Ben Hopp's Visit

Check out the Hopps' blog, where he writes about his visit to Covenant (and shooting a potato gun at the Kelly's). (You will need "approval" from Ben to veiw his blog--email him if you are not signed up yet).

Proximate Justice

Proximate justice is one way to describe what we get between Jesus' resurrection and his Second Coming. We do not get perfect justice (or righteousness, or goodness, or even perfect truth) because of the affect of sin in our lives. We get proximate justice. See this article by Steve Garber. This is a helpful way to look at election season; it is also a helpful way to look at our own lives.
I came across an example of proximate justice in 2 Chronicles 30 this morning. Hezekiah is king of Judah, and he and his princes and officials desire to keep the Passover. Passover, according to Exodus 12, is to be kept in the first month of the year; but Hezekiah finds he has does not have enough consecrated priests and Levites (v. 3). So, v. 2, they determine to keep the Passover in the second month.
Sometimes it is right to take what we can get, instead of insisting on perfection (and losing out altogether!). It is not that timing of the Passover did not matter--it did. But it was better to keep the Passover (a picture of the gospel, of what the coming Messiah would do--which is the central them of all of Scripture, Luke 24:45-49) at the wrong time, than not to keep it at all.

Brief Foray into Politics

Here is a brief foray into politics. I did not see much of the Democratic convention, as I will probably not see much of the Republican convention. It's not that I'm not interested (I am). But conventions are mostly show-biz and little substance ("The conventions have descended into a four-day-long infomercial for the two parties that epitomizes the shameless consummation of interests between Democratic and Republican parties and corporations..."--a rare truth spoken by none other than Ralph Nader). Besides, I'd rather play with my children or converse with my wife than watch political speeches on TV (both my children and my wife might not agree...). But I do occasionally read the commentary, and here is a good article by Peggy Noonan on the Democratic convention.

Christ or a Cause

Like you, I am not always enthusiastic about what appears in the New Horizons. But when you get the August issue, do check out the article on pp. 8-9 titled, A Person--Not a Cause. If you think about what Brian Wingard says there it will help to put many things into perspective--and keep us from too closely identifying Christ with a cause that may, no matter how worthy it is, threaten to steal the limelight from him as Redeemer and Lord. Click here to read the article.

Weekend with Addison Soltau

This last weekend we had a guest preacher, Dr. Addison Soltau, missionary kid from Korea, later missionary in Japan, and professor of missions at Covenant Seminary, now serving (at an age when many have faded into retirement) as assistant pastor at a church in Florida. It was a delightful time interacting with him, in addition to his preaching on Sunday morning. Sorry not everyone got to spend as much time with him as I did. But let me refer you to someone who knows him longer and better than I do to tell you more about it. Check out Barbaranne's blog by clicking here.

Sermon on Sexual Purity

Just in case you missed Ross's excellent sermon on sexual purity from August 10, it is available to listen to online. Go to Covenant's web site, or click here to listen.

Best of the Puritans

In Steve Nichol's book (see previous post) he takes the Puritans as his benchmark. Who were the Puritans? Let me interject here something from another book, Worldly Saints by Leland Ryken (father of Phil Ryken, pastor at Tenth Pres in Philly). In the preface, J.I. Packer describes the Puritans as follows (p. xi-xii):
"As their Christianity was all-embracing, so their living was all of a piece. Nowadays we would call this lifestyle wholistic: all awareness, activity, and enjoyment, all 'use of the creatures' and development of personal powers and creativity, were integrated in the single purpose of honoring God by appreciating all his gifts and making everything 'holiness to the Lord.' There was for them no disjunction between the sacred and the secular; all creation, so far as they were concerned, was sacred, and all activities, of whatever kind, must be sanctified, that it, done to the glory of God. So, in their heavenly-minded ardor the Puritans became men and women of order, matter-of-fact and down-to-earth, prayerful, purposeful, practical. Seeing life whole, they integrated contemplation with action, worship with work, labor with rest, love of God with love of neighbor and of self, personal with social identity, and the wide spectrum of relational responsibilities with each other, in a throughly conscientious and thought-out way." (Of course Packer is speaking here of the ideal; whether every Puritan lived up to this ideal is, no doubt, another question.)
"Knowing themselves to be creatures of thought, affection [emotion], and will, and knowing that God's way to the human heart (will) is via the head (the mind), the Puritans practised meditation, discursive and and systematic, on the whole range of biblical truth as they saw it applying to themselves. Puritan meditation on Scripture was modeled on the Puritan sermon; in meditation the Puritan would seek to search and challenge his heart, to stir his affections [emotions] to hate sin and love righteousness, and to encourage himself with God's promises, just as the Puritan preachers would do from the pulpit. This rational, resolute, passionate piety was conscious without becoming obsessive, law-oriented without lapsing into legalism, and expressive of Christian liberty without shameful lurches into license...."

Jesus-Made in America

While on vacation, I have deeply enjoyed--and been challenged by--Steve Nichols' book, Jesus Made in America. The subtitle is, "A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ." (Steve Nichols is now Research Professor of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College; ten years ago he was my boss at the Westminster Campus Bookstore, while he was working on his Ph.D. and I on my M. Div.). This is a sometimes disconcerting, but excellent book.
For example, on Jesus as he was understood during the revolutionary war era Nichols writes: "The Jesus of America's founders compares to Jesus throughout the rest of America's history like a prelude to a symphony: we hear in brief the melodies and motifs to come. Jesus is a fine purveyor of morality and virtue. He is humble and meek, industrious and honest. The Gospels are a fine companion for life, especially for the young who are making their way in the world. Both Jesus and the Gospels are indispensable to both public welfare and private devotion and piety. Jesus is needed in life, to be sure, but he is also needed at death, where he welcomes departed aints into heaven's bosom. But he is less than divine. He is amiable and loving, but not judge. All of these motifs reverberate throughout nineteenth- and twentieth-century treatments of Jesus, all too often drowning out the still, small voices of the Puritans."
Here, indeed, is a recurring theme in Nichols' book: "American evangelicals do indeed like Jesus; we just don't always like him straight."
Well, I'm still on vacation, and must be off vacationing. More to follow, from other periods in American history.

Stuff of interest

For the most part, this blog will be pointing to worthwhile stuff about the world we live in, and particularly about how we can follow Jesus in that world.

Let me begin with a confession--I am a frequent visitor to the New York Times website. This is in part because they have David Brooks--for my money the best common-grace political commentator out there. For another, because there is the most complete international news available. But also because there I see what is shaping the thinking of the people around me--whether I like it or not (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't).

Here is something from there that is interesting. Being environmentally aware (however you want to put it) is a big deal these days. But it is not easy--even for the more extreme ones. Read this interesting post from Stanley Fish (one of the leaders of "post-modernism," as ill defined as that is) on the difficulty of being environmentally dutiful.

(And while you are there, don't miss David Brooks' column today (Tuesday) about why Obama is not way ahead at this point...)

Fish's column shows that while it is not easy to live by God's law (in fact, it is impossible for sinners), it is also not easy to live by man's law either--even when it is intended to "save the planet." Substituting man's law for God's, however, doesn't work either. It didn't work for the Pharisees; it won't work for the environmentalists either. And Fish manages to write very interestingly about it.

First time

Here goes--a blog primarily to let the folks at Covenant know what their pastor is finding that may be of interest to them.
There is a lot more that goes into ministering at Covenant than comes out in Sunday School lessons, sermons, worship leading, etc. Here I will put thoughts, articles, etc. that are behind what comes out in formal ministry. Stay tuned...