Courage, by Edgar Guest

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My poem of the week this week comes from Edgar Guest, a favorite of mine. I had my sons memorize this one last week and recite it this morning. There is much helpful here.

Courage

This is courage: to remain
Brave and patient under pain;
Cool and calm and firm to stay
In the presence of dismay;
Not to flinch when foes attack,
Even though you’re beaten back;
Still to cling to what is right,
When the wrong possesses might.

This is courage: to be true
To the best men see in you;
To remember, tempest-tossed,
Not to whimper, “All is lost!”
But to battle to the end
While you still have strength to spend;
Not to cry that hope is gone
While you’ve life to carry on.

This is courage: to endure
Hurt and loss you cannot cure;
Patiently and undismayed,
Facing life still unafraid;
Glad to live and glad to take
Bravely for your children’s sake,
Burdens they would have to bear
If you fled and ceased to care.
-from Life’s Highway, by Edgar A. Guest (Chicago: The Reilly and Lee Co., 1933), 36

“Read, Pray, Sing” Update

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We are now just about a week away from our conference, “Read, Pray, Sing: The Psalms as an Entryway to the Scriptures”, and things are coming together. There is still some space to get in on the special offers for the first 100 registrants:

a free copy of B&H’s bible software, WORDSearch,

and a free copy of one of the following books:

Forgotten Songs: Reclaiming the Psalms for Christian Worship, ed. Wells & Van Neste

The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying & Praising with the Psalms, Gordon Wenham

Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Prayers from the Psalms: From the Scottish Psalter of 1595, ed. David Calhoun

We are especially grateful to the generous donations from B&H Academic and Crossway Books.

 

Also, we have just updated the conference website so that it includes the titles for the plenary addresses as well as titles and summaries for all the breakout sessions. Our plenary addresses will be:

Andy Davis – “The Sufferings of Christ and the Subsequent Glories in the Psalms”

Heath Thomas – “God, Israel, and the Nations: Praising God and His Salvation in Psalm 117”

 

Then the titles for the breakout sessions are as follows:

Andy Davis — “The Bible Comes to Life: How Scripture Memory Transforms One’s Life”
Heath Thomas — “The Magnificent 7: Seven Ways of Reading (or Misreading) Scripture”

Kevin Chen – “God as a Poet: The Poetry of the Psalms”

Mark Dubis – “Ancient Backgrounds in Bible Study” 
George Guthrie – “Hearing the Psalms: Reading with Head and Heart”
Paul Jackson – “Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees”
Harry Lee Poe – “C.S. Lewis on the Psalms”
Ray Van Neste – “Singing & Praying the Psalms at Home”
Scott Winter (B&H Academic)- “Inductive Bible Study using WORDsearch Bible Software”

 

Come join us!

“The Story of the Cross”

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My poem of the week has been Edward Monro’s “The Story of the Cross.” I discovered this poem reading Anthony Esolen’s recent column at Touchstone Magazine. I appreciated the meditation on Jesus’ cross work, enhanced by Esolen’s comments,  and hope you will as well.

In His own raiment clad, with His blood dyed;
Women walk sorrowing by His side.
Heavy that cross to Him, weary the weight;
One who will help Him waits at the gate.

See! they are traveling on the same road;
Simon is sharing with Him the load.
O whither wandering bear they that tree?
He who first carries it, who is He?

Follow to Calvary; tread where He trod,
He who for ever was Son of God.
You who would love Him stand, gaze at His face:
Tarry a while on your earthy race.

As the swift moments fly, through the blest week,
Read the great story the cross will teach.
Is there no beauty to you who pass by,
In that lone figure which marks that sky?

On the cross lifted Thy face we scan,
Bearing that cross for us, Son of Man.
Thorns form Thy diadem, rough wood Thy throne;
For us Thy blood is shed, us alone.

No pillow under Thee to rest Thy head;
Only the splintered cross is Thy bed.
Nails pierced Thy hands and feet, Thy side the spear;
No voice is nigh to say help is near.

Shadows of midnight fall, though it is day:
Thy friends and kinsfolk stand far away.
Loud is Thy bitter cry; sunk on Thy breast
Hangeth Thy bleeding head without rest.

Loud scoffs the dying thief, who mocks at Thee;
Can it, my Savior, be all for me?
Gazing, afar from Thee, silent and lone,
Stand those few weepers Thou callest Thine own.

I see Thy title, Lord, inscribed above;
Jesus of Nazareth, King of Love.
What, O my Savior, here didst Thou see,
Which made Thee suffer and die for me?

“Child of My grief and pain, watched by My love;
I came to call thee to realms above.
I saw thee wandering far off from Me:
In love I seek for Thee; do not flee.

For thee My blood I shed, for thee alone;
I came to purchase thee, for Mine own.
Weep thou not for My grief, child of My love:
Strive to be with Me in Heaven above.

O I will follow Thee, Star of my soul,
Through the deep shades of life to the goal.
Yea, let Thy cross be borne each day by me;
Mind not how heavy, if but with Thee.

Lord, if Thou only wilt, make us Thine own,
Give no companion, save Thee alone.
Grant through each day of life to stand by Thee;
With Thee, when morning breaks, ever to be.

By Edward Monro, in A Supplement to Hymns Used in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Leeds (Leeds, England: E. W. Sharp, 1864).

God the Evangelist

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“let us mark first of all when the Gospel is preached to us that it is just as if God reached out his hand (as he says by the prophet Isaiah, Isa. 65:2) and said to us, “Come to me.”  It is a matter which ought to touch us to the quick, when we see that God comes to seek us, and does not wait until we come to him, but shows that he is ready to be made at one with us, although we were his daily enemies. He seeks nothing but to wipe out all our faults and make us partakers of the salvation that was purchased for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.  And thus we see how worthily we have to esteem the Gospel, and what a treasure it is”

– John Calvin preaching on 1 Timothy 2

New at The Children’s Hour

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I have recently posted several new reviews at my blog on children’s books, The Children’s Hour. I have a positive review of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic, The Lost World, which is a fun read with some good lessons to mine. I was quite disappointed with the final installment in Alister McGrath’s children’s trilogy, Darkness Shall Fall. I also have a positive review of a valuable book titled Child Identity Theft: What Every Parent Needs to Know. Lastly, I have posted a couple of quotes from Reformers on family life which I found helpful- Luther and Calvin talking about the importance of training our children in the knowledge of God.

Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin?

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Re-reading J. I. Packer’s Knowing God I came back across this hymn by Charles Wesley which I have chosen for this week’s poem of the week. Wesley wrote this hymn right after coming to faith expressing his joy in conversion. It is a marvelous expression of the wonder of being redeemed.

Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
Or sing my great Deliverer’s praise?

O how shall I the goodness tell,
Father, which Thou to me hast showed?
That I, a child of wrath and hell,
I should be called a child of God,
Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,
Blessed with this antepast of Heaven!

And shall I slight my Father’s love?
Or basely fear His gifts to own?
Unmindful of His favors prove?
Shall I, the hallowed cross to shun,
Refuse His righteousness to impart,
By hiding it within my heart?

No! though the ancient dragon rage,
And call forth all his host to war,
Though earth’s self-righteous sons engage
Them and their god alike I dare;
Jesus, the sinner’s friend, proclaim;
Jesus, to sinners still the same.

Outcasts of men, to you I call,
Harlots, and publicans, and thieves!
He spreads His arms to embrace you all;
Sinners alone His grace receives;
No need of Him the righteous have;
He came the lost to seek and save.

Come, O my guilty brethren, come,
Groaning beneath your load of sin,
His bleeding heart shall make you room,
His open side shall take you in;
He calls you now, invites you home;
Come, O my guilty brethren, come!

For you the purple current flowed
In pardons from His wounded side,
Languished for you the eternal God,
For you the Prince of glory died:
Believe, and all your sin’s forgiven;
Only believe, and yours is Heaven!

The Apocrypha, Lutheran Edition

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For school I recently read through most of the Apocrypha with my boys, and I used the new, The Apocrypha: The Lutheran Edition with Notes(ESV) recently published by Concordia Publishing House. My boys had the standard Oxford Annotated Apocrypha (RSV). It was a great experience simply reading through this literature with them, and I greatly appreciated this new edition.

The great benefit of this Lutheran edition is the wonderful introductory matter, study notes and other guiding matter. Each book is introduced with basic information as well as quotations from Martin Luther on the book’s oddities and value. Luther’s comments (as usual) were often humorous and very helpful. He pointed out well the problems in any book, but noted the value as well. This edition also has a nice overview of the historical setting of the Apocrypha, the time between the testaments, an era often unknown to many in church. Lastly, ten appendices give an overview of other historical material from this time including Josephus, Philo, Dead Sea Scrolls, Rabbinic literature, Nag Hammadi Codices and others.

This is a very nice study resource which helps in gaining awareness of the world into which Jesus emerged in his ministry.

 

Richard Baxter Poem on Facing Death

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The “Poem of the Week” on my office door this week is Richard Baxter’s “Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care,” which I encountered while re-reading Packer’s Knowing God. It is a powerful testimony of trusting God, come what may. The hymn was published in 1681 in Baxter’s Poetical Fragments, where it is accompanied by this notation, “This Cov­e­nant my dear Wife in her for­mer Sick­ness sub­scribed with a Cheer­ful will.” This affirmation of trust, then, was not an idle abstract thought for Baxter, but one rooted in the real challenge of facing death.

Lord it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad,
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To welcome endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.

Come, Lord, when grace hath made me meet
Thy blessèd face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet
What will Thy glory be!

Then I shall end my sad complaints
And weary sinful days,
And join with the triumphant saints
That sing my Savior’s praise.

My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.

-Richard Baxter

 

Our Need for Augustine’s Hermeneutics

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praise seeking understandingI have greatly enjoyed the introduction to Jason Byassee’s Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine. I’m still working on the rest of the book, but the intro itself deserves to be read as we think about how we interpret the Bible. Byasee does not suggest the Fathers got it all right, but argues that our modern approaches have weaknesses which need supplementing from the Fathers. The Fathers had weaknesses which modern tools can help. In essence he is calling for us to read the Bible along with the church through the ages.

Here are a few quotes where I think he correctly points out some weaknesses in much of typical modern interpretation and identifies the key strength of Augustine and other church fathers.

 

“This book was born out of the experience of leading a congregation. As a preacher I spent a great deal of fruitless time seeking biblical commentaries to help me read scripture well for the sake of the church. I have found modern commentary helpful for certain things – in clarifying historical events or linguistic problems with greater confidence than ancient commentators could, for example. Yet I found ancient commentators more helpful in doing the most important thing that Christian preaching and teaching must do: drawing the church to Christ.” 1

“Now, Augustine’s ability to translate is legendarily limited, and he himself laments it. His hermeneutics and his actual exegetical leaps often call for mockery among modern students of biblical hermeneutics. And yet, for all that, his exegesis itself is lovely, and it is more precisely aimed at the church’s goal of reshaping persons in the image of Christ than ours tends to be.” 1

“I am convinced that the fathers generally and Augustine specifically have been almost entirely excluded from modern conversations about exegesis and from its actual conduct in seminaries and churches. While the fathers have their exegetical faults, they also have much to teach us. Most importantly, their telos in exegesis is often right, precisely where ours is frequently wrong.” 3

“Yet its [the patristic tradition’s]attempt to progress toward a specifically Christian goal, to conduct exegesis with this telos in mind, is a great improvement on exegesis done with no such eschatological orientation. Augustine does exegesis as though Jesus is head of the body of the church, and we who are doing the exegesis are members of the body united under this head. Christians should be hard-pressed to disagree.” 3

Prayer, the Very Essence of Religion

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“Since prayer is that act by which we turn our will to God, prayer is of the very essence of religion . . . . Prayer is the most direct expression of faith, because prayerfully turning our thoughts and will to God is the initial step from thought about God to full assurance of God.  By the same token prayer is the most direct expression of love.  It is an offering of highest priority, since the first thing we owe God is our thinking and willing. (Adolf Schlatter, cited in Robert Yarbrough, 1-3 John, 298)