New Book on Augustine for Children

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Simonetta Carr, whose book on Calvin I have commented on previously, has now completed a similar book on Augustine.It looks good I look forward to seeing it when it is relased later this month.

Hardback, 64 pages

Page size: 8 x 10 inches

Retail Price: $18.00

ISBN978-1-60178-073-7

Here are some of the endorsements:

“A splendid way to introduce children – and adults too – to one of the most influential Christians who ever lived.”

–Phillip S. Cary, Scholar in Residence at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, and author of several books on Augustine

“Few figures in Western history are as important as Augustine. He is one of the early church fathers to whom the Reformers rightly looked as an inspiration for their theology and piety in many respects but he is more than that. He is an old and dear friend. Simonetta Carr has produced a clear, readable introduction to the life and work of this great Christian and our old friend.”

–R. Scott Clark, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California

“Simonetta Carr offers a sympathetic, whirlwind tour of the life, times, and beliefs of Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important and long-loved figures for Western Christianity.Maps, illustrations, timelines, and photos engage the imagination at a pace that will hold the interest of young readers.”

–Brandon and Mindy Withrow, authors of the popular church history series for children, History Lives

Eugene Peterson on “Successful Ministry”

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Justin Taylor cited this passage from Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (pp. 7-8).Peterson is really good on pastoral ministry and this quote resonates with much discussed here so I wanted to pass it along.

 

For a long time, I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation. The curriculum would consist of four courses.

Course
I: Creative Plagiarism.
I would put you in touch with a wide range of excellent and inspirational talks, show you how to alter them just enough to obscure their origins, and get you a reputation for wit and wisdom.

Course
II: Voice Control for Prayer and Counseling.
We would develop your own distinct style of Holy Joe intonation, acquiring the skill in resonance and modulation that conveys and unmistakable aura of sanctity.

Course
III: Efficient Office Management.
There is nothing that parishioners admire more in their pastors than the capacity to run a tight ship administratively. If we return all phone calls within twenty-four hours, answer all the letters within a week, distributing enough carbons to key people so that they know we are on top of things, and have just the right amount of clutter on our desk – not too much, or we appear inefficient, not too little or we appear underemployed – we quickly get the reputation for efficiency that is far more important than anything that we actually do.

Course
IV: Image Projection.
Here we would master the half-dozen well-known and easily implemented devices that that create the impression that we are terrifically busy and widely sought after for counsel by influential people in the community. A one-week refresher course each year would introduce new phrases that would convince our parishioners that we are bold innovators on the cutting edge of the megatrends and at the same time solidly rooted in all the traditional values of our sainted ancestors.

(I have been laughing for several years over this trade school training with which I plan to make my fortune. Recently, though, the joke has backfired on me. I keep seeing advertisements for institutes and workshops all over the country that invite pastors to sign up for this exact curriculum. The advertised course offerings are not quite as honestly labeled as mine, but the content appears to be identical – a curriculum that trains pastors to satisfy the current consumer tastes in religion. I’m not laughing anymore.)

 

Galatians and Growing in Grace

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I think God is really teaching and growing me in the realm of grace and much of it is tied to the book of Galatians. Eric Smith who is preaching through Galatians has commented on this (here and here) and has helped me in conversation. At our church, we have been walking through Galatians as well (sermons online). We pastors felt our people needed this emphasis of being reminded of our standing in Christ due to grace, and we are seeing that we needed it just as much!
Here is a comment from a church member that I thought was well put and edifying so I share it with you:

Lee,

I just wanted to let you know that the Lord has spoken to me through your messages on Galatians. I know you feel like you are saying the same things over and over, but you also rightly recognize that we can never really mature beyond justification by faith.

If I could express something of the impact that your messages have had on me, I would say that the sting of my sin has been blunted. This is true not only in the sense that guilt and creeping despair have lost power over me because of the gospel, but also in the sense that sin seems less alluring because of the doctrine of justification by faith. I recognize much more readily now how easily I slip into tying my subjective sense of standing with God to my performance. Thank you for exposing that to me and killing it through your faithful proclamation of the Word of God. Christ is addressing his people through you week by week.

Don’t let the pressure toward novelty cause you to lose sleep during sermon preparation. We don’t need something new. We need the old truths that have been proclaimed for centuries…

Let us be faithful to keep preaching the old truths.

Horton on Home & Church

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I just came across this quote posted by my friend Justin Wainscott.I thought it followed well my post on the importance of stories.We parents must orient our lives and families so as to show our children that God’s story is the central realities of our lives thus showing them the way to follow.

 

Christian homes and churches are the only institutions in which our children will learn to find themselves in God’s story. When they are united more by the trends of pop culture than by the faith and practice of the whole church in all times and places, our youth become victims of our sloth. We should not be surprised that over half of those reared in evangelical homes and churches today do not join or even attend a church regularly when they go off to college. If we are going to see our children grow up into Christ instead of abandoning the church, our
spiritual life at home and in the church must incorporate them into the teaching and fellowship of the apostolic faith. They can find “ministry opportunities” through United Way, the Peace Corps, or Habitat for Humanity. They can find friends at the fraternity or sorority. They can find intellectual stimulation in class. And they can find a sense of meaning and purpose in their vocations. If their home churches exchanged the ministry of preaching and teaching the apostles’ doctrine for a variety of ministries and activities that they could find legitimate versions of in the world, then it is difficult to come up with a reasonable answer when they ask, “Why do I need the church?”


–Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World

Godfrey’s An Unexpected Journey

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I have just finished reading Robert Godfrey’s spiritual autobiography, An Unexpected Journey: Discovering Reformed Christianity.It was a wonderful, refreshing read.The portrait of vibrant Christianity (in the church where he came to faith, and elsewhere) which he describes is so compelling.As a Baptist I have places of difference with Godfrey, but this book was good for my soul and I commend it to you.He discusses the importance of a vibrant community and the danger of turning our churches into “debating societies” where truth is discussed but less concern is given to caring for one another.He describes his own struggle with resting in the sincerity of his faith rather than just trusting the faithfulness of Christ (as noted previously). There is much pastoral wisdom to be found here.

Interestingly he structures most of the book around the Psalms.At the end of the book he discusses how valuable the Psalms have been to him.As anyone who has been reading this blog will know, I have been increasingly impressed with how central the Psalms were for the life and faith of our forebears coming out of the Reformation.When I see the strength of the trees which grew out of this soil, it makes me want to use the same fertilizer.

Interestingly, while Godfrey discusses the Psalms throughout, the chapter where he focuses on them is titled, “Passion.” There, in the closing words of the book, he writes of the Psalms:

“They have focused and united for me the theology, the worship, the piety, and the church life taught in the Scriptures.They have united for me head, heart, and mouth in the praise of the Lord. They are the soul of the Reformed faith.” (150)

The Fortifying Value of Stories

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I have been quite behind in posting for a number of reasons including the fact that we have been reading the Lord of the Rings books which are taking considerably longer than many others we have read!Just last night we read the following portion from The Two Towers.I am struck by how often in great stories the authors portray their characters drawing strength and wisdom from the stories they have heard since childhood (the same thing occurs in Lewis’ Narnia stories).

Stories are important for life- not just for children but adults as well.It is important to hear and learn good stories in childhood precisely so that you can draw upon them when you are grown.It is important to realize you are a part of a story and to see parallels between your story and the great stories of old.We all crave a narrative to be a part of, a plot to participate in, knowing that it is going somewhere and means something.The Biblical story gives us that, and all the great stories of human creation are great precisely because they mirror that Biblical narrative in some way.

Bolster your soul and the souls of your children by giving them good stories.

 

“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them.I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?’

‘I wonder,’ said Frodo. ‘But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.’

‘No, sir, of course not. Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?’

‘No, they never end as tales,’ said Frodo. ‘But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.’ …

[Sam speaking] Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: “Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!” And they’ll say: “Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?” “Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.”

 

Yarbrough on 1-3 John

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You just have to love a commentary which opens with a preface like the one in Bob Yarbrough’s 1, 2, and 3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament).Now, I was already a Yarbrough fan having had him for German while at TEDS and enjoyed several interactions with him.Therefore, what he wrote in this preface did not surprise me, but left me with a smile thinking, “Vintage Yarbrough!”

This preface is worth reading in its entirety, but I will post some excerpts here as good examples of the approach to biblical study.

 

“It is customary for commentary writers to muse aloud to try to justify yet another painstaking study of biblical books that have already been treaded repeatedly.Nearly one hundred commentaries were written on the Johannine Epistles from patristic times to the early 1980’s…. I offer no defense for this commentary if the requirement is earthshaking novelty, unprecedented profundity, or unrivaled comprehensiveness.Life is not long enough to do justice to even epistle-length snippets of Christian Scripture, and publishers are not going to wait a lifetime for the manuscript anyway. . . . What I have written is limited in scope, incomplete in breadth, and restricted in insight. . . Experts should prepare to encounter any number of limitations, serious even if not criminal, in the present work.

Since a commentary is supposed to be explication rather than creative or even historical fiction, its redeeming value, if any, will lie in communication of any truths observed and articulated.Here I may express more optimism, for even a modest witness to gospel verities carries divine promise. . . . Like the exegetical labors of many interpreters through the ages, my work on the biblical text has grown out of a sense of conviction of sin, seizure by divine grace, and fascination with biblical wisdom as I sometimes think I understand it.” (ix)

“While academic protocol moves perhaps most commentators to take their primary discussion partners from among current doyens of the discipline, I have (without ignoring our day’s intellects and critical industries) tried to draw on a range of thinkers from across temporal and cultural boundaries. . . . For better or worse this may give my commentary a sense of addressing classic Christian concerns and not only current technical and postmodern ones. . . . In my choice of discussion partners, I have sought to assure that the way I have approached John’s Letters and the things I have found in them are not unduly confined to my short lifetime’s frequently quirky agenda.” (xi)

“…in reading John’s Letters, I confess as much interest in how they look to followers of the prophet Muhammad or to citizens of a post-Marxist country trying to rebuild after decades of political assault on Christianity or to a pastor in Singapore, as to the direct heirs of Dodd and Bultmann. . . . What does John have to say to Christians who are dying for the faith they profess, in part because of the trust they have based in writings like the Johannine Epistles?These are questions typically untouched in the Western professional guilds where what used to be the study of ‘divinity’ has become the pursuit of rarified ‘biblical studies’ or even bloodless ‘religions.'” (xii)

Sanctification by Faith

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Here is a good description of sanctification making clear that we work but we do so by grace and not to earn or maintain our salvation.

“As Americans, we live in a culture that looks for fast, simple solutions to all problems…. we must testify that no such solution exists for the process of sanctification. Rather, we must adorn our faith with serious discipline and continuous work to grow in grace. But that seriousness must not be grim. We pursue holiness not to earn our standing with God, but because we are filled with love and gratitude to God for the standing that is ours in Christ. We pursue holiness sustained at every point with the grace and support that our God gives us in his church and among his people. We pursue holiness with the confidence that on the day that we are with Christ forever, we will be perfectly holy.”
– (Robert Godfrey, An Unexpected Journey, p. 127)

Happy Reformation Day!

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Happy Reformation Day! I hope you make much of this day and the truths it commemorates with you family and church this weekend. My family gathered around last night to listen to Max McLean’s wonderful rendition of Luther’s defense at Worms, “Martin Luther’s- Here I Stand” (available for free download through tomorrow!). He includes not only Luther’s speech but also sets the scene well and records Luther’s prayer before his defense. It is very well done. Older children can follow well and I was happy for younger ones to catch whatever they could. 🙂

One impact of the Reformation was renewed attention to the value of family life, as they recovered the truth that all of life (not just explicitly religious things) is valued by God. Luther was a key voice in trumpeting the value and importance of family and the raising of children (as I have noted previously).

Here is another great Luther quote I just came across today:

“Now since we are all duty bound to suffer death, if need be, that we might bring a single soul to God, you can see how rich the estate of marriage is in good works. God has entrusted to its bosom souls begotten of its own body, on whom it can lavish all manner of Christian works. Most certainly father and mother are apostles, bishops, and priests to their children, for it is they who make them acquainted with the gospel.”

What a wonderful ministry we parents have. Let us be faithful in it. And make the most of the opportunity which this Reformation Day gives you.

Here are some other books reviewed previously here that are useful on the Reformation:
Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World,
Reformation Heroes

Funeral Message Online

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Following some request I have posted the print version of the funeral message for my brother. It is basically complete except for the gospel proclamation at the end.
I have been delayed in getting this up due some technical issues, and that has caused me to reflect on the fact that it has finally, in full form, gone up just as we get to Reformation Day. It seems to me appropriate in a few ways.

1. Doug had a great appreciation for the Reformation and the truths recovered there.
2. In fact some of these Reformation truths were what he most liked to talk about.
3. One of the last things he did was to order study bibles drawing from the Reformation for his daughters.
4. The truth of justification by faith, far from merely an academic, abstract doctrine, is a central ground of comfort in the light of death.
“to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5)