Memorial Day 2012 Memories (1)

Today we enjoyed some wonderful Memorial Day activities, including the annual Jenison (Michigan) parade and our annual post-parade family picnic at our home. I am going to post a bunch of pictures and add some comments along the way. I hope they give you a glimpse of what we enjoyed in our great American community and with our richly blessed family. Hope your day was special in every way!

The first set of pictures honors our military, through whose service and sacrifice we receive the freedoms we do:

Every parade has to have cool old cars – Jenison’s did too!

Three of my favorite local places had entries in the parade – I cheered loudly for these next three!

Our local parade always has its share of church and Christian themed entries (some better than others; some just plain bad). Needless to say, the local PR churches and most Reformed churches don’t do parades – I wonder why (not really).

And some special people/groups – political and personal: Ottawa County Republicans (we consistently have some fine Christian politicians in this area), Jared and Joelle Dykstra in the Blendon Township firetruck (Georgetown PRC members), and Amy Kaptein, special needs fellow church member at Faith PRC, Special Olympics cross-country ski champion in Michigan, now planning and preparing to compete in Seoul, S.Korea next year, D.V.! Go Amy! That’s Matt Kortus, another fellow church member at Faith PRC with her – carrying her skis and poles!

And we end on a humorous note. A plane pulling a banner advertising a local restaurant (one we like and frequent!) flew over and around us at the parade. But someone forgot to check the spelling before the banner was ok’d for its flight. Can you catch it?

“The Spirit of Jesus” – The Valley of Vision

As I did last year, so again this year I also post this prayer devotional on the Holy Spirit from the book The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Arthur Bennett, ed.; Banner of Truth, 1975). May this be our prayer today and each day of our lives as we realize that the Spirit given us is indeed the Spirit of Jesus.

Lord Jesus Christ,

F ill me with thy Spirit

that I may be occupied with his presence.

I am blind – send him to make me see;

dark – let him say, ‘Let there be light’!

May he give me faith to behold

my name engraven in thy hand,

my soul and body redeemed by thy blood,

my sinfulness covered by the life of

pure obedience.

Replenish me by his revealing grace,

that I may realise my indissoluble union with thee;

that I may know thou hast espoused me

to thyself for ever,

in righteousness, love, mercy, faithfulness;

that I am one with thee,

as a branch with its stock, as a building

with its foundation.

May his comforts cheer me in my sorrows,

his strength sustain me in my trials,

his blessings revive me in my weariness,

his presence render me a fruitful tree of holiness,

his might establish me in peace and joy,

his incitements make me ceaseless in prayer,

his animation kindle in me undying devotion.

Send him as the searcher of my heart,

to show me more of my corruptions

and helplessness

that I may flee to thee,

cling to thee,

rest on thee,

as the beginning and end of my salvation.

May I never vex him by my indifference

and waywardness,

grieve him by my cold welcome,

resist him by my hard rebellion.

Answer my prayers, O Lord,

for thy great name’s sake.

You will find other such devotionals from this book at this link.

Pentecost Sunday 2012

Today we commemorate another great saving act of our risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ – His gift of the Holy Spirit to His church corporately and to every elect believer personally. This glorious and precious gift He gave 50 days after He rose from the dead and 10 days after He ascended to heaven to sit at His Father’s right hand. This was according to the prophecy of Joel, the OT prophet (I include here the important context just before the promise of the Spirit – notice it too. cf. also Acts 2:16-21)):

²¹Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things. ²²Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. ²³Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. ²⁴And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. ²⁵And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. ²⁶And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. ²⁷And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.

²⁸And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: ²⁹And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. ³⁰And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. ³¹The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. ³²And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.

And, of course, this event was according to Christ’s own promise as recorded, e.g., in John 16:

⁷Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

¹²I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. ¹³Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. ¹⁴He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

And on the day when Pentecost was “fully come” (i.e., fulfilled) and the Spirit was poured out on all flesh (Acts 2:1-4), Peter pointed to its significance as an act of the glorified Christ:

²⁹Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. ³⁰Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; ³¹He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. ³²This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. ³³Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. ³⁴For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, ³⁵Until I make thy foes thy footstool. ³⁶Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts 2).

Such a gift of Christ and such a wonder of God’s grace calls for our praise and thanks in worship this day and every day. Read all that the Scriptures teach about the Spirit’s work in the church corporately and in the believer personally  and you will discover that we would have nothing and would be able to do nothing without this Person of the Godhead.  All that we have for salvation and for our life as God’s children in this world is due to His presence and power in us and His gifts from Christ to us. So today let us thank the Father for exalting His Son and giving Him the Spirit; let us glorify our glorious Head for His abundant gift of the “Comforter”; and let us praise the Spirit as the One who bestows on us all that is in Christ and Who abides with us forever.

Worship: Evangelical or Reformed?

Worship: Evangelical or Reformed?.

The “Aquila Report” (a great Reformed/Presbyterian news source) carried this article on its “headlines” this past week. The piece is actually a reprinted (re-posted) article originally published in New Horizons (OPC magazine) in 2002 by Dr. Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Seminary (West). I found it to be an excellent summary of what makes our Reformed worship distinctive – even from evangelicals with whom we may have close associations.

As we prepare to worship tomorrow, there are good considerations for us here – things we often take for granted, or do thoughtlessly, without being convicted of the reasons why we worship the way we do. As you read through this article, may we be reminded of what makes Reformed worship Reformed.

The Presence of God in Worship

The presence of God in worship may seem a strange issue to raise. Do we not both believe that God is present with his people in worship? Indeed we do! But how is God present, and how is he active in our worship?

It seems to me that for evangelicalism, God is present in worship basically to listen. He is not far away; rather, he is intimately and lovingly present to observe and hear the worship of his people. He listens to their praise and their prayers. He sees their obedient observance of the sacraments. He hears their testimonies and sharing. He attends to the teaching of his Word, listening to be sure that the teaching is faithful and accurate.

The effect of this sense of evangelical worship is that the stress is on the horizontal dimension of worship. The sense of warm, personal fellowship, and participation among believers at worship is crucial. Anything that increases a sense of involvement, especially on the level of emotions, is likely to be approved. The service must be inspiring and reviving, and then God will observe and be pleased.

The Reformed faith has a fundamentally different understanding of the presence of God. God is indeed present to hear. He listens to the praise and prayers of his people. But he is also present to speak. God is not only present as an observer; he is an active participant. He speaks in the Word and in the sacraments. As Reformed Christians, we do not believe that he speaks directly and immediately to us in the church. God uses means to speak. But he speaks trulyandreally to us through the means that he has appointed for his church. In the ministry of the Word—as it is properly preached and ministered in salutation and benediction—it is truly God who speaks. As the Second Helvetic Confession rightly says, “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.”

God is also actively present and speaking in the sacraments, according to the Reformed understanding. The sacraments are much more about him than about us. He speaks through them the reality of the presence of Jesus to bless his people as he confirms his gospel truth and promises through them.

The effect of this understanding of Reformed worship is that the stress is on the vertical dimension of worship. The horizontal dimension is not absent, but the focus is not on warm feelings and sharing. Rather, it is on the community as a unit meeting their God. Our primary fellowship with one another is in the unified activities of speaking to God in song and prayer and of listening together as God speaks to us. The vertical orientation of our worship service insures that God is the focus of our worship. The first importance of any act of worship is not its value for the inspiration of the people, but its faithfulness to God’s revelation of his will for worship. We must meet with God only in ways that please him. The awe and joy that is ours in coming into the presence of the living God to hear him speak is what shapes and energizes our worship service.

Dr. Ben Carson, Evolution, and Morality

Consternation over Ben Carson, Evolution, and Morality- Credo Magazine.

This fascinating article appeared in “Credo Magazine” (web only) May 15,2012 (a very worthwhile evangelical publication, available free online). Written by Richard Weikart, history professor at California State University, it has some rather revealing comments about evolutionists and the ethical implications of their teachings in connection with a commencement address that the famous Dr. Ben Carson made recently at Emory University. You will find part of the story and comments below – the full version is at this link.

Yesterday, May 14^th, almost 500 Emory University faculty and students expressed their dismay that their commencement speaker did not toe the ideological line when it came to evolutionary biology.  Yes, gasp, the renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson does not believe in evolutionary theory.  Not only that, but biology professors at Emory and their supporters also accuse Carson of committing a thought crime because he allegedly “equates acceptance of evolution with a lack of ethics and morality.”

Since I am a historian who has studied and published on the history of evolutionary ethics, I was rather surprised by the Emory faculties’ consternation over Carson’s belief that evolution undermines objective ethics and morality.  Last summer I attended a major interdisciplinary conference at Oxford University on “The Evolution of Morality and the Morality of Evolution.”  Thus I am well aware that there are a variety of viewpoints in academe on this topic.  Nonetheless, many evolutionists—from Darwin to the present (including quite a few at that Oxford conference)—have argued and are still arguing precisely the point that Dr. Carson was highlighting: they claim that morality has evolved and thus has no objective existence.

One of the keynote speakers at the Oxford conference was the leading philosopher of science Michael Ruse, who stated in a 1985 article co-authored with Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson: “Ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to co-operate.”  Why do biologists at Emory try to make Carson appear foolish for asserting that evolution undermines ethics, while one of the leading evolutionary biologists and one of the leading philosophers of science admit that evolution destroys any objective morality?  Wilson in his book Consilience (1998) argued: “Either ethical precepts, such as justice and human rights, are independent of human experience or else they are human inventions.”  He rejected the former explanation, which he called transcendentalist ethics, in favor of the latter, which he named empiricist ethics.

…Ben Carson, then, should hardly be pilloried for arguing that evolution has ethical implications and that it undermines morality.  If Emory University professors want to argue that evolution has no ethical implications, they are free to make that argument (I wonder how many of them actually believe this).  However, if they do, they need to recognize that they are not just arguing against “benighted” anti-evolutionists, but they are arguing against many of their cherished colleagues in evolutionary biology, including Darwin himself.

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed – WSJ.com

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed – WSJ.com.

From the Wall Street Journal (May 15, 2012) comes this piece about what must be done to Wrigley Field if the Chicago Cubs are ever to become the “loveable winners”. Writer Rich Cohen believes he has the only answer to the “Cubs curse” – total annihilation of Wrigley Field.   What brazen boldness is this?! What arrogant audacity! This loyal Cubs fan, for one, is not convinced in the least. In fact, I believe Cohen’s call is nothing but a cop-out, a  call for self-destruction and utter hopelessness, not improvement and hopefulness. I understand the frustration and the desire for real hope for the Cubbies. And yes, I will grant that Cohen has produced a well-written piece (notice his biblical allusions). But destroy Wrigley Field?! One might as well ask for the destruction of the Library of Congress because of all the poor books that are read today! No, we have deeper issues than the place where they play. But we are making progress. I think.

Here’s part of what he had to say; read the rest at the link above.

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

I’m a Roman, and to me, the expanse between Waveland and Addison on Chicago’s North Side is Carthage. The struts and concessions, the catwalk where the late broadcaster Harry Caray once greeted me with all the fluid liquidity of an animatronic Disneyland pirate—Hello, Cubs fan!—the ramps that ascend like a ziggurat to heaven—it’s a false heaven—the bases, trestles, ivy, wooden seats and bleachers, the towering center-field scoreboard—all of it must be ripped out and carried away like the holy artifacts were carried out of the temple in Jerusalem, heaped in a pile and burned. Then the ground itself must be salted, made barren, covered with a housing project, say, a Stalinist monolith, so never again will a shrine arise on that haunted block. As it was with Moses, the followers and fans, though they search, shall never find its bones.

Classic Books with Phantom Covers (Round 2)

Can You Guess These Classic Books From Their Phantom Covers (Round 2)? « PWxyz.

From “Publisher’s Weekly” (May 23, 2012) comes Round Two (see my April 27, 2012 post for Round One) of the “guess the classic book by its cover”. Click on this link to get started. Enjoy! And once again, in this little contest are some ideas for “classic” summer reading

Top 10 Most Read Books in the World – Justin Taylor

Top 10 Most Read Books in the World – Justin Taylor.

Justin Taylor (“Between Two Worlds” blog) placed this interesting post on May 4, 2012. It is a simple graphic with numbers, so I will let you go to the link (above). But before you do, make a list of at least five books that you think would be on this list. And then, which one would you place as #1? Hint: this covers only the last 50 years. I think you will be surprised. But not if you are in touch with what’s been popular in the last 10 years, especially with children and young adults (And there’s your second hint.) O, the #1 most read book is quite encouraging, especially for Christians (Now, you’d better not miss that one!). Enjoy this first part of our Friday fun!

“The Freudom of the Christian” – Carl Trueman

I suppose we could call this “Trueman Thursday”, as my second post also involves the Seminary professor (Westminster East, Philadelphia). This time I will quote from his most recent collection of essays titled Fools Rush In Where Monkeys Fear to Tread (P&R, 2012). In an essay dated January, 2007 and titled “The Freudom of the Christian”, Trueman goes after those in the Reformed camp (presumably of the “YRR” identity – “Young, Restless, Reformed” or “New Calvinists”) who want to make swearing, beer drinking, and cigar smoking the signs of their “Christian” freedom and spiritual maturity as Calvinists. Trueman rather calls it “Christian Freudom”, because they really rather seem to be rebelling against their parent’s or church’s restrictions (As S.Freud, the psycho-analyst, would interpret this.). And by turning to Luther, he points us to a much higher and deeper concept of Christian freedom. Good things for us young and older Calvinists to hear too.

Here, then, is Trueman:

Of course, Christian freedom is a crucial biblical doctrine, and one of the key issues that divides Protestants from Catholics. Yet to locate its primary essence in smoking a cigar while knocking back a Scotch and poking fun at some fundie bumpkin from Tennessee, or to twist it in a manner that legitimates using language that would make the teenage son of a drunken Glaswegian navvy blush for shame, seems to be a dramatic trivialization of the issue….

In his classic text on the doctrine, the 1520 work “The Freedom of the Christian”, he (Luther – cjt) focuses his discussion here on Christian freedom as the basis for self-sacrificial service of others. Of course, that kind of freedom is painful. It hurts because it involves esteeming others more highly than one esteems oneself; it hurts because it involves finding freedom precisely in the setting aside of my rights and privileges to allow one to serve others; it hurts because it is analogous to the freedom Christ himself demonstrated in his own life and death – a death, incidentally, that was profoundly un-Freudian, being the result of absolute obedience and submission to his Father and of infinite mutual love between Father and Son.

There is where real Christian freedom lies: in the realization that we can do nothing to effect our own salvation; that Christ has done it all for us; and that we are therefore able to give ourselves freely and unconditionally in sacrificial service of others. The same thing, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, is what makes it possible for me to drink beer without endangering my soul; but that is a collateral bonus of my spiritual freedom and not a significant function of my spiritual maturity. It is also the same thing that motivates me not to make Christianity a laughingstock and an embarrassment through the use of foul language. Real Christian freedom is rather more to do with service of others than self-indulgence in any area of my life. The church needs more Christian freedom and much, much less Christian Freudom (pp.46-48).

J.I. Packer Interview by Carl Trueman

J.I. Packer Interview on Vimeo on Vimeo

Dr. Carl Trueman (professor at Westminster East) did a brief interview with Anglican pastor/theologian Dr. J.I Packer which is a wonderful delight (posted May 18, 2012). Packer speaks of his conversion, his love of the Puritans, and the influence of M.Lloyd-Jones, and in the end gives some wise counsel to young pastors. I too have been impacted by Packer’s works (notably his classic Knowing God) and have always appreciated his clear articulation and defense of Calvinism. Packer will not be with us much longer and it is good for us to be able to hear him while still alive. If you never have, you are in for a treat.