18. Chosen by God

Chosen by God. R.C. Sproul. 1986. 192 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: Baseball. Hot dogs. Apple pie. Chevrolet. These are all things American. To complete the mix we must add the great American motto: "We will not discuss religion or politics." Mottoes are made to be broken. Perhaps no American rule is broken more frequently than the one about not discussing religion or politics. We embark on such discussions repeatedly. And when the topic turns to religion it often gravitates to the issue of predestination. Sadly, that often means the end of discussion and the beginning of argument, yielding more heat than light. Arguing about predestination is virtually irresistible. 

I've read and reread this one so many times. It was such a pivotal book in my life.  It was full of "aha" moments, light bulb moments. 

The book is divided into nine chapters: "The Struggle," "Predestination and the Sovereignty of God," "Predestination and Free Will," "Adam's Fall and Mine," "Spiritual Death and Spiritual Life: Rebirth and Faith," "Foreknowledge and Predestination," "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble: Is Predestination Double?", "Can We Know That We Are Saved?" and "Questions and Objections Concerning Predestination."

Is the book reader friendly? Yes and no. The theological subject is complex. Being complex doesn't make it more biblical OR less biblical. Because it can sound so absolutely foreign to our natural nature, our natural mind, to everything that we think we know, it can be tough to grasp. R.C. Sproul makes a point that this is the kind of knowledge that you almost fight against accepting. Depending on your background, depending on your church experience, depending on your theological leanings, of course. I absolutely love R.C. Sproul's approach to this:

Why do we speak of it? Because we enjoy unpleasantness? Not at all. We discuss it because we cannot avoid it. It is a doctrine plainly set forth in the Bible. We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into the concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it... (10)

If we are to be biblical, then, the issue is not whether we should have a doctrine of predestination or not, but what kind we should embrace. If the Bible is the Word of God, not mere human speculation, and if God himself declares that there is such a thing as predestination, then it follows irresistibly that we must embrace some doctrine of predestination. If we are to follow this line of thinking, then, of course, we must go one step further. It is not enough to have just any view of predestination. It is our duty to seek the correct view of predestination, lest we be guilty of distorting or ignoring the Word of God. (11)

I wrote a note to myself that I kept on my desk in a place where I could always see it: YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BELIEVE, TO PREACH, AND TO TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS TRUE, NOT WHAT YOU WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY IS TRUE. (12)

They say there is nothing more obnoxious than a converted drunk. Try a converted Arminian. Converted Arminians tend to become flaming Calvinists, zealots for the cause of predestination. You are reading the work of such a convert. (13)

To a Calvinist, to someone of the "Reformed" faith, the book is easier going. Once you connect the dots, once you have grasped the doctrines of grace, then it is hard to see what kept you blind to these "obvious" biblical truths. 

Chosen by God is a book to read or perhaps reread slowly and thoughtfully. It is not necessarily a book to be rushed. It's a book to read side by side with the Bible, a book to be studied and pondered.

Favorite quotes:

The freedom of the sovereign is always greater than the freedom of his subjects. (24)

The very essence of grace is that it is undeserved. God always reserves the right to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. God may owe people justice, but never mercy. (33)

Let us assume that all men are guilty of sin in the sight of God. From that mass of guilty humanity, God sovereignly decides to give mercy to some of them. What do the rest get? They get justice. The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. Nobody gets injustice. Mercy is not justice. But neither is it injustice. (37)

God is free. I am free. God is more free than I am. If my freedom runs up against God's freedom, I lose. His freedom restricts mine; my freedom does not restrict his. (43)

To have free will is to be able to choose according to our desires. Here desire plays the vital role of providing a motivation or a reason for making a choice... According to Edwards a human being is not only free to choose what he desires but he must choose what he desires to be able to choose at all. (54) 

Our choices are determined by our desires. They remain our choices because they are motivated by our own desires. (54)

The will is a natural ability given to us by God. We have all the natural faculties necessary to make choices. We have a mind and we have a will. We have the natural ability to choose what we desire. What, then, is our problem? According to the Bible the location of our problem is clear. It is with the nature of our desires. This is the focal point of our fallenness. Scripture declares that the heart of fallen man continually harbors desires that are only wicked... Before a person can make a choice which is pleasing to God, he must first have a desire to please God. Before we can find God, we must first desire to seek him. Before we can choose the good, we must first have a desire for the good. Before we can choose Christ, we must first have a desire for Christ. The sum and and substance of the whole debate on predestination rests squarely on this point: Does fallen man, in and of himself, have a natural desire for Christ? (60-1)

Edwards insists that, in the Fall, man lost his original desire for God. When he lost that desire, something happened to his freedom. He lost the moral ability to choose Christ. In order to choose Christ, the sinner must first have a desire to choose Christ. Either he has that desire already within him or he must receive that desire from God. (61)

Original sin refers to the result of the sin of Adam and Eve. (63)

Before the Fall Adam was endowed with two possibilities: He had the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. After the Fall Adam had the ability to sin and the inability not to sin. The idea of "inability to not" is a bit confusing to us because in English it's a double negative. Augustine's Latin formula was non posse non peccare. Stated another way, it means that after the Fall man was morally incapable of living without sin. The ability to live without sin was lost in the Fall. This moral inability is the essence of what we call original sin. (65)

No human being can possibly come to Christ unless something happens that makes it possible for him to come. That necessary condition that Jesus declares is that "it has been granted to him by the Father." Jesus is saying here that the ability to come to him is a gift from God. Man does not have the ability in and of himself to come to Christ. God must do something first. (68) (John 6:65)

A cardinal point of Reformed theology is the maxim: "Regeneration precedes faith." Our nature is so corrupt the power of sin is so great, that unless God does a supernatural work in our souls we will never choose Christ. We do not believe in order to be born again; we are born again in order that we may believe. (72-3)

We see people searching desperately for peace of mind, relief from guilt, meaning and purpose to their lives, and loving acceptance. We know that ultimately these things can only be found in God. Therefore we conclude that since people are seeking these things they must be seeking after God. People do not seek God. They seek after the benefits that only God can give them. (110)

Seeking is the business of believers... The Christian life begins at conversion; it does not end where it begins. It grows; it moves from faith to faith, from grace to grace, from life to life. The movement of growth is prodded by a continual seeking after God. (111)

When God regenerates a human soul, when he makes us spiritually alive, we make choices. We believe. We have faith. We cling to Christ. God does not believe for us. (118)

Jesus is irresistible to those who have been made alive to the things of God. Every soul whose heart beats with the life of God within it longs for the living Christ. (123)

I learned one thing clearly in my experience in evangelism: The message of justification by faith alone has not penetrated our culture. Multitudes of people are resting their hopes for heaven on their own good works. They are quite willing to admit they are not perfect, but they assume they are good enough. They have done "their best" and that, they tragically assume, is good enough for God. (165)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

17. R.C. Sproul: A Life

R.C. Sproul: A Life by Stephen J. Nichols. 2021. [March] 371 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence from the prologue: R. C. Sproul paced and roared when he preached. But by the end of his life he needed to sit on a stool. He relied on his portable oxygen, which went with him everywhere. He struggled with the effects of COPD. He had long ago sacrificed his knees to the athletic field. The years, but especially the miles, had caught up with him. When he stepped into the pulpit, the athlete that he was burst forth. With passion his game face was on. The stool swiveled. He would clutch the edges of the pulpit, pull himself forward, and lean toward his congregation. He somehow managed still to pace while he preached.

Stephen J. Nichols has written a biography of R.C. Sproul, the founder of Ligonier Ministries. The book is without question a biography of a man (son, student, friend, husband, father, grandfather). But it is also an examination of Sproul as a theologian: preacher, teacher, author, mentor. Nichols examines Sproul's life through the lens of legacy, and perhaps letting his legacy speak for itself. 

The book is framed with his final two sermons taken from Hebrews 1 and 2. The prologue places readers there in his last moments as a preacher in a pulpit, and one of the appendices is the text of his two final sermons. (There are plenty of appendices!)

The book will be of the most interest to those who are already familiar with R.C. Sproul--either through his radio broadcasts, monthly magazine Tabletalk, teaching series, preaching conferences, books, or his massive STUDY BIBLE, the Reformation Study Bible. Perhaps you're just a little familiar with his life and work, then this would be a real treat of an introduction. 

I think it affirms what some already believe: that his work will continue to help, to minister, to challenge, to comfort, to guide for generations to come. Sproul can continue to be used by the Spirit to help bring souls to Christ and to help disciple new believers. His work lives on.

I loved every minute of this one! I did. I found it an enjoyable, compelling read. I loved learning more about Sproul. If you listen to enough Sproul sermons, you get a sense of his life story--his background, his childhood, his conversion, his romance and marriage, etc. But this book puts it all together as a whole and it's lovely to see it that way. Some facts felt like old friends; others were new-to-me. (Did you know he was converted by Ecclesiastes 11:3?)

There is a timeline of his life which includes his meeting the absolute love of his life when he was in first grade. (She was in second.) Also included lists of his BOOKS, teaching series, conference sermons, etc. 

Quotes:

R. C. said he thinks he might be the only man in America who outsold a Fuller Brush man on a house call. 

He would keep a card on his desk that read, “You are responsible to preach and to teach what the Bible says, not what you want it to say.” 

Precision and clarity, not ambiguity, serve the church best in remaining faithful to its biblical, historic, and confessional roots. 

Reading was a bloodsport for R. C. And that was all the more true when it came to reading the pages of Holy Writ. He was not casual in his reading or studying of the Bible. 

R. C. stressed that reading the Bible is one thing, studying the Bible is another thing, and obeying the Bible is another thing altogether. The argument followed a logical chain: (1) We submit to every word of the Bible (obedience), which requires (2) every word of the Bible to be studied, preached, and taught (the whole counsel of God), because (3) every word of the Bible is true (inerrancy), because (4) every word of the Bible is from God (inspiration), because (5) God is truth (doctrine of God). 

R. C. loved that Mike Horton used the analogy of chocolate chip cookies to explain the importance of imputation. Horton said if you have all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies but leave out the chocolate chips, then you don’t have chocolate chip cookies. Imputation is to the doctrine of salvation what chocolate chips are to chocolate chip cookies. 

This prompted R. C. to see that a study Bible would be a strategic tool to propagate the Reformed faith, “to help influence people in their basic education.” While the Scofield Reference Bible was the motivation. It was not the model. 

Not only was R. C. Calvinist and Reformed, not only did he talk about Aristotle and Aquinas, not only did he use a lot of Latin, but he also used real chalk on a real chalkboard. He even developed a sort of Zoro-like signature move. He would emphatically dot i’s and cross t’s. And he emphatically ended a sentence with a period. And there were times, like a perfect storm, when he had an “i” to dot, a ‘t” to cross, and a period to drill into the board. You could hear the dot, slash, DOT. Zoro with a piece of chalk leaving his telltale mark. To help him, there was a live audience of about thirty people in the recording studio. There was also a lectern with some notes that he never looked at. And there was the aforementioned chalkboard. R.  C. was spending a lot of time in this studio.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: A Taste of Heaven

Taste of Heaven: Worship in Light of Eternity. R.C. Sproul. 2006. 173 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence from the preface: We observe the flight of birds with a sense of awe.

First sentence from chapter one: It was one of those lovely autumn Saturday afternoons when people’s thoughts turn to football, golf, or raking leaves. But I was doing something else entirely: reading again the Discourse on Method and Meditations of Rene Descartes.
In A Taste of Heaven, R.C. Sproul examines how the Bible answers the question: how should we worship God. He argues that the Bible is not silent on the matter. There are two approaches to answering this question. One approach is to strictly worship according to what the Bible explicitly says. The second approach is to ask the question: does the Bible forbid it? does the Bible speak against this? warn about this? If the Bible does not forbid it or discourage it, then it is okay. Sproul does not come down completely in favor of one approach or the other.

The book discusses topics relevant to believers: baptism, communion, prayer, praise, fellowship, etc.


Quotes from chapter one:

• The question we need to ask is this, “If God Himself were to design worship, what would it look like?” (15)
• We behave as if nothing God said on the subject of worship in the Old Testament applies today. If we are to come back to the foundation, if we are to please God in our worship, doesn’t it make sense to ask whether there has ever been a time when the unchanging God Himself revealed the kind of worship that was pleasing to Him? I believe that the answer is yes, and I believe that there was such a time. (18)
• I believe we can discern principles in the patterns of worship that God revealed from heaven to His people in the Old Testament, and that those principles can and should inform the patterns our worship follows. (19)
• There is no doubt that God wants HIs worship to have form, so the question is not whether we will have a liturgy or not. The issue is whether the liturgy is biblical in its content, and ultimately, whether we are using the liturgy to worship in spirit and in truth. No matter what the liturgy is, whether it’s a plain liturgy, a simple liturgy, or a complex, highly symbolic liturgy, it can be formalized and externalized so that it is corrupted to the point that God despises it. As we seek out the forms of worship that please God, we must be vigilant lest we fall into formalism or externalism. (22)

Quotes from chapter two:

• The all-encompassing criterion for acceptable sacrifice before God in the Old Testament was the posture and the attitude of the person making the sacrifice (28)
• The promise of our redemption was first announced to Adam and Eve after they sinned and violated their moral relationship with God. God gave them the protoevangelism, the original announcement of the gospel: The Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, and in the process He would be wounded in his Heel. (Genesis 3:15). If that verse was the only reference to redemption in the Bible, no one could penetrate its meaning because it is so cryptic. Having the benefit of the unveiling of God's plan of redemption through the ages and through the Scriptures, we know exactly to what God was referring in Genesis 3:15. In that promise, the gospel was given to Adam and Eve, the gospel of forgiveness, restoration, and fellowship with God. It was the gospel that proclaims the crushing of the evil one who disrupts and mars the beauty and holiness of God's creation. God promised that the evil one would be destroyed by the sacrifice of the Seed of the woman, Who would be wounded by the process of His conquest. This promise of the sacrifice of the Seed of the woman was central to Abel's worship. The irony is that this first gospel was given in the context of the cursing of the serpent after the fall. (30-1)
• My speculation is this: I cannot imagine that our first parents did not explain to their sons the hope that sustained them. That hope was the most important promise that Adam and Eve had received, the promise that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent at the cost of the wounding of His heel. How many hours do you suppose Adam and Eve sat with their children, preaching the gospel to them and teaching them the elements of appropriate worship? (32)
• However, it was not enough for Cain and Abel to merely hear Adam and Eve speak of the promise. The issue was whether they would trust the promise. (32)
• Unlike Cain, Abel was humble in his worship, which is the only possible posture for a fallen human being to have in the context of worship. Arrogant worship is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. (35)
• The single most important thing to understand about worship is that the only worship that is acceptable to God is worship that proceeds from a heart that is trusting in God and in God alone. (38)

Quotes from chapter three:

• The sacrifices that were made in the Old Testament were to be sacrifices of praise, and praise is an attempt to express honor. The central element of worship in the Bible involved honoring God, blessing God, esteeming and reverencing God. A sacrifice was offered as an outward sign of a heart that was filled with awe, reverence, and respect toward God. (41)
• I've never given my whole self to God or given my reasonable service to HIm. I have failed in my spiritual duty. And yet, that's what worship is--the presenting of ourselves on the altar of praise, so that what we think, what we do, and what we live is motivated by a desire to honor God. (46)

Quotes from chapter seven:

• I hear preachers say, "We're not supposed to suffer as Christians." When I hear that, I want to say, "You are a false prophet." Not only are we allowed to suffer, it's our vocation as Christians. Our Savior was a suffering Savior, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who endured manifold afflictions. The New Testament tells us many times to be prepared for the same thing. We suffer, if need be, for a season. (86)
• The thing that is strange is when we enjoy relative freedom from afflictions in this world. The time when afflictions are over will come when we pass the veil. (86)
• Disease is part of the fallen world. It's part of the kingdom of this world. To bear that affliction is to give the same testimony to the redemption that is ours in Christ as if we were bearing the affliction of the persecutions of the Emperor Nero. Our spiritual response to disease should be no different from our spiritual response to persecution. (87)

Quotes from chapter ten:

• There is a variety of responses to the presence of God, but we never read in the Bible of an occasion where God appears to the people and they are bored. Neither do we read of anyone walking away from an encounter with God saying, "That was irrelevant." A Christian service of worship is a gathering of God's people in His presence; it is an encounter with God. So how can we account for the results of the polls that tell us that people come away from church feeling that it is boring and irrelevant? I believe it is because they have no sense of the presence of God when they attend worship. The real crisis of worship today is not that he preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of his presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God? (126)
• Idolatry is simply an attempt to make God visible in ways that are unacceptable to Him. (127)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Surprised by Suffering

Surprised by Suffering. R.C. Sproul. 1989. Tyndale. 214 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: Dare we think of death as a vocation?

In 2017, I read an updated edition of Surprised by Suffering by R.C. Sproul. I absolutely loved, loved, loved it. It was one of my favorite reads of that year.

When I was going through my shelves earlier this year, I discovered this older, first edition of the book. Even though it hasn't been all that long since I read it, I was excited to reread it.

I wasn't expecting there to be that much difference between the two books. But there was. For better or worse. So if you've only read the 1989 edition, you're missing out. It's worth spending money on the newest edition.

The table of contents for this edition:

• The Final Calling
• Walking the Via Dolorosa
• A Case Study in Suffering
• Dying in Faith
• Faith and Suffering
• The Popular View of Life After Death
• Jesus and the Afterlife
• To Die Is Gain
• What Is Heaven Like? 
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Questions and Answers on Death and the Afterlife
• Appendix B: Contacting the Dead

This book focuses more on dying, death, and the afterlife. The newer editions are more balanced, in my opinion, and include a lot of material on suffering.

Quotes:

• Every one of us is called to die. That vocation is as much a calling from God as is a "call" to the ministry of Christ. (16)
• Satan does not hold the keys of death. Jesus holds the keys to death. Satan cannot snatch those keys out of His hand. The grip of Christ is firm. He holds the keys because He owns the keys. (17)
• The prayer of faith is not a demand that we place upon God. It is not a presumption of a granted request. The authentic prayer of faith is one that models Jesus' prayer. It is always uttered in a spirit of subordination. In all our prayers we must let God be God. (33)
• Job did not understand why God had called him to suffer but he did understand that God had called him to suffer. It was hard enough for him to be faithful to his vocation without his loved ones trying to talk him out of it. (51)
• God was asking Job to exercise an implicit faith. An implicit faith is not blind faith. It is a faith with vision, a vision enlightened by a knowledge of the character of God. If God never revealed anything about Himself to us and required that in this darkness we should trust Him, indeed the requirement would be for blind faith. We would be asked to make a blind leap of faith into the awful abyss of darkness. But God never requires such foolish leaps. He never calls us to jump into the darkness. On the contrary, He calls us to forsake the darkness, and enter into the light. It is the light of his countenance. It is the radiant light of His Person, which has no shadow of turning in it. When we are bathed in the refulgent splendor of the glory of His person then trust is not blind. (53)
• Speaking to a dying person about the need for a Savior is not an easy matter. The last thing we want to do to a person in such a condition is to disturb him in any way to make him feel uncomfortable. We think that it is an act of human kindness not to discuss such matters. God commands us to speak to the dying about their need for a Savior. Ezekiel makes that crystal clear. If we love people we will warn them of the consequences of dying in their sins. (61)
• The great lie is the lie that declares there is no Last Judgment. Yet if Jesus of Nazareth taught anything, He emphatically declared that there would be a Last Judgment. We do not respect Jesus as a teacher if we ignore His teaching on this matter. (62)
• The only way we can be justified is by the righteousness of Christ. He alone has the merit necessary to cover us. That righteousness is received by faith. If we trust in Christ we are covered by His righteousness and are justified by faith. If we do not trust in Christ we will stand before God's judgment alone, an unjust person before a just God. (66)
• We suffer, however, from two grand delusions. The first delusion is that we are just enough to stand in the presence of God. It is a delusion because every one of us has sinned. We would be deluding ourselves in the extreme if we thought that we were perfect. Only a few people become deluded enough to think that they are without sin. This is not the delusion most of us suffer. It is the second delusion that catches so many of us. The fact that God is just and that we are unjust doesn't seem to bother us. We nurture the hope that since God is also a loving and merciful God that He will make room for us in heaven even if we never repent of our sins and embrace Christ the Savior. We think that faith is not a necessary condition for salvation. This delusion hurls an insult at the mercy of God. (67)
• The promise of God is not that He will never give us more weight to carry than we want to carry. The promise of God is that he will never put more upon us than we can actually bear. (76)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: The Soul's Quest for God

The Soul's Quest for God. R.C. Sproul. 1992. 266 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: O Lord, Thou hast created us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. These immortal lines from the pen of Aurelius Augustine capture the deepest sentiments of every Christian.

R.C. Sproul's book is aptly named: The Soul's Quest for God. This is a book about Christians seeking and searching for God. It is not a book about nonbelievers seeking God. Sproul's point--one of them at least--was that conversion was just the start, the beginning. It is not the end of the soul's quest for God but the starting place.

I would definitely recommend this one.

In the first chapter, "Restless Hearts," Sproul reminds readers that the quest is not a mere intellectual seeking of knowledge about God, a collecting of facts. Yes, seeking God means seeking knowledge and using our minds. But it also means our hearts are engaged--fully engaged--in our seeking. To know him is to love him. To seek God is an act of the mind and the heart.

Favorite quote from this chapter: "When no thirst is present, it is difficult to drink. But it is easy to drink water when thirst demands to be quenched. Jesus promised to fill those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. He made no promise to fill those who are not hungry." (17)

In the second chapter, "Sweetness and Honey: Loving the Word of God," Sproul introduces readers to the prophet, Ezekiel. He is given to readers as an example of someone who 'feasted' upon the whole counsel of God. "Even those words that were "hard sayings" became delectable to him." How?! Why?! Why did Ezekiel love God's Word so much? What made God's words SWEET to him? That is what this chapter is about. How Ezekiel's coming face to face with the HOLINESS of God changed him and changed his tastes.

Favorite quote from this chapter: "The Christian who seeks a deeper experience of God by ignoring the hard sayings of Scripture gets nowhere. The full nourishment of the soul requires feeding on the whole counsel of God." (40)

In the third chapter, "Divine Illumination: The Secret of Christian Progress," Sproul stresses the importance of the Holy Spirit. He gives us spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear. He teaches and guides but also rebukes and corrects. The Holy Spirit is not optional but essential in the Christian life. He writes, "The biblical revelation gets the Word of God to the mind. The immediate illumination of the Holy Spirit carries it from the mind to the heart. The Word of God can be in the mind without being in the heart; but it cannot be in the heart without first being in the mind." (63) He continues, "The first thing we must do is get the Word of God into our minds. That responsibility is ours, not God's. We are required to be diligent in our study of Scripture. We cannot reasonably expect the Spirit to give us the excellent sense of the Scripture in our hearts if we are unwilling to work to get it in our minds. A cavalier approach to Scripture will not do. The only "devotional" reading of God's Word that pleases him is a devout study of his Word." (64) Christians then pray for the illumination of the Spirit as they read so they can understand and obey.

My favorite quote from this chapter: "A word of advice I often give my seminary students is this: As you study the Bible, take special care to mark the passages you find difficult to accept. That is, mark the passages you don't like. Then give special attention to them. Closer scrutiny may reveal that you simply failed to understand the meaning of the text. At the very least, the extra study will give you a new understanding of the Word of God. But suppose that after further study you remain convinced that your understanding is correct, but you still don't like what it says. This is a golden opportunity for rapid advance in sanctification. If you don't like what the Bible says, there is either something wrong with the Word of God or something wrong with your thinking. By isolating these texts you have a quick and easy way of discovering where your thinking is out of sync with the mind of Christ. You now exactly where you need to repent or change your mind. While in seminary I had a card on my desk that read: You are required to believe, to teach, and to preach what the Bible says, not what you want it to say." (61-62)

In the fourth chapter, "The Witness of the Holy Spirit," Sproul continues his discussion of the Holy Spirit. This chapter is closely tied with chapter three. "If we are to know and understand the divine mind, we require the assistance of the Holy Spirit. (87)

In the fifth chapter, "Loving the Law of God," Sproul discusses the role the law plays--if any--in the life of the Christian. What is a believer to make of the law--the LAW OF GOD? This chapter spends some time in Psalm 119!

My favorite quote from this chapter: "It seems as though everyone wants to know the will of God, yet nobody wants to know his Law. This is theological madness. The easiest and best way to learn the will of God is by studying his Law. The Law reveals what pleases God: obedience. God's will for our lives is that we be sanctified." (113)

In the sixth and seventh chapters, Sproul turns to Scriptural examples of obedient men and women who pleased--or delighted--God. He discusses Mary, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and finally Joseph.

In the eighth chapter, Sproul turns philosopher and discusses the soul--what it is.

In the ninth chapter, "The Feeding of the Soul," Sproul discusses how important it is that the soul is fed or nourished. He examines ways of feeding the soul including Bible reading,  prayer and worship. "There is no hope of reaching a deeper level of Christian growth and experience if we neglect the Word of God." (180) "A disciple or "student," of Christ is one who enrolls for the whole course. There is no graduation from this school until we enter heaven. True disciples do not merely dabble in Scripture or occasionally allow their ears to be tickled by the Word of God. True disciples are earnest and diligent in abiding in the Word." (184) "God speaks to us in his Word; we speak to him in prayer. Hearing the Word of God demands a response. That response includes, but is not limited to, action. It requires verbal expression. God both invites and commands us to speak to him." (190)

In the tenth chapter, Sproul discusses "Barriers to Progress." In this chapter he first mentions how only Christians SEEK AFTER God. Then he stresses how this is a life-long journey. He largely uses John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to discuss this quest. The second half of the chapter shifts the discussion to assurance of salvation--both true assurance and false assurance.

Favorite quote from this chapter: We desire evil without hell and heaven without God. The pursuit of evil is the road to hell. The pursuit of God is the road to heaven. To seek God is the business of the Christian. The quest begins at conversion; it doesn't end there. (205)

In the eleventh chapter, "The Soul's Final Destination," Sproul talks about humanity's never-ceasing pursuit of happiness. What is happiness or the Christian equivalent of happiness? Will we achieve it this side of eternity?

My favorite quote: "It is hard to serve and worship an unseen God. We prove the adage "out of sight, out of mind" by our slothful struggle. Yet there is a mixture of kindness in that lack of visibility. Though we long to see him, the vision itself, were it possible, would be fatal to us. For a person with an impure heart to gaze upon the face of God would be to receive the death penalty." (234-5)

Playlist for The Soul's Quest for God

My One Thing by Rich Mullins
Invisible God by Andrew Peterson
God-Shaped Hole by Audio Adrenaline
Magnificent Obsession by Steven Curtis Chapman


© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Knowing Scripture

Knowing Scripture. R.C. Sproul. Foreword by J.I. Packer. 1977. IVP. 126 pages. [Source: Bought]

From the foreword: IF I were the devil (please, no comment), one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible.

From chapter one: Why study the Bible? It may seem odd and foolish to raise this question since you probably would not be reading this book unless you were already convinced that Bible study is necessary.

Knowing Scripture is a practical how-to-STUDY-the Bible book by R.C. Sproul first published in 1977. (It has been republished, but I haven't bought an updated edition. I'm not sure if Sproul has added extra content.)

In the first chapter, Sproul addresses two myths concerning the Bible. The first myth being, "the Bible is SO difficult that only highly skilled theologians with technical training can deal with the Scriptures." The second being, "the Bible is boring." He argues that the Bible is not difficult to read--for the most part. Does it contain a few difficult passages that require study and unpacking? Yes. But. For the most part, the basic, essential message of the Bible is straight-forward and clear. Sproul does not quote Mark Twain here, but I will!

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scriptures they don’t understand, but for me I have always noticed that the passages that bother me are those I do understand.” ~ Mark Twain

He also argues that the Bible is NOT dull or boring. (Though he adds that *if* it were the world's most boring book, it would still be our duty to read it because we're commanded to know the Book.) 

The preponderance of boredom that people experience with the Bible came home to me several years ago when I was hired to teach the Scriptures in required Bible courses at a Christian college. The president of the institution phoned me and said, "We need someone young and exciting, someone with a dynamic method who will be able to 'make the Bible come alive.'" I had to force myself to swallow my words. I wanted to say, "You want me to make the Bible come alive? I didn't know that it had died. In fact, I never even heard that it was ill. Who was the attending physician at the Bible's demise?" No, I can't make the Bible come alive for anyone. The Bible is already alive. It makes me come alive. (14)

He concludes that the reason people don't study the Bible has nothing to do with either myth. Not really.

We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. (15)

He includes this startling fact: If you have read the whole Bible, you are in a small minority of Christian people. If you have studied the Bible, you are in an even smaller minority. (18) Sproul isn't saying that only Christian laypeople are lazy when it comes to reading or studying the Bible, the whole Bible. He's also saying that it's a problem among the clergy as well. 

Countless times I have heard Christians say, "Why do I need to study doctrine or theology when all I need to know is Jesus?" My immediate reply is this: "Who is Jesus?" As soon as we begin to answer that question, we are involved in doctrine and theology. No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones. A good theologian is one who is instructed by God. (22)

He includes many reasons WHY Christians should study the Bible. One of my favorite quotes is, "But what happens when there is a conflict between what God says and what I feel? We must do what God says, like it or not. That is what Christianity is all about." That is Sproul telling it like it is. Not tickling anybody's ears, for sure. There is a follow-your-heart, follow-your-conscience, define-your-own-truth mentality that has even found its way into modern pulpits. 

We were not created to be happy. Let me clarify. We were not created to pursue our own version of happy. Our version of happy is far removed from what we were created for because of the fall, because of our inborn sin nature. We were created to glorify God; we were created to enjoy HIM forever. When God is at the center of our happy, when God is our 'one thing' then we are fulfilling his design for us. We are in God's will and not outside of it.

Knowledge of God's Word does not guarantee that we will do what it says, but at least we will know what we are supposed to be doing in our quest for human fulfillment. The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in. (30)

In chapter two, Sproul discusses personal Bible study and private interpretation. He argues that it is important to balance private interpretation with the church's teaching. The text has a definite meaning. A text can have more than one application, but it can only have one meaning. We're not free to read MEANING into a text and build our theology around a misinterpreted passage. Free perhaps being the wrong word. We are of course free to be bad theologians. But TRUTH should matter to us. And we should care more about what the scripture actually means than what we want it to mean. Should. 

In this second chapter, Sproul talks about objectivity and subjectivity. He defines the terms EXEGESIS and EISOGESIS. At the heart of every bad sermon is eisogesis. 

Exegesis means to explain what the Scripture says. The word comes from the Greek word meaning, "to guide out of." The key to exegesis is found in the prefix ex which means "from" or "out of." To exegete Scripture is to get out of the words the meaning that is there, no more and no less. (39)

Eisogesis has the same room but a different prefix. The prefix his, also coming from the Greek, means "into." Thus, eisogesis involves reading into the text something that isn't there at all. Exegesis is an objective enterprise. Eisogesis involves an exercise in subjectivism. (40)

Subjectivism takes place when the truth of a statement is not merely expanded or applied to the subject, but when it is absolutely determined by the subject. "That's your interpretation, and that's fine for you. I don't agree with it, but my interpretation is equally valid. Though our interpretations are contrary and contradictory, they can both be true. Whatever you like is true for you and whatever I like is true for me." (39, 40)

In the third chapter, Sproul introduces hermeneutics, "the science of interpretation." What should be the means of interpretation? How should the Bible be interpreted? The Reformers argued--stood for and in some cases died for--the notion that Scripture should interpret Scripture. That the Bible was all one needed. He writes, "No part of Scripture can be interpreted in such a way as to render it in conflict with what is clearly taught elsewhere in Scripture." (40)

He spends a good deal of time in this chapter discussing the importance of reading the Bible literally.

The term literal comes from the Latin litera meaning letter. To interpret something literally is to pay attention to the litera or to the letters and words which are being used. To interpret the Bible literally is to interpret it as literature. That is, the natural meaning of a passage is to be interpreted according to the normal rules of grammar, speech, syntax, and context. The Bible may be a very special book, being uniquely inspired by the Holy Ghost, but that inspiration does not transform the letters of the words or the sentences of the passages into magical phrases. Under inspiration a noun remains a noun and a verb remains a verb. Questions do not become exclamations, and historical narratives do not become allegories. (49)

To be accurate interpreters of the Bible we need to know the rules of grammar; and above all, we must be carefully involved in what is called genre analysis. The term genre means simply "kind," "sort," or "species." Genre analysis involves the study of such things as literary forms, figures of speech, and style. (49)

The third way of interpreting the Bible--which he addresses in this chapter--is the grammatico-historical method. Here is where context and original meaning come into play. 

The fourth chapter is the PRACTICAL chapter. He includes rules for biblical interpretations:

Rule 1: The Bible is to be read like any other book.

Rule 2: Read the Bible existentially. [He adds a disclaimer here, "What I mean is that as we read the Bible, we ought to get passionately and personal involved in what we read. I advocate this not only for the purpose of personal application of the text but for understanding as well. What I am calling for is a kind of empathy by which we try to "crawl into the skin" of the characters we are reading about." (66)]

Rule 3: Historical Narratives are to be interpreted by the didactic.

Rule 4: The implicit is to be interpreted by the explicit. [Not only do we have problems when we draw too many implications from the Scripture, but we also face the problem of squaring implications with what is explicitly taught. When an implication is drawn that is contradictory to what is explicitly stated, the implication must be rejected. (77)]

Rule 5: Determine carefully the meaning of words. 

Rule 6: Note the presence of parallelism in the Bible. (There are three basic types of parallelism: synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic.)

Rule 7: Note the difference between proverb and law.

Rule 8: Observe the difference between the Spirit and the Letter of the Law. 

Rule 9: Be careful with parables.

Rule 10: Be careful with predictive prophecy.

The fifth chapter is all about culture. Not only should we be mindful of the original cultures--of the Old and New Testaments--but we should be--must be--mindful of our own culture. Difficulties can arise when we ignore our own culture and bring our own cultural bias or understanding into Scripture. He writes, 

"We need to become aware that the perspective we bring to the Word may well be a distortion of truth. I am convinced that the problem of the influence of the twentieth-century secular mindset is a far more formidable obstacle to accurate biblical interpretation that is the problem of the conditioning of ancient culture." (105)

The sixth chapter is about Bible study tools. This chapter is without a doubt the most dated section of the book. In a way. Commentaries are still commentaries. Atlases are still atlases. Dictionaries are still dictionaries. But. This is the chapter where he analyzes various translations and gives recommendations. 

So many BIG translations were not published yet in 1977. For example, New King James Version, New International Version, New American Standard Bible Update, English Standard Version, New Living Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible and Christian Standard Bible. He would later go on to publish study Bibles in the New King James Version and the English Standard Version so one can only assume that he approved those translations!

This section also includes a Bible Reading Program for Beginners.

Why have Christians been so derelict when it comes to biblical study? Is it merely a lack of discipline or devotion? That may be part of the problem and consequently produces much guilt among Christians for leaving undone those things that should have been done. I think, however, that more than a problem of discipline, it is a problem of method.  We begin our Bible reading in a spirit of grim determination and diligently read the book of Genesis. Genesis provides important information about the foundations of biblical history and moves smoothly through the narrative history of the patriarchs. So far so good. Exodus is full of drama with the exploits of Moses and the liberation of Israel from the tyranny of the Egyptians. Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston have given millions of us a sense of familiarity with these events. Then comes Leviticus. Here the attrition rate of interested readers begins to accelerate. Many of us who wade through Leviticus are finished off by Numbers. A few die-hards make it through Deuteronomy, and even a persevering few make it through the whole New Testament. Actually I have discovered that the majority of people who read the first five books of the Old Testament will make it through the whole Bible. Most people fail to read the Old Testament by getting bogged down in Leviticus and Numbers. The reasons are obvious. These books deal with detailed matters of the organization of Israel including lengthy lists of case law. So much of the material is foreign to us and makes difficult reading.Yet, the information contained in these books is of crucial importance for understanding the scope of redemptive history. An accurate understanding of the New Testament depends on an understanding of these books. In fact, once a person acquires a general understanding of the whole scope of Scripture, he usually discovers that Leviticus and Numbers are fascinating and delightfully interesting. But without the general understanding the details seem somewhat unrelated. To overcome the problems so many people have with reading the Bible I suggest an alternate route to our goal. Read the biblical books in the following order:

Genesis
Exodus
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Ezra
Nehemiah
Amos
Hosea
Jeremiah
Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon
Psalms and Proverbs.
This list of readings gives an overview of the Old Testament and provides the framework for understanding it. (121-22)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: The Invisible Hand

The Invisible Hand: Do All Things Really Work for Good. R.C. Sproul. 1996. 220 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: I had just pulled my car into the garage and stepped out of it when the door to the kitchen opened and my daughter, Sherrie, appeared. Her face was ashen, and there was a look of horror in her eyes. She rushed into my arms, blurting out the words: "Oh, Daddy! My baby is dead!"

R.C. Sproul writes of the providence of God in his book The Invisible Hand: Do All Things Really Work for Good. He tackles the subject from all angles. I would not say all perspectives because my meaning may not be clear enough. What I mean is that he handles the subject in the abstract, as a scholar and theologian, and in the concrete as a son, husband, father, minister. Here we have lessons drawn from Scripture and from his own experiences.

I also chose the word angle because I thought it fit. He examines many, many subjects in light of God's providence. God's providence becomes the lens through which he views the world past, present, and future.

Providence covers not just the BIG, BIG, BIG picture--all of humanity from creation on--but the smallest, tiniest details of individual's lives. Though God's providence might feel impersonal and far removed from where we are and what we're experiencing, God's providence is personal. We're never far from God's thoughts--not because we're so mighty and important, mini-sovereigns in our own right, but because our God is THAT big.

Providence is something believers should be thankful for, find comfort and hope in. God's providence is a GOOD thing.

Hard Providence
The Invisible Hand
Providence as Provision
The Cry Heard Round the World
Everything Is Against Us?
Providence and Government
The Visible Hand
The Mystery of Providence and Concurrence
Primary and Secondary Causes
Providence and History
The Intersection of Redemptive and Secular History
Providence and the Church
To God Alone the Glory
Train Wreck
Providence and the Problem of Evil
All Things Work for Good
Providence and Miracles
Counterfeit Miracles
Providence and Prayer

Quotes:

To what end or purpose does God uphold all things? It is to the praise of His glory. This is a difficult concept to embrace in full measure because it suggests a kind of self-centeredness in God, and we are taught to see self-centeredness as sin. Indeed, to be self-centered is a sin for any creature. We mortals are called to be God-centered in our thinking. For creatures, God-centeredness is a virtue, and self-centeredness a vice. But for God, self-centeredness is pure virtue because it is also God-centeredness. For us to be God-centered is to fix our attention upon the most perfect Being. So it is for God Himself. Though what God does in His providence benefits us, its highest virtue is found in its glorification of God Himself. (21-22)

There is no 'what if?' in God. He is a God whose providence is in the details. (44)

The issue is not so much, Is God on our side? but, Are we on the side of God? (66)

If God is not sovereign, He is not God. It also seems that freedom belongs necessarily to the idea of a moral agent. If man is to be deemed responsible for his actions, he must have some degree of freedom. That freedom need not be absolute; it need not be autonomous. If the creature has some freedom, however limited, then the creature is responsible to whatever degree it is free. The concepts of divine sovereignty and limited human freedom are not mutually exclusive. We know from Scripture that man is not sovereign. I have heard it said that man's freedom limits God's sovereignty. If that were so then man, not God, would be sovereign. It is not that human freedom limits God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty is absolute and unlimited. Rather, it is God's sovereignty that limits human freedom. God's sovereignty transcends human freedom and rules over it. We are free only to the degree that God allows that freedom. (82)

All moments of history, the entire chronology of time, are in the hands of and under the supervision of Providence. (116)

When the people of God gather for worship, there is an intersection between time and eternity, between heaven and earth. (129)

In prayer we have the opportunity to learn of the character of the Father. Indeed, prayer is one of the most effective means we have to discern the invisible hand of Providence. The more we understand the character of God, the easier it is for us to see His hand at work in our lives. (207)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: The Holiness of God

The Holiness of God. R.C. Sproul. 1985/2012. 226 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: I was compelled to leave the room. A deep, undeniable summons disturbed my sleep; something holy called me.

Holiness of God is a classic by R.C. Sproul that every Christian should read at least once. Emphasis on at least once. I think it happens to be one of those books where you might even want to reread it every other year or so.

So what is it about? It's about God, about who HE is, about his HOLINESS and righteousness. But it is also about who we are. It's about sin--what it is, how it divides us, how it damns us--about grace, about justice. It is about our holiness as well. Why are believers called saints? Why are we called to be holy and to live holy lives? Ultimately, the book is a refresher course on the gospel itself.

In the first chapter, Sproul writes: "Today I am still absorbed with the question of the holiness of God. I am convinced that it is one of the most important ideas that a Christian can ever grapple with...How we understand the person and character of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives. It affects far more than what we normally call the “religious” aspects of our lives." If you agree, then this book is a must read. And if you don't agree, well, then perhaps reading the book will change your mind.

I have read this one three times now. I think I love it more each time.

Quotes:

Here is the promise of God: We shall see Him as He is. Theologians call this future expectation the beatific vision. We will see God as He is.

Right now it is impossible for us to see God in His pure essence. Before that can ever happen, we must be purified. When Jesus taught the Beatitudes, He promised only a distinct group the vision of God: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).

None of us in this world is pure in heart. It is our impurity that prevents us from seeing God. The problem is not with our eyes; it is with our hearts.

Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy.  Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.

In a very real sense, the word holy is a foreign word. The problem we face, however, is that the word holy is foreign to all languages. No dictionary is adequate to the task. 

Sinful people are not comfortable in the presence of the holy. The cliché is that misery loves company. Another is that there is fellowship among thieves. But thieves do not seek the consoling presence of the fellowship of police officers. Sinful misery does not love the company of purity.

If we fix our minds on the holiness of God, the result might be disturbing.

“Love God? Sometimes I hate Him.” This is a strange quote to hear from the lips of a man as respected for his religious zeal as Luther.

 Two things separated Luther from the rest of men: First, he knew who God was. Second, he understood the demands of God’s law. He had mastered the law. Unless he came to understand the gospel, he would die in torment.

“The just shall live by faith.” This was the battle cry of the Protestant Reformation. The idea that justification is by faith alone, by the merits of Christ alone, was so central to the gospel that Luther called it “the article upon which the church stands or falls.” Luther knew that it was the article by which he would stand or fall.

There is no such thing as evil justice in God. The justice of God is always and ever an expression of His holy character.

What God does is always consistent with who God is. He always acts according to His holy character. God’s internal righteousness is the moral excellence of His character.

God does not always act with justice. Sometimes He acts with mercy. Mercy is not justice, but it also is not injustice. Injustice violates righteousness. Mercy manifests kindness and grace and does no violence to righteousness. We may see nonjustice in God, which is mercy, but we never see injustice in God.

The false conflict between the two testaments may be seen in the most brutal act of divine vengeance ever recorded in Scripture. It is not found in the Old Testament but in the New Testament. The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused.

It is impossible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to deserve grace. Grace by definition is undeserved. As soon as we talk about deserving something, we are no longer talking about grace; we are talking about justice. Only justice can be deserved. God is never obligated to be merciful. Mercy and grace must be voluntary or they are no longer mercy and grace.

God never “owes” grace. He reminds us more than once: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” (Exod. 33:19). This is the divine prerogative. God reserves for Himself the supreme right of executive clemency.

The moment awareness of His divine presence begins, the deepest personal struggle a person can experience begins as well.

We may wrestle with the Holy One. Indeed, for the transforming power of God to change our lives, we must wrestle with Him. We must know what it means to fight with God all night if we are also to know what it means to experience the sweetness of the soul’s surrender.

One of the names by which God is revealed in the Old Testament is the name El Shaddai. The name means “the thunderer” or “the overpowerer.” It was by the name El Shaddai that God appeared to Job. What Job experienced was the awesome power of a sovereign God who overpowers all people and is Himself overpowered by no one.

How much time elapses before the sinner begins to become pure? The answer is none. There is no time lapse between our justification and the beginning of our sanctification. But there is a great time lapse between our justification and the completion of our sanctification.

Semi-Pelagianism is the majority report among evangelical Christians and probably represents the theology of the vast majority of people who read this book. But I am convinced that with all of its virtues, Semi-Pelagianism still represents a theology of compromise with our natural inclinations. Evangelicals today have unconverted sinners who are dead in trespasses and sin bringing themselves to life by choosing to be born again. Christ made it clear that dead people cannot choose anything, that the flesh counts for nothing, and that we must be born of the Spirit before we can even see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it. The failure of modern evangelicalism is the failure to understand the holiness of God. If that one point were grasped, there would be no more talk of mortal enemies of Christ coming to Jesus by their own power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds His holy love in our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will not love Him.

God is not at the edge of Christians’ lives but at the very center. God defines our entire life and worldview.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Renewing Your Mind

Renewing Your Mind: Basic Christian Beliefs You Need To Know. R.C. Sproul. 1973/1998. 218 pages. [Source; Bought]

First sentence: When a person embraces the Christian faith and says with assurance, "I believe...," that person has truly embarked upon life.

In The Prayer of the Lord, R.C. Sproul provided commentary on the Lord's Prayer. In Renewing Your Mind, R.C. Sproul provides commentary on the Apostle's Creed. Sproul walks believers--whether new or old--through each line of the ancient creed.

It is a thoughtful introduction or reintroduction to the essentials of the faith. These beliefs--these doctrines--form the core of Christian belief and should inform our practice. These doctrines should renew our minds as we grow in the faith.

R.C. Sproul writes, "This book is about living that life to the fullest, about renewing your mind so that your thinking conforms to the mind of Christ. Our spiritual creation in Christ inaugurates an intellectual and emotional creation, but does not complete it. Some old thought patterns and philosophical assumptions remain. To deal with those we need to move our metaphor of the Christian life from the nursery to boot camp. Now comes basic training in righteousness, the hard work of truth calisthenics to develop strong, disciplined faith muscles."

I would recommend this one! Here are some of my favorite quotes:

The Holy Spirit does not call us to faith in general, but to faith in particular--to faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. (19)

Healing and prosperity are not God's purposes in "I believe..." faith. They are not God's promises. In fact, the Bible promises over and over that Christians will suffer many things. Suffering allows us to share in the humiliation and suffering of our Lord; pain makes us more effective witnesses and more mature lovers of God, dependent on him for strength. (23)

We came from somewhere significant and we are headed toward a destination of importance. (55)

The only basis for Christian hope lies in the believer's participation in the Man of Sorrows and Christus Victor--the triumph of Christ. (115)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Prayer of the Lord

The Prayer of the Lord. R.C. Sproul. 2009/2018. Reformation Trust. 130 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: A FEW YEARS AGO, when I happened to be in San Diego for a conference, I unexpectedly ran into an old friend of mine, George Miladin. George is a pianist and a master teacher—he used to host a televised teaching program for the piano called the “See and Hear Piano Series.”

R.C. Sproul provides commentary on the Lord's Prayer in his book The Prayer of the Lord. He walks with his readers through each phrase of the prayer. But he also provides context and commentary on the whole passage from which 'the Lord's Prayer' is taken. Context, after all, is important.

For example, consider the fact that before he gives disciples a model prayer, he tells them how NOT to pray.

Sproul writes, "The first type of prayer Jesus condemned is hypocritical prayer... Hypocrisy has a devastating impact on the life of the church and on the representation of Christianity to a dying world. And so our Lord warns us here not to parade our piety before the world... We need to be careful here, because we Christians are enjoined to bear witness to our faith, which means making the invisible visible. But sometimes we think that one of the primary ways of bearing witness to people is by demonstrating our Christian spirituality with public prayer... That’s dangerous, because the motivation for prayer is not to display our spirituality before the watching world. Prayer is to be intensely private."

He continues, "The second kind of prayer Jesus condemned is pagan prayer. He said: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Worship services often include the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. The use of the Lord’s Prayer has a rich history in the church, and whenever we pray it or hear it, we are reminded of those priorities that Jesus sets before us as objects for prayer. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not opposed to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. However, there is a danger that this use of the prayer may be nothing more than a recitation. The praying of the Lord’s Prayer can become as mindless and as vain a repetition as the magical incantations and mantras that pagans use. Jesus did not give the Lord’s Prayer with the intention that it would be repeated mindlessly. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we need to pray it thoughtfully, giving attention in our minds to its content. It is not a mantra to be repeated without the engagement of the mind or heart. It is an example of godly prayer."

But the book is more than just a commentary on one prayer from the Bible. It is also a primer, of sorts, on the subject of PRAYER. Most of the book focuses on HOW to pray.

"The first thing you are to remember in prayer is who it is you’re talking to, because nothing will condition your prayer life more deeply than remembering that you’re in conversation with God, the sovereign Creator and Ruler of the universe. Second, you are to remember who you are. You are not God. You are a creature. So prayer is not a conversation between peers; it is not a fireside chat among equals. This is the creature speaking to his sovereign Creator."

The book is a GREAT read. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, every time we open our mouths and say, “Our Father,” we should be reminded of our adoption, that we have been grafted into Christ and have been placed in this intimate relationship with God, a relationship that we did not have by nature. It is a relationship that has been won for us by the perfect obedience of the Son, who received an inheritance that was promised to Him from the foundation of the world, which inheritance He shares with His brothers and sisters who are in Him.

First He listed “Hallowed be Your name,” second was “Your kingdom come,” and third was “Your will be done.” Those petitions may be distinguished one from another, but they’re so interconnected that we dare not divorce them from one another. I’m convinced that although we pray for the manifestation and the victory of the kingdom of God, it is futile to hope for the victory of God’s kingdom on this planet until or unless the name of God is regarded as sacred, because God’s kingdom does not come to people who have no respect for Him. Likewise, we pray that the will of God will be done in this world, but God’s will is not done by people who do not regard Him with reverence and with adoration.

I don’t think that anything reveals the state of a person’s soul more clearly than the words that come out of his mouth.

John Calvin said it is the task of the church to make the invisible kingdom visible. We do that by living in such a way that we bear witness to the reality of the kingship of Christ in our jobs, our families, our schools, and even our checkbooks, because God in Christ is King over every one of these spheres of life. The only way the kingdom of God is going to be manifest in this world before Christ comes is if we manifest it by the way we live as citizens of heaven and subjects of the King.

It is the highest expression of faith to submit to the sovereignty of God. The real prayer of faith is the prayer that trusts God no matter whether the answer is yes or no. It takes no faith to “claim,” like a robber, something that is not ours to claim. We are to come to God and tell Him what we want, but we must trust Him to give the answer that is best for us. That is what Jesus did.

When we ask God to give us our bread, we are not to request that He provide it weekly or monthly, but daily. We are to ask for a day’s worth of bread at a time. I believe Jesus had a much more profound reason for instructing us to request daily bread. I think He did so primarily to teach us that we need to acknowledge our dependence on the providence of God to sustain us day to day. He was saying that we should live in a daily dependence on the provision that God gives. This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, then, teaches us to come to God in a spirit of humble dependence, asking Him to provide what we need and to sustain us from day to day. We are not given license to ask for great riches, but we are encouraged to make our needs known to Him, trusting that He will provide.

We need to be eternally thankful that the Son stepped in to pay our debt to the Father, for as the Bible also makes clear, our debt was so great we could not possibly pay it.

Scripture often describes God as the Judge. He certainly will not judge us by our feelings. He will judge us by His law. His judgment will be perfect, absolutely just. He must punish violations of His law. Thus, we will certainly be found guilty of our crimes—unless someone else acts as a substitute for us, to take the penalty we deserve.

He doesn’t simply tell us to pray, “Forgive us our debts.” Rather, we are to ask God to forgive us “as we forgive our debtors.” In my opinion, that’s one of the most frightening lines in the Lord’s Prayer. If this condition is to be taken literally, we are finished. Manifestly, if God forgave me in exact proportion to the manner in which I distribute forgiveness to other people, I would perish. I just cannot be as forgiving as God; none of us can. But thank God that this is an aspiration rather than a condition, that Jesus is teaching us to aspire to mirror and reflect the kindness of God, to stand ready to forgive anyone who has sinned against us or offended us when they repent.

Yes, my sins have all been paid for, once and for all, on the cross. But Jesus taught us to pray for forgiveness as part of our ongoing communion with God. We need a fresh understanding, a fresh experience, of His grace and of His forgiveness every day. There is no greater state than to get up from your knees knowing that in God’s sight you are clean, that He has forgiven every sin you’ve ever committed. Without that grace, without that forgiveness, I don’t think I could live in this world for another sixty seconds. This is something we all desperately need, and we have but to ask for it.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one,” He not only is teaching us to pray for deliverance from testing, but teaching us to seek divine protection from the wiles of Satan. He is calling us to pray that we would not be exposed to the Devil’s onslaughts, to his attempts to entice us to sin or to destroy our confidence in our Savior by accusing us of our failures and of our imperfections.

When a child of God confesses his sin, God forgives it—it’s as simple as that. But as soon as God says that believer is forgiven, Satan shows up and says: “Oh, no, you’re not. You are still guilty.” When a Christian listens to him, he become burdened and weighed down with a paralyzing load of guilt. That guilt, in turn, robs the believer of his assurance of salvation.

The kingdom of God is not of the people, by the people, or for the people. It is a kingdom ruled by a King, and God does not rule by the consent of His subjects but by His sovereign authority. His reign extends over me whether I vote for Him or not.

I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.

From everlasting to everlasting, He is God. From everlasting to everlasting, it is His kingdom, His power, His glory. The Lord’s Prayer concludes with that simple word that is so familiar to us, the word we use to close all our prayers but hardly ever consider: Amen. This is an Old Testament word, derived from the Aramaic, that means “truly” or “so be it.” Having prayed according to Jesus’ instructions, we declare “so be it.”

My tomorrow and your tomorrows are in the hands of God. We make our requests before Him and we trust our tomorrows to His sovereignty.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Are People Basically Good?

Are People Basically Good (Crucial Questions #25) R.C. Sproul. 2016. 70 pages. [Source: Free download]

First sentence: When I was in high school, my biology teacher told me that my value as a person was $24.37. He was adding up the value of all the minerals in the body—zinc, copper, potassium, etc. Today, thanks to inflation, that total would be around $160. That’s still a paltry sum. But it is one way to take the measure of a man.

The question posed in this short booklet is "Are People Basically Good?" Your answer to that question says a lot about you and your worldview. I think it is in our human nature to answer, YES, people are deep-down basically good. But is human nature to be trusted in this regard? in any regard?

Sproul answers the question from a theological standpoint. What does the Bible have to say on this issue? What does it say about humanity's creation? It says quite clearly that we were created in the image of God. What does the phrase 'in the image of God' mean? What did it mean before the fall? What did it mean after the fall? How does being created in the image of God impact our view of mankind--of humanity--today in our everyday lives?

Also. What does the Bible have to say about the fall? about sin? Why is the doctrine of original sin so fundamental to a right understanding of ourselves? Can you hold a right opinion of humanity if you fail to have a right opinion of God? of God's holiness?

Lastly. What does the Bible have to say about salvation? about God's sovereignty in election? Do humans have free will? Do they have liberty? Apart from God's effectual call, would anyone ever choose to believe the gospel? Sproul argues that original sin has radically corrupted our free will, our desires. We do not desire God. We do not seek after God. We do not love God. We do not want to obey and in fact cannot obey God.

This is a very good--though brief--introduction to Total Depravity or Radical Corruption.

Quotes:

One theologian has said that how human beings understand their own existence determines how they think, how they behave, and the type of culture that they produce; thus, the culture that we live in is a product of our understanding of what it means to be human.

In this book, we will explore what Scripture says about the nature of man, including such related topics as the image of God and the reality of sin.

People are concerned about self-esteem, identity, and understanding who we are as creatures. The focal points in Western civilization include issues such as abortion, euthanasia, human relationships, peace, gender, sexuality, and labor/management difficulties. How we address issues in these areas will depend ultimately upon how we define man.

 Part of the identity of humanity is our capacity for religion. But Calvin made the observation that man is a fabricum idolorum—an idol factory—so committed to religion that, even if he removes himself from the living God, he will replace his concept of God with a god made of his own hands. Luther, in similar fashion, commented that “Man, if he has no God, will make an idol,” because he has to have something.

In the Christian faith, we understand what it means to be human through the lens of Scripture. This key question—what is man?—is found even in the Bible, issuing from the pen of David: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:4).

The proper focus of theology is God—His character, His works, His attributes. But John Calvin said that no one can really understand who God is without first having some kind of understanding of who we are as human beings.

According to Scripture, a crucial aspect of what it means to be human is found in the account of the creation of mankind. Humans, male and female, are defined as creatures made in the imago Dei, or the image of God.

First, to call man the bearer of the imago Dei differentiates man from God. First and foremost, we are creatures, meaning that we—finite, dependent, derived, accountable—are not God. We may bear the image of God, but the image of God is not God, but subordinate to Him. No mere human being is divine. The second point is that this phrase differentiates between humankind and all the other creatures in the world. It sets man apart from the animals.

Christ is a restoration of humankind, the image of God in its fullest manifestation, so much so that even in His humanity, Jesus was correct to say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” In saying this, He did not deny His humanity, nor was He speaking only of His humanity. But if Jesus’ humanity is a perfect humanity, and if He displays the image of God in its fullest sense, then to look at Him is to behold the glory of the Creator.

One word that crystallizes the essence of the Christian faith is the word grace. One of the great mottos of the Protestant Reformation was the Latin phrase sola gratia—by grace alone. This phrase wasn’t invented by the sixteenth-century Reformers.

Two things that every human being absolutely must come to understand are the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

These topics are difficult for people to face. And they go together: if we understand who God is, and catch a glimpse of His majesty, purity, and holiness, then we are instantly aware of the extent of our own corruption. When that happens, we fly to grace—because we recognize that there’s no way that we could ever stand before God apart from grace.

When we sin, we want to describe our sinful activity in terms of a mistake, as if that softens or mitigates the guilt involved. We don’t think it’s wrong for a child to add two and two and come up with five. We know the answer’s wrong, but we don’t spank the child and say, “You’re bad, because you made five out of two and two instead of four.” We think of mistakes as being part of the human condition.

But as I said to that pastor, if one of us is wrong, it would be because he came to the Scriptures while wanting it to agree with him, rather than wanting to agree with the Scriptures. We tend to come biased, and we distort the very Word of God to escape the judgment that comes from it.

We are so accustomed to our fallenness and corruption that, while our moral sensibilities may be offended when we see someone involved in gross and heinous criminal activity such as mass murder, normal, everyday disobedience to God doesn’t bother us. We don’t think it’s that important, because “to err is human, and to forgive is divine.”

This aphorism suggests that it’s natural, and therefore acceptable, for human beings to sin. It’s implied also that it is God’s nature to forgive. If He doesn’t forgive, then there’s something wrong with His very deity, because it is the nature of God to forgive. But this is as false as the first assumption; it is not necessary to the essence of deity to forgive. Forgiveness is grace, which is undeserved or unmerited favor. We are so accustomed to sin that we do it all the time. We can’t define a human being without defining our humanness as fallen, and we can’t possibly maintain life itself apart from grace.

Today, we are taught that man is basically good, that we have imperfections and blemishes, but underneath all the surface problems, everyone is righteous. But the Bible simply does not teach that man is basically good. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes: “As it is written, ‘None is righteous, no, not one’” (Rom. 3:10). This idea runs contrary to everything that our culture teaches. Maybe all he meant is that no one is perfect, some might say. But then Paul goes on to say, “No one understands” (v. 11a).

Saint Augustine famously prayed, “O Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” There’s another prayer from Augustine that provoked one of the most serious controversies in the history of theology: “Lord, command what You will and grant what You command.”

We are creatures who are profoundly fallen, and whom the Bible describes as being in bondage to our own sinful inclinations. Augustine made a distinction in this controversy, saying that man has free will, or liberum arbitrium, but since he is fallen, he does not have libertas, or liberty—moral freedom from addiction to sin. He said that those who are fallen are addicted to sin.

We always act according to the strongest inclination that we have at a given moment; that’s the essence of making choices. That’s what freedom is: the ability to choose according to what you want. This is why Augustine could say man has a free will but he doesn’t have liberty.

The whole message of the Christian faith is that humankind, in the fullness of our humanity, needs redemption. We need a Savior.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Are These the Last Days?

Are These The Last Days? (Crucial Questions #20) R.C. Sproul. 2014. Reformation Trust. 55 pages. [Source: Free download]

First sentence: In the middle of the nineteenth century, a serious potato famine struck the nation of Ireland. Facing starvation, multitudes of people fled to other countries to seek sustenance. Some boarded ships and sailed for the New World, with many finally landing in New York City. Among those immigrants was my great-grandfather, who came to the United States from Donegal in the northern province of Ulster.

Based on the title alone, readers might think this is a book about current events, about watching the news with Bible in hand looking for signs and clues and answers to when Jesus is coming back. But Are These the Last Days? is a commentary on the Olivet Discourse. Sproul seeks to unpack the meaning and relevance of Jesus' prophecy. Was the Olivet Discourse about the end of the Jewish age? Was it about prophesying about the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem? Or was Jesus referring to END TIMES end times--the end of the world and the final judgment?

Sproul argues that "when Jesus spoke about “the end of the age,” I am convinced that He wasn’t talking about the end of the world, but about the end of the Jewish age." In other words, "It seems to me that the most natural reading of Matthew 24:29–35 would be that everything Jesus said would happen has already taken place in history. He was not referring to a yet-future fulfillment from our standpoint. He was referring to a judgment upon the nation of Israel that took place in AD 70."

After verse thirty-five, Jesus shifts his focus from 'the end of the age' (the end of the Jewish age) to the end of all ages (the end of the world). The first half of the prophecy has been fulfilled. Readers can have hope that the second will be fulfilled as well. It was not for his disciples to know WHEN the end of the world is to come. And it is not for us to know today. I'm always skeptical of anyone--everyone--who makes claims to the specifics. (This day, this month, this year, this generation).

Does this teaching have relevance? YES. A thousand times yes. Generally speaking, every passage of scripture is in some way or other relevant. But specifically this passage is about how to live in light of the coming end of the world, in light of the coming again of our Lord and Savior?

Favorite quotes:

All of us are slaves of one sort or another. We’re either slaves of Christ or slaves of sin. There’s no other option for humanity.

The most serious and fatal self-delusion of the wicked is their belief that God will not judge them. The Bible tells us that God is long-suffering and patient. The reason for this kindness and mercy is to give us time to repent and turn to Christ. But we should never assume that God’s gracious patience means that He won’t call us to account.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible