Looking behind the curtain

John helps his audiences to look at Rome and Roman imperialism especially through the lens of the Hebrew prophets, who had long ago spoken against the self-serving practices of empires as contrary to God's good will for human beings in every nation. In particular, he accuses Rome of (1) violence against dissenters, especially against Jews and Christians; (2) economic exploitation, nurturing a system that caters to the luxury of the powerful at the expense of the many; and (3) idolatrous presumption in its claims on its own behalf. John develops each of theses in such a way as to arouse indignation against Roman imperialism, supporting his call to Christians to keep themselves free from supporting or participating in such an unjust system of domination.— Unholy Allegiances, page 65

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Anybody else see the United States in that description, at least in numbers 2 & 3? Think 1% controlling 40% of the wealth. Think "American exceptionalism" which is just a variation of the 19th century's "white man's burden."
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For each and every

It's been a while since I posted some Finney, so here's a good one:

We are not to suppose that He died for the sum total of mankind in such a sense that His death is not truly for each one in particular. It is a great mistake into which some fall, to suppose that Christ died for the race in general, and not for each one in particular. By this mistake, the Gospel is likely to lose much of its practical power on our hearts. We need to apprehend it is Paul did, who said of Jesus Christ, "He loved me and gave Himself for me."—Charles Finney

It depends on your viewpoint

[According to John in Revelation] The emperors themselves are not pious figures or mediators of divine favor, as the public image of them declares. Rather, they are founts of blasphemy against God (Rev 13:1, 5, 6). The emperor's divine titles (typically including “son of a god,” divi filius) are illegitimate, the “names of blasphemy” that offend the Most High. Flattering courtiers of Rome and local authorities in Asia Minor addressed their emperors as “lord and God”: what was for most of Asia Minor a matter of gratitude and welcome security was, for John, an insult to the one Lord and one God in the highest degree. Indeed, many of the titles ascribed to God and the Lamb throughout Revelation are stolen back by John from the emperor for the True God and for Christ throughout Revelation.— Unholy Allegiances, page 44

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How you see the reigning powers depends on your viewpoint, doesn't it? May we all have the viewpoint of John: centered on the Lamb. Then we will be able to see clearly; our vision won't be distorted by incorrect priorities and desires.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!
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The center of our lives

The vision of all creation centered in worship and obedient waiting upon God and God's Messiah invites us first of all into the experience of God's throne as the pivotal center of our lives, prompting us to make this the focal point of our corporate worship and our personal prayer and meditation. John calls us to center ourselves, and to remain centered, here. This centering for John does not belong to the fleeting moments of structured times of worship, however. It is the business of God's creatures “day and night without rest” (4:8), which for human beings must mean bringing every facet of life into orbit around the enthroned God, centered on God, on God's prompting, on God's service. In John's vision of the cosmos, there is no room for gathering around God's throne at one time as one's cosmic center and at another time in the fellowship of idols and their worshipers.— Unholy Allegiances, page 42

<idle musing>
Indeed! Serving God is an all-consuming business. Take a look at today's Jesus Creed for a good bit of commentary on that. The "two kingdoms" model is bogus—and I'm being generous! Either Jesus as the Lamb of God is LORD or he isn't. You can't choose to have him lord in one area without allowing him to be lord of all areas of your life.
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The center of the universe

John's visions begin at the center of John's universe, at the very throne of God (4:2). The way John unfolds hist vision of the cosmos is rhetorically significant. Many modern readers jump to the dragon and beasts as the focal point of interest; but for John the key figures in this drama are not the “bad guys.” God and the Lamb, not the beast, occupy the center stage. This is in itself an attack on Roman imperial ideology, which depicted the emperor (and the gods that give him his power) at the center of the conceptual universe.— Unholy Allegiances, pages 36-37

<idle musing>
Why do we seem to always focus on the "bad guy" in the modern world? John had it right—focus on God!
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Repentance

...sin has been so ingrained into our minds that we are unable to repent and have to repent even of the kind of repentance we bring before God.— The Mediation of Christ, page 95

<idle musing>
Pretty hopeless, isn't it? That's why we need the grace of God!

That's the final excerpt from this book. It's got more, but I got it through interlibrary loan and the time ran out before I could transcribe all of them...such is the time pressure of the cabins in the summer : )

Next up will be Unholy Allegiances from Hendrickson (thanks Bobby!). Stay tuned...
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I wish...

Discovered via Out of Ur:

Minutes before the end of John MacArthur’s Strange Fire Conference, with attendees all together in the convention hall, suddenly there was a sound like the rush of a giant wind, which filled the entire auditorium where they were seated. People reported seeing flashes of fire that subdivided and landed on each person. Everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit, and began speaking in other languages as the Spirit empowered them.

Conference delegates included people from other nations who were baffled by the sound of their mother tongues being spoken. Amazed, they asked, ‘Aren’t all these people Americans? How then are we hearing them in the national languages of our countries?’ Confused, they started saying, ‘What the heck is going on?’

Some, however said perhaps after three days of this, some of them had a few drinks during the Friday supper break.

Then John MacArthur stood up and went to the microphone and addressed the crowd.
“Well,” he said; “This is ironic.”— Thinking Out Loud

A problem with forensic theories of the atonement

...if Jesus is a substitute in detachment from us, who simply acts in our stead in an external, formal or forensic way, then his response has no ontological bearing upon us but is an empty transaction over our heads, A merely representative or a merely substitutionary concept of vicarious mediation is bereft of any actual saving significance.— The Mediation of Christ, page 90

<idle musing>
Brains on a stick...by the way, that phrase comes from something I read a couple of years ago by a Calvin College Philosophy professor. A little help from Google and I see his name is James Smith...
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Brains on a stick

The human heart is so desperately wicked that it cunningly takes advantage of the hiatus between what we are and what we ought to be in order to latch on to the patterns and structures of moral behaviour required of us, so that under the image of what is good and right it masks or even fortifies its evil intentions. Such is the self-deception of our human heart and the depravity of our self-will that we seek to justify ourselves before God and our neighbours by a formal, impersonal fulfillment of the divine law in which we remain untouched in ourselves and uncommitted in our own persons.— The Mediation of Christ, page 81

<idle musing>
yep...
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Preconceptions and their impact on our findings

Interesting post over at Black, White and Gray, a blog by some Christian sociologists:

This gets us back to thinking about the institution of science. What is true for the individual can be even truer in a community that reinforces previously accepted corporate assumptions. Thomas Kuhn argued that scientists develop paradigms based on previous ideas. This paradigm is accepted and defended until it reaches a point when there is so much disconfirming evidence that it becomes nearly logically impossible to believe in the paradigm. But usually the paradigm goes relatively unchallenged and scientists attempt to defend it against all attacks. According to Kuhn, the normal state of affairs is scientists fighting to maintain the paradigm against all attacks instead of looking for all possible answers to research questions. We like to think of scientists as individuals open to all possible answers. But the result of the article reinforces the reality that scientists, like others, when looking for answers to research questions tend to look for those that fit their presuppositions.

<idle musing>
Read the whole thing to get the full context. But, in a nutshell, it is very hard (and draining) to look beyond your presuppositions—and the Internet makes it even harder! You can search for what you want to find, thereby short-circuiting any semblance of critical thinking. It's definitely easier and makes you feel like you did real research, but the whole time you were simply looking for confirmation of your preconceptions. I've done it far too often : (

I'm convinced only the Holy Spirit can break through our preconceptions...
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Is he mad?

Fearful anxiety arises in the human heart when people cannot connect Jesus up in their faith or understanding with the ultimate Being of God, for then the ultimate Being of God can be to them only a dark, inscrutable, arbitrary Deity whom they inevitably think of with terror for their guilty conscience makes them paint harsh angry streaks upon his face.— The Mediation of Christ, page 70

<idle musing>
Again, I ask, "Is he mad at us?" Some theologies would have us believe that God is mad at us, but the Biblical picture is dramatically different! Praise God for that!
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A hidden god?

To claim that Jesus Christ is not God himself become man for us and our salvation, is equivalent to saying that God does not love us to the uttermost, that he does not love us to the extent of committing himself to becoming man and uniting himself with us in the Incarnation. But if God's love stops short at becoming one with us, what kind of God would that be whose love is limited but some finite Deity and not the Lord God Almighty. If there is no unbreakable bond of being between Jesus Christ and God, then we are left with a dark inscrutable Deity behind the back of Jesus Christ of whom we can only be terrified.— The Mediation of Christ, pages 69-70

<idle musing>
This is exactly why the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to salvation and to Christianity!
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The hinge

Everything hinges upon the fact that he who became incarnate in Jesus Christ, he who mediates divine revelation and reconciliation to mankind in and through himself, is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God — that is to say, Jesus is to be acknowledged as God in the same sense as the Father is acknowledged as God, for it is in virtue of his Deity that his saving work as man has its validity.— The Mediation of Christ, page 64

<idle musing>
The doctrine of the deity of Christ is no small matter; as Torrance says here, it is the hinge upon which everything—and I mean everything—turns. If Christ isn't the pre-existent Son of the Father, then he can't be our mediator; we're still lost...
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The root of it

That is not, of course, what the world today wants to believe, any more than Jesus' contemporaries in Israel wanted to believe it, for the Cross has the effect of emptying the power-structures that the world loves so much, of their vaunted force. And so people continue trying to make Jesus serve their own ends in the world, thereby 'crucifying' him all over again. Let us be quite frank. Jesus was crucified by the political theology of his own day, but is that not what people, even in the Church, continue to do when under a programme of putting Christian ideals into effect they politicise the role of Jesus in human society and in international relations today? The deadly root of man's inhumanity to man, the source of all human violence, is in the wickedness of the human heart, and it is there that it must be undone.— The Mediation of Christ, page 41

<idle musing>
Appropriate timing...
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Offended by the light

...the mediation of divine revelation through Israel has the effect not only of disclosing something of the nature of God but of disclosing the natural offence to God deeply embedded in the human heart.— The Mediation of Christ, pages 20-21

<idle musing>
He goes on to trace antisemitic behavior to this antipathy. Interesting thought...
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ios 7 woes

I've heard about this on the Internet, but nobody seems to know the answer: Ever since updating to IOS 7, my iPad 2 randomly locks up. I have to press the home and sleep buttons at the same time—and even then it doesn't always come back! It's thrown it into recovery mode 4 times now...

Anybody know what the problem is? Is there a fix out there? Why isn't Apple offering another update to IOS 7?

This time it really died...the Apple logo is on the screen, but it won't move. Won't shutoff, won't respond to plugging into the Macbook...I hate computers!

Update: it came back—again! But this is getting old...

Renewal

To be the bearer of divine revelation is to suffer, and not only to suffer but to be killed and made alive again, and not only to be made alive but to be continually renewed and refashioned under its creative impact.— The Mediation of Christ, page 20

<idle musing>
I borrowed this book from the library via inter-library loan. Great book! I didn't have time to transcribe all the great thoughts in it before I had to return it (busy summer with the cabin work!), but I did finish the book. Maybe someday I'll borrow it again and have time to really absorb all the great stuff. Meanwhile, enjoy the next few days of excerpts...
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Ouch!

From Guy Muses's blog

One of the most common questions I am asked in church planting training is: at what point do we start taking the new believers to church? This question always frustrates me, but I understand the paradigm struggle many face with house churches being "real churches."

The response I am tempted to give is, "what I hear you asking is at what point do we stop making disciples, and allow them to just start attending church services?" Of course, I bite my tongue before saying this, but it reflects the difficulty we have of understanding the who, what, when, where, and why of the true nature of the New Testament ekklesia.

Read the whole post; well worth your time!

Remember when

Remember when Bonhoeffer wasn't an Evangelical?

He isn't, of course; he was a liberal German Lutheran. But he's been "adopted" into the evangelical world, just like C.S. Lewis. But, he wasn't always welcomed by evangelicals; I was warned not to read him in the early-mid 1970s—I was told he was "dangerous." Ain't that the truth! But not for the reasons that person had in mind...

That change got me thinking about changes in general. Here's a few that came to mind:

Did you know that the "Pledge of Allegiance" was written by a socialist?!
Did you know that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge was added in the 1950s to distinguish "godly" America from the "godless" Soviet Union?
Did you know that the Puritans were against the celebration of Christmas? So much for putting the Christ back in Christmas, eh?
Did you know that "In God we trust" has only appeared on paper money since 1957? Check it out!

Book comments

I read When a Nation Forgets God over the weekend. I went into it knowing the politics of the author (typical right-wing Evangelical), so it didn't surprise me that the warnings were mostly about left-wing agendas. As you probably have gathered, I'm not a big "culture wars" proponent—the church did just fine when the Roman Empire was arrayed against it! Nor am I a big fan of the right-wing. OK, that's an understatement! I'm closer to socialist than I am to capitalist...

That being said, there are some good points in the book. He does make a point of saying that God doesn't favor one political or economic system over another. But he does use socialist almost as a swear word—as if capitalism has done a better job of the economy : (

The final chapter is definitely the best. He expounds on the danger of equating nationalism with Christianity. He sees this one of the reasons that the German church was unable to stand against Hitler. I think he's right.

If I had written the book, I would have included a few chapters on the problems of the right-wing agendas. For example, the left may be trying to expunge God from the public square, but the right is fine with him being there as long as he is the nationalistic, cultural god. They want to keep god confined to the U.S.'s interests—in short, God is an American.

I also would have included a chapter on the dangers of unbridled greed (read capitalism). The prophets rail against the greed of the upper class continually—there are more rebukes for exploiting the poor than there are about sexual immorality. Lutzer is silent on that, although he warns against the state. I fear big business more than big government! Big businesses are multinational, which means no government can control them. At least with government, you can either "vote the bums out" or perform a coup (I'm not advocating that!). Try that with a big business...

Hitler came to power promising to restore the values of Germany. Sound familiar? Octavian (Augustus) became emperor (technically, he wasn't called emperor, but he was in fact) promising to restore Roman values. Sound familiar? I haven't done a formal study, but my gut feeling is that more totalitarian regimes have come to power to restore traditional values than the ones promising to transform things in a new direction...

Just an
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