psalm 34:15-16). So God’s face is turned away from them in one sense and toward them in another.

If an unregenerate sinner were to appear before God the issue would not be God’s weakness of sight, it would be the sinner’s. God’s eyes would flame with a holy hatred; the sinner would be condemned and undone.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. – Revelation 20:11

The Doctor: The Most Important and Most Moving Chapters of the Bible?

We come here to the great 8^th chapter of this Epistle. There is a general agreement about this chapter, not only from the standpoint of interpretation, but in saying that it is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. There is a sense in which it is invidious to draw such distinctions, and yet we must agree that there are certain chapters and passages in the Scriptures which have always meant more to God’s people than others. There is nothing wrong with in that; it is simply that there are variations. As the Apostle says of the body that there are some parts which are more comely than others, so it is in the great body of truth which we call the Scripture; and as long as that does not lead us to disparage other chapters and passages there is no harm done in saying that this is an outstanding chapter. I agree with those who say that it is one of the brightest gems of all. Someone has said that in the whole of the Scriptures the brightest and most lustrous and flashing stone, or collections of stones, is this Epistle to the Romans, and that of these this is the brightest gem in the cluster. Personally, if I were pressed for an opinion, I would say that the most important chapter in this Epistle is chapter 5, but in many senses the most moving chapter is this chapter 8. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Volume 6, pp. 258-259

Genesis 12:10-20 & Subtly, Sovereignly, and Faithfully

Too many Christians think of all the OT figures like George Washington. Everything they know of them they learned before puberty. They have a flannel-graph, romantic, idealistic picture of them. We wouldn’t say they were without flaw, but they must be very close. We think of Abram like we might think of Papa, or the image we had of our fathers in kindergarten. The only OT icon to escape our airbrush is David. Poor David, he is the only one in the bunch to be seen for what he really is, a justified sinner, simul justus et peccator.

If 12:1-9 provides the air to puff up our inflated balloon idea of Abraham, 12:10-20 provides the needle to pop it. Our eyes are necessarily directed to the hero of this book. For sure, Abram is a hero, worthy of emulation, but he is not the hero.

Abraham will threaten all three promises made to him, promises concerning land, offspring, and being a blessing. As you read this narrative you should realize that all your hope of redemption, the hope of reversing the curse has been funneled into this one man. If Abram destroys these promises, we are destroyed, we are cursed. Each time he threatens one of these promises I think a “Nooooo!” should be on the verge of bursting out of our heads through our mouths.

Yet the promises come out of this fire unscathed. In this entire passage God does not speak, nor is he spoken to or spoken of by Abraham. The only mention of God at all is inserted by the narrator. God was working subtly, sovereignly, and faithfully. This is how He works most of the time not only in our lives, but in all of Scripture. In the 2000 plus years of history covered so far God has manifested Himself only sparingly, like Aslan, He leaves you in suspense, wondering when He will show up. But just as you should not mistake silence for absence regarding Satan’s efforts throughout the book of Genesis (he is only mentioned in one chapter of the book), don’t think God is vacationing. He preserves and protects His promises, subtly, sovereignly, and faithfully.

Tolle Lege: The Serrated Edge

Readability: 2

Length: 121 pgs

Author: Douglas Wilson

I really enjoyed reading this little book. A Serrated Edge is one of those books that while reading it about halfway through I knew I would want to reread it soon. I probably haven’t had as many LOL moments since reading Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller. The book is a defense of satire as a legitimate, biblical way of communicating in some instances. Evangelical Christians need to mock, make fun of, and deal harshly sometimes, and one of the major things such an approach is needed towards is our own camp.

When Jesus looked on the rich, young ruler and loved him, it is very easy for us to say that we should be loving as He was. When preachers make such applications, no one thinks anything of it. But when Jesus looked on the rich, old rulers and insulted them, why do we tend to assume that such a division is never, ever to be imitated? It is conceivable that such a position is defensible, but why does it never have to be defended? Some might say (and do say) that we are not Jesus, and so we do not have the wisdom to insult properly. Fine. So why then do we have the wisdom to love properly? Can’t we screw that up too?

The faith that produced Augustine and Ambrose, Chrysostom and Calvin, Hodge and Edwards, is no busy trying to evangelize the world by acting dumber than a bag of hammers.

It is one thing to attack murder, rape, and pillage. It is quite another to attack prayer, rosaries, inspirational study Bibles, John 3:16 skateboards, and counseling pastors who exude empathy for a fee. These attacks run the risk of being mistaken for an attack on that which is actually being defended. If I saw someone approaching a priceless Vermeer painting with a can of orange spray paint, I would wrestle him to the ground – not as an enemy to art but as a friend of it. But in an insulated community of performance artists, the critic of art vandalism is likely to be thought of as an enemy of art itself.

It would be easy to say that our attacks on modern evangelicalism are the result of some kind of contempt for the heritage of evangelicalism. But actually the reverse is the case. We are hard on modern evangelicalism because of its contempt for its own heritage. We have a high level of respect for what this movement used to be.

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