Ghosts of Dreams

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Ghosts of Dreams

WE are all of us dreamers of dreams,
On visions our childhood is fed;
And the heart of a child is unhaunted, it seems,
By ghosts of dreams that are dead.

From childhood to youth’s but a span,
And the years of our life are soon sped;
But the youth is no longer a youth, but a man,
When the first of his dreams is dead.

‘Tis a cup of wormwood and gall,
When the doom of a great man is said;
And the best of a man is under a pall
When the best of his dreams is dead.

He may live on by compact and plan
When the fine bloom of living is shed,
But God pity the little that’s left of a man
When most of his dreams are dead.

Let him show a brave face if he can;
Let him woo fame and fortune instead;
Yet there’s not much to do, but to bury a man
When the last of his dreams is dead.

– William Herbert Carruth

How Malachi Speaks to us Today

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Peter Adam’s new book, The Message of Malachi, from The Bible Speaks Today series, is really good! It is well written and is a wonderful sermonic exposition of the book with sound theological application for today.

Here is a sample from the introduction which is helpful and illustrates the approach of the commentary.

“There are three ways in which this book is the word of the Lord for us today.

First, Malachi saw that at the heart of God’s people, the church, must lie a deep, radical, and overwhelming conviction that God loves them.  Without this at our heart, we are lost.

Second, Malachi knew that the greatest sin of God’s people is the sin against God.  We easily get confused about sin.  We see that we can sin against ourselves, and harm ourselves.  We see that we can sin against others, and harm them.  But we find it harder to take seriously our sin against God. Yet here is the fundamental sin, the source of all sin.

Third, in Malachi’s day the people of God were in a mess.  While they were not actually running away from God, and were not worshipping idols, as they had in the past, they seemed to lack the energy to serve God wholeheartedly.  They tried to live in neutral territory, neither serving God too enthusiastically, nor turning away from God too enthusiastically.  In this they were self-deceived.  They thought they were in a grey no-man’s land, where they neither needed to respond whole-heartedly to God, nor refuse him.  In fact they were in a vicious circle, a terrifying whirlpool, sinking further and further to destruction.  Malachi is God’s effective remedy for such a situation among the people of God.” 14-16

Cyril of Alexandria on Proper Spirit for Biblical Study

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A good warning from the 5th Century:

“The Spirit does not reveal the truth to those who spend too much effort preparing for battle and who exult in tangled and deceptive arguments rather than rejoice in the truth. This is because the Spirit does not ‘enter a deceitful soul’ [Wis 1:4], nor does he otherwise allow his precious pearls to be rolled under the feet of swine. Instead, he would rather spend his time with simple minds because they move without guile and avoid superfluous sophistry.”

(Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John: Volume 1, p. 5)

Tolstoy, Pride & Pastors

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For some of my early summer reading I worked through a variety of smaller, early 20th century books I’ve picked up along the way. One such book is Henry Churchill King’s It’s All In the Day’s Work (Macmillan, 1916). Not everything in the little book is commendable, but it does contain gold.

At one point King enlists Tolstoy in order to address the “unconscious pharisaism of intellectual and spiritual pride.” King has in view those who want to help others but approach this “help” with the assumption that they are better than those they seek to help. King notes “how certain he [Tolstoy] is that it is highly probable that those who feel so competent to help, are themselves less and have therefore less to give than those they desire to aid…” (39).

The following quote from Tolstoy is long and a bit convoluted to modern ears, but it contains a valuable point. This comes from a letter in response to one who asked for Tolstoy’s critique of the ethical tone of a certain play.

“I refer to the opinion that men, provided or not provided with diplomas, as narrow-minded as they are uncultivated, but possessing great assurance, conclude, one knows not why, that since they are so intelligent and worthy, they need not try to govern themselves, but that their vocation and sacred duty is to enlighten, organize, and direct the lives of others.  Some of them would accomplish this with the aid of the old government, others with that of the new one, while still others, like your Peter, would bring this about by offering this ‘ignorant and stupid people,’ this same people, which, by its labor, feeds these good-for-nothings, the grand truths of Christianity which they imagine themselves overflowing with.”

“The condition sine qua non of all good and all useful activity is humility.  As soon as humility is lacking good becomes evil.” (40-41)

There is overstatement here, of course. People do need the “grand truths of Christianity,” but we distort those truths when we present them with such arrogance, or when we act like we need not govern ourselves. Let us have a gospel confidence, one rooted in God’s truth not in ourselves. Then boldness and humility can be joined.

Suicide, Justification by Faith & Pastoral Care

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Ministry in the times of loss and death is one of the crucial roles of a pastor, so good examples of such ministry are indispensable.

Recently in our church a dear brother took his own life. Such a situation raises a host of challenges and questions. Many people continue to think that a person who takes his own life cannot go to heaven. What does the Bible say about this? For the pastor, how do you preach such a funeral? Do you directly address suicide? Every situation is different, but the video below contains one of the most powerful, pastoral funeral sermons I have ever heard. Even if you do not know Glenn Perry, this message by Lee Tankersley is a powerful example of several things, including:

–          how robust theology matters and can bolster us in suffering
–          justification by faith and the issue of suicide
–          the importance of really knowing your people
–          clear, direct, pastoral, humane address at a funeral
–          the value of the ministry of encouragement (e.g., Preston Atkinson’s letter at the end of the message)

The sermon begins at about 15:30.

“Both the believer who dies singing ‘Amazing Grace’ with his family at his bedside and the believer who dies by taking his own life, will stand before God saying, ‘All I have is Christ and what he did for me.’ And that is enough. In fact, that is the only thing that is enough. Our good works will not suffice before his demand for perfect righteousness, and our sins are not sufficient to triumph over his sin-bearing death and resurrection. Jesus is our righteousness. All we have is Christ. And that is enough. ”

(Lee Tankersley)

Jayber Crow to Pastors

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In his novel, Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry gives a significant critique which pastors ought to hear.  One need not agree with Berry at every point, but we ought to hear our critics to see if there is truth (even partial truth) in what they are saying. The main point here is not the youthfulness of the pastors, but their failure to pay attention to “place,” to recognize the particularity of a certain place and people, their beauties and tragedies, their strengths and weaknesses, their customs and traditions.

It is too easy to speak in generalities (as described below) without engaging the real, specific people in front of you. You need school or training to help you engage the text well, but then you must learn your own people. Fruitful ministry will take place not as we merely pass “through” or “over” the communities in which we minister, but as we take time to actually live there.

The preachers were always young students from the seminary who wore, you might say, the mantle of power but not the mantle of knowledge. They wouldn’t stay long enough to know where they were, for one thing. Some were wise and some were foolish, but none, so far as Port William knew, was ever old. They seemed to have come from some Never-Never Land where the professionally devout were forever young. They were not going to school to learn where they were, let alone the pleasures and the pains of being there, or what ought to be said there. You couldn’t learn those things in a school. They went to school, apparently, to learn to say over and over again, regardless of where they were, what had already been said too often. They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works—although they could tell you that this world had been made by God Himself.

What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of the greatest beauties are the briefest. They had imagined the church, which is an organization, but not the world, which is an order and a mystery. To them, the church did not exist in the world where people earn their living and have their being, but rather in the world where they fear death and Hell, which is not much of a world. To them, the soul was something dark and musty, stuck away for later. In their brief passage through or over it, most of the young preachers knew Port William only as it theoretically was (“lost”) and as it theoretically might be (“saved”). [emphasis added]

“Learn it meekly on thy knees”

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Just last night I came across this poem and found it to be a wonderful statement on how we should approach the Bible, especially the last two stanzas. The fact that this poem was originally written for children will discredit it for some, but such an assessment would be unwise. I am currently reading Mark Gignilliat’s fine book, A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism. He describes key voices in biblical scholarship as they again and again began with rejecting the divine inspiration of Scripture. Such skepticism is usually in vogue, but the faith encouraged in this poem is the way to life and understanding.

“Taste”

O guide my judgment and my taste,
Sweet SPIRIT, author of the book
Of wonders, told in language chaste,
And plainness not to be mistook.

O let me muse, and yet at sight
The page admire, the page believe;
“Let there be light, and there was light,
“Let there be Paradise and Eve!”

Who his soul’s rapture can refrain?
At Joseph’s ever-pleasing tale,
Of marvels, the prodigious train,
To Sinai’s hill from Goshen’s vale.

The Psalmist and proverbial Seer,
And all the prophets’ sons of song,
Make all things precious, all things clear,
And bear the brilliant word along.

O take the book from off the shelf,
And con [learn] it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch’d to teach and please.

Respect, adore it heart and mind,
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand!
Who reads the most, is most refin’d,
And polish’d by the Master’s hand.

—from Christopher Smart, Hymns for the Amusement of Children (1771)

“It Is Glory Enough”

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I read this poem tonight and was taken with its spirit. I don’t know authorial intent, but it strikes me as a compelling portrait of life lived without regard for the shifting winds of public opinion, standing for God’s truth regardless of the cost.

“It Is Glory Enough”

IT is glory enough to have shouted the name
Of the living God in the teeth of an army of foes;
To have thrown all prudence and forethought away
And for once to have followed the call of the soul
Out into the danger of darkness, of ruin and death.
To have counselled with right, not success, for once,
Is glory enough for one day.

It is glory enough for one day
To have marched out alone before the seats of the scornful,
Their fingers all pointing your way;
To have felt and wholly forgotten the branding-iron of their eyes;
To have stood up proud and reliant on only your soul
And go calmly on with your duty —
It is glory enough.

It is glory enough to have taken the perilous risk;
Instead of investing in stocks and paid-up insurance for one,
To have fitted a cruiser for right to adventure a sea full of shoals;
To sail without chart and with only the stars for a guide;
To have dared to lose with all the chances for losing
Is glory enough.

It is glory enough for one day
To have dreamed the bright dream of the reign of right;
To have fastened your faith like a flag to that immaterial staff
And have marched away, forgetting your base of supplies.
And while the worldly wise see nothing but shame and ignoble retreat,
And though far ahead the heart may faint and the flesh prove weak —
To have dreamed that bold dream is glory enough,
Is glory enough for one day.

–          William Herbert Carruth

“Reliant on only your soul” may be taken as a sort of self-reliance which minimizes God, but it could be taken in terms of standing alone, without the support of others (like, e.g., Daniel, his three friends or Martin Luther). Count me in for fitting a “cruiser for right,” considering what is right and not just what will succeed, and standing for the name of God regardless of the contempt of the worldly wise. That will certainly be glory enough.

Pastors, Physicians of Souls

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There is a striking analogy between the office of a pastor and that of a physician They both have respect to the welfare of men and while the one seeks to heal the diseases of the body the other aims at restoring to health the disordered souls of men. It belongs to each not only to cure but to prevent diseases and to soothe and comfort such patients as it may be found impossible to cure As the physician cannot safely follow his profession without an accurate knowledge of the human frame so the pastor ought to be well acquainted with the constitution of the mind and with all its faculties susceptibilities and passions And as the body and mind are intimately but mysteriously united, it appertains to both these professions to be acquainted with the effects of this union in their reciprocal influence on the constituent parts of our nature; therefore the knowledge of physiology is important to both. I have often been struck with admiration at the ardour and self-denial manifested by the students of medicine in acquiring the requisite knowledge of the anatomy of the human body and in making themselves acquainted with the pathology of the most loathsome diseases. They learn to enter cheerfully into the wards of hospitals almshouses and asylums for the insane that they may become acquainted with the symptoms of all classes of disease to which the human frame is liable, and they spare no pains in making experiments and ascertaining the efficacy of particular remedies and modes of treatment. And I have desired to witness something of the same diligence and self-denial in candidates for the holy ministry that they might become better qualified to deal with the moral diseases of those souls which are committed to their care. Every pastor should study to become a skilful casuist for if he is a faithful shepherd he will meet with a great number and variety of cases of conscience which will call for both his tenderest compassion and spiritual skill in the treatment.

–          Archibald Alexander, found in Princeton and the Work of Christian Ministry, 191-92

Rootedness & Trust in Times of Trouble

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Several weeks ago now, John Crowder, pastor of First Baptist Church in West, TX, where the fertilizer plant exploded, wrote a moving and very useful column about ministry in the aftermath. He mentions a number of lessons he drew from the event, and several are useful for pastoral ministry. Here, in his words,  is one that stuck out to me:

Another lesson I’ve learned is that it helps for a pastor to be somewhere for a while. It helps build the trust of your community. Then when disaster strikes, you’ve got that trust, and the community knows it can depend on you. If you’re always moving to work your way up to a big church, you lose that opportunity to minister to folks. You haven’t been there long enough to build trust. I’ve been here for 18 years. At times I’ve thought, I wonder why I have to stay in this little church, this little town. I wish I could move on to bigger and better things. But now I know that God was having me build a long tenure so I’d be ready for this. (emphasis original)

Thanks to Mike Garrett for pointing this article and this paragraph out to me.