Review of For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper

A Review of
For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper,
 edited by Sam Storms and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2010).

Reviewed by Coty Pinckney, Desiring God Community Church, Charlotte NC

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” This central truth of Christian Hedonism summarizes John Piper’s life and ministry. When we want to see how this truth is worked out in missions and preaching and marriage we turn to Let the Nations Be Glad! and The Supremacy of God in Preaching and This Momentary Marriage – or to Piper’s thirty years of sermons, all available online.

But John Piper is not alone in highlighting the biblical centrality of spreading a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. In For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper – a book presented to Piper at the 2010 Desiring God National Conference – Justin Taylor and Sam Storms bring together more than two dozen scholars and pastors to write about Piper’s ministry and to extend his thought. The result is a helpful and challenging volume which displays both the great influence Piper has had, and the biblical moorings of Christian Hedonism.

The book has seven sections (after an initial note of apology to Piper for a book in his honor):

  1. “John Piper:” An opening personal section written by Bethlehem Baptist Church pastors and elders;
  2. “Christian Hedonism”
  3. “The Sovereignty of God”
  4. “The Gospel, the Cross, and the Resurrection of Christ”
  5. “The Supremacy of God in All Things:” A catch-all title to cover a wide array of topics;
  6. “Preaching and Pastoral Ministry”
  7. “Ministries:” Descriptions of the vision and ministries of Desiring God and what is now Bethlehem College and Seminary.

The result is a volume particularly valuable for both pastors and serious students of the Word. Those who are basically familiar with Piper will value the personal insights of his friends and colleagues, and will profit from the attempts to extend his thought by scholars. This book is not an introduction to Christian Hedonism – Desiring God and, even better, When I Don’t Desire God serve that purpose well – but rather an attempt to examine the implications of Christian Hedonism to theology, to the Christian life, and to pastoral ministry. With that understanding, it succeeds marvelously.

Highlights of the book include:

  • David Michael’s 2000+ word prayer in the book’s opening chapter, effectively setting the stage for the remaining chapters.
  • Mark Talbot’s chapter “When All Hope Has Died: Meditations on Profound Christian Suffering” exemplifies the best way to honor another student of the Word. Talbot shows how much he has learned from Piper, and then critiques and modifies his thought. The author argues that the pursuit of our own joy cannot be the sole motivation for following God, claiming that profound “sufferers have abandoned pursuing any pleasure because they have lost all hope of feeling any pleasure again” (p. 96). Yet even those in such situations (like Naomi, Job, and Jeremiah) are able to glorify God: “God is also glorified in us when . . . we continue faithfully to acknowledge and proclaim his truth in spite of the fact that we are unable to conceive how any alteration to our future circumstances could make our lives seem good and pleasurable again” (p. 98). While this chapter would have been even better had it interacted with When I Don’t Desire God – particularly Piper’s chapter, “When the Darkness Will Not Lift” – Talbot gives us a profitable and thought-provoking article.
  • Don Westblade’s chapter analyzes Jonathan Edwards’ wrestling with issues of divine sovereignty and human moral ability. This is a particularly helpful article, worth reading slowly. Edwards (and Westblade) argue that the doctrine of divine sovereignty is rational, even if, as Edwards says, “there may be some things that are true that . . . [are] much above our understandings” (p. 124).
  • Bruce Ware’s chapter on prayer and the sovereignty of God is an excellent analysis of that conundrum. Carefully and engagingly written, this chapter can serve well as the first resource for any serious inquirer about these issues.
  • Don Carson’s chapter “What is the Gospel – Revisited” is perhaps the finest of all. Carson painstakingly surveys the uses of the gospel word group in Scripture, and then examines implications for us today. Along the way he evaluates the slogan, “Preach the Gospel – use words if necessary;” distinguishes between outcomes of the Gospel (for individuals and for society) and the Gospel proper; emphasizes that Kingdom ethics and Kingdom fulfillment cannot be divorced from the plotline of the Gospels; shows that the word “evangelist” in the New Testament refers to anyone who proclaims the Gospel; and offers us this superb paragraph:

The heart of the gospel is what God has done in Jesus, supremely in his death and resurrection. Period. It is not personal testimony about our repentance; it is not a few words about our faith response; it is not obedience; it is not the cultural mandate or any other mandate. Repentance, faith, and obedience are of course essential, and must be rightly related in the light of Scripture, but they are not the good news. The gospel is the good news about what God has done (p. 162).

  • Wayne Grudem’s chapter elaborates on Piper’s The Pleasures of God, which includes a chapter on “The Pleasure of God in Personal Obedience and Public Justice.” Piper based his work primarily on 1 Samuel 15:22, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?” Grudem looks instead at a number of New Testament passages that emphasize God’s joy in our obedience, as we actively depend on Him to work in us. Grudem’s chapter would have been even more helpful had he interacted with the well-known first chapters of Jerry Bridge’s The Discipline of Grace, which argue that we wrongly think we are acceptable to God on our good days.
  • C.J. Mahaney’s chapter begins with Paul’s benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14, and shows how this summarizes the pastoral ministry: “Through our prayers, our preaching, our counseling, and all facets of our leadership, we must position those we serve to experience the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (p. 389). Easily accessible yet profoundly challenging, this chapter is a gem. Every pastor would do well to think hard about the eleven “I must . . .” statements on p. 391.
  • David Powlison’s contribution concerns, not surprisingly, the pastor as counselor. He shows the centrality of counseling –broadly defined – to pastoral ministry, and lays out distinctives between the pastoral task and what the world defines as counseling. A quote from Bonhoeffer serves to summarize the chapter:

Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. . . . The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ (p. 429, quoted from Life Together.)

  • John MacArthur’s chapter considers the maternal and paternal images of the pastor’s role found in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12. Elaborating on each, MacArthur argues persuasively that every spiritual leader must be both: tender yet uncompromising, compassionate yet firm, affectionate yet in authority.

How could this excellent volume have been even better? Here are four considerations:

First, we honor those whose ideas we take seriously – seriously enough to cause us to think deeply about the subject. That thinking may lead to areas of disagreement, yet that very disagreement honors the author. Other than Mark Talbot’s chapter, the book contains little of this type of analysis. More could have been included. For example, Justin Taylor and Thabiti Anyabwile, in their chapters on Piper’s preaching on the sanctity of life and racial harmony, could profitably have asked: If this type of preaching is exemplary, why do none of the other pastors who contributed to this volume follow Piper’s pattern of preaching one sermon on each of these topics annually? As editor, Taylor could have pursued this line of questioning – and the answers would have been informative.

Second, Scott Hafemann’s contribution is, in many ways, exceptionally helpful and deserving of inclusion in the list of highlights. He walks the reader through Scripture, looking at the concept of the Kingdom of God as manifested from creation to universal worship in the new heavens and new earth. But his definition of Kingdom is problematic – and this problem is especially curious in a volume that honors John Piper. Hafemann defines the central theme of Scripture as “The historical revelation of God’s glory as King through the obedience of his people” (p. 237, his emphasis). “Obedience” must be replaced with “joyful obedience.” Add that word, and this sentence is consistent with Piper and Scripture; leave it out, and the sentence is terribly misleading. Hafemann’s original sentence sounds as if God commands duty rather than delight. Indeed, many today understand obedience to God to be a teeth-clenched, nose-holding, checking-off-a-list rule-keeping that they must do, contrary to their own joy. Piper has shown that obedience of this sort – obedience a la the elder son – is not glorifying to God. Obedience a la the Pharisees is not a picture of the Kingdom. Hafemann could well argue that teeth-clenching obedience is not biblical, and thus not what he intends by the term. Fair enough. But his terminology too easily lends itself to this misinterpretation. Whether we like it or not, in our society the word “obedience” has these connotations of perfunctory rule-keeping. And that has never been God’s object.

Third, the book would have benefited from some interactions among the various authors. For example, Beale and Grudem both interact with texts on justification by faith and their relationship to the way God looks upon the obedience of His people. Hafemann also highlights the centrality of our (joyful!) obedience. Seeing how they would respond to each other would have been valuable. While the challenges of enabling such interaction are large in a book of this type (as opposed to a conference volume), the benefits also might have been high.

Finally, the lack of a chapter on missions to unreached peoples for the glory of God is glaring. Perhaps the editors asked Ralph Winter to write such a chapter, and that remained unfinished at his death. But Let the Nations Be Glad is one of Piper’s most powerful books; indeed, the increasingly influential course “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” was turned upside down by the ideas of chapter 1 of that volume. Furthermore, one of the key distinctives of Bethlehem as a church is having missions at its core. This emphasis appears too rarely in a book devoted to honoring Piper’s influence. Should the Lord tarry for 100 years, I suspect Piper’s impact on the goal of missions and on reaching the unreached will be his greatest legacy. Furthermore, such a legacy would give him personally the greatest of all joys.

Nevertheless, this is an exceptionally valuable book. Many thanks to the editors and authors for their labors to produce this volume and to keep it secret from Piper until the presentation. Surely this too will serve to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Let the nations be glad!

What Should Eve Have Said to the Serpent?

[This is an excerpt from The God Who is There by D.A. Carson, Chapter 2, “The God Who Does Not Wipe Out Rebels.” – Coty]

According to the last book of the Bible, Satan himself stands behind this serpent in some sense (see Rev. 12). . . . Here we are also told that he was made by God: “the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made” (Gen. 3:1). In other words, the Bible does not set Satan or the serpent up as a kind of anti-God who stands over against God as his equal but polar opposite. . . . [Instead,] the picture painted by the first sentence of this chapter is that even Satan himself is a dependent being, a created being. . . .

We are told . . .  that he was the most crafty of the wild animals that God had made. In many sectors of the English speaking world, the word crafty suggests surreptitiousness, sneakiness. . . . But the word that is used here in Hebrew can be either positive or negative, depending on the context. In many places it is rendered something like “prudence.” . . . I suspect that what is being said is that the serpent, Satan, was crowned with more prudence than all the other creatures but in his rebelling the prudence became craftiness; the very same virtue that was such a strength became twisted into a vice. . . .

The serpent approaches the woman (what the modes of communication were, I have no idea) and avoids offering her a straight denial or a direct temptation. He begins instead with a question: “Did God really say that? Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Notice what he is doing. He expresses just the right amount of skepticism, a slightly incredulous “Can you really believe that God would say that?” – like an employee asking, “Can you believe what the boss has done this time?” The difference is that the person whose word is being questioned is the maker, the designer, God the sovereign. In some ways the question is both disturbing and flattering. It smuggles in the assumption that we have the ability, even the right, to stand in judgment of what God has said.

Then the devil offers exaggeration. God did forbid one fruit, but the way the serpent frames his question –“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”- casts God as the cosmic party pooper: “God basically exists to spoil my fun. . . . ”

The woman replies with a certain amount of insight, wisdom, and grace – at least initially. She corrects him on his facts, on his exaggeration: “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” she insists (3:2). Then she adds, still correctly, “But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden’” (3:3, referring back to 2:17). His exaggeration is neatly set aside. But then she adds her own exaggeration. She adds, “and you must not touch it, or you will die” (3:3, emphasis added). God had not said anything about not touching it. It is almost as if the prohibition to eat has got under her skin, making her sufficiently riled up that she has to establish the meanness of the prohibition. The first sin is a sin against the goodness of God.

We gain a little insight into the terrible slippage going on in the woman’s mind if we conjure up what she should have said. Perhaps something like this: “Are you out of your skull? Look around! This is Eden; this is paradise! God knows exactly what he is doing. He made everything; he even made me. My husband loves me and I love him – and we are both intoxicated with the joy and holiness of our beloved Maker. My very being resonates with the desire to reflect something of his spectacular glory back to him. How could I possibly question his wisdom and love? He knows, in a way I never can, exactly what is best – and I trust him absolutely. And you want me to doubt him or question the purity of his motives and character? How idiotic is that? Besides, what possible good can come of a creature defying his Creator and Sovereign? Are you out of your skull?”

Instead, the woman flirts with the possibility that God is . . . bent on limiting the pleasure of his creatures.

Then comes the first overt contradiction of God. The serpent declares, “You will not certainly die” (3:4). The first doctrine to be denied, according to the Bible, is the doctrine of judgment. In many disputes about God and religion this pattern often repeats itself, because if you can get rid of that one teaching, then rebellion has no adverse consequences, and so you are free to do anything.

Far from recognizing the threat of judgment, the serpent holds out that rebellion offers special insight, even divine insight: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5). Here is the big ploy, the total temptation. The heart of the vicious deceitfulness central to what the serpent promises is that what he says is partly true and totally false. It is true, after all: her eyes will be opened, and in some sense she will see the difference between good and evil. She will determine it for herself. . . . (3:22).

And yet this is an entirely subversive promise. God knows good and evil with the knowledge of omniscience; he knows all that has been, all that is, all that will be, all that might be under different circumstances – he knows it all, including what evil is. But the woman is going to learn about evil by personal experience; she is going to learn about it by becoming evil. . . .

Indeed, the expression in Hebrew, “the knowledge of good and evil,” is often used in places where to have the knowledge of good and evil is to have the ability to pronounce what is good and pronounce what is evil. That’s what God had done. . . . (1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Now this woman wants this God-like function. . . .

To be like God, to achieve this by defying him, perhaps even outwitting him – this is an intoxicating program. This means that God himself must from now on be regarded, consciously or not, as at least a rival and maybe an enemy: “I pronounce my own good, thank you very much, and I do not need you to tell me what I may or may not do.” . . .

We should not think that the serpent’s temptation is nothing more than an invitation to break a rule, arbitrary or otherwise. That is what a lot of people think that “sin” is: just breaking a rule. What is at stake here is something deeper, bigger, sadder, uglier, more heinous. It is a revolution. It makes me god and thus de-gods God.

From D.A. Carson, The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story (Baker, 2010), p. 30-33.

Bonhoeffer: Approaching Scripture

[Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German theologian and pastor who stood bravely against Hitler and the Nazis’ attempts to co-opt the church for political purposes. He was imprisoned and then, shortly before the Allies took Berlin, executed by the Nazi regime. In light of last Sunday’s sermon on the Sixth Commandment, Bonhoeffer’s clear teaching on loyalty to Christ above loyalty to state, his leanings toward pacifism, and his eventual involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler are thought provoking. I highly recommend Eric Metaxas’ new biography, from which this quote is taken (p. 136-37). Bonhoeffer is writing in 1936 to his brother-in-law, who did not hold a high view of Scripture – Coty]

First of all I will confess quite simply – I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, “pondering them in our heart,” so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us alon[e] with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible . . . .

If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament . . . .

And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way – and this has not been for so very long – it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer.

The Law and the Heart

It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding religion as a compilation of statutes, and not as an internal principle, that it soon comes to be considered as being conversant about external actions, rather than about habits of mind. This sentiment sometimes has even the hardiness to insinuate and maintain itself under the guise of extraordinary concern for practical religion; but it soon discovers the falsehood of this pretension, and betrays its real nature. The expedient indeed of attaining to superiority in practice, by not wasting any of the attention on the internal principles from which alone practice can flow, is about as reasonable, and will answer about as well, as the economy of the architect who should account it mere prodigality to expend any of his materials in laying foundations, from an idea that they might be more usefully applied to the raising of the superstructure. We know what would be the fate of such an edifice.

It is indeed true, and a truth never to be forgotten, that all pretensions to internal principles of holiness are vain, when they are contradicted by the conduct; but it is no less true, that the only effectual way of improving the latter, is by a vigilant attention to the former. It was therefore our blessed Savior’s injunction, “Make the tree good” as the necessary means of obtaining good fruit; and the holy Scriptures abound in admonitions, to let it be our chief business to cultivate our hearts with all diligence, to examine into their state with impartiality, and watch over them with continual care. Indeed it is the heart which constitutes the man; and external actions derive their whole character and meaning from the motives and dispositions of which they are the indications. . . .

Yet though this be a truth so obvious, so established, that to have insisted on it may seem almost needless; it is a truth of which we are apt to lose sight in the review of our religious character, and with which the habit of considering religion as consisting rather in external actions than internal principles, is at direct and open war

Another excerpt from William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity (1797). The book is available in its entirety at the link. Here is a three-page pdf file of this excerpt, plus last week’s excerpt plus surrounding text. Note that, as was common in his day, when Wilberforce uses the word “religion,” he most often is referring solely to Christianity.

Desire, Sin, and the Christian Life

Justin Taylor is posting fifteen questions and answers excerpted from an excellent article by David Powlison, “I Am Motivated When I Feel Desire” (published in Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition through the Lends of Scripture (P and R Publishing, 2003). The last three will be posted in the next couple of days. Here are the questions, with links for the first twelve. Highly recommended:

1. How does the New Testament commonly talk about what’s wrong with people?
2. Why do people do specific ungodly things?
3. But what’s wrong with wanting things that seem good?
4. Why don’t people see this as the problem?
5. Is the phrase “lusts of the flesh” useful in practical life and counseling?
6. Does each person have one “root sin”?
7. How can you tell if a desire is inordinate rather than natural?
8. Is it even right to talk about the heart, since the Bible teaches that the heart is unknowable to anyone but God? (1 Sam. 16:7; Jer. 17:9)
9. Doesn’t the word lusts properly apply only to bodily appetites: the pleasures and comforts of sex, food, drink, rest, exercise, health?
10. Can desires be habitual?
11. What about fears? They seem as important in human motivation as cravings.
12. Do people ever have conflicting motives?
13. How does thinking about lusts relate to other ways of talking about sin, such as “sin nature,” “self,” “pride,” “autonomy,” “unbelief,” and “self-centeredness”?
14. In counseling, do you just confront a person with his sinful cravings?
15. Can you change what you want?

God Requires to Set Up His Throne in Our Heart

God requires to set up his throne in the heart, and to reign in it without a rival: if he be kept out of his right, it matters not by what competitor. The revolt may be more avowed or more secret; it may be the treason of deliberate preference, or of inconsiderate levity; we may be the subjects of a more or of a less creditable master; we may be employed in services more gross or more refined; but whether the slaves of avarice, of sensuality, of dissipation, of sloth, or the votaries of ambition, of taste, or of fashion; whether supremely governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful Sovereign. Let not this seem a harsh position; it can appear so only from not adverting to what was shown to be the essential nature of true religion. He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshiper of the deified patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which have been specified, the external acts indeed are different, but in principle the disaffection is the same; and we must prepare to meet the punishment of rebels on that tremendous day, when all false colors shall be done away, and, there being no longer any room for the evasions of worldly sophistry, . . . “that which is often highly esteemed amongst men, shall appear to have been abomination in the sight of God.”

William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity (1797). The book is available in its entirety at the link. Here is a three-page pdf file of this excerpt plus surrounding text. Note that, as was common in his day, when Wilberforce uses the word “religion,” he most often is referring solely to Christianity.

Old Testament Elaborations on the Sixth Commandment

Here is a selection of verses in the Old Testament that elaborate on Exodus 20:13, “Do not murder.” I summarized these verses in Sunday’s sermon.

Manslaughter falls under this commandment, but leads to a different penalty: Exodus 21:12-14, Numbers 35:10-15. Numbers 35:22-25. Deuteronomy 19:4-6. The perpetrator must flee to and remain in a “city of refuge” and remain their until the death of the High Priest (Numbers 35:33-34). This serves as a picture of the need for atoning blood, even in the case of manslaughter.

The proper penalty corresponds to the harm done: Leviticus 24:19-20; see Exodus 21:18-19 and Exodus 21:26-27 for examples.

When a person kills a thief who has broken into his house at night, the killer is innocent. If this happens during the day, his is guilty (Exodus 22:2-3).

Kidnapping is treated similarly to murder (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7).

Negligence that leads to the harming or death of another leads to guilt and the need for compensation: An ox goring (Exodus 21:28-32), someone falling off an insecure roof (Deuteronomy 22:8), an animal being injured by an unsafe hole (Exodus 21:33-34), an animal grazing in another’s field (Exodus 22:5), a fire that spreads to another’s field (Exodus 22:6).

Concern for others extends particularly to those who are weak and defenseless, and thus easily oppressed:  the sojourner, the widow, the fatherless child (Exodus 22:21-23, Exodus 23:9), aliens (Leviticus 19:33-34 which include “love [the alien] as yourself”), the deaf and the blind (Leviticus 19:11). In the Exodus passage, with no person to protect them, God promises to be their protector: “I will kill [the oppressor] with the sword.”

Many cases refer specifically to the poor:

Do not lend at interest or hold on to their cloak overnight: Exodus 22:25-27, Leviticus 25:35-38

Pay their wages promptly; don’t delay just because you can get away with it: Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Lend to the needy poor, and cancel their debts at the end of seven years, Deuteronomy 15:1-11.

Leave part of harvest in fields for the poor to gather: Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:19-22

Jesus’ later commandment to love your enemies is hinted at in cases referring to your enemy’s animal straying or collapsing under a heavy load. You are to help in both cases: Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 22:1-4.

Man’s Nothing-Perfect and God’s All-Complete

[Robert Browning was a great 19th century British poet. His religious beliefs are not clear – in many of his poems, the voice belongs to someone other than the poet. The following is an excerpt from “Saul” (1845 and 1855). Browning imagines David playing the lyre and singing when “a harmful spirit from God was upon Saul” (1 Samuel 16:23). The voice throughout is David’s. In the first section, David, echoing Isaiah 6, is overwhelmed by seeing the majesty, wisdom and love of God laid bare, and submits himself willingly, lovingly to God. In the second section, David first addresses God, then, in the last four lines, Saul. He expresses confidence that God’s love is greater than his own, and that God will become incarnate in David’s own descendant for the salvation of the ungodly. While Scripture does not give us warrant for thinking that Saul is saved in the end, these lines beautifully express deep biblical truths. You can read the entire poem (more than 4000 words) at this link and a number of others. Thanks to Carla Stout for pointing me to this poem – Coty]

I spoke as I saw:
I report, as a man may of God`s work – all`s love, yet all`s law.
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?
I but open my eyes, – and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man`s nothing-perfect to God`s all-complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. . . .

Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou – so wilt thou!
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown –
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
`Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!

Seek the Lord

2 Chronicles 12:14: And [Rehoboam] did evil, for he did not set his heart to seek the LORD.

Why do we do evil?

Rehoboam should have been a godly king. He was the grandson of King David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). He was the son of King Solomon, whose wisdom Scripture extols (1 Kings 4:29). His father and grandfather wrote a significant proportion of the Old Testament Scriptures.

And yet, 2 Chronicles 12:14 tells us Rehoboam did evil.

What evil did he do?

The most obvious evil he did was to split the kingdom. 2 Chronicles 10 tells us of his pride and stubbornness. Representatives from the northern tribes ask him to lighten the burdens his father had put on them. Rehoboam instead tries to act tough – and the northern tribes secede.

But Rehoboam is guilty of a greater evil than splitting the kingdom. Splitting the kingdom is a secondary evil, an evil that results from something more fundamental.  2 Chronicles 12:1 tells us of that more fundamental evil: Rehoboam “abandoned the law of the LORD.” His grandfather had written that “the law of the LORD is perfect” (Psalm 19:7), but he abandoned that law.

Recall that the word “law” in the Old Testament frequently translates the Hebrew word “torah,” which has a broader meaning than our English word. The “torah” includes instruction: teaching about who God is, who we are, and how we can have a relationship with Him. Rehoboam turned his back on the instruction that had been handed down to him. Though God had created him for His glory, though God had exalted him to be king over His own people, though God had given him a father and grandfather who instructed others in God’s “torah”, Rehoboam rejected God’s instruction.

This is his greatest evil.

Why did he do this evil?

Our text tells us why: “He did not set his heart to seek the LORD.”

Jesus tells us to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). He promises that if we seek we will find (Matthew 7:7).

Yet Paul tells us that “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11). That is, in and of ourselves, we are all like Rehoboam. Though many aspects of God’s nature are clear from the world around us (Romans 1:20) – “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1) – and though many of us have access to His Word and have heard His Gospel, we, like Rehoboam, turn our backs on that revelation. We act as if He doesn’t exist, or as if He is irrelevant. We seek our good as we perceive it, and ignore the purpose for which He made us. We may believe we are doing good, but we, like Rehoboam, do evil unless we seek God.

So Rehoboam did not seek God. And he did evil.

Furthermore, our text tells us that Rehoboam did not set his heart to seek God. Truly seeking God is a matter of the heart. We don’t seek God by outward actions alone – doing religious activities, bowing our heads in prayer, attending worship services, reading the Bible. Someone may look externally to be seeking the Lord, and yet not be doing so. Indeed, this probably was the case with Rehoboam. As King of Judah, he most certainly participated in public worship. He undoubtedly gave large gifts to the priests. Like his father, he may well have offered long prayers in front of the people. But Rehoboam “did not set his heart to seek the LORD.” And therefore he did evil.

What about you? Where is your heart?

We must all confess that apart from God’s work we have hard, stony hearts. Apart from God’s transforming power, we will not seek Him. Apart from His grace, we are rightly condemned.

But God sent His Son to die on our behalf, paying the penalty we deserve, so that all who simply trust Him might receive His pardon and become His beloved children.

So we need to pray, “O Lord, take my stony heart and replace it by Your grace with a soft and tender heart (Ezekiel 36:26). Incline my heart to Your Word, so that I might joyfully seek You (Psalm 119:36). Don’t let me be like Rehoboam – outwardly appearing to follow You, but inwardly having a heart that longs for so much else other than You. Enable me to treasure You above all, to delight in You above all; enable me to set my heart to seek You!”

Will you do this?

God’s promises us: If you truly seek Him, you will find Him. If you humble yourself, He will exalt you. If you look to Jesus, He will save you.

So set your heart to seek Him. And then continue to do so, day by day. This is life. This is joy. This is peace.

Keeping the Word Central

(This is an outline and summary of one of the talks I will be giving next week to pastors in India. Thank you for your prayers and financial support for enabling this trip – Coty]

If you are to fulfill the calling to a Gospel ministry, you must keep the Word of God central. You must depend on the Word of God in all that you do.

2 Timothy chapters 2, 3, and 4 bring out this truth in five different ways:

1) God’s Word is not bound!

Paul writes this letter from prison. He is cold. He is abandoned. He is under sentence of death. But Paul knows that though he might be in chains, the Word of God is still effecting change:”I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” (2 Timothy 2:9).

If you are to fulfill your calling, if you are to stand before others and speak the Word, you must have this type of confidence. You may be persecuted. Your speaking may be hindered. Your preparation may be cut short. Your sleep and rest may be taken away. You may be (actually: “will be”!) inadequate for the task Indeed, you, like Paul, may be killed. But God’s Word is mighty. God’s word will run and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1). God’s Word will accomplish all that He desires (Isaiah 55:10-11). No one can stand against God’s Word and hinder God’s purposes. You may be bound – but God’s Word will never be bound.

2) God’s Word is able to make you and those you teach wise unto salvation

One of the purposes God will accomplish through His Word is the salvation of those He calls to Himself: Paul writes: “From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).

Note carefully: What makes people wise unto salvation? Our programs? Our evangelistic techniques? Our cultural sensitivity? Our effective rhetoric? Our clever arguments?

None of these. God’s Word accomplishes His desires, and God’s Word saves His people.

So what is your role? This leads us to our next point.

3) Think hard about the Word, and pray to understand it.

Paul tells Timothy, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). This verse is a great encouragement. I trust you have often found the Bible hard to understand. But Paul tells Timothy, “Sure, this is hard. But God is right there with you to help you understand! So think hard – not because you have the mental capacity on your own to figure out what I mean, but because God works through your diligent study, through your serious thinking, to give you understanding.”

Your role, first, is to study the Word. It must dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16). You must ponder it and pray over it. Like Habakkuk, you must query it and struggle with it, bringing your lack of understanding before the Lord, crying out, “I have to teach this to Your people! So give me understanding so that I might fulfill Your calling on my life.”

4) ALL of Scripture is useful and profitable and sufficient for the ministry

Paul goes on to tell Timothy that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That is, the entire Bible is God’s precious revelation of Himself, telling us who He is, who we are, how we can be reconciled to Him, how we can fulfill the purpose of our creation, and where the world is heading. We need the Word in order to learn God’s character and God’s path of life. We need God’s Word if we are to reprove those who err in doctrine or practice. We need God’s Word if we are to straighten out those who are deviating from God’s path. We need God’s Word if we are to train others in how to live a life worthy of our calling. The Word alone is sufficient for such training and equipping. So we must depend on it if we are to be faithful stewards of the ministry entrusted to us.

5) Preach the Word!

Paul concludes his exhortations to Timothy with the most solemn command in the entire New Testament:

In the sight of God and Christ Jesus who will certainly judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly charge you: Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and earnestly exhort, with great steadfastness teaching all doctrine. For the time will come when they will not put up with sound doctrine, but will surround themselves with teachers to satisfy their own desires, to scratch their itching ears. They will turn their ears away from the truth, and to myths they will be turned aside. But you, be clear-headed in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of a preacher of the Gospel: that is, fully accomplish your ministry (2 Timothy 4:1-5, own translation).

According to Paul, the man called to a Gospel ministry must above all else fulfill this task: Preach the Word! Preach the Word! And Preach the Word! There is nothing more important, nothing more vital for advancing God’s Kingdom.

Every man called to ministry will be tempted in other directions. Many, as Paul says, will want him to preach something else, something appealing and uplifting. Others will want him to devote much time and energy to other tasks – including many good and important tasks.

But we must keep our heads, knowing what He has called us to. This will require enduring hardship, including having many walk away from us, deserting us – as they deserted Paul. But we must do the work of a preacher of the Gospel; we must fully accomplish the ministry to which GOD has called us. And He is the One who says: Preach the Word.

My brothers, you and I have nothing to say, nothing to offer our people, nothing to offer unbelievers, apart from the Word of God. So keep the Word of God central. Depend on the Word.

And when you look at other pastors, don’t be impressed by degrees. Don’t be impressed by titles. Don’t be impressed by those who have built big churches. Many with important degrees have abandoned their faith in God’s Word. Many with fancy titles have sought their own glory, not God’s. Many with big churches have built them by human methods, not through God’s means. Instead, be impressed with those men who faithfully and fully open up God’s Word. Make them your models. Pray for them, and emulate them. Then: Become such a man yourself. In this way, you will fully accomplish your ministry.

May God be pleased to bring that about in every man gathered here.