“Carry On!”

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My poem of the week this week is a strong call to perseverance from Robert Service. Service is not a guide to theology but is at his best calling for us to live life to the fullest and not give up.

“Carry On!”

It’s easy to fight when everything’s right,

And you’re mad with thrill and the glory;

It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near,

And wallow in fields that are gory.

It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,

When you’re feeling infernally mortal;

When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none,

Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

 

      Carry on! Carry on!

   There isn’t much punch in your blow.

You are glaring and staring and hitting out blind;

You are muddy and bloody, but never you mind.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   You haven’t the ghost of a show.

It’s looking like death, but while you’ve a breath,

       Carry on, my son! Carry on!

 

And so in the strife of the battle of life

It’s easy to fight when you’re winning;

It’s easy to slave, and starve and be brave,

When the dawn of success is beginning.

But the man who can meet despair and defeat

With a cheer, there’s the man of God’s choosing;

The man who can fight to Heaven’s own height

Is the man who can fight when he’s losing.

  

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Things never were looming so black.

But show that you haven’t a cowardly streak,

And though you’re unlucky you never are weak.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Brace up for another attack.

It’s looking like hell, but – you never tell.

      Carry on, old man! Carry on!

 

There are some who drift out in the desert of doubt

And some who in brutishness wallow;

There are others, I know, who in piety go

Because of a Heaven to follow.

But to labor with zest, and to give of your best,

For the sweetness and joy of the giving;

To help folks along with a hand and a song;

Why, there’s the real sunshine of living.

 

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Fight the good fight and true;

Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;

There’s big work to do, and that’s why you are here.

      Carry on! Carry on!

   Let the world be the better for you;

And at last when you die, let this be your cry!

      Carry on, my soul! Carry on!

Proper Eloquence in Preaching

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foxcroft gospel ministry“When ministers study to be florid rather than solid, and labor continually for lofty phrases and great swelling words of vanity, they are only spinning a spider’s web. The prater perhaps may win applause, but the minister in the meantime may not win a soul, the divine end of preaching.  They must follow the example of Christ, the great Teacher sent from God, who did not come with excellency of speech and the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with much plainness of speech.  It was prophesied concerning Him, ‘He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young’ (Isa. 40:11).  These expressions reveal to us Christ’s tender care of souls and His humble familiarity in teaching His people, tempering His provisions to every taste and clothing His instructions with language calculated to every capacity.  Herein it becomes ministers to imitate Him, and not tower aloft above low understandings in lawless altitudes of expression (as the manner of some is) but using a style level to the unlearned and unskillful, delivering their thoughts with a natural turn of speech and in the most entertaining images, which, where the matter is weighty and important, is voted by the best judges to be the truest eloquence.  However, there is no doubt that some particular occasions, audiences, and subjects will bear something more of politeness without vanity than one would ordinarily choose.”

(Thomas Foxcroft [1697-1769], The Gospel Ministry, 32-33)

“In spite of sorrow, loss and pain”

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My poem of the week for my office door this week came from Adoniram Judson. It is a powerful statement of mission zeal- realistic, cost counted, hopeful because of the future promises.
I had assumed it was a piece from a larger poem but was unable to find any more of the poem. Perhaps this is all of it. If you know of a larger poem in which this is found, please mention it in the comments.

“In spite of sorrow, loss and pain
Our course be onward still;
We sow on Burmah’s barren plain,
We reap on Zion’s hill”
– Adoniram Judson

N. T. Wright on the Psalms

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Since I heard about N. T. Wright’s new book on the Psalms I have been waiting for it to come out. While I have my differences with Wright, I am glad to hear him speaking on this important issue.

He recently did an interview with Christianity Today on the topic of the Psalms which is quite useful. Here are a couple of excerpts:

For us to distance ourselves from the Psalms inevitably means distancing ourselves from Jesus. …

When people give up using the Psalms, they often invent poor substitutes—songs, prayers, or poems that have a bit of Christian emotion and a bit of doctrine, but nonetheless lack the Psalter’s depth, passion, and rich variety of expression. If one tries to do without the Psalms, there is an identifiable blank at the heart of things.

The full interview is not very long and is worth reading. If you have read any on this site, you will know that I resonate with the things Wright is saying here. We need the Psalms, and it is not difficult to get started using them in singing and praying.

Tolkien, A Son and A Father’s Legacy

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Recently the first ever press interview with Christopher Tolkien, son of J. R. R. Tolkien and the official executor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate, was published (the link takes you to an even more recent translation of the interview into English). The headline makes much of Christopher Tolkien’s displeasure with Peter Jackson’s movie interpretations, but what I found most intriguing was the story of a father’s affection for his son and the son’s labors to preserve and advance the work of his father. It is a beautiful story of father-son interaction and devotion.

As those familiar with the works of Tolkien will know, it is to Christopher Tolkien that we are indebted for The Simarillion and other published pieces of the story of Middle Earth. When J. R. R. Tolkien died his unpublished work was a mass of scattered and unorganized papers. Christopher resigned his faculty position in Old English at New College Oxford and threw himself full time into editing the work of his father and preserving and advancing his legacy. As the article states: “One thing is certain: from father to son, a great part of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has now emerged from its boxes, thanks to the infinite perseverance of his son.”

This devotion was fired by the father sharing his stories with his son.

“Christopher Tolkien’s oldest memories were attached to the story of the beginnings[The Silmarillion], which his father would share with the children. ‘As strange as it may seem, I grew up in the world he created,’ he explains. ‘For me, the cities of The Silmarillion are more real than Babylon.’”

Fathers, none of us are J. R. R. Tolkien, but we do have great stories to pass down, especially The Great Story of redemption. This article encourages me to press on in passing down the stories of the Bible and of God’s faithfulness in our family’s life, allowing my children to see what these stories mean to me in hopes that they will own these stories as well. It reminds me that we are always inhabiting a story. The question is simply, “What story?” I want to be providing the parameters of great stories so that my family can inhabit and be formed by them.

(Also posted at The Children’s Hour)

“O Ye Sons of Men Be Wise”

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My poem of the week last week was this great gospel declaration by Joseph Hart:

“O Ye Sons of Men Be Wise”

O ye sons of men be wise,
trust no longer dreams and lies,
Out of Christ, almighty pow’r
can do nothing but devour.

God you say is good. ‘Tis true.
But he’s pure and holy too;
just and jealous is his ire,
burning with vindictive fire.

This of old himself declared:
Israel trembled when they heard.
But the proof of proofs indeed
is he sent his Son to bleed.

When the blessed Jesus died
God was clearly justified:
Sin to pardon without blood
never in his nature stood.

Worship God, then, in his Son,
there he’s love and there alone.
Think not that he will, or may,
pardon any other way.

See the suff’ring Son of God,
panting, groaning, sweating blood!
Brethren, this had never been
had not God detested sin.

Be his mercy therefore sought
in the way himself has taught:
There his clemency is such,
we can never trust too much.

He that better knows than we,
bids us all to Jesus flee.
Humbly take him at his Word
and your souls will bless the Lord!

 

–          Joseph Hart (1712-1768)

“The Mighty Minds of Old”

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One of my favorite poems about books was my “poem of the week” last week.

Robert Southey (1774-1843)

“His Books”

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

 

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew’d
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

 

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.

 

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet, leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

 

– From The Oxford Book of English Verse (#569)

 

 

“proclaim the truth and suffer for the truth, and if necessary, even die for the truth.”

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“The role of the priest is to proclaim the truth and suffer for the truth, and if necessary, even die for the truth.” – Polish priest-martyr Jerzy Popieluszko

Jim Kushiner from Touchstone Magazine has written a powerful essay interacting with a new documentary on the life and death of Jerzy Popieluszko, a Polish priest in the 1980’s. Kushiner examines the work of Popieluszko as an example of how Christians should stand firm, not in hatred but in love. There is much wisdom (& challenge!) for us here concerning living in challenging times.

Beauty & Necessity of Christ-Centered Preaching

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foxcroft gospel ministryI am really enjoying Thomas Foxcroft’s little book, The Gospel Ministry. It is a sermon he preached in 1718 on the nature of gospel ministry as he began a pastorate. He is particularly eloquent in urging that every sermon should be about Christ. Here is a long quote which is particularly rich.

“Whatever subject ministers are upon, it must somehow point to Christ. All sin must be witnessed against and preached down as opposed to the holy nature, the wise and gracious designs, and the just government of Christ.  So all duty must be persuaded to and preached up with due regard unto Christ; to His authority commanding and to His Spirit of grace assisting, as well as to the merit of His blood commending – and this to dash the vain presumption that decoys so many into ruin, who will securely hang the weight of the hopes upon the horns of the altar without paying expected homage to the scepter of Christ.  All the arrows of sharp rebuke are to be steeped in the blood of Christ; and this to prevent those desponding fears and frights of guilt which sometimes awfully work to a fatal issue.  Dark and ignorant sinners are to be directed to Christ as the Sun of righteousness; convinced sinners are to be led to Christ as the Great Atonement and the only City of Refuge.  Christ is to be lifted up on high for the wounded in spirit to look to, as the bitten Israelites looked to the brazen serpent of old.  The sick, the lame, and the diseased are to be carried to Christ as the great Physician, the Lord our Healer; the disconsolate and timorous are to be guided to Christ as the Consolation of Israel, and in us the hope of glory.  Every comfort administered is to be sweetened with pure water from this Well of salvation, which only can quench the fiery darts of the evil one. The promises of the gospel are to be applied as being in Christ ‘yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us’ (2 Cor. 1:20).  So the threatenings of the law are to light and flash in the eyes of sinners as the terrors of the Lord and sparks of the holy resentment of an incensed Savior, which hover now over the children of disobedience and will one day unite and fall heavy upon them.  The love of Christ for us is to be held forth as the great constraining motive to religion, and the life of Christ as the bright, engaging pattern of it.  Progress and increase in holiness are to be represented under the notion of abiding in Christ and growing up unto Him who is the Head, even Christ.  Perfection in grace is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and eternal life is a being forever with the Lord where He is, beholding His glory and dwelling in our Master’s joy.

Thus, in imitation of the apostolic way of preaching, there must be a beautiful texture of references to Christ, a golden thread twisted into every discourse to leaven and perfume it so as to make it express a savor of the knowledge of Christ. Thus every mite cast into the treasury of the temple must bear this inscription upon it, which was once the humble language of a pious martyr in the flames, ‘None but Christ, none but Christ,’ so that everyone, beholding in the Word preached as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory.” (9-11; emphasis added)

Luther: ‘the souls of men and women were a charge which came upon him daily’

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I recently came across this comment from Luther scholar, Gordon Rupp. It contains a valuable challenge to any who are involved in biblical study and pastoral ministry.

“In the National Gallery there is a Flemish landscape. The artist, Patinir, had never seen real mountains, and he practiced with shards of rock which jut grotesquely from the level plain. Erasmus’s handling of the controversy was a little like that. His gospel was smooth and pleasantly even as his native Holland. When compared with Luther’s grim expositions of the tempted Christian … his “Enchiridion” is an arm-chair study of the Christian warfare. …

“He did not understand the great heights and depth of the Christian faith: What it meant, with Luther and Augustine, to peer steeply down into the nauseating “abyss of the human conscience,” with Luther and Bunyan to tremble in the Valley of Humiliation, and to weep upon the Delectable Mountains at the brave prospect of distant Zion. It cuts deeply between the two men that while Erasmus never exercised spiritual direction, never had cure of souls, for Luther the souls of men and women were a charge which came upon him daily ….”

–          Gordon Rupp, The Righteousness of God: Luther Studies (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953), 284-85.

We won’t understand Scripture well while peering in from the outside. Only when submerged in the travail of our own souls and burdened with the care of the souls of others will we truly know God and understand His word. Peering calmly from the outside will lead to the deadening deliberation of details which miss the point of God in Christ reconciling condemned souls, adopting them and holding them fast- truths which anchor the soul and allow us to rejoice exceedingly even in a fallen world. Let us be those who wade in.