Holiness and the Knowledge of God

Posted by on March 1, 2011 1 comment

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Genesis 3:4-6

At the root of the first sin was a lack of faith in the faithfulness of God: Eve, on Satan’s urging, disbelieved what God has said about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And even beyond that, she betrayed a lack of trust in God’s very goodness, for she believed Satan’s lie that God had intentionally misled Adam and Eve, withholding from them a good gift out of jealousy, or fear. If Eve had really known God’s character and nature, believing Him to be the good, true God–and the all-powerful, all-sufficient God–that he really is, she would not have sinned against Him by eating the fruit.

And the same applies to us: the surest safeguard against sin is to believe by faith as a matter of first importance that God is who He has revealed Himself to be (in His Word). If you want to be more holy, learn to know God better.

Chaos

Posted by on February 19, 2011 1 comment

[Note to the reader: in defiance of the established practice of reading (modern) poetry by stopping at the punctuation and ignoring the line breaks for the most part, this poem is written with stops at every line, regardless of the punctuation. This nuance affects the meaning and flow and feel of the poem, so yes, it does matter how you read it. Thanks for your cooperation, and I hope you enjoy it.]

Oh, God,
So many thoughts swirling around in my head
I can’t get any rest.
Every time I close my eyes,
Every time I try to think, or pause
I get flung off the merry-go-round to a new set of tracks,
Short little trains of disconnected thoughts.

It’s like a rapid-fire see-saw:
Up and Down; There and Back; Again
and Again. Where do I get off
This treadmill I’ve been running on for hours?
A six-minute pace, but no distance at all
To show for my “work” to make it seem worth-
While. An endless, vicious cycle–
like night and day (more like predator and prey)
–perpetuates itself with brutal, deafening efficiency.
It’s so fast, so loud, I can’t hear myself think–
Oh, God!
Where is the calm in the storm, the gentle whisper
Of promises kept and every need met?
I need some peace right now. Frantically
Waiting for, willing the tumult to desist,
But the waves don’t heed; my command
Lost in the dissonant roar.

I’ve heard that one time You
Were asleep in the midst of the raging tempest;
Annoyed–woken by silly, distracted disciples
Like me–You just spoke, but the storm obediently subsided,
Sheepishly rebuked, tail between it’s legs, eyes to the ground
–Oh, God!
Would you speak right now?
If you don’t I’ll drown
Or at least collapse in a heap from the panic;
The waves they just don’t listen to me
But I know they’ll heed their King.

So God, my God, would you speak again
that powerful word:
Peace.

Inception

Posted by on February 10, 2011 6 comments

[For this first paragraph, I will translate for myself from blogspeak to real life meaning:]*

I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this post /get ready for me to blabber about something you don’t care about/, but now I’ve finally invested the study and thought and energy to write it, so here it is /odds are it’ll take you a couple hours to make heads or tails of it, since I wrote it in fifteen minutes (after reading a plot synopsis) and can’t spell properly/. A lot of people have different theories on the movie /I haven’t done any research on this at all, but I’m assuming there’s a lot of wrong people out there (who aren’t me)/ but I think that there’s a deeper meaning than most casual movie watchers realize /everyone who’s not me is pretty much stupid and doesn’t really know anything about, well, anything/.

[Okay, enough of that. Commence real blog post.]

I would submit that Inception is the defining movie of our generation. As you probably know, I’m not much a movie guy, so it’s not like I have anything to say about acting, or directing, or cinematography, or any other techinical kinds of standards that make movies win awards and such. But when I say that Inception is the defining movie of our generation, I don’t mean that it’s the best. I mean, quite literally, that it defines our generation. (Hah, you didn’t expect me to be that simplistic, did you?)

First off, I think I should probably define who “our generation” is. When I say “our generation”, I’m referring to the general stream of thinking young people (oh, I don’t know, ages 35 ish to teens?), who could be called postmodern in philosophy (though they might deny it), and are generally into being unique and expressive and mostly disillusioned about more or less everything. But also, as they are ready to admit–have an insatiable longing for Something else; they don’t care if it makes sense, or if it’s scientific, or even if it’s believable. They know that humans need Something to hold on to in their souls, even if in their minds they don’t fully think it true.

So here’s my theory on Inception: the main point of the movie–the question you should be left asking–is NOT “does the top fall down?”, or even “is reality just a dream?”, but “what is real after all, and does it really matter if it’s real or not?”. And the answer which presents itself is: “it doesn’t matter what is really real, only that you believe that it is.” Take the concept of the totem, for instance. The characters have these objects which (for some reason unrevealed in the movie) behave unrealistically in dreams, and behave how you might expect them to in reality (if it is indeed “real”). So theoretically, the characters can know if they’re in a dream or in “reality”. Here’s the interesting thing about the totems, though: why should the top keep spinning in a dream, and not fall down? There’s no compelling reason–it’s arbitrary. Dreams (at least in the movie) are exactly like reality, and often the only certainty that the character can have if they are dreaming or awake is the totem. But this surety–this solid rock on which they stand–is completely and undeniably arbitrary. They believe it simply because.

I think what the director was trying to say with this movie is this. True, we can’t really know for certain–beyond the shadow of a doubt–what is real and what is not, what is true and what is false. But unless we believe something, latching on to it with all our strength, trusting it even against the persuasion of our own minds, we will kill ourselves. Because the one conviction which no philosophy can really deny, the conviction that presides over all others, is that of the good of living. Chesterton, far ahead of his time, says in his book Orthodoxy that the question which determines the tenability of a philosophy is no longer “what is true?” but “what is sane?”, or more specifically “what will keep a man most sane by believing it?”. And that is exactly whatI think Christopher Nolan is getting at.

So what do you think? Am I on to something, or way off track?

*Is that a smiley? Or is it just a colon with a closed bracket? I guess it’s up to you to decide what to believe. Or if you should even believe at all.

A Sample of Andrew Peterson’s Brilliance

Posted by on February 5, 2011 2 comments

This is something that Andrew Peterson posted in a recent blog post over at The Rabbit Room, and I thought it was so brilliant that I had to share it:

“I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn’t beautiful in the first place. We aren’t writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can’t begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it’s only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there’s no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.

On and on it goes, all the way to the lightless borderlands of time and space, which we come to discover in some future age are but the beginnings or endings of a single word spoken from the mouth of God. Some nights, while I traipse down the hill, I imagine that word isn’t a word at all, but a burst of laughter.”

If you don’t know who Andrew Peterson is, then open iTunes right now (or whatever you use to get music) and buy his album, The Far Country.

A sample of Chesterton’s brilliance

Posted by on February 2, 2011 1 comment

It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take on quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motor-cars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous. And this which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know thy are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say “The social utility of the indeterminate sentences is recognised by all criminologists as part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment,” you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of grey matter inside your skull. But if you being “I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out,” you will discover, with a thrill of horror,that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word “damn” than in the word “degeneration.”

from G.K. Chesterton’s masterpiece Orthodoxy

Common Grace Days

Posted by on January 30, 2011 No comments

For even in my failures
When I turn to gratify my flesh
I simply still am only yours
And my thirsty soul you quench.

Though I all too often look back into death
For life, ironically, to find within
Your common grace is here to bring me comfort
Your sacrifice to bleach the stains of sin.

For just as there are warm reminders
of summer in the dead of winter
You show deep mercy, grace, and love
In the darker hours to this sinner.

Amen.

Oh hey

Posted by on January 28, 2011 3 comments

So I logged into this website and I was like, woah, I remember this. So I guess I should post on here sometime, maybe. Until then, all Mere contributors who make snide comments about my absence will be instantly attacked by a gang of rapid wallabys, bound with habanero-pepper infused rope, and thrown onto a ship headed for Antarctica where their sole allowed activity will be to read bad poetry whilst listening to Nickelback and eating Lembas bread. (apparently it doesn’t taste very good, except to Samwise Gamgee, who said he thought that “elvish stuff” is “not bad.”)

That is all.

-Riley

Book Review: The Circle Trilogy + Green (and then some) by Ted Dekker

Posted by on January 26, 2011 3 comments
the_circle_series

Here’s what I enjoy about Ted Dekker‘s Circle Series and what I think makes it great. It meanders a little, but that’s how I do, so enjoy:

I started this series in my second semester of eighth grade, and finished the last book (Green) a few days ago.

I’m 20.

Which means I’ve been reading this series on and off for 8 years, haha.

Granted, Green was released long after the rest of the Circle Series (Black, Red, and White) but still. This is a hefty series. With two other multi-booked sections that take place in and relate to the same timelines as The Circle, to get all of the intertwining plot lines and character arcs, you have to read at least 13 books*. But they’re worth it, because they’re great.

Dekker writes books like they’re movies, in that all of the action happens fast and on top of itself. They are intense thrillers that keep your attention.

Anyway, The Circle Series is a quadrology (?) in which the main character, Thomas Hunter, switches between two parallel worlds when he falls asleep. One is set is the current time, and the other is set 2000 years in the future. My favorite part of the series is that the future world is a physical representation of the spiritual climate of the current one, while the entire plot is a loose allegorical account of Christianity’s history (and I mean all of it). I really enjoyed seeing that aspect of the plot come through. Also, Black, Red, and White are all sections of the same story, which Green is both the end and beginning of. It has been labeled as book 4 and book 0, because toward the end of it, it begins to answer questions and establish plot lines that make the whole series fit together. It’s crazy and exciting.

Anyway, I would seriously recommend this series to anyone looking for a fast-paced sci-fi action thriller, or just an interesting story.

______________________________________________

*The books are as follows: The Circle (Black, Red, White, Green), The Paradise Novels (Showdown, Saint, Sinner), and The Lost Books of History Chronicles (Chosen, Infidel, Renegade, Chaos, Lunatic, Elyon). If you want to read them all, I suggest reading them in this order: Black, Red, White, then The Paradise Novels, then The Lost Books of History Chronicles, then Green. If you don’t read all of them, then at least read The Circle! And maybe The Paradise Novels.

I See Things Upside Down

Posted by on January 22, 2011 9 comments

Well, I tried to write a creative, borderline-humorous intro to this, but I just couldn’t seem to make it work.  So instead I’ll just jump straight in, and speak directly from the heart.  Well, and the mind too, but that goes without saying.

Something I’ve been learning lately (and if we’ve had a serious conversation in the past few weeks, I almost guarantee that you’ve heard this entire little spiel that’s about to follow), is that sanctification works totally upside down from how we (American Protestant evangelicals, and probably other kinds of Christians too, but I don’t really know anything about that) view it.  Here’s what I mean.

The general/default view of what a perfect Christian looks like is someone who is so far above sin–so holy–that they aren’t even tempted by it, and so “God-minded” that they never cease to be in perfect, unhidered communion with him.  And I suppose there’s some truth to this, and my realization about how sanctification works is not necessarily going to contradict that.  But the problem with such a view of the ideal Christian is that it seems to lure us into thinking that somehow we’ll be able to chart our progress of increasing holiness on a scale, and the more holy we become the higher up on the “just like Jesus” scale we’ll be.

However, I have found, and the Scriptures clue us in to this, that it’s quite the opposite.  The fact of the matter is, the more holy we become–the more we hate sin, and the more we defeat it–the more we see our wickedness.  And the closer we get to being like Christ, the clearer we see just how impossibly far away from him we are.  In a lot of ways, it’s like climbing a ten foot wall, only to discover at eight feet that it’s really a hundred foot wall.  And then at a ninety feet, you see that it’s a thousand feet.  And so on and so forth, for as long as we live.  It’s kinda discouraging sometimes, when you think about it.  But it makes me wonder: perhaps the purpose of sanctification is not just to make us more holy, but to bring more glory to God, because as we become more holy and then see how much more holy Christ is, the loftier our view of God becomes.  And I believe Piper is onto something when he says that the primary way we glorify God is by “enjoying Him”–by exulting in how much greater He is than us.

Just like so many other things about the Christian walk, this truth is at once offensive and liberating.  It’s offensive because, really, who thinks it’s good news that arguably the greatest Christian ever called himself the “chief of sinners”?  And who finds it encouraging that the closer you get to your goal, the further away the goal gets?  And who finds joy in thinking about how miserably sinful our old natures are?  (Obviously, the answer here is “nobody”.)  But flip the lens, and see how liberating it is to embrace the truth that no matter how close we get we are never close enough.  It means that we don’t have the burden of being “almost there” and not being able to finish.  It means that every time we fall short and fail, and feel like we are in our greatest weakness, we are actually at our greatest strength.  It means that the Gospel is THAT much more beautiful, and God’s love for us is THAT much sweeter.

Indeed, His grace is sufficient for me.  May it never cease to be.

Interesting Things

Posted by on January 19, 2011 5 comments

I’ve wanted to post something here for a week or so, but I haven’t had anything good enough to post, so instead I will share what has been encouraging me recently, and maybe all of those things together will make an interesting enough post! And maybe you’ll be encouraged as well.

This is a video that Riley showed me about an artist named Makoto Fujimura who is working on some abstract paintings for an edition of the ESV Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that are being published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the KJV Bible. It discusses a little bit of the art/faith things we’ve talked about here before, plus the paintings are beautiful. It’s worth the 8 minutes.

I think my favorite thing about this, though, is that he is effectively making contemporary illuminated manuscripts, which is what the monks did when they copied down the Bible before the printing press was invented. They would use colorful paint and gold, silver and bronze leaf to embellish the first letter of paragraphs, and make really intricate borders. It’s kind of a cool parallel.

I came across this article from the gospel coalition about Jesus’ Prayer for us to God really interesting and encouraging.

Also, there’s been a fantastic song by Andrew Peterson stuck in my head for the past week. It’s called The Good Confession (I Believe) and it’s wonderful:

Download a .pdf of the chord chart here. I love his writing. If you don’t listen/watch to the whole thing (which you should!), then at least start from 2:55. Then you’ll be convinced it’s worth it and start from the beginning anyway. So you should just watch the whole thing :)