A Letter to Jack

Hi Jack, It been about 55 years ago when you left us... A lot has happened since then. Some good... Some not so good.. Some just outright bad... I need to ask you to forgive me for trying to blame you for messing up the pencil sharpener when somebody sharpened their crayon in it. It was me... At the time I didn't realize what I had done... I'm really sorry about that. You missed some wars and stuff. Some of the guys you knew went to Vietnam. A few came back in body bags. And there was all the anti-war crap, and drugs and the false gods of the so called "Age of Aquarius". We haven't exactly blown up the world yet, but we keep working on it... There's been some good stuff along the way too... Little League baseball, Cub Scouts and then Boy Scouts, 4-H and the county fair. High school plays and sports. A wife, kids and grand kids and good times with friends... Sunsets, ocean beaches, and all that kind of stuff is pretty nice... We've had some good music, art, books, and film along the way too. A lot of good things have happened medically... Ironic that if we had had some of the stuff we have now, you might have been able to stay and go on through life with us. I've wondered over the years about what might have been had you not left us. Maybe we would have had a chance to be friends; if not close friends, at least acquaintances sharing a period of our life together with our other classmates... But... You were gone... They didn't talk to us about it hardly at all. Miss Laseer went to the funeral and that was it. It was only years latter with the experiances of a lifetime under our belt that we found in our remembering that there was a loss. The last 55 years have gone by so fast.. The years are adding up... The autumn and winter of life are upon us. Eventually if the Lord tarries, we also will die. Jack, there is a lot about life and death that I do not pretend to understand. It could have happened to any one of us. When I think of it, I wonder that any of us survived to gorw up, graduate from high school, and go on into life. You were not forgotten. Somehow, someway, your life, as brief as it was, had meaning and purpose. Well... That's about it... Only God Almighty knows what the future will bring. I really want to beleive that just maybe... just maybe... Lord willing... someday we will see each other again... That would be really nice... Regards, Bill

Love wins?

For a number of years in our metropolitan area there have been those who have summed up their Christian perspective in the slogan "Love wins!".

At face value it sounds nice. We think of John 3:16 and all the other familiar verses in the Bible that talk about the love of God. We think of how God expressed his love in sending His only begotten son. We recognize that God's love plays a very important part in the course of Biblical redemptive history.

So why is it that in recent days I find myself questioning that slogan?

Context means a lot. Here is the context of how the slogan "Love wins.." is being used.

Something very subtle is happening here.

Instead of saying "Love wins!", why don't we say "God wins!"?

God IS love... But God is much more then JUST love... God doesn't win because love wins (as though God is just along for the ride). If love wins, (and it does), love's winning is subsidiary to the fact that God in the whole of His person-hood wins.

So I ask once again. Instead of saying "Love wins!", why don't we say "God wins!"?

What I sense is subtly happening is the person of God is being replaced with some concept of love. In doing so we end up worshiping some idea of "love" instead of the God who in His person is the great "I AM". The other pitfall we face is wanting to define for ourselves what "love" is. God as the source of love is greater then love. God as the source of love is the one who defines both what love is, and what love is not.

Idolatry can be very subtle.

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (I John 5:21)

God wins!

The JESUS Film Project

"But how can any single film reach so many people and touch so many lives?"

It is the power of the Word of God in their heart language.

Based on the Gospel of Luke, the "JESUS" film has now been translated into more than 1,000 languages, with a new language being added nearly every week. This brings God's Word to people in more than 200 countries in languages they know and understand...

You may if you choose to do so, quibble about any number of things about The Jesus Film Project. I can be as cynical as anyone, and more then a few so called "evangelism" methodologies leave me cold.

And yes, I was even skeptical about the Jesus Film Project... until I started to actually watch the film and realized what was being done.

The Word of God.... from the Gospel of Luke... Scripture itself, yes, being acted out but also being spoken aloud via film... Faith comes by hearing, and not hearing any old thing someone wants to say but hearing the Word of God...

So though I don't put to much stock in the statistics about how many people come to Christ through the Jesus Film, I believe there are those those who do. It is not "the film", it is the Word of God the film is bringing to the ears of millions of people around the world, and that in their own heart language...

Be a skeptic if you want, but don't be a skeptic about the power of the Word of God, and do not be so quick to skepticism regarding the medium that might be used to bring that Word of God to a lost world...

After all it is not about the numbers and statistics. It is about faithful proclamation and the witness of Jesus Christ to every kindred, tribe, and tongue and nation.

Peace,

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Sin of All Sins

In a recent blog post titled Defining Deviancy Down and the Wrath of God Ardel Caneday engages in an extended essay on how we should understand Romans 1:21-27.

The bottom line is that the primary sin the Apostle Paul is dealing with in that passage is not homosexual perversion but man's heart idolatry. This assessment of the essay is a bit of over simplification so I encourage you to read the whole of Dr. Caneday's post here.

As I thought about the things discussed in the essay, I came to a realization.

If we make sexual perversion "the sin of all sins" we are focusing on the issue of what man does; we are being anthropocentric. When we recognize the "sin of all sins" is heart idolatry, the issue becomes one of who God is, and our thinking is now Theocentric. The heart of man's estrangement from God is self-worship in the place of the worship we owe our creator God. All other sins flow from that, and as Dr. Caneday has rightly pointed out, that is the message of Romans 1:21-27.

Thankfully the Apostle doesn't end with Romans 1:22-27. As we read on into the rest of the epistle, the mercy and grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ is proclaimed.

To God alone be the glory!

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Groundhog Day Blizzard: February 2, 2011, Ada, MI

Our driveway is out there somewhere...

Clearing the driveway: My daughter took a turn on the snowblower.

Our little 1-stage Toro Snowblower got a real workout today.


The cleared driveway.

We also cleared out the mailbox commons and I helped a few neighbors with their driveways. My Toro snowblower is 9 years old. Today is the hardest it has ever had to work. I decided my next snowblower, if I ever get another one, will be a 2-stage self-propelled...

Last night as the wind and snow was blowing, I was very thankful that last fall we had all but one of the windows on the house replaced. (The other had already been replaced a few years ago.) The new windows cut the drafts way down, and we know we are using less gas for heating.

The company I work for closed operations for today due to the snow. In the 31 years I've worked there, this is only the second time that I remember the company closing for snow. I did do a little work from home, but they posted a note that the VPN connection was getting overwhelmed and to only use it if necessary.

Our Wednesday night activities at church were cancelled. I and a friend are team teaching a men's Bible study on Isaiah¹. Tonight was my turn to do the study. That will have to wait until next week.

It has been nice to have a snow-day like this, but now the sun has set, and in the morning it will be back to work and to the routine of life. That said, we take hope in that we are one major snowstorm closer to Spring!

"Hither to has the LORD helped us!" To Him be the glory, honor and praise!

~ The Billy Goat ~

¹ We are using Warren Wiersbe's commentary on Isaiah, "Be Comforted: Feeling Secure In The Arms Of God"; (David C. Cook, 1992)

Quotes from Calvin's Commentary on I Corinthians 11:23-29:
"The Lord's Supper"

...But that participation in the body of Christ, which, I affirm, is presented to us in the Supper, does not require a local presence, nor the descent of Christ, nor infinite extension, nor anything of that nature, for the Supper being a heavenly action, there is no absurdity in saying, that Christ, while remaining in heaven, is received by us. For as to his communicating himself to us, that is effected through the secret virtue of his Holy Spirit, which can not merely bring together, but join in one, things that are separated by distance of place, and far remote.

But, in order that we may be capable of this participation, we must rise heavenward. Here, therefore, faith must be our resource, when all the bodily senses have failed. When I speak of faith, I do not mean any sort of opinion, resting on human contrivances, as many, boasting of faith on all occasions, run grievously wild on this point. What then? You see bread — nothing more — but you learn that it is a symbol of Christ’s body. Do not doubt that the Lord accomplishes what his words intimate — that the body, which thou dost not at all behold, is given to thee, as a spiritual repast. It seems incredible, that we should be nourished by Christ’s flesh, which is at so great a distance from us. Let us bear in mind, that it is a secret and wonderful work of the Holy Spirit, which it were criminal to measure by the standard of our understanding. In the meantime, however, drive away gross imaginations, which would keep thee from looking beyond the bread. Leave to Christ the true nature of flesh, and do not, by a mistaken apprehension, extend his body over heaven and earth: do not divide him into different parts by thy fancies, and do not adore him in this place and that, according to thy carnal apprehension. Allow him to remain in his heavenly glory, and aspire thou thither, that he may thence communicate himself to thee. These few things will satisfy those that are sound and modest. As for the curious, I would have them look somewhere else for the means of satisfying their appetite...

...Do this in remembrance of me. Hence the Supper is a memorial,(μνημόσυνον) appointed as a help to our weakness; for if we were sufficiently mindful of the death of Christ, this help would be unnecessary. This is common to all sacraments, for they are helps to our weakness. What is the nature of that remembrance which Christ would have us cherish with regard to him, we shall hear presently. As to the inference, however, which some draw from this — that Christ is not present in the Supper, because a remembrance applies to something that is absent; the answer is easy — that Christ is absent from it in the sense in which the Supper is a commemoration. For Christ is not visibly present, and is not beheld with our eyes, as the symbols are which excite our remembrance by representing him. In short, in order that he may be present with us, he does not change his place, but communicates to us from heaven the virtue of his flesh, as though it were present...

...Until he come As we always need a help of this kind, so long as we are in this world, Paul intimates that this commemoration has been given us in charge, until Christ come to judgment. For as he is not present with us in a visible form, it is necessary for us to have some symbol of his presence, by which our minds may exercise themselves.

The reader is encouraged to check out the context of these quotes by reading Calvin's complete commentary on this section of I Corinthians 11:23-29 at the CCEL library.

Side Note Regarding Zwingli:

Thomas Davis points out that Zwingli was killed at a realitively young age (47). As such, it is not clear how Zwingli's theology may have changed and matured if he had lived as long as Luther (62) or Calvin (54).

"Rather then a bare and simple memorialism, it appears that in Zwingli, Paul's admonition to "discern the body" took Zwingli along the path of theological development, one cut short, perhaps, by his untimely death at the Battle of Kappel." This Is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation Thought; (page 159),

Are Evangelicals missing something, or is it just me?

I just got back from a visit to one of our local Christian book stores. To put the following in context, you need to know that I live in the Grand Rapids, Michigan USA area of the world which is home to several Christian publishing companies and probably has more Christian bookstores per capita then 99.99% of the rest of the world.

While at the bookstore, I found the commentary I was looking for and then started browsing. I thought as long as I was browsing, I'd see what books might be there that dealt with the theology and meaning of of the Lord's Supper. After all, this was the same store where previously I had found Thomas Davis' This Is My Body: The Presence of Christ in Reformation Thought.

It was pretty sparse. I could only find one other book dealing explicitly with the Lord's Supper; A Holy Meal by Gordon T. Smith.

I browsed through the theological section and the "Christian Living" section, and that one book was it. There were several books on baptism, one book by a Reformed padeobaptist pastor arguing in favor of allowing baptized, but not yet confirmed children access to the Communion Table, but other then the Gordon Smith book, nothing dealing with a Biblical theology of the Lord's Table.

I could not help but wonder as I saw all the other titles on the shelf dealing with all sorts of, and sundry issues in the Christan life, "How much of this stuff would be impacted if we as Evangelicals had a more Biblical theological understanding of the Lord's Supper?"

Where is the book that gives a definitive Evangelical Biblical theology of the Lord's Supper? And it would be well if it was something that has been written recently enough to have taken advantage of the Evangelical theological and Biblical scholarship of the last fifty or so years. (Dead Puritans need not apply, though whoever writes this should not ignore the contributions of the Reformers and the Puritans.) If you know of such a definitive, more recent work as described, please let me know.

If such a work does not exist, it would be well if some Evangelical theologian/Bible scholar with the qualifications and time to do so, would produce such a work. That's my humble opinion. I really think we may be missing something...

Peace,

~ The Billy Goat ~

Billy Goat Log: January 9, 2011

• The church we attend is inter-generational. We have a pretty good balance from youngsters on up through the grey haired seniors. So it is we see the normal ebb and flow of life in the life of the congregation; births, weddings, funerals, and etc. This past week was the occasion of several deaths in the Church family.
  
  We knew Sue was not long for this world. Cancer had taken its toll on her body, and chemo was no longer effective. My wife and I went to see her this past Monday. She knew we were there, but it was hard for her to talk, and the morphine to control pain made her drowsy. Friday we got word she was now with Jesus.
  
  I'm glad we got to know Sue and her husband over the past eight years we've been at our church. I'm glad she got to hold her grandchildren in her arms before leaving this world. I'm glad my last spoken words to her were, "Jesus still loves you..."
  
  RIP
  
  
• I had to get a new mobile phone. The old one totally died. It was about three years old so it didn't have many bells and whistles. The new one has the camera and some text and e-mail capabilities the old did not. Of course I had to check out all those fancy new features. It's like having a new toy.
  
  
• The Detroit Lions finished the regular NFL season with a string of wins. The roar is starting to come back... I remember the last time the Lions were in a playoff game many, many years ago. Maybe next year...
  
  
• Back in September I posted a study on The Lord's Table. I recently had opportunity to present a more developed and expanded version of that material in an adult Sunday school class. I want to do some further work on that and sometime in the future publish that revision here. It has been of particular interest to me to read John Calvin's Commentary on the 1 Corinthians 10 & 11 passages that deal with the Lord's Table.
  
  
• Over the Christmas break we took the oldest grandson to see The Voyage of the Dawntreader in 3D. If you are a stickler about a movie following closely to the book, you will find this version of the Dawntreader a disappointment. That said, I thought the movie did retain the basic essence of Lewis' original story, and the technical things such as graphics and etc, were well done. Somethings were left out that I would have like to have seen included. Some things were included that I thought could have been left out. Overall it was passasble though not outstanding; three stars out of five.
  
  

• "With nearly 230 million total speakers, Bangla (Bengali) is one of the most spoken languages, ranking sixth in the world. The predominent religion among the Bangla people is Islam 89.5%, followed by Hindu 9.6%, and "other" 0.9% (2004, CIA Factbook). That less then 1% "other" includes Christianity."
  
  Bangla Ministries Worldwide (Facebook)
  Bangla Ministries Worldwide
  

  
  
  

Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 39

Who is This Baby in the Manger?

This baby in the manger was the One who lived, talked, and walked among men in Judea and Galilee.

The One who lived, talked, and walked among men in Judea and Galilee, is the One who healed the sick, made the lame to walk, the blind to see, raised the dead, and gave hope to the weary and downtrodden.

The One who healed the sick, made the lame to walk, the blind to see, raised the dead, and gave hope to the weary and downtrodden is the One who was betrayed, condemned and crucified, suffering death upon the cross, and buried in a tomb.

The One who was betrayed, condemned and crucified, suffering death upon the cross, and buried in a tomb is the One who rose from the dead on the third day, conquering death, hell, and all the works of the devil.

The One who rose from the dead on the third day, conquering death, hell, and the works of the devil is the One who ascended up into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father.

The One who ascended up into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father is the One who will some day come again as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the glory of God the Father.

This is who the baby in the manger is; Emmanuel, God with us.

Come and worship...