Friday, 4 April 2008
Waving the White Flag
Just a quickie to say that I won't be blogging through all the books in the Puritan reading challenge, because there's just so much in these books, and it is taking forever, and I'm supposed to be doing a degree. I think I might blog through the rest of "The Bruised Reed" because it's really good and I think I've read it enough to get a reasonable handle on what's being said, but generally speaking I guess I'm just going to put up particular things that strike me and book reviews. Maybe a few topical posts.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
The Servant, the Reeds, The Bruising and the Whys and Wherefores - "The Bruised Reed" Chapter 1
The whole of the book “The Bruised Reed” is an exposition of Isaiah 42:1-3, applied to Christ as in Matthew 12:18-20:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom I my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
And he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
Nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
A bruised reed he will not break,
And a smouldering wick he will not quench,
Until he brings justice to victory;
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matt 12:18-20)
In this first chapter, Sibbes introduces us to the Servant, the Reeds, the Bruising, and a little on why the bruising takes place.
The Servant
The servant, as the context in Matthew makes obvious, is Christ. Sibbes points out that this is God’s own beloved, and that, since it is the principle theme of the whole of the Bible, “[the Father] counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service”. Sibbes demonstrates that, since the Father sent the Son and anointed him with his Spirit, “our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity”.
Sibbes points out that as the passage says “behold” to attract our attention to the servant, so then we should focus upon Christ, in whom the Gentiles will hope, and upon the fact that Jesus came to save us by the commission of the Father. He shows that “in temptations it is safest to behold nothing but Christ the true brazen serpent”. He says this is particularly helpful if we see in Christ “the Father’s love and authority in him”. I found this a helpful reminder that in temptation we shouldn’t run away from God but to him, and to remember the very great love that all three persons of the Trinity have for us. He helpfully counteracts the notion (so irritatingly persistent in my heart) that in some way the Son is nice and the Father angry and unloving. It helped me to see more clearly that the Father really is Fatherly.
Sibbes also reminds us that our union with Christ means that the Father treasures us even as he treasures Christ. “For his love rests in a whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loves him and us with one love. Let us, therefore, embrace Christ, and in him God’s love, and build our faith safely on such a Saviour that is furnished with so high a commission”.
Sibbes then goes on to talk a little about how the servant follows upon his calling. This passage highlights in particular the humility and gentleness of Christ towards the bruised reeds. It comes after Christ tells his followers not to tell who he was. This is pretty much universally agreed to be because people just didn’t understand who the Messiah was and what he was there to do. They looked for a military and political leader who, with pomp and circumstance, would kick out the Romans and go on to defeat all of Israel’s enemies. Jesus was quite different, and went about the work as Messiah humbly, as Sibbes says: it was done “modestly, without making a noise, or raising dust by any pompous coming, as princes are accustomed to do”
The passage says that the servant’s voice isn’t heard, of course, not literally meaning that he is mute, but, as Sibbes points out, that he calls the bruised reeds to himself gently, saying, as he did just a few verses before this passage, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30). So in our passage it says “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not quench”.
The Reeds, and their Bruising
Sibbes describes the bruised reed as “the poor in spirit, who sees his wants, and also sees himself indebted to divine justice”. They are “in some misery… brought to see sin as the cause of it… sensible of sin and misery, even unto bruising, and, seeing no help in himself, is carried with restless desire to have supply from another, with some hope, which a little raises him out of himself to Christ, though he dare not claim any present interest of mercy” They are “not trees, but reeds; and not whole, but bruised reeds.” Sibbes says that “God’s children are bruised reeds before their conversion and oftentimes after.”
Why the Bruising?
The main reason given in this chapter is humility. Sibbes says that the bruising is needed before conversion “[to level] all proud, high thoughts… that we may understand ourselves to be what we are by nature”. “Usually [God] empties [people] of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services”.
The bruising, then, gives humility by showing people how wretched and hopeless they are in and of themselves. This kind of humility makes Christ look as precious as he is, it reminds us how futile our efforts at morality are, and fills us with joy, wonder, and love for Christ who bore our sin and is our righteousness. As Sibbes puts it “this bruising makes us set a high price upon Christ. Then the Gospel becomes the gospel indeed; then the fig-leaves of morality will do us no good. And it makes us more thankful, and, from thankfulness, more fruitful in our lives.” As Newton puts it “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!” Sibbes says that the lack of a proper conviction of how deep our sin is is a cause of many people falling away.
This reminded me how important it is in evangelism to be sure people understand and are convicted of their sins. It’s so tempting to rush in with what an amazing satisfaction comes from knowing God, what joys await those who trust God that we leave sin on the backburner. That produces a cross-less Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. In the end, sparing people the pain of conviction isn’t a loving thing to do.
After conversion the bruising serves basically the same purpose, to humble Christians and remind them how precious Christ is, “so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks… and to let us see that we live by mercy”.
Because of these good effects, Sibbes warns us not to be too harsh to ourselves or others when they feel bruising for sin. There is to be no “man up and pull yourself together” attitude towards it. Of course, we should try to steer people towards true humility, which sees its wretchedness and joyfully trusts in Christ, rather than a false humility of legalistic despair, which sees its wretchedness and simply laments because it can’t save itself. But when someone is cut up over their sin, we should recognise that “God is doing a gracious, good work with them”. What strikes me is that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. How gracious, then, that he should visit us with this bruising, in order to produce the very humility that pleases him, and most makes Christ a joy to us!
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom I my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
And he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
Nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
A bruised reed he will not break,
And a smouldering wick he will not quench,
Until he brings justice to victory;
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matt 12:18-20)
In this first chapter, Sibbes introduces us to the Servant, the Reeds, the Bruising, and a little on why the bruising takes place.
The Servant
The servant, as the context in Matthew makes obvious, is Christ. Sibbes points out that this is God’s own beloved, and that, since it is the principle theme of the whole of the Bible, “[the Father] counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service”. Sibbes demonstrates that, since the Father sent the Son and anointed him with his Spirit, “our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity”.
Sibbes points out that as the passage says “behold” to attract our attention to the servant, so then we should focus upon Christ, in whom the Gentiles will hope, and upon the fact that Jesus came to save us by the commission of the Father. He shows that “in temptations it is safest to behold nothing but Christ the true brazen serpent”. He says this is particularly helpful if we see in Christ “the Father’s love and authority in him”. I found this a helpful reminder that in temptation we shouldn’t run away from God but to him, and to remember the very great love that all three persons of the Trinity have for us. He helpfully counteracts the notion (so irritatingly persistent in my heart) that in some way the Son is nice and the Father angry and unloving. It helped me to see more clearly that the Father really is Fatherly.
Sibbes also reminds us that our union with Christ means that the Father treasures us even as he treasures Christ. “For his love rests in a whole Christ, in Christ mystical, as well as Christ natural, because he loves him and us with one love. Let us, therefore, embrace Christ, and in him God’s love, and build our faith safely on such a Saviour that is furnished with so high a commission”.
Sibbes then goes on to talk a little about how the servant follows upon his calling. This passage highlights in particular the humility and gentleness of Christ towards the bruised reeds. It comes after Christ tells his followers not to tell who he was. This is pretty much universally agreed to be because people just didn’t understand who the Messiah was and what he was there to do. They looked for a military and political leader who, with pomp and circumstance, would kick out the Romans and go on to defeat all of Israel’s enemies. Jesus was quite different, and went about the work as Messiah humbly, as Sibbes says: it was done “modestly, without making a noise, or raising dust by any pompous coming, as princes are accustomed to do”
The passage says that the servant’s voice isn’t heard, of course, not literally meaning that he is mute, but, as Sibbes points out, that he calls the bruised reeds to himself gently, saying, as he did just a few verses before this passage, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt 11:28-30). So in our passage it says “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not quench”.
The Reeds, and their Bruising
Sibbes describes the bruised reed as “the poor in spirit, who sees his wants, and also sees himself indebted to divine justice”. They are “in some misery… brought to see sin as the cause of it… sensible of sin and misery, even unto bruising, and, seeing no help in himself, is carried with restless desire to have supply from another, with some hope, which a little raises him out of himself to Christ, though he dare not claim any present interest of mercy” They are “not trees, but reeds; and not whole, but bruised reeds.” Sibbes says that “God’s children are bruised reeds before their conversion and oftentimes after.”
Why the Bruising?
The main reason given in this chapter is humility. Sibbes says that the bruising is needed before conversion “[to level] all proud, high thoughts… that we may understand ourselves to be what we are by nature”. “Usually [God] empties [people] of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services”.
The bruising, then, gives humility by showing people how wretched and hopeless they are in and of themselves. This kind of humility makes Christ look as precious as he is, it reminds us how futile our efforts at morality are, and fills us with joy, wonder, and love for Christ who bore our sin and is our righteousness. As Sibbes puts it “this bruising makes us set a high price upon Christ. Then the Gospel becomes the gospel indeed; then the fig-leaves of morality will do us no good. And it makes us more thankful, and, from thankfulness, more fruitful in our lives.” As Newton puts it “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!” Sibbes says that the lack of a proper conviction of how deep our sin is is a cause of many people falling away.
This reminded me how important it is in evangelism to be sure people understand and are convicted of their sins. It’s so tempting to rush in with what an amazing satisfaction comes from knowing God, what joys await those who trust God that we leave sin on the backburner. That produces a cross-less Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. In the end, sparing people the pain of conviction isn’t a loving thing to do.
After conversion the bruising serves basically the same purpose, to humble Christians and remind them how precious Christ is, “so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks… and to let us see that we live by mercy”.
Because of these good effects, Sibbes warns us not to be too harsh to ourselves or others when they feel bruising for sin. There is to be no “man up and pull yourself together” attitude towards it. Of course, we should try to steer people towards true humility, which sees its wretchedness and joyfully trusts in Christ, rather than a false humility of legalistic despair, which sees its wretchedness and simply laments because it can’t save itself. But when someone is cut up over their sin, we should recognise that “God is doing a gracious, good work with them”. What strikes me is that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. How gracious, then, that he should visit us with this bruising, in order to produce the very humility that pleases him, and most makes Christ a joy to us!
The Bruised Reed - A month on
I have an absolutely shocking memory for anything except vocab and book titles. I said I had made this blog to blog through my experiences reading the Puritan Reading Challenge 2008, and it may not have escaped your notice that it’s March and I haven’t posted anything yet. That’s because I have a bad tendency to read things and then not really take them in. In an attempt to counteract this, I’m hoping to read all the books in the Puritan Reading Challenge twice, once in the month that’s allocated for them, and then once again after a month has passed. That way I read the books twice without becoming overly bored of them, I get to read the book already knowing the rough shape of the writer’s argument and I get to see which things I’ve taken in and which things have gone in one ear and out the other (which, I fear, may be most of it).
January brought with it “The Bruised Reed” by 17th Century Anglican puritan minister, Richard Sibbes (1577-1635). It’s only 128 pages long, and I got it more than half way through the month, and read through it quite quickly. This month I hope to read through it chapter by chapter, highlighting the main points of Sibbes’ argument, and particular things that struck me that I need to take on board more deeply. I hope you benefit from what I put up.
January brought with it “The Bruised Reed” by 17th Century Anglican puritan minister, Richard Sibbes (1577-1635). It’s only 128 pages long, and I got it more than half way through the month, and read through it quite quickly. This month I hope to read through it chapter by chapter, highlighting the main points of Sibbes’ argument, and particular things that struck me that I need to take on board more deeply. I hope you benefit from what I put up.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
"Jesus saw me when a stranger" - "Come thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Robert Robinson
This is the first of what I imagine will be many hymns based posts. I have always loved poetry, even from before I was a Christian. Hymns have been a part of the experience of God's people since the very beginning, indeed, the first poem we know of composed by man is Adam's song "This at last is bone of my bones/and flesh of my flesh/she will be called woman/because she was taken out of man". I love hymns because I find that music has a special potential for expressing the full range of emotions that it is proper for us to feel when presented with God's work in Scripture.
Without wishing to discourage modern writers (in fact some of you are doing a really great job!), most of my favourite hymns still come from the 18th century. With such hymn writing giants as Charles Wesley, John Newton, William Cowper, and Isaac Watts, surely it was the golden age of hymn writing in the English language. Their hymns so often combine beautiful rhyme with a deep and joyful appreciation of Biblical truths which I find myself all too quick to rush over. Once you get over the fairly minor language barrier, you'll also find that, though their hymns are generally simple enough for just about anyone to understand, they express some of the most profound and lovely reflections on what our doctrines mean in day to day life.
The hymn I want to share with you today, depending on which source you consult, was composed either in 1757 or 1758 by Robert Robinson (1726 - 1791). Robinson lived a wild and reckless life until he attended a service taken by the legendary Methodist leader George Whitefield. He was so profoundly struck by Whitefield's sermon that, aged 20, he converted and became a Methodist preacher.
I love this hymn because it reminds me of my dependence of the grace of God for everything. When I first heard this hymn, I misheard the words at the start of the third verse, and thought it said "Jesus saw me when a stranger/wandering far, a foe of God/He to rescue me from danger/interposed his prescious blood" and thought that it was a beautiful expression of the truth found in Romans 5:6-11 that "when we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." As it is, it has more of the ring of Isaiah 53. Either's good if you ask me. Both should keep us from pride as we realise that every grace we have comes through Jesus loving decision to rescue us from the hardness of our hearts in our emnity against God.
I love the verse "Oh to grace how great a debtor/daily I'm constrained to be". It reminds me of God's amazing grace in my past, my need for his grace to "bind my wandering heart" to God for present obedience, and my faith in his future grace to keep my wandering heart with him until I see him in his courts above.
If, like me, you sometimes find it more helpful to hear these things with a tune, and you like music of a fairly modern bent, a good version of this song can be found at http://media.marshillchurch.org/ under music/bands/red letter.
Anyways, enough of me, onto Robinson! As a language note, you may find it helpful to know that "Ebenezer" means "stone of help". As with any poetry, I really recommend that you read this aloud. Enjoy!
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I'll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
Without wishing to discourage modern writers (in fact some of you are doing a really great job!), most of my favourite hymns still come from the 18th century. With such hymn writing giants as Charles Wesley, John Newton, William Cowper, and Isaac Watts, surely it was the golden age of hymn writing in the English language. Their hymns so often combine beautiful rhyme with a deep and joyful appreciation of Biblical truths which I find myself all too quick to rush over. Once you get over the fairly minor language barrier, you'll also find that, though their hymns are generally simple enough for just about anyone to understand, they express some of the most profound and lovely reflections on what our doctrines mean in day to day life.
The hymn I want to share with you today, depending on which source you consult, was composed either in 1757 or 1758 by Robert Robinson (1726 - 1791). Robinson lived a wild and reckless life until he attended a service taken by the legendary Methodist leader George Whitefield. He was so profoundly struck by Whitefield's sermon that, aged 20, he converted and became a Methodist preacher.
I love this hymn because it reminds me of my dependence of the grace of God for everything. When I first heard this hymn, I misheard the words at the start of the third verse, and thought it said "Jesus saw me when a stranger/wandering far, a foe of God/He to rescue me from danger/interposed his prescious blood" and thought that it was a beautiful expression of the truth found in Romans 5:6-11 that "when we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." As it is, it has more of the ring of Isaiah 53. Either's good if you ask me. Both should keep us from pride as we realise that every grace we have comes through Jesus loving decision to rescue us from the hardness of our hearts in our emnity against God.
I love the verse "Oh to grace how great a debtor/daily I'm constrained to be". It reminds me of God's amazing grace in my past, my need for his grace to "bind my wandering heart" to God for present obedience, and my faith in his future grace to keep my wandering heart with him until I see him in his courts above.
If, like me, you sometimes find it more helpful to hear these things with a tune, and you like music of a fairly modern bent, a good version of this song can be found at http://media.marshillchurch.org/ under music/bands/red letter.
Anyways, enough of me, onto Robinson! As a language note, you may find it helpful to know that "Ebenezer" means "stone of help". As with any poetry, I really recommend that you read this aloud. Enjoy!
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I'll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
Monday, 28 January 2008
Book Review: Humility, True Greatness
“Your friend bought you a book on humility? Someone thinks you’re proud!” Laughed my friend.
“Au contraire,” I boasted, “I’ve been asking for this book for Christmas for three years now!”
…It even took me a few seconds to realise quite how ridiculous I am! If I dare compliment myself at all, I can only say I have good taste in Christmas presents. I had a lot to learn, but C.J. Mahaney really has delivered us a gem with this one. I can honestly say this is probably the best short book I’ve read for a very long time indeed.
Humility, as Josh Harris says in the foreword, is a funny thing. Most Christians admire it in others, and are aware that they are supposed to at least appear to model it. Few put real time into thinking how best to cultivate this crucial virtue. This is curious given how many Christians know what an important trait it is. “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” says God in Isaiah 66:2. A multitude of passages could be collected to sum up this simple, but sobering truth “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” James 4:6
This book has a beautiful combination of the theoretical and the practical. C.J. provides a helpful, pithy definition of humility in “honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness”, though things he says later in the book could suggest expanding it to cover God’s greatness and our dependence on His provision. He provides a convicting explanation about why God hates pride so much and why anyone who loves God would want to work to eliminate it in their lives: pride consists in competing with God for His glory. At the same time he gives practical tips on how to work towards greater humility from “begin your day expressing gratefulness to God” through to “encourage and serve others each and every day” and “laugh often, and laugh often at yourself”.
One of the best things about C.J. Mahaney is that in everything I’ve ever read or heard from him, he never lets one eye off the gospel, off the hope of being restored through Christ Jesus and his death on the cross. Sure you’re proud, and yes, that offends God greatly, but there is hope, go to Jesus, He will put you right. The effect of this is that, to quote something John Piper once said, he is a pastor who “pierces the heart with the truth, but like a surgeon and not an assassin”. That’s why the sounding note of this book, as with everything else I’ve ever read by C.J. is “Always reflect on the wonder of the cross of Christ”.
Reading this book was quite an emotional journey for me. At times I felt ashamed, at times I laughed my head off at myself. I think that, despite being reminded of quite how proud I am, C.J. keeps the reader hopeful throughout with his relentless focus on the Gospel. I was brought to see in ever more ways how pride, like a greasy slime, coats most of my actions and pervades deeply into who I am. But in my journey, I was reminded of one of the ways humility links into one of my other big struggles, that of legalism.
At the end of the day, the gospel revolves around humility. At its very core is the recognition that you’re getting your life horribly wrong, that you yourself are rotten to the core. It’s about admitting that you need Jesus to die an agonising, humiliating, soul destroying death to get you out of the mess you’ve got yourself into. It’s about realising you can’t do it yourself and joyfully accepting that someone else has graciously, freely, lovingly done it for you. Gospel driven humility promises freedom from the endless treadmill of self reliance in a world you can’t control, freedom from anxiety about the future, and a deeper joy and love for God as you realise the wonder, the scandal of His grace in coming for people like you, for people like me. Humility, honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness would be Hell without the Gospel. With the Gospel, it is a key to untold joy in God. Humility is heavenly or hellish, depending on how well you hold to the Gospel.
You may not buy this book in the end, though I’d say it’s certainly worth considering. C.J. doesn’t have the last word on humility, and twenty centuries of Christians never had the opportunity to buy his book. I know this is one that I’ll want to reread and reread again. Whatever you do, though, don’t shy away from humility because it involves knocking yourself down a few notches. Don’t hold back, thinking that realising how bad you are might be depressing. Don’t recoil from the prospect of suffering from a constant malaise of low self-esteem. Trust God and push ahead with it. I pray that like me, though you’ll end the book with an awful long way to go, your heart will be filled with the same kind of joyful thoughts about the love and patience of God in the Gospel as mine was.
Amazing love!
How can it be
That thou my God
Should die for me?
“Au contraire,” I boasted, “I’ve been asking for this book for Christmas for three years now!”
…It even took me a few seconds to realise quite how ridiculous I am! If I dare compliment myself at all, I can only say I have good taste in Christmas presents. I had a lot to learn, but C.J. Mahaney really has delivered us a gem with this one. I can honestly say this is probably the best short book I’ve read for a very long time indeed.
Humility, as Josh Harris says in the foreword, is a funny thing. Most Christians admire it in others, and are aware that they are supposed to at least appear to model it. Few put real time into thinking how best to cultivate this crucial virtue. This is curious given how many Christians know what an important trait it is. “This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” says God in Isaiah 66:2. A multitude of passages could be collected to sum up this simple, but sobering truth “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” James 4:6
This book has a beautiful combination of the theoretical and the practical. C.J. provides a helpful, pithy definition of humility in “honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness”, though things he says later in the book could suggest expanding it to cover God’s greatness and our dependence on His provision. He provides a convicting explanation about why God hates pride so much and why anyone who loves God would want to work to eliminate it in their lives: pride consists in competing with God for His glory. At the same time he gives practical tips on how to work towards greater humility from “begin your day expressing gratefulness to God” through to “encourage and serve others each and every day” and “laugh often, and laugh often at yourself”.
One of the best things about C.J. Mahaney is that in everything I’ve ever read or heard from him, he never lets one eye off the gospel, off the hope of being restored through Christ Jesus and his death on the cross. Sure you’re proud, and yes, that offends God greatly, but there is hope, go to Jesus, He will put you right. The effect of this is that, to quote something John Piper once said, he is a pastor who “pierces the heart with the truth, but like a surgeon and not an assassin”. That’s why the sounding note of this book, as with everything else I’ve ever read by C.J. is “Always reflect on the wonder of the cross of Christ”.
Reading this book was quite an emotional journey for me. At times I felt ashamed, at times I laughed my head off at myself. I think that, despite being reminded of quite how proud I am, C.J. keeps the reader hopeful throughout with his relentless focus on the Gospel. I was brought to see in ever more ways how pride, like a greasy slime, coats most of my actions and pervades deeply into who I am. But in my journey, I was reminded of one of the ways humility links into one of my other big struggles, that of legalism.
At the end of the day, the gospel revolves around humility. At its very core is the recognition that you’re getting your life horribly wrong, that you yourself are rotten to the core. It’s about admitting that you need Jesus to die an agonising, humiliating, soul destroying death to get you out of the mess you’ve got yourself into. It’s about realising you can’t do it yourself and joyfully accepting that someone else has graciously, freely, lovingly done it for you. Gospel driven humility promises freedom from the endless treadmill of self reliance in a world you can’t control, freedom from anxiety about the future, and a deeper joy and love for God as you realise the wonder, the scandal of His grace in coming for people like you, for people like me. Humility, honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness would be Hell without the Gospel. With the Gospel, it is a key to untold joy in God. Humility is heavenly or hellish, depending on how well you hold to the Gospel.
You may not buy this book in the end, though I’d say it’s certainly worth considering. C.J. doesn’t have the last word on humility, and twenty centuries of Christians never had the opportunity to buy his book. I know this is one that I’ll want to reread and reread again. Whatever you do, though, don’t shy away from humility because it involves knocking yourself down a few notches. Don’t hold back, thinking that realising how bad you are might be depressing. Don’t recoil from the prospect of suffering from a constant malaise of low self-esteem. Trust God and push ahead with it. I pray that like me, though you’ll end the book with an awful long way to go, your heart will be filled with the same kind of joyful thoughts about the love and patience of God in the Gospel as mine was.
Amazing love!
How can it be
That thou my God
Should die for me?
Friday, 11 January 2008
The clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds: C. S. Lewis on the Virtues of Theological Time Travel
"Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old." - C. S. Lewis "Introduction to On the Incarnation by Athanasius"
Every Christian writer who encourages others to try to read some of the classics of the Christian faith quotes this somewhere, so I thought I'd be no exception. Old books are rather out of fashion, though there has recently been a bit of a revival of interest. Lots of people find them hard to get into with their thees and thous and words you've never heard of, lots have simply never heard of the older books and don't know where to start and others, I think, assume that whatever the earlier Christians have, we must have built on it to make something better. Afterall, if you wanted to learn about getting from A to B, you wouldn't look for a horse and cart, that was fine for its time, but now we have cars. Together with C. S. Lewis, I hope to illustrate a couple of the benefits of theological time travel.
"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook... None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."
Another way of saying this is that people from deep in the past come from different cultures to our one, even if they came from the same country and spoke broadly the same language as us. There were some things that seemed completely natural to people in 17th Century England, that would seem equally completely alien to people in 21st Century England. The Church Fathers, almost exclusively Greeks and Romans, started with different background ideas to the ones we do. That means that when they come to the Bible, they asked a different set of questions. These days people ask how God can be loving and still punish sin with Hell. In the old days people asked how God could be just and still save sinners.
People in the Middle East, with their background in Islam, imagine God to be something much bigger, much more powerful and much more remote than the superman grandfather-in-the-sky image that is current in modern Western Culture, where the idea of God as Father has been exaggerated to the extent that He is no longer King. Consequently, people coming to Christ in the Middle East ask how God could possibly abase himself so much as to become a man - and not a powerful man either, and then die an agonising death for sinners, all of which seems so natural to us that we have a tendency to risk losing our appreciation of it. We, on the other hand, struggle with the idea that God is completely sovereign over everything that happens, and has the right to tell us what to do.
That means that if we were to sit down and study Phillippians 2:5-8 "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Our brother, who lives for Christ in a background dominated by Islam, will remind us quite what a scandal it is that God should become man and suffer for sins, the the Holy and Righteous God who made the Heavens and the Earth should be shamefully treated as the worst of criminals by wicked men who proudly put themselves above him. This in turn deepens and augments our appreciation of the very thing we thought we understood better in the first place: the very great love God has for us. Verses like John 3:16 or Galatians 1:4, or the power of the argument Paul uses in Romans 8:32 "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" suddenly take on a new and deeper significance by taking on board the insights that Christians who faithfully interpret the Bible in the context of their own struggles can give us.
But of course, all cultures have unbiblical attitudes which they foster as well. I'm not trying to suggest that foreign cultures or older time periods are inherantly better than our own. Nor am I trying to claim that coming to the Bible with a different set of questions and assumptions makes for better theology. Sometimes, people just get it plain wrong. Augustine understood things about the power and grace of God which the modern Church desparately needs to hear. He also thought that the state should persecute heretics. If his thinking sparked the Reformation, it equally sparked the Spanish Inquisition. We cannot, we must not treat the teachings of men, any man, no matter how brilliant or respected that man may be, as though they were next to the Bible. We know that Augustine's thinking on Salvation by grace and grace only from start to finish is right because it is in the Bible, and we know the Spanish Inquisition is not right because it is not. But this is the beauty of Theological Time Travel: it shows us things we get wrong, while we are largely innoculated against many of the things the men of the past got wrong. As Lewis puts it:
"Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction."
A final benefit I'd point out is contained in the Biblical maxim "There is nothing new under the sun". A lot of the things that we struggle with are things countless other people have struggled with before us, and we can learn a lot by looking at the good and bad ways they dealt with it. When Alaric, leader of a gothic army, sacked the city of Rome in 410AD, people thought the world was going to end. Literally. A city that had dominated the known world, and enjoyed impregnible security for 900 years was at the mercy of Barbarians. Jerome wrote "If Rome can perish, what can be safe?". He withdrew to a cave, and waited for the end of the world. Augustine was spurred on to write one of his finest works: The City of God. He reminded people living at a time of unimaginable turmoil that our home is Heaven, and while we live for the time being in the City of Man, and should work for its benefit, our treasure lies elsewhere. He also pointed out that the barbarian invasions brought in a mass of people that previously the Church had not reached. Missionaries had by and large not gone to them, so God had sent them to the missionaries. Before long, many barbarians had become Christians. Today, western culture is seeing a huge influx of muslim immigrants. Again, many in the church are acting as if the world is about to end. How many are remembering that it is difficult and dangerous to send missionaries to the countries from which they come, and that by and large most churches haven't paid much interest in doing so? We have a unique opportunity to reach muslim people who can greatly help us in the task of proclaiming Christ to people from other muslim cultures.
To finish where we started, if you must read either only the new, or only the old, read the old, old books of the Old and New Testaments. But God has been generous to us and given us not only the Word, but also teachers to expound that word to us. We would do well not to neglect the gifts that God has given his Church in the centuries gone by.
Every Christian writer who encourages others to try to read some of the classics of the Christian faith quotes this somewhere, so I thought I'd be no exception. Old books are rather out of fashion, though there has recently been a bit of a revival of interest. Lots of people find them hard to get into with their thees and thous and words you've never heard of, lots have simply never heard of the older books and don't know where to start and others, I think, assume that whatever the earlier Christians have, we must have built on it to make something better. Afterall, if you wanted to learn about getting from A to B, you wouldn't look for a horse and cart, that was fine for its time, but now we have cars. Together with C. S. Lewis, I hope to illustrate a couple of the benefits of theological time travel.
"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook... None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."
Another way of saying this is that people from deep in the past come from different cultures to our one, even if they came from the same country and spoke broadly the same language as us. There were some things that seemed completely natural to people in 17th Century England, that would seem equally completely alien to people in 21st Century England. The Church Fathers, almost exclusively Greeks and Romans, started with different background ideas to the ones we do. That means that when they come to the Bible, they asked a different set of questions. These days people ask how God can be loving and still punish sin with Hell. In the old days people asked how God could be just and still save sinners.
People in the Middle East, with their background in Islam, imagine God to be something much bigger, much more powerful and much more remote than the superman grandfather-in-the-sky image that is current in modern Western Culture, where the idea of God as Father has been exaggerated to the extent that He is no longer King. Consequently, people coming to Christ in the Middle East ask how God could possibly abase himself so much as to become a man - and not a powerful man either, and then die an agonising death for sinners, all of which seems so natural to us that we have a tendency to risk losing our appreciation of it. We, on the other hand, struggle with the idea that God is completely sovereign over everything that happens, and has the right to tell us what to do.
That means that if we were to sit down and study Phillippians 2:5-8 "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Our brother, who lives for Christ in a background dominated by Islam, will remind us quite what a scandal it is that God should become man and suffer for sins, the the Holy and Righteous God who made the Heavens and the Earth should be shamefully treated as the worst of criminals by wicked men who proudly put themselves above him. This in turn deepens and augments our appreciation of the very thing we thought we understood better in the first place: the very great love God has for us. Verses like John 3:16 or Galatians 1:4, or the power of the argument Paul uses in Romans 8:32 "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" suddenly take on a new and deeper significance by taking on board the insights that Christians who faithfully interpret the Bible in the context of their own struggles can give us.
But of course, all cultures have unbiblical attitudes which they foster as well. I'm not trying to suggest that foreign cultures or older time periods are inherantly better than our own. Nor am I trying to claim that coming to the Bible with a different set of questions and assumptions makes for better theology. Sometimes, people just get it plain wrong. Augustine understood things about the power and grace of God which the modern Church desparately needs to hear. He also thought that the state should persecute heretics. If his thinking sparked the Reformation, it equally sparked the Spanish Inquisition. We cannot, we must not treat the teachings of men, any man, no matter how brilliant or respected that man may be, as though they were next to the Bible. We know that Augustine's thinking on Salvation by grace and grace only from start to finish is right because it is in the Bible, and we know the Spanish Inquisition is not right because it is not. But this is the beauty of Theological Time Travel: it shows us things we get wrong, while we are largely innoculated against many of the things the men of the past got wrong. As Lewis puts it:
"Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction."
A final benefit I'd point out is contained in the Biblical maxim "There is nothing new under the sun". A lot of the things that we struggle with are things countless other people have struggled with before us, and we can learn a lot by looking at the good and bad ways they dealt with it. When Alaric, leader of a gothic army, sacked the city of Rome in 410AD, people thought the world was going to end. Literally. A city that had dominated the known world, and enjoyed impregnible security for 900 years was at the mercy of Barbarians. Jerome wrote "If Rome can perish, what can be safe?". He withdrew to a cave, and waited for the end of the world. Augustine was spurred on to write one of his finest works: The City of God. He reminded people living at a time of unimaginable turmoil that our home is Heaven, and while we live for the time being in the City of Man, and should work for its benefit, our treasure lies elsewhere. He also pointed out that the barbarian invasions brought in a mass of people that previously the Church had not reached. Missionaries had by and large not gone to them, so God had sent them to the missionaries. Before long, many barbarians had become Christians. Today, western culture is seeing a huge influx of muslim immigrants. Again, many in the church are acting as if the world is about to end. How many are remembering that it is difficult and dangerous to send missionaries to the countries from which they come, and that by and large most churches haven't paid much interest in doing so? We have a unique opportunity to reach muslim people who can greatly help us in the task of proclaiming Christ to people from other muslim cultures.
To finish where we started, if you must read either only the new, or only the old, read the old, old books of the Old and New Testaments. But God has been generous to us and given us not only the Word, but also teachers to expound that word to us. We would do well not to neglect the gifts that God has given his Church in the centuries gone by.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Puritan Perusals
One of the main motivations for starting this blog was to put up useful things from my reading this reading plan for some of the shorter (or more successfully abridged) works of the 17th Century English Reformed community. This is partly so I actually read them and take in what they're saying, but also to remind me of them later.
If you want to take part, the reading plan's up there. Over here in the UK most of the books are priced at about £5-£6 from The Banner of Truth Trust or on Amazon. None of the books are as long as 300 pages, so there's a requirement of less that 10 pages a day in a small paperback (some months it's less than five pages!). It's not too late to start this month's book (in fact I don't have it yet) because it's only 128 pages long. If you live in the States I gather there some kind of discount you can get from here.
Every Blessing!
Rev'd Dr Who
If you want to take part, the reading plan's up there. Over here in the UK most of the books are priced at about £5-£6 from The Banner of Truth Trust or on Amazon. None of the books are as long as 300 pages, so there's a requirement of less that 10 pages a day in a small paperback (some months it's less than five pages!). It's not too late to start this month's book (in fact I don't have it yet) because it's only 128 pages long. If you live in the States I gather there some kind of discount you can get from here.
Every Blessing!
Rev'd Dr Who
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