This certainly resonates. I do get the impression that some people think being reformed means to do what the world does, and then color it christian. I don't think that's what the reformation was about.
According to scripture, the sickness in creation, weeds, thorns, thistles, and presumably all other problems of nature, are indirectly caused by man's fall into sin. God created things good, but we messed up. We can be obedient to God, do our work, clean up, use our blessings wisely, and thus probably have a less harmful effect on the environment around us. But we look at the environment from human eyes... even weeds, plant diseases, or bad weather, or climate change is seen from the perspective of how it affects us. Can we determine whether protecting plants from disease is more caring than allowing fungi to attack the plants? Can we determine to what level it is okay for algae to grow in ponds to provide food for some organisms while denying oxygen to other organisms? Are humans and their food production part of the ecology, or antithetical to ecology?
Ultimately, God controls climate change, and whatever we do to influence it, should be done humbly, recognizing that our perspective is limited to our own perceived benefits.
I believe human beings do not have to apologize for their place in the global ecology. But human beings also should not leave a mess behind them.
As a side note, for those who believe in the evolutionary theory, they should not be too concerned about climate change, since change is what fuels evolution through adaptation, selection, survival of the fittest, etc.
Your seventh recommendation is to embrace both truth and love simultaneously... which is good. But to put it slightly different, without truth, there is no love. And for the christian, to tell the truth without love, is not christian.
Hebrews 5: 11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Heb 6 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death,[a] and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites,[b] the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
Very, very difficult to talk about someone without talking or thinking about what they have done. What they do is what identifies who they are. Without knowing what they have done or what they do, how well do you really know them? The difference between worshipping Jaweh and simply being a deist, is knowing what God has done, and what He promised to do, and knowing what he wants us to do. James says faith without works is dead. A person (or God) without his actions ... who is he?
As long as a small church depends exclusively on an imported pastor for its survival, it will lack imagination in desperate times. A pastor will not keep a church together, whose men cannot be spiritual leaders on their own (with God's help). Elders who are afraid to preach, or visit, or lead, or pastor, will lead to a pastor serving 2 or three or four churches, until they die one by one. Unless by some special grace, God imports a whole bunch of believers into that church from somewhere else.
You've raised some interesting questions, Bill. It is true that microbes die daily. It is also true that some trees are more than a thousand years old. The difference in age between microbes and turtles is also interesting, as is the question about the human lifespan changing when environment, sickness, nutrition change. Even in the garden of eden, food was given to eat, so in that sense plant material was converted even there. For our bodies to maintain themselves, cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Genetics inform and manage lifespans, and it is interesting also how people that lived to nine hundred years (in fallen creation) eventually gradually shortened to about 120 years after the flood.
While you say that a myth provides tribal unity and morality, the conundrum is that it only does that if people actually believe it. A false tale cannot do that. Myths can die. Unity can be fickle. Numerous myths make for an obvious disunity. False myths create a temporary unity at the expense of humanity. (think WWII). So that premise I don't agree with. Maybe that premise is the myth.
As for chemicals: not all artificial chemicals are dangerous, and not all natural chemicals are good. Many artificial chemicals are completely analogous to natural chemicals, but created using a different "unnatural" process, and available in different doses and quantities. Generalizations can be misleading in this case.
When we see tropical forest trees under the ice and on the beaches near the north pole, and when we see giant fossilized reed plants and dragonflies and mammoths, and camels in siberia and the arctic, we know that climates have not always been what they are today. That's true.
Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.
Posted in: The Front Door Field
Great points! For some of us, its too bad we were not encouraged nor taught how to do that from the time we were children. Never too late to start.
Posted in: Seduction by the 'Spirit of the Age'? Are Reformed People Immune?
This certainly resonates. I do get the impression that some people think being reformed means to do what the world does, and then color it christian. I don't think that's what the reformation was about.
Posted in: Sovereignty Matters
According to scripture, the sickness in creation, weeds, thorns, thistles, and presumably all other problems of nature, are indirectly caused by man's fall into sin. God created things good, but we messed up. We can be obedient to God, do our work, clean up, use our blessings wisely, and thus probably have a less harmful effect on the environment around us. But we look at the environment from human eyes... even weeds, plant diseases, or bad weather, or climate change is seen from the perspective of how it affects us. Can we determine whether protecting plants from disease is more caring than allowing fungi to attack the plants? Can we determine to what level it is okay for algae to grow in ponds to provide food for some organisms while denying oxygen to other organisms? Are humans and their food production part of the ecology, or antithetical to ecology?
Ultimately, God controls climate change, and whatever we do to influence it, should be done humbly, recognizing that our perspective is limited to our own perceived benefits.
I believe human beings do not have to apologize for their place in the global ecology. But human beings also should not leave a mess behind them.
As a side note, for those who believe in the evolutionary theory, they should not be too concerned about climate change, since change is what fuels evolution through adaptation, selection, survival of the fittest, etc.
Posted in: Jihad as Studied and Taught in USA Mosques
Your seventh recommendation is to embrace both truth and love simultaneously... which is good. But to put it slightly different, without truth, there is no love. And for the christian, to tell the truth without love, is not christian.
Posted in: Prophetic Preaching
Much preaching is pastoral, but not prophetic. It considers the feelings of people, but not the feeling of God.
Posted in: Gracious Residue
Hebrews 5: 11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Heb 6 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death,[a] and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites,[b] the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
Posted in: Grateful for What...or Whom?
Very, very difficult to talk about someone without talking or thinking about what they have done. What they do is what identifies who they are. Without knowing what they have done or what they do, how well do you really know them? The difference between worshipping Jaweh and simply being a deist, is knowing what God has done, and what He promised to do, and knowing what he wants us to do. James says faith without works is dead. A person (or God) without his actions ... who is he?
Posted in: Gracious Residue
You might not be able to cook all the meals, but certainly you should be able to serve them.
Should not sermons be delivering the recipes? And should not you then be able to share these recipes with others?
Posted in: Lessons from the Junk Yard
Good article!
Posted in: Classis and the Smaller Church
As long as a small church depends exclusively on an imported pastor for its survival, it will lack imagination in desperate times. A pastor will not keep a church together, whose men cannot be spiritual leaders on their own (with God's help). Elders who are afraid to preach, or visit, or lead, or pastor, will lead to a pastor serving 2 or three or four churches, until they die one by one. Unless by some special grace, God imports a whole bunch of believers into that church from somewhere else.
Posted in: Sovereignty Matters
You've raised some interesting questions, Bill. It is true that microbes die daily. It is also true that some trees are more than a thousand years old. The difference in age between microbes and turtles is also interesting, as is the question about the human lifespan changing when environment, sickness, nutrition change. Even in the garden of eden, food was given to eat, so in that sense plant material was converted even there. For our bodies to maintain themselves, cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Genetics inform and manage lifespans, and it is interesting also how people that lived to nine hundred years (in fallen creation) eventually gradually shortened to about 120 years after the flood.
While you say that a myth provides tribal unity and morality, the conundrum is that it only does that if people actually believe it. A false tale cannot do that. Myths can die. Unity can be fickle. Numerous myths make for an obvious disunity. False myths create a temporary unity at the expense of humanity. (think WWII). So that premise I don't agree with. Maybe that premise is the myth.
As for chemicals: not all artificial chemicals are dangerous, and not all natural chemicals are good. Many artificial chemicals are completely analogous to natural chemicals, but created using a different "unnatural" process, and available in different doses and quantities. Generalizations can be misleading in this case.
When we see tropical forest trees under the ice and on the beaches near the north pole, and when we see giant fossilized reed plants and dragonflies and mammoths, and camels in siberia and the arctic, we know that climates have not always been what they are today. That's true.
Posted in: Grateful for What...or Whom?
Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.