Ecclesiastes

I am preaching through Ecclesiastes. This is most appropriate given the year that we, our family and our church, just went through. We have seen the vaporous nature of the world and have therefore come to more fully appreciate those things that do indeed endure.

One of my resources for Ecclesiastes is Jeffrey Myers' Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Through New Eyes, A Table in the Mist.

There is much to be said and you can listen to the sermons at ProvidenceKirk.com, if you so desire.

In his conclusions related to 'a threefold cord is not easily broken' Myers says that two is good but three is a Community.

He goes on, "Statistics show that if new members of churches do not find genuine companionship within a year, they will leave. Of course, it works both ways. Personally, and as a layman and then a pastor, I have noticecd in church after church that too many of those people that leave have made no effort themselves to find friendship. We may think good preaching or exalting worship is what draws us to a church. Our culture may train us not to consider the issue of alienation and fellowship. When we do not become genuine members of a real fellowship, we will grow restless and dissatisfied. Solomon's wisdom should raise our awareness of the importance of communion with the body of Christ and the foolishness of 'not 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'." (Heb. 10:25)

This is really important. We must see the need of being in community with one another. Those 'one anothers' are simply all over the New Testament. We must reach out to the needy but we must also not insist on being the needy. Do not separate yourself from the body of Christ, whether on Sunday morning or from the outside the church building life of the body and then wonder why you do not have close friendships. Give what you can of yourself and then receive the blessing of the body. Those who give always get a great deal in return. Those who refuse to give, never get enough.

Graduation Funnies

And this was the back of the bulletin. Certain members of my family thought this was very funny, laughing hilariously. Others simply smiled, barely, and said it was very funny.

Here you go.

Bulletin, Page 4.

Dinner Reception Following our Ceremony- For your opportunity to mill around and network, maybe pick up some important contacts, speak to the Valedictorian, or simply snatch some free food and drink, we invite you stay after the ceremony and join us for food, fun and frivolity.

Rebecca is glad that you made the effort to see her off to her new beginning.

For those of you with small children, please make sure their lives are as full of joy as Rebecca. This do and thou shalt prosper.

When you are sad, think of Rebecca, and smile.

Graduation gifts are not expected, nor are they refused. It is cold in Moscow, even Idaho, so if you have a ratty old jacket, you can keep it, and simply contribute to the “Keep Rebecca Warm Without Jump Starting Global Warming Fund.” Envelopes will be provided in the burger line.

Rebecca is an expert on Polly Pockets. If you have any girls thinking about investing in this worthwhile purchase, please contact her ASAP. This is vitally important, the ASAP part, because her plane leaves on Tuesday, and if you have to make a purchase, the decision-making process is quite arduous indeed.

Moscow, Idaho is Mosc with a long-o. Moscow, Russia is Moss with a cow. That makes N. Idaho seem like a Muslim land and Russia seem like a farmyard. Not sure Russia has many Moscs but I’m pretty sure N. Idaho has a lot of cows.

NSA students read a lot of books. This makes them really smart. It also does a great deal of damage to their eyes. After all, it gets dark at 4:30pm in Idaho in the winter and since that part of the country has not yet received electricity, the lamp reading is really tough.

I am sure a goodly number of young chappies, as Rebecca might say, will be looking her way, even before their eyes are damaged. May her reading then, improve her vision, and not make her look back with dimness of eyes.

Rebecca’s brothers and sisters would like to send her a loving fare thee well. They are sad that she will not be at dinner table but they, of the silver lining disposition, are very much looking forward to a 1/8 increase in the overall amount of available dinner-time nourishment.

If the good life is a bowl of peaches, then we have had a Georgia orchard full with our blessed years with Rebecca. We love you.

Graduation Bulletin

And just so you get the real feel, here's the bulletin.

Hurt Academy
Commencement


Anno Domini August 8, 2008


“All Beginnings Testify of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Commencement Ceremony
Hurt Academy 2008


Graduating Class
Rebecca Hurt


Valedictorian
Rebecca Hurt


Class Speech
Rebecca Hurt


College Bound
Rebecca Hurt
To New Saint Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho

Commencement Ceremony
Hurt Academy 2008

Opening Prayer


Psalm 63- O, Lord My God Most Earnestly, P. 92


Commencement Address
Virgil Hurt, Father of THE Graduate


Psalm 127, Except the Lord Build the House, P. 163


Presentation of the Diploma


Valedictorian Speech
Rebecca Hurt-THE Graduate


O God of Earth and Altar, P. 369


Closing Prayer

THE Graduate Speaks

Thought I'd post Rebecca's graduation speech.

Here it is.

Graduation Speech
Rebecca Hurt
8/8/08

Good evening:

Now, I could say that I’m going to keep it short today, but I have been to enough events that my heart sank within me as the speaker announced he was going to “keep it short”, that I’ll just say I’m going to brief you, kinda like they do in the CIA, on a couple highlights of my primary and high school education.

I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read, or even write for that matter, though I have seen proof of my early dyslexia, my name being written right to left with all the letters backwards. I can’t even remember teaching Elizabeth how to read, though they say I did. I do remember trying to read Robinson Crusoe when I was six, but even though I tried to do it multiple times, I never got past the first page. But it was such a cute little red book.

My first real memories of school are the excitement that came with new pencils and shiny plastic pencil boxes and in writing in awkward print, H.A.M., Hurt Academy of Muchkins. I was pretty psyched that my school had a name.

A particular happening that mom wanted me to insert was that for a home school project fair we participated in yearly, I chose to put together a project on Virginia, surprisingly prophetic. My memory from the fair though, was looking at Gresham Schlect’s model of a Greek galley ship, and then dejectedly looking back at my hand drawn, deformed cardinal and dogwood tree.
Being homeschooled, there are strange things that end up being the exciting school events, like testing. After we moved to Virginia, we started taking the California Achievement Tests, and that was the highlight of the school year. Even the SAT was fascinating, taking place in a real live, cold and sterile public school.

When I hit 7th grade, I started the Omnibus reading program, on my own initiative. I think I have always had a habit of coming up with extra school subjects for myself, and this looked like a great idea.

There were some hard times with Omnibus, and I can in no ways say that I always finished my reading, or grasped all the philosophy, but it taught me really how to read. I found that if I struggled through Plato, I could pick up Tolstoy and find it pleasant reading.

I think the craziest thing I did with Omnibus was read the 2nd half of Mein Kampf, even though it wasn’t required, just to say I did. What ever.

Other than reading, high school was full of Latin, sprinkled with French and a smidgen of Greek. With my love of throwing in extra subjects, I picked up Arabic, which went well with what remnants of dyslexia I had stuck in my head, with its writing right to left, which comes naturally to me.

Cross country added some physical education. I ran for the home school cross country team all four years, which I always found shocking, seeing how tortuous I found it. But it was good for me

Math was pursued through high school, but with tears.

Now I am moving on, or so you might say. For really, learning at New Saint Andrews will be much the same as it’s been for the past several years: lots of Latin, though there it is taught as a spoken language; reading the greats from Homer to my love, Dostoyevsky, and there are even rumors of reading most of City of God in one night; math, though I am hopeful from the title “Philosophy of Math” that we might be doing something other than the trig I struggled with; and intense theology, though of course I have been blessed to learn much in my home and church here.

In closing, (I was informed in my public speaking class at CVCC this past semester that this was the proper way to end a speech) I want to thank first my amazing parents, without whom I would know nothing. And thank you all so much for coming this evening, and for being such a lovely church to be a member of, that makes me so happy when I look around at communion , and for being such good friends. I will truly miss you all. God speed and I’ll see you at Christmas time.

Graduation Day

Well, it's been a while since I last posted. I have good reasons and I hope to state some of those soon. The main one is that I have been on Sabbatical all summer. I mean, really on Sabbatical. But more on that later.

My daughter just graduated from our Home School High School. She is headed off tomorrow to New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. We are happy for her and will greatly miss her.

We had her commencement ceremony last Friday night on 8/8/8. Here is the commencement address that I gave on that occasion.

Commencement Address 2008
Rebecca Hurt
Hurt Academy

This occasion finds me a happy man. Not just happy for this particular occasion but happy as a description of my person. I am happy. I am content. I am overflowing with gratitude. Why does this matter? What does this have to do with a commencement address? Well, only everything.

Many people take up the task of educating their children. This is true of those who hire educators to teach their children as well as those who embrace the task themselves as home schoolers. We have done both but in Rebecca’s case, we were pretty much exclusively home schoolers. That means that Rebeccas was a home schooled child for all of her 18 year sojourn in our home.

Remarkably, she was able to do this without catching that dreadful disease that manifests itself in formless jumpers, nervously misplaced laughs, long-faces and abject fear in crowds, especially if there are public school children about. I speak of home school syndrome. Be careful, some of your kids may catch it if they do not build up enough immunities early on in life.

What I want to talk to you about today is the anti-dote to this dreadful disease. And while I cannot absolutely guarantee a full-proof immunization, I must say that our success ratio thus far in our home has been fairly high. So, I want to tie in my first paragraph, dealing with happiness as an anti-dote to home school disease. You’ve all seen that disease, right? It looks different in different homes but has a certain set of common characteristics.

I suppose the most notable symptom is the harried mother. While this is not, in itself, the cause of the disease, it is an indicator that the disease is lurking and a breakout may occur at any moment. Given the degree of the harriedness, it may indicate that a breakout has already occurred and is running rampantly through the family. The exasperated mother tends to push harder in the home when the need of the day is to stop pushing. The children resist the force applied and the result is an epic battle between mother and child resulting in a tense environment adversely conducive to learning. I am thankful to God and to my wife, to say that I rarely saw a harried mother in our home. Learning at home was and is a happy and peaceful endeavor in our home. And I think this is the key ingredient to joyful learning, the goal of education.

Now, while I wholeheartedly embrace rigor in a school, it must be a particular kind of rigor. I am not of the school of thought that teaches that all education must be fun. There are many jobs that are merely work and enjoyment and fun ought not to be easily confused. One man’s work may be intensely rigorous, with a great deal of blood, sweat and tears, while at the same time be enormously fulfilling to him. He may feel intense joy and even a giddy happiness about this intensive labor. Another man may have such a job that other men envy only to find it tedious and boring. What is the difference between the two men? Is it the job? Or the man? Obvious answer, I think.

So, how does this relate to our topic at hand? Just this way. The goal of education is to produce a learner. That is pretty much it. Once you have accomplished this goal, you can stop being harried. And once you stop being harried, the home becomes a joyful place where all the cherub children simply sit around and produce happy feelings for the successful mother. Well, not exactly, but close.

The goal of producing a learner is different than simply home schooling or sending your kid to a rigorous academic Christian and classical school. When we confuse the two, we run the risk of raising a child with home school syndrome, an active episode away from ruining all your hard work at educating. When we confuse the two, our Classical School Students develop an angst for the very kind of education that ought to produce happy feet. When the educators see their jobs as delivering a packaged product of education, facts and figures, units and lessons, subjects and solutions, then the child is in grave danger of being seethed in its mother’s milk. The very thing that ought to produce life and health and peace begins to produce death and sickness and discord.








This ought not to be the case! So, how do we remedy this situation? Is it with books and drills and lessons? Not really. Since the goal of education is to produce learners, we have to aim in the right direction. If we aim at lessons and curriculums, books and units, we really miss the mark altogether. We want to produce a learner. We are not trying to instill a bunch of facts, although we are not opposed to facts. But we would much prefer that our students eat their alphabet soup willingly rather than have us shove it down their throats through pursed lips and clenched teeth, one horrible spoonful at a time. And that is precisely what many parents do. Thus, guaranteeing that their children will have an eternal disdain for this wonderful gift of learning.

If you aim at the developing the right kind of student, then you begin to understand what is the need of the day.

How do you do this?

First of all, Love to learn yourself. Read books, not because you have to but because you want to. Learn from the books. Change. Teach your children what you are learning. Talk about it around your dinner table. Get animated when you learn something you had never thought of before. Reveal your ignorance and rejoice at having left a piece of it behind. Be glad when the children learn something you didn’t know. Do not compete with your children. Encourage them to teach you things and then get excited with them as they pass you up in various ways and in various areas.

Read the right kinds of books. Make sure your children read the right kinds of books. And from that, I don’t mean merely Christian biographies, apologetics, and history textbooks. Don’t be a squeamish book marm. There is probably not a quicker way to the dreaded disease than taking this route. These bits of granola are appropriate in their time and place but a steady diet of them, will develop a bulimic student given enough time. Eventually, such an academic bulimic may give up this sort of food altogether and simply waste away into an anorexic heart attack.

I know, I know, some of you like granola. Or at least, you feel like you have to say that you do, because you think it is healthy. It may be, but granola does not three square meals make.

Feed with novels, good ones and classic, but also other genres that interest the student and feed the soul. Lead them with the interests that God has given them. When they want to read a book, you have educated them! So, let them read. There will plenty of time for more strict history, philosophy and such meaty portions. But first, let’s work up a hearty appetite. Fill your home with good and interesting reading materials. Read the children exciting and thought-provoking imaginative literature. This will pay huge dividends down the road when the children become interested in many other areas and move onto the philosophical approach to life that sets in later in the teens and twenties.

By God’s grace, our sweet Rebecca has been an engaged learner for many years. She has an appetite for learning, from reading books about Middle East history, to a great love for G.K. Chesterton and Lewis, to the cultured side of Jane Austin, Tolstoy and Dostoyevski. She is interested in just about everything and because this is true, getting her to study is not a problem. She does not come to the subject with pursed lips and clenched teeth. O contrare, she is wanting more, more. And she is just now beginning to realize, that as much as she has eaten, there is always more, more. There is always time enough to eat but never enough time to eat enough. And this becomes rather an intensely humbling realization.

And I am glad that as she continues to learn, having already read much of the Western mind, she is also learning how little, in fact, she really knows. And why does this make my heart glad? Simply because I see that, aiming at the person, we, my wife and I, hit the mark of education. We have developed a learner. And not simply a learner who’s voracious appetite has made her fat and lazy. Far from it.

Her veracious appetite has revealed her truly anemic and unnourished reality. She is but a babe in the world of wisdom. Which, I might add, is the second and deeper goal of education. Many there are who set down this path and few that find it. In fact, the very process of learning is often the culprit for not attaining the goal. Having got education, knowledge running over, the learner becomes convinced that he is either not in need of a greater and deeper wisdom, or shamefully, that he already possesses it. But humility in learning produces wisdom.



And so, while my dear daughter has not yet attained a mature version of this wisdom, I hope and pray and trust, that by God’s grace, she will pursue knowledge in such a humble way, that she will be blessed with that adornment from above, lovely wisdom.

And now, we are proud to say that we are at a wonderful crossroads in life. Our first child is graduating from High School and heading off to college. In fact, we leave for the airport Monday and she flies away on Tuesday. Is this a sad time? Far from it. We will miss her. Sure. But this parting is nearing the endgame of all that we have put our hands to these eighteen years. It is with great parental pride that we look upon our lovely firstborn. We had a baby and raised a woman. We couldn’t be more pleased. We commend her to God and to God be the glory. Amen.

Proverbia-No More Muses

The muses have grown silent and the proverbs have ceased to speak. Perhaps soon they shall reappear.

Until they do so, my intent is to go back through the posted proverbs and explain them from my perspective. I hope this proves profitable.

Proverbia 19

Virgil's proverbs #19

Fools grow wise in their own estimation.
Wise men grow foolish in their own estimation.

Proverbia 18

Virgil's proverbs #18

Fasting is easy on a full stomach.


I'm sure this one has probably been stated many times by many people. But, it's true, none-the-less and I did think of it apart from having read the quote by somebody else. Come to think of it, truisms have probably all been stated before. Just rearrange the words and give it another go.

Proverbia 17

Virgil's proverbs #17

Empathy and compassion are healers of deep wounds.

Proverbia 16

Virgil's proverbs #16

Incessant drizzle is an impediment to the soul.
A downpour fills the spirit.

Proverbia 15

Virgil's proverbs #15


A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
A lying pastor does his sheep no good.
Bold are the words of the wise.
Tepid are the words of fools and hirelings.

Proverbia 14

Virgil's proverbs #14


A good wife is hard to find.
Do not despise her in the day of trouble.

Proverbia 13

Virgil's proverbs #13

Fools grow wise in their own estimation
And even the wise are tempted to folly.

Proverbia 12

Virgil's proverbs #12

Humility learns;
Pride spurns.

Exhordium-Proverbs 1:10-33

We have been pursuing wisdom. We have realized that wisdom is not far from us and something that can and ought to be grasped. Every Christian should be wise. Wisdom should be our possession. But then we run up against an apparent contradiction. We are pursuing wisdom, following hard after her, only to find that she seems to be toying with us. She calls out. We follow. She retreats. And our pursuit of wisdom seems to us another lesson in futility. We seek her but we cannot find her. At least that represents how we often feel.

But we need to have a bit of reality check. What is really happening? Is wisdom really fleeing from us? Can she never be grasped? Are we destined to our folly, able only to glimpse lady wisdom but never to have her for our own?

Think about any hard task that you have accomplished. How did you do it? Perhaps you have run a difficult race, a marathon. How do you get to marathon distance? Do you go out one day and just decide to run 26.2 miles? (You can’t forget that .2, you know.) No, you don’t. You train, for a long time, for several months. You run a few miles,then add a mile, then another and another, until one day, you realize that you have become a distance runner. But you don’t feel like a marathoner because you have not done that yet. But you are doing the things that marathoners do. You are putting in the miles. You are finishing longer and longer races and you are making headway towards your goal. And then, one day, the race arrives and you finish, you make it, you’re a marathoner.

But what would happen if during your training you are trying to figure out if you are a marathoner, or not? Are you a marathoner when you run 10 miles? 17? 24? No, not until you finish. But each step in your training takes you one step closer to achieving your goal. The steps are beneficial. They are money in the bank. You are gaining on your goal, even if you cannot really feel it as you are slogging through the miles. But something is happening in you both physiologically and mentally. You are becoming a marathoner, even before you have made the distance.

While the analogy is not perfect, I think of wisdom this way. We are seeking wisdom. We are trying to be wise. We know the goal is achievable because the Bible tells us so. But the longer we train for the task, the further away the finish lines seems. But that is NOT the case. The finish is getting closer. The miles are accumulating, wisdom is drawing closer. And at any given point in the pursuit of wisdom, when you look back, you realize that you have come a lot farther than you ever thought possible. Certainly a lot farther than you would have if you had never started training. And then when you look forward to pursue wisdom again, she is off and running and you are chasing. But the chase is the goal. The chase is the point.

In marathon training, there are some key check points to see if you are making headway. You first make it 10 miles, then 15, then 20 and maybe even 22 or so. When you do 20, you know that you can do 26. But that is not true when you do 15. You do a long-run of 15 miles and barely make it and realize that a marathon is 11 more miles. So, it is important in pursuing the goal to have some checkpoints that help you understand that the goal is achievable.

Pursing wisdom also has checkpoints. What have we done so far? What are our basick checkpoints? What are some other checkpoints? If we hit those, are we making it towards our goal of attaining wisdom?
1. Fearing God.
2. Honoring and Obeying Parents.
3. Friends- This is a broad category. First of all, it fits within the context of loving God and honoring your parents. If you do this, you will have the kind of friends that God and your parents would want you to have. You can see how if you get the first two priorities right, loving God, honoring parents, that wisdom will be close. But as you move up the continuum towards wisdom, the checkpoints become clearer. If you love God and love parents, what kind of friends ought you to have?

First of all, your friends should be friends of God. Although you CAN go wrong with these kinds of friends, it is less likely than if your friends are those who hate God. Secondly, you should have friends that your parents would be glad for you to be friends with. Again, you CAN go wrong with these kinds of friends but it is less likely than if your friends are those your parents would not want you hanging out with.

Who is a friend and who is a neighbor? Some children object to their parents having a say in their friends. Perhaps they even try to put a guilt trip on the parents. Mom, how are they ever going to learn what is right and wrong if they don’t have good Christian friends like me.

Well, that answer is fairly easy. Who is being influenced in the relationship? You ought to be a neighbor to those outside the church, those in need, even those in prisons. But that is not the same thing as being their friend and companion. And if you are following friends in poor choices, then you need new friends to follow. If you are the strong one and leading friends in good choices, then that is a good place to be. But you should not evaluate this yourself. If you are a child, then your parents should evaluate this for you. If you are a husband, your wife ought to be able to evaluate it better than you. If you are a wife, then your husband is probably a better judge of your friends than you are.

Communion Meditation-Friends

We have spoken today about friends. This is a fitting topic for communion. It is at this place that we clearly see that we are friends of God. He is making promises of faithfulness to us and we are returning that pledge to Him.

Furthermore, we look around and see who His friends are and want to have those same kinds of friends. We want friends that we can take to Jesus’s house and have supper with Him and them, all in sweet communion. Of course, we ought to declare to some of Jesus’s enemies that they can become His friends and when they do so, they become our friends. For the time being, we can call them neighbors. But our friends, our close associates, our brothers and sisters, ought not to be those who are enemies of our Lord, of our elder brother, Jesus.

This is why we look around. We are in the company of friends. Not everyone here is an equally close or even an equally good friend. But we do need friends like these, either the ones specifically in this church, or friends like them who love Jesus and His people. To not do so, is to be a fool.

So, part of what is represented as we eat together with friends is another checkpoint of wisdom. We are here at mile 20. We know we can make the marathon because we have Jesus and we have His friends with us. So, we are wise to be here. We have much more to learn but God has blessed us and we now know that wisdom is our friend, too.

Exhortation-Friends

EXHORTATION

Wisdom is not far from any of us. But, like the simple ones that we are, we sometimes court folly and produce the offspring of unintended consequences. But God is merciful and kind.

We have spoken about proper priorities, loving God first, loving His people second. If we do this, wisdom is very near to us. If we do this consistently, wisdom must be near to us, for God will be near us and His people will be near us.

Today, we will talk some about friends, the source of wisdom and folly. And even a good friend will not always be wise. But a foolish friend will rarely be wise.

Wisdom is a good chooser of friends; folly has no discretion. I know that many of you here have good friends because you are friends with one another. But what about your other friends? Do you enjoy being around your less than rustic friends at work? Do you ladies like to hear the gossip from ladies from outside your circle? Or, is there a circle here at this church, that are perhaps bad friends, leading into a way of folly? You get to pick your friends. Pick wisely. And do not indulge yourself with bad friends so that you get to blame them for your own foolishness. You do not.

If your friends have led you into sin, then you need new friends AND you need to learn how to lead them away from sin. But if you like to be led away, you will pay a large price at some point in the future. And this is true for all of you at any age, young children, teenagers, young adults, men and women.

This is a relatively easy area to be wise. Choose wisdom.

Proverbia 11

Virgil's proverbs #11

Strength is displayed in the knowledge of youth;
Wisdom, in the weakness of age.

Proverbia 10

Virgil's proverbs #10

To acquire knowledge is the pride of youth.
Wisdom is the gift of the aged.

Proverbia-The Naked Soul 3

One final thought on this topic. No one would think it odd if I posted that my wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer and I was soliciting prayers. However, folks would be perplexed if I posted that she had been recently diagnosed as an alcoholic. And the difficulty here is that many Christians think of Depression or similar other mental disorders as more like the alcoholic than cancer.

An alcoholic, in biblical terms, is a drunkard. He has a self-inflicted wound. While there may be a host of pastoral issues that need to be dealt with, at the end of the day, it is he, himself, that pours down the booze. It is primarily a spiritual problem, even granting that certain people are more susceptible to this particular problem than other people. I think that is true of all spiritual problems. We are unique and our besetting sins are unique.

But when one contracts cancer, we see this as simply a result of dwelling in a fallen world. We give sympathy, care concern. We recognize that it is not their fault. We look for answers from whatever corner we can find them, pastoral, prayer, medical, alternativie, experimental. We know we are in the presence of something that is powerful and it is fairly easy for us to admit our frailty in dealing with the issue.

I am saying that Major Depression is more like cancer than alcoholism. In fact, I don't think it is like alcoholism, at all. The mind is complex, and the chemical reactions in the brain are also complex. Relatively little is known about this. We need to be wise both in the way we think about it, judge others about these things, and the way we treat it.

People with cancer also have a difficult time dealing with life. Many, even Christians, begin to despair of life to rid them of their suffering.

Let us have equal care and compassion for those who suffer in their mind. If there are easy pastoral cures, then Amen. But if we are in over our head and need to admit it, then let us do so and pursue help that is really helpful. When the depressed person begins to make some basic headway on the physiological issues, then it makes sense to jump in with pastoral care, particularly trying to help them make sense of their trial in light of God's Word and sovereignty over all things.

Proverbia-The Naked Soul-2

I'm a bit nervous about this post as it is very personal. However, one of things that we are learning in our current trial, is that God wants to use us to help other people. In order to do that, we need to experience suffering in such a way that both humbles us and makes us empathetic to the cause of those who suffer.

Our current suffering involves my wife, again, which is another reason to be leery of posting. The last reason to be nervous about the post is the nature of the trial. My wife is depressed. She is not exactly sad about the various trials that she has encountered. She is depressed. It is Major Depression or Clinical Depression, as the diagnosis goes. I wish they called it something else because most people do not understand what you mean when you say Depression. They assume you are having a rough go of it and need to snap out of it. Or, they assume that you are in an emotional funk related to specific causes, say the death of a loved one. And my wife's father did die this last October. And, I do believe that his death has a great deal to do with where my wife is at right now. It, along with several other highly stressful issues, caused her to tip over into this thing we call Depression.

But the thing itself, Depression, is not sadness. It is not grief. If those emotional states were her problem, it would make sense and be treatable with basic pastoral care. Incidentally, that is how we intitially pursued this. However, it became increasingly evident to me that I was unable to address the core issues of what was going on in my wife's brain. And I think the word Brain here, is appropriate, as opposed to the word Mind. We associate Brain activity with physiological reactions. We tend to think of Mind as the arena of the soul. So, we think if someone is having mental (Mind) trouble, they are automatically having soul trouble. But that is clearly NOT the case.

However, the body and the soul ARE closely related. The soul, at least on this earth, cannot be healthy without a certain basic level of health to the body. This is why Jesus tells us to feed and clothe the hungry, not just send them away with a blessing. So, when a Depressed person does not have a minimum level of Happy Chemicals, they cannot relate to the world in a proper emotional state. This is not simply the same thing that occurs when you are bummed out. When you are bummed out, say about the test, about the job interview, about the death of a loved one; that all makes sense. Depression is not having the emotions to feel that way nor to be happy about pleasant events. It is a creeping hopelessness and despair which obscures reality.

We've all known pessimists, they see the glass half empty. A depressed person sees everything that way. There is no joy in Muddville, even if mighty Casey has hit a homerun. Ya great, we won, so what? I should be happy but I'm a miserable wretch.

The Naked Soul, what's that? It is being laid bare before the Lord and His people. When a healthy body or a healthy mind is taken from you, what is left but the soul? But God is watching over our souls in an intimate way. And, He does, in fact, mean our trials for good, even if we are unable to see it at the time. For His own good reasons and purposes, He reveals us for what we are, naked and helpless humans who are in need of constant care from their Father. We can all see this truth with infants, they're helpless, but then we grow strong and independent. But God would have us all wholly dependent upon Him. While this is humbling and at times difficult beyond our ability to grasp or even hang on, it is God's kindness and mercy to us. It is good for us to realize that in Him we live and move and have our being. We say that, but we can only know it, when all other safety and strength is taken from us. God is still our fortress and rock. Job understood. Where else can you turn?

I can post this about my lovely wife, Katie, because I have a different understanding of these things than I used to have. Well meaning Christians do not understand what is going on here. Some have offered help in the area of dealing with sins, reading the right Bible verses, or even dealing with demonic forces. And while we should do all of these things to some degree and in the right way with various issues, none of them gets to the core of the nature of this problem of Depression. Something has tipped in the brain and it needs to be healed and restored. This can be helped with some medications, although the pharmecutical route is also very much a trial and error process. But we are thankful if the medications deal with some symptoms. The problem here is that there are also many troubling side effects. In my mind, this route should be viewed as a temporary solution.

The main healer of the mind seems to be rest and time. Perhaps there are also some other avenues to pursue that may prove helpful in the long-term. There are vitamin supplements that help brain function and mood. There is growing evidence that these supplements are more helpful and safer than pharmaceuticals. This is all new to me but we are pursuing every possible helpful option.

Part of the reason this is difficult to express is that many Christians simply view depression as a spiritual problem. Easy answer, consult Job's friends. Part of the reason that I have chosen to blog about this is that we have been very open and frank with our church about this as well as numerous friends in the community. The word is out and we are not trying to hide anything. We trust that the Lord will bring Katie through this and as a result we will be able to help other people who have suffered a similar situation. In fact, that is already happening.

Finally, my wife has had several good days in a row, about five. That might be as many good days as she has had in the last six months. So, we are hopeful that the tide has turned and that she is on her way up and out of this. We appreciate your prayers. God has been faithful to us through this entire process and we give Him thanks. His ways are inscrutable but in due time, we do see some of the whys. We pray He will continue to reveal His glory through our weakness.

Proverbia 9

Virgil's proverbs #9

Knowledge is worth more than ignorance;
Understanding than knowledge;
Wisdom than understanding.

Proverbia-The Naked Soul-1

A call from a friend reminded me that my post on Suffering-Again may have been too obscure. So, you say, what constitutes suffering?

When I said, suffering again, I was referring, firstly, to past deep trials. Those trials involved a series of difficult times immediately following my beginning to study for the ministry. All of these things happened in about a 24 month span.

I was accused and sued unjustly, twice in a year. My wife lost a full-term baby, our son Luke, four days before the due date. The baby died on Mother's Day. A few months later, my father died. The next year we lost another baby, Lydia, at 5 1/2 months. My wife's grandmother died. A month or so later, we hastened to southern Idaho to be at the bedside of my wife's stepfather who quite suddenly died of cancer. A month after that we moved to Virginia to start a church. A few months after arriving in Virginia, the workers at my new job rebelled against the fellow brought in to clean up the situation, me, levelling various accusations at their new boss. There was an investigation. After the investigation, human resources was staunchly on my side and I was fully exonerated. The company rewarded me by putting me in a larger store with more responsibility. So, sufferings from within and without. And another lesson to learn?, as another close friend said during this run of trials, "Remind me never to decide to go into ministry."

Much of the suffering in these trials was more acutely felt by my wife. She was suffering greatly but the rest of our family was suffering along with her. It was much more easy to bear my own sufferings than those of my wife. I know the Lord desires to purify my wife as well as me but I often feel as if her sufferings are for my benefit and the benefit of the saints in our church. That seems odd to me. I am sure the Lord knows that she bears up better under it and he can teach me and the rest of us what we need to learn as a result. Suffering is a painfully thorough teacher.

I give you this snapshot to let you know that we really have suffered. In fact, I think that both my wife and I have graduate degrees in suffering. Here's the difficulty. We already had M.A.S, Master's of Arts in Suffering. We do not want a Ph.D.S. But the Lord thinks differently than we do.

I've rambled and am up against the blog reader word count. I'll address our current suffering and the topic of this title, The Naked Soul, in my next post.

Proverbia 8

Virgil's proverbs #8

Knowledge is gained in the books of young men.
Wisdom in the experience of the aged.

Proverbia 7

Virgil's proverbs #7

A young man knows all things.
A wise man knows nothing.

Proverbia 6

Virgil's proverbs #6

We thought we knew until we didn't.
True knowing is acknowledged ignorance.



Don't get up in a snicket over this one, just yet. I've got some explaining to do. First, I am not praising ignorance. That's not the point, see. And, second, the key to this one is acknowledged. Chew on it for a while. Maybe it will make sense. I'll explain more next month when I get around to understanding how much less I know than I think I know.

Proverbia

These proverbs came to me recently as a result of preaching in Proverbs as well as enduring various ongoing trials. At first, I thouht it was interesting, perhaps nothing more than a phenomenon of the mind, an association of ideas. Some of the proverbs were trite but some were deep and meaninful, perhaps only to me.

As the days passed, however, I realized that much of what I know, if only a little, is reflected in these proverbs. It was as if many of the important things in my life had been contracted and summarized into these short sayings.

We call proverbs, the sayings of the wise. I make no claim to that. In fact, that is one of the strange factors in penning these proverbs.

In the past, I have considered myself wise, at least to some degree. I have always known that there are numerous others who are more wise, smarter, brighter, more gifted. But I figured that I had a thing or two to offer the world.

However, in the last six months, I have never been more aware of my utter inability to hold onto or claim a personal wisdom. The striking feature of these last six months has been my complete ignorance of and ability to deal with the situation that I am in. I won't say that I am now humble. I hope I have learned better than to say that. However, humiliation and helplessness does indeed do a great work of sanctification. We wouldn't pick it. We want out of it. But God uses it to our good and His glory, none-the-less.

I am not so young as a I used to be nor as old as I will be. And in between folly and wisdom is a school of learning. I am just old enough to no longer be young and young enough to not be old. Youth is fleeing from me and wisdom has not yet visited.

Be that as it may, I hope these sayings of the mid-lifer may be a benefit to some, perhaps those who think they know.

Proverbia 5

Virgil's proverbs #5

Many, there are, who know the answers to riddles;
Few can write them.

Proverbia 4

Virgil's proverbs #4

Hopelessness is the killer of souls
But refreshment comes from the latter rains.

Proverbia 3

Virgil's proverbs #3

Despair is a downward spiral
But hope dwells in the lowliest valley.

Proverbia-Suffering Again

When I mentioned in an earlier post that the Hurts are suffering, again, it was not meant to garner pity or leveled as a complaint against God. However, empathy and compassion are healers of deep wounds. I'll have to number that one, too! I mentioned the point, specifically, because I have come to realize that true wisdom really only comes in the difficult paths. This is a most sobering truth because none of us would willingly tread there. We want the easy rode and when we are on the easy rode we are filled with joy and comfort and proclaim the superabundant generosity of our blessed Lord. We feel really blessed and, if we are thinking right, we give God the glory for it. We are on the high places, our Lord is smiling at us, and we are His blessed saints.

That is all true. But if, like Job's friends, we reverse the logic, we can easily get a most incorrect answer. When we are in the low places, in the valley of decision, the shadow of death, of sorrow, suffering, confusion and perhaps even misery and hopelessness, it is easy to think that God's favor has left us. And, in fact, if particular sins are the reason for the intense trouble, it may actually be the case. You may simply have sowed the wind and are reaping the whirlwind. The breaking of God's laws has real and dire earthly consequences.

But there are other reasons, too. We see great suffering in the lives of many Biblical and extra-Biblical saints. This suffering is often related to their faith, persecution, but is sometimes merely related to the fact that they are human, fallen ones at that. And it is to this category of suffering that I am addressing my concerns.

We must not reason like Job's friends. I have done so often, especially towards others, little comprehending the works of God that are far beyond human telling. The great danger, here, is pride. When we insist on knowing the reasons, or asserting that we do, for another person's suffering, we stand in the place of God. Do not misunderstand me, here. We should seek counsel in our suffering. We should examine our own hearts. We should confess our sins, repent of them and turn to Christ. But having done all of that; having had an honest look at our hearts; having sought Christ with a clear conscience, not of our own making but of His cleansing, what do we then do in our suffering? How ought our friends to view us, then, in our troubles?

Remember Joseph. His brothers meant it for evil but God meant it for good. We have to hold onto the promises, which is tantamount to saying that we must hold on to God. Perhaps, in the midst of suffering, that is the ONLY thing we can do. And, in fact, we cannot even DO that. We are too weak. God cannot be grasped. So, we comfort ourselves with the fact that it is not we who hold onto God but He holds onto us. Are we strong enough to stay in His grasp? No, but we are not holding His hands. He has got us by the wrists and He will not let go.

We have suffered. We have realized these truths, that is to say, they have been made real to us. And we have forgotten. God is reminding us again. So, as Saint Paul said, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. (Phil 3:13) There is safety in remembering and danger in forgetting. Not danger that we might suffer if we forget but danger that we might forget the Lord if we do not suffer. This is a dark grace and a deep mercy. God is good and kind and His hard providences are a reflection of His goodness and kindness, even if we are unable to see it or even to say so at the time.

Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.

Proverbia 2

As promised, I continue my daily posts on proverbs, lower case, because they are mine, only mostly stolen from the Bible. They came to me in random order and I will present them this way, except for this one, which will remain unnumbered, "A wine-filled proverb waxes eloquent at night but mumbles in the morning."

Virgil's proverbs #2

Sadness dwells alone
But encouragement has many friends.

Proverbia 1

Virgil's proverbs #1

Sorrow is the friend of wisdom
And suffering abides with understanding.

Proverbia-Virgil's proverbs

It's been a while since I last posted. That is because the Hurt's have been going through a severe trial, again, and this has led to a subsistence mentality. Perhaps I will share the details with you sometime soon. However, I prefer to be living on the sunny side of life before I reveal to you my gloom. In the mean time, I do appreciate your prayers for my family and particularly for my wife, Katie.

It is my intent to preach through the book of Ecclesiastes sometime soon. I just finished a series on the Lord's Prayer which you can listen to here. Ecclesiastes is a life-changing and church-changing book. I think our church is ready for it. However, I would like our family to be on the hopeful side of our futility before I bring that great theme of Ecclesiastes to our congregation.

My excursus through Proverbs has my brain doing funny things. Many proverbs are running through my head. I hope to post one of these original proverbs each day for the next thirty days. A proverb a day, keeps the blog hits, alway. I know, that's lame. But the proverbs I have in mind to post are from the crucible of suffering. I hope you will find them beneficial.

The next post in this topic will be Virgil's Proverbs #1.

Laugh Right

A man that cannot laugh at himself has not earned the right to laugh at anybody else.

Weird Saints

Have you ever considered just how weird the preeminent saints of the Bible were? As I read through the Bible, this is one thing that jumps out at me. We live in a time when being relevant seems to be the chief virtue. Thus, we have the pierced youth leader and the cool in every way attitude of the youth in the church. And what is strange is that all the fifty-somethings in the Church seem to support this view and do not know what to do about it.

Relevance seems to breathe cool. The problem, though, is that cool is by its very nature, antiChrist. Cool vies for the applause of men but does not have as its object, the applause of God.

How does this play into weird saints? Simply this, that the saints of the Bible that are most strikingly weird, and I am thinking particularly of John the Baptist and Jesus, Himself, did not give a hoot about what men thought of them.

John the Baptist wore a camel's coat, a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts. Now, this may be cool today, say, if he was on Survivor. But it was not cool in his day. He was extremely strange.

Jesus did and said a lot of weird things, as well. Eat my flesh, drink my blood? That one was not framed up to start the rush of an altar call.

In the last 28 years as a Christian, I have heard a lot of lip service about being a freak for Jesus. But as I look around at the Christian Church today, I see a lot of freaks but they aren't for Jesus. The freaky Evangelical Church looks extremely worldly. They look just like the world. To a great degree, they act just like the world. Can barely tell the difference.

Is that relevant? Maybe. Is it weird, like John the Baptist or Jesus?

Hardly.

Classical Ed-Ain't it Great?!

As we were driving to school this morning, we heard a report on the radio that in the near future, we should expect to be seeing armed security guards, some even with automatic weapons, on our commuter and passenger trains.

I made the offhand comment, "Liberty and freedom for all."

My 14 year old son, Zachary, immediately chimed in with an apt quote. Zach quoted Benjamin Franklin, who said, "Any nation that would trade freedom for security deserves neither."

And I'm glad that they do teach them something in these schools.

Weight of Glory-Jamie Soles New Album Review

Weight of Glory- 2007
By Jamie Soles

Reviewed by Virgil Hurt
2/19/08

This is a longish review. Can’t help it. Soles gives you lots of songs and then packs a pile of meaning into every line of them. Get the CD. Listen to it haphazardly once or twice and enjoy the music and then listen to it again and again, carefully, thinking about the stories and The Story of God.

The Weight of Glory, begins with a flourish and that eternal Weight of Glory is immediately upon the listener, as he opens with Cain. Cain has killed his brother, and right at the beginning of the story of man, the plight of mankind is ever before us. This song is a departure from Soles’ other children’s music, at least in the tenor of the musical sound. While the children are likely to enjoy the music and the lyrics, it is not expressly children’s music. Perhaps this is a bit of a twist from Sole’s other music, at least the one I am most familiar with, That’s The Way My Story Goes. On that CD, I think it would be safe to classify the record as a children’s CD, but it is immensely enjoyable for adults as well.

Soles’ music is very enjoyable and he is a master at producing meaningful lyrics. His plan is to tell the story of the Bible. He often does this by telling Bible stories that are not taught in Sunday school. Or, he simply tells them from a novel perspective. With both methods, we get the story of the Bible AND we have to think about it. The ability to think is a much needed, and largely missing virtue, in Christian music today.

Consider Soles’ last stanza in the opening song, with God speaking to Cain.

Don’t despair, there is still tomorrow
I still care, though you’ve chosen sorrow.
But vengeance wears a wreath of pain.
And you shall bear it as the mark of Cain.

Cain, here, becomes a good representative of God’s people, even those who systematically and regularly reject Him. God is willing and able to punish, and He will do so. But we have the sense of reluctance in God to do this. He is patient and long-suffering, desiring his people to come to repentance. And thus, the Weight of Glory, it looms before all men, both the good and the bad, the just and the unjust.

The Weight of Glory continues with, Waiting for Me, an interesting story of Joseph rejoicing in God’s providence in providing a wife for him in the land of Egypt. Soles seems to really catch the spirit of Joseph portrayed in the Scriptures. He is really able to rejoice in God’s providence, even in the harsh past that brought him to God’s protection and provision in an ‘interim land’. A great line here as Joseph thinks back about his sojourn to Egypt. “I was seventeen when I left my home, Chained in a line for a land unknown.” Neither the music nor the rest of the lyrics of this song give any indication that Joseph is bitter about these circumstances. It is a joyful song about God’s provision.

In Shiloh, the Weight of Glory is presented as a duty to fulfill God’s plans. The people are in the Promised Land but they have not done all that they said they would do, nor what God had required them to do. They possessed some of the Land but not The Land. But even in this half-way obedience, which we see is disobedience, God calls them to Himself at Shiloh. In this song, Soles captures the sense of rest and relief and beauty that we have in God, His tabernacle and His rest. There is a great last line in this song, “Shiloh, If you love the Lord of Shiloh; your warfare will go well.” That is a sentiment seldom spoken today but one we would be well advised to get our minds around if we are to ever fully possess The Land.

Ahithophel has an eerie eastern sound to it, and I think, appropriately so, as Soles has woven together a couple of Bible stories that produce an unpleasant outcome in the life of David. This song sent me to do some Bible study, as I wondered where he got his source material for the opening stanza.

Ahithophel of Gilo, my counselor;
Your son Eliam, my mighty man;
Your granddaughter Bathsheba, my secret;
I sought not your counsel this time.

Okay, what’s my problem? I did not know that Ahithophel was Bath-sheba’s grandfather, nor that Eliam was also intertwined in the story, as her father and one of David’s mighty men. Remember that Uriah was a mighty man of David, as well. Folks, this is why you should pay attention to those genealogies that you like to skip over. There are many gems to be mined in those places! Soles speculates that Ahithophel deserted David partly due to his taking of Bath-sheba. The Scriptures do not make this clear but we do see these twisted family relationships causing these sorts of problems all the time in the world that we live in.

In Confession of a Fool, Soles offers up a humble look at oneself, as formerly a fool, and asking God to show mercy to those who still offer the confession of a fool, saying in their hearts that there is no God.

Crying is Wisdom in Proverbs 8, calling out to you. This is a beautiful song which calls us to the beauty of Wisdom’s banquet and to despise the bed of the harlot, where fools go, where death is found.

Make sure to look up all the Scripture references and read about the context of these songs. As I listened to What Are You Doing Here?, I turned to 1 Kings 19 and read the story of Elijah, as he was ready to perish from the earth. But God sent an angel and food and drink to save him from death. The music fit the story wonderfully.

The Weight of Glory breaks into the New Covenant with Jesus is Here! The hope and waiting is realized in this song of joyful celebration. “Prophets, priests, and kings, extend their welcoming, proclaiming to all who will hear, ‘Have no fear, Jesus is here!’”

Son is one of my favorite tracks on this album. It is simple, beautiful in poetry and music. The poetry is a string of mostly individual words, not much in the way of sentences. But the words paint the lovely story of Joseph and Mary and more; the story of redemption and hope in this new Son.

Blessed is the Beatitudes. This is not straight Scripture texts but for those of you who have enjoyed learning the Kings of Israel along with Soles, you will enjoy learning the Beatitudes with him, too.

What have I got if I gain everything but I lose You? is the refrain of Soul. It is a man talking to his soul. Great keyboards in this song.

Soles continues with the story of God as he marches through the New Testament, speaking of the life and trials of Christians, working for us the greater Weight of Glory all the time.

This Confidence in Me is about faith in God. This song, like so many songs on this disc, breathes of true humility. Soles is confident and hopeful but this confidence and hope are not derived from himself. He points us to God and His promises to find our confidence there. This is the Good News. This is another beautiful song and a fine way to end the record.

I suppose any decent review ought to give reservations. I have few and they pale in significance to the goodness of this album. It sounds a bit electric, synthesized to me. I prefer a simpler, acoustic, or shall I say, more natural?, sound. The tunes and the lyrics of many of these songs make me think of orchestras and strings and maybe brass, too, and I’d like to hear more of that sort of thing in the accompaniment. Maybe that is just not his sound or it is just too expensive to hire an orchestra.

I might also add that I was a bit unsteady about what I thought of this record on the first listen. I had agreed with Jamie to do a review, so he gave me the album. Thanks! It sort of hit me that I might not like it. And after the first listen, I wasn’t sure. But I have listened to the album several times now and like it very much and am looking forward to spinning it many more times. So, if the music is a bit different than what you expect from hearing Sole’s children’s albums, give it time and a few more spins and you will find that you like this CD very much.

You can purchase Weight of Glory on CD or download it in MP3 format at solmusic.ca.

Augustine Ain't God

As I have been working through the letters of Augustine, I have been very pleased to see how much truth of the Scriptures was settled so early on in the life of the Church. Some modern Christians try to harken back to those early fathers as if that was the pure Church from which no error emanated. While I think nearness to the apostles can provide clarity on many issues and practices, it by no means is a sure bet on being free from all error.

As Reformed Christians, we beleive in the idea that God will continue to reveal truth to His Church. This is not New Truth. We are not expecting new revelation in terms of a new Word from God. The Canon is complete. God has spoken. But we do intend to have a greater understanding of His Word as the Church marches triumphantly forward.

Reading Augustine has been encouraging for several reasons. One, that he got so much right. Two, the Reformers, and particularly John Calvin, went back to Augustine to find those things that were right that the Church had lost and needed to learn anew. And three, I am encouraged that those things that Augustine and the early church got wrong, are for the most part, clearly seen and articulated by Christ's Church today.

Two examples will suffice at this point.

The early church had a strange reverance for Virgins. Granted, this idea and practice grew out of a reverance for The Virgin Mary. But the veneration of virgins as holy women simply because of their virginity caused a heap of grief in the life of the church for many hundreds of years. It created a wrong view of marriage and sex, even advocating and encouraging celibate marriage relationships, led to the so-called celibate priesthood and eventually worked itself into full blown Mariolotry.

The second example is the early Church's teaching on unbaptized infants. Augustine states, "this one thing I profess as my deliberate conviction, that the opinion which is true (about the creation of souls) does not conflict with the most firm and well grounded artcle in the faith of the Church of Christ, that infant children, even when they are newly born, can be delivered from perdition in no other way than through the grace of Christ's name, which He has given in His sacraments."

He has been arguing that unbaptized babies go to perdition, even unbaptized babies of Christians. Some might call this a high view of the Sacraments. And, indeed it is. But it is also inconsistent with the testimony of Scripture, God's covenantal dealings with His people and Jesus's actions towards infants. I am not sure of the Roman Catholic position on this, currently. But the Universal position of the Protestant Church is that unbaptized children of believers are holy. The Reformed Church, since the time of the Reformation, has been unwilling to pronounce on the fate of unbaptized children of unbelievers. But has offered nothing but hope and solace to parents of children that die in utero or shortly after birth and before Baptism. This is good, right and Biblical.

So, I am thankful for Augustine. He was a truly amazing man and an incredible theologian. But I am also thankful that the Church of Christ has continued to grow in her Biblical and Theological understanding in these last 1600 years. And we look for even greater understanding of God's revelation to us in His Word in the next 1600 years!

Augustine-On Prayer

A famous, pious, wealthy and noble lady named Proba once asked Augustine's advice on prayer. She was bothered by this comment from Paul in Romans, "Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

She was very concerned about praying the wrong things because 'we know not what we should pray for as we ought. '

Augustine's advice to her may surprise you. He tells her to pray "for a happy life." Of course, he then gives an extended discourse on what really makes a life happy. He says, that "He, therefore, is truly happy who has all that he wishes to have, and wishes to have nothing which he ought not to wish."

We use the Lord's Prayer in our service and I am currently preaching my way through it. A couple of Augustine comments on the Lord's Prayer are particularly apt.

"--if we pray rightly, and as becomes our wants, we say nothing but what is already contained in the Lord's Prayer."

"And if you go over all the words of holy prayers (from Scripture), you will, I believe, find nothing which cannot be comprised and summed up in the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Wherefore, in praying, we are free to use different words to any extent, but we must ask the same things; in this we have no choice." (emphasis mine)

Augustine-on Cicero and Vanity

In 410 A.D., Dioscorus was taking a trip, apparently to Rome. He was nervous about what the Romans might ask him concerning their illustrious orators of the past, as well as the famous Greeks, but particularly Cicero. In order to prep himself, he wrote a hurried letter to St. Augustine with a long list of questions regarding Cicero's dialogues. He knew Augustine could help him save face in Rome.

Instead of answering Diascorus's question and relieving his fear of finding himself a fool for not knowing the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, Augustine brutally takes him to task.

He says, "My question is: Why did you not say, "Any one who can make no reply ( about Cicero) will be proved to be illiterate and stupid, " but prefer to say, "He will be regarded as illiterate and stupid? Why, if not for this reason, that you yourself already understand well enough that the person who fails to answer such question is not in reality, but only in the opinion of some, illiterate and stupid?"

And here's the zinger!

"But I warn you that he who fears to be subjected to the edge of the pruning-hook by the tongues of such men is a sapless log, and is therefore not only regarded as illiterate and stupid, but is actually such, and proved to be so."

Augustine-Baptism of Faith

Letter 98, to Boniface.
Boniface asks "Why do we ask the parents questions about the child's belief when the child is obviously not capable of believing." The baptismal liturgy went something like this.

Minister: Does this child believe in God?

Parent: Yes, he believes.

Part of Augustine's answer is this, "...the answer is made that he turns himself to God because of the sacrament of conversion..."

And also, "Therefore an infant, although he is not yet a believer in the sense of having that faith which includes the consenting will of those who exercise it, nevertheless becomes a believer through the sacrament of faith."

So, in Augustine's thinking, baptism was the sacrament of conversion and made the infant a believer.

Augustine

It is helpful to read the ancients, if for no other reason, than to see that our faith is also ancient. Furthermore, there is the wonderful aspect of its continuity. We have the wonderful privilege of reading the same Bible Augustine read over 1600 years ago.

One of the often overlooked realities of the reformation is that great saint, Augustine. Particularly in Calvin, the reformation took the form of simply returning to the doctrines and practice of the early church. Calvin quotes Augustine page after page. In Augustine's case, we are harkening back to around 400 A.D.

As I read through Augustine's letters, I have been repeatedly surprised and pleased to find great support for some of our most distinctive elements. By our, I mean, our denomination, the CREC, Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

I hope to give you a few more of his quotes as I get along. Augustine speaks of baptism in a most wonderful way, fully consistent with our views that children are full members of the church.

This one from Letter 98, to Boniface. Augustine is replying to a question from Boniface about whether Christian children are harmed when their parents offer sacrifices to idols when they are sick.

"To which I reply that, in the holy union of the parts of the body of Christ, so great is the virtue of that sacrament, namely, of baptism, which brings salvation, that so soon as he who owed his first birth to others, acting under impulse of natural instincts, has been made partaker of the second birth by others, acting under the impulse of spiritual desires, he cannot be thenceforward held under the bond of that sin in another to which he does not with his own will consent."

Augustine then argues that the child is not held guilty by the guilt of his parents offering sacrifice. But note what he does say in this paragraph. Baptism has great virtue, brings salvation and is the second birth. Perhaps we want to qualify these statements somewhat and Augustine himself does so in many places. But instead of running to the qualifications, and then believing the qualifications instead of the principle of the thing, we ought to take a moment to bask in the thing signified in baptism. We get the 'thing' as well as the symbol of the thing. What is it? Virtue, salvation, born again.

Exhortation-God Sensitive Service

Today, we continue our sermon about the liturgy, our order of worship. We come here each Lord’s Day to gather with the saints and worship God. Many in the reformed tradition have realized that Sundays are for worshipping God. They are not to be seeker friendly entertainment hours that feed the self-esteem but do not reveal the glory of God. And I completely agree. We have drifted into times when we are so introspective that everything that goes on around us must somehow feed our own personal self-worth. And if it doesn’t, not only is it unhelpful, the talking heads tell us that it may even be evil.

But we are trying to find out who God is, what He desires, how we can be acceptable to Him, what pleases Him, and how our Sunday worship relates to all of this. So, the seeker sensitive mindset should not be ours. We should have a God sensitive mindset that governs what we do here and how we do it.

That being said, I do not want to disparage the humanistic aspect of corporate worship. We call our service, “The Lord’s Service.” The service belongs to Him, that is, our worship. And in that service, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, also serves us. He does not worship us but He does come to us and fulfill all of our needs. Not our ‘felt’ needs but our real and deep needs. And in this, we find that while we are not primarily seeking out our own desires, needs, and wishes here on the Lord’s Day, that they are all met anyway.

Furthermore, the more we pursue this course of seeking God first, the more we will find ourselves. This is a good picture of the life of the Christian paradox.

Seek ye first His kingdom, take up the cross and follow me, He who loses his life for my sake will find it.

So, while our paradigm in not one of seeker sensitivity, asking what they want and giving it to them, in our God-sensitivity, we find that God knows what we need and He gives it to us. In seeking His glory, we find our ultimate good.

Loving the Saints-Honesty is the Best Policy

Last Sunday in my communion meditation I said that an honest answer to why children are not allowed at the Lord’s Table is the belief that they are not welcome there. Specifically, that the reason is “that we think that Jesus does not like them that much.”

That statement may seem harsh and I did get some feedback from it. I want to make a bit of a clarification here. I am not saying that pastors and parents think bad thoughts about their own children. I strongly believe that pastors and parents think they are preventing harm coming to their children by keeping them away from the Table. It seems a strange thing to do to prevent harm but not if you think the cup is a potential curse for unworthy receivers.

I also grant that they have some good historical and even biblical reasons for doing so. I might add that I think that both their historical and biblical reasons are lacking. However, they are being faithful to what they think is the historical or biblical position. I am not asserting ill motives on their part.

However, if they are truly honest about their understanding of church history on this subject as well as their understanding of the Bible on this subject, it amounts to the fact that their children are not yet worthy recipients of the Table. As good Protestants, I hope they do not mean that worthy recipients merit God’s favor. What Protestants mean by worthy recipient is that they are objects of God’s favor. Since children are not welcome at the table, then they are therefore, by definition, NOT objects of God’s favor. I do not see how we can avoid this conclusion, no matter how we try to support a non- paedo-communion view from church history or even from the Bible.

Finally, we have to live with whatever the Bible teaches, even if it teaches that God does not like our kids that much until they reach a certain age. If that is what the Bible teaches, then I am prepared to alter my practice to conform to God’s standard. Thankfully, I have diverse Biblical teaching that explicitly tells me otherwise. God, the Father likes my children. Jesus does, too. And the Holy Spirit is willing to dwell with them on good terms. Not because they are good but because He is.

Communion Meditation-Jesus loves the little children

Jesus not only gives up his life for his people, He gives His life to His people. –Tim Gallant, The Case for Covenant Communion
Matt 19:13-15 13 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 15 And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
The kingdom of heaven belongs to the children. It is made up of such people. This is the exegetical meaning of Jesus’s statement here in Mathew. And as we have seen recently in our sermons on heaven and earth, Jesus is not talking about heaven, the afterlife, being for children (although it is). Nor, is He here talking about having a childlike faith or demeanor. He is saying that these children are in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom that Jesus Himself inaugurated on earth. These children are His children and are in the kingdom. So, he lays hands on them and blesses them.
The more we practice paedocommunion and the more we study this issue in Scripture, the more I am astounded that we did not see it sooner and the more I am astounded that the church at large cannot see it now.
Jesus went out of His way to teach us to be like children and to teach us that little children, little carried children, infants and sucklings, ought to come to Him and do indeed belong to Him. To fail to see this is to fail to understand God, as Father, the way that we should. To not practice paedocommunion is to tell a very great lie about God, that He is dangerous in the wrong way, that unless we get things right, He is against us.
But the Scriptures teach us the opposite about God. He is Father, waiting on us to come to Him, eager to forgive, willing to overlook our faults because we are friends of Jesus, covered in His blood. A wrong view of the Lord’s Supper, paints God in a very different light. He is an austere judge, waiting to get us, not easily pacified, is perfectionistic, doesn’t really care if we are covered in Jesus’s blood. I grant that one may not be a paedocommunionist and still have basically right views about God. But, let’s be honest. The reason we won’t let our children come and eat Jesus’s food, is because we think Jesus does not really like them yet. But Jesus tells us, and you, very differently than that in Scripture. Let the children come unto me. I say, “Come to Jesus and eat, you and your children, believing in God’s promises to you and to them.”

Education is Books

Well, maybe education is not simply books but it is quite clearly learning to read books. Learning to read involves more than just phonics. I am still learning how to read. But Carlyle's insight into how education has changed over the years is very helpful to us.

Have a look at any home school curriculum guide or brochure. The shear number of materials is mind boggling. I am very thankful that having another option in education has produced such a vast array, if not dizzying array of educational materials. This is a good thing.

However, many home schoolers lose the forest for the trees in the same way that their local government schools do or even their well-meaning Christian school does. The result is a frenetic approach to education that can be a detriment to real learning as well as to home and church life.

What is the goal of education?

Carlyle says this, "If we think of it, all a University, or final highest school can do for us, is still what the first school began doing,-- teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books." (emphasis his)

Sincerely

Motivated by the reading of Rory Stewart, I have been making my way through Thomas Carlyle's essays on heroes. They are very good. Some of his heroes may bother you but keep plowing through. He has some good things to say and in saying them, it becomes clear to one that our times have changed, that our ideas of heroes, or even the concept of real heroes, has dramatically changed.

Carlyle's preeminent virtue among all of his heroes is sincerity. He gives Mahomet, Rousseau and even Nitzsche high marks for being sincere. Part of this is certainly true. A man is nothing less than a rogue if he is not sincere. If he is manipulating people for anything less than his own sincere belief, then he ought not to be considered anybody's hero. I grant that much.

But what of the man who is sincerely wrong? And not wrong is some superficial triviality but wrong in the big things? Wrong in the pursuit of God? Wrong in the application of government? Wrong in the necessity of reformation or even of revolution?

Carlyle forgives much as long as the man possesses this great virtue of sincerity. Of course, we are those who stand on the truth of Scripture in the ultimate things. But Carlyle is driving at something other than that in these lectures. He is driving at what makes a great man great, whether famous or infamous. And to that end, his lectures are well worth reading.

Not Dead

It's been a while. I've not been idle. I promise. I hope that means that I have been busy but I fear that it really means that I have simply been too inefficient.

Our school year is off and running. Our church is doing well. The wind is blowing. The temperatures are falling and thanksgivings fill the air.

God is always good.

He has blessed me with a new schedule; one I hope will enable me to be more productive.

We'll see.

Projects purposed include finishing the running posts and doing some more work on the child rearing booklet.

Lord willing, those posts will be forthcoming.

Exhortation-Loving God

We like to flatter ourselves that ourselves that our faith is believing and that believing somehow means simply hearing or assenting. But the Scriptures hold us to a much higher standard.

1 John 4:20-21 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

You cannot love God and hate your brother. Even here, we flatter ourselves, thinking that we do not have ill, seething feelings towards our brother. But hatred often does not look like ill, seething emotions or even words. Sometimes it comes out in calm or even flattering speech.
Some Christians so flatter themselves that if they SAY nice things then they must be nice. And if they are nice, then they must somehow be a disciple of Jesus. This is the ‘good people’ theory. They are just ‘good people’. But God does not allow for this kind of hypocrisy when the same lips that utter nice words in order to be heard by certain people also utter despising words to other people.

Also, when someone fancies themselves spiritual because they can write spiritual words, God is not mocked when that same person is attracted the world’s allurements, whether money, beautiful things, power, sex, prestige, honor at the world’s table, or many other sins. God sees. God knows. It is just that a hypocrite doesn’t really care if God sees or God knows. They are only playing their game for the eyes of watching men. This is why this person has a hard time being obedient when the restraints of coercive power are removed. When mother and father, husband, minister or friends stop applying the pressure to do what is right, they slip off into sinful behavior, proving what their heart was all along.

We are all prone to this kind of sin. I am not saying that we are all hypocrites but it is true that without God’s ordained means of grace and authority, we would be much more likely to fall into these kinds of sins. We need the authority of fathers and mothers, husbands, ministers and friends to keep us from following our sinful inclinations. These are God’s means of grace to us. But we also need to realize our own sinful inclinations, confess them and repent of them. So that, when we find ourselves free from any coercive powers, we then choose to do what is right because it is right, because it pleases the Lord, because we are following the Holy Spirit.

James 1:22 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Brothers and sisters, do not be deceived, love of God reveals itself in your behavior. That love is expressly revealed by loving your closest neighbors. If you want to measure how much you love God, all you have to do is see how you treat your wife or husband, your children, your parents. To the extent that you have not loved them well, you have not loved Him well. So, let us confess our lack of love of God for our lack of love for them that God may forgive us and enable us to love deeply, as Jesus loved, giving Himself a sacrifice for others.

Communion Mediation-Head and Body

Lately, we have been talking a great deal about being in fellowship with the saints, serving them, loving them. It is what we emphasize repeatedly here at the Lord’s Table, Communion, the Eucharistic meal. We are to be in fellowship with God and with His people. The one loaf signifies not only the broken body of Jesus, broken for us, but also the body of Jesus shared communally with all of us. Our unity in Jesus is a reality. Jesus is the one loaf but we also are the one loaf. He is the head of the body, the church, but we are the body of Christ, the church. The one loaf represents Christ, head and body.

Now, something is powerfully wrong when there are divisions and strife in the body of Christ. What is supposed to be a unified body becomes a divided body. This is what was happening in Corinth when the apostle Paul warned that some of them were sick and even had died because of how they partook of the Lord’s Supper.

The supper is a wonderful gift to the church, a place and an action wherein we receive the thing signified in the sign. We receive Jesus as we eat and drink together. How shameful is it when we parcel Him out, only wanting certain portions of the body of Christ, receiving some and not others, maintaining bitterness, withholding forgiveness, thinking of oneself above others. These are the kinds of sins, the not discerning the Lord’s Body, that was a great problem in the Corinthian Church. They did not recognize that the gathered saints were the earthly manifestation of Christ with us. This is a very great sin and one that we ought not to make.

So, it is fitting that we look around, that we see who is here, that we rejoice with them for partaking in Jesus. It is good for us to let all pretenses go at this meal, to humble ourselves before the Lord as unworthy in ourselves to even be here. And yet rejoicing that He has invited the likes of us to partake of this great meal with Jesus. If we are humble this way, if we see this rightly, then it is easy for us to esteem others more highly than ourselves. When we do this, we have become like Jesus, which is the goal of our Christian faith, which is the great blessing of this meal.

Communion Meditation-Spilt Wine

Spilt milk does not disinherit one from the family. In some families, spilt milk means no dinner. But that is to the shame of that sort of father.

What spilt milk ought to mean is that the child needs milk. They are little and the cup is too big, or they are have a hard time paying attention to all the details, or they are just too clumsy.
But even fathers spill milk, too. But they almost always do so with an excuse. “Oops, my fingers are all buttery from the corn.” Or, with a cross look at an adjacent and innocent child, “Who put my cup right there?”

My question to you is, “Who is causing schism at the family table when milk is spilt by a little toddler? The child or the angry father? It is manifestly NOT the child.

Spilt milk, spilt happily, displays the unity of the family. It displays the welcome of children and the maturity of mother and father, brothers and sisters. Instead of thinking, “I can’t believe Billy would disrespect our table that way!”, everyone should be thinking, with a smile on their face, “I remember when I used to do that almost every night.”

My wife mentioned to a visitor, how she loves to see the wine on the pages of our communion songs. She received a bit of a surprised look. I suppose Presbyterians ought not to spill their wine on the Psalter.

But we ought not to cry over spilt wine. In fact, we ought to laugh and remember when we were just babies and wine was something we had to get used to. We ought to remember when it was hard to hold it and hard to wait for everybody else. But then we learned to discern the Lord’s body. And when we saw them waiting, we waited, too, because we knew that we were of them. And we ought to remember the times we were cross at the spilt wine and had to repent because we caused a little one to stumble.

But Jesus is kind to us. He gives us bread. He gives us wine. He gives us each other. He gives us little children and He builds our faith to be like their’s. So, let us eat and drink, crumble and dribble, drop and spill, grow and mature, all to His glory.

Potter Putter

The other day, Leah and I were engrossed in our HP books. Our five year old Calvin was watching us, sort of sad at the loss of his playmates.

He disapparated.

After a while we hear Rebecca question him upstairs, "How do you like Harry Potter, Cal?"

"It's good, got throgh the first page at the Dursley's."

He started Harry Potter 1 to see if he can catch up with the family.

Harry Potter Pages-No Spoilers

Interesting tidbit.

Since last Friday, my family has read 4758 pages of Harry Potter 7, The Deathly Hallows.

Six of eight of us have finished the book. We are eagerly waiting on mom to finish so we can have an all out family discussion.

No spoiler here, it's good.

More to say in a week or two when you all should have finished reading the book.

Exhortation-Peace

James 4:1-11 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Our opening Scripture and prayer spoke of peace. Peace is so wonderful. With peace, we can worship, think, enjoy and love. Peace is the wonderful fruit of maturity. Maturity in a home, maturity in a church, maturity in a business or maturity in a government.

But we have a bit of a problem with the way we seek to obtain peace. We think that peace needs to happen somewhere out there. And in order for it to happen out there, the way to peace is imposed. Peace comes through conflict and conquest. We even have a historic word for it, a Pax Romana, or Roman peace, an imposed peace through strength.

In pagan societies and in devlish behavior, this is true. Peace can be and is imposed from the outside. But that kind of peace only lasts as long as the coercion. Throw off the coercion and revolution and anarchy ensue until another peace is imposed. But in Christ, this entire way of worldly thinking is inverted. Peace is not imposed by the stronger. Rather, it comes by subduing ones own desires, even desires that may be good in themselves. It looks to the good of others, rather than to personal advancement over and above others. Peace is not something that is conquered and obtained. It is something that comes when competing desires are subdued and put in their proper priority and place.

What is the cause of strife among people? Among family members? Among fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in a particular church? Is it not striving? Is it not thinking of yourself foremost and everybody else as also rans? And what if somebody else has something that you desire? Say, a good wife, a nice car, a peaceful home, a seat of honor. What causes your strife with them? Isn’t it the fact that you want what they have? And this causes you to lust to envy? Producing in you all sorts of ungodly, competitive desires?

That is not the way to Christian peace. We do want peace. We want it the way Jesus brought it, through service, self-sacrifice, obedience to the Father’s commands. If we learn this kind of humility, then peace will dwell with us and God will lift us up to the seats of honor. But let it be Him who lifts and not you, yourself. That is the way of the world, the way of the devil and of the flesh. But let us choose the better way, the way of the Spirit, the way of Jesus Christ.

Mimetic Desire

Mimetic Desire, find out about it. More to follow.

As my wise and faithful pastor said, "It's all in Girard."

Exhortation-Loving Discipline

Today, we receive new members into our congregation. The Tuckwiller family, who are members of Christ, are becoming members of this part of the body of Christ. Furthermore, we receive Eden McMaster, through birth and baptism, rebirth, into the body that is Providence Church. We are thankful that our body continues to grow. Growth of the body is a good thing. It makes the body strong, more capable of accomplishment, able to resist disease and sin.

But growth also makes one more capable of sinning, particularly against the family for which one joins. Eden could not have sinned against God or the McMasters a few months ago. But now she is here. She is a gift from God, a tremendous blessing, able to bring joy and delight, laughter and celebration. But she is also fully capable of bringing sadness and sorrow, tears and lamentation.

What will hold her to the former and keep her from the latter? Just this. She has a family. That family belongs to Christ. Therefore she belongs to Christ. This is not something that Eden should fear, as if her father would somehow be a cause of grief to her, instead of blessing. On the contrary, he will love her and teach her how the McMasters live, worship, eat, dress, talk and think. When she disobeys, her father will love her with kindness, hardness, spankings, hugs, tears, forgiveness, restoration, and healing. Without her mother, she would die. Without her father, she would be wanton. Without her brothers and sisters, she would grow eminently self-centered and selfish.

It is not enough for her to say that she has been born into God’s good world. She needs to be born into a godly family and nurtured in all the ways of God through obedience, wisdom, experience and familial expectations. This is a great blessing to her.

I hope you can make all the proper connections to life in the body of Christ. Although the threat of judgment is strong in faithful congregations, the threat of judgment is not the purpose of the relationship. The connection of covenant community is for blessing and not cursing. It is for nurture, growth, accountability, confession, repentance, restoration, healing, service, love, peace and unity. And partly because of the true threat of godly discipline, and the presence of real restorative discipline, all of these wonderful blessings can be enjoyed by the faithful.

Communion Meditation-Wine is Wine

In our bulletin, we say that the wine is wine. That is a true statement. The wine is wine. It almost sounds absurd to say that, the wine is wine, as if we were cracking a joke or something. But nobody in the Christian church seems to think the reverse is funny, the wine is grape juice. Everybody keeps a straight face when that is said. Even though it is a joke. And the kid in the front row who always asks questions just keeps his mouth shut. And the professor rambles ever onward. “You see, this wine was never fermented, so it has a fit use for adults and children. Grape juice, you see, versatile, sweet, able to be swallowed by an adult, loved by children everywhere.”

But in our bulletin it says that the wine is wine. I hear the protests. “But we don’t like wine. It’s too strong. We are not used to it. It makes me gag. It’s a stumbling block. The children are not of age.”

Oh? Who says? Who says that the children cannot partake? Who has made a Christian’s drink and turned it into a drink for kiddees? And who says that children ought not to have wine? Worried schoolmarms? Preachers in skirts? Skirts as preachers? Teetotalers? Prohibitionists? Modern evangelicals? The Bible? Jesus? Who says? By what authority? And who should YOU listen to?

Is it any wonder that the church is so full of babies when we will only give them baby drink? And worse, we won’t even give it to them until they are old enough to not like it so much anymore. But I think that even babies, Christian ones, can hold their wine better than these.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the church will grow up into maturity if we only start serving wine at communion. But it IS partly true. We need to do what Jesus said to do, everywhere. Even if we do not like it very much. Even if it is strong drink for us. Even if we need to develop a palate worthy of tasting Jesus. Even if the world hates what we do.

We may as well start here.

Letters of Augustin

"..but it is the fact that anything which we are taught by allegory or emblem affects and pleases us more, and is more highly esteemed by us, than it would be if most clearly stated in plain terms." Augustin, Letter 55.21

Preachers harken to the wisdom of Augustin. It is hard work to come up with analogies, metaphors and allegories. Easier to say than paint.

Thank the Lord for the story of Scripture with all of its wonderful pictures.

Non-Fiction is True

Some things are counter-intuitive. That just means that you wouldn't have thought of it if somebody didn't tell you. (Double negatives are cool, too.)

I have neck problems. When my neck hurts, I hold it this way and I do not want to hold it that way. But I've found a great booklet (Treat Your Own Neck, McKenzie) that teaches that you need to exercise your neck that way. It works. But it's counter intuitive. I would not have done so unless somebody told me to.

Fiction as truth is sort of the same thing. It is obvious once you see it but otherwise remains a mystery. Many people assume that fiction means 'not true' but that is simply not true. Granted, there are plenty of fiction writers who write things that are mostly not true. But, here's the deal, nobody reads them. The ones who write things that are true are widely read.

But I thought you said it was fiction? Aren't they making it up?

Well, yes, and no.

Good ficiton writers understand the world and in understanding the world they are able to convey truth in a story, in a character, in a situation. Oftentimes, much better than any non-fiction account of a similarly true event.

As a pastor, I sometimes have the privilege of giving counsel. God-words often bounce off the counselee with the same consistent rebound of return volley that said counselee practices on Sunday morning. But a story has a way to penetrate deep into the soul. Especially if the story, the made up story, is painfully true.

Here's another post but I'll give you a teaser. We cannot understand God's story, the Bible, if we cannot even understand a basic story, say C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. We think we understand the truth statements of the Bible but if we are incapable of understanding stories, we really do not understand the Bible. BECAUSE-the Bible IS a story.