Geoff's Miscellany

 Commenting upon the phrase, "Praise the Lord, oh my Soul," Calvin observed:

Although his heart was truly and seriously in the work, he would not rest in this, until he had acquired still greater ardour. And if it was necessary for David to stir himself up to the praises of God, how powerful a stimulant must we require for a more difficult matter when we aim at the divine life with self-denial. As to the religious exercise here mentioned, let us feel that we will never be sufficiently active in it, unless we strenuously exact it from ourselves. As God supports and maintains his people in the world with this view, that they may employ their whole life in praising him, David very properly declares, that he will do this to the end of his course.
John Calvin and James Anderson, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 5 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 285.

I really do believe that the best opportunity any human being has is this:

28 Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι, κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς. 29 ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς καὶ μάθετε ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι πραΰς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν· 30 ὁ γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς καὶ τὸ φορτίον μου ἐλαφρόν ἐστιν.

Come to me all who are weary and weighed down and I will grant it that you should rest. Take my yoke upon yourselves and learn from me , because I am meek and humble hearted, then you will find rest in your souls. For my yoke is good and my burden is bearable. (Matthew 11:28-30)

The Four D's of the Christian Life:

1. Get your finances in order in three easy steps.
2. Have an extra sexy super duper sex life in three easy steps (with Bible verses).
3. Go to small group Bible study every week.

If you do these four things (Just remember: the four Ds!) you'll be a mega member of a mega church mega family.

Schreiner's criticism involves a claim to speak authoritatively for Paul and God, and thus for historical truth. Following such a remarkable methodological claim, one might expect his dismissal to be closely based on what Paul wrote—but it is not. To put this bluntly: Paul may well have been inspired to speak for God (which is not historically verifiable), but unless Schreiner claims the same inspiration for himself, he should accept that he is, like everyone else, limited to engaging in the interpretation of Paul's texts. Consider briefly each of the details of his summary description. - Four Views of Paul the Apostle, 58

Bruce Charlton is one of the brightest bloggers I've ever come across. He's also brilliant off the internet. He posts interesting, though not always totally convincing essays on a variety of topics: evolution, Mormonism, Christian spirituality, etc. He recently posted about exercise and fitness. This is important for him, I wager, due to his interest in evolution and civilization.

He ends his posting, characterizing people who lift weights thus:

Nowadays, the local equivalent are the vastly bulky androgen-using power-weight-trainers, maybe working as 'bouncers' (door security) - who are fit for lifting weights, and strong at lifting weights (and presumably also at shoving and hitting people).

Or perhaps they are sportsmen - who are fit for their sport - strong at whatever the sport requires.

The issues related to Calvinism, libertarian free will, open theism, and other such concepts have long since become less interesting to me as controversies. The concepts of human responsibility, God's grace, God's foreknowledge, etc are still important as matters of logic and divine revelation. My problem with the topics as issues is more an emotional or temperamental issue. Nevertheless, I made an observation several years ago that I've always kept in the back of my mind. I'm sharing it because of a strange association of several ideas that is not logically necessary:

A classmate of mine this summer turned out not only to be a brother in Christ, but also a Thomist. We had a very edifying discussion a few weeks ago about the transcendentals. He said that at one level truth, goodness, and beauty as such are the same thing and really at the ultimate level, because of God's simplicity, they are God just like being, as such, is God. But at the level of created reality and things that change, he noted, truth, goodness, and beauty are ways of talking about order.

Tonight I had an interesting discussion about horror movies...though I rather did most of the talking.

The thing about horror movies is that I've always liked the genre because the stakes are high and often the plot devices (magic, technology, absurd levels of psychopathy, etc) are too over the top to be truly capable of influencing the way you think about reality. Thus, a horror film or book is one of the few pieces of entertainment that allows me to experience feelings I don't often have. It's not that I'm not easily frightened, it's that I live within civilization and I've rarely been afraid. Truthfully, any adventures I've have in the wilderness or with the unpleasantries of crime and violence have all happened so suddenly that any type of fear came later.

Another popular myth in evangelicalism is the idea that Jesus died to obviate our need for righteousness. This is a dangerous half truth. It is perpetuated in silly bumper stickers, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” popular sermons (I teach at a Christian school and students bring this one up a lot…it’s coming form somewhere), and even in a Derek Webb song where he sings:

I am thankful that I'm incapable Of doing any good on my own I'm so thankful that I'm incapable Of doing any good on my own

Now, it could be the case that brother Derek it thankful that he knows that he is incapable. But it seems rather that he’s thankful that the results of the fall are so comprehensively deleterious. Anyhow, back to the myth: false, untrue, silly, not thought out, out of sync with scripture, tradition, and sound reason:

How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory.

("How Deep the Father's Love for Us" by Stuart Townend, I think.)

This concept appears in a great deal of sermons on the atonement and it seems to revolve around this logic:

1. God cannot look at sin. (Hab 1:13)
2. He who knew no sin (Jesus), became sin... (2 Corinthians 5:21)
3. Therefore God could not look at Jesus on the cross. (Q.E.D.)

The other source for the view comes from Jesus' cry on the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).