Desultory Spiritual Noises

I wrote recently about the subject of Christian confession in connection with Peter Ditzel’s comments on 1 John 1. Confession is how believers deal with disruptions in our fellowship with God that come from our tendency to sin.

Repentance is another part of that process.

Ideally the two go together, but they are not identical. As Ditzel demonstrates, like repentance, confession has both an attitudinal and an active aspect. Both involve changes of heart and life. But while genuine repentance gives rise to confession (where confession is appropriate), not every confession demonstrates real repentance, as we will shortly observe.

Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t just tell us what these things are, it also shows us what they aren’t.

Too Hot to Handle: Snakes, Mistakes and Better Takes

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

According to Infogalactic, the late George Went Hensley, a mover and shaker in the Holiness movement, argued that believers who truly have the Holy Spirit within them should be able to handle rattlesnakes and any number of other venomous serpents. David Kimbrough writes that Hensley even insisted his congregation in rural Tennessee prove their salvation by holding a snake.

He also died after one of his snakes bit him during a revival meeting in Florida one afternoon in July 1955. His death was understandably ruled a suicide since he picked up the snake voluntarily and refused treatment after the bite.

Tom: I suppose one could attribute that to a temporary failure of faith. What do you think, IC?

Quote of the Day (33)

The English Language & Usage website is a useful tool for readers who come across words and phrases they don’t understand and can’t find an answer elsewhere. Other users generally supply the answers they are seeking.

Here’s one rather curious recent inquiry:

“So, what does it mean to come to the end of yourself? Is it related to getting to the point where you are powerless? Or maybe to the fact that you are sick of yourself? Am I even close?”

Now, if you’ve ever circulated among Christians at all, you’ve almost surely encountered the expression, but it’s my sneaking suspicion you won’t come across it elsewhere and that if you do, it’s probably crept in quietly to secular thinking from Christian theology.

Almost But Not Quite Circular

Claims are not proof. But nobody looks for proof unless some kind of claim has first been made.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Andy Stanley’s assertion that the Genesis account of Adam and Eve is history, not just spiritually valuable mythology. For Andy, it is how Jesus spoke about Adam and Eve that is definitive.

I agree with him on at least two things: first, that Genesis is historical, and second, that the words of Christ are of vital importance to the believer. They are there to be pored over, memorized, analyzed with all the faculties God has given us, meditated upon and lived out wherever they apply to our lives.

Good so far. And then, me being me, I have to lob a monkey wrench into the machinery.

Letters from the Best Man (3)

The following is absolutely fictional and increasingly common. There is no Brad and definitely no Jill, in case that is not obvious. There are, however, way too many people in their position.

Dear Brad,

Your question about participating in the Lord’s Supper during your separation from Jill is a good one, especially as the weeks pass and your wife shows no signs of coming home or even of being willing to talk things through with you.

Still, perhaps the answer is not quite as complicated as you are making it.

Divorce: What We Don’t Know

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Better Word

“Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”

Washed in the blood. I’ll be frank: that’s kind of a grisly image, though a very popular one in late 19th and 20th century hymnology. If some of our modern churchgoers cringe at the mental picture it conjures, we can hardly blame them.

Elisha Hoffman’s lyric presumably riffs on Revelation 7, where John sees an innumerable multitude of worshipers in front of the throne of God and is told, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

In Revelation it is the robes that are washed in the blood, not the worshipers themselves. Hoffman probably understood this, though his title is a bit too ambiguous for me.

What we do find much more often in scripture is sprinkled blood.

Nice Getting to Know You ...

Embarrassing story of father-failure. Brace yourselves.

My youngest son was fired not too long ago. Well, “fired” is a harsh word for something that was actually done with unusual politeness. The Asian manager of the donut store where he’d been working for three weeks let him know at the end of his shift that, “Uh, it was really nice getting to know you, but you don’t need to come back next week.”

Hmm. Okay then.

Too Hot to Handle: Religious Freedom, Limited

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Letters from the Best Man (2)

The following is absolutely fictional and increasingly common. There is no Brad and definitely no Jill, in case that is not obvious. There are, however, way too many people in their position.

Dear Brad,

Glad to hear that Sunday did not go as badly as you thought it might. I’ve been praying and will continue to do so.

As I mentioned in my previous email, the elders accepting your resignation from teaching Sunday School is normal. Don’t take it personally. They haven’t heard Jill’s side of the story yet, and they never will if she doesn’t come back to church. Suppose they had refused to accept your resignation out of some kind of misplaced loyalty, then later discovered that Jill really left you because you had an affair at work or something insane like that? I know you didn’t, but these things do happen in the real world. They are being responsible to the Chief Shepherd and doing their jobs. The truth will come out in due course, trust me.

Meanwhile, you’ve done the right thing and the Lord is honored in it.

The Flitting Sparrow

Just more hot air ...

Most curses are just bunches of empty words. After all, a curse can’t do any real damage without the cooperation of the divine Third Party whose power they attempt to invoke.

In any case, we’re not big on curses in our modern world. Oh, I don’t mean profanity: as a culture we’re pretty much over the top with that, as anyone with Netflix will easily confirm. But the real deal — the Old Testament “God is gonna getcha” kind of curse — is rare. And that’s a good thing, I think.

All the same, some curses are very powerful indeed. One or two are even of historic import.

You Don’t Want To Be ‘That Guy’

I wonder what it was like for the Jews who sang David’s psalms.

I suspect a bunch of them were kind of like we tend to be. You know how you can sing a hymn 100 times and on the 101st time it suddenly dawns on you what the writer was trying to communicate.

The same words were all there before; they all meant the same thing they mean when you figure them out, but somehow you sang them over and over again from childhood without really processing them. Maybe you were reading the music and trying to figure out if you should go for that high note or drop down an octave for safety’s sake; or a kid down the pew was fidgeting and kept dropping crumbs from the cookie you wish her grandma hadn’t given her; or you were somewhere else entirely in your own head, possibly contemplating missing the NFL pre-game show.

Whatever the distraction may have been, you sang those words but didn’t register them. You missed the point.

I’ve certainly done it enough.

Letters from the Best Man (1)

The following is absolutely fictional and increasingly common. There is no Brad and definitely no Jill, in case that is not obvious. There are, however, way too many people in their position.

Dear Brad,

I am so deeply, deeply sorry to hear that you and Jill have separated. Standing up for you was a privilege and an honor. It’s been … what, almost a decade? But I still vividly recall that crazy, way-too-lengthy conversation we had in the Four Seasons lounge after the wedding rehearsal when everybody else had gone to bed, and I haven’t the slightest doubt that when you took those vows before God and everyone you love, you meant them with all your heart.

Two Glories

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Recommend-a-blog (23)

What political theology are you?

I’m a ‘Radical Anabaptist’, or at least so says Mere Orthodoxy’s political theology quiz.

Not sure quite what to think about that. I guess I’m glad to be a radical something. These days I think I’d be more insulted to be called a moderate. And while I dislike the implicit nod to infant baptism in the “Anabaptist” label, I am indeed a firm believer in baptizing believers only, as readers of my baptism series (left sidebar) will confirm, and glad to take a stand on that.

It seems a funny point of theology to fixate on, but I’ll take it ... I guess.

Too Hot to Handle: Unhinged Racism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Christian Confession: An Elaborate Fabrication?

Is it really necessary for Christians to confess our sins in order to be forgiven them?

Peter Ditzel says no, that being forgiven for the sins we commit from time to time as believers does not depend on regular confession. That, he says, would be working for our forgiveness.

He is also not a fan of John MacArthur’s take on 1 John 1, which draws a distinction between judicial and parental forgiveness that Ditzel thinks is an “elaborate fabrication”. He sees the ongoing search for MacArthur’s “parental forgiveness” as a Protestant form of penance.

The judicial/parental distinction probably did not originate with MacArthur. I’ve been hearing it my whole life. It is a very common explanation of what the apostle John has to say about forgiveness.

But is it correct?

Tom 1, John the Baptist 0

Jim Plunkett when he was
not winning Superbowls

Congratulate me, gentle reader. I have officially beaten John the Baptist.

Oh, he put up a good fight. Taking on the Jewish religious establishment was brave. Living on a diet of locusts and wild honey was certainly evidence of great devotion to his job, not to mention that he spent way, way less than I do on his wardrobe. Excellent stewardship there. And that whole martyrdom thing, well ... it’s a pretty special honor to die for what you believe. I’m not sure I’m up to that at all.

But I won anyway. How do you like them apples!

Going Out With A Bang

Things are changing at the office.

Sixty-five is no longer mandatory retirement age in Canada, so a few of the men I learned from are still on the job, though they have definitely slowed down. Most are gone despite the change in law. Some even took packages and opted out early. Others who thought they’d work past sixty-five found they were running out of gas and changed their minds. Still others had unexpected health crises or family drama.

Hey, there are no guarantees for any of us, right?

By What Authority?

Busted for blogging with insufficient authority

I love error. Error is a beautiful thing.

Don’t panic. Let me get going here and you’ll soon see what I mean. And in case it doesn’t become howlingly obvious, I promise I’ll clear it up at the end.

Ready? Here we go. So … Tish Harrison Warren is an author and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She currently serves as co-associate rector at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m going to quote her a bit here, so I mention this not at all in an attempt to disqualify what she says, but so that you can better enjoy the many, many helpings of mouth-wateringly delicious irony she dishes up.

You see Ms. Warren fears the Christian blogosphere is off its leash. She thinks its various Christian and heretical voices are operating without spiritual authority and ought to be reined in.

Wow. Just … wow. Pot, meet kettle.