There are some books I wish I had written. Sproul’s The Truth of the Cross is such a book. In 150 pages, he covers crucial fundamental theological doctrines regarding the justice of God, definite atonement, fulfillment of prophesies, and more.
If I could give only one book to thoughful seekers, to new Christians, or to anyone who wanted clear biblical answers to existential questions of sin, judgment, election, reprobation, forgiveness, and security, this would be it.
I miss you, R.C. Sproul. Well done, good and faithful doulos.
BLUF: Stewardship reflects design and the Designer; how we treat creation is directly tied to our theology (doctrine of God).
Illustration: This morning after PT I was driving to work, and the crews were out by the highway I take. Their blaze orange vests, eye protection, gloves, boots, and sweat rags bespoke their mission—to steward the grounds adjacent to the highway. I could hear the weed-eaters buzz as they cut through the Bahia and other grasses and weeds. With the GA humidity, the smell of cut grass was pungent and pervasive. It was already hot and sticky, so muggy in fact that my reading glasses fogged. Yet here were these men, picking up litter, weed eating, and helping take care of the area.
Connection to Scripture: When God created man, God gave him a creation mandate that involved wise stewardship of creation. We were not to worship the earth; we were not to destroy the earth; we were to wisely steward the earth (Genesis 1:28; 2:15).
And later in the Pentateuch, we are taught the importance of wise stewardship: You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel (Numbers 35:33-34 ESV).
I have been blessed to travel a great many parts of the earth. Some countries and regions are staggeringly clean and beautiful. Switzerland and much of Germany come to mind, as examples. Almost no litter. I have also seen other countries and regions where litter is nearly everywhere. I will not mention the areas, but you might be able to discern them.
The principle, however, is clear: One’s theology directly informs one’s view of creation stewardship. If you think you’re just cosmic dust, then why take care of the planet? But if you’re created in the image of the holy, sovereign, and wise God who has provided you everything to steward well for your good and his glory, it directly affects the way you live.
Encouragement: The Lord knows best. Would we but hear and heed him, we would not need men to pick up litter along the highways because it would not be there in the first place. Our theology directly affects our choices regarding stewardship of creation.
BLUF: There is a world of difference between information and wisdom.
Introduction: I am old enough to remember life pre-internet. So old, in fact, that when teachers assigned us students to research a person/event/topic, etc. we had to go to these things called libraries and use a card catalog system. If one were indolent, he might dart straight to the set of heavy pleather-bound encyclopedias along the walls or on rolling carts. It is funny to me now when someone is asked a question about a person/event/topic, etc. the default position by most folks is to ‘google it’. There is a reason Google has amassed myriad data on all its users; Google knows us perhaps better than we know ourselves. But having information, or even easy access to it, is quite a different matter than having and inculcating wisdom. Wisdom involves proper application of accurate information; it involves, if you will, daily living.
Segue: In the book of Proverbs, Solomon portrays two main women throughout its 31 chapters to teach on the differences between folly and wisdom. Listen to how Lady Wisdom speaks: “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (Pr 8:17 ESV). And “Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors” (Pr 8:34 ESV).
Encouragement: We are perhaps blessed unlike previous generations vis-à-vis our access to more information than we could ever sift through as individuals, but information alone is just that; what is always needed is wisdom. It is one thing to be able to use a search engine to excavate data; it is quite another to know how to appropriately use said information.
Introduction: Today I read Ecclesiastes through twice more. The reasons are as numerous as the aphorisms in Ecclesiastes itself.
I had time to read; nothing substantive was being said where I was. I crave depth, not just verbiage. Say something, but please … do not blather.
Illustration: A few moments ago after a supper prepared by Carrie Jane, once again some of the words from Ecclesiastes 5 washed over me:
When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay (vv. 4-5).
Question: How clear is that? Crystal.
My thoughts turned to the saints from class at church. There are those who are there rain or shine, week in and week out, those we can count on. And that is the diamond in the rough, you see.
As the called-out ones gathered around Scripture, around the Lord, and fellowshipped with one another, we listened to fellow committed Christian pilgrims share. I listened to a precious lady, whose decades of faithful witness speak for themselves, share how she is amidst the throes of cancer but also of how she knows her fellow brothers and sisters are interceding for her.
We listened to seasoned saints share of calling upon the Lord to heal their loved ones of cancer, of waywardness, of heart issues, of ‘accidents’, etc. but sometimes the Lord determined other resolutions than what we finite creatures tend to desire.
And yet we gathered nonetheless around the same truths regarding God’s sovereignty and our dependence upon him as the wise and good shepherd of the sheep.
God has, per Ecclesiastes, no pleasure in fools. If we are his sheep, we will remain. We will persevere. We will not fall away.
There is so much mere blather out there. Words, words, words, as Hamlet expressed. If one were to focus on the negative only, it would be easy to lose hope.
But we are not of those who lose hope. Why? Because God’s people are kept, sustained, upheld, and encouraged by God himself, and by the under-shepherds who care for God’s people.
It is a privilege and a sacred calling to be part of caring for those who make good on their promises–who assemble, who gather, who contribute, who build up the body, and prove themselves to be the bride for whom Christ died and wed to himself.
Introduction: I had just taken the dogs out to do their morning routine. All appeared normal. When I reentered the house, I felt something looking at me. I looked out from my library windows, and this fellow was staring at me. Well … good morning.
Anyone who knows me well would likely know mornings are my favorite times. I love rising early, enjoying coffee, reading, and (weather permitting) dawn.
Below was a shot from my old iPhone of one of my mornings this week in Pennsylvania.
Anyone who is honest will admit that we are living amidst a cultural civil war. The values could not be more disparate and opposed to one another. No one can say, “I sure wish I knew where _________ stood regarding [insert issue here].” No, we can tell.
Some folks think we should honor our law enforcement and our military service members; another side demands we defund the police and embrace nihilism and anarchy. Some folks think we should acknowledge reality; other folks demand we bow the knee to insanity, live by lies, and embrace chaos.
Stupidity is not a winning strategy, as is often said, so reality will sink in eventually. But how severe it may all get, and how long it will all last, is another matter for another discussion.
In such a time, I take a few minutes of time near dawn, often with coffee in hand, bow my head in petition to the God who made heaven and earth, and try to say as plainly and viscerally as I am able, “Lord, we need you. Have mercy upon me, a sinner. Lord, thank you for another opportunity to flee to your gospel.”
I am grateful for a friend recommending this book to my family recently. I read it in just a couple of sittings. It was that good. My copy is now underlined and filled with marginalia. The book is Michael Kruger’s Bully Pulpit. Kruger is a respected New Testament scholar, professor, and pastor with decades of faithful writing, mentoring, pastoring, and teaching. I had read some of his earlier books on church history and biblical canonicity, which were excellent. But this volume focuses in plain, non-academic, biblical language upon how narcissistic insecure men often enter and infect Christian ministry and how we can guard the true sheep against these wolves dressed as sheep.
Kruger’s book is filled with examples from Scripture (1 Samuel 2, 3, 8, 25; 1 Kings 12; Ezekiel 34; Matthew 23, etc.) and from church history, both ancient and current. For those who only know recent events, Kruger cites these examples, among many others, of what happens when churches and organizations were duped and manipulated by wolves dresses as sheep: Ravi Zacharias, Mark Driscoll, Bill Hybels, James MacDonald, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Acts 29, etc. The list could go on and on–David Platt, David Timmis, etc. of the “trail of dead bodies” that is behind the ministries of many influential people that became successful in the world’s eyes (and in the eyes of many in the so-called church).
They do not care for the people but care only for themselves (p. 44). That is the repeated theme, evidenced over and over again via examples from Scripture, church history, and the recurring daily headlines, that runs throughout Kruger’s book.
If we love the truth, and therefore love the true church, we should read this book, commend it to others, and teach it to the saints.
Well done once again, Dr. Kruger. Grateful for your courageous and pastoral example. You are living out what it means to be a good and faithful servant by addressing an issue the true church needs to hear and heed.
The flight path from GA to my location in PA pleases me visually. On clear days I can follow the ridges of the Allegheny Mountains from WVA to PA, a long green spinal cord (it’s summer now) linking disparate American cultures (from above, anyway).
As the plane descended, PA came into view:
The farms here impress me each time, as if I have stepped back in time.
But it is always soon–too soon–when I am amidst another line of travelers, waiting.
On the first flight up, a young couple was seated in front of me. The young dad was a soldier, too. He had a tattoo identifying his field of aviation on his arm, and his beige hat had a stitched emblem of a CH-47 Chinook. The older of the two daughters lay in a car seat that faced my direction. The child had flushed red cheeks the color of cotton candy and strawberry blonde fine straight hair. Her dad gave her a lollipop which she sucked for the entire flight, her blue eyes looking at me through the space of the two seats dividing her from her dad. It made me miss my daughter when she was that age.
Across the aisle sat the mother of the two girls. She had the younger of two girls on her lap, and a car seat on the window seat, but the toddler would have nothing to do with lying down. She wanted to stand in her mom’s lap; otherwise, she screamed. And screamed. And screamed. But when her mom stood her up on her lap, the screaming ceased like the turning off of a faucet, and her blue eyes (identical eyes to those of her older sister) surveyed us all. Her pudgy arms were so cute, red, and pudgy they reminded me of beef with white strings around it, striations of white running along her toddler limbs like integument.
When we landed, I had a three-hour layover. I went to one of the airport shops and purchased a protein drink, a Pepcid AC, and a fruit snack, all of which were exorbitantly priced. I called my wife, letting her know I had made the first leg of this trip. We chatted for a bit.
The next leg of the trip was a full flight. The two women seated on my left were returning from a trip to Alaska. They took selfies and posted their images on social media, sticking their tongues out and somehow grinning simultaneously. (I do not purport to understand the current rage of photographing ourselves doing what [surely] every former generation would have thought self-absorption, fatuousness, or worse. But they took at least a dozen pictures of themselves, appearing more and more delighted with each new face they donned for their selfies, and uploaded them for the world to enjoy.)
I opened the book I was reading today, a wonderful paperback by James Wood on the history of literature. To the two women to my left, I must have appeared a Luddite who scribbled beasts of yore uoon the walls of caves. The ladies continued snapping selfies and checking social media. We were two separate universes separated by inches.
Arrived in PA and made the drive to lodging. Will see my fellow soldiers in the morning. Time to finish the Wood volume. Truly a wonder-filled read by one who relishes literature’s gems. Then the gym and a burger for supper. To be continued . . .
Why not Dr. Seuss’ wisdom? Here goes: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” In a word, yes.
Recently I discovered the fiction of British novelist Jeremy Cooper. In my view, his writing is akin to Patrick DeWitt’s, especially in deWitt’s novel, The Librarianist, and Walker Percy’s excellent novel, The Moviegoer.
Brian (the novel) is about a solitary reader who becomes an avid, one might even say obsessive, moviegoer and cinephile. The story involves how film enables him to break out of his emotional carapace to embrace others, to get out of himself and care about others in actuality, not just emotional posing/virtue signaling.
Like some erstwhile English literary fiction writers, Cooper can be sometimes efficacious via his literary understatement; at other times, he clearly reveals a desire to virtue signal to the Spirit of the Age, especially regarding sexuality and even, dare one even mention it, a former (and likely returning) president of America. It seems even as gifted a writer as Cooper sometimes is in this novel, he cannot resist genuflecting to the Leftists who cannot view anything without going through a lens of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome). All in all, however, it (Brian) remains a worthwhile read.
It is hard for me to say whose poetry I more enjoy, David’s or that of his son, Solomon. Both were masters of expressing sinners’ wiles and human craftiness. Listen to David in Psalm 55 where he warns about those who speak smoothly but inwardly are ravenous wolves:
My companion stretched out his hand against his friends; he violated his covenant. His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords (Psalm 55:20-21 ESV).
In other words, watch people’s actions; don’t be duped by words that are “smooth as butter.” This is the textbook characteristic of a politician, whether he be in sales, government, or church. The principle applies across the board.
Now listen to David’s son, Solomon:
3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV).
Timing is so important to notice. One might say it is crucial.
Do we have discernment to cut through smooth-as-butter words to see the vulpine war that is being smuggled in?
To be cliche, do we follow the money? Do we follow the evidence or just listen to smooth words? We are told up front that there are many among us whose god is their belly (Philippians 3:19). Are pastors shepherding the true sheep or simply building their own barns of comfort? Watch them. May God equip a discerning people, for there is, to reference Solomonic poetry again, “a time to love, and a time to hate.”
MIND & MATTERS 