Complements of John Piper

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Three Songs of Moses

I’m not sure I can easily picture the Moses of this 1861 Ivan Kramskoy painting “Prayer of Moses” breaking into song.

Can you?

Some Bibles, including my ESV, give Exodus 15 the title “Song of Moses”. Technically this is true, because we read that Moses and the people of Israel sang the words that follow to Jehovah after the crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians. We don’t actually read that Moses was the one who wrote it, though most scholars assume it and it seems likely.

But there are three “songs” in scripture attributed to Moses, and he may well have written more.

Orderly Meditation

Have you ever thought about why the books of our New Testament are ordered the way they are?

They’re not alphabetical, like a reference work. We can see that right away.

They’re definitely not completely chronological, like most novels or histories. Read the NT through a few times and that will certainly become evident. There is some evidence of chronology, certainly, in the sense that the four gospels come first, but Acts is a history that spans a period of decades during which most of Paul’s epistles were written. If we were able to determine precisely when each epistle was written, we might try to slot them in between chapters of Acts, but that would make for an awkward read.

Some have argued that the order is providential (in fact, in 1864, Thomas D. Bernard did that precisely), but good luck trying to make that case. You’d pretty much have to take that on faith.

Too Hot to Handle: What Is Progress?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Donald Trump’s popularity is hugely alarming to the political left, whose agenda is often called “progressive”.

In the last couple of years Democrats have had much of their policy wish list implemented by presidential fiat to almost no resistance from the largest Republican majority in Congress since the late 1920s. Crickets.

All this social “progress” is rendered precarious by the specter of a Trump presidency. Trump has tweeted things like, “If elected, I will undo all of Obama’s executive orders”, posing an existential threat to the dream of the “just society” that lies at the heart of progressivism. Thus Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post can argue that Trump is a throwback; that he appeals to what Lozada calls the “stone-age brain”.

The Greatest Enemy

What is the greatest enemy of mankind?

Basil says it’s got to be corporations: “They have enormous power, and their priorities and objectives are seriously at odds with the greatest good / greatest number goal.”

Videsh says it’s greed: “So many wars were fought ’cos of greed.”

Mikael says disease, because it “destroys morale”, “does not discriminate” and “will never be stopped”.

Not a bad selection so far.

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 4]

Jehovah’s Witnesses say the Bible is inspired and accurate but don’t accept its testimony about the deity of Jesus Christ.

That combination doesn’t work. It’s intellectually vacuous and spiritually dangerous.

The extent to which scripture parallels Jesus with Jehovah is a subject worth considering for all believers, whether or not you regularly encounter JWs in your travels. John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Vashti as Role Model

I deal with legalese every day.

Our company has lawyers for clients, often dozens at a time. We also have templates that enable us to produce a lot of legal documentation very quickly. Sometimes the language in these templates differs from the instructions provided by our clients.

To deal with these apparent conflicts in authorial intent, the company has established a very basic principle of interpretation, and it is this: when the lawyers contradict the template, the lawyers always win. Why? Because instructions directed specifically to the current situation always trump instructions of a more general nature, which have often been written with other documents, other readers and different legal situations in view.

There is a similar principle at work in the interpretation of scripture.

One Bad Argument Deserves Another

Sometimes better to add nothing ...

The creation/evolution debate goes on, but maybe a little less publicly than before.

In my lifetime, evolution has become the preferred ideology for those seeking election to public office and the only broadly acceptable “scientific” explanation of origins. Even an increasing number of evangelicals are buying in.

As Neil Carter puts it, “Scientists are no longer debating the topic of common ancestry nor the age of the earth. That ship sailed a long time ago”.

Which is too bad, really. Truth does not cease to be truth because people have stopped discussing it and, for the most part, abandoned the search for it.

Earthly and Heavenly

Asked what three things they would take to heaven if they could, respondents demonstrate impoverished imaginations:

“My crucifix, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album and a photo of my best friend who died last year”

“My PS3, cell phone, picture of my family”

“My iTouch, my electric guitar and my copy of Pilgrim’s Progress printed in the 1800s”

The most common choices are computers and game systems. A few pets work their way in as apparent afterthoughts.

None Of This Needs To Be Permanent

A lot of people have spent an inordinate amount of time doing some really neat calculations with the ages of the ancients given to us in Genesis 11 and elsewhere. These numbers have been used to estimate the age of the earth, to speculate about the synchronization of human history to a 50 year Jubilee cycle, and so on.

Despite the fact that we don’t know anyone in our day who has lived to 600 (or especially to 969, like Methuselah), I take these rather strange accounts quite literally. If you don’t, and you can find another logically consistent explanation for the existence of such a careful and apparently historical record, good for you: I’m not looking for a debate about it.

I find it interesting to read and meditate on such things, though I don’t go to the lengths some do in analyzing them.

Too Hot to Handle: Where Do You Get Your News?

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Quote of the Day (16)

This entire G.K. Chesterton essay is worthy of consideration, but my favourite bit is this splendid, gleeful demolition of the anti-Christian argument from Incarnation mythology:

“Mr. Blatchford and his school point out that there are many myths parallel to the Christian story; that there were Pagan Christs, and Red Indian Incarnations, and Patagonian Crucifixions, for all I know or care. But does not Mr. Blatchford see the other side of this fact? If the Christian God really made the human race, would not the human race tend to rumours and perversions of the Christian God? If the center of our life is a certain fact, would not people far from the center have a muddled version of that fact? If we are so made that a Son of God must deliver us, is it odd that Patagonians should dream of a Son of God?”

Chesterton goes on to break that down further ...

Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 3]

Jehovah’s Witnesses profess to believe the Bible is the inspired and accurate word of God but reject its consistent testimony to the deity of Christ.

That combination doesn’t work. It’s intellectually vacuous and spiritually dangerous.

You may not regularly engage with JWs, but the extent to which scripture parallels Jesus with Jehovah (or YHWH, or in most Bibles, “the Lord”) is still a subject very much worthy of consideration. John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.

Why Not Now?

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Quote of the Day (15)

Sometimes you get the neatest quotes from the fertile minds of the writers of crime fiction:

“It’s pretty arrogant, calling all other gods, apart from the one you’ve come up with, idols. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator’s command to his subjects, of course. The funny thing was that Christians couldn’t see it themselves, they didn’t see the mechanism, the regenerative, self-fulfilling, self-aggrandising aspect which meant that a superstition like this could survive for two thousand years, and in which the key — salvation — was restricted to those who were fortunate enough to have been born in a space of time which was a merest blink in the eye of human history, and who also happened to live on the only little bit of the planet that ever got to hear the commandment and were able to formulate an opinion about the concise sales pitch (‘paradise?’).”

— Jo Nesbo, Midnight Sun

Nesbo’s character is wrong about two huge truths here, and both are worth thinking about.

Always Misunderstood

ViralCraze’s “10 Bible Verses That Are Always Misunderstood” explains the parable of the Good Samaritan ... by not really explaining it:

“Jesus asked the question, ‘Who is your neighbor?’ The simple answer is the one who you choose to show mercy to.”

This is the generally accepted response, and it’s not entirely wrong. Still, a careful reading of the passage shows it is not quite what the Lord Jesus said.

In fact, the parable is not about identifying our neighbor at all.

Horrific Hymnology

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Too Hot to Handle: Objectively Bad

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More Where That Comes From

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Witnessing to Witnesses [Part 2]

Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the deity of Christ but profess to believe the Bible is the inspired and accurate word of God.

With respect to salvation such theology puts its adherents in danger of eternal separation from God. With respect to the understanding of scripture the position is simply nonsensical, failing to account for and deal with dozens of different ways in which the writers of holy writ specifically equate Jesus with the “Jehovah” the Witnesses claim to worship and call “Father”.

John wrote that the Father has given all judgment to the Son in order that “all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father”.

That’s the aim of this series.