Living in Paradox

If you've got a sec, please, please read this post by Doug Wilson:  Our Doctrinal and Liturgical Bramble Bushes.  This is a great short piece that I believe really touches a lot of what I've been meditating on over the last few months in regards to the question of how then shall we live in light of God's Word?  We've also been looking at this same issue as we've been going through Romans in our campus Bible Study. 

Many of us as humans hate paradox.  The questions of God's sovereignty and human will swirl through our heads and which truly exists in this world.  We can reason "If God is sovereign then we are just robots," or "If we are free then God is not totally sovereign."  Our minds hate paradoxes I think largely because we want concrete, tangible and logical answers, yet a paradox is not something that our minds can fit around.  We don't have a category for it, so we relegate these questions to either/or issues.  We make one exist in our worldview at the expense of the other. 

However if God has truly spoken in His Word, and if His Word is united in speaking truth, then we must go with what He says in His Word.  The Scriptures clearly affirm both God's total and complete sovereignty over all of creation and that humans are not automatons but living and breathing creatures with wills and moral responsibility for our actions.

The other great dichotomy that  we see in Romans is grace/faith and works.  Paul clearly calls us to trust in the grace that we have in Christ for our salvation, but also in much of the book of Romans he clearly calls the readers to act out of that faith (or what one could describe as works).  They land together in chapter 8:13 "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. "  (ESV)  Which is it then?  Does the Spirit work in us (a grace) or do we put to death the deeds of the body (work)?  Clearly it's both, not either/or. 



I will put a plug out there for John Owen's "On the Mortification of Sin in Believers" as we wrestle with this text.  Yet for an answer here I would put forward that we can work to put to death these deeds because the Spirit is working in us to put to death these deeds in us and the Spirit is working through our work too.  Heady stuff huh?  


But back to Douglas Wilson's piece too.  These debates and questions shouldn't simply end in the discussion about the philosophy themselves, but rather true and radical understanding of grace should lead to works in our lives.  Go read his piece, he says it better and is a better writer than me.  Grace should transform us in ways that are mindblowing as we walk this life of paradox between antinomianism and works, living in the tension of a world that is too great for us to fathom this side of eternity. 

Responding to Life Being "On Hold"

Well as many of you know I've spent the last few weeks waiting to see if I would be pulled off of a waitlist for medical school. In God's providence however I have not been and now my focus has shifted to reapplication and continuing my research on PIV5.

One of the hardest things about this though is that in the past week Facebook has reminded me that I have many, many dear friends who did get accepted and spent the past week moving in, participating in orientations and attending their "White Coat Ceremonies" (This is where entering first year students "officially" begin med school and receive their white lab coats). In many ways I think that that's been kind of hard because my question is, "Well Lord why have you put my life on hold?"

In many of the same ways the Lord has been using this stage much like when I first started receiving wait-list letters to expose my pride and replace it with a joyful, humble trust in Him. He also ordained that in my quiet times this week one of the Psalms that I would read would be Ps. 107, where the final verse has been life and sustenance for me as I wrestle with my pride:

"Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;
let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord." (Ps. 107:43 ESV)

The whole beginning on the psalm is a beautiful meditation on the sovereignty, power and mercy of the Lord. It as a whole the Psalmist's meditation and song of his consideration of the steadfast love of the Lord. And then at the end the Psalmist calls the reader then to do likewise: Consider and meditate on the steadfast love of the Lord.

It's not a quick fix, but I want to encourage you all that the Lord has been reminding me of this when I'm frustrated or begin to mull over this when I've got down time or am doing one of the more menial tasks during the day. And instead of this being a moment for wallowing in pride, God has been so merciful to teach me so much about his steadfast love that governs even my medical school reapplication and status that it leads me to praise rather than grumbling.

What other passages or verses have helped you to remember and trust in the Lord when you're tempted to grumble against Him?

Really, Really Long Geneologies

While the Bible is God's Word, I have to admit that my devotionals this week have been pretty challenging. For some reason I think that many mornings I would gladly take all of the many passages on various sacrifices in Leviticus to genealogies. I can understand more easily how Leviticus points to God's holiness, than why it is necessary to have excruciating detail the genealogies of 1 Chronicles. There are 9 straight chapters of genealogies, and my struggle this week was asking almost constantly, "Okay God I understand that you are making the point that you are preserving your people, but why such detail? The author himself notes that these genealogies are recorded elsewhere; Why are all of these ones necessarily needed here?"

So my initial reactions are that this is to show how the Lord has gone to great lengths to preserve his people in mercy in spite of their rebellion. By looking at these genealogies we see irrefutable proof of what the Lord has done to preserve his people.

Any one else have any other insights into 1 Chronicles 1-9? What else can we learn from these genealogies?

Back from the Dead...

So I've apparently dropped off of the face of the earth this past month, but I am still alive and I apologize for the silence here.

In any case the semester has wrapped up, and I'd like to take a minute to ask you to join me in praising God for what he's done this past month. And what a month it has been!

The Lord has been blessing Justin and I's Bible study on the floor with not only 3 guys who profess to be Christians, but also 2 guys who are not Christians (yet, Lord willing!). We've been diving into the Gospel of Mark, and some of the discussion especially with our two friends have been amazing. Please be praying for the work God's doing in their heart, that they may become Christians!

Also amazing has been that our one friend has been discussing Tim Keller's new book “The Reason for God” with us and we've been able to discuss many of the questions that skeptics of Christianity have often raised. But more importantly this has been a bridge to dive further in to the Scriptures with our friend and get to talk more about who God is, what he's up to in the world, and especially the good news that Jesus brings. And our friend has just been drinking it in and is so eager to hear more about Jesus. So again please continue to pray!

Also God has just been doing awesome things at DCF and in the other Biblestudies. The Lord is bringing others, even foreign exchange students from China, to know him and his Word. Other exciting developments have been seeing how God has been knitting the hearts together of our Leadership and Executive teams to love Christ, his Word and each other more! The relationships God has been building at my church and in DM at Penn State have been so amazing and it moves me to tears to see what God is doing to make his bride, the church, beautiful by his grace.

Tune in the rest of this week for updates on what God's been doing in my own life personally this past month as I'm no longer in school and cannot use school work as an excuse to not write!

God Does the Work

Friends,

I realize that I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus for the past few weeks here. It's been a bit busy, but God's been doing cool things.

I wanted to let you all know about and ask for prayer for is one guy that lives on our floor. Out of the blue one day, he came up to Justin and I in the commons and asked if we were still doing a Bible study in our room and if he could join. We said we'd be glad to have him and he showed up this Thursday with a friend!

So God has now brought a guy to our study who approached US about the study and he brought a friend even! Man God is doing crazy things.

It gets even more amazing when he said that he'd wanted to learn about the Bible for quite a while, but didn't want to study it on his own because he wouldn't have help. So apparently God's been working on him for sometime.

What's more amazing is that when we asked him about going to a DM student conference in a few weeks to do a track about the basics and big questions about Christianity with me he said he'd love to do it!

So God's doing something crazy and please be praying for this student and his friend, that God would continue to be working on his heart to show him his need and how great Jesus is. Also be praying that they'd be desirous to go to this conference with us, where they can be exposed to other godly men and women, get to be our friends more and hear the Gospel clearly articulated in love.

Thank you for your prayers and to God alone be the glory!

Update!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was going to challenge our core guys tonight to do some more prep for our study next week and hopefully see them want to dive more into the text.

But God's funny and we changed plans.

Tonight we had 3 new guys come to the study effectively doubling the size of the guys not on staff or living in 908 Tener Hall! So in light of that God doubled the number of guys coming we decided to hold off and challenge them next week so that all of the new guys don't get hit with a challenge on their first night.

Please be praying for these new guys that they too would thirst to know Jesus!

Stepping it up!

Tonight you can be praying for the Bible study my roommate Justin and I have on our floor. We've now got a core group of guys that have been consistently attending and we want to encourage them to go even deeper into the text.

It's not a big challenge, just that they would read the text before coming to the study next week and each write one question about the text that they want to discuss as a group. But our prayer is that these guys would just thirst for the Word and to know Jesus through it.

So please be praying for these men that that would thirst and that they would know that they need a great Physician! (That's the passage we're doing tonight!)

God's Purpose in Physical Healing

On Wednesday night we had just an amazing Evangelistic Bible study. We were taking a gander at Mark 2:1-12 and in it there's just the crazy story of Jesus who heals that paralytic guy who was lowered through the roof (or "ruff" for those of you from the Midwest). You've probably, like me, heard it many times since way back in Sunday School. Normally I just left it there as just a great story about Jesus' ability to heal sickness and faith. But Wednesday I realized that there is just so much more to this story than that!

After telling how these 4 dudes come and lower the paralytic man through the roof, Mark relates how Jesus looked up, saw their faith and then in vs. 5, said "My son, your sins are forgiven." (ESV) Sins are forgiven, what's with that? These guys came for healing not forgiveness of sins. But then as soon as Jesus says this the nearby Pharisees start to question him, IN THEIR MINDS, and think about how this power to forgive sins only belongs to God.

And here's the amazing part, Jesus turns addresses their thought questions, and then says "'But that you may know that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins'-he said to the paralytic-'I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.'" (Mk. 2:10-11, ESV)

Jesus heals the man to show as literally walking proof to the world that he has power and authority (see also vs 8-9) to forgive sins, demonstrating his deity!

And so how does this relate to today? Well assuming that God is still in control of the universe, that means that he's also the one, while not physically present in Jesus, giving healing and controlling healing processes in every sick and sore person on the planet. That includes every single patient a doctor may ever see. But from a doctor's standpoint, if he realizes that it's God, not his skills and medicine per se, that ultimately gives healing, every single doctor has a wide open door to be an evangelist to point to healing and disease and showcase God's glory and sovereignty!

So my question is, do we actively look around and see sickness and healing as ways that God is demonstrating his power and authority to not only heal and fix, but also to forgive? Do we make the tie between control over the physical to control over the spiritual too?

Pretty deep thoughts, but that's totally awesome that while I'm not Jesus being to use healing to show my divinity, I could still later in my career use healing to point to God's provision, control and character!