Sin and Busyness

Oh oh, major conviction time for me. I'm continuing to read through John Owen's excellent book The Power and Efficacy of Indwelling Sin as I wrote about in my previous post.

This morning, Dr. Owen had a significant warning for me. If I have a dangerous addiction (besides coffee and chocolate), it is addiction to busyness. I love to be busy. Often too busy.

But busyness, and the weariness that can come with it, all too often provides an opening for temptation in my heart. Exactly as the good Doctor says:

The deceitfulness of sin makes use of corrupt reasonings, taken from the pressing and urging occasions of life. ... Men have not leisure to glorify God and save their own souls. It is certain that God gives us time enough for all that he requires of us in any kind in this world. No duties need to jostle one another, I mean constantly. Special occasions must be determined according to special circumstances.

So, the good Doctor argues, that if in general we don't have time for all of our duties then we are in the wrong. My wife and I have frequently expressed our surprise that God put only 24 hours in a day. "What was he thinking?" has been my frequent refrain. And only 7 days in the week?!

Owen's next statement brought the surgeon's scalpel deep:

But if in anything we take more upon us than we have time well to perform it in, without robbing God of that which is due to him and our own souls, this God calls us not unto, this he blesses us not in. It is more tolerable that our duties of holiness and regard to God should entrench upon the duties of our callings and employments in this world than on the contrary; and yet neither does God require this at our hands, in an ordinary manner or course. (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, p 312)

Ouch. A good pain, a healing pain.

And so sin tempts us away from the "duties of holiness" --- daily reading of Scripture, prayer, meditation, memorization, etc. --- which are so effective at combating sin, and weakens us for further temptation.

May God grant us the courage and humility (and time!) to review our schedules with these points firmly in mind.

Dealing with sin...

If you have never read any of John Owen's classic works on dealing with sin and temptation, stop reading this very minute and order your copy right away!

I've read many books on dealing with sin, and nothing outside of Scripture holds a candle to this one. Forget all those modern light and fluffy treatments; this book is the meat that you need.

John Owen is a good doctor. He knows where sin hides. He knows the dark parts of your heart. And like a good doctor, he is going to pursue those festering bits, expose them to the light, and show you how to fight them! Glorious!

You can read the original Owen to great advantage. All Puritan writers are challenging in their complexity, and Owen particularly so, but if you read slowly and out loud, you will have few difficulties. And the gold is worth mining!

However, the modern, lightly re-rendered version "Overcoming Sin and Temptation," as edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, makes him more accessible without losing anything vital. I'm thoroughly enjoying this book, and profiting greatly!

Here's a taste: Owen discussing how indwelling sin starts small, but if it is fed, it grows until it conquers. Instead, we need to fight it with all we have the moment it begins to rear its ugly head (Overcoming Sin and Temptation, p. 289):

Sin grows not to this height at its first assault. Had it not been suffered to make its entrance, had there not been some yielding in the soul, this had not come about. The great wisdom and security of the soul in dealing with indwelling sin is to put a violent stop unto its beginnings, its first motions and actings. Venture all on the first attempt. Die rather than yield one step until it.

What happened to 2008?

It was not the best of times, nor the worst of times, but it was the most silent of times. Not one blog post in 2008.

So, in 2009, I will turn over a new leaf. Except that is a rather anachronistic expression, especially for a blog. Instead, I will make a clean <br>. I will go <b>ly into the future, not knowing where I will <head>.

I have two series planned ... we'll see how things go. Thanks for waiting, and welcome to the Year of our Lord, 2009!

Greek is Only for Scholars

"Greek is only for scholars, and university folks. I'm a busy pastor!"

If you feel this way, you're not alone. Judging by the degree requirements of most modern seminaries, there is a wholesale abandonment of the original languages. It seems many schools don't see such study as necessary or as relevant as, say, additional courses in business management and team vision building.

But if indeed all Scripture is breathed out by God, and sufficient to make us competent, equipped for every good work, then our ability to understand Scripture is the most necessary and relevant training we can have!

John Newton, who entered into his ministry after being an illiterate slave trader, promises:

The original Scriptures well deserve your pains, and will richly repay them.

And George Mueller, who cared for over 100,000 orphans over his lifetime (can any of us claim to be busier than he?), and who was not primarily a pastor but an evangelist and organizer, talked about the importance of the original languages to his own life:

I studied much, about 12 hours a day, chiefly Hebrew ... [and] committed portions of the Hebrew Old Testament to memory; and this I did in prayer, often falling on my knees. ... I looked up to the Lord even whilst turning over the leaves of my Hebrew dictionary.

Not convinced yet? How about the testimony of George Whitfield? He made 7 trips between the US and Europe (by ship, not plane!), preached over 16,000 sermons over his lifetime, speaking to up to 30,000 people at a time, with neither microphone nor PowerPoint. In his last days, he was quite ill, and would eventually die from overwork and asthma. But in his final years, what was one of his great comforts? You guessed it: Greek!

Though weak, I often spent two hours in my evening retirements and prayed over my Greek Testament, and Bishop Hall's most excellent Contemplations, every hour that my health would permit.

Dear reader, listen to the urging of John Newton, George Mueller and George Whitefield. And as a final word of encouragement, Martin Luther challenges us:

As dear as the gospel is to us all, let us contend with its language.

(All quotations are taken from John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.)

Biblical Counseling: Truth and Lies

Counseling. I had come to hate that term. My previous school taught courses in counseling, in fact you could do an entire M.Div. in it. And even though there is always a lack of good pastors, the counseling major was always full.

Why did I hate the term? Because, in my experience, it was through "counseling" that so much corrupt teaching, deception and outright heresy was sneaking into the church. I was absolutely aghast at some of what went under the umbrella of counseling, both in seminary and in previous churches.

I listened to people teaching that making casual inward promises to ourselves can bind us in crippling "inner vows", that experiences in the womb can become spiritual strongholds enabling demons to control us, that other people's sinful attitudes toward us can be "bitter roots" that twist our own lives in mystical ways, and that the path to freedom is through instantaneous divine revelation and the binding of demonic powers.

Garbage, swill, tripe and foolishness!! What irreverent babble! Warmed-over pseudo-Jungian fantasies lightly baptized with irrelevant Bible verses.

So, I was pretty soured on "counseling". Until I had a chance to sign up for such a course in my new seminary. I haven't even started the course yet, but I'm reading the texts in advance.

And I am thrilled, delighted and profoundly encouraged to see what truly biblical counseling looks like. Jay Adams, David Powlinson, Ed Welch, John MacArthur ... how sweet to see men who take Scripture seriously and trust God when he says that he has provided in his Book all that we need to counsel (2 Tim 3:16-17).

Here are seven core elements that Powlinson and Adams lay out as central to truly Biblical counseling (from Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically, John MacArthur et al):

1. God is at the center of counseling. God is sovereign, active, speaking, merciful, commanding and powerful. ... The Bible is authoritative, relevant, and comprehensively sufficient for counseling. God has spoken truly to every basic issue of humn nature and to the problems in living.
2. Commitment to God has epistemological consequences. First, other sources of knowledge must be submitted to the authority of Scripture. The sciences, personal experience, literature, and so forth may be useful, but may not play a constitutive role in counseling. ... false counsel must be noted and opposed ... The false claimants to authority must be exposed and opposed.
3. Sin, in all its dimensions is the primary problem counselors must deal with. Sin includes wrong behavior, distorted thinking, an orientation to follow personal desires, and bad attitudes. Sin is habitual and deceptive, and much of the difficult in counseling consists in bringing specific sin to awareness and breaking its hold.
4. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
5. The biblical change process which counseling must aim at is progressive sanctification.
6. The situational difficulties people face are not the random cause of problems in living. These difficulties operate within the sovereign design of God.
7. Counseling is fundamentally a pastoral activity and must be church-based. It must be regulated under the authority of God's appointed undershepherds.

Amen and amen. May this truly Scriptural counseling increase, and may the deceptive lies currently plaguing much of the Church be finally repented of and forsaken!

Downs Syndrome and Modern Hypocrisy

I listened to a charming interview on CBC Radio 1 this morning. The host was interviewing two sisters who have embarked on a speaking tour, the exact focus of which was never clear to me.

The relationship between these girls was charming and encouraging, particularly since the younger girl (who was 30, I think), had Downs Syndrome. She was reasonably clear, articulate, thoughtful, charming. Her sister's devotion to her was profound and laudable.

They talked about their close relationship. They talked about goals, joys, life. They talked about how good life was even with a disability, and the unique insights and gifts that came along with those challenges.

At no point in the conversation was there the slightest reference toward the thought that was continuously echoing in my head during the entire interview. This thought was: if she had been conceived more recently, her Downs Syndrome would have been detected and she would almost certainly have been killed!

It was surreal, listening to this woman describe her goals, joys, frustrations, and experiences, and thinking "Yes, but modern society says you should be dead. You should not have been born."

A 2002 literature review of elective abortion rates found that 91–93% of pregnancies with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated. (Source: Wikipedia)

I remember sitting in church a few years ago, right behind a couple who had a beautiful little girl with them. This girl, less than a year old, clearly had Downs. Her daddy held her on his shoulder, and I could look her straight in the face, and I wept!

"We kill people like you, little one," I was thinking. "You will have almost no peers with similar struggles, because the others were detected and their parents had them eliminated."

May God grant our nation repentance and revival!

Why study Greek and Hebrew?

I was going to create a new blog focusing on New Testament Greek for beginners, or even those who had not yet begun. But I ran out of steam after just a few posts ... so I'm going to bring those articles over here instead.

Why should I, the busy pastor or teacher, study Greek and Hebrew? I will start this blog with a series seeking to provide convincing answers to that question.

We'll look at several positive reasons, and try to remove several common misunderstandings. But the quick, summary answer is: to be sure! To be certain!

Study the original languages to be sure. To be sure in your exegesis. To be sure in your preaching. To be able to say, "Thus says the Lord" with great courage and conviction.

Knowing Greek and Hebrew is not about learning some hidden language, some secret gnostic meaning within Scripture. If you hear someone say, "In the original Greek this actually means..." they are generally wrong. But knowing those languages is about being able to follow the author's line of thought. To do away with English ambiguities (even though they may be replaced by Greek ambiguities).

How important is this? Well, how important was the Reformation? Martin Luther said:

If the languages had not made me positive as to the true meaning of the word, I might have still remained a chained monk, engaged in quietly preaching Romish errors in the obscurity of a cloister; the pope, the sophists, and their anti-Christian empire would have remained unshaken.

From John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.

Knowing the Greek made him positive, made him certain, made him sure! Your congregation or your class deserve no less than the certainty that what you preach and teach is indeed what God has said.