"A short saying often contains much wisdom." ~ Sophocles

The Atonement, A Prayer

2012-03-02T09:00:00.004-05:00

"The atonement is the crucial doctrine of the faith. Unless we are right here it matters little, or so it seems to me, what we are like elsewhere." ~ Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament (pg. 5)

In my last post I mentioned that in a class on worship that I am taking, our professor, Dr. Derek Thomas, has encouraged us to write out prayers on various subjects so that we can think about how we would lead a congregation in prayer before a sermon. This is not so that we would memorize prayers but so that we would engage in the practice of "studied prayers" and be prepared to pray well before a congregation.

Below is one I wrote on the atonement. It is not going to compare to Leon Morris' treatment of the atonement in the above mentioned book, but I hope you find it helpful, perhaps something you can pray through, and perhaps a blessing to your soul.

Father, we come before You to worship You as men and women in need of Your grace and mercy. We were born in iniquity and in sin we were conceived. Not a day goes by that don’t sin against You in thought, word, and deed. It is Your law that we daily break, not ours or the government’s; against You and You only have we sinned. Where can we flee from Your presence? Can we hide our sin from You? Can the darkness hide us? No, for even the darkness is not dark to You; to You the night is as bright as day. We confess our sinfulness to You because we can never flee from it or You. We can never avert Your wrath. We can never make amends for our guilt before You.

Fortunately, Father, because of Your wisdom and love, we don’t have to. We, who are in Christ, who have confessed with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord and believed in our hearts that You raised Him from the dead, don’t have to atone for our sins because You sent Jesus to do that for us. We praise You Father because in Your most wise, holy, unchangeable, just, and loving will, You found the only way to satisfy the demands of Your justice against sinners and to pour out Your grace upon Your people. You couldn’t leave sin unpunished and we could never bear the punishment. We praise and adore You because in this way You loved the world—You gave Your only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him and His atoning work would not perish, but have eternal life with You in glory. We honor and worship You because You chose to justify Your elect as a gift, and You put forward Jesus as a propitiation—a sacrifice to satisfy Your wrath—to be received by faith. We extol, exalt, and thank You, because You showed Your righteousness, Your wisdom, Your justice, and Your love, so that You might be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.

Jesus, we would be remiss if we did not praise and honor You for submitting Yourself to the will of our God and Father and giving Yourself for our sins, so that You might deliver us out of this present evil world. We praise You for, though You were in the form of God, You did not consider that equality You have with God something to be grasped. We praise You because You stooped to our level, emptied Yourself, and humbled Yourself by becoming obedient to God the Father even to the point of death on a cross. We praise and honor You because You offered Yourself, for all time, as a single sacrifice to atone for our sins and then You sat down at the right hand of God the Father. We extol, exalt, and thank You because You are our great High Priest and atoning sacrifice so that we may have confidence to enter into the holy places, confidence to draw near to God (something the Old Testaments saints could only dream of doing), and confidence to hold fast the confession of our hope because You are faithful to fulfill all You promised.

Spirit, though You turn the spotlight from Yourself onto Christ, we cannot end this prayer without praising and thanking You for applying Christ’s atoning sacrifice to us. We praise and thank You, for You, You replaced our heart of stone with one of flesh, You worked faith in us, and You united us to Christ so that might enjoy the benefits of His atoning work.

Father, we ask that You keep these truths before us so that we might bask in Your grace always. Remind us through Your Word, Your Spirit, and Your Church how intensely we are loved by You. Give us an ever-increasing view of our sinfulness and an ever-increasing view of Your holiness, so that Your grace in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ might also be ever-increasing in our hearts and our minds. Help us to remind each other daily of Your just and justifying love for us. Help us to preach the gospel to ourselves and to each other so that we might encourage and stir one another up to love and good works, all the more as we see the Day drawing near.

We pray all these things in the name of our atoning sacrifice and high priest, Jesus Christ. Amen.

By His Grace,

Taylor

The Trinity, A Prayer

2012-02-29T09:00:00.002-05:00

Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit,
  I adore Thee as one Being, one Essence,
  one God in three distinct Persons,
  for bringing sinners to Thy knowledge and to Thy kingdom.
O Father, Thou hast loved me and sent Jesus to redeem me;
O Jesus, Thou hast loved me and assumed my nature,
  shed thine own blood to wash away my sins,
  wrought righteousness to cover my unworthiness;
O Holy Spirit, Thou hast loved me and entered
  my heart, implanted there eternal life,
  revealed to me the glories of Jesus.
  Three Persons and one God, I bless and praise Thee,
  for love so unmerited, so unspeakable,
  so wondrous, so mighty to save the lost
  and raise them to glory. ~ "The Trinity" from The Valley of Vision

In a class on worship that I am taking, our professor, Dr. Derek Thomas, has encouraged us to write out prayers on various subjects so that we can think about how we would lead a congregation in prayer before a sermon. Leading a group of dozens, hundreds, or thousands in prayer is much harder than you might think (that is, if you have already imagined getting past your fear of public speaking, which almost all of us have). The practice of extemporaneousness prayer is a good one and one for which our puritan and Presbyterian forefathers fought hard to maintain. But, even these traditions called for what they termed "studied prayers"--prayers that had been planned and thought through and then delivered without notes. That is what he is encouraging us to develop.

Below is one I wrote on the Trinity. Now, I know it is not going to compare to the above poetry from The Valley of Vision, but I hope you find it helpful, perhaps something you can pray through, and perhaps a blessing to your soul.

Triune God, this morning we want to praise You and the glories of Your existence as thee-in-one. We praise You because You are one being, one essence, one God; yet three persons. We praise you because You are three persons of one substance, power, dignity, and eternity; yet distinct in roles and authority. We praise You because You show us the meaning of equality amid authority and submission.

Father, we praise You because You are neither begotten nor proceeding, You are coequal with the Son and the Spirit, and You exercise supreme authority among the Godhead. Son, we praise You because You are eternally begotten of the Father, You are coequal with the Father, and You submit to His authority. Holy Spirit, we praise You because You eternally proceed from the Father and the Son, You are coequal with them both, and You submit to their authority. Truine God, we praise You because Your existence shows us what it means to be one in essence and to have equality, authority, submission, and love. This is a great mystery to us that brings joy to our hearts, though, nay, because we will never fully comprehend the beauty of Your Triune subsistence.
Father, we want to particularly focus on praise to You now. We praise You because You are the supreme Architect of creation, redemption, and consummation. By Your intense love, You chose us in Jesus before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in Your sight. By Your eternal wisdom, You spoke the creation of this universe in which we exist, this world in which we live, and our very lives with which You have blessed us. By Your gracious immanence, in times distant past You revealed Yourself to Your people through covenants, promises, and prophecies until the fullness of time came and You revealed Yourself to us through Your incarnate Son, Jesus. By Your justice and justifying love, You sent Jesus to redeem Your people—to be our perfect and eternal sacrifice—so that we might be saved from Your wrath and adopted as Your sons and daughters. By Your mighty plan, You will one day send Jesus again to finish what have You have started and bring us home to glory forever.

Son, we want to particularly focus on praise to You now. We praise You because You are the Accomplisher of creation, redemption, and consummation. By Your power, You were the word of the Father that brought this universe, this world, and our very lives into existence. By Your humility and for the joy set before You, You condescended to our level, were born of a woman, lived a sinless life, revealed the glory of the Father, suffered for our sins, died for our sins, and were raised to break the power of death and secure our justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. By Your wisdom and experience as our High Priest, You stand before the Father, always interceding for Your people as our Advocate. By Your obedience to Father and love for Your Church, You will one day return to finish what You have started and bring us home to glory forever.

Holy Spirit, though You turn the spotlight from Yourself toward the Son, we want to particularly focus on praise to You now. We praise You because You are the Sustainer and Finisher of creation, redemption, and consummation. By Your grace, You hovered, even brooded over creation, sustained it, and continue to uphold it, even as I pray. By Your power, You anointed Jesus for His ministry, guided Him through this world to the cross, and raised Him from the dead. By Your love and Your grace, You were poured out by Jesus at Pentecost, unite believers to Jesus, and sanctify us so that we might daily be conformed to the likeness of Jesus. By Your wisdom, You help with our infirmities, show us our need of Jesus, draw us to repentance, give us the words to pray when we can only groan, and strengthen and unite the Church for the task the Father has for us during this life. By Your glory, You will one day give us new bodies for the new heavens and the new earth when Jesus returns to bring us home to glory forever.

Triune God, we can only marvel at Your equality, love, authority, submission, and perfectly united work in this universe, redemption history, and our very lives. How great is the mystery of You as one, yet three! Please allow beauty of that mystery to sink down into every nook and cranny of our lives so that we might learn how to love, learn how to lead, learn how to submit, and learn be united in our work in our individual lives, in our marriages, and as Your Church.

Glory be to the Father, glory be to the Son, and glory be to the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Imprecatory Psalms: "let curses come upon him!"

2012-02-28T16:27:00.001-05:00

"It is legitimate at times for God's present people to utter prayers of imprecation or pleas for divine vengeance--like those in the psalms--against the recalcitrant enemies of God and his people. Such expression is consistent with the ethics of the Old Testament and finds corresponding echo in the New." Crying for Justice: What the Psalms Teach Us About Mercy and Vengeance in an Age of Terrorism (pg. 109)

The imprecatory (cursing) psalms have been a point of debate and sometimes embarrassment for Christians. What do we do with psalms that say things like "let curses come upon him!" and "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!"? They are in God's Word, so unless you want to dispense with divine inspiration (which some do, but that is another debate), then you have to figure out what to do with them. I want to recommend this book: Crying for Justice: What the Psalms Teach Us About Mercy and Vengeance in an Age of Terrorism by John N. Day. It is an excellent resource that argues for a righteous place for the imprecatory psalms "in extreme instances, used when God's people face sustained injustice, hardened enmity, and gross oppression." (pg. 115)

Day starts out by stating the case he is going to argue and some basic tenants that should guide the discussion (see the below quote from his conclusion). Then, in Part 1, he analyzes some of the common attempts to rationalize (or ignore) these psalms and finds them wanting. He also brings the much-needed cultural context to the imprecatory psalms by analyzing cursing in the context of the Ancient Near East. This is extremely important because in our modern culture we think of cursing very differently from the ancient Hebrews, Canaanites, Mesopotamians, Hittites, etc. Day reminds modern-day readers:

[I]n the community of Israel, as in the broader ancient Near East, the legitimate curse was an expression of human powerlessness.... It was directed against powerful or unconvictable offenders. Indeed, the legitimate curse was an act of faith that God's desire for justice, as expressed in the Law and ethical teachings of religion, would be reflected in real life. When viewed in this light, the so-called imprecatory psalms and other imprecatory texts, which seem so vicious and strange to the modern reader, are seen to be expressions of faith in the just rule of Yahweh in situations in which the covenant member or community can see no other source of help or possible means of securing just treatment. (pg. 37)

In Part 2, Day takes a look at the three toughest psalms--Psalm 58; 109; 137--because they represent the three major categories of imprecation--social enemy, personal need, and national need. Justification for these three psalms will give one the lens through which to view the smaller, less harsh imprecatory psalms. Finally, in Part 3, Day looks at the imprecatory Psalms in light of the New Testament. He irons out the apparent contradictions and shows examples of New Testament imprecation (cursing) that fall into the category of use "in extreme instances." Overall, the New Testament shows us that:

Whereas "love and blessing" is the dominant ethic for the believer within both testaments, "cursing and calling for divine vengeance" reflect the believer's extreme ethic. They are a legitimate resort in extreme circumstances, against the hardened, deceitful, violent, immoral, and unjust. (pg. 115)

Finally, Day sums up his whole book in his conclusion. This is the most useful part of the book. If you do not have time to read the whole book, read the conclusion (about seven pages). Day pretty much writes his own book review in the conclusion by summarizing his main argument and all of his chapters. If you run across something you are not sure about or do not understand, then you can go to that chapter for the expanded discourse. Below is the beginning of that conclusion:

This present work has argued and defended the premise that the imprecatory psalms' retain an appropriate place in the life of the Christian church. It is legitimate at times for God's present people to utter prayers of imprecation or pleas for divine vengeance-like those in the psalms-against the recalcitrant enemies of God and his people. Such expression is consistent with the ethics of the Old Testament and finds corresponding echo in the New.

This position is rooted, first, in the establishment of the psalms' theology of imprecation as the very essence of Torah. The principles of such theology were well established in the promise of divine vengeance expressed in the Song of Moses, the principle of divine justice outlined in the lex talionis, and the assurance of divine cursing as well as blessing articulated in the inaugural covenant of God with his people. Second, this theology continues essentially unchanged through to the end of the canon and is used to undergird the imprecations in the New Testament, infrequent though they are.

Moreover, in addressing this issue of imprecations in the psalms, certain factors were initially noted.

First, the vengeance appealed for by the pious in the imprecatory psalms was never personally enacted. Rather the appeal was always explicitly or implicitly addressed to God. The realization of that vengeance was left to him alone.

Second, the characteristically impassioned imprecatory pleas were based on the covenant promises of God. The most notable of these promises is "he who curses you, I will curse" (Gen. 12:3), and "vengeance is mine, I will repay" (Deut. 32:35).

Third, both testaments record examples of God's people on earth calling down curses or crying for vengeance, the expression of neither sentiment accompanied by any textual hint of divine disapproval. Rather, in their limited and appropriate circumstance, such utterances are presented as justified and commendable. Indeed, Scripture records an instance in which God's perfected saints in heaven appeal for divine vengeance, using language reminiscent of certain of the imprecatory psalms. They are comforted by the assurance that judgment is near (Rev. 6:9-11). (pp. 109-10)

If you want to read more you will have to buy the book or borrow a copy. I really recommend that because it is well worth your time. (I would say you can borrow my Kindle copy but I just check and apparently this book is one of the few you cannot loan from Kindle to Kindle.) If nothing else, the perhaps Day's closing words will convince you to read this book:

Thus, Christians can find in the imprecatory psalms a divinely instilled source of strength and honor and can feel permitted to use them, as appropriate, in corporate and individual worship. In this, the Christian must embrace the tension inherent in reflecting both "the kindness and severity of God" (Rom. 11:22). It is a tension that previous generations of the faithful have also faced. The imprecatory psalms are a reminder that a war is raging. It is a war of opposing powers, with casualties, traitors, and triumphs. The principal weapon of that warfare is the dual-edged message of the gospel--a message not of sweet passivity, but of life and death itself. (pg. 116)

By His Grace,
Taylor

Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

2012-02-03T10:39:00.001-05:00

"Our lives are also cluttered with a lot of 'if onlys.' 'If only I had done this,' or 'if only that had not happened.' But again, God has no 'if onlys.' God never makes a mistake; God has no regrets. 'As for God, his way is perfect' (Psalm 18:30). We can trust God. He is trustworthy." ~ Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

This month's free audio book from ChristianAudio.com is Jerry Bridges' Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts. This is an excellent book that deals with relating to God midst the darkness and pain that we will at times encounter in life. Stand to Reason has given a helpful summary of the book just in case you want to learn more about it. But, if you jump on it now, you get it for free and can listen to it on your drive to work or something like that. So, even if you do not like it, you have not spent any money! Here is part of Stand to Reason's summary:

Bridges says there are three truths about God that we must keep in mind throughout our times of suffering:
In the arena of adversity, the Scriptures teach us three essential truths about God—truths we must believe if we are to trust Him in adversity. They are:
God is completely sovereign.
God is infinite in wisdom.
God is perfect in love.
Someone has expressed these three truths as they relate to us in this way: "God in His love always wills what is best for us. In His wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about."
The rest of the book follows that outline, looking to the Bible to expand on each of these points, exploring how they all fit together, and addressing objections and misconceptions. Here are some excerpts...

Go read the rest of the summary for yourself and download the free audio book.

By His Grace,
Taylor

I Love the Church and the True Religion that Forms It

2012-01-20T11:48:00.002-05:00

With all the word floating around the Internet about the video "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus," I thought I would repost an article I wrote a while ago expressing why I love the Church. Now, do not get me wrong, as I said in the post previous to this one, there is a lot to like about Mr. Bethke's video. I also do not want to beat this subject to death, but those of you who know me know that I am a master of that (it is one of my many sins). When we start to emphasize the things we dislike about contradiction in the Church (one of the main reasons people say, "I hate religion"), we miss out on what the Church is, the true religion that formed it, and the many things to love about it. Below is why I love the Church reposted (and slightly updated):

Every Sunday, right before we take communion at my church, we repeat the words of the Apostle’s Creed. I must confess, sometimes I drone through them without really considering what they mean. However, many times lately the words "I believe in… the holy catholic Church…" have stuck in my mind. Believing that the catholic Church (i.e. the invisible, universal Church) is holy is tough, especially when those in the Church hurt me, hurt those I love, or embarrass me; but they are Jesus’ bride and my people, the "holy catholic Church".

Ronald Rolheiser, in his book The Holy Longing, wrote that "to be connected to the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers, and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender…because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves." Most days I am one of those thieves and no one in their right mind would want to confess me as one of their own. There are other days, only by the grace of God, where I show a glimpse of the "heroic soul" that Mr. Rolheiser wrote about and someone might dare to claim me. Jesus, however, claims me and loves me on all those days, which means I need to do the same for the rest of His Church, His bride.

Loving the Church is hard sometimes. All of us know what it is like to be embarrassed or ticked off by someone in our family but they are our family and we love them. Well, the Church is my spiritual family (whom I will spend eternity with) and there are a lot more of them than in a normal family. There are millions, which means many more opportunities to be embarrassed or ticked off. I heard about a Christian congressman in Florida who wanted to make some law that would force all the science books to be rewritten to say that the earth is the center of the solar system. He claimed that the heliocentric model was all a sham and he tried to prove it from a gross misuse of the Bible. That really burns me up, but Jesus claims him as part of His bride so I cannot disown him. Every time I look at Joel Osteen I want to smack that stupid smile off his face and staple his lips shut, but (this may sound radical but I think it is true) he belongs to Jesus so he belongs to me. John Wesley used to really get under my skin (even though he has been dead for more than 200 years) until I started to read his journals and found things like, "Everybody who belongs to Jesus belongs to everybody who belongs to Jesus." He is right.

Being connected to the millions of the Church also means many more opportunities to be pleased and encouraged by "heroic souls." I could mention the hundreds of Christian organizations that fight hunger, sex trafficking, and all other sorts of injustice but that would be too obvious. I would rather write about my professor's fourteen-year-old daughters who love to sit and talk with the elderly at their church because his daughters "like to hear them talk about Jesus." That makes me proud. I would rather talk about how my church loves on the marginalized in our city—the men on the street, the addicts, and transgendered, to name a few. That makes me proud. I would rather talk about my hero, Steve Brown, who runs two ministries that could easily take up all his time and yet he still takes the time to mentor young seminarians like me. He gets a lot of flak from many Christians (some in my denomination) because of his radical teaching on grace but he does not retaliate (no matter how much he may want to) and practices what he preaches by giving them grace. He makes me proud. I have several missionary friends preaching the gospel in countries where there is civil unrest or it is a capital crime. They make me proud. At our PCA General Assembly last year I met a Palestinian Reformed Christian and a Messianic Jew who were working together to spread the gospel in Palestine. In a group meeting one of them said this when asked how the gospel makes Jews and Arabs relate differently:

I believe that in Christ we have a common ground so Jews and Arabs, yes, but the common ground is the gospel and is our Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ. Me as a Palestinian I have to choose day after day, if not moment by moment that I want to reconcile with my brothers, my Jewish brothers, because the challenge is an instant challenge, endless challenge. It is in my home. It is affecting me day after day. Therefore, I say that we have to be committed to each other. So it’s not just an emotional reaction. It’s not just that I love and pray for my brother, but I am committed through Christ who brings us into a new creation to be together, to be supportive to each other, to love each other, and to embrace each other…. So as a sum up for all this, I believe from all my heart, that we, Palestinian Christians, together with Messianic believers have a message that politicians have never delivered. It’s Christ, the Prince of Peace that makes us peace-makers and through that we can love and live a life that is worthy, a Kingdom life.

That makes me really proud and I feel honored to have known these men, men of whom the world is not worthy.

Entering into a covenant relationship with Jesus means being a part of His bride, the "holy catholic Church." He is a lot more accepting than I would be if I were Him, but that is why He is God and I am not. I may not always like her but the Church is His bride, so I must love her. She is an ugly bride, no doubt, but she is loved dearly by Him and will one day be fully conformed to His likeness. Until then, she is still my people and I can never forget that.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Love, Hate, Jesus, and Religion

2012-01-19T19:55:00.002-05:00

There is a video that has gone viral all over the Internet called, "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus." It is worth watching because there is a lot good about it. The guy who made the video, Jeff Bethke, brings up some good points (all of which are not new) and does so in a very artful, compelling way. It is also obvious that Mr. Bethke loves Jesus and stands on grace alone. That is great. Grace is all I can stand on too. When people say, "You don't want cheap grace." I say, "Yes I do; it is all I can afford." So, I really like the majority of what he has to say. One of my favorite lines is, "The Church is not a museum for good people, it is a hospital for the broken." That is true and I am glad it is because if it was not, I would not belong in the Church. So, again, it is worth watching. Click on the link above and go watch it. Go ahead, I will wait........

Now that you have watched the video, there are some things that still need to be said. Some people have said some unfair things about the video and others have taken it hook, line, and sinker without thinking about the video critically. A couple of guys, however, have said some very balanced, respectful things that need to be said about this video that I would also recommend you reading/listening to. (If you want to skip my statements and go to theirs, and I would not blame you if you did, then just scroll down a little.) The main problem with the video is that it starts out saying, "What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?" Well, if you told me that I would say, "You are wrong" because Jesus did not come to abolish religion. He came to fulfill and establish true religion. You can maybe make that statement if you redefine the word "religion" but then you confuse the issue. It is catchy today to say, "I am not religious; I love Jesus." But, I am sorry, that means you are religious. There is more that can be said on this and both the guys I mention below say it better than I can, so I will let them say it. Here are a couple of links you should read to get you thinking about what might not be so good about this video and saying "I hate religion":

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason talked about it on his radio program a few days ago and you can listen to that here. I highly recommend you listen to it.
If you want to go a little further and deeper, Kevin DeYoung of The Gospel Coalition has more to say, but again, I think it is respectful and charitable to Mr. Bethke.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Intentional Community

2012-01-16T16:06:00.002-05:00

"²⁴And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." ~ Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)

A couple of weekends ago I preached a sermon on intentional community from Hebrews 10:19-25. You can listen to it here. I hope you learn as much from it and are as challenged by it as much as I was while writing it.

By His Grace,
Taylor

New Year's Resolution

2011-12-30T21:13:00.001-05:00

I am not a big fan of New Year's resolutions in general, but those of you who know me know that I am a big fan of Jonathan Edwards. Trevin Wax of Kingdom People adapted a New Year's prayer from Jonathan Edwards' resolutions (the first 21). (Thanks to Stand to Reason for pointing it out.) Enjoy:

Lord God Almighty,

I understand that I am unable to do anything without your help,

so I ask you to enable me by your grace to fulfill your will.

Give me grace to do whatever brings most glory and honor to you,

pleasure and profit to me,

and life and love to others.

Help me to number my days,

spending my time wisely,

living my life with all my might while I still have breath.

Humble me in the knowledge that I am chief of sinners;

when I hear of the sins of others,

help me to not look upon them with pride,

but to look upon myself with shame,

confessing my own sins to you.

When I go through difficulties and trials,

remind me of the pains of hell

from which you have already delivered me.

Place people in my path who need my help,

and give me a compassionate and generous spirit.

Fill my heart with such love

that I would never do anything out of a spirit of revenge,

nor lose my temper with those around me.

Hold my tongue when I am tempted to speak evil of others.

Thank you for the gospel and for the hope of glory.

Help me to live in light of these truths every day of my life,

so that when the time of my death arrives,

I will rest assuredly in you,

and you will be most glorified in me.

In Christ’s name...

By His Grace,

Taylor

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

Thank you, God, for being born,
You who first invented birth
(Universe, galaxies, the earth).
When your world was tired and worn
You came laughing on the morn.

Thank you, most amazing Word
For your silence in the womb
Where there was so little room
Yet the still small voice was heard
Throughout a planet dark & blurred.

Merry Christmas! Wondrous Day!
Maker of the universe,
You the end, & you the source
Come to share in human clay
And, yourself, to show the Way.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, Most Amazing Word

Merry Christmas! What we have been anticipating in Advent has finally arrived. Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The greatest King born in the humblest of circumstances. Christ did not come with an army, though He could have. He did not take over Herod's kingdom, though He could have. He did not replace Caesar Augustus, though He could have. He was not even born into a wealthy family. He chose an insignificant girl to be His mother. He chose an insignificant man to be His earthly "step-father". He was born next to barn animals. The greatest King born in the humblest of circumstances.

Isaiah 9:6
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

That God would take on human flesh defies all logic. That He would take on human flesh in the lowliest of circumstances is even more incredible. Yet He did so that we could know the joy of being in relationship with Him. Merry Christmas!

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

2011-12-19T20:02:00.000-05:00

"The astounding truth is that in Jesus Christ, humanity encountered God in a real, personal, historical, and tangible way." ~ Kenneth Samples, Without a Doubt

Yesterday was the last Sunday in Advent. The time of anticipation is coming to an end because the celebration is near. When we truly reflect upon what we celebrate in Advent we cannot help but be astounded. Listen to the expressions of wonder from a couple of the greatest minds in Church history:

He by whom all things were made was made one of all things. The Son of God by the Father without a mother became the Son of man by a mother without a father. The Word Who is God before all time became flesh at the appointed time. The maker of the sun was made under the sun. He Who fills the world lay in a manger, great in the form of God but tiny in the form of a servant; this was in such a way that neither was His greatness diminished by His tininess, nor was His tininess overcome by His greatness. ~ Augustine, "Sermon 187"

The next thing that I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, is the greatness of this event. Christ’s incarnation was a greater and more wonderful thing than ever had yet come to pass. The creation of the world was a very great thing, but not so great as the incarnation of Christ. It was a great thing for God to make the creature, but not so great as the for the Creator himself to become a creature. We have spoken of many great things that were accomplished between the fall of man and the incarnation of Christ: but God becoming man was greater than all. Then the greatest person was born that ever was or ever will be. ~ Jonathan Edwards, "Of Christ's Incarnation" from A History of the Work of Redemption

Soon we will celebrate the birth of the "greatest person... born that ever was or ever will be", God "great in form... but tiny in the form of a servant." It truly is the "season to be jolly", but not because of presents, time off work, or even family celebrations. Those are good things, but they all pale in comparison to the celebration of He who made joy becoming like us so that we could experience joy in Him.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Christopher Hitchens has Died

2011-12-16T08:36:00.002-05:00

"He didn't want to leave behind his rebellion against the One whom he saw as 'a celestial dictator,' and in truth, it’s literally a miracle that anyone does. Without God’s grace, none of us would see Him as He is." ~ Amy Hall, writer for Stand to Reason

When I woke up this morning and saw the news--Hitchens has died from pneumonia as a complication of his cancer--I was not sure how to really feel about it. In many respects Hitchens was a pain the neck for Christians as well as other religions. He was one of the "new atheists," an atheist evangelist, a man who made it his life's work to draw people away from belief in God. That would make it easy to hate him and to be happy when we hear about his death, but is that how we should react? Not at all.

In many ways, Hitchens and I are a lot alike. He firmly stood for what he believed; I stand for what I believe. He loved his family as best he could; I love my family as best I can. He had issues with rage; I have issues with rage. He was hated and loved by many; I am hated by many and like to think I am loved by some. His heart was rebellious against God; my heart is rebellious against God. In fact, the only substantial difference between Hitchens and I is that God replaced my heart of stone with one of flesh by His grace through faith that is not even my own, so I cannot boast (Eph. 2:8-9). We are a lot alike, Hitchens and I, and only by the grace of God is there any substantial difference. We should not be happy about his death. We should grieve that an image-bearer of God with a towering intellect was blinded by his heart-rebellion until his death. We should hope and pray that his death will be used by God to draw others to Himself and not drive them further away.

Pray... that brings up another thing that struck me this morning. I must confess that I never once, that I can remember, prayed for Hitchens. That is sad. In all the time I have spent debating his thought with people who followed him, I never once prayed for him. Hearing about his death this morning was a wake-up call. Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Matt. 5:44). Hitchens was never a personal enemy, but he was an ideological enemy. Hitchens never personally persecuted me, but he did persecute Christians. And I never prayed for him. Now, I will not go the route of saying, "What might have happened if I had prayed?" because God is sovereign, even over my sinful lack of prayer. However, this does remind me that I need to be praying for his peers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.

May the death of Hitchens cause all of us who are Christians to think, "There but for the grace of God, go I." May it also wake us up to pray for others like him. What would happen in the world if God changed Dawkins' heart and he became a Christian? Do not think it far-fetched to imagine. He changed me.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

"Go back eighteen centuries before that. Who could have cared about the birth of a baby while the world was watching Rome in all her splendor?... Palestine existed under the crush of Rome's heavy boot. All eyes were on Augustus, the cynical caesar who demanded a census so as to determine a measurement to enlarge taxes.... What could possibly be more important than Caesar's decision in Rome? Who cared about a Jewish baby born in Bethlehem?
"God did. Without realizing it, mighty Augustus was only an errand boy for the fulfillment of Micah's prediction... a pawn in the hand of Jehovah... a piece of lint on the pages of prophecy. While Rome was busy making history, God arrived. He pitched His fleshly tent in silence on straw... in a stable... under a star. The world didn't even notice. Reeling from the wake of Alexander the Great... Herod the Great... Augustus the Great, the world overlooked Mary's little Lamb." ~ Charles Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life (43)

Yesterday the third Sunday in Advent. The Church continues the age-old tradition of celebrating Advent so that we do not make the same mistake the Romans and Jews made 2,000 years ago. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of Christmas and forget about the reason behind Christmas. There is nothing wrong with celebrations, presents, and family traditions. In fact those are good things, but it is easy to get caught up in them and forget about the good news of Christmas.

Luke 1:31-33:
"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."
Luke 2:10-11:
"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

By His Grace,
Taylor

Book Review: Telling Secrets

2011-12-10T13:28:00.001-05:00

"I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human."

Recently I finished a book called Telling Secrets by Fredrick Buechner. It is a kind of spiritual memoir similar to Augustine's Confessions (though not nearly as good as Augustine's work). Below is my review of the book:

In 1992 a crime drama with Robert Redford called Sneakers hit the box office. It is one of my favorite movies. There is one scene in the movie where Redford’s character, Martin Bishop, a man with many secrets, is playing a game of Scrabble with friends when it hits him that a mysterious phrase whose meaning he has been trying to ascertain is really just an anagram. He dumps all the Scrabble pieces off the board and pulls out the letters of the phrase: “setec astronomy.” He begins to arrange and rearrange, and he goes through a number of iterations. Then, in one of the watershed moments of the film, he discovers the anagram decodes to “too many secrets.” This movie is about secrets and a mathematician’s computer program that allows him to decrypt any encryption protocol so that he can read anyone’s secrets, any of the “too many secrets.”

Buechner’s book is about the many, many secrets that we all carry. He tells us about our own secrets by telling us about his. In one of the most salient statements of the whole book he says, “I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human.” In the book, Buechner candidly talks about many secrets, but there are two main secrets that weave throughout this memoir—the secret of his father’s suicide when he was 10 years old and the secret of his daughter’s battle with anorexia. He turns to these secrets, particularly the secret of his father’s suicide, again and again to gain insight into who he is as an old man and what God is doing in his life.

The secret of his father’s suicide weighed especially heavy on his psyche because it was not just his secret; it was a family secret. It was not just a secret his family kept from outsiders but a secret they kept from each other. They never talked about his suicide and even avoided speaking of him. Soon, Buechner’s father was almost completely forgotten along with the secret. Buechner writes, “Our secrets are not hid from God… but they are hid from each other, and some of them we so successfully hide even from ourselves that after a while we all but forget they exist.” The lies we tell to ourselves and others in order to cover up the secrets eventually begin to look more and more like the truth. Yet, the secrets are still there, buried far beneath the surface, and they define who we are (“I am my secrets”) in ways we cannot understand because we do not tell them. Not only do we not understand ourselves when we do not tell our secrets, but we also do not understand truly how God is shaping our lives. “[I]t is precisely through telling these stories in all their particularity… that God makes Himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally…. to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but spiritually.” In this book we learn of many of Buechner’s secrets, but it is especially in the telling of the secret of his father that we see Buechner begin to understand himself and God’s work in his life.

There is one section of this book that often returns to my mind. We learn early on that Buechner is an ordained minister. As he talks about this aspect of his life, he probes deep into the affect that secrets have on the ministry of a preacher. Pastors are supposed to be a witness to the presence of God in their lives as well as in the lives of their people, he holds—“a major part of their ministry is to remind us that there is nothing more important than to pay attention to what is happening to us….” Yet, as ministers become more involved in the lives of the people they shepherd, they begin to neglect their own. They harbor secrets, for many reasons, which prevents them from seeing God’s work in their lives. Sadly “they tend to become professionals… who speak on religious matters with what often seems a maximum of authority and a minimum of vital personal involvement. Their sermons often sound as bland as they sound bloodless.” I found this challenging as one who is an intern at a church, teaches regularly, and preaches on occasion. Preachers must not only convey the facts about the truth but show that it is active in their lives. Not to pretend that they have everything figured out but to show that they can feel it working in them, changing them, doing what they say it will do. In another work I read recently, The Pastor as a Minor Poet, the author Craig Barnes says, “As odd as it may sound, it's the scars on the pastor's soul that make it attractive.... What we pastors present with our lives is an incarnated version of the healing and redemptive work of the Gospel.... We simply speak to our congregants as a people who have existential knowledge of truth.” Buechner and Barnes remind young seminarians like me that pastors need to tell their secrets. Of course they must be wise about when and what they reveal and to whom, but the truth they preach must be truth through their personality, which means telling personal things—telling secrets.

This book is a memoir similar to Christian classics like Augustine’s Confessions in that it is not just one man’s story. Certainly it is Buechner’s secrets that are being revealed but, as he says himself, “My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.” As we read Buechner keeping track of his story, we cannot help be drawn to the events that have shaped our lives. Some of the events we read in his book may be similar to experiences we have had, others may be completely foreign. All of them, however, will cause of to think of our story and I believe that is the goal of this book. By reading Buechner’s secrets we start to think of our own and we are encouraged to tell them. When we start to do that we begin to understand ourselves better and the great work of God in our lives.

By His Grace,

Taylor

The Second Sunday of Advent

2011-12-05T10:13:00.000-05:00

"When we open the package of Christmas we find that God has given us many gifts--vulnerability for intimacy, comfort for suffering, passion for justice, and power over prejudice... In the gift of Christmas, the unassailable, omnipotent God became a baby giving us the ultimate example of letting our defenses down... There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. And Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back." ~ Tim Keller, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas (36-38)

Yesterday was the second Sunday in Advent. If you attended a church in almost any Christian tradition you probably saw the second candle of the Advent Wreath lit and heard one of the prophecies about the coming Messiah read. Many of us who have been "churched" for most of our lives have heard these before so it is sometimes difficult to remember how incredible the subject of Advent is. The "unassailable, omnipotent God became a baby". "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:1, 14a) The Word that was God became flesh. When we really stop and think about it that is an incredible. The sovereign God became a vulnerable baby. Why? "To get us back." To redeem the relationship. That is the celebration we anticipate with Advent.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Book Review: "A Grief Observed"

2011-11-30T22:40:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was C. S. Lewis' birthday (thanks Adam for reminding me). He was born November 29, in 1898. Recently I wrote a short review of one of his best works (in my opinion): A Grief Observed. If you get a chance, buy it and read it, even if you are not dealing with grief right now. It is short, honest, and will bless your soul. Enjoy the review...

Many books have been written on the subject of grief but none quite like this one. Most books on the subject of grief are written about how to deal with grief. This book, however, talks indirectly about dealing with grief by doing exactly what the title implies: observing a particular grief. This book is not about grief (in general) observed for such a book would have to be, as Douglas Gresham says in his introduction to this work, “so general and nonspecific as to be academic in its approach and thus of little use to anyone approaching or experiencing bereavement.” This book observes C. S. Lewis’ grief after having lost his wife, Helen Joy Gresham (referred to simply as “H.” in the book). It was originally written simply as the journal of a man who was struggling with God and the loss of part of himself. Lewis had no intentions of publishing it until a friend of his read it and begged him to publish it because it would help so many people. It certainly has done that.

This book is especially near to my heart because I have grieved in a way similar to Lewis. I did not lose a wife but I lost my two closest friends in the span of a few months. I struggled mightily with God for a long time after that. There were many days where I shook my fist at God and said, “God, I would leave you if I had anywhere else to go.” Unfortunately, I did not know about A Grief Observed at the time. I know it would have helped me to know that “real” Christians actually do struggle with God when they grieve.

What a “real” Christian thinks, feels, and says when they struggle with grief is possibly the greatest contribution of this book. Often in the Church we spiritualize grief in such a way as to make it seem trivial, which is very unfair to those who are experiencing it. Lewis expresses this frustration, “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.” The truth of the gospel is foundational in all things, especially death, but many people who have not experienced such grief try to use it as a magic wand to make those who are grieving instantly “feel better.” They apply it with the hopes of making the grief go away. Yet, they do not understand that the gospel is not meant to keep us from mourning. It is meant to help us mourn as those who have its hope (1 Thess. 4:13). All of us who grieve must be allowed to grieve and struggle with God during these hard time. The struggle is normal and okay for God knows that we are dust (Ps. 103:14). In my estimation, the greatest contribution that this book makes is simply showing that “real” Christians struggle with God during grief. Lewis is one of the giants of the modern Church. His polemical works were ahead of their time and second to none, yet during the grief of death even the man who wrote The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity asked the question, “[W]here is God?” Even Lewis struggled with feeling that when “you go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain… [you find] a door slammed in your face, and a sound of a bolting and a double bolting on the inside.” The Church needs this kind of honesty and permission to struggle with God in grief.

Probably the second greatest contribution that Lewis makes with this work is the fact that he does not let the struggle consume him. This work chronicles his move from feeling like the door to God was slammed and locked in his face to realizing, “It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’” This may not seem like a large step to one who has not grieved, but those who have felt the cold pain of the closed door know that this is a long way down the path of recovery. If Lewis had left us with the pain of the initial struggle, it would not be helpful to any grieving Christian. However, Lewis honestly chronicled the struggle from deep pain to the point where he could say, “How wicked would it be, if we could, to call the dead back!... Poi si torno all’ eternal fontana.” The last section translates, “Then back to the eternal fountain.” In this work he showed us that “real” Christians struggle with grief, but also that “real” Christians continue to struggle until they can say to God, “Praise in due order; of [You] as the giver, of her as the gift…. by praising I can still, in some degree, enjoy her, and already, in some degree, enjoy [You].”

The third and final contribution of this work that I would like to mention (there are many more outside of the scope of this short review) is the honest way he struggles with the way others treat him. Those who have a friend who is bereaved can learn a lot of how to treat that friend from this work. For example, he acknowledges that he wants to be around others but wants to just be able to be while around them—“I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” During grief, especially the initial stages, you do not want to be alone but you also fear being around others because they will try to get you to “talk about it” when you just need their presence. If only people could understand that you do not want them to make you happy; you just want to know that others still are. I think this is what Lewis is expressing here. Another example: “An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet…. I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t.” I hated this too. People simply do not know how to be around you. They do not want to treat you like “normal” because they feel that would be insensitive but they also do not know how to talk to you about it, so they end up making you feel like an invalid. Most of the time you do not want to talk; you just want to be treated like normal so that you can bring it up with you are ready to talk. For all those who have not experience such grief, A Grief Observed is very helpful in learning how your grieving friends want to be treated.

This book is one-of-a-kind. I am so thankful that Lewis’ friend convinced him to publish it for it has helped so many grieving Christians and will continue to help them for many years to come. I have described the three greatest contributions that I think this book makes but there are so many more that I simply could not fit into the scope of this review. Whether someone is grieving a great loss, knows someone who is grieving a great loss, or simply wants to understand Christian grief better, this book will be invaluable to them. As Douglas Gresham says in his introduction, “…at least this book will help us to face our grief, and to ‘misunderstand a little less completely.’”

By His Grace,
Taylor

The First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-27T18:13:00.000-05:00

"The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross." ~ J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Today is the first Sunday of the Advent season. The season begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. Advent tradition has its roots deep in Christian history that can be traced as far back as the 6th century AD with certainty (possibly as far back as the 4th with some question). It is marked with anticipation and preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Messiah. It is anticipation and preparation for the celebration of the coming of "hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory" that came with Christ.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
~ Isaiah 9:6-7

We are entering a time where we celebrate the coming of the Messiah who did establish and uphold His kingdom "with justice and righteousness." The justice was God's wrath poured out on Christ on our behalf. The righteousness is Christ's righteousness that is imputed to us by grace through faith. Both come from God and both are necessary so that "He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:26)

By His Grace,
Taylor

History and God

2011-11-23T16:56:00.000-05:00

"The greatest proof to me that God exists and this [Christianity] is all true is the history of the Church. With all the scandals and sin, if God's hand wasn't on it, it would have fallen apart a long time ago." ~ Dr. Frank James

Dr. James is a professor at RTS Orlando (one of the sister seminaries of my own). He is a brilliant scholar, historian and a great professor. I had him for both of my Church History courses.

I really like this quote because I think it is very true. If we look at the history of the Church there are some triumphs and moments we would love to emulate or relive, but for the most part, the history of the Church has been God saving us from one predicament after another. Without His hand on the Church, protecting it, it would have died a long time ago. Do not get me wrong, I love the Church, but that is because she belongs to Jesus and He insists that I do.

Think about the history of Israel. Israel is one of the most ancient cultures still in existence and they certainly were not a dominant one for the majority of their history. All it takes is a cursory look at the history of the Old Testament to see that most of the time Israel was screwing things up and bringing on the judgment of God. They were conquered by many nations much greater than they and yet, they are still around and most of those nations are long gone. Why? Because God made a covenant with Abraham and promised him that He would make him into a great nation, and God is faithful to His covenants even if we are not. From a human perspective, the Israelite nation should have died out long ago and yet they lived on. Why? Because God's hand was on them.

Consider the persecutions of the early Church in the first few centuries. There were many Roman emperors who were intent on wiping out the pesky Christian religion, but they could not do it. Why? Because God's hand was on the Church, sustaining it and refining it in the fire of persecution. "Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won."

Think about the scandals and fights of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Once Christians did not have to fight the Roman Empire any longer, we started fighting among ourselves. Now, God used these controversies to help the Church define itself through determining the bounds of orthodoxy, now written down in the ancient creeds. However, from a human perspective these scandals and fights should have destroyed us, yet they did not. Why? Because God's hand was on the Church, sustaining it amid its own internal turmoil.

You know what this tells me? That God does not really need us. I knew that already, of course, because God is sovereign and independent. Looking at the history of the Church, however, makes this clear to my heart as well as my head. He does not need us to do anything. Yet, He chooses to use us--a sinful, broken people. Why? To answer that, let me tell you a story one of my professors told me.

In order to protect his identity on the Internet, I will change the names. One of my professors, let us call him Dr. Ryan, has an autistic son, let us call him Jack. Jack is 23 years old but has the mind of a seven-year-old, according to Dr. Ryan. Dr. Ryan, of course, loves Jack with all his heart. If you ever had the privilege of hearing him talk about Jack, that would be readily apparent to you. One day Dr. Ryan needed to replace a door nob in his house. Now, by his own admission, Dr. Ryan is not very handy, so what would be a 10-minute job for some people is an hour-long job for him. Jack wanted to help Dr. Ryan replace the nob and Dr. Ryan loves Jack, so he let him help. Now, when you add Jack into the picture an hour-long job becomes about three hours because Jack made mistakes or disturbed the process by doing something like playfully picking up the screws and running around the house hoping Dr. Ryan would chase him. It tried Dr. Ryan's patience but he loves his son, so he continued to let him help. When Mrs. Ryan got home, Jack declared to her with a huge smile on his face, "We fixed the door nob, mom!" Dr. Ryan's heart was filled with joy at this moment. He knew he could have done it better on his own, but he also knew that Jack needs to be about the business of his father because that brings him joy.

I think this is how God views us. We are the autistic race of people who really want to help but are constantly messing things up that He could have done much better on His own. Why does He let us help? Because He knows that we need to be about our Father's business because that brings us joy. So He lets us help and when we screw things up, He puts His hand on them and fixes them. This is the history of the Church.

By the way, the image above is the cover of an excellent summary of Church history. If you are interested in getting the highlights of Church history in a single book, I would recommend Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Heavens Declare

2011-11-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

¹The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
²Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
³There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
⁴Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
~ Psalm 19:1-4

I just recently ran across this beautiful time-lapse video of the earth from the International Space Station. In it you can see the lights of our cities, lightning flashing in storms, the Aurora Borealis, and so much more. It is glorious reminder to me of the beautiful design in our universe and how the heavens truly do declare the glory of God.

If you want a reservoir of images, check out my Space Images Picasa Web Album. I have collected images and captions from all over the web. I add to it anytime I come across an image I find particularly striking.

Also, one of my most popular posts has been "Mote of Dust in a Sunbeam," which is a size comparison to show you just how small you really are in this universe of God's handiwork.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Faith In... What?

2011-11-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

"It doesn’t matter how much faith you have, if the object of your faith is not valid you will go straight to hell. The value of the faith is not in the one trusting, but the one in whom you are trusting. … It is not the faithfulness of the one who believes, but rather the faithfulness of the one who is believed in." ~ Josh McDowell

This is a very important point that McDowell is making. It is often thought today that faith saves you. "It does not matter what you believe, just believe in something," you may hear people say. Even Christians sometimes think that it is our faith that saves us, but that is, to quote a friend, "a lie from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke." Our faith is useless if it is not placed in someone who is faithful and deserving of that faith. Faith is foolish if it is not directed at one who is faithful and deserving of our faith. And, that kind of faith is nothing more than the proper response to the faithfulness of what we are looking to. Faith does not save us. It is the work of Jesus Christ that saves and when we place our faith in Him He gives us the gift of the salvation He won for us. Christian faith is objective (meaning dependent on the object faith looks to) and not subjective (meaning dependent on the subject who has the faith). Thank God for that because my faith would get me nowhere fast.

Another important point about this is that this destroys all notion of faith being "a work." It is clear that we are not saved by our works but "grace through faith" (Ephesians 2:8-9). Some have tried to claim that this is inconsistent because faith is a work. Not so. If salvation were dependent on our faith, then yes it would be a work, but salvation is dependent on the work of Christ. Our faith is merely the proper response to His faithfulness to His promises. Faith is merely empty hands where the gift of salvation that Jesus won for us is placed by God. Faith does not add anything to salvation but only the conduit on which is flows to the believer.

By His Grace,
Taylor

John Calvin and Missions

2011-11-06T19:22:00.000-05:00

"If it is true that all branches of the Christian family might have done more for missions, it is also true that this branch [Calvinism] has been 'in harness' as long as any expression of Protestantism."

I just finished up a paper for a class on Calvin and missions, which I thought I would share since he and the Reformed tradition have often been accused of not being involved in missions and not caring about missions. Though my paper does not address the Reformed tradition as a whole, it does refute this charge with respect to John Calvin himself, who is generally at the center of this accusation. Below is the introduction to the paper:

John Calvin and his doctrine, the so-called Calvinism that has lived on until today, have continued to be highly controversial in the Church. They were in Calvin’s time and they still are today. One of the constant debates that goes on in the Church today is the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism (a debate that serves to divide Christians in a way that neither John Calvin nor Jacobus Arminius would approve). Within this debate one of the consistent charges leveled against Calvin (and Calvinism) is that he and his doctrine are completely counter-evangelism and counter-missions. The Roman Catholic historian, Joseph Schmidlin, held that all the Reformers, including Calvin, “were not conscious of the missionary idea and displayed no missionary activity.” Others have echoed this charge. A. Mitchell Hunter, in his book on Calvin’s theology, claimed, “Certainly [Calvin] displayed no trace of missionary enthusiasm.” Professor of missions William Hogg wrote that Calvinism “worked effectively to throttle missionary endeavor.” Others have claimed that the Reformers “did not even talk about missions outreach.” It is said of Calvin that his “horrible doctrine” of divine election makes the missionary activity “nonsense.” This charge, however, is completely unfounded.

Those who take a honest look at Calvin’s doctrine and history are forced to conclude that John Calvin was truly a director of missions during the Reformation and the Reformed tradition has produced some of the most active and passionate missionaries this world has seen since the apostolic period. N. Carr Sargant, a Methodist (Arminian) missionary to India, did take a good look at Calvin and wrote, “To praise Arminianism and to reproach Calvinism is the conventional judgment. In respect of missions, however, rigid Calvinism and the warm Arminianism of Wesley were in substance the same.” He even went so far as to admit that while the Calvinists “had gone to the heathen,” his own tradition only sent preachers to places where Christians were abundant. In this paper we will look at Calvin’s teaching as well as the Reformation period and show that, while some may have misused Calvin’s teachings as an excuse for evangelistic indifference, Calvin was a director of missions and a man committed to the spread of the gospel throughout the world.

If you would like to read the rest of the paper, you can access it here.

By His Grace,
Taylor

What is Sanctification?

2011-10-17T20:55:00.001-04:00

"Union with Christ in his death and resurrection is the element of union which Paul most extensively expounds...if we are united to Christ, then we are united to him at all points of his activity on our behalf. We share in his death (we were baptized into his death), in his resurrection (we are resurrected with Christ), in his ascension (we have been raised with him), in his heavenly session (we sit with him in heavenly places, so that our life is hidden with Christ in God), and we will share in his promised return (when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory) (Rom. 6:14; Col. 2:11-12; 3:1-3). This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness." ~ Sinclair Ferguson

If you want to get a great summary of the Reformed, and I think correct, view of sanctification you can find it in Sinclair's article in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification. His article is worth the price of the book alone, but it is also great to see other traditions' views presented by their best scholars and critiqued by each other. In a nutshell, below is how I would explain sanctification:

What is sanctification? From the Reformed perspective sanctification can be defined as the life-long process (Philippians 1:6) of our whole man being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) through the work of God’s grace (John 1:16; II Corinthians 9:8; 12:9) by the agency of the Spirit (Galatians 3:1-5; I Corinthians 6:11) applying the blessings of our union with Christ (John 14:20; 15:5; Ephesians 5:25-32) to us through the means of grace—the sacraments, the Word of God, and prayer.

When does this happen? In the logical order of salvation sanctification begins after our justification and adoption and continues until our glorification. One might ask, “Why is this important?” It is important because we must understand that the foundation for the transformative process of sanctification is our forensic standing before God. We are declared righteous and adopted into the family of God by being united to Christ through the Holy Spirit. Only on the certainty of this foundation can we truly understand the way of sanctification. The principal means of the believer’s sanctification is union with Christ. As Paul reminds the Galatians, this foundation assures us that sanctification is not by human effort—it began with faith in Christ, it will end with Christ, and in between it continues with faith in Christ (Galatians 3:1-5).

The key focus that needs to be brought out is that Christ Himself is our sanctification (I Corinthians 1:30) and it is only by our union with Him through the agency of the Spirit that we can “bear fruit” (John 15:5) in our Christian lives. Paul reminds us in Romans 6:5-8 that we were united with Christ in His death, we were united with Christ in His burial, and we are united with Christ in life. It is because of this union with Christ that we can “consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God” (Romans 6:11). Being united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection broke our chains of slavery to sin and made us “slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:15-18). It is only because of the blessings of this union with Christ that Paul can pastorally say to his Roman audience, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Romains 6:12) for it does not and cannot depend on “human effort” (Galatians 3:3).

If we are united to Christ and can have victory over our sin by this union why, then do we still sin? To understand this we must remember that God has replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26-27) and created in us a new, inner man—we are a new creation in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17)—but since we have not yet been glorified with Christ the old, outer man still persists (Ephesians 4:22-23). The flesh has been defeated, but the loser still fights. We will not be completely free of sin until we are glorified with Christ and the old man is completely done away with.

How does the Spirit reshape us into the image of God? It is not by works that the Spirit molds us into the image of Christ. Good works do not produce holiness. It is the grace of God working in us by the Spirit through faith in Christ that produces holiness. How then do we receive this grace? The Spirit applies this grace to our lives through the use of the means of grace—the Word of God, the sacraments, and prayer. This is contrary to our normal was of thinking. We feel like we have to do something—that we must bring something to the table. However, we do not bring anything to the table, we rest in Christ. Sanctification, like justification, is by faith in Christ. We do this by letting the Spirit minister to our hearts through the Word of God (the reading, study, and especially the preaching of the Word in public worship), the observing of the sacraments during worship, and prayer (private and corporate). By the Spirit’s work through the means of grace we can respond with works of thankfulness to the unconditional love of God shown in the gospel. By the Spirit’s work through the means of grace we draw near to Christ and let the Spirit sanctify us in Him.

By His Grace,

Taylor

A Summary of Persecutions

2011-09-26T22:06:00.002-04:00

"There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials by a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the Word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has ever know. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won." ~ Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol III: Caesar and Christ (pg. 652)

Back in February I wrote a post called "The Drama of Persecution." Since then, it has continued to be one of the more popular posts on my blog and has sparked some good discussion with friends. I thought it might be helpful to summarize the persecutions that the Church went through in the first four centuries.

The early Church historian Eusebius claims that there were ten persecutions of the early Church from the time of Christ to his time (fourth century)—those under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Diocletian, and Galerius. This is not entirely accurate. This does not include the persecution by the Jews or the persecutions of the emperors after Constantine like Licinius and Julian, but it certainly covers the majority of the persecutions. Modern historian Philip Schaff suggests that this traditional number was proposed because of an allusion to the ten plagues of Egypt or the ten horns of the Beast making war with the Lamb. Later Church fathers like Augustine also rejected this number. Augustine rejected the attempt to number the persecutions at all: "When I think of these and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number of persecutions with which the church is to be tried can be definitely stated." I think Augustine is right in that it is difficult to establish lines defining persecutions in compartments of history. I think, however, when looking at the persecutions of the early Church it is helpful to think of them in five major sections—the persecution by the Jews, persecution by the Empire before 250 AD, persecution by the Empire after 250 AD, the Great Persecution under Diocletian, and, finally, persecution after Milan.

The Jewish Persecution
The first mode of persecution that the Church encountered was not from the Roman Empire but from the Jewish people, which lasted from about AD 33 to AD 64 (though there were residual persecutions of the Christians by the Jews after this time). At this time the Christians were still considered a sect of Judaism and therefore the Romans were content to leave the situation up to the Jews. The Jews persecuted the Christians because to the Jews the Christians were blasphemous and their blasphemy was spreading quickly. The Jews could not counter the Christian movement with debate and turned to physical persecution, as is shown in Acts 6 with Stephen, the first martyr.

When the Jews accused Stephen, they twisted his words and the words of Christ to make it seem like he was malevolent towards the Jews. Stephen responded not with malevolent words but with a reasoned argument. The Jews hated what he said and stoned him. While they were stoning him, he did not respond with a vengeful spirit but instead asked God to forgive him. Such was the reaction of many of the martyrs in the early Church.

Another that the Jews martyred was James "the Righteous," or James "the Just." He was the brother of Christ and one the elders at Jerusalem. He was also martyred for blasphemy but not in the same way. He was taken by the Sanhedrin and questioned before many people. The Sanhedrin tried to coax him into saying that Christ was not the Messiah knowing, since so many respected James, if he did deny Christ many would follow. He did not do as they wanted, in fact people were beginning to listen to him so they threw him down and stoned him. As they were stoning him, he was praying for them and one person watching even shouted, "Stop! The Righteous One is praying for you." At that, they busted his head with a club.

Most of the Jewish persecutions were designed to eliminate the competition of Christ. They saw Christ as blasphemous and to make matters worse, many were becoming Christians. They tried to scare people away by persecuting the Christian leaders. There were others killed by the Jews but these two descriptions show their plan in persecution and the way that the persecuted responded to their assaults.

Persecution by the Romans
There were several reasons why the Romans persecuted the Christians but they all were related to the fact that the Romans viewed the Christians as disloyal and just very odd. The Romans considered themselves generally very tolerant. There were many religions in Rome that were sanctioned; they did not have a problem with almost any religion as long as it did not come between the religious followers and the Roman state. They tested this loyalty and united Rome in one common religious practice by instigating a state religion—emperor worship. If you complied with this, you were generally okay in the eyes of the Romans.

The Christians were seen as disloyal for four basic reasons. First, God is not content to be one of many gods so the Christians would not sacrifice to the emperor. They were not fulfilling the one Roman religious request—emperor worship. Second, the Christians would not serve in the military because of an aversion for blood shed. This made it appear that they did not care about the protection of the state. Next, the Christians would not normally hold a state office, again making it appear that they did not care about the good of the state. Finally, the Christians met at night or early in the morning! No one was allowed in their secret meetings except the baptized! This kind of secrecy did not sit well with the Roman government. The Christians had a higher allegiance than the emperor and they were very secretive. This made it appear to the Romans that the Christians were trying to form a state within the state.

The Christians were also viewed as just plain odd. There were rumors of incest in their secret meetings. This was probably just the "Kiss of Peace" or "greet one another with a holy kiss," but if you had never been to a meeting, already were a little suspicious, and heard about brother kissing brother you might construe this to be incestuous. They were also accused of being cannibals. The Christians got together in their secret meetings and ate the flesh of their leader! They drank His blood! This reaction is, again, somewhat understandable if you were not allowed to go to their meetings and heard someone say that their leader said to eat His body in remembrance of Him.

Barry Baldwin makes an interesting statement about one other possible Roman motivation for their distrust of Christians. He asserts that since Christ was a Jew, the Romans were more suspicious. The Jews were tough adversaries. Like the Christians, the Jews believed in one god, while the Romans accepted many. According to Baldwin this did not help their reputation in the eyes of the Romans. He says, "The Romans respected tough enemies and none came tougher than the Jews. This allied with their uncompromising religion—a source of puzzlement and resentment to the more theologically complacent Romans—had an important consequence. The Romans would have been much less worried by Christ and his message had He not been a Jew."

All of the above gave the Romans reason to hate the strange Christians. It also allowed the Romans to use the Christians as scapegoats. The times and levels of persecution varied throughout the early Church's history but the reasons for each persecution were not very unique. They mostly stemmed from suspicion of the Christians and their perception that the Christians were just very different, too different.

Persecution by the Empire before 250 AD
The reason that 250 AD was chosen for a dividing line is that before this time persecution was sporadic and not empire-wide. There was a great deal of persecution and it was very brutal at times, but it was localized and not all-encompassing.

Nero was the first emperor to persecute the Christians. His persecution is often portrayed as the worst, but this was not the case when one considers the breadth of later persecutions. While Nero himself was particularly brutal and did initiate the first persecution of the Christians, his persecution was localized mainly to the city of Rome itself. It appears that he first instigated persecution in order to take the focus off himself. There was a fire in Rome in 64 AD that destroyed much of the city and it was rumored that Nero had set the fire himself. (This we know from Tacitus.) Since there was already a great deal of mistrust of the Christians, Nero saw them as a perfect place to shift the blame. He accused the Christians of setting the fire that destroyed much of Rome and instigated persecution of them. No one really knows whether or not Nero set the fire, but it is fairly clear that he instigated the persecution to take the blame off himself, whether this blame was deserved or not. It was at this time that it became officially illegal to be a Christian in Rome. Nero had Paul executed by beheading and had Peter crucified. It is also said that Nero burned Christians as lights for his garden. Fortunately, Nero did not live much longer after he instigated persecution—he died in 68 AD.

Domitian ruled from 80 to 96 AD. Persecution did not break out under his reign until 95 AD and the motive is not completely clear but we can infer a few things. At this time, Christians still would not sacrifice to the emperor and swear loyalties to him. This was particularly an insult to Domitian because he, unlike most of the other emperors before him, actually thought of himself as a god. He even had the senate address him as one. Therefore, the Christians denying sacrifice to him was probably a great personal insult. There is also evidence of a coup around this time. This made Domitian very paranoid. That combined with the insult of the Christians not worshiping him could have been his motive for persecution. He instigated a reign of terror, but it was mostly confined to the city of Rome. Many Christians were killed during this time, but again, it did not last very long since he died in 96 AD.

Trajan was the next emperor of Rome to persecute the Christians. His was unique because he was the first emperor to initiate an organized persecution of the Christians. We can see this in a letter from Pliny, governor of Bithynia. He wrote to Trajan detailing the way he was handling the very annoying Christians in his area. The tone of his letter suggests that he was looking for a "pat on the back," as if he was adhering well to Trajan’s policy. Trajan did not want Christians to be actively hunted, but if they were accused then they were to be brought to trial. At their trial the Christian was to be asked three times if he was a Christian. If he answered yes to all three, he was convicted and sentence to execution. Many Christians died under the reign of Trajan, but they died proudly, standing up for their faith in Christ. Eusebius mentions that when Simon, the Bishop of Jerusalem, was asked if he was a Christian he immediately answered yes three times. He did not seem to see the point in hearing the same question multiple times and made it immediately clear that he was a Christian. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was also executed during the reign of Trajan. Ignatius welcomed martyrdom and actually spoke out against anyone trying to save him. Trajan’s persecution lasted from 110 AD to 115 AD.

Marcus Aurelius ruled about 50 years after Trajan from 161 to 180. It is possible that Christians would not have received much persecution from Aurelius had it not been for Fronto, Aurelius’s stoic teacher. (There is evidence in several manuscripts discovered in 1815 that Fronto and Aurelius were lovers, which, if true, would add passion into the motive.) Several key figures were martyred under Aurelius’s reign including Polycarp and Justin. Polycarp met his martyrdom with dignity and honor and never once dishonored Christ. It is reported by Eusebius that when Polycarp was set upon the pillar and burned that the flame flowed around him like a sail. A soldier had to stab him in order to kill him. In 177, there was a massive execution in Gaul. More than 100 men, women, and children were rounded up and sent to be executed in an amphitheater. Many of those apostatized, and those that did not were brutally tortured and killed. Eusebius describes the torture and death of a slave girl, Blandina. Blandina was first tortured for more than a day until her torturers were exhausted and could think of nothing else to do to her. She was then placed on a cross as food for beasts, but they would not touch her. She was then tortured again beside a young boy whom she encouraged to keep the faith. She was then thrown to a bull. None of these things killed her or made her deny Christ. She was finally executed having beaten those who tried to get her to apostatize. Another man was made to sit in a red-hot iron chair and baked to death. While he was in the chair he said, "Look, you say we are bloodthirsty but you are cooking me." Clearly, the charge of cannibalism was probably on his mind. During this persecution there were many who turned away from Christ, but there were many more that stood firm for the Lord and, in the face of horrible torture, never denied their Savior.

Severus ruled from 193 to 211. Severus’s policy against the Christians was not personal, but he did not do much to hinder the populace from enforcing the laws on Christians that had existed long before his reign. It is said that Severus actually had some Christians in his household and protected them but this is uncertain. There were many executions across the Empire during the time of Severus—in Alexandria, Thebaid, Lyon, Eqypt, Madaura, and several other places. Eusebius describes the numbers by saying, "untold numbers were being wreathed with martyrs' crowns." Leonides, thought to be Origen's father, was martyred under the reign of Severus.

Persecution by the Empire after 250
It was in this period that persecution was no longer localized in small areas but empire-wide as a matter of policy. It was often the deliberate policy of the emperors to persecute the Christians in all areas of the Empire. This was the darkest time in the persecution of the Church not only because the persecutions were so harsh but also because many apostatized because of the harshness.

The first to make a deliberate, empire-wide persecution of the Church was Decius, 249 to 251. Decius believed that Rome could only survive if the classical culture was restored. Christians were a constant menace to this because they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods. Decius issued an edict that all had to offer a sacrifice before the local magistrate and receive a libellus (a proof of sacrifice). This had to be done once a year. If you could not present a libellus, then you were sentenced to death. Many Christians would not sacrifice and a great deal of persecution followed. The Bishops of Rome, Antioch and Jerusalem were executed as well as many others. Not all Christians, however, withstood this storm. Many bought their libellus on the black market. They did not actually sacrifice but told the government that they did. Others went even further and actually sacrificed. This persecution was the first to actually weaken the Church. The estimate of martyrs during this time is high, in the thousands. The estimate of apostasies, however, is even higher than that. Soon after this started, however, Decius met an early but providential demise. His edict died with him.

The next emperor to issue and empire-wide persecution was Valerian. In 258, he issued decrees that all bishops had to sacrifice and forbade Christians from assembling. Many bishops, presbyters, and deacons were martyred during this time—Cyprian of Carthage, Fructuosus of Tarragona, Lawrence of Rome, and many others. Death was not the only punishment. Many Christians in the imperial household were sent in chains to perform forced labor on the imperial domains. These edicts were hard on Christians, but taken in comparison to some of the others of the past this was not the worst persecution the Church had suffered.

The final emperor in this section is Gallienus, 260 to 268. Under Gallienus persecution actually seemed to die down. There were still persecutions and martyrdoms throughout the empire but not to the scale of the recent past.

The Great Persecution
It is said that the sea is always the most calm right before the storm. This could be applied to the relationship between the Christians and the Roman state until Diocletian,287 to 305.

In 297, the Great Persecution began. It was a result of a few Christians and a pagan ceremony gone bad. The ceremony produced a bad omen after several Christians had made the sign of the cross at the ceremony. The pagans blamed the Christians for the bad omen and thus started the Great Persecution.

Diocletian was pressed by Galerius to issue official persecution and in 303; he did in the form of four edicts. The first edict in 303 was to terminate Christianity. During other persecutions up until this point there had been an element of toleration, however small, but with this edict any idea of toleration was crushed. Christian churches were burned and many Bible texts were destroyed. Later, the second edict was issued that called for the imprisonment of all clergy. So many clergy were imprisoned that the jails ran out of room. Then, in the third edict, Diocletian decided to offer amnesty at the price of a sacrifice to the Roman gods. Very few took him up on this offer. So, Diocletian issued the death penalty for any who would not sacrifice or any Christian caught in any kind of religious activity. His goal was to destroy anything and everything associated with Christianity. Some Christians reacted as boldly and heroically as those who had come before them. Some faltered and sacrificed. Others fought back. In particular, some Christians in Nicamadea burned one of Diocletian’s palaces. Diocletian prompted responded by rounding up 268 Christians and executing them.

When Diocletian retired, in 305, Galerius took his place in the East and Constantius took the place of Maximian in the West. Galerius continued the heavy persecution of the Church but Constantius was less brutal. He seemed to be content to simply burn a few churches.

In 311 Galerius was struck with a severe illness. Under pressure from his wife, he issued an edict of toleration to all Christians. He even asked Christians to pray for him. This edict continued until Maximus replaced Galerius. He tried to reinstitute the persecutions but had little success. Thus ended the Great Persecution.

Persecution after Milan
This dividing line was chosen because of the importance of the Edict of Milan. After Constantine defeated Maxintius at Milvia, in 313, the Edict of Milan was issued. This edict declared Christianity to be a legal religion. The Church thought this would be the end of persecution but it was not quite yet.

Linsinius, Constantine’s ally, reinstated persecution in 314. Constantine would not have this and attacked Linsinius and defeated him. Strangely enough, however, Constantine allowed Linsinius to keep the region of Thrace under his control. Linsinius, again, reinstated persecution. Constantine came back in 324 and crushed Linsinius, keeping the entire Empire for himself.

Finally, in 360 Julian the Apostate tried to bring back the supremacy of the pagan religions and reinstitute persecution of the Church. Julian is called "the Apostate" because he was supposedly a Christian and converted to paganism. However, from private letters sent to Libanius we can gather that Julian was never really a Christian. Upon his "conversion" to Theurgy he tried to re-emerge the Hellenistic culture of the old Roman Empire. His persecution was not designed so much to destroy Christianity but to drive it out of public office and put the power of Christianity back into the pagan hands, the state that it was in before the Edict of Milan.

The Early Church and its Martyrs
In the beginning, the early church gave a great deal of respect to its martyrs and it was rightly deserved. Their veneration for the martyrs and their faith was natural for a culture that was growing up in persecution. There was a battle between Christ and the state and every time a martyr was made Christ won. Martyrdom was viewed so highly that it was even sought by some as a goal. It was often said of martyrs that they "found fulfillment" in their death. Eusebius tells the story of Origen's childhood and tells how his mother had to restrain him from following his father's footsteps and plunging head-first into martyrdom. Soon, however, the laud rose to an un-Scriptural level and eventually degenerated to worship of the martyrs and their relics.

In a letter from Polycarp in 155, he shows the initial respect for the martyrs. His letter does not really show signs of an unhealthy admiration but this was still early on in the Church. Polycarp says, "...we can neither ever forsake Christ, who has suffered for the salvation of the whole world of the redeemed, nor worship another. Him indeed we adore as the Son of God; but the martyrs we love as they deserve for their surpassing love to their King and Master, as we wish also to be their companions and fellow-disciples." During this time, not only the martyrs were paid particular respect but those who were imprisoned or tortured were also admired. Those who survived persecution had an equally greater respect for those who were martyred. Eusebius reports that when they returned to their church, if people tried to call them martyrs they would rebuke them saying that they did not deserve such admiration. Once they were reintegrated into their church their voices carried much more weight than the average member. This shows the hero view of the martyrs and the sense of respect that was given them by the Church. Soon this respect turned into a kind of deification.

Soon the Church not only began to regard the martyrs with high respect but also their remains and any kind of relics they left behind. Polycarp's bones were considered of highest value to the church in Smyrna. Other martyrs' remains were treated the same way. Their possessions were viewed as relics and eventually were thought to contain healing powers. The British historian Bede relays a story of the Bishop of Gaul going to Britain and performing miracles by the power of bones from a martyr.

The regard of the martyrs as heroes evolved into viewing them as superhuman but sub-deity. In the third century, the blood of the martyr was thought to be a cleansing substitution for baptism. Their own blood and the fire of the stake were thought by some to atone for the sins of the martyr. Later it was thought that the grace that the martyrs received was ample and that it could be shared with others for atonement, thus almost replacing Christ with the martyr. It was even thought that, much like the saints, the prayers of martyrs carried more weight than those of the normal Christian. Respect had grown so great that the Church could not see flaws in its own doctrine.

Well, that is a relatively brief summary of the early Church persecutions ("relatively" brief because, though this is one of my longer posts, it does cover 350 years fairly quickly). I hope it has given you a better idea of how God spread the Church in the midst of, even because of at times, persecution. It was said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. I think that is true.

This has been a historical overview. If you want my theological overview, see my earlier post on the subject.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Unity Amid Diversity

2011-09-20T16:24:00.001-04:00

"[Unity] is not achieved by hunting enthusiastically for the lowest common theological denominator, but by common adherence to the apostolic gospel, by love that is joyfully self-sacrificing, by undaunted commitment to the shared goals of the mission with which Jesus’ followers have been charged, by self-conscious dependence on God himself for life and fruitfulness. It is a unity necessarily present, at least in nuce, amongst genuine believers; it is a unity that must be brought to perfection (v. 23)." ~ D. A. Carson

This past Sunday I was given the opportunity to preach before my church family. I decided to speak on something that all Christians need to hear and that is difficult for all of us--unity. The passage I preached from is John 17:20-23 where Jesus prays for the unity of His Church.

I could say more but the sermon pretty much sums up what I know on the subject. You can read my manuscript here or listen to it here. I pray that it encourages and challenges you on this important subject.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Tragedy, Sovereignty, and Hope

2011-09-12T14:59:00.001-04:00

"In the midst of the panic and the fear, there is a people who belong to the God of the Covenant... and in His arms, there is security and in His sovereignty, there is trust." ~ Steve Brown

Yesterday we remembered the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a date that for my generation will live in our memories as long as Kennedy's assassination or Pearl Harbor did for previous generations. A lot has been said about this tragedy--some good and a lot bad. The big question is, "Where was God during 9/11?" He was on His throne as King of the universe, where He has always been since before there was time. He never left it during 9/11, Oklahoma City bombing, Virginia Tech, WWI, WWII, or when two of my closest friends died a few months before 9/11. He was not somewhere else in the world and somehow missed it. He was not surprised by it. He has always been and will always be in control of all things. We cannot say He "did not cause 9/11" and yet also hold to Ro. 8:28. He cannot work all things together for good unless He controls those bad things that He works together, along with the good things, to accomplish good for His people. Why did He ordain 9/11? I have no idea. I could give a few possible reasons like bringing together a nation or opportunities for the gospel, but anything that I could come up with would surely not be close to a complete account of God's plans for 9/11 and would cheapen the lives lost in that tragedy. We must leave it up to Him and acknowledge that sometimes when the darkness surrounds us we cannot understand why. Yet, we cannot doubt in the dark what we have known to be true about God in the light. He is sovereign over all things, even 9/11, and He promises to work all things, even 9/11, together for the good of those who are His. If you deny the first you cannot trust in the second. If you deny the first you cannot have the hope of the second.

I recommend reading one of Piper's articles that he wrote shortly after 9/11: Why I Do Not Say, "God Did Not Cause the Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good". I also recommend listening to Steve Brown's broadcast that he aired on 9/12/2001: Tragedy, Sovereignty, and Hope.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Adam and Eve: A Tale of Two Cases

2011-09-06T00:29:00.007-04:00

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about the historicity of Adam and Eve called "Who Was Adam?". In it I posted an excerpt from a blog of a friend of a friend and my response to her post where I showed that it is not the scientific data that calls into question the historicity of Adam and Eve but an evolutionary interpretation of the data. Since then, my post has been published on The Aquila Report, a Reformed news service, and I have talked about the issue at length with many people. I wanted to follow that post up with some clarification on the issue and further defend the biblical view. When the pertinent data is looked at from the two points (an evolutionary or biblical) of view we get a "tale of two cases".

First, I think we need to clarify a few things when it comes to the use of terms that one might hear thrown around when this issue is talked about. There have been several Christian scientists who deny the historicity of Adam and Eve because they claim that it "would be against all the genomics evidence that we’ve assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all..." (Dennis Venema, Trinity Western University) Some have flat out said that, "genetics convincingly shows that there was never a time when there were just two persons." (Darrel Falk and Kathryn Applegate, BioLogos) Francis Collins of the Human Genome Project says, "Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and ancestors of all humans do not fit the evidence." But what do they mean when they say, "genetics convincingly shows" or "against all genomics evidence"? What genetic evidence are they referring to? This is a very important question because a lot is riding on this evidence.

The problem with this generalized claim is that genetic evidence has four components to it. There are four types of DNA that gets lumped into the phrase "genetic evidence" and some of it makes the interpretation of Collins, Venema, et al. very uncertain (we will get to why that is below). The four types of DNA are as follows:

Autosomal DNA -- This is the DNA that makes up most of your genome and is a random combination of both of your parent's DNA. Since this autosomal DNA (atDNA) is a random combination of your parent's DNA (and their's is a random combination of their parents, ad infinitum) everyone's is completely unique. (This may also be referred to as "nuclear DNA" but that term is less precise.) For a good explanation of this type of DNA see this video.
Chromosomal DNA Types -- At the genetic level, what determines our sex is our chromosomes. Males have a X and a Y chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes. Each contains DNA:

X Chromosomal DNA -- This is the DNA that makes up your X chromosome (X-c) that you get from your mother. It is a random combination of her two X chromosomes, so, like the autosomal DNA, it is unique, though it does not change as quickly as autosomal DNA. For a good explanation of this type of DNA see this video.
Y Chromosomal DNA -- This is the DNA that makes up the male Y chromosome (Y-c) and it is only passed from fathers to sons. Since there is only one Y-c, there is no random recombination of genes so the only thing that can cause change in the Y-c is mutation. This means it often not unique and changes very, very slowly. For a good explanation of this type of DNA see this video.

Mitochondrial DNA -- This final form of DNA comes from the mitochondrial of your cells and it only comes from your mother. Male or female, it does not matter, your mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) only comes from your mother. So, like the Y-c, there is no recombination of genes so the only thing that can cause change in the mtDNA is mutation. This also means, like the Y-c, it is often not unique and changes very, very slowly. For a good explanation of this type of DNA see this video.

We need to demand specificity from anyone making the claim that "genetic evidence" shows something. What kind of genetic evidence are they referring to? This will become important below.

Another term that gets used by scientists that often confuses people is "human". Now, you might think should be simple but it is not. An evolutionary biologist will use the term "human" to refer to any type of hominid from the homo genus like homo erectus or homo rudolfensis, not just homo sapiens (the taxonomic name for what species you and I are). This confuses the matter because scientists may refer to an ancient "human" fossil, footprint, or gene and they may not be referring to our species at all. This term also gives rise to the phrase "ancient modern human" used to refer to a homo sapien that lived in pre-historic times. This phrase not a contradiction in terms, but a further specification biologists use to refer to homo sapiens--a modern human species that lived long ago. I say this to make sure you aware of what is really being talked about when you read a science article in the popular news. If they say "human" they may not mean the species that you and I belong to and it may require more investigation on your part to figure out what they are really referring to. You can be sure that when I use the term "human" I mean a human like you and me, not any kind of animal that may have walked erect.

Second, we need to clarify that data that is being referred to by these scientists quoted above and that I will refer to below. There are two important types of data that come into play. The first I have already talked about in my previous post on this subject, and it is the mtDNA and Y-c data that shows that the entire human race can be traced back to one single mtDNA sequence for females and one Y-c sequence for males, a single pair of humans. (For a more detailed explanation of this see my first post on the subject.) As I just mentioned above, the mtDNA and Y-c change very slowly because the only mechanism for change is mutation. Therefore, scientist can trace the mutations of DNA take from all types of people throughout the globe back to a single first sequence for males and females. It is the single method of change--mutation--and the slow rate of change that makes this possible. (This would be impossible with atDNA, which is why it is important to know what kind of DNA someone is referring to!) The second type of data looks at the genetic diversity of humanity in the atDNA in humans. This data is drawn from mathematical models and attempts to take the present diversity of human atDNA and calculate how long it would take to get to the present state of diversity. These models have showed that in order for humanity to get to its present state of genetic diversity, it would have to have started out from a small population of humans (on the order of thousands) and not a single pair. These two sets of data appear to be in conflict, which is where our tale of two cases begins.

There are two possible ways of looking at this data. In these two interpretations different types of genetic data are given priority, which, again, is why it is important to know what genetic data someone is referring to when they say, "the genetic evidence says...".

Case #1 -- The Interpretation of Venema, Collins, et al.:
The mathematical modeling from the atDNA is given priority and it is assumed that humanity could not have originated from a single pair. This assumption is then imposed on the data that comes from the mtDNA and the Y-c. The question is then asked, "How could we have one ancient modern human mtDNA sequence and one Y-c sequence for all of us when humanity did not arise from a single pair?" Their answer is the "one lucky mother" hypothesis. They hold that there was originally thousands of mtDNA sequences and Y-c sequences in the first ancient modern humans but somewhere along the way all lines of these types of DNA died off except the one mtDNA and one Y-c that exist today in the present population. These sequences were from the "lucky" man and woman whose DNA was passed on while all other lines of DNA died out.

Case #2 -- The Biblical Interpretation:
In this case, the mtDNA and Y-c evidence is given priority because of the faults in the mathematical modeling and because of highly improbably "one lucky mother" hypothesis. In this case, the model is assumed to be incomplete (see below) and so it cannot be given the weight of mtDNA and Y-c tracking (which, remember, is a much slower process and much easier to trace backward). These ancient sequences are taken to actually point to a single man and single woman who were the progenitors of the entire human race. No special hypothesis is necessary for this interpretation, simply an acknowledgement of the limits of mathematical modeling with atDNA.

So, which of these cases seems more likely? It should be obvious by now that I choose case #2. Why? Well, I would like to expound upon the faults in the mathematical modeling and the "one lucky mother" hypothesis that I mentioned above:

First, the mathematical models, while sophisticated, do not take into account very important data and therefore the results are unreliable. Remember, with atDNA, there is a random recombination of parental genes so there are many more things coming into play than just mutations--many things which the model leaves out. For one, it assumes that environmental factors do not drive genetic diversity. Environmental factors are things like location, food supply, isolation, diseases, and anything else that can drive a population to change. Recent studies (like this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1766376/) have shown this this is a dangerous assumption and can greatly skew the data. These models also assume monogamy throughout human history, and we all know that this is not a valid assumption. Now, before you think the scientists are just being sloppy, consider how difficult it would be to include these factors into a model. How many sexual partners do you assume each human has? How do you know what environmental pressures were on an ancient human population for which we have no historical record? You cannot and so these models cannot realistically include these things. However, this just goes to show that their results should be used with great reservation.
Second, the "one lucky mother" hypothesis has a critical flaw in it. If one assumes that ancient humanity began with a small population of thousands, then for this hypothesis to work one has to find a catastrophic yet very selective mechanism that will kill off all genetic lines except for one male's and one female's. It must be catastrophic enough to kill off thousands of lines and all their progeny and yet it must also be selective enough to kill off all but one for the females and one for the males. What event or process could be so terrible that it would kill off all genetic lines and yet also so selective that it would leave one and only one genetic line for each sex? Even theorizing about such a mechanism is nearly impossible.

So, we must choose between case #1 and case #2. Case #1 puts more weight on mathematical models that are incomplete (see above) and must come up with a complicated mechanism for killing of all genetic lines but those of one male and one female. Case #2 acknowledges the issues with mathematical modeling and takes the mtDNA and Y-c data at face value without having to postulate extraordinary events to explain the data. If Ockham's razor means anything at all any more, we must acknowledge that case #2 is likely the correct explanation of the data.

What would keep intelligent men like the ones mentioned above from acknowledging that case #2 is more likely the correct explanation of the data? Presuppositions. We must remember that all of us look at this data with our bias that we bring to the table. I look at the data having faith that what Scripture says is historical and theologically important and therefore I choose case #2. Theistic evolutionists, like the Christians mentioned above, look at the data already believing that evolution is a fact and therefore choose case #1 because it fits that presupposition better. Am I any different from them in this regard? No, I readily admit that my bias influences my decision, but the point is that case #2 is 1) an equally valid interpretation of the data and 2) fits the data well with fewer complications and less reliance on incomplete modeling.

Scripture is my highest priority and I make no apologies for that, but it is also true that the data itself does not go against Scripture. It actually fits quite well with Scripture. This is what we should expect if we truly believe that God is the author of all truth, whether it comes from the infallible authority of Scripture or the scientific realm. For, as Paul says in Romans 11:36, "from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen."

By His Grace,
Taylor

It Shall Be Provided

2011-08-31T17:37:00.001-04:00

"When you are tempted to doubt the faithfulness of God, cry out, 'Get thee hence, Satan.' Though you cannot now harmonize God’s mysterious dealings with the avowals of His love, wait on Him for more light. In His own good time He will make it plain to you." ~ A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God

In agreement with the quote of Pink above, Spurgeon once said, "If you can't trace God's hand trust His heart." That is difficult to do but it is so important to the Christian life. This world is broken and sometimes it is difficult to see why God would ordain the events He has. Sometimes it is really hard because we are right in the middle of the tragedy, the darkness is closing in, and we cannot see how God is in it. Yet, we should never doubt in the dark what we have known to be true about God in the light. We must take hold of Him and "wait on Him for more light."

Back in July I preached a sermon at my church, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, on Genesis 22, which dealt with this very subject. If you are going through a rough time or have gone through one recently, perhaps it might be helpful to you. You can listen to it here or read it here. I pray that God will use it to encourage you and magnify His glory in your heart.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Baptism

2011-08-19T21:29:00.001-04:00

"Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to be a sign and seal of ingrafting into himself, of remission of sins by his blood, and regeneration by his Spirit; of adoption, and resurrection unto everlasting life; and whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible church, and enter into an open and professed engagement to be wholly and only the Lord’s." ~ Westminster Larger Catechism, answer to question #165

Last week I wrote briefly about what I learned in my recent preaching concerning the Lord's Supper. Today I thought I would share a little bit of what I learned about baptism by sharing with you some great resources as well as the two sermons I wrote for this class on baptism.

First, I would like to call your attention to question #167 of the Westminster Larger Catechism, "How is our baptism to be improved by us?":

The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism, is to be performed by us all our life long, especially in the time of temptation, and when we are present at the administration of it to others; by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it, and of the ends for which Christ instituted it, the privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby, and our solemn vow made therein; by being humbled for our sinful defilement, our falling short of, and walking contrary to, the grace of baptism, and our engagements; by growing up to assurance of pardon of sin, and of all other blessings sealed to us in that sacrament; by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized, for the mortifying of sin, and quickening of grace; and by endeavoring to live by faith, to have our conversation in holiness and righteousness, as those that have therein given up their names to Christ; and to walk in brotherly love, as being baptized by the same Spirit into one body.

This one of the key things I learned while taking this course. I had probably read this question and answer a dozen times but it never hit me. Our baptisms, which for many of us was a very long time ago, can be improved by us. Baptism is not just a sacrament that is administered and forgotten about. It is something that can be improved by us and something that God uses for our sanctification. Apparently I am not the only one who had neglected this, for even in the 17th century, when this was written, it was neglected: "The needful but much neglected duty of improving our baptism..." So, my first sermon, which was normal length sermon (just a hair over seven pages), was written on this subject from Titus 3:1-8.

Some of you may be unsure what baptism really is. I think a lot of us who have grown up in the Church have, at best, a nebulous idea about what baptism really is. Well, my second sermon was written to (hopefully) answer that question. It is a short (only about two pages), pre-baptismal sermon, which was written as if I were about to baptize someone.

There are some good resources out there on baptism that I would recommend:

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (Book 4, Chapters 14-16): Again, like with the Lord's Supper, I highly recommend Calvin's work on this subject.
Jesus Loves the Little Children: Why We Baptize Children by Daniel Hyde: This is an excellent source on the subject of baptism that clearly explains baptism from a holistic, biblical perspective; answers the questions many people have about infant baptism; and compares infant baptism to "baby dedication" noting the fundamental differences between the two. It is well written, short, and charitable to opposing viewpoints.
"Baptism and the Benefits of Christ: The Double Mode of Communion in the Covenant of Grace" by R. Scott Clark: This is an excellent journal article written on the subject.

As with my post about the Lord's Supper, I pray that these resources would increase your view of baptism and ultimately God's glory in giving this sacrament to us.

By His Grace,

Taylor

The Lord's Supper

2011-08-11T18:18:00.004-04:00

"I am convinced that where the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is taken lightly the people of God are sorely impoverished. Without both the Word and sacrament we face a spiritual famine." ~ R. C. Sproul

I just finished a preaching course that was focused on the sacraments (the Lord's Supper and Baptism) and after having taken this course, studied the sacraments, and preached on them, I am more convinced than ever that what Sproul says in the quote above is exactly right. The sacraments have taken a back seat in the Protestant Church and that is to our detriment. This is probably because of a reaction to Roman Catholic sacramentalism (which is the name for a particular erroneous view on the sacraments) and/or because of modernism creeping in and giving us an inadequate view of faith. The reasons, however, are not what I want to discuss here. I thought I would post the sermons I wrote on the Lord's Supper as well as some books I recommend you read. Hopefully these resources will serve to increase your view of the Lord's Supper, give you a more joyful and expectant reception of it, and increase God's glory in your heart for giving us this amazing gift.

First, the recommended reading: There are some good books out there on the sacraments and some bad ones, so I would like to suggest a few that I think are good.

Given for You by Keith A. Mathison: This is a book on the Reformation theology of the Lord's Supper, particularly John Calvin's work done on it and the Reformed changes since then.
John Owen on the Lord's Supper by Jon D. Payne: This book was written by my professor and is a short summary of the history of the British Puritan battle with the Church of England for a proper view of the Lord's Supper, a summary of Owen's theology on the subject, and 25 of Owen's pre-Lord's Supper sermons, which will bless your soul (if you read them slowly because of Owen's old English style of writing).
Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (Book 4, Chapters 14, 17-18): John Calvin's Institutes is one of the most, if not the most, influential Christian works of all time and for good reason. His writing on the sacraments and the Lord's Supper is wonderful.

Second, my sermons: If you are interested in reading my sermons on the subject the links are below:

Short, pre-Lord's Supper sermonette: This assignment was to write what I would say before giving the Lord's Supper in a worship service. This sermon is only two pages and is written as if I were actually giving the words of institution for the Lord's Supper during a service.
Longer, standard sermon: This sermon is a normal sermon that I would preach during a worship service on the subject of the Lord's Supper (with a few modifications since I wrote it to be preached to my class). Since it is a normal sermon it is a little longer--just over seven pages.

I pray that these resources would increase your view of the Lord's Supper and ultimately God's glory in giving this sacrament to us.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Preaching and a Preacher's Growth

2011-07-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

"I give you the motto, 'Go forward.' Go forward in personal attainments, forward in gifts and in grace, forward in fitness for the work, and forward in conformity to the image of Jesus...If there be any brother here who thinks he can preach as well as he should, I would advise him to leave off altogether." ~ Charles Spurgeon

I am in a preaching lab class at my seminary, RTS Atlanta, and my professor sent a great blog post out to the class about how preachers should evaluate their preaching. It is a great article that I would recommend anyone reading, even those who have no plans of ever preaching. If you are reading this and you are not a preacher, nor do you have any plans to become one, I do not write this here to give you a means by which to criticize your pastor but quite the contrary. I write this so you can know how to pray for your pastor and his preaching and so you can know what he pours into it when he does it in a godly, biblical manor. No preacher gets all this right all the time (I preached at my church this past Sunday and found this article both encouraging and quite convicting), which is why he needs your prayer for his preaching.

The article's major points are the following:

Did I preach as God's servant? The author summarizes, "Evaluate your sermons for any hint that you stood in the pulpit as a lord and savior instead of a humble servant and messenger whose authority comes solely from God."
Did I preach to build God's Church? The author summarizes, "When evaluating your preaching, ask yourself whether you preached with a burning love for God which made you long to see His church built up on earth. God loves His church with an everlasting love. If you love God, your preaching must be full of love for God’s church."
Did I preach Christ as the only foundation? The author states, "Christ is everything to the believer: our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ is not only the door into salvation; He is the entire road on which we must travel to glory."
Did I build my sermon with the precious materials of Reformed experiential preaching? He, again, summarizes, "The wisdom of the Scriptures is the only material worthy of use in God’s holy temple. Therefore, do not build your sermons with the materials of man which will perish in God’s flaming glory."
Did I preach for the Master's reward? He states, "Though you and your hearers may have long forgotten the specifics of what you preached, the Lord will judge every sermon. Every sermon will have one of two outcomes on Judgment Day: it may be found precious in God’s sight and receive His approbation, or it will be judged unworthy and the fire of God’s glory will consume it."

Those are the major points of this blog post but there is some great content in between them. I recommend reading the whole thing. And, remember, read with the heart wanting to know how to pray for your pastor, not judge his sermons for all of the above questions are attitudes of the heart that only he and God can know fully.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Morality, God and the "New Atheism"

2011-07-12T16:15:00.001-04:00

I have written in the past in several places (like here and here) about faith in the view of atheism. Most of my writing, however, was been in the arena of science. Recently, on Biola Magazine, Craig Hazen wrote a good article on the idea of morality and the "new atheism", which does not specifically mention faith but it does highlight that atheists "began embracing basic morality as some sort of natural feature of the physical universe." This takes faith (something most ardently claim not to rely on), just as it does to accept the Laws of Physics as a "given". Of course, the article makes more points than that and it is well worth reading. Below is a sample of the article:

It’s been fascinating to watch the very vocal and prolific new atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, make a case for objective morality. The phrase “objective morality” is a way of indicating that some behaviors are right (truth telling, kindness, tolerance) and some behaviors are wrong (rape, murder, racism) — for real. Morality is not just a matter of personal preference and choice (akin to liking peanuts better than almonds), but rather laws that are real and true and binding no matter what one thinks about them or whether one chooses to follow them.

The reason it has been fun to watch the new atheists defend this idea is because atheists of an earlier generation (such as J.L. Mackie and Bertrand Russell) thought it folly to do so. Classic atheists from the mid-20th century were very reluctant to grant that there was an objective moral law because they saw that it was just too compelling for believers to take the easy step from the moral law to God who was the “moral law giver.” Accepting a real objective moral law would be giving far, far too much ground to the Christians and other theists.
...
The primary technique the new atheists have adopted for dealing with the issue of the origin or grounding of the moral law is obfuscation. The new atheists are very fond of saying, “We don’t need God to be good.” Indeed, they often say that atheists, agnostics and skeptics often lead more wholesome lives than lifelong professing Christians. Now, theists should not be fooled by this. Our response should be, “Of course you don’t need God to be good — we’ve never claimed that you do.” You see, it is not knowledge (epistemology) of the moral law that is a problem — after all, the Bible teaches that this law is written on every human heart. Rather, the daunting problem for the new atheist is the nature and source (ontology) of the moral law.

I recommend you read the rest of the article and then start asking some tough, uncomfortable questions about morality.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Take Not Your Name From the Evening

2011-07-11T12:56:00.001-04:00

Yesterday's Morning and Evening evening devotional is really great so I just wanted to share if with everyone. Read below and may it bless your soul.

“And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
— Genesis 1:5

The evening was “darkness” and the morning was “light,” and yet the two together are called by the name that is given to the light alone! This is somewhat remarkable, but it has an exact analogy in spiritual experience. In every believer there is darkness and light, and yet he is not to be named a sinner because there is sin in him, but he is to be named a saint because he possesses some degree of holiness. This will be a most comforting thought to those who are mourning their infirmities, and who ask, “Can I be a child of God while there is so much darkness in me?” Yes; for you, like the day, take not your name from the evening, but from the morning; and you are spoken of in the word of God as if you were even now perfectly holy as you will be soon. You are called the child of light, though there is darkness in you still. You are named after what is the predominating quality in the sight of God, which will one day be the only principle remaining. Observe that the evening comes first. Naturally we are darkness first in order of time, and the gloom is often first in our mournful apprehension, driving us to cry out in deep humiliation, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” The place of the morning is second, it dawns when grace overcomes nature. It is a blessed aphorism of John Bunyan, “That which is last, lasts for ever.” That which is first, yields in due season to the last; but nothing comes after the last. So that though you are naturally darkness, when once you become light in the Lord, there is no evening to follow; “thy sun shall no more go down.” The first day in this life is an evening and a morning; but the second day, when we shall be with God, for ever, shall be a day with no evening, but one, sacred, high, eternal noon.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Book Review: "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence

2011-06-29T13:31:00.003-04:00

"[T]hey want to make it understood that they are not at all without God, since they certainly believe there is some sort of God, whom they even recognize as creator of heaven and earth, as do the Turks; but as for Jesus Christ, they only know that he is and hold nothing concerning him nor his doctrine." ~ Pierre Viret, Instruction Chrétienne (1564)

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence is considered a classic of Christian devotional literature. I had never read it until recently when I took a philosophy class at my seminary. One of the major assignments for the class was to take a piece of Christian devotional literature and analyze it with respect to the philosophical climate in which the author wrote. Christian thinking about the faith and the relationship between faith and life unavoidably reflects the intellectual climate of its time period. If only because thinking takes place in human language, concepts and idioms, even the most careful Christian writers have had to wrestle with uncritically adopting the world’s categories, assumptions and values at the very heart of their devotional lives. My job in this assignment was to see how Brother Lawrence fared in managing the philosophical currents of his age along Biblical lines.

I was surprised at what I found when I read this work. I had never heard anything bad about it, so I assumed I was going to read a fairly decent piece of devotional literature. However, when I read it the one thought that kept coming back to my mind was similar to Viret's quote above--this work by Brother Lawrence could have been written by anyone who claims to "believe in God" and yet does not hold to any other tenant of orthodox Christianity. Now, as I state in my essay, I must admit that one's ability to get a full understanding of Lawrence's theology is hindered by the fact that this work is a collection of letters and recalled conversations with Lawrence. That means we have only half the conversation (Lawrence's letters only) and second-hand information (conversations recalled by Abbot Joseph de Beaufort). That does limit the ability to understand Lawrence's theology and philosophical view. However, in this work there is no mention of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the gospel. Worse yet, Brother Lawrence seemed to believe in a method of salvation that was to a large degree dependent on his works. So even if we cannot fully know Lawrence's theology, what is in this work could be damaging to someone who does not read it critically. Needless to say, I would not recommend this book to anyone as a devotional literature.

If you are interested in reading my thoughts and critique of this work, the essay can be found in my shared Google Docs.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Who Was Adam?

2011-06-15T21:50:00.005-04:00

"Collectively, the consensus that emerges from this work indicates that humanity originated recently (about 100,000 years ago) from East Africa (near the location theologians ascribed to the Garden of Eden) from a small population. Amazingly, studies using mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA markers trace humanity’s origin back to a single man and woman." ~ Dr. Fazale ("Fuz") Rana, "A Burgoo of Human Origin Discoveries"

Today I responded to a post on the blog of a friend of a friend: Reflections on God's Word. In this post the author, Maria, talks about the move by some Christians, Francis Collins in this case, to dismiss Adam and Eve as historical figures. Dr. Collins, of the Human Genome Project, has looked at the genetic data and concluded that he believes Adam and Eve were not historical. Maria proceeds to flesh out the biblical implications of this in her post and points out why a historical Adam and Eve are important to orthodox Christian doctrine. Here is a portion of what she said:

...Collins has concluded from this study, as reported in a book he recently co-authored (The Language of Science and Faith), that “Adam & Eve as the literal first couple and ancestors of all humans do not fit the evidence”.

This assumption is disturbing on two accounts: First of all, those who support the findings and support theistic evolution minimize the impact of their assertions. Second and more fraught with potential harm, is the implication for much of Biblical Theology and directly the trustworthiness of the Bible. I will address the second of these issues.

The author of the “Christianity Today” article, Richard Ostling, correctly articulates what is at stake:
Humans’ unique status as image bearers of God
The doctrine of original sin and the fall
The genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3
Jesus’ teaching that all of the Old Testament points to Him (Luke 24)
Paul’s teaching that links the historical Adam with redemption through Christ

This issue is different from the debate among evangelical Christians who argue Old Earth vs. Young Earth. In that arena, it is clearer that there are at least two possible interpretations. The Bible refers to days (yowm) spent in creating the world. In Hebrew ‘yowm/Strongs H3117’ can mean 24 hours, a year or a long period of time. So the creation account is open to discussion without raising the trustworthiness of the Bible as an issue.

But if there is not a literal and historical Adam, then here are the implications:
God did NOT decide as a Trinitarian unit to make man in His image, male and female (Gen 1:27)
God did NOT have a conversation with Adam in Gen 2:16-17
Eve did NOT talk with Satan as serpent in Gen 3:1-5
Eve did NOT sin in Gen 3:6
No sudden guilt, shame and cover-up happened in Gen 3:7
No face-to-face encounter between God and the first couple took place in Gen 3:8-9
Adam & Eve did not try to pass the buck, playing the blame game in Gen 3:11-13
Gospel Hope was not first preached in Gen 3:15
No penalty for sin was announced in Gen 3:16-19, thereby explaining what is wrong with our world
...

You should go read the rest of her post here. It is a good biblical and philosophical defense of the trustworthiness of God's Word and Adam as a historical figure. Go ahead, go read it and then come back here..........

Now that you are back, I would like to share with you how I responded to her post. I thought it appropriate and necessary to respond from the scientific side of things as well. I wanted Maria, and all her readers, to know that it is Dr. Collins' interpretation of the data that is against a historical Adam, but his interpretation is not the only valid interpretation (as my quote in the beginning points out). Here is what I said:

Great article, I was directed here by a mutual friend–Adam Powers. I do not want to minimize the great points you made above but I also wanted to give a little perspective on Dr. Collins’ statement/opinion. I hope that this will encourage you in that you not only make a good Biblical and philosophical argument but that the scientific data are not against you.

Dr. Collins is truly a Christian, I believe, though I disagree with him about theistic evolution. One thing we must keep in mind with people like Collins who look at the genetic evidence is that they are looking at it with evolutionary presuppositions already in mind.

There are many studies that have emerged recently (like these: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7181/abs/nature06611.html, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5866/1100.abstract, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/277/5323/176.short) that indicate the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of all humans can be traced back to one single sequence on the order of about 100,000 years ago. (We all get our mtDNA from our mothers only so even though I am a male my mtDNA still came from only my mother.) Other work done on the Y chromosome (Y-c) shows that all males can be traced back to a single Y-c (studies like this one: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v378/n6555/abs/378379a0.html) on the order of about 60,000 years ago.

Collins looks at this data and, because of his evolutionary presuppositions, thinks that this one sequence was just the “one lucky mother” whose DNA was passed on, while all the other DNA from the first “evolved” females died out. He interprets the Y-c data the same way. However, there is no evidence to favor this interpretation over one that looks at the data and says, “All humanity can be traced back to a single man and a single woman.” The second interpretation is simply much more difficult for Collins to fit into his evolutionary presuppositions, so he chooses the first. It is not the data that demands Christians throw out the idea of a historical Adam, it is Collins’ interpretation of it based on his presuppositions. The data equally support a historical Adam and Eve interpretation.

One might look at the dates and think, “Wait, how could the historical Eve be 100,000 years ago and the historical Adam be 60,000 years ago?” Scientists have asked a similar question. You might hear a geneticist say, “Did Adam know Eve?” and by that he means, “Did the woman who we get our mtDNA from know the man we get our Y-c from?” I think the Bible can easily fit well with this data. For us men, biblically who is the oldest male ancestor we could possibly trace our lineage back to? You might be tempted to say, “Adam” but is that really right? Actually, the oldest male we could possibly trace the Y-c back to is Noah. Why? Because of what is called a “population bottle neck”–the world’s population dropped to 8 people and then started over again. Noah and his three sons all had the same Y-c so there is no way to trace the Y-c beyond Noah farther back to anyone else. However, since it is reasonable to assume that Noah’s wife and his sons' three wives came from four different lineages, geneticists can trace the mtDNA beyond Noah. So, of course the dates would be different. In fact, the Bible (indirectly) predicts that these dates would be different!

Now, I am not trying to start an argument on your blog about the length of creation days (as you said, that can be debated without questioning the trustworthiness of the Bible) or whether or not the biblical genealogies are complete (which I also think can be debated without questioning the trustworthiness of the Bible). What I am trying to do is show that Collins’ interpretation of the data is not the only valid interpretation. It is equally valid, and I think more supportable, to say that human origins can be traced back to one man and one woman–Adam and Eve. So, far from ruling out a historical Adam, the genetic evidence supports it as one of the valid interpretations of the data.

I would like to suggest a book to those who would like to do more research on this topic: Who Was Adam? by Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Frazale Rana. It is an excellent resource by two men whose intellect far exceeds my own that dives deep into the scientific data and shows how modern discoveries do not discount and actually support a historical Adam (contra Dr. Collins).

By His Grace,
Taylor

Pentecost and the OT Believers

2011-06-03T17:39:00.002-04:00

"It is fair to say that everything said in the New Testament about the Spirit’s work looks forward or traces back to Pentecost; everything pivots on Pentecost (along with the death and resurrection of Christ)." ~ Richard Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost (pg. 14)

I just recently finished a class on the Holy Spirit, which I took from the RTS Virtual Campus. Before taking this class I had, from time-to-time, wondered about the nature of the Holy Spirit's relationship with the Old Testament (OT) saints and how His relationship with believers changed at Pentecost. I agree with Gaffin's statement above but I still wanted to know what changed. Since starting this class, that question had come into my mind often and I must admit that I did not have an adequate answer. I also did not really get an answer from the class, at least not a detailed one. So, since this class had a final paper that was 45% of the grade, I decided to do it on this topic so I could (hopefully) get an answer to my question (and hopefully a good grade too). If you have ever wondered that, then you might find this paper helpful. If you do read it, let me know what you think.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Little Gods

2011-05-25T12:57:00.001-04:00

"Little gods are fine for little problems, but when you have a whopper of a problem you better have a whopper of a God... God the Father loves us and cares for us, but don't forget that He's God, that He's not safe, that He's not manageable. If God doesn't confuse you sometimes, you're probably worshiping an idol." ~ Steve Brown

Steve is a professor, friend, and mentor of mine. One of his ministries is Key Life. He does a daily broadcast called "Key Life" (shocking!) and a weekly, one-minute clip called "You Think About That", which is where the above quote comes from.

Steve is right--if we look at God and think we have Him figured out, we are probably not looking at the true God. We sometimes try to put God in a box so we can have answers to all the questions people ask like, "How can God ordain evil and not be responsible for it?" but when we do, the god that we present to the world is really just an idol that looks more like us than like the true God. When we hit a wall in life like a friend committing suicide, a fiance dying, a parent getting cancer, or a daughter getting pregnant, that god-in-a-box simply will not do. We need a sovereign God who, while we may not understand Him, is powerful enough to keep His promises to His children.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Warranted Belief

2011-05-06T09:35:00.001-04:00

"If Christ was never resurrected from the grave, He was not who He said He was, we are still in our sins, and our faith is worthless. Paul even says that of all men, we would be the most pitied – meaning that we would be the biggest losers of all. Why does he say these things? Because if our beliefs are wrong, it is foolish to dedicate our lives to something false. Rather we ought to just 'Eat, Drink, and Be Merry; for tomorrow we die!'" ~ Adam Powers in his post "Is 'Belief' Foolish, If It's Wrong? YES!"

My friend, Adam, makes a very good point in his recent blog post about belief. I highly recommend you heading over to Pleasing Pain and reading the whole post. Wait! Finish mine first... :-)

Have you ever heard someone say something like this, "It does not matter what you believe, just believe in something."? Does it ever make you want to cut in on their conversation and say, "Are you kidding? Does truth matter to you?" If you believe something and it is wrong then you are, like Paul says in I Cor. 15:19, "most to be pitied." I can really believe in my heart that gravity is false but is that going to help me when I jump off a building? Not at all! When you believe the wrong thing it costs you.

The same goes for the truth about God. If what we believe is not true, how does that help us at all? It may make someone be a little more moral in some situations, but if you have spent any time watching Christians and non-Christians, then you know that does not make a big difference. What is the difference? If Christian belief is true (and I will argue that it is), then we are forgiven in Christ, and that makes a world of difference now and after we die. If it is not true, then we are like foolish people claiming not to believe in gravity as we plummet to our deaths from the top of a skyscraper.

In Adam's post title he asks the question, "Is 'belief' foolish?" and he answers "If it's wrong, YES!" The opposite is also true: if belief is right, it is not foolish. That should go without saying, but in today's academic world it does not. Christians are often treated in the academic realm as "cute children", who will "grow up" one day and realize they are believing in something on the level of fairies. It is often treated as axiomatic by many critics that Christianity (or theistic belief in general) is irrational, unreasonable, or not intellectually respectable. Those with such a belief are often assumed to be derelict in some fashion or patronized as if they were intellectual children. However, rarely is a specific charge leveled against Christian belief.

For anyone who has ever been patronized by a professor or treated like a child by a fellow academic because of their Christian belief, I would recommend Alvin Plantinga's book Warranted Christian Belief. In this book he looks for the specific charge leveled against Christianity by these types of critics. He finds that the charge is that Christian belief, whether true or false, is without warrant. Then he argues that is simply not the case. He shows that no one can say that Christian belief is unwarranted without actually attacking the factual claims of Christian belief. Then, if the factual claims do hold up, the belief is in fact not foolish. "...what it shows is that a successful atheological objection will have to be to the truth of theism, not to its rationality, justification, intellectual respectability, rational justification, or whatever." (Warranted Christian Belief pg. 191)

I recommend reading the book but it is difficult because it is written for an academic philosopher audience. I wrote a two-page summary of the book that you can read here. Now, two pages is woefully inadequate to capture the genius and power of Plantinga's argument but it will at least give you a taste of it; then you can go read it for yourself.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Is God Glad Osama Bin Laden Is Dead?

2011-05-03T21:26:00.001-04:00

As Christians, how should we respond to the death of Osama bin Laden? Should we rejoice? Should we be sad? John Piper wrote a great piece on his website about this very subject:

God’s emotions are complex—like yours, only a million times more. Right now, your emotions about bin Laden are not simple, i.e. not single. There are several, and they intermingle. That is a good thing. You are God-like.
In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, quite a few tweets and blogs have cited the biblical truth that “God does not delight in the death of the wicked.” That is true.
It is also true that God does delight in the death of the wicked. There are things about every death that God approves in themselves and things about every death that God disapproves in themselves.
...
My suggestion is that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself not a pleasure to God. God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. The death and suffering considered for itself alone is not his delight.
Rather, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God has pleasure in is the exaltation of truth and righteousness, and the vindication of his own honor and glory.

Read the rest of it here. It is a good read. Well worth your time.

By His Grace,

Taylor

What a Glorious Day!

2011-04-24T07:59:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate Jesus' victory over sin and death, a victory that His Church shares because of our union with Him. We can celebrate what Hosea prophesied, "[Christ] will ransom them from the power of the grave; [Christ] will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?" Hosea 13:14

In The Valley of Vision (a collection of Puritan prayers) there are a few prayers that I would like to share that express well what we celebrate on this day.

Love lustres at Calvary (pg. 76)
My Father,
   Enlarge my heart, warm my affections,
   open my lips,
   supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres
      at Calvary.’
There grace removes my burdens and heaps them
      on thy Son,
   made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
There the sword of Thy justice smote the man,
      Thy fellow;
There Thy infinite attributes were magnified,
   and infinite atonement was made;
There infinite punishment was due,
   and infinite punishment was endured.
Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
   cast off that I might be brought in,
   trodden down as an enemy
      that I might be welcomed as a friend,
   surrendered to hell’s worst
      that I might attain heaven’s best,
   stripped that I might be clothed,
   wounded that I might be healed,
   athirst that I might drink,
   tormented that I might be comforted,
   made a shame that I might inherit glory,
   entered darkness that I might have eternal light.
My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped
      from my eyes,
   groaned that I might have endless song,
   endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
   bore a thorny crown that I might have
      a glory-diadem,
   bowed His head that I might uplift mine,
   experienced reproach that I might receive
      welcome,
   closed His eyes in death that I might gaze
      on unclouded brightness,
   expired that I might for ever live.
O Father, who spared not Thine only Son that Thou
      mightest spare me,
All this transfer Thy love designed and
      accomplished;
Help me to adore Thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
   my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my
      enemies crushed,
   satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
   sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
   hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me
   the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

Resurrection (pg. 86)
Great was the joy of Israel's sons,
   when Egypt died upon the shore,
   Far greater joy
   when the Redeemer's foe lay crushed
   in the dust.
Jesus strides forth as the Victor,
   conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing
      might;
He bursts the bands of death,
   tramples the powers of darkness down,
   and lives for ever.
He, my gracious surety,
   apprehended for payment of my debt,
   comes forth from the prison house of the grave
   free, and triumphant over sin, satan, and death.
Show me herein the proof that His vicarious offering is accepted,
   that the claims of justice are satisfied,
   that the devil's scepter is shivered,
   that his wrongful throne is leveled.
Give me the assurance that in Christ I died,
   in Him I rose,
   in His life I live, in His victory I triumph,
   in His ascension I shall be glorified.
Adorable Redeemer,
   Thou who wast lifted up upon a cross
   art ascended to the highest heaven.
Thou, who as Man of sorrows
   wast crowned with thorns,
   art now as Lord of life wreathed with glory.
Once, no shame more deep than Thing,
   no agony more bitter,
   no death more cruel.
Now, no exaltation more high,
   no life more glorious,
   no advocate more effective.
Thou art in the triumph car leading the captive
   Thine enemies behind Thee.
What more could be done than Thou has done!
   Thy death is my life,
   Thy resurrection my peace,
   Thy ascension my hope,
   Thy prayers my comfort.

May these words from saints of old bless your heart on this glorious day. May we all remember that His death is our life and His resurrection our peace.

By His Grace,
Taylor

It's Friday...

2011-04-22T07:05:00.008-04:00

It’s Friday
   Jesus is praying
   Peter’s a sleeping
   Judas is betraying
   But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   Pilate’s struggling
   The council is conspiring
   The crowd is vilifying
   They don’t even know
   That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The disciples are running
   Like sheep without a shepherd
   Mary’s crying
   Peter is denying
   But they don’t know
   That Sunday’s a comin’

It’s Friday
   The Romans beat my Jesus
   They robe Him in scarlet
   They crown Him with thorns
   But they don’t know
   That Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   See Jesus walking to Calvary
   His blood dripping
   His body stumbling
   And His spirit’s burdened
   But you see, it’s only Friday
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The world’s winning
   People are sinning
   And evil’s grinning

It’s Friday
   The soldiers nail my Savior’s hands
   To the cross
   They nail my Savior’s feet
   To the cross
   And then they raise Him up
   Next to criminals
   It’s Friday
   But let me tell you something
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The disciples are questioning
   What has happened to their King
   And the Pharisees are celebrating
   That their scheming
   Has been achieved
   But they don’t know
   It’s only Friday
   Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   He’s hanging on the cross
   Feeling forsaken by His Father
   Left alone and dying
   Can nobody save Him?
   Ooooh
   It’s Friday
   But Sunday’s comin’

It’s Friday
   The earth trembles
   The sky grows dark
   My King yields His spirit

It’s Friday
   Hope is lost
   Death has won
   Sin has conquered
   and satan’s just a laughin’

It’s Friday
   Jesus is buried
   A soldier stands guard
   And a rock is rolled into place

But it’s Friday
   It is only Friday
   Sunday is a comin’!
~ S.M. Lockridge's famous sermon, from John L Jefferson, pastor of Del Aire Baptist Church, in Hawthrone CA.

I do not have anything deep to say to go along with this. I just wanted to post this short sermon because it gives me chills every time I hear it. I like to listen to it on Good Friday because it reminds me that Sunday is coming...

By His Grace,
Taylor

Justice Demands

2011-04-19T22:56:00.002-04:00

"The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, and pleads that they must therefore go free. The Surety is bound, and justice demands that those for whom He stands a substitute should go their way." ~ Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Morning March 26

There is an anecdote (which I cannot confirm) that tells the story of a conversation between Spurgeon and one of his congregation. As the story goes, the member came up to Sprugeon, after a particularly good sermon on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ being the only way to obtain eternal life, and asked him, "Pastor Spurgeon, what would you do if you got to the gates of heaven and God did not grant you entrance." Without missing a beat Spurgeon replied, "I would demand to be let in!"

Whether the story is true or not, it brings up an interesting point. Could we ever make demands of God? Could we demand to be let into heaven? If you have placed your faith in the propitiatory sacrifice (satisfying God's wrath) of Christ then you could. I John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." God is not only faithful to forgive our sins if we come to Him on the basis of the righteousness of Christ; He is just in doing so. In fact, it would be unjust for God to refuse if we come on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone. Why? Romans 3:23-26 tells us the answer,

²³[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. ²⁶It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The emphasis in the last verse is my own, which I added to bring attention to the part of the verse that I want to focus on. Because of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, God can both justify sinners (declare them not guilty and righteous on account of Christ) and be just in doing so. It is just because Christ took the punishment for our sin (became a propitiatory sacrifice for us) and imputed to our account His perfect righteousness. Since Christ took our punishment and we have His righteousness it would be unjust for God to do anything other than declare us not guilty and righteous--to justify us. So Christians can confidently before God because, as Spurgeon says above, "justice demands that those for whom He stands a substitute should go their way."

As Easter approaches consider this: "³³Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn?" ~ Romans 8:33-34a. If you are His, then you can rejoice because nothing can separate you from His love... nothing (Romans 8:35).

By His Grace,
Taylor

Galileo's Trial: An Epic Struggle of Science Against Religion?

2011-04-14T00:04:00.005-04:00

"The notion that Galileo's trial was a conflict between science and religion should be dead. Anyone who works seriously on Galileo doesn't accept that interpretation anymore." ~ Thomas F. Mayer

It has long been held in popular media and high school textbooks that the trial of Galileo in 1633 was the righteous stand of science against the oppressive, outdated traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. It is said that this started the unstoppable rise of science that would soon overtake and make irrelevant church tradition. This conception provides an exciting story; the only problem is that it did not actually happen that way. The popularized view is simply incorrect, as stated above in the quote by Dr. Mayer taken from this popular article. It has been overblown by those who want to exaggerate an alleged chasm between science and religion. Any good history of science book, like Science and Religion edited by Gary B. Ferngren (relevant article by Richard Blackwell), will give a more accurate picture of the Galileo affair.

So what really happened? The Aristotelian, Ptolemaic geocentric view of the solar system had dominated the scientific and theological discussions of the solar system for centuries. Then, in 1543, the heliocentric view developed by Nicolas Copernicus was published over 70 years before Galileo came on the scene.

In 1610, Galileo built his first telescope and began using it to observe the sky. He used it to gather all sorts of data on stellar objects like caters on the Moon, the Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter (named for him, of course) the phases of Venus (like we see with the Moon), and spots on the Sun. His observations, particularly the moons orbiting Jupiter and the phases of Venus, brought him to question the dominant geocentric model and start to look more seriously at the heliocentric model. Though the growing body of data supported the the Copernican model, Galileo could not conclusively prove that it was correct. (This is a fact that is often missed. All theological discussions aside, the scientific community of the time was not fully convinced of the heliocentric model. It did not gain full acceptance until many years after Galileo's death.)

Being a devout Catholic, Galileo knew that the model he was developing should agree with Scripture, so in 1616 he went to the Scriptures in order to reinterpret several key passages so that he might harmonize his model with God's Word. This is where things started to get hot and when we consider this we cannot forget what time Galileo was doing this. This was the early 17th century, only about 100 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg. The Reformation had taken the sole authority to interpret Scripture away from the clergy and the Catholic Church was intent on taking it back. The Protestant Reformation and the following Catholic Counter Reformation over the past century had heightened sensitivity in the Roman Catholic Church. The Council of Trent had just reaffirmed that only bishops and church councils count interpret the Bible. In this first trial, Galileo was not as much in trouble for his heliocentric view (though that certainly was a factor) but because he tried to prove it by interpreting Scripture at a time when the Catholic Church was really sensitive about that. The impact of this drama between the Reformation and the Counter Reformation on the whole Galileo situation cannot be overstated. Blackwell states in Science and Religion:

If Copernicus’s book had been published either one hundred years earlier or one hundred years later, the Galileo affair would probably not have happened. But, in fact, it was published in 1543, when the Reformation was in full bloom and the Counter Reformation was just beginning. Hence it was that by 1616 all of the actors and cultural forces were in place for the drama of the Galileo affair to begin.

To be blunt about it, both Galileo and the Catholic Church were at the mercy of really bad timing.

In 1616, when Galileo’s case was brought to trial before the Roman Inquisition, they issued a precept that ordered him to cease to promote and defend the heliocentric model, which Galileo promised to obey. Fifteen years later, there was a newly appointed Pope and Galileo decided to ask the new Pope if he could publish a review of the heliocentric and geocentric views. The new Pope, unaware of the previous trial, granted him permission. Galileo, however, failed to mention the precept during his request and it was this omission led to Galileo’s second trial, his conviction, and his house arrest. During this second trial, the trial that ultimately led to Galileo's recanting, the issue was not the two solar system models but Galileo's disregard for the precept. As Dr. Mayer has shown in his paper on the subject and talks about in this popular article, the issue of the precept was raised in very narrow legal terms and was compounded by sloppy records of the earlier trial and Galileo's own testimony. Mayer argues that the Inquisition was actually trying to give Galileo a way to negotiate a settlement, a common practice with precepts at the time, but Galileo dug himself a big hole by first claiming not to have received the precept, then saying he did not violate the precept (the one he just claimed he did not receive), and then quoting from the precept (again, the one he just claimed he did not receive). In the popular press Dr. Mayer said, "When push came to shove in the second part of trial, [Galileo] made every imaginable mistake."

So, this event in history, which has long been hailed as the clash of the science and religion, is really more about who has the authority to interpret Scripture (because of the drama of the Reformation) in the first trial and a legal matter in the second (compounded by sloppy record keeping and Galileo's inconsistent testimony). Rather than being a monumental clash between science and religion, where the Catholic Church is painted as a "monolithic, omnipotent organization conspiring to bring down the astronomer", Galileo’s final conviction was a legal matter confused by sloppy record keeping and handled poorly by Galileo himself.

By His Grace,
Taylor

First Century Codices or Media Hype (Again...)

2011-04-05T20:40:00.004-04:00

"The mainstream media need to do a much better job of checking in on academic blogs and other social media tools that are readily at their disposal. They need to be more skeptical, in general, and specifically when dealing with obvious problems. Antiquities fraud is a serious issue and the model of hyping a discovery in the press is a common route for less-than-savory characters involved in the trade. It’s understandable that a reporter and editors can be had, but when they discover they’ve been had, they need to correct quickly." ~ Mollie Ziegler in her recent post: "It’s all Greek to me(dia)?"

I assume that most of you have seen the media hype about some alleged codices discovered in a Jordanian cave that could be the "earliest Christian writings in existence". I will admit, when I first saw the article I got pretty excited because discovering documents from the first century would be an incredible find. However, I was a little wary when I read the BBC reporter saying, "They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born." No such claims were being made by any of the people who actually had seen the relics. After some waiting and reading, it seems I should have been even more skeptical.

Recently several of the scholars quoted in various articles have stated that they were misquoted to make the discovery sound genuine when they retained a healthy attitude of skepticism awaiting further confirmation. Others have called into question David Elkington's credentials (the man who is making grand claims about this discovery). Still others have pointed out the discrepancies in the claims. Peter Thonemann of Oxford has even staked his career on them being forgeries and has backed up his statement with pretty good evidence. He actually received pictures of the codices from Elkington last year, analyzed the Greek, and concluded that "the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy." Elkington failed to mention that in his press release and the media did not do much digging before it reported the find.

It still remains to be seen if Dr. Thonemann is right (the Greek in the images is really hard to read so I cannot confirm his transcription) but the case for the codices authenticity is not looking good. Again, we have another example of hype in the media. Unfortunately, the outlets that ramped up the hype have not retracted anything or even given air-time to those who doubt the authenticity of the codices. I agree with Mollie Ziegler's conclusions in her post. In general, the media does need to be more skeptical of claims, they need to not claim more than the scholars who present discoveries claim, they need to report the dissenting views, and they certainly need to have the courage to retract claims they have made when serious doubt is cast on discoveries they report on (though they rarely do).

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Pastor's Wife

2011-03-22T10:27:00.002-04:00

"The truth is, the Bible has no office or job description called 'pastor’s wife.' This is because the pastor’s wife is simply to be a Christian church member like everyone else. Her first priorities are to be a godly woman, godly wife, and then godly mother, after which all other duties fall." ~ Mark Driscoll

They say that the second toughest job in the Church is being the pastor of a church. Do you know what the hardest job is? Being the pastor's wife. This is something I have thought about a lot because I may one day be a pastor and my wife will have to deal with that. She is a gracious, compassionate, loving, patient woman who I know is definitely up to the task as long as the church we may serve in one day does not try to place expectations on her that are unrealistic or, worse yet, sinful.

Mark Driscoll wrote a post on The Resurgence about loving the pastor's wife that is really good. (Thank you to my friend, and soon-to-be pastor, Adam Powers for sharing it with me.) The quote above comes from it and the rest you can read here. Read it and then think about how you treat the pastor's wife at your church and make sure you are not placing expectations on her that she does not need.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Book Review: "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance" by Bruce A. Ware

2011-03-21T14:36:00.002-04:00

"As God is one, so human beings are created in that one image, fully human and fully equal. Yet, as God is three—and particularly by virtue of the eternal taxis [economy] that orders the relations of the divine Persons—so human beings must embrace the created taxis of their human relationships. Equality exists alongside authority and submission in human life, as God has designed it to be." ~ Dr. Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance, pg. 158.

I have written about the Trinity before here and here and thought I would post this review that I recently wrote on Dr. Ware's book on the Trinity. The Trinity is one of the most mysterious doctrines of Christianity and yet it is also one of the most important. R. B. Kuiper once said (and I agree) that it "is no exaggeration to assert that the whole of Christianity stands or falls with it." One of the problems with writing or talking about the Trinity is that since it is mysterious and something that we cannot completely comprehend, when we talk about it for longer than five minutes we run the risk of drifting into heresy. I like this book because it is short, accessible, worshipful, and, from what I can tell, does not drift into heresy and it is quite an achievement to combine all four of those.

My full review of this can be read on Google Docs here but below is part of my final conclusion about Dr. Ware's book:

Overall I am very impressed with Bruce Ware’s work on the Trinity. He presents an accurate historical overview of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, and he gives compelling biblical arguments for the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. At the same time, in his presentation he does not leave the reader with just the bare facts about the Trinity but applies these glorious truths to the lives of Believers. Also, writing about the Trinity is never simple because it is easy to fall prey to the temptation to step over biblical lines and attempt to explain how God can be one in essence and yet three in Person beyond what Scripture supports. Ware does not do this. In his explanation of the Trinity he acknowledges the mystery of this doctrine, describes the biblical case for the orthodox view of the Trinity, and describes the historical development of the orthodox view of the Trinity without erroneously attempting to explain how God can be one in essence and at the same time three in Person...

One of the things I appreciated most about Ware’s overall structure of his book is how accessible it is for the average churchgoer and how worshipful it is. Theological descriptions can often be too “heady” for the average layperson in “the seats”, yet Ware has, I think, successfully described the Trinity accurately, within orthodoxy, and accessibly. In a similar vein, theological descriptions can also often be dry, yet Ware constantly describes the doctrine of the Trinity and his applications to our lives in a worshipful manor. One only has to look at the chapter titles to see the heart of worship—“Beholding the Wonder of Our Triune God”, “Beholding the Wonder of the Father”, “Beholding the Wonder of the Son”, “Beholding the Wonder of the Holy Spirit”, etc.—but also as one digs deeper into the book one can see that this worshipful attitude extends to every page of the work...

I hope from this and my review that you pick up this book and read the whole thing. It is small, about 160 pages, and easy to read so it will not be taxing on you but it will bless your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Drama of Persecution

2011-02-23T11:14:00.004-05:00

The Missionary Question

2011-02-22T17:33:00.005-05:00

"The missionary question is not, 'Where are there unbelievers?' and then send a missionary there. There are unbelievers everywhere! The missionary question is, 'Where are there people's who don't have any Christians in them or don't have a church strong enough to do the neighbor evangelism that we can do if we just want to do it?' That's the missionary question." ~ John Piper

Lost from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.
Very powerful.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Praising His Perfections

2011-02-17T08:45:00.001-05:00

"When was the last time you were fascinated with God? At one time or another all of us have met someone we greatly admire... yet we are seldom so amazed or fascinated with God. Prayer is an excellent means of refreshing our appreciation for God. Simply telling God about His excellent qualities stirs our heart to wonder. Regrettably Christians typically ignore the qualities of God in their prayers. They may say something like 'Thank You for who You are...' but they never stop to talk about just who God is." ~ Dr. Richard Pratt

Dr. Pratt is an adjunct professor of Reformed Theological Seminary and the founder and president of Third Millennium Ministries. He is also the general editor of the NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible (a great study Bible but apparently it has been discontinued so people are charging ridiculous prices for it) and the author of many books like Designed for Dignity (an excellent book) and He Gave Us Stories.

This particular quote comes from a lecture in a class I took from him. I found it to be very convicting because I often come to God also "typically [ignoring] the qualities of God" in my prayer. As I thought about this I decided to make a resolution (much like the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards), "Resolved to each day admire in prayer a different perfection of God and to spend time reflecting on it." I would be lying if I said that I have kept this perfectly, but, when I do, I find it really does refresh my appreciation for God and magnify Him in my heart.

There are several great books out there about God's perfections ("perfection" is the term that Berkhof uses in place of "attribute" in his Systematic Theology, a great resource). The above image is borrowed from one of those great books, A. W. Tozer's The Attributes of God. Below is the list that I work from (taken from Berkhof's Systematic Theology), which may differ slightly in categorization from other lists but I think it covers what God has chosen to reveal to us in His Word:

The independence/self-existence of God -- God has the ground of His existence in Himself only.
The immutability of God -- God is unchangeable, He is forever the same in His divine Being and perfections and also in His purposes and promises.
The infinity of God -- God is not subject to limitations outside His nature (spacial, temporal, dynamical, etc.).
The simplicity of God -- God is not composed of various parts. (This one can be confusing. It does not mean God is "simple" as in "easy to comprehend" because He is certainly not that. It is the way older theologians used to express the idea that God does not have parts like creatures do. Wherever He is (which is everywhere) He is completely, so at no time can we be in the presence of one of God's perfections without also being in the presence of all the others.)
The knowledge of God -- God, in a manner all His own, knows Himself completely and all things possible and actual.
The wisdom of God -- God's selection of worthy ends and choice of the best means for the realization of those ends.
The goodness of God -- God's perfection which prompts Him to deal kindly and bounteously with His creatures.
The love of God -- God's delight in His own perfections, in man as the reflection of His image, and in believers as His children.
The holiness of God -- God's perfection by which He is absolutely distinct from all His creatures, is exalted above them in infinite majesty, and is free from all moral impurity or sin.
The righteousness of God -- God maintains Himself as the Holy One over against every violation of His holiness.
The veracity of God -- God is true to Himself, His Word, and His promises in His nature, in His revelation, and in His relation to His people.
The sovereignty of God -- God's sovereign will and His sovereign power are all-powerful and complete over everything in existence.

Your prayer time may already be rich and may constantly leave you with a greater wonder at God's majesty (if it does, fantastic!), but if it does not, considering giving Dr. Pratt's advice a try. I have found it very helpful.

By His Grace,
Taylor

All I Have is Christ

2011-02-06T23:48:00.001-05:00

I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave.
I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will.
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still.

But as I ran my hell-bound race
Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state
And led me to the cross.
And I beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace.

Hallelujah! All I have is Christ
Hallelujah! Jesus is my life

Now, Lord, I would be Yours alone
And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands
Could never come from me.
Oh Father, use my ransomed life
In any way You choose.
And let my song forever be
My only boast is You.
~ "All I Have is Christ" by Jordan Kauflin

Tonight at our evening service our worship leader, Adam Snow, played this song. It was the first time I had ever heard it and I really like it because the first two verses chronicle how we are drawn to Christ by His love, not our choosing, and the last I take to be a prayer for the Spirit to conform us to Christ's likeness so we can be used by God for His glory. My only boast is truly Him, even though I often pridefully, arrogantly find other things to boast in. This song reminds me of a quote by my friend Steve Brown when he was preaching on the prodigal son, "Don't forget the pigs... the further they get away the better they start looking... Always remember where He found you; don't forget the pigs..." If we truly remembered that (essentially the content of the first two verses of this song) our only boast would be Him.

By His Grace,
Taylor

A Life of Repentance

2011-02-03T22:33:00.003-05:00

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” ~ The first of Martin Luther's 95 Theses

Traditionally, Reformation Day is celebrated on the anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. The first is something I often need to be reminded of even though it may look bleak. It does seem like Luther is saying Christians will never make progress in getting better so they always need to be repenting. What he really meant, however, is that living a life of repentance is the way a Christian actually makes progress. In fact, a persistent life of repentance is one of the best, telltale signs that we are being conformed to the likeness of Christ. (By the way, “poenitentiam agite” is the Latin Vulgate mistranslation of Matthew 4:17 that led to the Roman Catholic doctrine of repentance. Luther is saying that it should not be translated as “do penance” but “repent”.)

When talking about repentance we must understand the difference between “religious repentance” (a term I borrow from Tim Keller) and gospel-driven repentance. “Religious” repentance is done basically to keep God happy so He will not punish us, so He will bless us, or to bribe Him to answer our prayers. Gospel-driven repentance, however, comes from deep sorrow for sinning against our God who loves us so much and repeatedly reminds us of our union with Christ, His all-encompassing sacrifice for us, and God’s love for us that can never change. This kind of repentance will weaken our need to do those things that are contrary to God’s heart.

Sin is atrocious and dishonors God but with “religious repentance” we are not sorry for the sin; we are afraid of condemnation or punishment, which is a man-centered way of viewing repentance. The gospel reminds Christians that we are incredibly sinful (Romans 7:7ff) but also that no sin can ultimately bring us to condemnation (Romans 8:1) so we do not have to go to God thinking we must somehow avert His anger. Jesus has already done that for us with His propitiatory sacrifice for us (Romans 3:23-26)! Gospel-driven repentance opens our heart to being sorry for the sin itself and what it has done to God. Gospel-driven repentance is ultimately God-centered, which is how our entire lives should be.

Another problem with “religious” repentance is that when we have this mindset we are often trying to atone for the sin somehow. We think that if we are truly sorry for the sin then we deserve to be forgiven for it. We might even go so far as to do something that will make us suffer for the sin as some kind of act of penance. That kind of thinking is actually quite arrogant and, again, man-centered. We cannot atone for anything! The gospel, however, reminds us that we do not have to atone for our sin. Jesus has already done that! He suffered the punishment for our sins (I John 2:1-2). He earned the forgiveness. In repentance we simply receive with open, empty hands the forgiveness that Jesus earned for us. In gospel-driven repentance, forgiveness is a just/righteous thing for God to do (I John 1:9) because Jesus suffered and died for it. Think about that for a second. It would be unjust for God not to forgive us when we come to Him for forgiveness on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice for us because Jesus merited acceptance for us! Again, this makes gospel-driven repentance humble and God-centered.

Gospel-driven repentance also makes confession of sin easy. Listen to John’s words in I John 1:8-2:2:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

In “religious” repentance we only ask for forgiveness when we are really feeling guilty about something. There must be tremendous pressure for us to repent. In gospel-driven repentance, however, we run to God with all our sins because 1) we know we have to and 2) we know that we will be accepted. John tells us that if we say we have no sin we are a liar. Harsh words but true words. But, he says, if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us! Not only that, John says, “…if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” This should make us run to the throne for repentance any time we sin, no matter how “big” or “small” the sin seems. We can run to the throne because we know that God is faithful and just to forgive us and Jesus, the sacrifice that earned our forgiveness, is our advocate! Gospel-driven repentance reminds us of how sinful we are, yet also reminds us that we can freely, quickly run to God for forgiveness and be certain that He will grant it.

This is why repentance is a way of life for believers, as Luther says. We will always have sins to repent but at the same time repentance is one of the ways that God helps us grow and become better. Look again at what John tells his readers, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” Wait, he is telling them that they are sinful and that they can confess their sins so they will not sin? That seems odd. It seems like telling people they are going to sin (no doubt about it) and that they can get forgiveness from God when they confess would make people sin more. That kind of radical grace opens the door for more sinning, right? No, John does not see it that way at all. He says that he is telling them the radical grace of the gospel so that they will not sin. Why? I like Steve Brown’s answer, “The only people who get any better are those that know that if they don’t get any better God will still love them anyway.” Gospel-driven repentance based on radical grace does not encourage sin but helps conform us to the likeness of Christ, which changes our hearts to be after God’s.

By His Grace,

Taylor

One holy catholic Church...

2011-01-31T22:58:00.003-05:00

Every Sunday, right before we take communion at my church, we repeat the words of the Apostle’s Creed. I must confess, sometimes I drone through them without really considering what they mean. However, many times lately the words “I believe in… the holy catholic Church…” have stuck in my mind. Believing that the catholic Church (that is, universal Church) is holy is tough, especially when those in the Church hurt me, hurt those I love, or embarrass me; but they are Jesus’ bride and my people, the “holy catholic Church”.

Ronald Rolheiser, in his book The Holy Longing, wrote that “to be connected to the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers, and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender…because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves.” Most days I am one of those thieves and no one in their right mind would want to confess me as one of their own. There are other days, only by the grace of God, where I show a glimpse of the “heroic soul” that Mr. Rolheiser wrote about and someone might dare to claim me. Jesus, however, claims me and loves me on all those days, which means I need to do the same for the rest of His Church, His bride.

Loving the Church is hard sometimes. All of us know what it is like to be embarrassed or ticked off by someone in our family but they are our family and we love them. Well, the Church is my spiritual family (whom I will spend eternity with) and there are a lot more of them than in a normal family. There are millions, which means many more opportunities to be embarrassed or ticked off. I heard about a Christian congressman in Florida who wanted to make some law that would force all the science books to be rewritten to say that the earth is the center of the solar system. He claimed that the heliocentric model was all a sham and he tried to prove it from a gross misuse of the Bible. That really burns me up, but Jesus claims him as part of His bride so I cannot disown him. Every time I look at Joel Osteen I want to smack that stupid smile off his face and staple his lips shut, but (this may sound radical but I think it is true) he belongs to Jesus so he belongs to me. John Wesley used to really get under my skin (even though he has been dead for more than 200 years) until I started to read his journals and things like, “Everybody who belongs to Jesus belongs to everybody who belongs to Jesus.” He is right.

Being connected to the millions of the Church also means many more opportunities to be pleased and encouraged by “heroic souls”. I could mention the hundreds of Christian organizations that fight hunger, sex trafficking, and all other sorts of injustice but that would be too obvious. I would rather write about my professor's fourteen-year-old daughters who love to sit and talk with the elderly at their church because his daughters “like to hear them talk about Jesus”. That makes me proud. I would rather talk about how my church loves on the marginalized in our city—the men on the street, the addicts, and transgendered, to name a few. That makes me proud. I would rather talk about my hero, Steve Brown, who runs two ministries that could easily take up all his time and yet he still takes the time to mentor young seminarians like me. He gets a lot of flak from many Christians (some in my denomination) because of his radical teaching on grace but he does not retaliate (no matter how much he may want to) and practices what he preaches by giving them grace. He makes me proud. I have several missionary friends preaching the gospel in countries where there is civil unrest or it is a capital crime. They make me proud.

Entering into a covenant relationship with Jesus means being a part of His bride, the “holy catholic Church”. He is a lot more accepting than I would be if I were Him, but that is why He is God and I am not. I may not always like her but the Church is His bride so I must love her. She is an ugly bride, no doubt, but she is loved dearly by Him and will one day be fully conformed to His likeness. Until then, she is still my people and I can never forget that.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Hydra of Humility

2011-01-24T15:50:00.003-05:00

"During my afternoon 'meditations,'—which I at least attempt quite regularly now—I have found out ludicrous and terrible things about my own character. Sitting by, watching the rising thoughts to break their necks as they pop up, one learns to know the sort of thoughts that do come.
"And, will you believe it, one out of every three is the thought of self-admiration: when everything else fails, having had its neck broken, up comes the thought 'what an admirable fellow I am to have broken their necks!”' I catch myself posturing before the mirror, so to speak, all day long. I pretend I am carefully thinking out what to say to the next pupil (for his good, of course) and then suddenly realize I am really thinking how frightfully clever I'm going to be and how he will admire me...
"And then when you force yourself to stop it, you admire yourself for doing that. It is like fighting the hydra... There seems to be no end to it. Depth under depths of self-love and self-admiration." ~ C. S. Lewis in a letter to his friend Arthur

True humility has always been a struggle of mine. When I say "true humility" I do not mean the attitude where one is always telling everyone how lowly they are. I mean the kind of humility that Tim Keller calls "blessed self-forgetfulness" which is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. This subject and quote has been on my mind a lot lately because I just recently I preached a sermon on it at my church, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church. If you are interested in hearing more thoughts on it you can listen to the sermon here (or if you like you can read my transcript here) but if not, I hope the Lewis quote is enough to get you thinking about true humility on your own.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Book Review: "Wired for Intimacy" by William M. Struthers

2011-01-12T18:00:00.002-05:00

My normal writing pattern for this blog is to quote a short saying (hence the name) from someone (whether in a written work, an audio recording, or a video) and then give my thoughts on it. I have decided to add another dimension to my blog and start posting book reviews. My hope is that my readers will find them helpful in choosing works to read or recommend to a friend on various subjects.

The first book I have reviewed is Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. I chose to read and review this work for an ethics class that I took at my seminary because pornography has infiltrated our culture and, I would argue, severely damaged it.

It is difficult to deny that pornography is one of the biggest challenges facing Christian men in today’s society. Statistics say that one out of every three men is addicted to pornography and those numbers do not change when only Christian men are considered in the study. Many books have been written on the subject of how deal with this moral issue. Dr. William M. Struthers takes a different approach from the standard in this book. He examines the biological effects that pornography has on the brain and then offers a view of how it can be addressed in the Church while taking into account what neuroscience has revealed. Dr. Struthers “exposes false assumptions and casts a vision for a redeemed masculinity, showing how our sexual longings can actually propel us toward holiness in our bodies.”

Pornography is choking the Church. Men and women, leaders and lay people are all affected by this parasite and many have given up because they do not think there is any hope. Leaders in the church (especially those who focus on men’s ministries) need to learn how to address sexual addiction with wisdom and grace. It needs to be able to be exposed to the light because while hidden, fighting it alone is like fighting a hydra. I believe this book will give men and women alike valuable insight into the biological effects of this ethical issue and connect those to biblical truths about proper sexuality and God-honoring male-female relationships.

Posting my entire review of the book would make for a very long post so I have made it available for reading or download on my Google Documents account here. As a spoiler, here is my final, concluding paragraph:

My overall opinion of this book is very positive. It approaches a subject that has been written on many times in Christian literature and manages to bring many new insights to the conversation. There are some minor disagreements that I have with Dr. Struthers, but they do not affect the overall usefulness of the book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a holistic view of pornography and healthy male sexuality but especially to church leaders. Church leaders have the daunting task of counseling men struggling with pornography and I believe this book will give them invaluable insight in that effort. I would make the above recommendations with one caution. I would not recommend that someone struggling with pornography read this book early on in their recovery. Dr. Struthers is very blunt about several things (and rightfully so) and some of what he says could be a major temptation to one still struggling.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Redefining the Chemistry of Life?

2011-01-04T01:45:00.002-05:00

"The way I like to think about this organism is that it's an extremophile. They've discovered a new extremophile... This is an organism that they have discovered that would prefer phosphorus but can make use of arsenic if it is present... Just because life exists under extreme conditions doesn't mean that it is more likely to originate under those conditions than more moderate conditions... Whether... high temperature, high acid, high alkalinity, high salinity, or high radiation environments, all those circumstances... will actually disrupt pre-biotic chemistry needed to generate life and this would be the same situation. Just because it exists under high arsenate conditions does not mean it could originate under those conditions." ~ Dr. Fazale "Fuz" Rana

Last month there were a bunch of headlines floating around touting a discovery made by NASA astrobiology research fellow Felisa Wolfe-Simon ("Fe Lisa" or "Iron Lisa") that she and her team published in Science. A few popular headlines were "Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life", "Microbe Finds Arsenic Tasty; Redefines Life", or (my favorite) "Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Opens New Possibilities for Alien Life". A few of you out there have asked me about this privately and I have given some short answers, but I have wanted to write up a more detailed comment on this work for the last month. Because December was so busy, as I am sure it was for all of you, I have not gotten to it until now. Of course, that might be a good thing because I have now had the chance to read the paper and look at some peer criticism of how this was communicated to the public. But, now that I have a little time, here it goes...

Before we get into the actual paper and discovery, I would like to talk a little about the history of thought in chemistry and biology that led to this research and Dr. Wolfe-Simon's discovery. This is going to get a little bit technical but I will do my best to explain it clearly and it is necessary to talk about this discovery.

Life as we know it has six major elements that are crucial for it: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. You might see these abbreviated as CHNOPS because they are commonly talked about as a group in reference to life. These particular elements are among the most abundant in the universe and have unique chemical properties that allow them to assemble into complex, stable molecules that can then further aggregate into complex, stable super-systems (DNA and RNA would be examples of these) to create an organism. Most scientists today believe that life must have these elements to exist. There are, however, a few that believe life could possibly be built on an alternative biochemistry. For example, it has been suggested that silicon could replace carbon or, in the case of this discovery, arsenic could replace phosphorus.

Why these particular replacements? Well that has to do with the chemistry of the elements in the Periodic Table (PT). The PT is one of the greatest achievements of science (I say that even though I am a physicist, not a chemist) and one of the reasons I say that is because of its construction. One can look at the PT and get a lot of information about the elements just by the position of those elements in the table. For example, elements in the same column have similar chemical properties. The closer they are, the more similar the chemistry. That is what is important for our purposes here. Take a look at the cutout from the PT on the left. Carbon's chemical symbol is C, silicon's is Si, and silicon is right below carbon in the PT, which shows us that there are chemically similar. Phosphorus' chemical symbol is P, arsenic's chemical symbol is As, and arsenic is right below phosphorus in the PT, which, again, tells us that they too are chemically similar. Some scientists think that the chemistry may be similar enough to represent possibilities for alternate biochemistries other than CHNOPS. Perhaps one could replace Si for C, thus the biochemistry would be SiHNOPS or perhaps As could replace P creating a CHNOAsS biochemistry. It is this kind of thinking that motivated the study.

Before we go further to the pertinent study, a few words need to be said about phosphorus and arsenic since they are the important elements for this particular discovery. In nature phosphorus primarily exists as phosphates (an ion with four oxygen atoms bound to a phosphorus atom). In this form, phosphorus plays an extremely important role in biochemistry. It is crucial to a number of biochemical functions (like regulating protein activity and the formation of the cell membrane) and biomolecules (like DNA, RNA, and metabolites). It has been generally thought that it is phosphorus' unique qualities that allow it to play an integral role in all of these functions but, as described above, arsenic is chemically very similar to phosphorus. Could arsenates (similar to phosphates) serve the above functions?

Arsenic does form into arsenates (an ion with four oxygen atoms bound to an arsenic atom) but they are toxic. Since arsenates are so similar to phosphates, organisms can incorporate them into biomolecules but since they are different from phosphates, the bonds in those biomolecules created with arsenates (instead of phosphates) will become unstable and break down, creating havoc in the metabolic system of the organism. So arsenate is similar enough to phosphate to be allowed into the cell but dissimilar enough that, once incorporated, the cell starts to break down. If this happens on a large enough scale the organism will die. So, life should note be capable of existing in an arsenate system.

This brings us to this discovery by Dr. Wolfe-Simon and her team. First, I would like to say that this is very impressive work. These scientists should be commended for this discovery and they should be proud of themselves for opening up the door to what will probably be years of fascinating research on this organism and others like it. That being said, the discovery as portrayed to the media and the general public is overblown. This newly discovered organism is not an "arsenic-based" organism, it does not find "arsenic tasty", and it is not really as "alien" as it is made out to be.

So, what did they discover? Well, Dr. Wolfe-Simon and her team went to Mono Lake in CA to search for bacteria that use arsenic. They chose Mono Lake because it has an extraordinarily high phosphorus and arsenic content so any bacteria found there would at least have to be able to deal with arsenic. They discovered a strain of bacteria, that they labeled GFAJ-1, which appears to be able to use arsenates and phosphates to grow. They then wanted to see if it could survive only with arsenates. In order to test this, they took GFAJ-1 from the lake (where the environment has high levels of phosphorus and arsenic) into their lab and put it in an environment with no phosphates and lots of arsenates. They did this to try to force the bacteria to use only arsenates, if it could, since phosphates were not available at all. They found that GFAJ-1 did survive and appeared to be incorporating arsenates into its biochemistry. Now, since the bacteria was formed in the lake with phosphorus and arsenic, they have not yet proven that it can completely substitute arsenates for phosphates because the bacteria still had plenty of phosphates to run critical systems. They did, however, show that at least some of the cells functions were using arsenate instead of phosphate, which was thought to be impossible. Through a process known as fractionation they were able to show that the arsenate was being used by GFAJ-1 in proteins, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), and metabolites. The bacteria was even able to grow and reproduce under these conditions. Conventional biochemical knowledge says that GFAJ-1 should have died because the arsenates should have destabilized almost its entire metabolic system. With all this data, however, one cannot argue with the conclusion that this bacteria is able to do what was thought impossible--incorporate arsenates into its biochemistry, stabilize the arsenates (through a yet-to-be-determined mechanism), and survive.

Did they show that this life is "alien" or discover something that "redefines" the chemistry of life? No, they did not. Let me explain why.

First, even though the organism was able to survive under the extreme arsenate-rich and phosphate-poor environment, it was far from thriving like it did in Mono Lake where phosphate was readily available. The bacteria grew very slowly, reproduced at a proverbial snail's pace, and had a very distorted growth morphology. What is going on here is not completely clear yet, but these issues in the growth of the bacteria show that it has some kind of machinery in place to stabilize arsenates yet would prefer phosphates. So while the bacteria can survive in an arsenate-rich environment, it certainly prefers phosphates and will only thrive with phosphates.
Second, there has been no long-term experiment done to see how long this bacteria can survive under these conditions. The bacteria began with phosphates since it was taken from Mono Lake. As it reproduced in the lab those phosphates were divided up to run critical systems. It is highly possible, as some critics has suggested, that colony could die off after it has spread its phosphate supply too thin.
Third, this finding is not proof that there is any bacteria naturally doing this. It only shows that it this bacteria has a mechanism that allows it to use arsenate when it has to. It could potentially do it naturally (no one is sure how long it can) but this is certainly not proof that there are lifeforms regularly doing this.
Fourth, the team had to create an arsenic-rich, phosphorus-poor environment. Finding a natural environment like this where biochemistry would have to be completely redefined is highly unlikely. Why? Because phosphorus is much more abundant in our universe than arsenic. In the earth's crust there is 667 times more phosphorus than arsenic. In the rest of our known universe there is 2500 times for phosphorus than arsenic. These abundances show that it is highly improbable that there would ever be a naturally occurring environment anywhere in the universe with all arsenic and no phosphorus that would cause life's chemistry to be redefined in a way similar to GFAJ-1.

What is the bottom-line? If it is not "alien" and does not "redefine" life's chemistry, what kind of organism is it? As I quoted from Dr. Rana above, it is an extremophile--organisms that can grow and survive under extreme conditions like high temperatures, high acidity, or, in this case, environments with high amounts of toxic arsenates. To get a little more specific, it is a facultative arsenophile, which means it can use arsenic when necessary. Organisms are either obligatory or facultative. The former means they require a particular set of conditions to live. The latter means that the organism can make use of something if it is present under extreme conditions but do not prefer it. For example, e. coli is a facultative anaerobe, meaning that it would prefer an environment with oxygen but can, if necessary, survive in an oxygen-poor environment. In this case, GFAJ-1 being a facultative arsenophile means that it can make use of arsenic under extreme conditions. It is not an organism that has a "redefining" biochemistry, it is not an "arsenic-base" organism, it does not find "arsenic tasty"; it an extremophile that can make use of arsenic when it is the only thing available in the environment but its preference would be phosphate.

Before I wrap this post up, I want to comment on one more thing that I quoted from Dr. Rana above. It has been suggested that this type of organism could represent an alternate way that life could emerge. Sorry, but this kind of organism does not provide a different possible pathway for life to originate. The reason why Dr. Rana says that, and I agree, is because this type of organism not only has the biochemistry of normal bacteria but has extra mechanisms that allow it to live under the harsh condition of excess arsenic. In short, it is an organism that is significantly more complex than normal bacteria that is based on phosphates alone. Arsenate is unstable, so unless you already have in place mechanisms that could stabilize the arsenates, there is no way life could form with arsenates. Origin of life in an arsenate system vs. a phosphate system is a significantly more complex pathway and even more improbable than the existing, phosphate-based origin of life scenarios. The same is true for all extremophiles. In fact, there have been papers written by other biologists arguing this point.

So what has Dr. Wolfe-Simon's done? She and her team have done some excellent research and made a fascinating discovery but they have not redefined anything or discovered something alien. What they have done is open the door for much more research in this area. There are still a lot of questions to be answered about this bacteria. How are the arsenates stabilized? What do the molecules that incorporate arsenate look like? Could a DNA molecule with arsenate instead of phosphate be made in the lab?

By His Grace,
Taylor

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T11:58:00.003-05:00

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich." ~ II Corinthians 8:9

This is not going to be a long post. I just wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas and remind you of the real reason for the season.

By His Grace,
Taylor

God's Sovereignty in Lewis

2010-12-22T07:26:00.001-05:00

"Thus we see Lewis’ purpose in The Horse and His Boy. His aim throughout the whole story with almost every character was one and the same: to expand and display the reality present in Romans 8:28, 'And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.' Aslan, as you have seen, has this kind of encounter with Shasta and many other characters. All of the characters, even Bree the horse, seem to be down and out when Aslan comes to them with sovereign encouragement one by one." ~ Adam Powers

One of my friends, Adam Powers, is writing a series of entries on his blog about C. S. Lewis's Narnia series. Today's post is about The Horse and His Boy. Adam shows how one of Lewis' main points in this work is to show us the comfort of the sovereignty of God. He makes a great point and it is very encouraging. Read more here.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fourth Advent Sunday

2010-12-19T21:50:00.001-05:00

"The astounding truth is that in Jesus Christ, humanity encountered God in a real, personal, historical, and tangible way." ~ Kenneth Samples, Without a Doubt

Today was the last Sunday in Advent. The time of anticipation is coming to an end because the celebration is near. When we truly reflect upon what we celebrate in Advent we cannot help but be astounded. Listen to the expressions of wonder from a couple of the greatest minds in Church history:

He by whom all things were made was made one of all things. The Son of God by the Father without a mother became the Son of man by a mother without a father. The Word Who is God before all time became flesh at the appointed time. The maker of the sun was made under the sun. He Who fills the world lay in a manger, great in the form of God but tiny in the form of a servant; this was in such a way that neither was His greatness diminished by His tininess, nor was His tininess overcome by His greatness. ~ Aurelius Augustine, "Sermon 187"

The next thing that I would observe concerning the incarnation of Christ, is the greatness of this event. Christ’s incarnation was a greater and more wonderful thing than ever had yet come to pass. The creation of the world was a very great thing, but not so great as the incarnation of Christ. It was a great thing for God to make the creature, but not so great as the for the Creator himself to become a creature. We have spoken of many great things that were accomplished between the fall of man and the incarnation of Christ: but God becoming man was greater than all. Then the greatest person was born that ever was or ever will be. ~ Jonathan Edwards, "Of Christ's Incarnation" from A History of the Work of Redemption

Soon we will celebrate the birth of the "greatest person... born that ever was or ever will be", God "great in form... but tiny in the form of a servant." It truly is the "season to be jolly", but not because of presents, time off work, or even family celebrations. Those are good things, but they all pale in comparison to the celebration of He who created joy becoming like us so that we could experience joy in Him.

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

~ Isaiah 7:10-14

By His Grace,
Taylor

Third Advent Sunday

2010-12-12T20:36:00.001-05:00

"...Go back eighteen centuries before that. Who could have cared about the birth of a baby while the world was watching Rome in all her splendor?... Palestine existed under the crush of Rome's heavy boot. All eyes were on Augustus, the cynical caesar who demanded a census so as to determine a measurement to enlarge taxes.... What could possibly be more important than Caesar's decision in Rome? Who cared about a Jewish baby born in Bethlehem?
"God did. Without realizing it, mighty Augustus was only an errand boy for the fulfillment of Micah's prediction... a pawn in the hand of Jehovah... a piece of lint on the pages of prophecy. While Rome was busy making history, God arrived. He pitched His fleshly tent in silence on straw... in a stable... under a star. The world didn't even notice. Reeling from the wake of Alexander the Great... Herod the Great... Augustus the Great, the world overlooked Mary's little Lamb." ~ Charles Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life (43)

Today is the third Sunday in Advent. The Church continues the age-old tradition of celebrating Advent so that we do not make the same mistake the Romans and Jews made 2,000 years ago. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of Christmas and forget about the reason behind Christmas. Even though I myself and kind of a Christmas Scrooge, there is nothing wrong with celebrations, presents, and family traditions. In fact, they are good things, but it is easy to get caught up in them and forget about the good news of Christmas.

"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end."

~ Luke 1:31-33

"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

~ Luke 2:10-11

By His Grace,
Taylor

And the Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us...

2010-12-05T21:24:00.001-05:00

I just wrote a post about the second Advent Sunday and truly how incredible the incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas, really was. Then, while procrastinating and not studying for a Greek exam, I read the latest letter by my friend Steve (whom you have probably seen me quote before), which is posted on his website: www.keylife.org. It is about Christmas, which is about "a boatload of problems that we can't fix and a God who came 'at the right time' to love us, forgive us and call us, and to tell us about Home. Christmas is a celebration of our helplessness and God's antidote." I really liked it so I thought I would share it:

I once said on a Key Life broadcast that a famous author had died. That's when I started getting letters informing me that he was very much alive. One friend even said that he had talked to this particular author that morning.

I thought I should correct that, but because I record the broadcasts a couple months ahead and because this particular author was so old he didn't even buy green bananas, I thought better of it.

There was a chance that if I said on the broadcast he was alive and kicking by the time it aired, he might have "assumed room temperature"...dead. So I just let the original mistake stand.

There are other problems with doing things so far in advance, particularly if one is a Scrooge. I'm writing this in October yet need to say something about Christmas because you will receive it in December. Not only that, I just came out of the studio after recording the Key Life Christmas programs. That would be no problem for you, but for a Scrooge it is painful. Between looking like Santa Claus and writing about Christmas before we even get to Thanksgiving, I hope you appreciate how I'm suffering. Please pray for me.

I wouldn't do this for anybody except you and Jesus...

You can read the rest of it here and I highly recommend it.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Second Advent Sunday

2010-12-05T20:53:00.003-05:00

"When we open the package of Christmas we find that God has given us many gifts--vulnerability for intimacy, comfort for suffering, passion for justice, and power over prejudice... In the gift of Christmas, the unassailable, omnipotent God became a baby giving us the ultimate example of letting our defenses down... There is no way to have a real relationship without becoming vulnerable to hurt. And Christmas tells us that God became breakable and fragile. God became someone we could hurt. Why? To get us back." ~ Tim Keller, "The Gift of Christmas" in Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas

Today was the second Sunday in Advent. If you attended a church in almost any Christian tradition you probably saw the second candle of the Advent Wreath lit and heard one of the prophecies about the coming Messiah read. Many of us who have been "churched" for most of our lives have heard these before so it is sometimes difficult to remember how incredible the subject of Advent is. The "unassailable, omnipotent God became a baby". "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." (John 1:1, 14a) The Word that is God became flesh. When we really stop and think about it that is an incredible. The sovereign God became a vulnerable baby. Why? "To get us back." To redeem the relationship. That is the celebration we anticipate with Advent. That is what Christmas is about. As my friend Nathan said this morning while he was preaching, "The most important gift of Christmas is not under any tree."

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

~ Luke 2:8-14

By His Grace,
Taylor

First Advent Sunday

2010-11-28T23:17:00.001-05:00

"The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross." ~ J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Today is the first Sunday of the Advent season. The season begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. Advent tradition has its roots deep in Christian history that can be traced as far back as the 6th century AD with certainty (possibly as far back as the 4th with some question). It is marked with anticipation and preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Messiah. It is anticipation and preparation for the celebration of the coming of "hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory" that came with Christ. It is also a celebration and anticipation of the second advent (second coming) of Christ still to be realized in the future.

Isaiah 9:6-7

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

We are entering a time where we celebrate the coming of the Messiah who did establish and does uphold His kingdom "with justice and righteousness" and we look forward to His second coming where all He inaugurated will be consummated. Perhaps today could be the day? We can hope and pray.

By His Grace,
Taylor

99% Chimp... but also 35% Daffodil?

2010-11-19T09:41:00.005-05:00

"In the context of a 35% similarity to a daffodil, the 99.44% of the DNA of human to chimp doesn’t seem so remarkable. After all, humans are obviously a heck of a lot more similar to chimpanzees than to daffodils. More than that, to say that humans are over one-third daffodil is more ludicrous than profound. There are hardly any comparisons you can make to a daffodil in which humans are 33% similar." ~ Dr. Jonathan Marks, What it Means to be 95% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes

You have probably heard it before, "Humans are 99% chimp!" The percentage number of genetic similarity reported ranges from 90-99% (the actual number is probably closer to 90% when one takes into account indels--insertions and deletions in the DNA sequences--but that is not really important for our purposes here). This statement is based on work done by Mary-Claire King and A. C. Wilson in 1975. Their work showed several human and chimpanzee proteins display a 99% agreement in amino acid sequence. This indicated that humans and chimpanzees are closer genetic relatives than anyone at that time had thought. Soon popular evolutionary news caught wind of this and the field has never been the same since. It seems like compelling evidence for an Darwinian paradigm. Is it?

Not really, actually. As Dr. Marks states above, we could also say that humans are 35% daffodil based on this method of comparison, which is absurd. Comparisons based on the percent similarity of genetic sequences is basically meaningless. It being meaningless has led others, like Science correspondent Jon Cohen, to write, "Now it’s totally clear that it’s [the 99% genetic similarity] more a hindrance for understanding than a help." Most of the scientific community that supports naturalistic evolution has largely abandoned this comparison since it has no value. Yet, this icon of evolution is still floating around in popular media and text books.

Why does this comparison have little value? Well, let me try to explain it using an example. Assume that you and I each have a box of colored pencils. Each of our boxes contains 100 pencils. When we compare the boxes we find that 99 of our colors are the same and we each have one color the other does not have. If we each start to draw are we going to come up with pictures that are 99% similar? No, of course not. Why? Because the pictures depend not so much on the colored pencils we use but on the way we express ourselves in our drawings, how the colored pencils are used functionally. We may be using the same supplies but we would use them in vastly different ways. Well, genes are like that. Genetic similarity in organisms counts for nothing, it is how the genes are expressed that really matters. Having similar genes means nothing because functionally they operate very differently in different organisms.

Recent work on the FOXP2 gene creates a great example of this. (This is going to get a little technical but I think it is very helpful in illustrating my point above with an important, real-life example.) This gene has gotten a lot of attention lately because of its importance to language capability. This gene codes for a DNA-binding protein, which are proteins used in differential gene regulation--the controlling of activity in genes much like a volume control. They can turn genes "on" or "off" or regulate their activeness anywhere in between. The FOXP2 gene plays this role in humans and other organisms, like chimpanzees.

In humans this gene is critical for language capability. A study done by the Max Plank Institute (published in Nature in 2001) showed that any modification of this gene in humans cripples language capability. It not only disables the ability of the humans to make the sounds necessary for language but it also disables their ability to comprehend language completely. In this study they also looked at the amino acids that make up the protein that this gene produces--the FOXP2 protein--in chimps, mice, and humans. Out of the 715 amino acids that make up the protein in chimps, mice, and humans, the mouse and human protein differed by only three amino acids and the chimp human protein differed by only two amino acids (that is about a 0.3% difference).

In a recent paper also published in Nature, a team of scientists from several universities reported on an analysis they did of how this difference in the FOXP2 gene for humans and chimps affected biological development. In order to study the effect they culture two sets of neurons that had the FOXP2 gene removed from them. (They did this so they could have the same starting point for each gene they were studying.) In one set they introduced the human FOXP2 gene and in another set they introduced the chimp FOXP2 gene. They then observed how the neurons were affected by the different genes. What they found was profound. In the set of neurons with the human gene there were 60 other genes that were up-regulated (more active) by this protein compared to the chimp neurons and there were 50 other genes that were down-regulated (less active) by this protein compared to the chimp neurons. So, the introduction of one human gene that is 99.7% similar to the chimp version of the gene had a profound affect on 110 other genes in development! A two-out-of-715 amino acid difference had significant biological consequences.

This study illustrates how a 90-99% genetic similarity between humans and chimps really means nothing. Even if one were to grant that the similarity is 99% (as I briefly mentioned above, the number is closer to 90%), that 1% genetic difference has profound implications when it comes to gene expression in each species. Gene similarity is meaningless. Gene expression is what is important.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Bumpy Ride

2010-11-16T23:04:00.001-05:00

"...She had mapped out a perfect life, without failures or disappointments. But that is more of a flawed life-plan than the bumpy ride God inevitably maps out for us. People who have never suffered in life have less empathy for others, little knowledge of their own shortcomings and limitations, no endurance in the face of hardship, and unrealistic expectations for life. As the New Testament book of Hebrews tells us, anyone God loves experiences hardship (Hebrews 12:1-8)." Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

God is good. Any Christian would agree with that statement. We can even say that God is perfectly good and He is all the time. We take great comfort in those words, as we should, but there is a side of God’s goodness that we often misunderstand. We often think that God loving us means He will not allow us to experience "the bumpy ride". Many of us have found, however, that is simply not the case.

When C. S. Lewis lost his wife Joy, he started journaling about his struggles with God. Eventually one of his friends read his journal and convinced Lewis to publish it because he knew how much it would help many others. Lewis did publish it (initially under a pseudonym) with the title A Grief Observed. In it he wrote about God’s goodness:

The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed-might grow tired of his vile sport-might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For not even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re in for it.

I think we often miss this when we consider what a "good God" would be like. In today’s culture we want to believe that a truly "good God" would not discipline us, allow us to take a path that will hurt us, or use the evil in the world to accomplish His good plans for refining us. We try to fit God into a box where His goodness is subject to our desires and comfort. Is that good though? Is a parent who does not discipline their child doing that child a favor? It is painful to have a broken bone set, but if the medic acquiesced to the pleas to stop before the bone was set, would that be good? In each case the child or the injured individual may be thankful at the time, but in the long run they would be hurt a great deal more. Thankfully we have a wise and a good God who knows better than to stop before He is finished. It is also kind of frightening to believe in such a God because we then have to come to grips with the reality that He may do something for our good that is extremely unpleasant. There are times when we may wish that He would be subject to bribes like some kind of "Cosmic Sadist", but if He were He would not be good. During these times we have to remember what Charles Spurgeon once said, "When you can’t trace God’s hand, trust His heart."

By His Grace,
Taylor

True Joy II

2010-11-05T09:37:00.001-04:00

Remember, O my soul,
  It is thy duty and privilege to rejoice in God:
  He requires it of thee for all His favours of grace.
Rejoice then in the Giver and His goodness,
Be happy in Him, O my heart, and in nothing
   but God,
  for whatever a man trusts in,
  from that he expects happiness.

He who is the ground of thy faith
  should be the substance of thy joy.
Whence then comes heaviness and dejection,
  when joy is sown in Thee,
   promise by the Father,
   bestowed by the Son,
   inwrought by the Holy Spirit,
   thine by grace,
   thy birthright in believing?

Art thou seeking to rejoice in thyself
  from an evil motive of pride and self-reputation?
Thou hast nothing of thine own but sin,
  nothing to move God to be gracious
  or to continue His grace towards thee.
If thou forget this thou wilt lose thy joy.
Art thou grieving under a sense of indwelling sin?
Let godly sorrow work repentance,
  as the true spirit which the Lord blesses,
  and which creates fullest joy;
Sorrow for self opens rejoicing in God,
Self-loathing draws down divine delights.
Hast thou sought joys in some creature comfort?
Look not below God for happiness;
  fall not asleep on Delilah’s lap.
Let God be all in all to thee,
  and joy in the fountain that is always full.
~ "A Colloquy on Rejoicing", The Valley of Vision

I have quoted from The Valley of Vision before so some of you may already know this but this work is a collection of Puritan prayers, poems, and devotionals. I love reading from it because each prayer is short yet so rich with good theology and the glory of God. I like this one because it reminds me of a lot of the Psalms that David wrote calling his soul to rejoice in God and bless His name (Psalms 31, 32, 103, and 104 to name a few).

I also like it because it reminds me of what our purpose on earth really is. The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, "What is the chief end of man?" and answers "The chief end of man is to glorify God [Isaiah 43:7; 48:11; I Corinthians 10:31] and enjoy Him forever [Psalm 16:5-11; 144:15; Isaiah 12:2]." One of my favorite things about this answer is how it wisely combines enjoying and glorifying God. Do you see it? The "chief end" (singular) has two components--glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Glorifying God and enjoying Him are not two different ends but two aspects of one end. We cannot have one without the other. True, endless joy is only found in Him and only in enjoying Him can we truly glorify Him.

Jonathan Edwards (a Puritan preacher and American philosopher) wrote on this subject often. One of my favorite things he wrote is in The End for Which God Created the World:

God in seeking His glory seeks the good of His creatures because the emanation of His glory... implies the... happiness of His creatures. And in communicating His fullness for them, He does it for Himself, because their good, which He seeks, is so much in union and communion with Himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God's glory. God, in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks Himself, and in seeking Himself... He seeks their glory and happiness.

Another quote on this subject, that I have previously written about here, which I love comes from Augustine's Confessions:

Forbid it, O Lord, put it far from the heart of Thy servant, who confesses to Thee--far be it from me to think I am happy because of any and all the joy I have. For there is a joy not granted to the wicked but only to those who worship Thee thankfully--and this joy Thou Thyself art. The happy life is this--to rejoice to Thee, in Thee, and for Thee. This it is and there is no other.

May we always remember that any other joy we might experience is not true joy, but fleeting, and that we can only have true joy in God. Even all those things that God has blessed us with were given to us so that we could have joy in Him through happiness in His gifts. If we ever start to look to the gifts for joy, instead of Him, they will cease to satisfy, but if, while enjoying the gift, we look past it to the Giver, we will find true joy in Him.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Decrease, the Character of the Kingdom

2010-10-24T22:41:00.002-04:00

"The character of ministry is not measured by how many follow this minister but by how many follow Jesus." ~ Adam Powers

Adam is a seminary classmate of mine and also a fellow intern at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church. Today he preached a great sermon in our second service on John 3:22-36 which you can listen to here (I would highly recommend it). The above quote is my favorite from his whole sermon. He was focusing on how John the Baptist shows us we will have true joy when Jesus increases and we decrease. Ministries, pastors, authors, etc. are all great things but they are not measured by how many people follow them but by how many people follow Jesus because of the impact of their ministry. John the Baptist's joy was made complete when he saw people going to Jesus (not to him). This was his joy because that is what his ministry was all about, pointing to Jesus.

It reminds me of what the first question of the Westminster Short Catechism says: "What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." There is one end, singular, but two things are intimately bound up in it: glorifying God and enjoying Him. We cannot have one without the other. Pointing to Jesus will be our greatest joy. When we glorify Him we, like John the Baptist, will find our joy complete.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Four Spiritual Laws (According to Steve Brown)

2010-09-29T09:30:00.004-04:00

"...You know people like that: arrogant, elitist, demanding? You don't do that if you know the four spiritual laws. Let me give them to you. Law number one: there's a sovereign God. Law number two: you're not Him. Law number three: He doesn't need you. Law number four: go get a milkshake." ~ Steve Brown

I love how Steve has a way of breaking things down like this. When we think too much of ourselves in reference to the world and God's work in it we start to get off track, put too much pressure on ourselves, and/or become arrogant. I know I do this at times and it is always nice to be reminded that God was doing just fine before I came along and will do just fine after I am gone. Anything done through me is a blessing of His sovereign grace. Keeping that in mind relieves some of the pressure and keeps my ego in check.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Little People, Big Universe, Even Bigger God

2010-09-22T16:39:00.001-04:00

"That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." ~ Carl Sagan

In a couple of past posts (here and here) I showed some images of our universe that demonstrated just how small Earth is in the grand scheme of the universe. The American Museum of Natural History has created a video that starts at the top of the world (Everest) and moves out to the farthest observed edge of our universe. It is a great example of just how small Earth is (and, by extension, you and I).

The universe is 156 billion light-years across! Makes me feel kind of small when I think about it. Fortunately, God holds all this in His hand and He likes me a lot.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Hawking's God

2010-09-06T18:59:00.004-04:00

"But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions." Dr. John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, writing for Mail Online

Recently Stephen Hawking, while promoting his new (yet-to-be-published) book The Grand Design, has made a few highly controversial statements. In an interview Hawking stated, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing... Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going." Dr. Lennox responded to Hawking's statement in an article for Mail Online where he says what I have quoted above. I wanted to write about this because I both agree and disagree with Dr. Lennox. I agree with him in that physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe and that laws, of course, do not create anything. In his article, Dr. Lennox goes onto say, "What Hawking appears to have done is to confuse law with agency. His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine." This is where I disagree with him. I do not think that Hawking is confusing law with agency but attributing agency to the laws of physics, replacing a personal God with impersonal laws.

Many years ago in A Brief History of Time (BHT) Hawking stated, "If we discover a complete theory it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason for then we would know the mind of God." When Hawking wrote BHT he seemed to be your average deist who does not believe in a personal God but believes that some transcendent being is necessary for creating the laws of physics and mathematics. In his recent statements, Hawking appears to have changed his theology about God. This is what is creating all the hype about this book. But has he (this is the way Dr. Lennox interprets it) or is he now just being more explicit about who, or what, this "God" is? I believe it is the latter. I do not think that Hawking has changed his theology at all but is being much more explicit than he was in BHT. Now he is specifically stating that a personal God does not exist but that the laws of physics are "God". Look at what he says, "Because there is a law such as gravity..." (emphasis mine). He is not eliminating a need for a first cause (see the Kalam Cosmological Argument) but treating the laws of physics as a brute reality, a transcendent cause that is preexistent. To Hawking, "God" is the laws of physics.

Why is he doing this? Well, again, I believe we can see that in his statement in BHT as well as his recent statements. In BHT he says that discovering a complete theory would allow us to "know the mind of God." In his new book Hawking is proposing a way of looking at the universe where it would be possible for a human to know everything there is to know about the universe (a theory of everything (TOE)). Now we can see what is driving Hawking. If God is personal and transcendent, then the idea that we could come up with a TOE that shows us "the mind of God" is impossible. For example, science would not be able to answer the question of why the universe exists in the first place. However, if "God" is an impersonal set of physical laws that are simply a brute force of reality with no basis (a god) then a TOE is possible. Hawking is picking one cosmological and theological model over another so that it would be possible for him to have a complete theory of everything.

Hawking, like all human beings do at one point or another, has fallen prey to the original temptation of satan. How does satan tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden? "'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God...'" (Genesis 3:4-5). In order to know what God knows, Eve disobeyed the one command He gave Adam and her by eating the fruit. In order to know what God knows, Hawking is taking a theological world-view, which holds that "God" is an impersonal set of physical laws that transcend the universe.

There is a very big problem with what Hawking is doing here, however. The laws of physics constantly remind all scientists that effect cannot be greater than the cause, the lesser cannot produce the greater. How can an impersonal set of laws (the lesser) produce personal beings like humans (the greater)? Why is it that humans have personality, compassion, or relationships? Hawking's TOE cannot answer this question because the impersonal cannot beget the personal. To put the problem in another way that philosopher Kenneth Samples has put it, "How is it that the universe can create beings that can understand the universe but the universe cannot understand itself?" If the universe generates us and we can understand the universe but the universe cannot understand us then we are greater than the universe. This is counter to the laws of physics. Impersonal laws (Hawking's "God") can only produce impersonal results such as planets and stars, but they cannot produce personal, compassionate, relational beings like us.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Living by Prayer

2010-08-31T12:02:00.001-04:00

I have made a few posts in the past of prayers from The Valley of Vision. This is a really great devotional tool, probably one of my favorites. It is a large collection of Puritan prayers and poems. They were written hundreds of years ago but still bring my heart to praise before our Sovereign Lord. Today I read one called "Living by Prayer" which I really liked and thought I would share:

O God of the open ear,
  Teach me to live by prayer
  as well as by providence,
  for myself, soul, body, children, family, church;
Give me a heart frameable to Thy will;
  so might I live in prayer,
  and honour Thee,
  being kept from evil, known and unknown.
Help me to see the sin that accompanies all I do,
  and the good I can distill from everything.
Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring
    my will to Thine,
  and that without this it is folly to pray;
When I try to bring Thy will to mine it is
    to command Christ,
  to be above Him, and wiser than He:
    this is my sin and pride.
I can only succeed when I pray
  according to Thy precept and promise,
  and to be done with as it pleases Thee,
  according to Thy sovereign will.
When Thou commandest me to pray
    for pardon, peace, brokenness,
  if its because Thou wilt give me the thing promised,
    for Thy glory,
    as well as for my good.
Help me not only to desire small things
  but with holy boldness to desire great things
    for Thy people, for myself,
    that they and I might live to show Thy glory.
Teach me
  that it is wisdom for me to pray for all I have,
    out of love, willingly, not of necessity;
  that I may come to Thee at any time,
    to lay open my needs acceptably to Thee;
  that my great sin lies in my not keeping
    the savour of Thy ways;
  that the remembrance of this truth is one way
    to the sense of Thy presence;
  that there is no wrath like the wrath of being
    governed by my own lusts for my own ends.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Law

2010-08-13T08:44:00.003-04:00

"We don't obey the law so He'll love us. He already does... We come before the King and say, 'I am Yours. I am Yours until I die or the world end.' That is what the law does. Then when we read the law we find out what it is that He would have us do." ~ Steve Brown, "Whoppers from the World: The Lie of Antinomianism"

I have been accused on occasion of being antinomian. (For those of you who do not know what that is, being antinomian means you teach that those who are saved can do whatever they want and violate the law because it does not matter.) I am really big on teaching grace and think that if you do not get accused of being antinomian from time-to-time then you are not really teaching grace (even the apostle Paul was accused of being antinomian). I agree completely with my friend Steve when he says, "The only people that get any better are those who know that if they don't get any better God will love them anyway." That kind of statement, however, can sound antinomian. It sounds like it does not matter what you do because God will love you anyway. It is not antinomian. The law of God is good (if you do not believe that read Psalm 119, the longest Psalm in the Bible and all about how great the law is) and it is something we should strive to obey. We do not, however, strive to obey it because we are afraid that God is going to punish or because we think we need to obey to make Him love us. God is not a policeman, He is our Father. When we love our parents and we know that they love us unconditionally, we do not strive to obey them because we are afraid of what they will do to us but because we are afraid of what our disobedience will do to them--how it will hurt them.

Steve tells a parable about a friend of his who was a pretty bad teenager. She hung around with the wrong crowd that was pretty sexually promiscuous. One day she was with these friends when her older sister walked by and saw who she was with. Her sister said to her, "If you get pregnant it will kill our father." That really shook up Steve's friend because, even though she was on the wrong track, she loved her father and knew he loved her. Later she was being pressured by her boyfriend to sleep with him and she kept refusing. Finally, he said, "You know the only reason you are rejecting me is because you are afraid of what your father will do to you." Steve's friend replied, "No, the reason I am rejecting you is because I am afraid of what me sleeping with you would do to my father."

The law is a great teacher for Christians. It tells us how God would have us live and what He expects of us. Jesus has already fulfilled it perfectly and that has been credited to our account. We are now in a safe place where we can strive to obey the law and know that even when we fail God loves us as much as He did before. The reason we strive to obey the law is not because of fear of what God might do to us if we disobey but because we are His and our disobedience will hurt Him, the one who loves us and whom we love.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Synthetic Life and the Delicateness of Life

2010-07-28T16:00:00.004-04:00

"It shows you how accurate it has to be, one letter out of a million..." ~ Dr. Craig Venter

Many of you heard about the very impressive step that Craig Venter and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute have made in the quest to create artificial life. It was in the headlines about two months ago. If you did not hear about it, just do a Google search for "A step to artificial life: Manmade DNA powers cell" and a good number of results from many different news agencies will come up. I have wanted to write about this incredible scientific advance for a while but have not been able to find the time until now.

The above statement by Dr. Venter, I think, has great implications for the design debate going on in the scientific community (though he probably did not mean for it to). I will get into that, but first I would like to summarize what he and his team did because it is very impressive work that should be applauded for it has almost limitless potential for possible agricultural, commercial, biomedical, and environmental applications.

First things first: what did Venter and his team do? They truly have created a cell completely powered by synthetic DNA and it was an achievement he and his team have been working on for the past fifteen years. What did they do? For the details one would have to have read the paper that was published in the journal Science, so allow me to break it down for you as best I can.

Let me start with a basic overview. In this research they were working with two different kinds of bacteria, Mycoplasma mycoides (M. mycoides) and Mycoplasma capricolum (M. capricolum). They chose these bacteria because of their relatively small genome size (about one million genetic letters which is about 1,000 genes) and the rapid growth rate of M. capricolum (less time wasted growing bacteria). First, they sequenced the entire genome of M. mycoides. A genome consists of many DNA molecules and the DNA molecules are a collection of genetic letters (abbreviated A, G, C, and T), which hold the genetic information about the organism. Sequencing a genome means determining the order of all the genetic letters, thus creating the "blueprint" for the organism. Second, they synthesized/created a synthetic version of the M. mycoides genome starting with the four basic chemicals of DNA (corresponding to the genetic letters). Third, they implanted the synthetic M. mycoides genome into a M. capricolum bacterium. That genome replaced the host's native genome and took over the operation of the bacterium, essentially changing the M. capricolum bacterium into a (synthetic) M. mycoides bacterium.

Even though I only described three major steps the process is not simple at all. Allow me elaborate on some of the difficult points.

Sequencing the entire genome of M. mycoides, even a small genome like this one, is very difficult. They had to take the genome and fragment it (separate it into chunks) and then take each fragment and further fragment them until the whole genome was broken down into its individual letters. (A recent advance in graphene could potentially speed up this process considerably.)
Synthesizing the genome is even more difficult. They essentially did the above process in reverse. They created small fragments (about 1,000 genetic letters) of the genome, took those fragments and put them together to make larger fragments, then took those larger fragments, and so forth until they had a complete genome. To do this they needed a very good strategy. They looked at the entire sequence (all one million letters), determined the best points to break it up into 1,000-letter fragments, made sure the fragments overlapped slightly (so they could piece them together), and then started creating the fragments and assembling them. To assemble the fragments they used yeast as a kind of "factory" to combine sets of ten 1,000-letter fragments into fragments of 10,000 genetic letters, then combine those 10,000-letter fragments into 100,000-letter fragments, and then, finally, combine those into the one million-letter genome. (Using the yeast as a "factory" is far more complicated than what I just explained because they had to incorporate DNA sequences that caused the yeast to recognize the DNA as its own and they had to do this without altering the M. mycoides genome. They also had to introduce DNA sequences to allow them to do quality control checks after every step to make sure each stage was executed without error.) This is an incredibly ingenious, complicated, and delicate strategy for synthesizing DNA sequences.
Their strategy for implanting the synthetic genome into a M. capricolum bacterium was equally ingenious and difficult. One of the big hurdles were enzymes known as restriction endonucleases (RE). These are enzymes found in bacteria and archaea that serve as a defense mechanism against the introduction foreign DNA into the cells of the organism (which is exactly what Venter's team was trying to do). These enzymes cleave to specific locations of the DNA helix and cut the DNA at those locations, destroying the foreign DNA. One might then ask, "What about the natural DNA in the host organism? Why is it not destroyed?" Well, natural DNA has a protection system against the RE called the methylase system. This system "methylates" the host's natural DNA by adding a modification enzyme to the RE cleavage sites, which protects it from the RE. In order to get around this, Venter's team developed a strain of M. capricolum with the RE disabled, thus making the M. capricolum susceptible to the (foreign) M. mycoides genome they needed to implant. Then, after implanting it, the synthetic M. mycoides genome produced its own RE that destroyed the host's M. capricolum genome, thus allowing the M. mycoides genome to take over the operation of the M. capricolum bacterium completely. This transformed the M. capricolum bacterium into a synthetic M. mycoides bacterium, which was able to grow into a whole colony of synthetic bacteria.

Even if you got lost in the above explanation, you probably are beginning to realize now how incredibly complicated and difficult this scientific advance was. It took dozens of scientists fifteen years to be able to get this far and there were many setbacks along the way. One setback, the one Venter was commenting on in the above quote, was the result of a mutation (a "typo") that altered one genetic letter out of the million-letter genome. This typo set them back several weeks and completely disabled their synthetic M. capricolum bacterium. The mutation of one genetic letter out of a million caused the organism to be unable to operate and die.

What does mean for the design debate (I mentioned this in the very beginning of this post)?

This advancement shows how complicated and delicate life is and that the work of an incredibly intelligent mind (or a team of incredibly intelligent minds, in this case) is required in order for life to originate. It has shown empirically that to transform life (representing the evolutionary process) or to create life from scratch (representing the origins of life process) requires the intervention of an intelligent agent (if one genetic letter is wrong, as mentioned above, the whole genome is useless). Work like this does not eliminate a need for God; quite the opposite, for it demonstrates how precarious life is and that God is required for life.
This work also demonstrates life's minimum complexity and shows that, even in its lowest possible state, life is extremely complex (far more complex than any naturalistic evolutionary model can account for).
This work creates a completely new category of arguments for design in the universe. The already existing categories of arguments made by scientists that support design are the following: 1) inference to the best explanation, which basically looks at all the models that could account for life and seeks to show that the naturalistic evolutionary models are inferior in their explanation of the facts and 2) argument from design, which basically looks at the apparent design in the universe, notes the similarities to independent human designs, and then argues by analogy that life must be designed. This work introduces a third form of argumentation, which argues that we know now from empirical experience that the making of life requires intelligent ingenuity.

From my Christian point of view this work is very exciting not only because is it just really cool science, not only because it opens up science to a not-too-far-off world of possible applications (bacteria that can create hydrogen for clean fuel, bacteria that can create cheap pharmaceuticals, or even bacteria that can consume oil), but also because it shows in a compelling way, I think, that life requires a Mind to exist and cannot be the result of random, natural processes.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Church IV

2010-07-08T11:31:00.004-04:00

"Once we know so much about the Bible the danger is thinking that we have Him and walk with Him. This is the danger of every mature Christian." ~ Steve Brown

Steve said this on today's episode of his Key Life radio program. He hits on something I have thought about a lot for the past couple of years, particularly in reference to my seminary education. There is a great danger that I often fall into: confusing a love of knowledge about God for a love of God Himself. I sometimes feel like a man who knows a lot about a city he rarely goes to. Or, to use Steve's example, I am sometimes like a botanist who does not smell the flowers. Knowledge is necessary for personal experience but it is not sufficient for (it does not equal) personal experience. Being someone who loves academia, this is something I am constantly having to confess and ask that He help me to experience Him and increase my joy in Him, not just my joy in knowledge about Him.

I have written several times before here, here, and here about why I love the Church. This is another reason why I love the Church. Being a part of a local body, talking with them, fellowshipping with them, worshiping with them, and seeing the love of Christ in them reminds me of my tendency to treat God as a puzzle to be figured out and helps me to return to joy in Him, personally.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Church III

2010-07-02T10:12:00.003-04:00

I have written on my love for the Church twice here and here. One thing I love about the Reformed tradition of the Church is how it has always been a confessional tradition. Today I read Article 27 of the Belgic Confession, which is about the Church and I wanted to share it:

We believe and confess one single catholic or universal Church--
   a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers,
   awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by His blood,
   and being sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
This Church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end,
   as appears from the fact that Christ is the eternal King who cannot be without subjects.
And this holy Church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world,
   even though for a time it may appear very small in the eyes of men--
   as though it were snuffed out.
For example, during the very dangerous time of Ahab,
   the Lord preserved for Himself seven thousand men who did not bend their knees to Baal.
And so this holy Church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain placeor certain persons.
   But it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world,
   though still joined and united in heart and will,
   in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Basis

2010-06-30T16:38:00.003-04:00

"The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is a declaration of the Trinity in action." ~ J. I. Packer

Martin Luther said that justification is the doctrine by which Christianity stands or falls. With much respect to the one of the most important men in Church history, I think he has not moved deep enough. Justification by faith alone was Luther's great contention with Rome and I am afraid that because of that he placed it at the center of all things. Now, I am not trying to in any way diminish the importance of this great doctrine but I do think putting at the basis of all Christianity is unwise. I agree with Packer's statement, the Trinity is the basis of the gospel and justification by faith alone is part of the gospel. Without the covenant of redemption taking place in the Trinity before time began, without the Father ordaining the plan of redemption, without the Son achieving redemption, and without the Spirit applying the benefits of redemption to the elect, there is no gospel, no justification. In the doctrine of the Trinity is understood in Christ's divinity, the self-sufficiency of God, the glory of God, union with Christ, and the redemption of man. R. B. Kuyper held, "The doctrine of the Trinity is basic to the Christian religion. It is no exaggeration to assert that the whole of Christianity stands or falls with it." I agree.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Joyce and Galarraga

2010-06-04T22:50:00.004-04:00

"It brought out the best in everyone. Everyone involved handled themselves in the way we would hope they would, the way we hope we would. Except for us. Except for the fans and the media and the pundits. We freaked the hell out." ~ Will Leitch of New York Magazine

This is a key statement in Leitch's article about the botched call in the Tigers vs. Indians game that denied Armando Galarraga his perfect game and I agree with it. From Joyce's unsolicited admission of his missed call to his tearful apology to Galarraga to Galarraga bringing the lineup card to Joyce in the next game--all parties showed gentlemanly class. The fan buzz and media pieces all over the Internet showed something else and for the most part it was far from classy. It is sad when supposed sports experts say things like "Selig must overrule call" or fans say things like "coverup attitude of MLB regarding this is worthy of the Soviets or Communist China" and "Joyce deserves to be fired" while the parties actually involved act like perfect gentlemen. I will be the first to admit that I do not like umpires. I think they have too much power and not enough oversight which means there is abuse from time-to-time (this time it was not abuse, it was a mistake). I will also be the first to admit that I have done more than my share of yelling at umpires on the TV because of messed up calls but the above things are stepping over the line, even for me.

Where should baseball go from here? Well, contrary to all the fan suggestions, firing Joyce is completely out of the question. That simply shows a depraved need for "bloodlust and vengeance" and if I were Galarraga I would tell those fans in no uncertain terms that I would rather them go be fans of someone else. The thought that this "proves" that baseball "needs" instant replay for all plays is almost equally as bad. Baseball is a game that has always had the human element involved and the human element in calls is part of what makes baseball what it is. Besides, games are already 3 to 3.5 hours long and I would be willing to bet that the people who yell the loudest for instant replay would be the first to complain when the games get longer because of it. Should Bud Selig overturn the call? Absolutely not. Baseball has never retroactively overturned a call and as disappointing as this bad call was it is not a good place to start. If you start retroactively overturning calls then I am sure the Padres would like the chance to clench the NL West again that they were robbed of back in the 2007 tie-breaker game with the Rockies where Matt Holliday was called safe at home when he was really out (as the replay showed). As emotional and disappointing as this botched call was it is no reason to change over 100 years of history. What should MLB do? How about move on? Detroit has moved on saying they will not ask to have the called overturned and MLB is not going to do it anyway. The media and fans need to do the same.

You know what else very sad about this whole controversy? It shrouded the retirement of the one of the shining stars of the past 20 years of baseball, Ken Griffey Jr. A man who has had 13 all-star appearances, 1,836 RBI, and 630 home runs (fifth all time) deserves more than to be drowned out by media overreaction.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Tetrapod Problems

2010-05-20T21:24:00.002-04:00

"This is a huge discovery... the breakthrough of the year. It is going to be hard to imagine other discoveries happening throughout the course of the year having this type of implications... It is a paradigm buster." ~ Dr. Frazale Rana

The above quote comes from biochemist Dr. Rana's comments on a paper published in the journal Nature back in early January named "Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland". This paper discusses the discovery of fossilized tetrapod footprints in an abandoned rock quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains (south-eastern Poland). Such "trace fossils" (fossils that display records of biological activity but not the fossils of the organism itself) would not normally be that interesting if it were not for the date associated with the fossils. The paleobiologists who discovered these footprints used several different dating methods to establish that these trace fossils date to 397 million years ago. That date is very disturbing for evolutionary biologists because it means that the alleged transitional species between fish and tetrapods (which date from 385 to 365 million years ago) are, in fact, not transitional species at all since they appear after the tetrapod footprints.

"Tetrapod" is the scientific name for vertebrate animals with for limbs. You and I are tetrapods as are dogs, cats, lizards, etc. Being able to explain how tetrapods emerged in evolution is a very important facet of evolutionary models. It has been alleged by naturalistic evolutionary biologists that the fossil record documents the transition from fish to fishapods (transitional species) to land-base tetrapods. There are three species of fishapod that supposedly document this transition: Panderichthys (roughly 385 million years ago) which evolved into Tiktaalik (about 375 million years ago) which evolved into Ventastega (about 365 million years ago) which evolved into true land-based tetrapods like Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Now, ever since these fossils were discovered and the "family tree" was drawn there have been many issues that cast serious doubt on this story but none so big as this one. Did you notice the dates? These fishapods (that are supposedly transitional species between fish and tetrapods) first show up in the fossil record about 12 million years after these recently discovered tetrapod footprints. That means they cannot be transitional species because they do not even appear on the scene until after tetrapods were walking the earth.

This is another example of "proof" for naturalistic evolution (that presumably has fossil evidence to support it) that has been overthrown by a single fossil find. This line of fishapods has been touted for quite a long time as documented evidence for evolution but with this new find we see that it cannot be. If that is the case then what other "well established" evolutionary explanations are awaiting overthrow?

By His Grace,
Taylor

"A short saying often contains much wisdom." ~ Sophocles

The Atonement, A Prayer

The Trinity, A Prayer

Imprecatory Psalms: "let curses come upon him!"

Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

I Love the Church and the True Religion that Forms It

Love, Hate, Jesus, and Religion

Intentional Community

New Year's Resolution

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Christopher Hitchens has Died

The Third Sunday of Advent

Book Review: Telling Secrets

The Second Sunday of Advent

Book Review: "A Grief Observed"

The First Sunday of Advent

History and God

The Heavens Declare

Faith In... What?

John Calvin and Missions

What is Sanctification?

A Summary of Persecutions

Unity Amid Diversity

Tragedy, Sovereignty, and Hope

Adam and Eve: A Tale of Two Cases

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