You should make a point of joining us on Sunday nights for our study through this incredible book!

Brainerd was racked by depression.  His diary entries become almost oppressive with his personal melancholy and sense of his own sinfulness.  If nothing else, he was clear about how deep human sinfulness went, how it separates us from God, and how each human soul needs God’s gracious salvation.

Brainerd was driven to preach the gospel both to the church and the unreached world.  Early in his writings he is burdened with the lukewarm nature of the church and how most Christians misappropriate their time in worthless and idle things.  He clearly lived what he taught and wrote about, and it is very convicting indeed.  Later in his career he became more and more burdened for the lost specifically the American Indian tribes on the frontiers of Western settlements.  His journal records powerful moves of God in which entire families and villages were convicted of sin and came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

There is much to commend in the work – much more than can be handled quickly here.  Maybe you have something to add about the lessons of his life?

There are no major, publicly accepted institutions that enforce the importance of the spiritual.

The biblical view, which I believe is the accurate anthropological view, is that everything is spiritual (with apologies to Rob Bell).  Though we are accustomed to a view in which our normal, day-to-day lives are lived in a non-spiritual and wholly “secular” world, it is more accurate to say that there is nothing that is not God-soaked.

Three of the primary influences in our culture create and reinforce the compartmentalization of our spiritual awareness: politics, journalism, and the university.  In the world of politics, religion and spirituality play a unique, if not corrosive role.  It is not uncommon, even among the least personally spiritual politicians, for candidates to invoke God or religion in some way.  But even if they call it a “personal matter” or utter phrases like, “God bless America,” it is understood that their personal religious beliefs will remain private.  They claim it in the public sphere, but they claim it to be only subjectively meaningful.  And that is why I call it a corrosive role.  We end up learning that the only right role for religion is subjective – religion does not belong in the public square.  But because many of our public leaders claim some kind of religious conviction, we are lulled into the sense that a completely private spirituality is all we need.  Our political sensibilities simply do not help us understand the proper role of Christian spirituality in our lives.

Journalism is even worse.  An industry that is dedicated to up-to-the-second information with little to no context leaves us little to no room for rumination and reflection.  If you wanted to, you could find a way to be inundated with “facts” and information 24/7.  You would be, in one sense of the term, “informed” but you would have little to know actual understanding about anything you now have rolling around in your head.  Headlines are poor substitutes for thought.  Come to think of it, a lifestyle of headlines becomes a roadblock to sustained thought.

Add to that the growing reality that most of what passes for mainstream journalism is heavily influenced by a point of view, and you have a recipe for group-think.

For centuries Christians have been known as “people of the book,” meaning not only that they are guided by Scripture, but that they ought to be comfortable with the kind of intellectual and spiritual work that is done through the Book.  We are not headline people who jump to quick and dirty conclusions.  We are people who soak in the wisdom of the ages through each and every season of life.  The wise Christian is a different creature than the well-informed news-junkie.

And then there is the ubiquitous influence of the western university.  More and more these institutions have become degree factories in which students pursue a technical degree aiming at getting a high-paying job on the other end.  Along the way, some of them are forced to take a required number of “humanities” credits, which in my experience, is not always a welcome experience for them.  “Will this help me find a job?” seems to be the guiding principle for both the school and the student.

“Will this help me be a better human being?” is a question neither knows how to answer.  But it is ultimately the question for all of us to answer.  The Christian’s primary concern here is about the spiritual formation of the human person under God and not how much money they will make in their lives or how much technical skill they possess.  If a person becomes wealthy is neither here nor there.  Wealth is a tool that can be used virtuously by the well-formed soul, or viciously by the malformed soul.  But this is not how we are trained in the world around us, and these concerns are left unanswered and un-addresses by our typical university system.

So then, who will teach us what the spiritual life under Christ looks like?  And maybe it is more a matter of modeling/living out the importance of the spiritual than teaching it (in the sense of instructing it).

The “Prayer of Suffering” is not a prayer to have more suffering in life (Christians are not masochists) and it is not even the prayer to eliminate suffering from our lives.  It is a prayer – or even more appropriately, a way of living life with others under Christ – of redemptive suffering.  Foster says, “Here we give to God the various difficulties and trials that we face, asking him to use them redemptively.  We also voluntarily take into ourselves the griefs and sorrows of others in order to set them free.” (pg. 217)

Our ultimate example of redemptive suffering is Christ on the cross.  There, he took the pinnacle of unjust punishment, bore our sins, and died in our place.  Through the suffering of the cross, Christ redeemed not just our eternal souls, but all the pain and suffering we endure in this life.  I think it can be said that without the cross and the empty tomb, suffering is nothing but the nihilistic struggle it feels like, but with Christ it can be a vehicle for our redemption.

And it isn’t just Christ.  The apostle Paul wrote that he endured all kinds of things in order to proclaim the Gospel, and that he rejoiced in that the Gospel was proclaimed in spite of his own pain (Col. 1:24-29; Phil 3:8-11).  Then he encouraged us to do the same as we go through life with those we love (Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:15).

There is so much more to be said, but I encourage you if you are a disciple of Christ to learn what it means to live through your suffering and the suffering of those you love in a redemptive way.  We keep our eyes and lives on Christ the author and perfector of our faith who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross and despised its shame (Heb 12:1-2).

A recent article in CT deals with the new book, The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come, by Rob Moll.  In the article we are encouraged to think more about funerals as an act of spiritual formation and even community formation under Christ.  We are, after all, people of a crucified and risen savior living in inevitable physical decay.  We ought to therefore embody a community of resurrection – and remember that resurrection implies death.  Rob Moll notes:

We live in a culture that has forgotten how to help people measure their days. Through medicine and science, we know more about death and how to forestall it than ever before. Yet we know little about how to prepare people for the inevitable. The church is a community that teaches people how to live well by teaching them how to measure their days. Put another way, when the church incarnates a culture of resurrection—one that recognizes the inevitability of death but not its triumph—it teaches people how to die well.

Have we become so obsessed with living well or living comfortably that we have lost sight of dying well as part of the spiritual act of the believer?  If we have neglected this, does it betray a lack of confidence in the providential guidance of God in all seasons of life?

Cur Deus Homo

It ought not to be disputed that rational nature was made holy by God, in order to be happy in enjoying Him. For to this end is it rational, in order to discern justice and injustice, good and evil, and between the greater and the lesser good. Otherwise it was made rational in vain. But God made it not rational in vain. Wherefore, doubtless, it was made rational for this end. In like manner is it proved that the intelligent creature received the power of discernment for this purpose, that he might hate and shun evil, and love and choose good, and especially the greater good. For else in vain would God have given him that power of discernment, since man’s discretion would be useless unless he loved and avoided according to it. But it does not befit God to give such power in vain. It is, therefore, established that rational nature was created for this end, viz., to love and choose the highest good supremely, for its own sake and nothing else;…

What strikes me is the capacity that is made holy by God in order for us to be happy in him: our rationality.  We were given this capacity for a purpose.  It is intended to judge rightly between right and wrong, good and evil, and even make distinctions between lesser and greater goods.  The exercise of my mental capacities is an act of sanctification, or redemption, of holiness to the end that I may be happy in God.

Put the other way around, I am happiest in God when this capacity is used to its utmost.  The highest use my reason can attain is to supremely love the supreme good – God.  And I learn to love him for his own sake and not for what he does or does not do.

Do I love God with all my mind?

TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life.

A good collection of reactions and analysis by biologist Jonathan Wells of the science can be found on the blog, Evolution News & Views.  As it turns out, nothing too spectacular has happened, despite some of the implications of some of the reporting.  All Venter and his colleagues have done is take some life apart, and recreate just DNA (which is not a living organism).

But what is going on in the desire to report this as “life-creating” or even the desire to recreate life in our own image?  Two vast questions indeed, but here are a couple of thoughts.

The anonymous article in the The Economist makes it pretty clear the author(s) are excited about humanity’s mastery over “life.”  And though the positive and creative possibilities presented by such reconstruction could be vast, so are the darker ethical implications.  How much mastery do we need, and what does it mean for the human race (more specifically, governments, universities and companies) to have that kind of control over the next generation of anything biological?  At least we are a basically good species with no ill-intent or inclinations toward destruction or evil!

In addition, scientists would love to find what several of the reports call “chemical pathways” to the creation of life.  One of the predominant theories of the creation of the first living organisms is called “chemical evolution,” and postulates that some set of chemical reactions took simple material stuff to living stuff.  The creation of this synthetic DNA potentially offers the ability to unravel some of the complicated pathways and figure out how the first life came to be.

Though chemical evolution is far from uncontroversial, many of the reports on this event hold a hopeful tone about origin of life discovery.  Though there will likely be some set of discoveries made as a result, the drive to exaggerate the breakthrough and its possibilities derives from an a priori commitment to naturalistic Neo-Darwinism.  By in large, evolutionary scientists and their supporters simply don’t want to imagine the possibility of a non-natural cause to the origin of life, so anything that even looks like a step in a naturalistic direction is heralded as a leap of magnificent proportions.

Has anyone ever promised you that following Jesus would be easy?  Maybe Jesus would fulfill your wildest dreams and make everything in your life go smoothly if you simply asked him into your heart.  Though I believe it is true that life with God is the only “life abundantly,” I am also convinced that it can be life’s greatest challenge.   Jesus doesn’t promise us ease in life, but he does promise us life.  After all, what do we expect becoming disciples of an innocent and executed man?

The early disciples of Christ learned this in dramatic fashion during an extended conversation about the bread of life.  Jesus turns the conversation from the topic of eating the bread of life, Him, and receiving eternal life, to eating his flesh and drinking his blood; a shocking and even odd metaphor in any culture.  And it isn’t an option.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…” (vs. 53-54)

At this point, it is only natural to wonder who this guy is.  The crowd wonders about his stance on cannibalism, and his disciples are muttering among themselves that this is a hard saying.  And it is a hard saying!  Into a world full of religious options, this man says he is the only path to salvation.  Into a Jewish culture with a well established set of expectations regarding the Messiah, Jesus comes claiming all those rolls and rights, but doesn’t look at all like what they expected.  And to cap it all off, apparently, there will be blood.

The Gospels are full of crowds who both follow and reject Jesus.  It is not uncommon for a crowd to gather because of the miracles, hear Jesus teach, and then split into groups of devotees, hangers on, and outright enemies.  At this point in John 6 something relatively unique happens.  John doesn’t remark on the crowd’s rejection of Jesus.  It looks more like this:

“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’….After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (vs. 60, 66)

His disciples reject him.  It looks like it will be too hard to follow him – to go through what it will mean to “eat” his flesh and blood, to associate so closely with Jesus that it will be like he is in them and they are in him.  But there is one notable if not surprising exception.

“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’…” (vs 68)

This is a profound moment of clarity and priority for Peter and the rest who stayed.  It is less important that Jesus might be hard to follow.  It is less important that he will say and do things that may be hard to accept.  It is less important that blood might be shed in following Him.  It is more important that Jesus has the words of life.   

The disciples who walked away from Christ that day chose what looked like the easier path, but lost life abundantly and life eternal.  Peter’s life did not become immediately easy or perfect, but in choosing to follow Christ come what may, he found God’s life.

Jesus is a controversial figure.  Divisive, even.  And I speak of the Jesus of Scripture, of course.  The “nice guy” Jesus of our culture is not only uncontroversial, he isn’t even interesting.  He wants everyone to get alone, he is OK with other gods, and he loves you just the way you are.  But when we come into contact with the Jesus of Scripture he immediately divides the room.  And such is the case with the story of John 7.  Jesus reenters Jerusalem for another feast of the Jews and even before the people know he is there, they are divided about who he is.

If we put ourselves in the places of the people in Jerusalem trying to figure out who Jesus is, we are presented with a real problem.  There are those who say he is a great teacher, those who claim he is a rotten teacher.  There are those who go so far as to say he is the Messiah, and those who want to kill him for blasphemy.  One way or another, Jesus was not – and is not – a boring figure.

So how are we to decide who Jesus is?  Are there better or worse ways to understand who he is?  If we put it another way, if our spiritual formation depends on getting Jesus right, how do we get him right?  In the course of the conversations in chapter 7, Jesus gives us at least two answers to this question.  The first is all about our desires.

“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” (vs. 17)

If our wills are pointed in the right direction, Jesus promises us that we will come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of God and a more intimate relationship with him.  If we can understand our will as something guided by our most powerful desires, if our desires are healthy our relationship with God will become healthier.   And we have already seen this truth in action in John’s Gospel.  In chapter 5, the Jewish leaders cared more for their Sabbath laws than the healing of a life-long paralytic, so they not only missed Jesus, they decided to kill him.  The first story of John 7 involves Jesus’ brothers as mockers and tempters.  As such, they completely missed who Jesus truly was.  In contrast, after hearing a very difficult conversation about what it would mean to follow Jesus, Peter proclaimed that there was nowhere else for them to go.  He would follow Jesus no matter what followed.  That decision didn’t make Peter’s life perfect, but it did mean he found Jesus.

The second way is through our glory.

“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” (vs. 18)

As our example, the Son of God, the second member of the Trinity, God in flesh, lived for the glory of God and it resulted in the truth of God here on earth.  I, a simple and broken human being, am tempted on a regular basis to replace God’s glory with my own.  Through my daily life of taking care of people, tasks, and self I become habitually caught up in me and my life.  But we learn through Christ that glory is a glimpse into who does and does not see God.

If Christ’s life on earth was lived to the glory of God and he is known because of it, how much more will I see, experience, and reveal that life if I live for the glory of God.