The precious Puritans

I’m pretty happy saying that I like ‘the Puritans’ without ever defining exactly who I mean when I say that. I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one.

A bit of back story, however. My first in-depth encounter with the Puritans came in the form of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, which I still maintain has been one of the most influential books in my life, because (although I didn’t realise it at the time) it showed me how the Puritans approached the Bible. They wanted it to change them, and not simply use it as a nice collection of quotes. Matthew Henry read and studied the Bible as if it were actually all breathed out by God and profitable. Legendary.

So I’m grateful for the Puritans.

And I’m also grateful for free music – I enjoyed listening to a free album given away by the rapper Propaganda from the first beat, but was thrown a little by a track dropped in there called Precious Puritans.

It essentially communicates that Propaganda is frustrated when people quote the Puritans as if their words were breathed out by God, when their flaws were many and varied, and he particularly picks out their support of the slave trade. Here’s a sample verse:

How come the things the Holy Spirit showed them in the valley of vision didn’t compel them to knock on they neighbors door and say, “You can’t own people!”?
Your precious puritans were not perfect.
You romanticize them as if they were inerrant. As if the skeletons in they closet was pardoned due to the they hard work and tobacco growth.
As if abolitionists weren’t racist and just pro-union.
As if God only spoke to white boys with epic beards.
You know Jesus didn’t really look like them paintings. That was just Michaelangelo’s boyfriend.

You can read the full lyrics here. And Joel Beeke responded saying he didn’t much like the tone of the rap here.

My take? Pretty much the same as Propaganda’s:

And, it bothers me when you quote puritans, if I’m honest, for the same reason it bothers me when people quote me–they precious propaganda.
So, I guess it’s true.
God really does use crooked sticks to make straight lines.
Just like your precious puritans.

The Puritans were not perfect, and neither’s Propaganda, or me. And thank God that He is willing and able to redeem these ‘crooked sticks’ for His glory!

Jesus wept

I read a bit of a silly book recently. It suggested that because the whole of humanity fell in Adam’s sin, the whole of humanity also was raised in Jesus’ perfect life, death and resurrection.

Jesus Wept (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sounds nice: no faith required, everyone ends up in glorified bodies for eternity…surely that’s good news?

Well, no. It might sound good, but it’s wrong.

Here’s why: Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

If everyone ever was going to be fine, why would Jesus weep? Why not laugh, thinking, ‘oh, they’re going to look back at themselves now and realise they got it wrong’…but he didn’t.

There is Good News, but it requires us to take action to spread that news!

I worship three persons

A few months ago I referenced the fact that Christians seem to worship a God with multiple personality disorder.

As an appendix to that, presented in a far better researched and more visually appealing manner, have a look at this beautiful infogram.

The best bit about it I think is the top grey band showing the Three Foundations. I reckon that every Christian would be happy to say that they worship ‘one God’, but how many would be so quick to say that they worship ‘three persons’?

Let’s really get to know who God is.

Want to be skeptical?

So a few weeks ago I suggested that the foundation of everything anyone believes is based on circular reasoning.

I stand by that post.

I found it interesting, therefore, when I saw this article the other day about God’s purposes in suffering – if you find yourself believing that suffering is bad, do you believe that simply because you already believe that? Here’s a little quote to whet your appetite:

…seeing the blind man on the temple steps triggered their curiosity: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

God the Son…gave an answer that would turn their theology on its head and affect the futures of millions…God made this man blind in order to demonstrate his power in him.

…

After his world-shaking statement, Jesus made the man see! In that moment everything changed. See the power of the Word! Light shown into dark eyes. A brain that had never processed optical stimuli was given immediate ability to interpret a visual world.

But even more revolutionary in its repercussions, the man went from being perceived as the object of God’s wrath to being the object of God’s kindness!…

So was it worth it — all the suffering? It all depends on what God gave him in return.

God so loved him that he gave his only Son so that by believing in him, this man would not perish but have eternal life. What this man received beyond his miraculous physical healing was the far more miraculous forgiveness of all his sins and eternal life in God’s presence where full joy and pleasures never end.Such a gift would be worth a thousand blind lifetimes.

The article itself isn’t much longer than what I’ve quoted here; have a read.

Theology satire

Um…I stumbled across this the other day and actually am not sure what to think…please tell me?

Click here.

Blogs I follow

Every so often someone will ask me which blogs I recommend, so I thought I might stick up here a list of some of the blogs I’m following right now.

Disclaimer: I’m not sure I’d actually say that I unconditionally like all of these, they’re just the top ones I’ve picked out. They’ve all had challenging bits in them which I’ve liked, and most of them are a bit too self-promotional for me, but check them out if you’re looking for something inspirational!

Church/leadership

9 Marks

Adrian Warnock

C.J. Mahaney’s view from the cheap seats and other stuff

Challies

Confluence

Desiring God

Ed Stetzer

GodFirst

Head Heart Hand

Josh Harris

Justin Taylor

Kevin DeYoung

Kingdom People

Leading From The Sandbox

Lex Loizides

Matt Hosier

Newfrontiers Theology Forum

Practical Shepherding

Pure Church

Ray Ortlund

Terry Virgo

That Theology Student

The Resurgence

Transforming Sermons

Worship leading

Cardiphonia

Enjoy the Show

Sound Doxology

Worship Matters

Worthily Magnify

Just for fun

22 Words

AppVita

Stuff Christians Like

An English yachtsman

In the introduction to G.K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy he talks about an English yachtsman who set off in search of a new land before landing on England’s shores but believing it was an exciting undiscovered island.

The story has potential to be quite funny but there’s spiritual truth in it. We have grand ideas of adventure and rethinking theology but at the end of the day we still like the comfort of coming home.

That’s why I’m not too keen on a lot of these new books called things like The Lost/Secret/Hidden Message/Meaning/Life/Truth of God/Jesus/the Church/the Bible/Christianity.

There is no lost message, only the old old story. If you genuinely think you’ve stumbled across something that 2,000 years’ worth of scholars haven’t, I’d humbly submit to you that you haven’t.

Shall we return again and again to orthodoxy?

Scandalous by D.A. Carson (audio)

This short book addresses five key Bible passages, meditating on the most scandalous aspects of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Don Carson’s writing is clear, easy-to-understand and easy-to-follow, and fundamentally biblical. The themes he picks up are controversial because they are so orthodox, but there’s nothing old-fashioned or boring here.

There’s probably relatively little in here which will be brand new to the more spiritually mature Christian, but there’s certainly not nothing, and the depth to which Carson goes is outstanding.

For that reason I’d recommend this book to absolutely any Christian out there. If you’ve never collapsed in awe of God’s mercy and power displayed on the cross, this book would be as good a place to start as any.

The audio version I listened to was enjoyable and clear. Thoroughly recommended.

I got this audiobook for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship by Alan and Debra Hirsch (audio)

The title well describes this book. It presents a form of discipleship which is intentionally missional, and decidedly not ‘tame’.

I can’t make my mind up about this book. On the whole it is thoroughly biblical, and gives a healthy challenge to the western church, but there are some questionable parts.

At one point, for example, the authors say that there shouldn’t be any representation of God (including e.g. paintings of Jesus). I don’t agree with that. They also recommend a version of the Bible I’m not a fan of, The Voice. At one point they even suggest you should interpret the Bible in a different way to get yourself thinking, by losing the deity of the Holy Spirit (although not in so many words!). There are others as well.

The overall message is good, however, but I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to. Because of the odd parts I wouldn’t want to recommend this to a brand new or undiscerning Christian but at the same time I’m not sure a more mature Christian would be genuinely challenged by it.

The audio version of this book is presented nicely, but there are some weaknesses. The foreword, by Rick Warren, is read by the same narrator – I’d have preferred another – and the same is true of parts of the book written only from the point of Debra, which confused me sometimes. There are conversation starters for small groups at the end of each chapter which don’t work very well in an audio version.

But I want to finish by saying that the themes in this book are good, and important. If you’re a Christian and won’t read another book, read this one with discernment.

I got this book for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

The God Who Smokes by Timothy J. Stoner

Yes, the guy’s name’s funny. He admits it on the opening pages. Anyway, this book OS intended to be ‘scandalous meditations in faith’, particularly by trying to find middle ground between the emerging/emergent and fundamentalist evangelical movements. Stoner’s chapters look at God’s character and our response.

For a start, this is phenomenally well-written. Through personal stories and clever analogies it’s impossible not to enjoy the communication style. The content’s good too, biblically sound, logical and gracious.

That said, I struggle to put this in a box. With this title you don’t expect orthodoxy, but that is what you get, albeit presented in a post-modern style. He clearly tries to get the emergent crowd on board by using the word ‘crap’ in the introduction, and quoting Rob Bell and Brian McLaren throughout, but he fundamentally disagrees with them both.

The problem with this book isn’t the words, it’s the cover. It doesn’t really discover a new middle ground in Christianity, it just presents evangelicalism in a more Rob Bell style.

So, it gets plenty of thumbs up from me – I looked forward to reading it every day – but on this occasion you have to conclude that you can’t judge a book by its cover!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”