"Christianity: the easiest religion, the hardest religion" (Francis Schaeffer)

Francis Schaeffer (1912 - 1984)

"If it is so true that there are good and sufficient reasons to know that Christianity is true, why doesn't everybody accept the sufficient answers?

"We must realise that Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, because it is the only religion in which God the Father and Christ and the Holy Spirit do everything.  God is the Creator;  we have nothing to do with our existence, or existence of other things.  We can shape other things, but we cannot change the fact of existence.  We can do nothing for our salvation because Christ did it all. We do not have to do anything.  In every other religion we have to do something - everything from burning a joss stick to sacrificing our firstborn child to dropping a coin in the collection plate - the whole spectrum.  But with Christianity, we do not have to do anything:  God has done it all.  He has created us and He has sent His Son;  His Son died and because the Son is infinite, therefore He bears our total guilt.  We do not need to bear our guilt, nor do we even have to merit the merit of Christ.  he does it all.  So in one way it is the easiest religion in the world.

"But now we can turn it over because it is the hardest religion in the world for the same reason.  The heart of rebellion of Satan and man was the desire to be autonomous; and accepting the Christian faith robs us not our our existence, not of our worth (it gives us our worth), but it robs us completely of being autonomous.  We did not make ourselves, we are not the product of chance, we are none of these things; we stand before a Creator plus nothing, we stand before the Saviour plus nothing - it is a complete denial of being autonomous.  Whether it is conscious or unconscious (and in the most brilliant people it is occasionally conscious), when they suddenly see the sufficiency of the answers on their own level, they are suddenly up against their innermost humanness - not humanness as they were created to be human, but human in the bad sense since the Fall.  That is the reason that people do not accept the sufficient answers and why they are counted by God as disobedient and guilty when they do not bow...

"It is not that the answers are not good, adequate and sufficient. Unless one gives up one's autonomy, one cannot accept the answers."

Francis Schaeffer, The God who is There (Complete Works, I, 182-183)

We are far too easily pleased

Outside of the Bible itself, there are a number of key passages, or significant paragraphs from seminal Christian authors down the ages, that the thoughtful disciple would do well to consider, and consider deeply.  Here's one worth meditating upon.  It's  from the opening of CS Lewis's sermon, The Weight of Glory, preached in 1941.  You can find the whole sermon here.

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, Isubmit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. 

The work of the pastor is difficult

Just for the record...
The work of a pastor is difficult. Very few Christians lose sleep over the state of their church, the spiritual health of the body, the collective faithfulness or unfaithfulness of the congregation. But pastors do. This is something very few people who aren’t pastors can understand, isn’t it? While pastors carry the weight of their own struggles, and likely the weight of the struggles of their friends and family, they also carry the weight of the struggles of an entire church. They are responsible for more; they are accountable for much. 
 Jared Wilson, Gospel Wakefulness, p. 192.


HT: Justin Buzzard

Ah!  The old free-will v determinism debate!
Thanks Bill!

Sherlock Holmes and the curious case of the search for meaning

Benedict Cumberpatch:  BBC's Sherlock

In his recent book of published lectures, Surprised by Meaning, renowned theologian and academic (and Northern Irish born) Alister McGrath, unexpectedly begins by highlighting our cultural obsession with detective fiction.  Dorothy L Sayers' explanation for this was humanity's "deep yearnings to make sense of what seem to be an unrelated series of events".  The detective novel, says McGrath, appeals to our implicit belief in the intrinsic rationality of the world around us and to our longing and ability to discover its deeper patterns.

The point of this?  "We long to make sense of things. We yearn to see the big picture, to know the greater story, of which our story is but a small but nonetheless important part.  We rightly discern the need to organise our lives around some controlling framework or narrative.  The world around us seems to be studded with clues to a greater vision of life." (p.2-3)

But in our present age, confronted with a growing deluge of diverse and incoherent information, it is tempting to believe that grasping a universal 'meaning', if one is there at all, will be beyond us.  For many, to live in such a world considered 'meaningless' is unbearable.  Without meaning, life is pointless.
For others, including such vocal partisans as Richard Dawkins, science, which it is claimed alone offers the best answers to the meaning of life, tells us that there is no deeper meaning or significance to the universe, having "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" (River Out of Eden).
So, in our relentless search for 'meaning' for life, the universe and everything, where may such meaning and purpose be found?  McGrath answers, like CS Lewis's hidden door into Narnia, there is a new way of understanding, of living, of hoping:  faith.  Not an irrational blind leap into the dark, but a God-given and God-sustained vision which enables us to see what others cannot, to see what is really there.

"Faith is about seeing things what others have missed, and grasping their deeper significance (see Mark 8: 22-25; 10:46-45)...Faith does not contradict reason, but transcends it through a joyous deliverance from the cold and austere limits of human reason and logic.  We are surprised and delighted by a meaning of life that we couldn't figure out for ourselves.  But once we've seen it, everything else makes sense and fits into place. The framework of faith, once grasped, gives us a new way of seeing the world, and making sense of our place in the greater scheme of things... 

"[Re Psalm 23] The Christian tradition speaks of God as our companion and healer, one who makes sense of the puzzles and enigmas of life.  The world may seem like the shadowlands; yet God is our light, who illuminates our paths as we travel." (p.6-7)

A Prayer abut two very different Fridays

On the far side of 'the Pond', today is 'Black Friday', when, having been so demonstrably thankful for so much the day before, the American public realise there's so much more to be had, and so come out onto the streets in their droves and fill the shops looking for the bargains on offer.  We Brits and Irish are no less consumer or materialistically driven.  We used to have the 'January sales'.  But now, immediately after showering our nearest and dearest with gifts at Christmastime, and not being in the least grateful for what we have received, we too fight and scramble in High Street shops for more, looking for that  one 'thing' that will bring us lasting joy and satisfaction.  How easy we forget about  and fail to cherish God's gift to a lost and dying world, Jesus.

Pastor Scotty Smith has been thinking about this as well.  Here's his prayer for today ...

So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matt. 6:31-33

Lord Jesus, there’s more traffic than usual on the roads early this morning, but not as much as last year. Though it’s just a little after 4:00 am, Black Friday got a jump start this year with doors opening at midnight. People have already been pushing against doors, running up aisles, and grabbing for items for many hours now.
Jesus, I’m not sitting here in condescending judgment of anyone, for there’s no one, by nature, more greedy or grabby than me. I am just as inclined to “run after these things” as anyone else. I thank you that I get to live in a time and place of abundance. I praise you I’ve never had to be concerned about what I’ll eat, drink, or wear. And I’m grateful that many people will enjoy fine savings and get real bargains today.
But all the hubbub of Black Friday, simply makes me more grateful for another Friday—for Good Friday and what you accomplished that day for us on the cross.
At your expense, the riches of grace are freely lavished on ill-deserving people, like me. It’s only because of you, Jesus, that I know God as Abba, Father—who knows my every need; who answers before I ask; who gives me all things richly to enjoy; who satisfies my hunger and slakes my thirst, with the manna of the gospel and the living water of the Spirit; who has clothed my shameful nakedness with your perfect righteousness.
Anybody that knows you is wealthy beyond all imagination, measure and accounting. We praise you. We adore you. We worship you with humble and grateful hearts.
Two days after this Black Friday we will celebrate the first Sunday in Advent. As we reflect upon the promises of your coming and the wonder of your birth, teach us anew what it means to seek your kingdom first, above anything and everything else. What new chapters of your story of redemption and restoration would you write through us?
Even as your righteous has come to us by faith, how might it come through us to the broken places in our communities? Rather than spending more money on ourselves, how would you have us invest our time, talent, and treasure in serving others? We praise you for your transforming kingdom and we long for its consummate fullness. So very Amen we pray, with grateful hearts and great anticipation. 

'The Greatness and Miserableness of Man'

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921)

The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father's heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and the holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). But they do seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him.In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa. 29:8).

Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can he found only in God.

Herman Bavinck, 'Our Reasonable Faith', Baker Book House. 1956. Pages 22-23.
HT:  IIIM Ministries

Psalm 13: a psalm for the despondent

Yesterday's outline ...

The human heart: an infinite and terrifying abyss

I mentioned sometime on Sunday Pascal's famous dictum, that there was a God-shaped void or hole in every human heart.  Here's the full quotation, updated for modern minds...
"What else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This, he tries in vain, to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself."
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) Pensees 10.148

HT:  Glenn Chesnut

The Church: the bastion of rationality in a world of unreason?

I've been really enjoying Lesslie Newbigin's Foolishness to the Greeks.  It's not an easy read, but well worth the effort.  Here's Newbigin's clarion call to the church (now from over 25 years ago, but quite prophetic) to 'think' in order to missionally and effectively engage with a post-Enlightenment Western culture.
"When the ultimate explanation of things is found in the creating, sustaining, judging, and redeeming work of a personal God, then science can be the servant of humanity, not its master.  It is only this testimony that can save our culture from dissolving into the irrational fanaticism that is the child of total skepticism.  It will perhaps be the greatest task of the church in the twenty-first century to be the bastion of rationality in a world of unreason.  But for that, Christians will have to learn that conversion is a matter not only of the heart and will but also of the mind."

L.Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, (SPCK, 1986), p. 84  

Mr and Mrs Goudy - the next generation ...

HT:  Paul Grant