The Gospel According to Handel

Or, The Story of Redemption as Compiled by Charles Jennens and Set to Music by George Friedrich Handel

Presented in the English Standard Version

Part 1: The Coming of the Messiah

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming,” says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 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.

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 great 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 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!”

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, and he shall speak peace to the nations. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. Come to him, all who labor and are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you, and learn from him, for he is gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

Part 2: The Suffering and Triumph of the Messiah

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He gave his back to those who strike, and his cheeks to those who pull out the beard; he hid not his face from disgrace and spitting.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; but he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

All who see him mock him; they make mouths at him; they wag their heads; saying “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” Reproaches have broken his heart, so that he is in despair. He looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but he found none. Look and see if there is any sorrow like his sorrow. He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of his people.

But you will not abandon his soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Let all God's angels worship him. You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.

The Lord gives the word; the women who announce the news are a great host. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah!

Part 3: The Return of the Messiah

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. For now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain—by your blood you ransomed people for God—to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever! Amen.

Biblical Texts:

Part 1: Isaiah 40:1-5; Haggai 2:6-7a; Malachi 3:1b-3; Isaiah 7:10b; Isaiah 40:9; Isaiah 60:1-3; Isaiah 9:2, 6; Luke 2:8-11,13-14; Zechariah 9:9a,10b; Isaiah 35:5-6; Isaiah 40:11; Matthew 11:28-30

Part 2: John 1:29; Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 50:6; Isaiah 53:4-6; Psalm 22:7-8; Psalm 69:20; Lamentations 1:12b; Isaiah 53:8b; Psalm 16:10; Psalm 24:7-10; Hebrews 1:5a, 6b; Psalm 68:18, 11; Isaiah 52:7a; Psalm 19:4a; Psalm 2:1-4, 9; Revelation 19:6b; Revelation 11:15b; Revelation 19:16b

Part 3: Job 19:25-26; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 51-53, 54b-57; Romans 8:31b, 33-34; Revelation 5:12a,9b,12b,13b,14

Helpful Sources:
http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/jeansptx/messiahh.htm
http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/messiah.htm

Blue Like Jazz

So I'll admit, I did not expect to like this book. My mind associated it with books like Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and The Shack by William Young. I thought it was a postmodern creed full of spiritualist gobblygook and that totally abandoned the gospel. Yet, after having one too many conversations with people that included me saying "well, from what I've heard, the book says...", I decided that enough was enough. It was time for me to suck it up and actually read the book. And the verdict? Well...

First, let's start with the good stuff. Donald Miller is a great writer. The book (which is merely a collection of essays loosely connected by Miller's personal journey through his faith) was absorbing from beginning to end. I really felt like I knew Miller by the end, and I appreciated his many insights into life, human nature, and religion. There were moments when he would wax eloquent that would literally take my breath away.

He also makes many great points. For a book by a guy who doesn't like fundamentalism, he spent a lot of time showing the truth behind many fundamentalist doctrines like human depravity and God's sovereignty. In fact, the book was surprisingly orthodox to me. He also made some valid criticisms of the modern church, especially the lack of humility and the legalism present in many orthodox churches. There were definitely times when I felt like he was blowing a problem out of proportion, or like I wanted to quibble with his focus, but these were mostly minor points.

That is, until his last two chapters. Suddenly he started talking about how to love yourself. And although I think I know what he was trying to say, what really got me was this paragraph right at the end:

All great characters in stories are the ones who give their lives to something bigger than themselves. And in all of the stories I don't find anyone more noble than Jesus. He gave his life for me, in obedience to His Father. I truly love Him for it...I think the difference in my life came when I realized, after reading those Gospels, that Jesus didn't just love me out of principle; He didn't just love me because it was the right thing to do. Rather, there was something inside me that caused Him to love me. (page 238)

Like I said, I think I know what he means by this. However, I think this was the great problem I had with this book: it's all about what Miller thinks, how he feels, how something doesn't feel right, how something feels wrong, etc. And when he's right, he's right. But he never backs anything up with Scripture, so sometimes he misses the mark, and he's okay with that. So long as it feels right to him, it's okay if it's not quite what Scripture says. His Christianity, although it has many orthodox parts, is ultimately a very "spiritualistic" thing, and he makes this point many times, that he doesn't think that doctrine can really be defined or that it's really that important anyways, and that Christianity is all about being in love with Christ.

Now don't hear what I'm not saying. We should be in love with Christ, but the way to get there is not through seeking experiences, it's through studying his Word. And like I said, that's what's glaringly absent from this book: God's Word. I can also predict that many are going to say "you have to remember his target audience, Sam. Look at his subtitle: 'Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality.' The Bible is religious, so he doesn't use it." And that's just my problem. The Bible is the very foundation of everything we believe. I can understand why he wouldn't start with it in a "I'm going to thump this Bible over your head until you agree with me" sort of way, but at some point he should have started coming back to it, and he never did. The closest he got was reading the gospels to find the real Jesus, the one who loves him for something inside of him (which completely contradicts Scripture, by the way. The whole point is that he loves us despite what's inside of us).

So that's my problem with the book. He bases his entire religion on feelings, and in the process manages to pervert certain crucial Christian ideas. This is not to say that this is a bad book; on the contrary, I would actually recommend it highly to friends with some level of spiritual maturity, because I think he has some very helpful insights. But, I would not give it to a non-Christian or a new Christian, because I think it could actually be dangerous. A little wrong doctrine at the start can lead to some major problems down the road.

Final verdict: a pleasure to read, but misguided in several crucial areas.

Hold fast to what?

Recently I’ve been thinking about the name of this blog (and this is not because I've been posting on it, as I'm sure those few of you who still check this blog out will be eager to remind me, just because I've been thinking about the phrase "hold fast"). Just to give you some background, the name was not my idea. In fact, I wanted to use the name conTrast with the middle T as a cross, to emphasize that we as Christians need to contrast with the world. But, as some of you may remember, this blog was originally started as a team blog, and the other guys (Josh and Peter--Peter never actually joined the blog but helped with the brainstorming) wanted the name HoldFast. I didn’t think it was that huge of a deal, so I went with them, and then the blog ended up being all mine after a few months. Slightly ironic, I suppose.

But as I’ve been reading my Bible since then, I’ve been amazed at how often the phrase “hold fast” appears in the Bible (by my count, about 25) and what significance it appears to carry. Today in my quiet time I decided to do a word study and see what I could find out. I compiled all the verses I could find (using ESV’s search function online) and actually went and looked at the Greek for the New Testament occurrences (the Greek would be a lot more useful if I’d taken any Greek, but Latin helps). And after all that reflection, I am so glad that HoldFast is the name of this blog, and I think you’ll see why.

My first question was, what is this word that continues to be translated “hold fast”? After going through the Greek, I found a few different words used, all of which seem to be compounds of the same word, echo, which means “to have, hold, possess.” But the different compounds carry different connotations: krateo means “to have power, to be master of, to get possession of”; katecho means “to hold back, detain, restrain, hinder, keep secret, get possession of”; and epecho means “to have or hold upon, give attention to, observe, attend to.” Basically, the verbs used imply an active grabbing onto, an attempt at possession. I like the translation “hold fast” because it gives the image of clinging for dear life.

The next question is, what are we supposed to hold fast to? I compiled this list from the different verses that I found:

your wife (Gen. 2:24)
the Lord your God (Deut 10:20, 11:22, 13:4, 30:20; Ps. 91:14)
integrity (Job 2:3)
righteousness (Job 27:6)
Wisdom (Prov. 3:18)
the words of your father (Prov. 4:4)
keeping the Sabbath and keeping your hand from doing evil (Is. 56:2)
love and justice (Hos. 12:6)
the Word of God (Luke 8:15)
that which is good (Rom 12:9, 1 Thess. 5:21)
the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-2)
the word of life (Phil 2:16)
the Head who nourishes you (Col. 2:19)
our confidence and our boasting in our hope (Heb. 3:6)
our confession (Heb. 4:14)
the hope set before us (Heb. 6:18)
the confession of our hope (Heb. 10:23)
the name of Christ (Rev. 2:13)
what you have (Rev. 2:25, 3:11)

There are a lot of things here, but you’ll notice that what most of these have in common is the idea of holding onto the things that God finds valuable. In the Old Testament, these are primarily different virtues, like integrity, righteousness, love, and justice. But the most common one is holding fast to the Lord himself. Especially in Deuteronomy, this is extremely important. In Proverbs we are to hold onto wisdom, which is in essence a part of God.

In the New Testament it gets more refined. We are to hold onto God, his word, and our hope as Christians. But I think the defining passage is 1 Corinthians 15:1-11:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

We are to hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ! The reason I like this passage is that it goes beyond the other passages in a sense. Most of the other passages tell us to hold onto our confession and our hope, but this passage sets that confession and hope before us in clear detail. Our confession is that Christ died for our sins and rose on the third day. Our hope is that God’s grace reaches out to us, sinners that we are, and works through us to accomplish his grace, and his grace will not be in vain. That is the confession of the hope that we are to hold fast to. And what an amazing confession! What a strength-giving hope! The writer of Hebrews fleshes this out for us:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23)

Note that once again, he first meditates on the gospel, that we are free to enter the presence of God through the blood of Jesus, and then reminds us that we don’t need to be afraid any more of God’s wrath! We are saved, now and forevermore! What a precious truth this is for us. So let us as Christian hold fast to the confession of our hope at all times, for it is the strength to get us through the day.

I’m providing below the verses that I found that mention the phrase “hold fast.” I know that, because this is a translation, some of the actual Greek words appear in other places than how it’s translated in the ESV, but I think this gives an accurate feel of the phrase, if not exhaustive.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. –Genesis 2:24

You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. –Deut. 10:20

For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. –Deut 11:22-23

You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. –Deut 13:4

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. –Deut 30:19-20

And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” –Job 2:3

I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days. –Job 27:6

Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. –Psalm 91:14

[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called blessed. –Prov 3:18

When I was a son with my father,
tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
he taught me and said to me,
“Let your heart hold fast my words;
keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom; get insight;
do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
love her, and she will guard you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
and whatever you get, get insight.
Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
she will honor you if you embrace her.
She will place on your head a graceful garland;
she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” –Prov. 4:3-9

Thus says the Lord:
“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come,
and my deliverance be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this,
and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
and keeps his hand from doing any evil.” –Isaiah 56:1-2

So you, by the help of your God, return,
hold fast to love and justice,
and wait continually for your God. –Hos. 12:6

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. –Luke 8:15

Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. –Rom. 12:9

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. –1 Cor. 15:1-11

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. –Phil. 2:14-16

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. –Col. 2:18-19

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. –1 Thess. 5:20-22

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. –Heb. 3:3-6

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. –Heb. 4:14-16

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. –Heb. 6:17-18

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. –Heb. 10:19-23

I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. –Rev. 2:13

But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. –Rev. 2:24-27

Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. –Rev. 3:10-12

My Daring Excursion into PC Land, Closing Thoughts

So in this final post, I’ll be discussing what I learned this week. If you want to know the interesting bits of wisdom and insight I picked up during class-time, read my other four posts. But overall, there were a few main things that I learned.

First, I learned that the guys in the PC are hilarious. Seriously. Not only are they incredibly smart and very wise, they also had us laughing so hard at points that our sides hurt. From Merritt’s desperate emergency to Bryce’s 10:31 award to “Super Won”, there were just so many things to laugh at, and I definitely learned that laughter is good for the soul. (On a related sidenote, I also personally learned that laughter can destroy pride pretty fast, as I discovered how to act when put into the hotseat the hard way. Never say anything around Brew that could be remotely construed to be insulting, because he will find a way to hang it around your neck so fast that you won’t know what hit you.)

Second, I learned that the narrative sections of the Bible have a much greater purpose than I was aware of. They show examples of men and women following God and of men and women not following God, but so much more importantly, everything points to Christ and the cross. Sometimes as you look at the individual stories you can’t really see quite how, but by looking at the big picture like we did, it becomes so clear. Judges and Samuel demonstrate the failure of the judges, the priests, and the kings to rule Israel in a righteous way, pointing to Christ, the King of Israel who would be everything the kings were not, and Ruth points to the inclusivity of the gospel and how anyone can be saved, even a Moabite, one of God’s sworn enemies.

Third, I learned the correct way to read Proverbs (something that Brew had hinted at in his last 10:31 message, but became very clear to me during the class) and Psalms. The proverbs are promises and will happen, although not necessarily in this life. The whole book of Proverbs is written with eternity in view, and eternally all the promises will be fulfilled just as God said. The psalms are written to be prayed, and although they grew out of specific experiences, they are widely applicable to our lives today.

The main thing I learned? God’s Word is so much more amazing than I thought at the beginning of the week, and as much as I discovered that this week, I’m sure that I will continue to rediscover it over and over and over again. Isn’t God so good?

My Daring Excursion into PC Land: Day 4

Well, it’s all over. The last day of class has come and gone, and now I’m typing up this post in the audience watching the Godspell rehearsals. For just a half day, we sure covered a lot of stuff in Proverbs and Ruth.

1) The promises of Proverbs are perfectly true, just not necessarily temporally true. Looking at some of the proverbs (“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones” Prov. 3:7-8), it seems that they are wrong. I know plenty of people who fear the Lord and shun evil, and they are in terrible health. How do we reconcile the inerrancy of Scripture with this apparent untruth? Mr. Chick said it well (I hear include four separate quotes that all state different aspects of the issue):

Proverbs promises great things - these great things are true - yet their full enjoyment is often to be experienced in the future. We can trust God’s word knowing that we might not always see the big picture or experience immediate reward, but we know that we will not be disappointed in the end.

Proverbs are different from the rest of Scripture in the way we experience them, not in the truthfulness of God.

They speak a truth, but not the whole truth at once. They make one point while ignoring equally valid counter claims – this doesn’t mean they are unaware of ‘fuller’ truth - just as the writer in Hebrews in chapter 11 likely was aware of the shortcomings of many he listed in the ‘Hall of Faith.’

Proverbs is written for youth. These are the fundamentals of life. They don’t deny reality, but present a positive view ((e.g. “The righteous falls, but gets up again”).

2) The Christian life is all about pursuing wisdom. Mr. Chick said this was the whole point of Proverbs: The successful Christian life is a constant, ongoing, tenacious pursuit of wisdom and godliness, by way of child-like dependant humble trust, all subsisting and emanating from the empowering grace of God. I think that’s a pretty good summary.

3) Memorizing one or two pithy proverbs will not do if we are to successfully navigate the challenges of life. Mr. Chick quoted a professor of his who, when asked which proverbs should be memorized to give a good feel for the book, replied “All of them.” I need to have all of the book available to me because life is so complicated.

4) God moves as we move. As we studied Ruth, we saw that it was when Ruth stepped out in faith to ask Boaz to be her kinsman-redeemer that God blessed both her and Boaz. Though God has been working well in advance, His sovereignty is often apparent as we step out in humble reliant faith in his promises. He gives us the opportunity to take an active part in his plan for our lives.

There, that’s the shortest one yet, and most of it wasn’t even my own writing. Hope you have benefited from just these little tidbits of all that we learned over the past week.

My Daring Excursion into PC Land: Day 3

These posts are also being posted on the 10:31 blog, run by the guy doing my internship, Dave Brewer. I have heard many complaints, especially from Brew, that the articles I write are way too long (I don't really have to tell you this if you've read this blog for any length of time, you already know). This is the response I gave to introduce Day 3, followed by the rest of the post:

I am well aware that I write too much for normal people to want to read. I think it’s a result of my reading too much Tim Challies and Pyromaniacs, excellent blogs with a penchant for exceeding 1000 words in a typical post. I also tend to have a lot to say no matter where I am, which translates into my blogging. So I’ll try to keep this post short, but since it has several parts, my suggested method of reading it is to browse the headings and read the sections that interest you.

Today we finished Samuel and started into Proverbs. Let me tell you, this course is one of those described as “drinking out of a fire hydrant.” However, I did manage to swallow some bits, so here they are:

1) The Lord’s regret versus the Lord’s sovereignty. As we were talking about how 1 Samuel 15:35 says “the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel” and 15:29 says “the [Lord]…is not a man, that he should have regret” and the apparent contradiction between the two statements. Mr. Chick shared a quote from Dale Ralph Davis that helped me personally as it expounded on the greatness and mystery of God:

Only in the consistent God of verse 29 and in the sorrowful God of verse 35 do we find the God worthy of praise. Here is a God who is neither fickle in his ways nor indifferent in his responses. Here is a God who has both firmness and feeling. If we cannot comprehend we can perhaps apprehend, at least enough to adore.

2) David’s rule, messed-up though it was, demonstrates God’s faithfulness. David sure messed up majorly during his rule. He slept with Bathsheba, killed her husband, took a census against God’s orders, was a failure as a father, etc. And yet he was still considered “a man after God’s own heart,” the man through whom God would found an eternal dynasty, the man from whom Jesus would descend. Why? Because God is faithful, despite our failures. He had promised David that his offspring would rule forever, and even though David failed to live up to his end of the bargain (to rule righteously), God keeps his promises. Plus, David’s failures point to a future king who will never fail: Jesus Christ.

3) A proverb is a short, memorable statement which crystallizes reality and exposes illusion, compelling the hearer to choose reality. That’s John Loftness’s definition, and I really find it a helpful way to understand the purpose of Proverbs.

4) Proverbs uses “Yahweh” as God’s name almost exclusively, showing the importance of the covenant to understanding the book. Yahweh is the name of God used in relation with his covenant with Israel. Since Proverbs uses it almost exclusively, it must have some significance to understanding the book, and what Mr. Chick said is this: “Wisdom is not to be separated from relationship with the one who gives it.” If we’re to understand Proverbs, we must be in relationship with God, the author of all knowledge.

5) He who knows not can be taught, but he who knows not that he knows not is a fool. Just a pithy saying from the mouth of Mr. Chick that I particularly liked.

6) Definition of the fear of the Lord. Brew may have shared this quote from Charles Bridges in his sermon at the last 10:31 meeting, but I thought it was so good I just have to share it again.

But what is the fear of the Lord? It is that affectionate reverence by which the child of God bends himself humbly and carefully to his Father’s law. God’s wrath is so bitter and his love so sweet that we have this earnest desire to please him and to fear him, so that we will not sin against him.

There, that’s a little shorter and hopefully easier to read. Tomorrow’s the last day, and it’s only a half-day, so it will likely be a much shorter post. Until then…uh…eat your Wheaties! :-D

My Daring Excursion into PC Land: Day 2

Day two of the class has come and gone. The heartburn from my Chipotle burrito is dying down (totally worth it), and the four of us guys are scrambling to find some talent that one of us possesses that will allow us to defeat the rest of the PC. The chances of us finding something before tomorrow are not very good. But that’s a little beside the point.

Today we focused on the book of Psalms, throwing in a little bit of Samuel at the end (I’ve always had an affinity for Samuel, and I’m still not sure quite why…:-P). By the very nature of the book, the subjects we covered were very eclectic and not terribly organized. There were certain points that stood out to me especially, though, that I’ll touch on in this post with the same eclecticism that I heard them in.

1) The Psalms are rooted in time and space history. This is a fact that we can often miss, since there’s really no story (like in the historical books) or argument (like the epistles) to follow. Studying a psalm in context does not mean looking at the psalms that come before and after, but looking at psalms with similar content. They are very general, rarely giving names, places, or events unless they are symbolic. Thus, we can forget that they were written by a real person in response to real circumstances. This can be critically important to truly understanding the psalm.

2) The entire book of Psalms is meant to be viewed through the lens of Psalm 1. The example he used here was of the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). This is the first commandment for a reason: it’s the most important, and you can’t break any of the other commandments without breaking this one. You have to look at the Ten Commandments in light of the first one. In the same way, Psalm 1 needs to define how we look at the 149 other psalms. And what does it say? To pull a quote from the notes, “Psalm 1 indicates that this collection of writings should be studied and learned and reflected upon not merely performed.”

3) Christ is predicted throughout the book of Psalms. Mr. Chick drew our attention to Luke 24:44, where Christ tells his disciples after his resurrection “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Thus, we should be looking at every psalm to see what it tells us about Christ (some good ones to start with: 2, 6, 22, 41, 69, 118).

4) Thanksgiving means “confessing with praise.” This was just a slightly random bit we went over while talking about the genres of the psalms. A thanksgiving psalm (i.e. Psalm 18) acknowledges how God has delivered us from our affliction. Just an interesting thought. That’s how we should all approach thanking God, I guess.

Those are just some of the really interesting bits we studied today (after that point, there was a lot of technical poetry stuff that I slightly tuned out, with permission from Mr. Chick of course ;-) ). And here are two bonuses from the beginning of Samuel:

5) Throughout Judges and Samuel is a theme of women who are more righteous and spiritually upright than their husbands or other men in authority. Who says that the Bible is anti-woman? Just look at Deborah versus Barak (Judges 4), Heber versus Jael (Judges 4), Manoah versus his wife (Judges 13), Jephthah versus his daughter (Judges 11), Elkanah versus Hannah (1 Samuel 1), Phinehas versus his wife (1 Samuel 4), Nabal versus Abigail (1 Samuel 25), etc. The women are able to perceive things spiritually that their husbands are not. I just found this idea interesting.

6) The Philistines refused to let go of their idols. Even after they brought the ark of God into the temple of Dagon and God defeated Dagon (symbolized by the head and hands being taken off of the idol during the night), the Philistines merely turned the event into a new superstition (don’t step on the threshold). And even when they made an almost impossible test to see if it truly was God who was causing so much trouble, and God passed the test with flying colors (obviously he would, see 1 Samuel 6:7-12 for the test), they refused to believe in him, preferring to stay with their false gods. Mr. Chick asked this great question in application: “Has God been tearing down an idol in your heart only to find you embracing it again? Won’t you let it go and see the superiority of Yahweh?” So convicting for me personally, and I hope helpful for you too.

That’s my synopsis of Day 2 here at the PC. Tomorrow we finish Samuel and then go on a special surprise trip (all they would tell us: “Make sure you wear comfortable running shoes”…hmmm). Can’t wait to keep learning!

My Daring Excursion into PC Land: Day 1

We’re sitting in the Pastor’s College classroom, class has just let out, and we’re packing up our books and laptops to go home. Several of the students approach me to ask how I enjoyed my first day in the PC. “It was great,” I reply, “I learned a lot.” Good answer, I think, concise, but grateful. But as I think over what we’ve discussed in class over the day, I realize just how much I’ve learned.

The professor for the week is Bruce Chick, senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Community Church down in Roanoke, VA. He’s an engaging guy with a love for sports (one of his favorite things to do is throw a football at unsuspecting students during the lectures; if they miss the ball, the whole class gets to dogpile them…and yes, I did catch the ball, in case you were wondering) and a remarkable resemblance to Jim Carrey (at least, I thought so). Over the week he is teaching Old Testament 2: Judges through Proverbs. The prep itself was pretty extensive: 367 pages of reading and 28 hours of outside work, not counting the 15 hours of class-time (I should mention that Brew gave us grace and is only having us do half the reading, which is still quite a bit, but not quite as bad). I have a new respect for these students, let me tell you.

Today’s topic was the book of Judges. I never realized there was so much to learn from one of the historical books, but I now find this book absolutely fascinating. The purpose of Judges, according to Mr. Chick, is that it is “an apologetic for Israel’s monarchy.” It systematically shows the failure of the judges leading Israel, as they in fact lead Israel progressively away from God. The cycle started with Othniel, the brother of Caleb, who has no recorded faults and is in fact implicitly held up as the standard by which all the other judges are judged (pardon the pun). The cycle takes a familiar pattern:

1. The people fall into apostasy (i.e. fall away from the Lord)


2. The Lord hands them over to oppressors


3. The people cry out


4. God raises up a judge


5. The people are delivered


6. After a while apostasy returns and the cycle starts over

The judges we spent the most time on were Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. It’s amazing the downward spiral shown just in these four.

• Deborah was a woman of faith, conscious of her God-given role as a woman and yet taking responsibility in the absence of male leadership (exemplified by Barak’s cowardice as the leader of Israel’s armies).
• Gideon needed fourteen different signs and the dream of an unbeliever before he finally believed that God would do all that he said he would, and even after the amazing victory he led the country into idol worship.
• Jephthah was a great military leader, but the leaders decided to take matters into their own hands in choosing a deliverer instead of letting God raise someone up. Plus, he was (in an implicit analogy by Mr. Chick) a lot like Terrell Owens: a guy who can win games in the short-run but will cause lots of trouble in the long-run. He eventually sacrifices his own daughter because of a rash vow he made.
• Samson totally disregards his God-appointed purpose in life, chasing after the lust of his flesh by marrying foreign women and corrupting his Nazirite vows. He can kill 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey but can’t stand for a girl to cry, leading to his eyes being put out and being treated like a women. Even when he kills 3000 Philistine leaders by pushing down the temple, he does it purely for revenge, with no thought for pleasing God while doing it. The narrator of Judges clearly views him as a man with wasted talents and a wasted life (16:30).

The progression here is depressing, but it serves to illustrate the depravity of man apart from God’s grace—even when he saves them, they still rebel against his rule. Eventually they would need a king, but even that king could not save them for long, and within 600 years the country was conquered and the people put into exile. God’s chosen people need someone to rule them, but he progressively showed that no human could do that (for an excellent quote by Mark Dever on this very topic, click here). The only ruler who can rule righteously is God himself, and he shows this in detail throughout the Bible, but especially in the book of Judges.

Whew, condensing 24 pages of notes into six paragraphs is hard. I didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what we covered, and there were the sections at the beginning and the end covering Israel’s failure to finish conquering the Promised Land and the total anarchy reigning under the Levites. But hopefully I’ve given a sufficient overview of the basic idea of Judges. What an amazing book. I’m looking forward to continuing our study in the Old Testament over the rest of the week.