Tag Archives: family

January 15, 2012

Baptism Retread

By Pooka

http://www.newlifelamesa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/hero-baptism.jpg

I have a few more thoughts on infant baptism. Stuff I didn’t mention here in three big arguments for covenant baptism.

Primarily, I’d like to discuss this in a way that demonstrates how God’s system permeates even our “godless” society and traditions. Children are remarkably claimed by everything into which they are born, except for One Big Thing which mystifies me to no end. A year ago I was unsettled and unwilling to commit to the idea of infant, or covenant, baptism. It was foreign to me, and didn’t make much sense. I was more than willing to at least explore the idea, being more than aware that my Christian education was lacking in most areas, especially in the Reformed ideas of covenants and sacraments. So I read. And read and read. And then I wrote. And wrote.

Denial of infant baptism actually breaks a pattern that has been running for millenia. I’ll keep it really brief. Children have had no choice in things like birth-parents, family name, Christian name, nationality, race, religion or what’s-for-dinner for as long as children have been around. Why in the world do we come up with the idea that they are not members of the church? The church is not a business that only “hires” people of legal working age. The church has never been a club that “cards” prospective patrons to see if they’re old enough to enter. The church has ever been considered an outpost, a consulate or embassy of God’s kingdom in the world. Therefore, I think it should make sense to baptize infants with the understanding that essentially is corroborated by practices of historical and modern custom and legal matters. Here are some references.

Birth abroad … Citizenship … Family Law Basics

Now, to quell the suspicion that I’m using the World to interpret the Bible in a Christian issue that needs to be resolved, I must refer back to my previous posts and the Word in general to make the claim that there’s no argument here. The Scriptures assume, just as they assume covenants in general, that children born to believing parents (or covenant families) are considered participants in the covenants. Isaac did not have to wait to be the covenant child until Genesis 24. Jacob and Esau did not have to wait until they were “of age” to begin the battle of who would be the continuation of the Promise. The firstborn children of Israel had no say in their survival on the day of the passover when the Lord’s angel came into Egypt and started the holocaust.

In every case of children I can think of, none had to prove themselves or hit a certain age before they were anointed or circumcised or sprinkled. Children were partakers of the covenants of God as soon as they entered into the world. The fact that there was this mysterious baptism thing in the New Testament really doesn’t come to bear on the children:

  1. They didn’t need to be included in the revision of being called out: They inherited whatever was going to happen, regardless, because they were children.
  2. Baptism was simply a modal shift from circumcision, not an entirely new practice that completely wiped out all past meaning and practices from the times of the Patriarchs. In fact, Baptism wasn’t even an entirely new idea in the first place. What people apparently are all worked up over was nothing more than the most obvious and poignant means of “setting apart” or “cutting off” seen in circumcision. Baptism, sprinkling, anointing and other means of marking the one who belonged to the covenant all made it into the omnibus version of applying God’s promises in word and touch – baptism.
  3. They weren’t the main actors! Those in the New Testament were primarily conversant adults because they were required to interact with Jesus and His apostles on the level at which the Scriptures speak. And those adults were automatically responsible for those children.
  4. Jesus gave it to them, without mention of their age or eligibility: Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Finally, we who are believers in the doctrine of election, of God’s sovereignty, all should be convinced that it is God’s work and choice that we have become His children and that we were not really given the option to turn to Him for our salvation. He dragged us, kicking and screaming, from our place at the brink of hell into His courts where we may enjoy Him forever. What more could help us to understand that His children are as much in our place as we are? More so, for we were afar off, but our children, born into our Christian families and churches are not so far off, are they?

I hope that helps.

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January 1, 2012

Idols Of Marriage

By Pooka

There are a great many similarities between Christ and the church, our relationship to the Father and our relationship in marriage. It’s been said consistently that marriage is a shadow that greatly symbolizes Christ’s relationship to His bride, the Church. Ephesians 5 pretty much lays this out for us:

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for herto make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

I’d like to trace this out a little bit differently. As Christians, our sinful nature separates us from our Lord in our own lives over and over again. It must be understood, and remembered, that it is our God who steps into our lives and interacts with us, brings us into communion and community with Him and our fellow saints. All our good actions, thoughts and words are results of His intervention in our lives, specifically through His Spirit who dwells within us.

Outside of Christ, all good is vanity, merely a superficial sugar coating on what is ultimately twisted and evil, so appearances deceive. We must not base our lives and qualities on that which the World puts on display as right or righteous. So I’m talking most to Christians here, from what I believe should be the proper Christian perspective.

As Husband and Wife, there are idols which replace our proper relationship to each other. They may seem right, or even be essentially indistinguishable from our marital relationship. But as we have our perpetual idol factories going on all our days, separating us from our Lord’s good will and commands, those same sorts of idols do double duty to divorce us from our marriages. I perceive most of these because they are little shadows and great chasms in my own family, but some are based on what I’ve observed outside as well.

What they are, specifically, I would think becomes obvious, as soon as we think of our barriers to proper marital relationships as idol-like things. Obsession with work (in order to provide, of course), obsession with the kids (replacing that of husband or wife), preservation of the house or living status or any number of other material things. All sorts of little and big things we may believe are part of our familial duties become more important to us than the family itself. Even the devotion of a husband to his wife can be compromised by just the secret little place of spite that is hidden away but resides in every thing he does for her. Hypocritical commitment is not commitment at all, but is a living, breathing divorce that endures over time, seeping bitterness and alienation into what is God’s greatest (and first) establishment of human interrelation.

We create idols for our marriage just for the same reasons that we do so in place of God. Because we only want to trust what we control, what we can manipulate. Or worse, what we think we can understand and develop. Yes, she isn’t easy to figure out or he isn’t easy to live with. No, she isn’t what you originally bargained for (bargained? What? I think that’s pretty shoddy, considering all good things come from the Lord and He is the one who designed her and presented her to you in the first place). No, he isn’t obsessed with you like he was in the beginning.None of these things holds water to what God designed in marriage and none of the substitutes make up in any way.

Here is the answer. It’s probably disappointing to read, but it’s all I’ve been able to figure out in 15 years of marriage. Christ. The directions we have for our relationship to Christ are our directions for doing right by our spouse. I mean that literally: If we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church and we are to submit to our husbands as the church submits to Christ, then lets do that first. Look for devotion to Him and devotion to spouse should follow suit.

The church, being the Bride, should as a whole be alert to this equation and seek to build it in the marriages that comprise her membership. Members of the Body of Christ should be able to come to their church for support and leadership in marriage trials. But all of this depends on the whole being devoted to Christ, His Word and sacraments. Without the elements of the Faith, ain’t nonna this going to go much farther. All else that has developed in and outside the Christian religion is but works without belief and trust in the Savior. Counseling, tips, guidebooks, philosophy, 12-steps, all of these are works. The sacrifice, devotion, empathy, sympathy, emotion and everything else that comprise the sweetness of marriage are only real if they develop out of a commitment to the Lord and because we believe and love Him first. He makes it work, not us. The mystery, of course is that God makes the trials and efforts we endure and enact build our relationships. Ponder that, but depend on Him.

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November 21, 2011

People Are Designed Covenantally

By Pooka

The following quotes are definitions of covenant and come from a .PDF created by Grace Community Churc in PA.

Meredith Kline (1922‐2007)

…a berith (Hebrew word for covenant) is a legal kind of arrangement, a formal disposition of a binding nature. At the heart of a berith is an act of commitment and the customary oath‐form of this commitment reveals the religious nature of the transaction. The berith arrangement is no mere secular contract but rather belongs to the sacred sphere of divine witness and enforcement. The kind of legal disposition called berith consists then in a divinely sanctioned commitment. In the case of divine‐human covenants the divine sanctioning is entailed in God’s participation either as the one who himself makes the commitment or as the divine witness of the human commitment made in his name and presence.

J. Ligon Duncan

Now, berith in the Old Testament signifies a binding, mutual relationship with mutual obligations, a binding mutual relationship with attendant obligations.

Michael Horton

So what exactly is a covenant? Anticipating the definition in the next chapter, we can start by saying that from the most commonly used Hebrew word for this concept (bent), a covenant is a relationship of “oaths and bonds” and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments. As we will see shortly, some biblical covenants are unilaterally imposed commands and promises; others are entered into jointly. Some are conditional and others are unconditional. In other words, under the overarching concept of oaths and bonds we encounter a substantial variety of covenants in Scripture.

Something that I wonder at is how covenants are insanely far reaching. I think that this idea stems from God’s eternal perspective and, though we are “in time” where He is “outside time”, there is a reflection of our Lord’s span of attention. God steps in and does things that are temporal, of course, but we look at the first recorded covenant and see that it is one that comes before creation.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

This is the classic predestination verse, right? It’s covenantal language. There’s a word study on this that I think is fitting: Ephesians 1:4 and that leads to another verse, 1st Corinthians 15:22 which talks about another covenantal impact (Adam’s federal headship).

When God declares or sets a covenant, it’s not a short-deal. It lasts. The first one He made with Adam is still killing us today. The second one, about the snake and the heel? Took us right to Christ.  The promise for Noah – still on: no water apocalypse. Moses? Law still here, though in Christ we’re freed from it. Redemption – always been in God’s agenda and as soon as it was served to us in Christ, became permanent backwards and forwards.

I’m just thinking about how we, as God’s creation, were first introduced to relationships by lasting relationships, or covenant agreements. And when we tried to sidestep or violate the covenants, retribution was swift and disastrous. But the covenants were there and in force, irrevocable and lasting.

Just because men were dispersed after the garden, Babel and then reset at the flood doesn’t seem to have eradicated the existence of God’s covenants. They, we might say, are in the blood. People are designed covenantally. The effects of the fall is that we become covenant breakers.

There is no point in history where we are found free of God’s promises, threats, commitments or agreements. What is happening, though, is that we’re getting worse about the whole thing. Our sin nature is denying God’s framework more and more fanatically which brings us to today where we’ve tried to delete the concepts entirely.

I don’t know how useful this line of thought really is. It doesn’t give me much to work with. Now, it’s helped me greatly in getting what I think is an improved understanding of our weekly Covenant Renewal, which is Sunday worship. It’s helped me understand baptism and the Lord’s Table better. It’s definitely built a bit more sense of responsibility and dedication to my family. But so far as “doing something” I’m not sure there actually is something to do. Perhaps this increased understanding is a thinking-changer rather than an imperative generator.

Maybe comprehending God’s covenant system is likened to the Gospel? The Gospel is a proclamation, not a to-do list. Understanding covenants is not the same as making covenants. I’m sure that, should I encounter another relationship commencement in my lifetime, I’ll look upon it differently, but I don’t think I’m going to be taking action in my local church to affect some system of covenant-making gunk. Besides, whatever I do, as a natural covenant-breaker, isn’t going to pan out much anyhow.

It looks like, just as God created our relationships, He also sustains them and there ain’t much we can do about either. All we’re doing, as I see it, is hitching along for the ride. Elbow grease is always in response to something God has done, not to get God to do something. And He supplies the motive power for the response, too, right?

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November 17, 2011

Joscelin Shots

By Pooka

A couple of the best from yesterday’s photo-shoot with Joscelin. Enjoy.

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November 14, 2011

Anti-Covenant and Individualism

By Pooka
Cuz it's all about me!Note: There’s a Part 2 after this: I Might Just Need To Be A We.
 
The pastor’s comments on Acts 16 last night resound in my mind. In my study toward accepting the doctrine of paedobaptism, I pretty much discarded paedo as the paradigm in preference for oikos. It makes more sense. Paedo may be clearer-cut for others to comprehend where we’re differing from non-paedo, but it’s way better and images our covenantal relationship so much more. Family, congregation, catholic church, history all have this covenant upon which we hang. Paedo doesn’t get us there. Oikos does. If you don’t know, Oikos means household, so I’m talking about the household baptism concept which is all over the N.T. and O.T. in both circumcision and baptism.
 
It also sure does say something about where modern culture has lost the concept of family hasn’t it? When would we ever baptize our household just because the daddy or the mommy or even the grandpa got dunked? There’s no way to understand what Genesis 17 says about Abraham and the circumcision party he held on his 99th year unless we look at this household thing.

So by “lost the concept of family” I mean we’re individuals even in our families. The dad is just the individual. He is not truly Dad-the-head-of-a-body-that-is-a-family. If a family today was entirely comprised of witches and the father converted to Christianity, the rest wouldn’t think twice about whether they should follow Dad’s lead. They wouldn’t. You can see it in just about any family. If Gospel truth comes from the leader’s mouth, the response is rarely positive affirmation or ponderance. If the mother decides something is best, the rest of the family won’t assume anything, but tend to ignore it unless it clearly serves self-interest. From the root, we are anti- or a-covenantal.

This is something I would dearly love to get conditioned right out of me ASAP. And following that, same for my family. I speak in extremes here: Attending church as a family? Unimportant. Missing out on Sunday or Sunday Communion? Forgiveable. Burning commitment of one family to another in the church? Not a chance.

What’s all this? Duh, individualism. We’ve isolated and isolated until “my responsibility is only to God” which really means “my responsibility is only to me” – a lie, of course. Now, I’m not down-playing individuality. The God we worship is a God of great diversity and colors. He created individuals and uniqueness, called it all good and then set all in motion. We individually contribute to a whole that is greater than the parts. We are hands and feet and eyes and mouths, some one and some many in their gifts and abilities. But we’ve overgrown the garden of plenty so much that the unity is gone for the sake of the individual branches and fruits.

One factor, a cause and a symptom is the idea of Individual Liberty. First off, I think that 200+ years ago the Liberty we had was not the same as it is today. Back then, there was a concept of unity that is missing now. So I don’t think (especially today’s) liberty is necessarily a good thing. There are so many out there who call our liberty a great blessing, but I’d rather lean toward it being just a thing, an event that is comprised of good and bad.

The bad is really bad – it allows me to interprete everything myself. Nobody can hold me to a covenant. That means my family is a group of 6 islands loosely connected by reefs of common ideas or dependency. We don’t cleave to each other and so cannot conceive of cleaving to the church. In modern day, our modern culture and nation, in my modern family, I can worship the way I want.

Doesn’t that just sound wrong? I’m free to choose New Life PCA and if the pastor says something from the pulpit that I don’t like. I’m leaving. No commitment. And though my family may follow me, they certainly don’t have to, and might not. The pastor preaches in and out on Sundays to a crowd of people who are saturated in “my way” Even if they’re born-n-bred old school uber-presby saints, it’s still lurking in there. The pulpit’s constant litany of covenants, corporate worship, community and family must continue – it’s fighting the insanity of Individual Liberty’s dark side.

Once upon a time, the wife, the son, the workers, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren belonged to the father. They served each other under his watchful care and their sins were his responsibility. He was accountable for his family. Today? I do not belong to my father, nor do my kids, or anything else. His responsibility is to love me in some distant way, and though as a God-fearing man I’m sure he cares for me, wishes the best for me and prays for my growth and godliness, I can’t look to him as the head of a covenant family. Who can? I know this is insanely silly for today, but I’m exaggerating the point on purpose. We’ve sacrificed our vital corporate identity for our excessive and decadent individual identity.

So excessive is the individual identity today that I begin to wonder how much of me is entirely false. How much have I been italicized and underlined and bolded and iconified and nicknamed and networked until what’s important about me is blown out of proportion. I’m purely the sum of me and no longer does belonging come easily. I don’t belong to my family, to my church, to Christ…! because I’m too much me. I wonder if that is part of the root of strife in the family. I wonder about a lot of my problems and if they’re because of the devilishly inflated selfishness of this age? Heck, I try to find me in the Bible – how does it apply to me is more important than God’s people most of the time.

Relevant Tangent: I find that when I’m at the Lord’s Table, awaiting the food and drink that we are taught is our sustenance, I must consciously break from me and think of the others. I watch the plates served to others, I pray for my girls or whoever in the congregation comes to my mind – that they would be sustained and gathered into the arms of the rest of us as Christ is gathering us at His Table. I perceive the Supper as a sharing, not an individual act. I’m not savoring the choicest gift of all time on my own, but participating in a toast, a communal sharing of life. I try to visualize this, or recite it, as breathing from the same air, just for the moments we are together. I’m not bragging on my piety or spirituality here, rather I’m lamenting the effort it requires! All of this is a force of will. It does not come to me naturally.

Don’t get me as if I’m going all mystical, though the word mystical is there in our words. I’m not talking about contemplative prayer and zoning out to the collective consciousness junk. I’m talking about how we are all united in Christ and that this means something more than just me and you and him and her across the room. Think about it – lift the bread so that the ones around you can see you lift it, and place it in your mouth with them. Ever see a real wedding where the husband and wife feed each other the cake? That’s it. That’s us. Same with the cup – it’s a toast, too! A toast to the love the father has for us that has given us His Son, the best gift ever given.

Now can we apply that to any other part of our lives? Can we see that He has fed us on Sunday as we are united and this does not change on Monday? We’re still one, just separated by different places. From space, from God’s perspective, we’re all right next to each other. And we’re all in the same time zone.

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October 24, 2011

Why My Kid Can’t Read Twilight Books

By Pooka
First, an analogy about analogies.

When you play baseball, a solid hit, square on the ball, will get the ball going somewhere. The ball is airborne, good to go. Except there are some problems still waiting before you can count a score. It’s easy to predict where a good solid hit is going. A fielder can be pretty sure about catching the ball. And you can be pretty sure that if the fielder catches it out of the air, you’re out. And while the ball is in the air, the rest of the field can arrange itself to optimize taking down the whole offense. Yes, the batter might get a home-run, but that’s not the only possibility.

A grounder has plenty of good and bad properties as well. Which is all just to say that analogies break down and don’t always work right, but they’re tools and need to be employed properly. And, on top of that so does any attempt to explain something.

So here is today’s quick thought.

Look. My problem is not that Harry Potter, or (even more) Twilight are bad to read. They sure have plenty to call bad and less that could be considered actually good. But so doAnne Rice, Louis L’Amour, Douglass Adams, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein and many more (just a perspective from my own library). You pick one and I’m sure I can find something wrong with it.

The problem is that a 10-year-old is not a critical reader. She is consuming what she reads in a manner that accepts what is presented. The book, for her, is formative. She doesn’t see it as a deposit of information to be considered. It should be fairly easy to figure out it’s worse if you back up a few years and have an early reader around 7 or 8 pick up Potter or Twilight.

If you’re going to impose a “world” on a child’s imagination, why-ever would you choose anything but the REAL WORLD? Or at least a representation of the REAL WORLD. So that means 1. Bible or 2. Bible. or 3. What I’m proposing: reading that at least has the necessary dichotomies and correct relations to minimize the corruption of the little brain that’s sucking up the information. If it’s a fantasy, is the good truly GOOD? Is the evil discernably EVIL? Is there a judgement on what to do about both? Are the characters portrayed as good actually morally decent? Are the situations clear or misleading? Is the child’s sense of right and wrong going to be blurred or distorted?

I’m not here advocating a legalistic or paranoid approach to what our children read. I’m not saying that (though it’s probably really good to prioritize) the Bible is the only thing a kid should read until they’re of age. Of age? That sounds a bit… maybe of a prejudiced, even legalistic concept, doesn’t it? No. I’m saying that, out of prudence and care for our children, unless we want to spend as much time combating their reading impression as they are reading the stuff, we should be very critical. Fight off the draw of a pagan worldview by delaying the exposure.

Now if, because of this we come to the conclusion that we’re “delaying the inevitable,” I must conclude we are wrong. Dead wrong. It’s not delaying the inevitable at all. By excluding some of the evil that our kids can consume, we are limiting the formative pagan information they consume. In 10 years, my now 20-year-old is not going to be anywhere near as susceptible to the lies. I’m not saying she won’t buy them; I’m saying she will be able (by God’s grace) to discern because she has a much more matured mind.

Look, read the books. Have a great time. Adults should have the necessary faculties to read Potter and stop at the entertainment part. They hopefully have enough sense to realize the authors’ attempt to portray her world as the real world and the characters as her version of good. The adults should be able to toss that falsehood or file away their “learned lesson” for future use in discernment. Try to get a kid to do that.

You’re not going to save the kid, you’re going to at best minimize some of the worst but it’s sure going to be better than letting them develop their own twisted worldview based on fiction that is so easily installed in their youth. GIGO is STILL a valid truth regarding the human mind.Gandalf v. Balrog

I can recommend additional reading at TruthxChange: The Muggles Protest

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May 31, 2011

My Progress In Theology 8

By Pooka

From my paper “Covenant Theology As Grasped By A Regular Guy”

I’m skipping over one section in my paper. Will revisit the last (previous) part in due time. Right now, I’m rather interested in this one. I’ve been listening to a few radio programs on workday driving and assurance is a common talking point. Most of the shows are caller-based, so I hear a lot of questions and answers.

Regarding the problem of assurance, I think there is little difference in the outworking of either the Dispensational or CT perspective. Both positions have flaws that are similar, but ultimately both believe that a regenerate man is held not by his own faith or works but by God and rests assured in the promises and integrity of God Himself. We trust that our belief is in the truth because of the historical events concerning Christ which correspond to the sensible and believable promises surrounding His life of obedience, demonstration that He is God, his death and resurrection.

Where DT tends to focus on the view that “once-saved-always-saved”, praying the prayer and really believing in the heart that a man has invited Jesus to come into his life as personal Lord and Savior, there is often a false sense of security in that having prayed the prayer and “done the deed” there is eternal security. This fails to account for apostasy flat out. DT makes the assumption that church membership is for the regenerate only.

Otherwise, in a DT church, the believer is repeatedly immersed in the faithfulness of God and His promises for assurance of being elect.

Where CT fails is often making the assumption that a member, baptized as a child is certainly regenerate, or elect, the church does something similar to what DT does in promising a “grown-up-born-again” (GUBA) eternal security by reference to baptism. This obviously is just as incorrect as getting someone to say the sinner’s prayer and blam call them saved. Here is where eternal security or assurance of salvation really resides, and I believe the core of CT maintains this based on the Westminster Confession and Catechisms which are the “statement of faith” in the Presbyterian Church. Assurance is found in the wealth of Scripture that demonstrates God is the savior of His people and will not forsake them. The Holy Spirit is given as the seal, down payment, for our eventual eternal life in Christ. The effectual call that brings about regeneration, faith, repentance, a new heart of flesh in place of the stone one, results in the Spirit applying salvation. The Spirit witnesses with ours as we walk with Christ and assures us of our secure position in Eternity.

One thing I have noticed in the Reformed circle is that great attention is given to a continual declaration of the Gospel to the members of the congregation. The reason for this is not to repeatedly save our members but to continually bring them back to that which saves them. The Scripture is filled with both promise and warning and this is to good effect. There are those who are members of the church (all churches) who are not regenerate and since they are in the covenant community we are absolutely responsible to call out to them with the Gospel every time they are under the preaching of the Word. Also, just as important, the warnings in the Word are written quite directly to warn the people that they must walk in God’s law, that they are at risk of losing their assurance if they do not live a life of continual repentance and faithfulness.

We’ve all experienced it, I’m sure, those times where it just didn’t seem as true and trustworthy as it should, our faith. We’ve found ourselves too undeserving of mercy and grace to trust in God’s promise. This is considered to be expected in the Reformed system. We sin and damage our clean view of God. We grieve the Holy Spirit and what else could occur but we fall away from our full trust and assurance in God. It would be ridiculous to think that in our blackest moments of self-righteous sinfulness the Holy Spirit would be most likely to pause everything and give us a good word of encouragement that we’re eternally secure. No, rather, the best tool for a wayward child is that insecurity, shame, fear and discipline of a damaged relationship. Hence the warnings.

Does this limit or remove the sense of Eternal Security? No, it is the perseverance of the saints. It is our continuing growth in the faith that assures us and it depends on far more than the individual. This also is why I think CT is a better system in that the entire church is centered around the Gospel and the Law and knows perseverance needs outside help, encouragement, exhortation and routine discipline. I cannot see my own growth in Christ quite often due to the weeds in my life. I often am brought low due to the weight of my own sin and the only help is when a brother comes alongside to show me where Christ is evident in my life and encourage me. I think, at least in my little experience here, that the Reformed have nailed assurance with their view of the Church, her mission and administration of the Covenant, her government and her in-depth involvement in all aspects of families in her membership.

I had a discussion recently that talked about being “left behind.” And I saw another mention of it on Facebook just today. It’s that horrid, life-pausing and breath-stopping moment when the house is vacant, or appears so, and one wonders if the Rapture just happened and one didn’t make the cut. We gaff it off, silly us, and try to continue on with our lives. But it kills me a little inside, whenever the fear bubbles up and I wonder just for a second, if it’s really what happened.

Now, thankfully (whispering in the weight of the joy of freedom from these bonds), I have not suffered this affliction for over a year. I did, for the longest time, since I was a little boy, but I think it’s over finally. The repair to my problem occurred when I first heard Revelation explained from an Amillenialist point of view. Suddenly, in the middle of the sermon series, everything fell into place. And then Covenant Theology fell into place. And Calvinism finally sealed up and made sense.

Not saying, however, that I’ve reached the moment and am finally arrived. I don’t get everything. But I can’t find all that baggage I’ve been carrying over the years. The overwhelming doubt and confusion have vanished. I believe. More so than in the past. It transcends and begins to explain much of what led to my departure from the faith in which I was raised; led to witchcraft and humanism.

And it gives me hope. Every Sunday, salvation awaits. No, I’m not saved every Sunday nor am I forgiven every Sunday. But I’m assured every Sunday. My life that so often embraces sin, though I’m righteous in Christ my King, is reset on Sunday. I’m reminded that I’m free from the slavery and forgiven my miserable sins. Fellowship with Christ, and His people are restored on the first day of the week. And that is a product of the high view of God, the Bible, the Church, Preaching and the Minister that simply cannot be found elsewhere. At least I haven’t seen it outside the CT community. It may be sufficient to save and exist in the DT world, but I dare say it is not as full, assuring, or comforting.

When I sin, I lose a touch of that assurance. Sometimes I am able to doubt my relationship with the Lord, even the veracity of The Faith. Those doubts are dashed in the light of His glorious Word and sacrament every Sunday. And so I keep coming, bringing my family, and we are washed anew each week’s beginning. I love it. I can’t bear to think of not having it.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in The Faith

May 4, 2011

We don't deserve all this

By Pooka

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve mustered up anything to write about. There are dozens of topics and issues mulling around in here, all worthy of coverage, some even really important. There’s just no forming up enough to get it together. Well, I have something, actually.

How God has worked out many, many things over the last 37 years.

I look on my pagan life – years, not distant enough, of denying the God of the Bible His right place as sovereign of all things – as the preparation and set-up of that which would come in 2003. Being a good Calvinist, I can’t see how everything just “worked out” the way it did prior to my becoming property of the King of Kings. I always was, just not in the validated, personal, realized way that is only reached by acceptance, submission, repentance and baptism. The Holy Spirit hadn’t flipped the switch that connected me to the kingdom.

I fell in love with a girl. She was absolutely the worst possible choice for me. A Christian kid, too young and too good for me. A witch should stick to his own kind. But God didn’t have that in mind. He drew me right to this perfect match out of the blue. A friend of a friend, letters, a couple of phone-calls and suddenly we were together, in the middle of a bunch of messes from parents to baby-on-the-way. No job, no future, nothing but this man and woman together with their heads spinning. That’s just the start. But the end state was Anika praying for me and God answering her prayer.

From the first time I pondered marriage and kids, I’ve wanted a daughter. Never had much interest in a son. Might be a result of my un-man qualities like despising organized sport, chest-beating, all-things competitive, whatever. So God gave me one. And this daughter was/is the most amazing one. She was the hardest thing I’d ever encountered in twenty two years of life. Molly’s arrival, I think, began the process that broke my back. When Anika and I got Molly, we got a package of life that was incredibly intelligent, capable, endlessly amazing, and beautiful. Only God could have stuffed so much into this brand-new person who suddenly came under our stewardship.

And God worked His redemptive theme right into my life through the arrival of Molly. She wouldn’t have had a Daddy if it hadn’t been for a moment of absolute insanity, a split-second of decision for which I cannot claim credit. God gave us the desire to keep her. That’s how it has to have worked. She needed a family. Sickly sinners don’t make decisions like that on their own.

Then Roen came. Roen had a very messed up leg when she was born. And she needed surgery right away to fix it up. but God put doctors and parents in place for repair work and love this little girl needed; who didn’t deserve a stitch of the hardship she got. And she walks now, bouncy and silly as if there had never been a problem. There’s a scar and a little bit of funny shape to that leg. A reminder of how valuable life is to God, and how He shows mercy and grace on the lame, broken, dysfunctional sinners in this world. Even before Roen met Christ, before I met Him, God was repairing damage, giving life.

Then Gwendollyn came. Almost didn’t. Gwen came out blue and purple, her life nearly snuffed before she opened her eyes the first time because of the tangled mess of cord. But again, the Lord had mercy. She breaths today by God’s goodness and grace. And God has added to her blessing a mind that is tuned to capture His creation in amazing pictures and other art.

And Joscelin. By the Grace of God, this surprise baby wasn’t safe from the curse of this fallen place. But through the capable, loving hands of a crowd of people, God assembled a resolution that turned a girl from isolation, a life scarred by autism into a beautiful, hope-filled, beam of sunshine who talks and hugs and helps and loves.

And to them, all four, He has given His Son. Jesus died for them and they know it. My girls belong to Christ’s church and have a place reserved for them in the new Heaven and Earth.

So I got just what I wanted. Four of them. And they’re, each one, nothing less than God’s grace and bountiful generosity wrapped in flesh and bone. I couldn’t have asked Him for them – couldn’t pray, couldn’t trust or believe. But that didn’t matter so much, because God works His will regardless of people’s opinion.

Had Christ subjected His life, death and resurrection to a vote, it would’ve been unanimously rejected. Nobody consulted with God about the atonement. And so, in a little-bitty way, neither did the Lord need my request or anything else from me to give this gift. Like salvation. I didn’t ask for it, I tripped over it when God put it in front of me. Now? I want it every day. Savor the reminder every Sunday and feast with my Savior at His table. Relish the memory of my baptism.

We don’t deserve all this. We can’t repay it. My girls have a Christ-loving home, however imperfect it is (dismally, most of the time), not because of their parents, but because of the Lord. We are all healthy and alive not because of our care for ourselves, but because of Him.

  • Economy crashed? I have a job that sticks.
  • Ran out of money? He drove me right into a second job.
  • He led us through all sorts of confusion and the misleading modern world to a church that honors Him and teaches the Truth.
  • He has preserved us through hurricanes.
  • He has kept us warm and safe in a blizzard after wrecking our car on the highway.
  • He has saved our lives by parents, Christians, doctors and soldiers more than a few times.
  • We’ve been kept safe in planes and ships and cars. From dogs and weapons and thugs and disease.
  • He has held our family together through long separations, war, hopelessness and helplessness. For about 15 years now, we’ve grown as a family. No attrition.
  • My kids are surviving public school. They have been protected day in and out from the sickly stench of drugs, immorality, vulgarity and God-hating culture. An unhappy side effect is that reminder that we’re still sorely messed up and still in dire need of a Savior, even if He has shielded us from the extremities of Sodom.

Yeah, today is my birthday. I don’t deserve any of this. Gifts throughout the year, every year, have come down from On High. By God’s grace, I’m here. Rich beyond all measure.

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! – Romans 7:25

And… If you survived the really long read, here’s a treat that can only be enjoyed once in a lifetime:

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March 13, 2011

Updated Theology Status Report

By Pooka

Note, this post is actually post-posted to fit an appropriate date in the past. It was originally written as an update to my “Where I’ve Been” testimony page, but I think should also fit into the timeline of my journaling at LAH. So you’re reading the future as it happened in the past.

The development in my life in regards to theology has taken a strong direction in the last three years and I think I need to address it here, at least to a limited extent. In the majority of my posts from 2010 through Spring of 2011, it’s fairly clear that my family and I have grown very close to Covenant Theology, which has drawn distinctive lines in our denominational relationships for the first time in our years as a Christian household. Up until now, we’ve been under the division/separation radar network. Of course, up until now, we’ve not been under the authority of a specific church, either. Life is different all of a sudden. We’re members of a local church with all of us baptized as believers. And we’re in a potentially controversial state, being of what at I at least consider to be a minority: a Reformed church.

I’ve not had to defend my position as a “particular sort of Christian” before, nor really explain what makes me commit to the particular church of which we are a part. So here I am, a newly made Presbyterian at a PCA church, fully committed to confessing the Westminster Standards. The story of my growth is, to me, very exciting and clear. I’m not sure if everyone can relate or agree with this, but I see the path from first believing to now as leading to a destination that is actually somewhere, doctrinally speaking. I’ve come to a position that looks at Scripture, church, practice and relationships that’s particular. A couple months ago, we could’ve gone to any number of churches and looked for Biblical preaching and teaching. Now, we’re looking at this church. It’s a particular church with particular standards.

It’s been made pretty clear to me that I’m a fairly unsettled type of person. I go with the bandwagon all too easily. Since Christ called me, that has become a painful but present label applied to me. First it was a “temporary phase” for me to be a Christian. Then my development underwent numerous philosophical and theological reforms, going from nominal Christianity to semi-fundamentalist to semi-reformed and now I’m “into” full-blown Reformed Covenant Theology. I must assure readers that my progress has not been some spontaneous fad-phase sort of thing. I think the systematic development of my theology is fairly obvious and it has led just to where it is right now, not by my particular interests, but by sequential encounters in churches and theological studies. I’ve been led by the nose through increasingly accurate theologies until I’ve got to this place. Do I think I’ve arrived? In so many words, Yes. And I cannot foresee changing my mind. This is the first time I’ve met what I think is a thorough course of study and trustworthy system of doctrine.

If that makes heartburn for some readers, I must publish my regrets, but I think 7 years of laboring through the mire of quirks, false-teaching, truth-seeking, prayer, disappointments and denominationalism, this really is my home. I, due to my own desire to be relevant, humble, man-pleasing and self-preserving (cardinal sins in my department, mostly), am almost afraid to say it but I’m pretty much, no really much, a Staunch Presbyterian. I believe in the oh-so-unmentionable practice of infant baptism and that there is no future provided in the Bible for the nation-state of Israel. I just can’t see it. I love the PCA, love learning about it and love learning about those denominations with whom the PCA has close fellowship. I have no love of infighting nor inter-denominational hostilities that exist throughout the visible church of Christ, but I believe that I was dragged to one side, which most probably happens to anyone who attempts to read more deeply than John 3:16.

The Reformed church has been so kind to me, so honest and filled with clear teaching. I love the Word, so lovingly and faithfully served, containing both Law and Gospel in measure that reminds me of where I was and where I am now. I greatly desire the forgiveness that is proclaimed by the faithful minister of God’s Word every Sunday right after we, individually and corporately confess our sins. I love the sacraments, the weekly nourishment that Christ provides in His Supper and finally a freedom from the seemingly empty memorial system in which I grew up. I love that I may look back upon my baptism with hope and joy that God has made me a part of His Church, His Bride and that all His promises are sealed to me and finally a freedom from the personalized statement of public self-centered commitment that was integral to my Baptist upbringing. I love the idea of Covenant Families who are brought through the waters of baptism into Christ’s Church and are all treated, from months-old babies to generations-old hoary-heads, all as the same Chosen People under Christ’s headship. Therein, in this church, is a people who are all together in the covenant, for good or bad, with one label: Christian. And though it hurts, I love very much that we can deal with apostasy and “backsliders” in the way Christ taught and Paul executed: Discipline of the Church. I love that my church claims the Keys and does not hide them under the mat so any thief may put on some wool and break in without notice. Christ is preached here; His life, suffering, obedience, death, resurrection and ascension in clarity and bringing conviction. That is what a church should do and I thank God that this is where my family worshipped today.

There may well be plenty of occasions and reasons to be members of other types of churches. But our choice to join this church certainly sets us to one side. Our dispensational friends and Baptist friends see Reformed types now, and I’ve had to respond to that change.

For more explanation, I’ve uploaded a paper I wrote regarding my position and I’ve started blogging my way through it in small bites. It’s free for the reading and critiquing. My words and research entirely:

CovenantTheologyPaperByDumbGuy

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March 13, 2011

New Life Membership

By Pooka

We’re official. And have 4 baptized children. Praise the Lord. More to follow, since we have a bit from the pastor about baptism and stuff in movie form. What a day. 

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Images, The Faith

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