The Silence of God - Andrew Peterson

To all my friends who may be hurting.

How Many Scripture Refrences Can You Find?

Charles Spurgeon once said of John Bunyon "prick John Bunyan...he will bleed Bible." I am currently reading through Pilgrims Progress for my fourth time and as always I am amazed at how many Scripture references can be found on every page. So with that in mind here is the opening paragraph from when Christian meets faithful. How many scripture verses can you find alluded to in this passage?

"As Christian went on his way, he came to a hill which was cast up on purpose that pilgrims might see before them. Up Christian went; and looking forward, he saw Faithful before him upon his journey. Then said Christian aloud, “Ho, ho! So-ho! stay, and I will be your companion.” At that Faithful looked behind him, and Christian cried again, “Stay, stay, till I come up to you.” But Faithful answered “No, I am fleeing for my life, and the avenger of blood is behind me.”
At this Christian was somewhat moved; and putting forth all his strength, he quickly got up with Faithful, and outran him: so the last was first. Then did Christian boastfully smile, because he had gotten in front of his brother; but, not taking good heed to his feet, he suddenly stumbled and fell, and could not rise again until Faithful came up to help him."

Where I've Been

In case some of you have wondered why there have not been any posts in the last week, here are a few pictures below to let you know where I've been. The family and I spent a week in Hawaii on the island of Kaua'i. It was difficult but someone had to do it and we are someone. :-)

This was the view out our front door.

Surf on the north shore

One of many beautiful waterfalls.

Blogging should start again soon. That is after I get caught up with all the work that piled up while I was gone.

God Bless,

Doug

On Affliction and Our Slavish Love of This World- John Calvin

Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.. . ..The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries.

-John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion-

We Are The Lepers

Then the priest shall look, and if the leprous disease has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean of the disease; it has all turned white, and he is clean. Lev 13:13

This verse may seem strange to many of today’s readers, but if leprosy had only covered part of the body and not all of the flesh was white that man would be pronounced unclean. On the other hand if the disease covered his entire body the man would be pronounced clean. This is because the flesh that was not yet white was still contagious, but if his flesh was completely white, the disease was no longer transmittable.

As interesting as this is, this text teaches us something much deeper for leprosy in scripture is often a representation of sin. We are the lepers. We are diseased with sin and completely full of guilt, but in our natural state how we strive to deny that truth. We go to great lengths to deny our unworthiness before God, thinking that we can somehow justify ourselves. Even if we admit that we are partially sinful, how often we still think that God owes us something. But in that condition as we stand before the true high priest Jesus Christ, we are pronounced unclean. It is not until we stand before him in complete poverty of spirit, knowing we have nothing to offer Him, and that we are completely sinful saying, “you have every right to pour your wrath upon me, but I plead the merits of your sacrifice,” does Christ say to us, you are clean.

Though we have nothing to offer
We must go to the High Priest
To present our empty coffer
With self-righteousness deceased

With hearts as black as dross
Filled with the obscene
All paid for on the cross
He’ll there pronounce us clean

Doug Eaton

A God and Governing Conference? How Good Could it Be?

I tend to get pretty interested when I see an amazing line-up for a pastors conference or some kind of biblical or theological conference, but most of the time when I see a line-up for an evangelical conference on government I’m less than enthused. My lack of enthusiasm is not due to an indifferent attitude toward the Christian’s responsibility to be involved in politically, but more to the shallow nature of many of these types of gatherings. After all, many of these conferences tend to deal with the artifacts of culture more than the worldviews that produce them, much like a doctor focusing only on the symptoms and failing to address the disease. You probably know what I mean when we as evangelicals spend so much time focusing on trying to get department stores to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”, or to have nativity scenes allowed on city property. Now there is a place for some of this type of thing but so often it is all surface level, and rarely is freedom of speech addressed in its constitutional understanding or a correct understanding of the establishment clause ever really dealt with, and almost always what is left out is a discussion of the worldviews that are driving these aberrant understandings.

Then about a year ago Trinity Law School began to plan for the God and Governing Conference. This conference was going to be different. It was going to look, theologically, philosophically, and historically at the political issues facing us today, and that is exactly what took place.

When you have speakers like David Wells, Dallas Willard, and Os Guinness, you are in for mental stimulation that will keep you going for some time. The lectures were of a wide range. From Dallas Willard and Pat Nolan reminding us of the importance of character as we engage in politics, which has been lost due to the lack of focus on sanctification in contemporary Christianity, to Os Guinness bringing to mind the framers understanding of freedom and that it is our job to maintain this balance of freedom in order not to loose it to too much security one the one hand or license on the other.

David Wells in his usual brilliance linked the breakdown of evangelical theology to much of the disarray that is found in today’s Christian involvement in Government. One of the primary issues being the loss of human nature in the philosophical worldviews of modernism and post-modernism that have made inroads into contemporary Christianity.

Vishal Mangalwadi, reminded us of the tyranny that tends to accompany paganism, and gave ample examples of the corruption of freedom in pagan India where he currently resides. Then he pointed out the many inroads paganism has made into the United States and college campuses and pointed to the popularity of tantric sex and the Da Vinci code, among others as mere symptoms of a deeper issue.

Paul Marshal dealt with many different issues regarding evangelical involvement in government such as those who tend to follow the Anabaptist model and contradictorily decry governmental power and then the minute they see a social ill they desire the government step in and fix it.

Donald McConnell spoke to us about ten ways to improve the evangelical involvement in Government and Dr. Stephen Kennedy spoke to us about natural law and a rights theory which flows from a Trinitarian theology and belonging.

Now some people might hear of such a conference and think that this group got together to work toward establishing a theocracy, but it was quite a contrary message that was given. In fact it is the Christian faith that drove the establishment clause in the first place and it is only the intolerant who want “freedom of religion” to become “freedom from religion.”

When it was all said and done, the attendees left with an enrichment that they will carry for some time. We were both challenged and inspired, as all of it was built upon the foundation of the inerrant and infallible Word of God and driven home with times of prayer. Pastors, teachers, theologians, philosophers, lawyers, laymen or anyone who loves the Word and God and wants use its light to think through the political issues facing us today would benefit from this conference. And rumor has it that the audio for these lectures will soon be available.

Doug Eaton

Trinity Law School: Seek Justice

Here is the new promotional video for Trinity Law School!