The Hill From Whence Comes Our Help

A Good Friday meditation on the Cross:

"Only a few steps upward, and we reach the end of the dreadful pilgrimage. Where are we now? We are standing on the summit of Mount Calvary—Golgotha—horrifying name—the appellation of the most momentous and awful spot upon the whole earth. Behold a naked and barren eminence, enriched only by the blood of criminals, and covered with the bones of executed rebels, incendiaries, prisoners, and other offscourings of the human race. An accursed spot, where love never rules, but where naked justice alone sits enthroned, with scales and sword, and from which every passerby turns with abhorrence, a nocturnal rendezvous of jackals and hyenas.

This place, so full of horrors, becomes transformed into "the hill from where comes our help," whose mysteries many kings and prophets have desired to see, and did not see them. Yes, upon this awful hill our roses shall blossom, and our springs of peace and salvation burst forth. The pillar of our refuge towers upon this height. The Bethany of our repose and eternal refreshment here displays itself to our view. Truly the ancients were correct in their assertion, that Mount Calvary formed the center of the whole earth; for it is the meeting place where the redeemed, though separated in body by land and sea, daily assemble in spirit, and greet each other with the kiss of love."

Read the entire meditation here.
From "The Suffering Savior: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ" by F.W. Krummacher (1796 - 1868)

Understanding the Levels of Doctrinal Differences

The following is a very helpful post from Justin Taylor regarding doctrinal differences and how to view them. In the post, how refers to Erik Thoenne's essay, Doctrine in the ESV Study Bible:

The ability to discern the relative importance of theological beliefs is vital for effective Christian life and ministry. Both the purity and unity of the church are at stake in this matter. The relative importance of theological issues can fall within four categories:

1. absolutes define the core beliefs of the Christian faith;
2. convictions, while not core beliefs, may have significant impact on the health and effectiveness of the church;
3. opinions are less-clear issues that generally are not worth dividing over; and
4. questions are currently unsettled issues.

These categories can be best visualized as concentric circles, similar to those on a dart board, with the absolutes as the “bull’s-eye”:

Levels of Doctrine


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Praying with One Another: Lessons from the Life of David Brainerd

Praying with One Another: Lessons from the Life of David Brainerd

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Can My Marriage Change If My Spouse Doesn't Change?

Poetry to Remember What Grace Is

"Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
  Nor flight from all distress, but this:
 The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
  And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain."


For more on who wrote this and where it came from, visit here.

When Do You Play the "Theological Mystery Card"?

I seriously enjoyed this blog entry from Matthew Lee Anderson on Mere Orthodoxy:

Every theologian, wanna-be theologian, a-theologian, and otherwise thinking person has one.

Discuss a point of theology long enough, and you’ll inevitably see it played. Call it Anderson’s Law: as a theological conversation grows longer, the probability of seeing the mystery card approaches one.

You’ll learn to see it coming. The shoulders shrug just a little, a sympathetic smile starts slowly forms, slow-motion starts as the words hit you: ”Well, some things are a mystery…”

This is a dangerous card for the theologian to play, as it functions as a bit of a trump card. Play it too early, and you short-circuit the difficult process of coming to a more robust understanding of the subject of inquiry. Don’t ever play it, and end up like Chesterton’s lunatic who tries to get the heavens into his head, only to have his head split.

With that said, here are a few of theological and a-theological frameworks and the distinct places where the mystery card gets played:

• Calvinists: the existence of human responsibility 
• Arminians: the existence of divine sovereignty over salvation 
• Roman Catholics: the simultaneous presence of Christ’ body in the Eucharist and in Heaven 
• Anglo-Catholics: their relationship to the Reformation 
• Naturalists: consciousness and the existence of free will 
• Eastern Orthodox: I’m pretty sure this is the only card they play with. 
• Lutherans: how (and that!) sanctification happens 
• Weslyans: why sanctification doesn’t happen 
• Baptists: the working of the Holy Spirit 
• Pentacostals: the working of anything else 
• Dispensationalists: the Old Testament 

Yes, the list is a bit of a joke. But it’s a joke to tease out the difficulty of knowing where to place our mysteries, and how many we should admit.

Cancer and God's Supreme Control

Cancer. There are few other words in the English language that are dreaded as much as this word. But what is God's will for us even when we are faced with a trial as great as cancer? Can we trust Him?

I preached his past Sunday out of Isaiah 38 - the story of Hezekiah's healing from a cancer-like (perhaps even cancerous) sickness - while this story of a pastor who was recently diagnosed with cancer lingered my mind. Now the point of Isa. 38 is that Hezekiah could trust God with his health crisis because he knew that the sickness was as much in the hand of God as the healing. This brings us to the reason why I am recommending you read "Don't Waste Your Cancer" by John Piper and David Powlison - both men who have been afflicted with cancer.

Here's a snippet by David Powlison from the article: "Suffering really is meant to wean you from sin and strengthen your faith. If you are God-less, then suffering magnifies sin. Will you become more bitter, despairing, addictive, fearful, frenzied, avoidant, sentimental, godless in how you go about life? Will you pretend it’s business as usual? Will you come to terms with death, on your terms? But if you are God’s, then suffering in Christ’s hands will change you, always slowly, sometimes quickly. You come to terms with life and death on his terms. He will gentle you, purify you, cleanse you of vanities. He will make you need him and love him. He rearranges your priorities, so first things come first more often. He will walk with you. Of course you’ll fail at times, perhaps seized by irritability or brooding, escapism or fears. But he will always pick you up when you stumble. Your inner enemy - a moral cancer 10,000 times more deadly than your physical cancer - will be dying as you continue seeking and finding your Savior: 'For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is very great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose' (Psalm 25)."

And here is the ten ways that the experience of cancer can be wasted:

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.
8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.