March 2012
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The Withdrawal Spiral of Marriage
This is how you justify your withdrawal in your mind, but, of course, your spouse doesn’t see it quite that way. If my wife sees me being emotionally more remote, not being as active in serving her needs or the needs of the family, she will feel warranted to dial back her own involvement and commitment to me. The less you feel love, and the less you act loving, the less you feel loving, and so...
February 2012
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Prayer of Confession: Job 31 & Isaiah 43
“If I have made gold my trust or called fine gold my confidence, if I have rejoiced because my wealth was abundant or because my hand had found much, if I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand, this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges, for I would have been false...
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Lent Week 1: Wednesday - Matt 7 (N.T. Wright) →
Matthew 7 and bearing good fruit:
When Jesus uses the image of the tree, he is drawing, as so often, on an ancient biblical picture. The first Psalm speaks of God’s true people like trees planted by streams of water, which will produce fruit at the right time, while the wicked are like chaff blown around by the wind. Jeremiah develops this picture (17.8), thinking of the tree that sends...
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“So when someone says, “I don’t need a piece of paper to show love,” you might...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 98). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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Lent Week 1: Tuesday - Matt 6 (N.T. Wright) →
From Matthew 6, we know that prayer is important—especially for this Lenten season:
Prayer is a mystery. I’ve often heard people saying, with a sneer, ‘It doesn’t go beyond the ceiling, you know.’ But the point of prayer, at least the way Jesus saw it, is that it doesn’t have to. Your father, he says, is there in the secret place with you. He sees and knows...
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Prayer of Confession: Job 19:25-27
Almighty and most merciful father,
We are thankful that your mercy is higher than the heavens, wider than our wanderings, deeper than all our sin.
Forgive our frivolous attitude toward life, our callousness toward suffering, our envy of those who have more than we have, our obsession with creating a life of constant pleasure, our indifference to the treasures of heaven, our neglect of your wise...
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“Only a sight of his glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God’s people....”
– John Owen
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Lent Week 1: Monday - Matt 5 (N.T. Wright) →
Matthew 5 & our long-expected Messiah:
We’ve been longing for this moment, you see, but we didn’t know what it was going to be like. For generations we’ve all been taught that one day our God, the maker of heaven and earth, would come back to us and set everything right. But as time has gone on it’s looked more and more as though he’s forgotten us. Arrogant...
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“When we first are attracted to someone, we think, “I want it to stay like this!...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 97). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition. Bold emphasis mine.
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Do Acts of Love, Despite Your Lack of Feeling
You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must be tender, understanding, forgiving, and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen...
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Lent Week 1: Sunday - Psalm 32 (N.T. Wright) →
On Psalm 32:
That’s why the poem closes, once again, with celebration. Put off the task of confession and the mess will only get worse, leading to all kinds of trouble. But trust in the Lord — and that trust will often begin by trusting him with our saddest and darkest secrets — and we will find his love surrounding us. It’s like going outside on the first spring morning where...
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“Does that mean it doesn’t matter who you marry, that you don’t have to be in...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 95-96). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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Actions of Love Can Lead Consistently to Feelings...
If you do not give up, but proceed to love the unlovely in a sustained way, they will eventually become lovely to you.
Our culture says that feelings of love are the basis for actions of love. And of course that can be true. But it is truer to say that actions of love can lead consistently to feelings of love. Love between two people must not, in the end, be identified simply with emotion or...
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Saturday After Ash Wednesday: Matt 4:1-11 (N.T.... →
N.T. Wright shows us how heaven’s rule came to earth:
Christians have always found comfort in the fact that Jesus was tempted as we are. But his temptations, in this famous story, are not just an example, showing us how to resist, though of course they are that too. (Notice how his mind, well stocked with scripture, comes back again and again with the right response.) They are part of the larger...
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Letter from USCIS: @nurseviv's petition for my... →
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Stress the action of love over the feeling
When you feel great delight in someone, meeting their needs and getting their gratitude and affection in return is extremely rewarding to your ego. At those times you may be acting more out of the desire to get that love and satisfaction yourself, rather than out of a desire to seek the good of the other person. …
So if your definition of “love” stresses affectionate feelings more than...
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What Matters is What We Do with Our Affections
The feeling of affection, of course, is a natural part of love, and it can enable us to better perform the actions of love. We are never more satisfied and fulfilled than when affection and action are joined in us, when we are serving someone we delight in. …
[…] Most of our likes and dislikes are neither sins nor virtues—no more than our tastes in food or music. What matters is...
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Friday After Ash Wednesday: Matthew 4 (N.T.... →
On Matthew 4, N.T. Wright comments helpfully:
God always wanted humans to be part of the action, not just spectators. God made humans to reflect his image — his presence, his love, his plans — into the world. That’s why he himself came into the world as a human being. And that’s why Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John, and the others. They weren’t ready. They...
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“Indeed, it is the covenantal commitment that enables married people to become...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 90). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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Thursday After Ash Wednesday: Matthew 3 (N.T.... →
Today is Maundy Thursday. N.T. Wright helpfully explains the redemptive plan of God from Matthew 3:
So when John the Baptist suddenly appeared, down near the river Jordan, telling people that ‘heaven’ was going to take charge on earth (that’s what ‘the kingdom of heaven’ means), it’s not surprising that everyone set off to find out what was going on. John was...
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“The only way for you to be truly free is to link your feeling to an obligation....”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 89). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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From a noisy but shallow brook to a quieter but...
When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than...
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Pastor as Shepherd to sheep
“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the...
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You Never Marry the Right Person →
Commenting on Relevant Magazine’s excerpt of Timothy Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage:
As we walk the path to marriage, it is easy to get caught up in finding the “right” person as defined by our own preferences and personal standards. This sets us up to become discouraged and disappointed when we enter relationships only to discover that the other person is, after all, as...
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Ash Wednesday 2012 →
Today is ASH WEDNESDAY:
Whenever God does something new, he involves people — often unlikely people, frequently surprised and alarmed people. He asks them to trust him in a new way, to put aside their natural reactions, to listen humbly for a fresh word and to act on it without knowing exactly how it’s going to work out. That’s what he’s asking all of us to do this Lent....
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Five Core Values Of A Church In Decline →
Laziness
Fear of Man
Pride
Staff Abuse
Loss of Focus
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How Do You Initiate a Relationship in a Godly... →
This question was asked by a reader recently. Off the cuff, I shall answer,
Treat your sister in Christ as a sister; and shortly after you’ve had some friendship with her: confess your godly, intentioned, romantic interest in her & ask her out—for the explicit purpose of discerning y’all’s possibility of marriage.
What Does a Biblical Relationship Look Like? Scott...
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“When you first fall in love, you think you love the person, but you don’t...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 86-87). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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“We exalt our calling, not to gain glory among men, or money, or satisfaction, or...”
– Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.
(via @AndrewWHall)
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My wife has lived with at least five different men
“Without being bound to the fulfillment of our promises, we would never be able to keep our identities; we would be condemned to wander helplessly and without direction in the darkness of each person’s lonely heart, caught in its contradictions and equivocalities.”
Peter Baehr, The Portable Hannah Arendt (New York: Penguin Classics, 2003), 181.
Similarly, Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes wrote...
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A.W. Pink - The Attributes of God →
The foundation of our knowledge of God rests upon knowing what he is like. Without understanding God’s attributes, we have a skewed perception of him–often one cast in our own image. We need more than just a theoretical knowledge of God in order to worship him as he desires. This classic work of Arthur W. Pink invites readers to discover the truth about seventeen attributes of God, including his...
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Announcement Time: A Highlight Of Worship? →
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WatchEd Young Jr. (@EdYoung) has recently started a website called Pastor Fashion.com. This video from the site’s frontpage shows how “Great Fashion Takes Swag”. I don’t know if this is a complete joke, or if it is really for real.
Nevertheless, the whole concept of Pastor Fashion is ridiculous; worldly debauchery.
Pastor Tim Brister (fellow SBTS grad; a pastor at Grace...
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Promises for those Struggling with Unemployment →
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“What will it take to pry you free from the world? When I ask this question, I am...”
– Hamilton Jr., James M. Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012) 130.
*Dr. Jim Hamilton (@drjimhamilton)is Associate Professor of Biblical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. During my M.Div studies at Southern, I took two Old...
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“Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the...”
– W. H. Auden, A Certain World: A Commonplace Book.
Quoted in Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 82). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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Marriage Vows: That Which Keeps Your Marriage...
What can keep marriages together during the rough patches? The vows. A public oath, made to the world, keeps you “tied to the mast” until your mind clears and you begin to understand things better. It keeps you in the relationship when your feelings flag, and flag they will.
Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p....
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G.K. Chesterton on Making Promises to Each Other
This blending of law and love fits our deepest instincts. G. K. Chesterton pointed out that when we fall in love we have a natural inclination not just to express affection but to make promises to each other. Lovers find themselves almost driven to make vow-like claims. “I will always love you,” we say when we are at the height of passion, and we know that the other person, if he or she is in...
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“A God without existence brings men without beliefs into a kingdom without hope...”
– Liberalism defined.
What would have functioned as a parody of liberalism a generation or two ago is now a tragic, pathetic reality.
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Protestant Liberalism: Christless Christianity
H. Richard Niebuhr famously skewered the liberal Protestantism of his day with this distillation of its message:
A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
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“Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 79). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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“When dating or living together, you have to prove your value daily by impressing...”
– Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 77). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
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Microsoft's Biggest Miss [Minimal Mac] →
minimalmac:
One of the benefits of a long car trip with my wife is the opportunity to have really great and insightful conversations with the smartest person I know. Yesterday, on the first leg of our trip, we spent some time discussing Microsoft’s many missed opportunities. The failure to take the iPhone…
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The Lord's Table: For those who trust that their...
Q. How does the Lord’s Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass?
A. The Lord’s Supper declares to us that all our sins are completely forgiven through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which he himself accomplished on the cross once for all. It also declares to us that the Holy Spirit grafts us into Christ, who with his true body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father...