Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.

A Life of Change

God's Word invites change. In the Bible's vivid picture, we "turn" to our Father, Savior, and Comforter. He works in us toward one goal: change. The central dynamic of the Christian life has this FROM...TO...movement. Repentance is not only how we start the Christian life; it is the Christian life. Faith does new transactions and conversations with God. Love does new actions and choices on the stage of life. When God calls, you listen. When he promises, you trust and talk back to him in your need. When he loves, you love. When he commands, you obey. You aim your life in a new direction by the power of the Holy Spirit. In every case, you turn.

The patterns, themes, and tendencies of our lives are what we see when, figuratively, we view our lives from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. From one hundred floors up, Manhattan and the Hudson River spread serenely before you. But the action and noise of life happens at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and when we take the Lincoln Tunnel home to Hoboken. The big stories of our lives are worked out in a running series of small scenes. This is how God has made it to be. He works for a turn-the-world-upside-down reorientation and redirection. Change takes place in the watershed moments and decisive incidents of everyday life. - David Powlison

Something Different

I was reviewing a paper I wrote a couple of years ago. Reading it again, I'm fascinated by the seismic shift in worldview that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. While my 21st century sensibilities struggle with the concept of the divine right of kings, I wonder if the mischief introduced by modern social contract theory has been a boon or bust for the moral disposition of our civilization. Usually not what I post on, but...food for thought.

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During the second half of the 17th century through the middle of the 18th century three political philosophers – Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau – revolutionized political thought through the development of treatises and essays on the social contract. These social contract theories arose in the context of a world that generally believed that rulers were entitled by virtue of birth to govern. This divine right to govern was part of a cosmic social topography that some historians have referred to as the Great Chain of Being. This metaphor refers to the order of the universe that God had ordained:

The Chain purported to place every creature and every object in the universe in its proper place. Because that place had been assigned by God himself, to attempt to change one’s place, let alone to attack the hierarchical concept overall, was to commit treason against God.

This hierarchy included the right of kings to rule and the obligation of subjects to obey. Except for ancient Greek and Roman experiments in democracy and republican governments, political rule until the middle of the 18th century largely remained in the hands of monarchs and kings as justified by the Great Chain of Being, but that was changing. Over time, especially during the Renaissance and later Reformation, the hierarchical structure – the role of the Roman Catholic Church, the authority of the Pope and priests, the authority of civic rulers and kings – began to come into question. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were instrumental to this transition. They fundamentally interpreted the world differently and started to turn this world upside down by deriving all social and political obligations from and in the service of the individual rights of man, not the divine rights of kings. Moreover, they theorized that contrary to the ancient view of human nature, men are not naturally citizens and not naturally obligated to one another through political life. This raises a fundamental question, “If we are not naturally citizens, we must be naturally something else.” And if we do not have a natural obligation to be citizens, how does this obligation occur? These are the fundamental questions that Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau endeavored to answer and are the subject of this paper.

Blaise Pascal - On Reason

"The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason." - Pensées

Confession of Sin

Every week at our church we publicly confess our sins. Today, I actually paid attention to what I was saying. I found the words to be profound and remarkable:

Almighty God, we acknowledge and confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed; we have not loved you with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength; we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Deepen within us our sorrow for the wrong we have done, and for the good we have left undone. Lord, you are full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy; there is always forgiveness with you! Restore to us the joy of your salvation; bind up that which is broken, give light to our minds, strength to our wills, and rest to our souls. Speak to each of us, and let your word abide within us until we are changed into your likeness. Amen.

A wonderful and humble reminder of our position before God.

Heidelberg Catechism - Q58

Q. How does the article concerning "life everlasting" comfort you?

A. Even as I already now experience in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God forever.

Heidelberg Catechism - Q21

Q. What is true faith?

A. True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace, granted solely by Christ's merit.