A Boomer in the Pew

The ESV Study Bible is a Great Gift to the Body of Christ

I am in the second day of my third annual journey through the ESV Study Bible.

I have chosen once again to use a chronological reading plan as I found this to be less confusing and allowed for a greater focus on the content.

However, this year I will not be blogging each day about my journey as I did last year. 

Instead, I will continue my early rising to again journey through the Bible, but my concentrated blogging will be elsewhere.

Here is a link to my 2010 year-long series of posts reading through the ESV Study Bible.

Having now made my second journey through the ESV Study Bible, I am once again thunderstruck at what a great gift this is to the church.

To have the ESV translation (arguably one of the best), combined with the massive collection of study materials culled from the minds of the world's greatest living theologians is certainly God's providence.

Therefore, before I begin my third journey, I want to publicly thank those who followed God's calling to collaborate on this mammoth project:

• Thank you Lane T. Dennis, Executive Editor, Crossway Books & Bibles.
• Thank you Wayne Grudem, General Editor, Phoenix Seminary.
• Thank  you J. I. Packer, Theological Editor, Regent College.
• Thank you C. John Collins, Old Testament Editor, Covenant Theological Seminary.
• Thank you Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament Editor, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
• Thank you Justin Taylor, Project Director and Managing Editor, Crossway Books and Bibles

And, last but certainly not least, thank you to the scores of theologians who contributed the study notes for each of the Bible's sixty-six books, as well as the vast collection of accompanying helpful articles.

Having the ESV Study Bible in my possession has greatly added to my understanding of God, his redemption story, and the great hope that awaits those who have placed their faith in the Savior Jesus Christ.

I am certain that a special reward awaits each of you for your faithfulness to the glory of God, and for the shepherding given to each reader of this great work.

Each of you has helped to provide me with a proper worldview, an understanding that my chief aim is to bring glory to God, and alongside the Holy Spirit have pointed me to the one source of true truth.

For this, I stand on my desk, clap my hands, and shout loud plaudits to you all!

 

Contemplating My Course of Study for 2011

I have been contemplating for some weeks the direction of my studies for 2011.

The first thing that comes to mind is perhaps to make an annual journey through the Bible a regular course of action. 

If I were to limit my study to a fairly simple read, rather than study and blogging, I think this behavior would take about 15 minutes/day.

Can't hurt to read the Bible every year for the rest of my life.  Right?

The two year-long studies that come to mind are:

1. Study one of the great cathecisms of the church.  I'm currently not sure which I would choose, but this might be a way to burn some of the Bible's core teachings into the brains cells.
2. Take a year-long journey through Dr. Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology.  If I remember correctly, his book has 52 chapters.  Plus, with him being a member of my local church, I have at my disposal years of audio lessons where he went through his book in a Sunday school class. 

Another objective for 2011 is to create more community on this website.  Blogging my way through the Bible in 2010 was quite a labor intensive project and left little room for community building.

Well, those are my current thoughts.  It's January 1st, I had better get a decision made.

What are you going to study in 2011?  Let's talk about it in the comments section.

The Boomer in the Pew Speaks out on the Immigration Crisis and Arizona's SB 1070

When you live in Arizona, you are forced to possess a different perspective, regarding SB 1070, than those who would scream from afar having no real stake in the game.

Further, with the intense emotion involved, it is very difficult to see clearly.

Further still, a great majority get their "truth" from the prevailing winds of society, and have done precious little to have a cogent argument of their own.

In the heat of a great amount of shouting, here comes Dr. James K. Hoffmeier (Professor of Old Testament & Near Eastern Arcaheology,Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), helping us to understand that these very same issues were found in the Old Testament:

"The national debate on the plight of illegal immigrants has been simmering for years. On April 24, 2010 a contentious bill (SB 1070) was signed into law in Arizona that permits state authorities to apprehend illegal immigrants. This bill, though not scheduled to take effect until July, has blown the lid off the pressure cooker, resulting in marches, boycotts and lawsuits. The burning issue is, what should be done with illegal immigrants (estimates vary from 12-20 million)?

Christian organizations, churches and individuals have been wresting with this question. Understandably, Evangelical Christians want to know if the Bible offers some guidance on the agonizing problems surrounding the debate. As a matter of fact the Old Testament has a lot to say about aliens or sojourners, after all Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were aliens or immigrants in Canaan, and the Children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for centuries. In order to come to an understanding of the relevant biblical terms, what they mean and how they might be applied to the current crisis, I carefully investigated the Scriptures, studying the Hebrew terms contextually. The results of my work was published by Crossway in a book The Immigration Crisis: Immigration, Immigrants and the Bible (2009).

For over thirty years I have been a professor of Old Testament, and have read through the Bible many, many times. Nevertheless, I was surprised by what I learned. Here I offer just two salient conclusions, but invite the readers to examine the book to follow the arguments and the data that lead to these observations.

First, the Hebrew word ger has been variously translated as “stranger” (KJV, NAS), “sojourner” (ESV, RSV), “alien” (NIV, NRSV), and even “foreigner” (TNIV, NLT). The latter is misleading and inaccurate as there are two other Hebrew terms that mean “foreigner,” namely zar and nekhar. From the Abraham and Isaac narratives in Genesis we learn that the Patriarchs had to negotiate treaties and agreements to sojourn in the territory of and obtain water rights from the local Canaanite and Philistine kings (cf. Gen. 20, 21 & 26). Pharaoh gave Joseph permission for his family to “sojourn” in Egypt (Gen. 45:17-18), and when the family arrived in Egypt the brothers asked Pharaoh for permission to “sojourn” in Egypt with their flocks (Gen. 47:5-6). From these and other references, I conclude that a ger was a foreigner who comes to live in another land with the permission of a host or the proper authority.

Second, the Old Testament law insists that once a foreigner attained ger status in Israel, he was to be treated like a native born Hebrew (Exod. 14:49; Lev. 18:26), enjoying legal protection, social benefits and religious inclusion. The Law, however, does not offer the same protections and benefits to the “foreigner” (nekhar and zar). For example, an Israelite was not allowed to charge interest to a ger, but could to a nekhar (Lev. 25:35-37; Deut. 15:3). Similarly, the ger could participate in Passover observances while the nekhar was prohibited (Exod. 12:43-49).

These distinctions demonstrate that the “foreigner” and the “alien” did not have the same standing in biblical law. Applying the foregoing observations to the current immigration dilemma, I propose a correlation between the ger of the OT and the legal immigrant today, and the “foreigner” and the illegal immigrant. In the current debate about the status of the illegal immigrants, some have cited OT passages about the ger arguing that illegal immigrants be treated accordingly. If my analysis is correct, this is a faulty application of these biblical laws to the illegal immigrant of today. On the other hand, the biblical laws urge us to help and incorporate foreigners who are legally among us, especially because they are easily exploited (Deut. 24:14-15)." (via Crossway Blog)

For decades, illegal (remember a key word in this debate is illegal) immigrants have been allowed to simply walk, tunnel, climb, or swim their way into Arizona with little repercussion.  Now, with Arizona's economy billions of dollars in the toilet, the staggering costs of a society harboring millions of illegal immigrants has become a great festering boil.

Complicating this matter immeasurably is the fact that many of these illegal immigrants have been living peacefully in Arizona for decades, and a societal fabric has been created around them.

Shame on those who didn't protect our borders many decades ago.  Shame on them for not greatly wrestling for a proper solution back then.  And shame on a long parade of other politicians who lacked the fortitude to resolve the issue.

For now, the problem is far more difficult, and involves the lives of many millions.  Further, as I understand it, those children born in the US of illegal immigrants are in fact now US citizens.  What a colossal mess!

The economic burden to support millions of illegal immigrants is categorically staggering.

A very difficult line must now be drawn in the desert sands.  This problem must be resolved, and unfortunately, thanks to the lack of "huevos" from our forefathers, it is now going to be most difficult.

Therefore, might I ask that we all take a deep breath, gird ourselves with love, and diligently work together for a workable solution?

All this grandstanding only pumps up, and leads us nowhere.

For now, let's first start with protecting our border, and stopping this immense daily flow of new illegal immigrants.  Secondly, if there exists a person that has just come across our borders, we certainly have the right to ask, and if they are in fact illegally here, send them back.  All this talk about profiling is doublespeak.

Further, if we find that someone is in fact profiling for discriminatory reasons, then we must come down hard on that person and make an example.  Further still, this law does not give legal officials the right to simply ask every dark skinned person for their papers.  They must have been caught doing something illegal, and then we can ask.  Seems simple, right?

So, all you who love to stir controversy, go back to the rock you crawled out from under, and let's hope that our federal government, our state government, and all of the citizens of the great State of Arizona can work to resolve this most difficult problem once and for all.

God loves Mexicans, and I have quite a number of Mexican, and Mexican American friends that I dearly love. 

This isn't about that. 

This is about societal order.  Don't get the two things confused.

Albert Mohler: The Shack Reveals a Disastrous Lack of Discernment in the Christian Community

Cowabunga!  I had no idea that this book has sold 10 million copies.

Frankly, it makes me very sad.

Let me just let Dr. Mohler explain:

"In evaluating the book, it must be kept in mind that The Shack is a work of fiction. But it is also a sustained theological argument, and this simply cannot be denied. Any number of notable novels and works of literature have contained aberrant theology, and even heresy. The crucial question is whether the aberrant doctrines are features of the story or the message of the work. When it comes to The Shack, the really troubling fact is that so many readers are drawn to the theological message of the book, and fail to see how it conflicts with the Bible at so many crucial points.

All this reveals a disastrous failure of evangelical discernment. It is hard not to conclude that theological discernment is now a lost art among American evangelicals -- and this loss can only lead to theological catastrophe."

As I see it, this book touches people on a deeply emotional level.  The problem is that the foundation upon which it stands is deeply errant.

When we allow our emotions to overpower our Christian discernment then we are certain to play into the hands of the Great Deceiver.

The universalism that is presented in this book stands squarely against the words of Messiah, and I am deeply troubled that 10 million people can't see that.

John Piper: Why do the Righteous Suffer - Book of Job

As we are coming to the end of the Book of Job, in our year-long study of the Bible, I thought it might be beneficial to call upon one of the big guns, in the world of theology, to help our understanding.

Here is a link to a recent video/audio series on Suffering, and the Book of Job.

Contemplating the Roman Catholic Rite of Confirmation and my Role as a Protestant Godfather

First of all, let me say that it is not my desire that this post turn into a theological diatribe between Protestants and Papists.

We can talk about such things another day.  Fair enough?

One of my best friends is a Roman Catholic.  He harbors deep distrust for the "organized church", but nonetheless has raised his beautiful children in the Roman Catholic Church.

When their first child was born, a most beautiful girl, we were asked to be her Godparents.

When I was asked what that meant, in the Roman Catholic tradition, I was told something to the effect that this tends to be an individual(s) chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child's upbringing and personal development.

I was certainly happy, and honored to step into that role.

Fast forward 14 years, and we now find our Goddaughter about to receive the Roman Catholic Church's rite of Confirmation.

Here is this from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church:

"The sacraments of Christian initiation — Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist — lay the foundations of every Christian life. 'The sharing in the divine nature given to men through the grace of Christ bears a certain likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of natural life. The faithful are born anew by Baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life. By means of these sacraments of Christian initiation, they thus receive in increasing measure the treasures of the divine life and advance toward the perfection of charity.' (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1212)"

So, it seems the Roman Catholic believes that new life (regeneration) begins at Baptism.  Then, once the age of understanding is reached, the Confirmation (receiving the Holy Spirit) occurs to provide the strength to bear your witness, with the Eucharist being the weekly food of eternal life.

In preparation for this upcoming February event, we have been asked by our dear friends to write "an encouraging letter that our Goddaughter can open during her Confirmation Retreat".

I am most certainly going to do this.  What to write her?  This my current quandary.

I am currently leaning towards something to the effect:  be strong, the world will challenge your faith, your friends may desire to pull you down imprudent paths, and know that we are always here to help and guide. Above all, know God, and make your life's most important mission to get your name in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Thoughts?

New Years Eve Thoughts After my First Complete Reading of the Bible

Late 2008, and early 2009 were perhaps the most challenging of my life.

After 20 years of faithful, hard work we sold our business, and moved into what we thought was retirement in November of 2006.

Then, about 9 months later I was hit with a fairly large depression from having no challenge in my life, by October of 2008 our cash assets were nearly half of what they were, thanks to a profound stock market crash, and to top that all off, in March of 2009, the gentleman who bought our business decided to stop paying the balance of the note, and ended our income stream.

To be honest, all of this completely rocked my world.  It all seemed so unfair.  We had accomplished all this with integrity, and were good stewards of our earnings.  

Why was this happening?

The only thing I knew to do, while laying in a heap of ashes, was to go back to the very beginning.  If you drill down deep enough, you will find yourself asking, "who am I, why do I exist, and what is this life all about?"

As I see it, you really only have two choices, you believe in God, or you don't.

I do.

Therefore, if you boil this whole thing called life down to one thing, and ask the question:  why am I here?  The answer, I believe, is to know God.

That being the case, I decided, for the first time in my life, to read the whole of the Bible.

Today, the last day of 2009, I have just completed my first journey through the Bible.  To be completely frank, it was not an easy journey.  It seems that I had no idea who God was, and had built this inaccurate view from 52 years of skimming across the top of the water of God's word.

The second thing that comes to mind is that I now have a far better idea of who I am.  Through our business success, I was unknowingly harboring a great deal of pride.  I suppose, the only way for me to see, and understand this, was for the source of my pride, my business success, to be completely rocked. 

I am thankful that our life isn't shattered, but rocked it certainly is.

My mind is whirling with things that I have learned.  But to rehash it all here would be most time consuming for you.  I have written over 900 posts in this blog, laying bare for you the journey.  Many of these posts were written with tears streaming down my cheeks as I began to learn.

Let me end this post with a few lessons from Moses in Psalm 90:

• the Lord Yahweh is eternal.
• but man's life is fleeting.
• we are brought to an end by God's wrath (the hard one to get through our stiff necks)
• but then, teach us wisdom and establish our work.

Or,  this from my reading in Isaiah today:

Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
 2 All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.

Or, even greater still, from the last words of Christ in Revelation:

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

My worldview is completely changed.  My life is in the process of changing. 

I am not really given to New Years resolutions.  But if I was, I would borrow this one from David Powlison (via Justin Taylor):

"I now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that I will endeavor to live as becomes a follower of Christ" 

I am looking forward to another journey through the Bible this year, and with all my heart I cry, come, Lord Jesus, come.

See you next year, and thank you for being a loyal reader of this blog.

John Piper, God's Sovereignty, and Satan With a Hook in his Nose

I used to be the type of person who thought of Jesus as a sort of Coca-Cola salesperson.  You know, standing on the mountain, singing songs with hundreds of hippies, offering the real thing. 

Then, in the last year, I read the whole Bible. 

This hip Jesus is a figment of our imaginations.  The Jesus of the Bible is very, very difficult to understand.  Yet, his message is very simple.  So simple in fact, that the simplest among us can understand.

Consider, for example, that in choosing his twelve disciples, Jesus Christ knowingly includes Judas.  He knew that Judas was of the devil, yet he brings this devil amongst his closest twelve.  Why would he do that?

In chapter six of John's gospel, Jesus talks in such offensive language that the crowd was reduced from 5,000 "believers", all the way down to 11!  Why?  People were leaving Jesus in droves.  Why?  Is the Sovereign of the universe out of control here?  If not, then what is going on?

Dr. John Piper handles this difficult question, and brings a message that you must hear. 

If your life has ever been, or is now currently out of control, and you wonder, "where on earth is God?", then you simply must take 45 minutes and listen to this message.

This is difficult to hear.  You are not going to completely understand.  God's infinite mind will not fit in our tiny little brains.  But, you can get a glimpse.  You can see through a mirror darkly.  You can somewhat see through the veil.  Look, dear reader, look!

Avatar on Imax 3D, Pantheism, and Ross Douthat

My wife and I went to see Avatar yesterday.  In fact, we decided to hunt out the film presented in Imax 3D. 

We were thinking that arriving an hour early would provide sufficient time to secure a ticket.  We were wrong!  The ticket salesperson said that the large theater was sold out in 10 minutes, and that we would have to wait 4 hours until the next showing.

Let me say this, the technology of this film was beyond anything I have ever seen.  The large Imax screen, coupled with the 3D transported your senses to places never seen.  It was simply amazing!

With that said, the other thing that quickly came to my attention was that this film was clearly promoting pantheism, rather than simply portraying a pantheistic culture.  In fact, it so permeated the film, I was beginning to wonder if there wasn't a pantheistic evangelistic message here beyond the sheer entertainment.

Ross Douthat, Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, observed this as well, and has done a far better job explaining what I mean here.

Putting aside Cameron's dreams of a New-Age Nirvana, the technology of the film left me speechless.  I look forward to the day when this technology is more widely available.  Going from a 2D experience, to a 3D experience was simply unbelievable.

The Athanasian Creed: God in Three Persons

I have had a great many conversations over the past few years about God.  Surprisingly, not a few people have professed a belief in a god that, at the end of the day, they have created in their own minds.

I believe in the Jew's Yahweh.  I believe that Jesus Christ is in fact the Jew's long awaited Messiah, sent by God to become the only perfect sacrifice.  Further, I believe that when Messiah left, he, and the Father, sent the Holy Spirit who gave us the New Testament, and today is actively illuminating God's chosen.

The early church struggled for many years trying to sort out the relationship between God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. 

It wasn't until as late as the 5th century that we finally found, in The Athanasian Creed, a doctrinal statement regarding our Triune God.

The purpose of this creed is to put forth a proper understanding of who God is, and to prevent us from the grave error of dreaming up a god of our own imaginations.

I am going to copy The Athanasian Creed for you to read.  Keep in mind that when it uses the word Catholic (Greek:  katholikos), it means the universal Christian church, and is not referring to the Roman Catholic Church.

Do you hold this creed to be a part of your belief system?