Lady in the Water -
Searching for Meaning and Hope
A few weeks ago my daughter and I along with one of her friends saw "Lady In The Water". Personally I was really moved by it. M. Night Shyamalan (Signs, Sixth Sense, The Village) was the director, and in my mind did a credible story telling job despite what some of the critics are saying about it.

Now I admit that technically "Lady In the Water" was somewhat weak. It was not Shyamalan's best work, and "The Village" still represents Shyamalan at his best as a movie maker. However, whatever its weaknesses, the story that is told in "Lady In The Water" makes the movie worth seeing.

I have read the Christianity Today review of "The Lady In the Water" and I believe the reviewer missed the point. The story is not about the myth that was being deciphered as much as it was about those involved in the deciphering. The myth provided the working framework for the real story.

Once again we have a picture of broken and disillusioned people seeking for a reason to once again have hope and purpose... To sense a connectedness to life and to what is going on in the world so that they might once again have a sense of purpose. Remember Mel Gibson as the disillusioned Priest in "Signs"? There is that same kind of thing in "Lady In The Water".

It is in such stories as "Lady In The Water that Shyamalan illustrates for us how the false hopes of rational modernity are shattered on the rocks of reality to be replaced by the cynicism and disillusionment of Post-Modernity. Things come into the world, be they ghosts or aliens or creatures of mythology that defy the rational materialism of Modernity, and in doing so the disconnected are once again able to find the connectedness they had lost.

Yes, that world view tends to be a vague form of New Age pantheism, but the reality behind it is the connectedness we once had in Creation before the fall, the sense of purpose and belonging and of fitting into a Story much bigger and expansive then what we see around us. That connectedness and belonging was first lost in the Fall which is Chapter 2 of the Story..

It is in Chapter 3 of the Story, the Chapter titled Redemption, where there is the beginning of the restoration of connectedness and belonging which brings with it restored hope and purpose. Consummations is yet to come in Chapter 4 where connectedness and purpose are fully realized.

Shyamalan gives us pictures of the void that is in the heart of mankind due to sin and the fall. Many false gods vie to fill that void. Their promise is a lie and a fraud. That void can only be filled by the One who originally created us; who became one with us in His incarnation and filled the great chasm with His own death, rising again from the dead, and one day coming back to restore full connectedness, belonging, and purpose...

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

~ The Billy Goat ~

Somewhat Random Thoughts on Legalism

Legalism is a sign of spiritual immaturity and stunted or unbalanced growth in the Christian life.

As we grow in understanding of Biblical principles we seek to bring our lives in line with those Biblical principles. Often we do that by establishing rules or fences in our own mind as to what our individual response will be to that principle. I may decide to avoid certain behavior, or limit certain activities to certain occasions, places, or etc. The particular behavior in and of itself is not immoral, but I avoid it because it brings me close to immoral behavior that I want to avoid.

The problem comes when we make our fences and personal rules, or cultural norms and expectations, the sine qua non of the Biblical principle we are trying to guard in our life. At that point if your fence and rules don't line up with my fence and rules, you are obviously in violation of the Biblical principle, and thus living in "sin", and of course it is my duty to inform you of the same and call you to "repentance". At that point I've become a legalist.

Corporately, a church that is marked by legalism is also an immature church, and marked by stunted or out of balance Christian growth. Such churches also become a dangerous place. In Scriptures the only thing legalism produced was Pharisaical hypocrisy. So it is also in the history of the church since New Testament times.

The saddest thing about legalism is how so often the legalist doesn't recognize his or her legalisim, and would indignantly deny the charge. Of course, any one that doesn't subscribe to their legalisim must obviously be an "antinomian". Ad homminum argumentation is often a sign of a legalist.

The legalist has lost sight of the grace of God either in initial salvation or in on-going sanctification, or both. He may give lip service to the grace of God, but his practice of legalism denies the grace of God. Such a person becomes a Christian with a split personality, mouthing the theology intellectually, but denying the theology in practice.

Another mark of legalism is the focus on externals. For example, a legalist may tell you so and so is not converted. You ask him or her why he or she is saying that, and what they give as evidence is externals that often have nothing to do with real godliness. You may point out to the legalist how the person in question exhibits the fruit of the Spirit as set forth in Galatians. It goes right over their head...

Worst of all is when the legalist considers him or herself to be the "mature" Christian in relation to everyone else... When that happens to a Pastor, the results are disastrous to Pastor and congregation. That I have sadly seen with my own eyes.

The cure for legalism is to focus on Christ and His grace. We stand in Him and His work alone not only for salvation, but also sanctification. The legalist is not viewing sin as being as sinful as it really is. If he or she did, they would despair and abandon all hope in themselves and find that true Sabbath that remains for the people of God in our Lord Jesus Christ and in Him alone.

Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Focus of Christian Ministry

"...I am convinced that the ministry which seeks to exalt mankind can, in the end, do no good for mankind. On the contrary, the ministry which will reach the truths of man's complete ruin in sin and God's perfect remedy in Christ can best reach the heart of the need of the human race and can bring the only remedy that can heal the heart which God has declared to be humanly incurable (Jer. 17:9).

(Donald G. Barnhouse, Exposition of Romans Vol. I, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (June 1952))

I recently received the four volume set of Barnhouse's Exposition of Romans as a combined Father's day/Birthday present. CBD had a really good offer on this set that was hard to beat or resist. I'm just getting into volume one, and am finding Barnhouse's exposition a very rich treasure of devotional reading.

If you allow Barnhouse's Dispensationalism to keep you away from his Exposition of Romans, it is your loss, and you do yourself a great dis-service. Barnhouse was familiar with a wide number of commentaries on Romans including those from the Reformed and Puritan writers. This work has been a standard for a number of years, and now I see why. I highly recommend it.

Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

On Finding an Evangelical Hermeneutics: An Exploratory Essay

Every once in a while I come across a book or article, and as I am reading that book or article, I get a sense that what I am reading is of real fundamental and profound importance to the Evangelical church at large. Of course only time will tell if my sense and assessment of said book or article is accurate.

Back at the beginning of the 1990's, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary celebrated it's first 100 years of existence. Upon that occasion, a number of Evangelical scholars presented lectures marking the event. Speakers included John R. W. Stott, Eugene Peterson, Gordon D, Fee, and others. In 1992, those lectures were collected and published in essay form by Gordon-Conwell as a collection titled, The Vision Continues: Essays marking the Centennial of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

The essay that caught my attention was the one by Gordon D. Fee titled Heremeneutics Today: A Prescriptive View. Fee himself suggests the title of his essay might better be called "On Finding an Evangelical Hermeneutics: An Exploratory Essay". Unfortunately this essay does not appear to be available on the WWW, and copyright considerations hinder me from publishing it in its entirety on my site.

In the essay Fee talks about the tension that exists in understanding the Scripture as God's Word coming through human writers. That tension is then illustrated by comparison with interpretive assumptions of the fundamentalist camp on one side, and the liberal camp on the other. The best summary I can give of Fee's discussion is found in Fee's own words in the final paragraph of the essay.

" To conclude: To insist that the very nature of Scripture as the evangelical understands it has locked in a degree of ambiguity, accommodation and diversity, causes some people to capitulate in despair, either toward the certainties of fundamentalism or the ambiguities of liberalism. I, for one, opt for what I call "the radical middle". If God gave us His Word this way, and I believe He did, then our task is to hold on to both realities -- its eternality and historical particularity -- with equal vigor. If we cannot always have absolute certainty as to meaning or application, we can certainly move toward a higher degree of common understanding. As I see it, the way toward that higher level of commonality is still to be found at the crucial point of authorial intentionality which by its very nature we would insist is thereby also the Holy Spirit's intentionality. If God did not speak timeless aphorisms, He did speak an eternal Word. That Word had specific intent in its historically particular moments. The task of exegete and theologian alike is to discover, or if you will, hear that Word in terms of God's original intent. I would argue that it is that same Word, with its same intent, that should now address us in our historical setting. Instead of seeing this as a debility, we should see it as the greater glory of Scripture and praise God for it. That He would so speak to their historically particular context is precisely what gives us hope that He will always through that same Word speak again and again to ours and to all of humankind's individual historical contexts."

Hopefully someday this article can be republished in its entirety. Such publication would be a real contribution to the Evangelical discussion of hermeneutical issues.

Sola Scriptura!

~ The Billy Goat ~

Life After Neo-Puritanism

In recent articles, John Armstrong has commented on his journey in Biblical understanding. The first article can be found here, and the second article in the series is here. Here is a quote from the second article.

"I previously described (May 1 ACT 3 Weekly) how I have slowly moved away from my separatist and sectarian neo-Puritanism over the last twenty years. My movement has not been without profound struggles. Most of these struggles have not been within me, for there I have thrived and grown as I leaned into an assurance of faith that is still deeply rooted in Christ alone. No, my struggles have been with misunderstanding and misrepresentation in the minds of confused people who have heard all kinds of stories about me and my beliefs..."

My first acquaintance with John Armstrong goes back to his "Neo-Puritan" phase. At that time I was involved in a "Neo-Puritan" church and movement. John had come into contact with the pastor of that church, and there had been some correspondence and so forth. I may be a little foggy on some of the facts, but I have it in my head that John came to visit our church, and our pastor had visited his church in Wheaton.

It seemed like only a few years latter news came that John Armstrong had "left the fold". Like many others who did not cross all the "t"'s and dot all the "i"s of that "Neo-Puritan" church and the "Neo-Puritan" movement it was a part of, John Armstrong became "persona non grata". If his name was spoken at all, it was in that tone of voice that reminded you that the only thing worse then the devil himself is an "apostate". OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the tone of voice was un-mistakable.

It took me another 20 years to realize John Armstrong, along with many others, was right in his evaluation of the "Neo-Puritan" movement, at least the part of it I had been associated with. I too have found out there is life after "Neo-Puritanism".

Neo-Puritanism by definition is scholastic. The danger of a scholastic emphasis is that the scholasticism tends to get in the way of the Word of God. You have people who can quote the Puritan writers from memory, but you wonder if they give equal time to the Scriptures. Puritan confessional standards tend to be quoted in a way that sets them on an equal par with Scripture.

The original Puritan movement was far from perfect, and there was a lot more diversity in the spectrum of that movement then some of our Neo-Puritan friends acknowledge. The New England Puritan movement in particular was not able to keep itself from descending into Unitarianism and a splintered sectarianism.

I'm am NOT saying we can not learn things from the Puritans. I am saying they did not have all the answers as some in the Neo-Puritan movement would have us think. The Puritan writers were not above the Bible, and there is a whole lot the Christian Church has learned in the last 400 years since their time. Yes friends, there is life after "Neo-Puritanism".

Semper Reformanda!

~ The Billy Goat ~

PS: Another related article I wrote a while back can be found here.

The other day I pounded out a blog post for this space and at the very end blogger.com went spastic and I lost it all..... The title of that post was:

What is it We are Afraid of?

Maybe some other day when I have the time, energy, and the burning in the belly...

I think I ended it with, "Perfect love casts out fear..."

... and it does....

Peace,

~ The Billy Goat ~

Observations on the PCA
by John Armstrong

"...The last thing the PCA needs to fear right now is real liberalism. The real danger in the PCA is sectarianism, a sectarianism which threatens to destroy this great fellowship before it begins to reach its fullest missional potential, which I think is still great. This fellowship is not even thirty-five years old ye, but the separatist DNA of its origins may yet slow its dynamic growth significantly in the next few decades if this constant commitment to controversy dosen't stop somewhere. I believe this with all my heart and I think history supports me in this observation. A sustained polemic will never build a great church! It will only produce more and more schism. At some point wiser heads must prevail and this family squabbling needs to stop. I pray for courageous leaders who seek this and who will stand up and say, "Enough!" "

Please click on the link above an read the whole article before responding. I'm not in a position to confirm or deny Armstrong's observations of the Presbyterian Church in America. I can say the description above does describe some other groups, Reformed and otherwise, I'm more familiar with, and the above issue is not limited to just the PCA.

The bottom line: When will we as Christians love and respect one another enough to give each other room for legitimate differences?

I'll close with one other related observation. The Westminster Confession itself yields it's right to settle controversies to the Bible alone. The issue is not if certain viewpoints are consistent with the WCF or not. The issue is are those viewpoints consistent with Scripture alone. If the PCA settles any of its controversies on any other basis, it will have betrayed its heritage of Sola Scriptura, and denied the very confession it says it is upholding.

Semper Reformanda!

~ The Billy Goat ~

Of This and That

"To lose faith and hope is tragic.

I'm not just talking about the loss of Christian hope and faith either... There are those that lose hope and faith in anything at all. No hope period. No faith period.... Totally disillusioned..

Welcome to the nilhism of existential Post-modernity; courtesy of the cultural disillusionment whose genesis came out of four long years in the trenches of France between the years of 1914 - 1918..."

The above is from one of my recent Xanga posts. It's genesis came out of some brief interaction with another younger Xanga member who was raised in a somewhat Evangelical background. Clink on the link above for the full post.

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah (English Standard Version)

The Gospel prophet... Underlining the references to "that day".... Noting the amount of space taken up by God's description of His being as God. If you're going to have a god, why would you want a god who was anything less then this God? The proto-apocalyptic chapters are intriguing.

New Testament Reading: Revelation (Greek/English Interlinear New Testament)

7 Churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls or vials... Notice the use of the word "gan" which is translated "earth" in contrast to the absence of the word "kosmos". The physical earth is clearly in focus... The seals, trumpets, and bowls are consecutive, and not recapitulation of one another.

In Revelation 8:1-5 I find great encouragement regarding prayer. The "prayers of all the saints" I take to refer to the saints of all ages and times. At the consummation of all things those prayers will receive their full answer, in this case specifically, the prayers for justice to be done.

A few years ago I found myself being grabbed by the nape of the neck and dragged kicking, screaming, and protesting back to a basic premillinial view of Revelation. Increasingly more and more I am finding my self dis-enchanted with the amillinial approach to this book of the Bible. In the amill approach, there is in my mind a basic hermeneutical weakness that simply does not do justice to what Revelation says about itself. Nor does that approach do justice to the book of Revelation as revelation from God without which the canon of Scripture would be incomplete.

On a final note: The spring flowers are just about ready to bloom... DST starts tonight.. I really don't like losing an hour... Oh well.....

Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

So Transitory It Is...

Erv passed away about a month ago.

"Passed away" is the softer euphemism we use to say somebody died. He was a young guy relatively speaking, in his early forties with kids in high school. Cancer took him down just as it's taken many others down...

He worked in our office, a logistics planner or "supply chain specialist" if you insist on the latest and greatest cutting edge verberage. We respected his professional work, and he was a valued member of the "team". But now he's gone.

Of course someone had to take up the logistics work he had been doing. Different parts of what he had done got passed around to others. So it was this past week I spent some time going into the system and updating the Planner ID's on a number of items. To make it go quicker, you do an "Ctrl + C" on the Planner number that is replacing the other. Then as your going through the items to be changed it's only a matter of clicking into the Planner ID field and doing a "Ctrl + V" to paste in the new ID number.

So it was I came across a number of items Erv had handled when he was still with us. "Ctrl + V", the new number would be pasted in over the old and then save the change and on to the next item.... What was "Erv" was now "Bill"....

I slowly realized a felt degree of morbidity.. I was erasing "Erv"... It was like there was a picture of Erv on the black board and I was taking a eraser and slowly wiping out that picture, in this case the system's memory of Erv... It was actually depressing.

Yes I know life has to go on... And the demands of business do not wait very long for the dead... Such is life in fallen world that is yet to be fully redeemed...

I thought of myself.... I could die before retirement... Or even when, Lord willing I do retire, I'll be leaving the company... Some one will come along and "Ctrl + V"... "Bill" will be erased and another name will take its place in that data field. A few short years and "Bill" will be totally erased... Such is the transitory nature of fame and existence "under the sun".

It is at this point that secular existential Post-modernism has no answer except disillusionment, despair, hopelessness, and meaninglessness. That philosopy has no eschatalogical hope to give any useful meaning to anything we do or are.

As a Christian, I have that hope. Even though "Bill" will be replaced by another name in that data field, and in a few short years the system will have no trace of "Bill" in its data banks, my life and work is not meaningless.

This world may forget "Erv" and "Bill". God does not... This world is passing away. A New World order is coming. King Jesus will come into the fullness of His kingdom. There are many things that are transitory in this world... But there are many things much more important in the light of that eternity...

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

~ The Billy Goat ~

God's Answer To A "Dorky" Prayer:

God has been VERY good to me. And certainly not because I deserve it at all.

It started at the first of the year when there was a situation at work, the kind where your rational part says, "No big deal, this will work out.", while at the same time your irrational side is saying, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" In the midst of that frustration I said, "Lord, I really need a change...."

Of course the situation was resolved per the rational side, and I thought, "Bill, It was kind of dumb to be so frustrated by that. You need to just suck it up..." With that I thought no more about it...

Until about a month latter, when my boss and I were having our scheduled one on one. He told me there was an area in the department that was in a "world 'o hurt" due to some people leaving for other jobs. The long and the short of it was I am now working in that other part of the department, and for me, the change has been fantastic. The pressures and deadlines are still there, but there is also a lot less tyranny of the urgent.

I look back at that prayer born out of the frustration of the moment, and have to say in spite of how dorky it was, God choose to give a very clear answer... Thank You Lord! Praise be to You alone.

---

On another note: In the past I had thought of getting a Xanga account just to be able to respond to posts on Xanga sites. I resisted doing that because I really didn't like how Zanga operated.

But... Last week I did it.... Yes, I now have a Xanga page. There are a number of young people that I know that have Xanga pages. I saw a need for being able to give a word of experience and, hopefully, wisdom in response to some of the posts I have came across on their sites. It is an avenue for ministry in some small way. The ~ Billy Goat Blog ~ will remain my main blogging site.

One last note: Pastor Doug has been giving an excellent series of messages on I Corinthians 8-9 dealing with the question of Christian liberty. He is dealing with the subject in a way I do not recall ever seeing done before. The fundamental principle that comes through is the ethic of love that is at the soul of Paul's discussion in that passage.

Will close for now.. Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~