Unable

"A God whom we could understand exhaustively, and whose revelation of Himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever, would be a God in man's image, and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all."
J I Packer - Evangelism & The Sovereignty Of God

We cannot comprehend the sovereignty of God and the concept of human responsibility. Volumes have been written on it, and I will not even try to attempt to lay out an argument. God is sovereign but we are responsible for, accountable for, our actions. Go figure it out, I cannot (Nor can you).

I like how Packer takes it out in the above quote. Who are we to even think we can understand God? Do we even want a God we can fully understand? If we could, would not He be just one of us?

I for one am thrilled I cannot comprehend my God in all His fullness. I have faith in His character, that He is who He says He is and will do what he said He would. That is enough to comprehend.

And more than enough to live my life according to His will.


Technorati Tags: God, J I Packer, sovereignty, responsibility, accountability

The Never Ending Post - Part I

I have pretty much held to the belief that less is more in my blog posts. I am a short order cook, trying to hammer it out in 500 words or less. And I must confess that I have trouble reading long blog posts by others. I find that interesting, a guy who would often pick books by weight (somehow there is nothing quite like sitting down with the heft of a good book in my hands, sorry Kindle. And what good is it spilling something on a page if the screen just wipes clear? There is literary value in picking up a book and turning to the mustard smear on page 178. Now I am not saying I will never get an iPad, or a Kindle or whatever Podunk that will invented and marketed for a span of a week that will render all previous Podunki obsolete. It is just I have to get my mind around giving up the heft in my hands of a good book. There, I said it). OK, where was I?

So now, I start what will be a never ending post, and a more stream of consciousness approach will be taken (as you may have already noticed), between and within the posts. And I am still trying to decide if the plural of Podunk is Podunki or Podunks. Let's just hope that never becomes the topic of a blog post. But it will be a proper noun in any event. And before anyone says it, I know I am stretching the definition, at least as far as Wikipedia is concerned, of Podunk.

Whichever direction and howsoever a particular post plays out, I will try to have some point to it. And the point here is I think I figured out is that the Kindle type devices, designed to allow a plethora of reading material to be encapsulated into a convenient, easy to pack and to carry and to meet airline weight restrictions is missing one crucial thing. It has not the heft of a good book (now I know there are good books that lack heft, I am reading one now, Evangelism & The Sovereignty of God by J I Packer, that weighs in at 126 pages in the copy I have. Not hefty by any stretch, but I can still riffle the pages. And you cannot riffle a Kindle).

I will not be a slave to that which I crave,
I will not be bereft of things that have heft,
I will not let my mind cloud by being proud,
I will not be a punk about Podunk
And you cannot riffle a Kindle.

To be continued, somewhere down the line on The Narrow Road.


Technorati Tags: J I Packer, Podunk, Kindle, Wikipedia

Stay Out of His Way

"For it is not true that some Christians believe in divine sovereignty while others hold an opposite view. What is true is that all Christians believe in divine sovereignty, but some are not aware they do, and mistakenly imagine and insist that they reject it. What causes this odd state of affairs? The root cause is the same a sin most cases of error in the Church - the intruding of rationalistic speculations, the passion for systematic consistency, a reluctance to recognize the existence of mystery and to let God be wiser than men, and a consequent subjecting of Scripture to the supposed demands of human logic."
J I Packer - Evangelism & The Sovereignty Of God

Finished Pascal and started reading Packer. I find this much easier to wrap my mind around; I am almost relieved to be moving on. Need to finish this book before I start reading for the next seminary class. This quote struck me in that I have always been suspicious (since I became a Christian that is) of man's attempts to put God in a box instead of leaving Him in the book He wrote for us. I struggle in class at times with those theories and systems that seem all too man-made and not enough God honoring.

I worry about attempts to explain God too fully, which in my mind goes beyond our natural inquisitiveness and winds smack dab in the middle of a heart of pride. He is divine and incomprehensible to the finite mind; He is depths no one can fathom or plumb to their full extent. We try too hard to accomplish what we can never achieve - a full understanding of God. Fortunately, He has a full understanding of us and permits these feeble attempts without letting them diminish His love for us.

So I try to focus on Him rather than trying to master Him, I try to stay out of His way. I need to understand a good deal about God so as to understand how to live my life faithfully to His will, but I do not need to fully comprehend Him to do so. To try is the height of pride and foolishness.

As a result, it would be better to first approach a brother and sister in Christ looking for that common element of faith in Him; salvation through Him alone, trust in Him not self; than to try to haggle over those man-made systems and differences we throw out to defend our own prideful positions.

Get on The Narrow Road and stay out of His way.

Technorati Tags: J I Packer, God, Jesus, sovereignty, bible

Revel In the Holy Spirit

J I Packer, in Knowing God, makes reference to the fact that the Holy Spirit is often the ignored member of the triune Godhead. His point is that we spend a lot of time writing, reading and speaking about Christ, but relatively little about the Holy Spirit. I have to confess, I am guilty of that as well. Just look at my tag cloud on the right side of my blog.

Packer makes many great points about this line of thinking. (He makes a lot of great points in all his writings) How the Son is subject to the will of the Father; how the Spirit is subject to the will of the Father and the Son. The Godhead works in perfect harmony and concert. Packer also mentions that it is not possible to truly know the Son without the work of the Spirit and quotes Scripture that clearly lays that out for us:

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
John 14:26 (NASB)

"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

"He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.

John 16:12-14 (NASB)

We cannot bear to hear what we need without the Spirit. We cannot fully understand what we need to know about Chrust without the Spirit. The Spirit is the Helper (NASB) sent to be with us, the Comforter (KJV), the Advocate (NLT), the Counselor (NIV). You can see the scope and breadth of the Holy Spirit's role and love for us in the various translations of the Bible.

I do not think you need to be particularly charismatic in belief, nature or disposition to focus on the Holy Spirit. It is not about that. You just need to acknowledge the third member of the Trinity and be as comfortable reflecting on the work of the Spirit as you are on the work of the Father or the Son.

Revel in the Holy Spirit, be joyful of the presence of the Helper in your life.

The Excitement of Knowing

J I Packer, in Knowing God, makes a great point early on in the book. He talks about the effect on you ok knowing a powerful individual, of having that person share concerns with you, their thoughts and cares. Of how it would change your attitude in life if you were the confidant of such a powerful person. Someone like the president of the United States or the queen of England. How would your outlook on life change, would you have a new, higher standard to live up to?

Packer goes on to talk about knowing God like that. Would you feel the same way? God does speak to us, and we know a bit about the thoughts and plans of God, we have the Bible. Why is it that we do not feel as if we are in as exalted position, having God speak to us as we would if it were the president? I suspect it is the pride element hard at work. We can flaunt a relationship with a powerful and exalted personage, something tangible in a relationship that others would see, regardless of their beliefs.

Being invited to stay over and sleep in the Lincoln bedroom, something like that.

But knowing God from a book, claiming that He speaks to us from the pages of the Bible, that is not something we necessarily want to brag about to those who do not have a similar relationship to God that we have. Makes us feel uneasy, someone might think us a bit...odd.

Packer goes on to talk about how well we know Jesus from Scripture, about how we can have just as personal a relationship with Him that the apostles did. How that should fill us with joy, with peace and security. But how many of us would proudly proclaim that relationship as compared to knowing the president or the queen?

That is sad, especially since Jesus is so much more accessible than the president or the queen, so more much knowable, and the relationship so much more lasting than either of those could be.

What Are You?

J I Packer, in the 1973 Preface to Knowing God, talks about the distinctions between the balconeer and the traveler. The balconeer, sitting on the balcony watches the road and has all sorts of time to reflect on theoretical issues. The traveler has to cover much the same ground but in a more practical, "how to" approach.

I have just started the book, so I have not gotten into the major points that Packer makes yet, but I sense it is going to involve some blending of the theoretical and practical aspects of theology, but going beyond the usual to reaching new levels with God, and with knowing God and of God.

As I think of myself, and others I know I can see the value in that. Being in seminary, it is way too easy to get bogged down in book learning only. Scholarship for scholarship's sake only is for, well, scholars. And quite frankly, it should not be so for Christian scholars for as Paul says to the Corinthians, knowledge puffs up. Those of us who plan to do something in ministry need the practical as well as the the theoretical. But those who say "Just give me Jesus", and ignore the theological aspects of their faith, content in the more emotive aspects are going to miss something as well. Theirs will be a faith that does not have the depth to stand up to concentrated, reasoned attacks in a articulate manner.

You may not agree with me, but I believe you need a strong theological basis to your faith, it will only strengthen the worship you give God, it will only embolden the witness you take to the world.

Are you a balconeer or a traveler? I think I want to be someone who falls out of the balcony, lands on the road and starts walking the journey of life with Jesus by my side. But until I fall out and land, I think I am going to both profit from and enjoy reading Packer.

J. I. Packer on Theology and Bible Reading

I just read a gem of an essay by J.I. Packer called "Theology & Bible Reading" in The Act of Bible Reading edited by Elmer Dyck. It is a collection of essays by faculty of Regent College from 1996.

Packer's thesis is that theology and bible reading go hand in hand. He believes this now (but didn't in his youth, which was some time ago). The argument that theology (thought and speech about God) is elitist is attacked quite vigorously. Anyone who speaks about God is in a sense, a theologian, so why not be a good one by coupling theology with bible study? It is an interesting circle: theology gives you the framework to understand what God has said to us, but bible reading gives you the message itself.

Packer discusses the disciplines of theology. Starting with exegesis of a passage (the original meaning of the passage), Packer walks you through organizing exegetical findings (biblical theology), study of what past Christians made of the passage (historical theology) and developing a disciplined framework (systematic theology). Apologetics (defense of the faith), ethics (ideals of Christian behavior), missiology (fulfillment of ministering tasks appointed us by God), spirituality) life in communion with God) and liturgy (worship of God) follow. The disciplines wrap up with practical theology, how to do god's work and glorify His name in our particular serving roles and situations.

Packer talks briefly about how the liberal theological views coming out of the enlightenment led to a distrust of traditional theology. It took a resurgence of fundamentalist scholarship to get us where we are today.

Packer then follows with relating bible reading and theology in four tasks:

1) Receptive – noting all that is said about what God has done, is doing or will do.

2) Critical – relating historical Christian positions to the biblical language.

3) Applicatory – drawing practical guidance from God's revelation for contemporary life.

4) Communicative – finding ways to edify believers, instruct unbelievers correct notions and rebut antagonistic positions.

Packer wraps up with why everyday folks should be concerned with theology. How it shows us a coherent, consistent approach to the bible and how it sets out the substance of the bible. In essence, how theology keeps bible reading a "He" exercise and not a "me" exercise.

I would recommend this essay to anyone as an immensely readable and thoroughly enjoyable read.