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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Christians rot from the inside out. |
That isn't to say that all Christian are rotting - Lord knows there are enough people in the world today who would love to hear a Christian "admit" it; rather it is to describe the nature of spiritual rot as it (or perhaps when and if it) affects the believer.
I have never seen the rot of sin come in any other form - it begins internally - there is some temptation that is indulged, a little at the first, then with increasing fervour. The believer knows the thing is wrong, but finds some way to justify continuing to indulge it. Eventually the Christian realizes he or she has been duped by the sin, and begins to want to be free from it, but finds himself or herself too practiced in it to let it go.
None of this is mentioned by the Christian to others in the church. Like a child in a pool, the horrible death goes on in silence, with people all around utterly unaware that anything is amiss. The enemy uses the guilt of failure and fear of falseness to shame the Christian into isolation, so that for months or even years the Christian dies slowly inside even while acting, for the benefit of his or her Christian reputation amongst the body, as though everything were fine.
Were it not so common and tragic, I would make some pithy joke about it, but this is a serious matter. If I were to anonymously poll every christian reader, and able to get a real statistic, I suspect the count would be pretty high. We all, to one degree or another, are struggling against the sin that would destroy us. None of us cries out for help and prayer until some temptation or sin crosses that threshold whereby we realize we are in deeper than we can (with any celerity) extricate ourselves, so that every believer reading will know something of what I write. We all hold our struggle as a poker player holds his hand - close to our heart, and for the most part, secret.
We are called however to confess our faults to one another. I don't think that is supposed to mean that we get together as a large group and take turns at the podium trying to out do one another in confessing every sinful act in detail to the horror and amazement of the body. Nor do I think that means that we form "accountability" groups - though I know that many serious believers imagine themselves to have benefited from such groups. The believer is accountable to God - if a man will not set aside sin to satisfy God, but will set aside sin in order to satisfy other people, that man is not fleeing sin so much as playing church. I know that sounds harsh, but there it is. The bible does not tell us to confess our sins to one another in order that men can give us absolution, or again in order that we might hold one another accountable, rather we confess our transgressions to one another in order that we might:
[1] learn that our sin is a common thing, the knowledge of which dispels the enemy's efforts to isolate us on sin's account,
[2] learn from those who have experienced the same temptations and sin and overcome them, and be encouraged by the same,
[3] give opportunity to those who are serious about the purity of the believer and the church, to intercede in prayer on behalf of the sinner
[4] learn by the hearing, that every kind of sin, left to fester, will grow into something we cannot handle,
[5] learn therefore to tremble at our own sinfulness, and fall upon the Lord early in the temptation/sin cycle in order that we deal with sin and temptation before it gets out of control.
You can look around in your body of believers and be certain that there are some amongst you whose exterior seems fine, but who are suffering within. This is not a call to embark on a ministry of sin-sniffing, i.e., if you are young in the faith and you find in your belly that sort of warm fire that comes when you agree that a thing is true, don't imagine that the purpose of that warmth is for you to go about and start challenging the reality of everyone else's facade. My intention, in all that I teach, is that we apply these things to ourselves. Is there any seed of rot in me that I am ignoring on purpose - some indulgence that I allow that no one else knows about, it is the seed of rot, and it cannot remain as it is - it will either be dealt with by repentance, or it will grow. If you find yourself without strength to take it to God today, you will be weaker by tomorrow, and weaker still the day after. Sin doesn't sleep, it eats you alive from the inside out.Labels: Advice, grace, repentance, sin |
posted by Daniel @
5:54 AM
2 comment(s)
 
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| 1005: Do not be distressed. |
There is a scene in Genesis (c.f. Chapter 45), where Joseph's brothers are reacquainted with him. Recall that as a youth, his brothers despised him first because their father favored him, and again because he had dreamt two dreams that, when interpreted, suggested his brothers would all bow down to him one day. On a day when the brothers were together, and far away from their father, Joseph came to them, and having seen him approaching from a long way off, they determined to kill him.
That's some serious hatred.
Now to be sure, not all the brothers were okay with murdering Joseph. Reuben sought to preserve Joseph by suggesting they kill him by tossing him into a deep and dry pit (where presumably Joseph would die of thirst). That way, I suppose, they can tell themselves they (personally) didn't kill him, they just put him in a pit. Thirst killed him - or something like that. I am speculating of course. What is certain however is that putting him in the pit was intended either to end his life, or perhaps to just hold him while they thought of how they were going to kill him.
It happened of course, and you know the story, that they saw an opportunity in the form of a passing caravan, and rather than simply let Joseph die in a pit (or alternately, kill him themselves), they should sell him, thereby ridding themselves of Joseph, and making a profit at the same time.
That was the last time they saw Joseph, and now he was standing before them endowed with power over them by virtue of both his exalted status, and again by their pronounced and obvious poverty. Here was a man that had it in his power to enslave them all, or worse, have them executed.
Can you imagine? Here was the man they had abused so long ago, and it was he who now had supreme power over them. The roles were reversed big time, and they were cut to the core with this knowledge - stunned by it; suddenly aware that a "biblical proportion" come-uppence had just opened their barred door, and waltzed into the center of their lives, and that they were powerless to do anything. What little squeaks might have come out of them had someone squeezed them in that moment I can only guess, but here is what Joseph said to them, "And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life".
The thing is, even though Joseph clearly forgave them, they didn't really believe it.
Oh sure, they lived as though they were reconciled to Joseph, but deep down they said to themselves, Joseph is only forgiving us for our father's sake. I say this because when Jacob passed away, the brothers resumed their old terror once again, even putting a post mortem command into Jacob's mouth concerning their well being. We see this in the last chapter of Genesis:When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him." So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this command before he died, 'Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.' And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father." This is the not a picture of people who believed Joseph the first time - they doubted his sincerity even as they lived years in the proof of it. How did Joseph respond to their fear and doubt? Read and see:But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Okay, so what does that picture.
I mean, seriously.
There are believers today who ought rightly to be called doubters. They doubt God loves them, they doubt God *really* has forgiven them. They live their lives in the fear that God will suddenly realize that they still commit sin, and in His wrath He will disown them. They refuse to believe, just as Joseph's brothers refused to believe, that there could truly be forgiveness for them.
Their problem is the same problem as Joseph's brothers were experiencing - just as they didn't trust that Joseph had really forgiven them, so these, though they claim saving faith, do not trust that God will forgive them in the end.
Don't be like that. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Do you doubt God's love or His forgiveness? Maybe you doubt His steadfastness or immutability? These do not persist in you because God's character is lacking, they persist because your knowledge and certainty of God's character is lacking.
If this is you, then I say read the bible ... moron1.
1Of course I mean "moron" in jest, but the admonition to read scripture is dead serious.Labels: Advice, faith, love |
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posted by Daniel @
7:15 AM
2 comment(s)
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| The Blindness of Sin (In 5 Minutes or Less) |
" There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil." - Job 1:1 [NASB]
Do you see that Job turned away from evil?
The blindness of sin happens when we stop thinking of sin as evil. When we think of sin as just something we struggle with, or worse, just a character flaw, or something that is merely bad.
It is easy to embrace sin and still feel pretty good about yourself if you forget that what you are embracing is actually evil. You are embracing evil. When scripture speaks of having the forehead of a harlot, and refusing to blush (c.f. Jeremiah 3:3) or not knowing how to blush (c.f. Jeremiah 6:5, 8:12), it is talking about what happens when a person stops thinking of sin as an evil thing.
You have heard the expression, "making peace with sin" - and you imagine that it is painting a person who has decided to stop worrying about sin, and just live life as best as they can or something like that. But people make peace with sin long before that. The first step in making peace with sin is to emasculate sin - removing the gender of evil from it - so that when you "struggle" against sin, you are not struggling against evil, you are struggling against something you "shouldn't be doing".
Now I know that victory over habitual behaviours can take time. I likewise know that obeying God is not easy, that there is a war going on between the will of God and the will of the flesh, and that war often includes real (spiritual) battles. But we use the word struggle when we really mean near consistently giving into cyclically reoccurring sinful desires. We mean that we know a thing is sin, and we don't want to do it, and we are struggling under the weight of guilt that comes with this kind of failure, and especially with the certainty in our hearts that we don't really plan to do anything about it beyond feel bad that we are sinning.
That's not struggle friend. That is surrender, followed by guilt. That is loving darkness rather than light because your deeds are evil. That's what it looks like.
One of the ways our enemy snares us, is with blindness. We stop seeing what we are doing as evil, and so we stop turning from it. We are just failing to do what is right. We want to do what is right, but as Paul writes, we cannot find the way to do it. The reason we cannot find the way is because we are double minded - we want to be righteous without actually turning away from sin.
Here is what I want you to take away from this post. Today you have already settled it in your heart that you are either going to make war against every evil you find in your own desires, or you have settled it in your heart that you are going to fail and have decided to live with the guilt of that. I suggest that if you open your eyes and see evil for what it is, if you look and see what you are doing, that you may, at least this day, awake out of your habit of slumber, and turn from evil, calling it what it is, and abhorring it as is fitting a servant of God.Labels: Advice, quick snips, sin is evil |
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posted by Daniel @
6:23 AM
4 comment(s)
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| Husbands, Calloused and Clueless. |
This post is especially written for newly wed fellows who, while bright and sincere, are nevertheless clueless about how intimacy works.
Gentleman; you know that feeling you get when you get left to watch a whole mess of children all alone? The first few hours go well enough, you try all your tricks, but sooner than later the well runs dry, and you find yourself looking at the clock with increasing irritation and urgency because you really can't handle this anymore - but you have to because until the parents return, you are under a responsibility that cannot be shirked. What is happening is that you are finding yourself sorely desiring some space to yourself, and the desire for it increases as the frazzle index rises. When the parents arrive to pick up their little angels, the last thing you want to do is immediately open the door to another batch of kids. You want some down time.
Here me; learn from me if I am older: your wife is sometimes going to be overcome by the trials of the day. It doesn't matter a bit if you think her day was swell, and bearable - you don't have hormone attacks every few weeks! Listen, the first thing you will want to do is try to solve the problem, but the problem can't be solved by trying to convince your wife that she should ignore it, or that it is all in her head, or worse, that she doesn't really have a right to be as put out as she is "pretending" to be. You're going to have a very lonely marriage if you don't understand this, so sit up and listen.
Do you really expect your wife to be overcome by your charm when her soul has been leaking out at the seams all day? Good gravy man! To everything under heaven there is a season. Plainly stated: Your wife sometimes needs space more than you need a hug. On a side note, don't try and convince your way into her charms either - that's just sad. Don't whine, cry, insult, or complain, you're a man, act like one; and not like a little child who is having a tantrum because he can't get his way. Don't try to turn your wife over to the dark side either - if she has just barely held it together all day, the last thing you should do is try to manipulate or coerce her out of her "mood" - we can be like the proverbial bull in the China shop, except we are more calloused and clueless. All I am saying is that to everything there is a season so don't try for sunshine when the forecast clearly calls for rain.
Another way in which you might be denser than mercury requires you to have had a normal childhood.
I want you to try to remember when you were a small child. Did you ever get a sliver that was in so deep your dad or mom had to cut it out? I know, some doctors nowadays tell you to just let it come out by itself - but back in my day dad would get out his pocket knife, or mom would get a sewing needle, and my heart would fail me. I loved my parents, and (normally) trusted them, but when that sliver was all infected and tender, and dad had the "I'm gonna get that sliver out of you no matter what!" face, I could only imagine a world of hurt coming, and I wanted no part of it.
I can tell you frankly, that for all my father's love, I still didn't trust him - not because he wasn't trustworthy, but because my sliver was so tender. I knew that in order to have the sliver removed, I had to let dad do something that could hurt me. That feeling of dread at being so vulnerable is probably as close as I can come to describing something a lot of men are clueless about. Your wife is probably smaller and weaker than you are - and that means that in order to be intimate with you, she has to put herself in a very vulnerable place. Men are typically clueless about how much trust, and the kind of trust that is involved for a wife to fully embrace her husband intimately, but let me say this - it is the kind of trust that is quickly eroded by treating your wife poorly all day. Hurt feelings cause this trust to evaporate, and even though they know their husband loves them, they don't feel safe. I chose that word carefully too.
Seriously, if you are a jerk to your wife all day, she isn't going to feel very open to your charms in the evening because God designed her to respond that way. She isn't reciprocating because you haven't loved her the way God designed her to be loved. Cherish your wife, period. If you treat her poorly/abrasively all day long, how can she suddenly open her heart in trust to you just because you feel its all better now? It just doesn't work that way - women are not wired like that.
The bottom line is that intimacy in marriage, *real* intimacy -the kind where your souls are ever joyously open to one another- doesn't just happen spontaneously and without effort. You really do have to humble yourself for it work.
There are several things you can do to really foul things up for yourself, so let me give you some pointers.
[1] Don't treat your marriage (or your wife!) like a piece of property that exists to serve your needs and purposes. Marriage exists to put the glory of Christ's union with the church on display.
[2] Don't assume that your wife is the problem, more often than not she is reacting to you.
[3] Give your wife space when she needs it.
[4] For goodness sakes, I don't care how good you are at selling, arguing, debating, or convincing - no doesn't mean convince me, it means no.
[5] Whining or complaining (or worse) because you can't get your way is called a tantrum. If you want your wife's respect (and I know you do), you are actually going to have to deal with disappointment like a man.
[6] Remember that intimacy, for your wife, requires her to become physically vulnerable before you - that requires trust, and if that trust has been eroded because you have been a jerk all day or all week - don't blame your wife if she doesn't trust you, blame yourself.
I could go on, but it's late, and I need some shut eye. God intends for marriage to be mutually awesome. I hope the pointers I offer here are practical, helpful and accurate, for I have learned that genuine intimacy begins in the heart, and begins where selfishness ends.Labels: Advice, marriage |
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posted by Daniel @
11:36 PM
6 comment(s)
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| About Being Wrong Or Right. |
While every Christian ought to strive to be correct in what they believe, there is never any excuse to be haughty in one's opinion, right or wrong.
I don't think I have ever met anyone who held onto some opinion they knew to be wrong. I have known many who have expressed uncertainty about something they are persuaded, that is they feel they haven't got a full grasp of it, and admit to some conviction about the direction their persuasion leans, but wouldn't feel comfortable dogmatically with their own position - but that is far from holding a known "wrong" conviction.
To be sure, my presumption is that all Christians are sincere, but not all Christians have equal discernment. I presume that just as I have found error in other well meaning and sincere brothers and sisters in the Lord, so too I anticipate that however closely I study the word of God, and however highly I exalt the truth above my own opinion and agenda - yet I anticipate that I too must have blind spots, and therefore I strive to remain humble and teachable in spite of my convictions.
My hope of course is that whether I am right or wrong, I remain open and willing to listen, and that I remain polite and reasonable. The truth is best adorned I think by a willingness to be tested, and a willingness to lead those who are teachable into it. This willingness to listen and be taught is not just some shrewd tool we pull out so that our arguments are always given from a forced and disingenuous social high ground - for such high ground is a hollow facade, and at best deceitfully patronizing if it is not sincere. No, it is always better to assume that in every encounter God has given the other as much light as you have received or more, and that there is room in every discussion to be instructed - and to come to such instruction humbly.
I am of course less than perfect in following this prescription myself, but it is the path I strive to keep my feet on.
I have found however, that the default way the world deals with a conviction that it is right about a thing, is to adopt a patronizing stance against those who don't get it, as though their ignorance were willful and obstinate. They assume the role of a schoolmaster and the moment their own opinion is assailed, they become politely venomous, or worse, shrill and self righteous. We have all seen it happen. Two polite Christians find they disagree, and within a few exchanges, the person of Christ is being defended by two carnal combatants tearing each other to shreds to the applause of the enemy.
I have read just today a remark on another blog about how such and such a blog is so sour because the people who post and comment on that blog are always ranting about how right they are, and how wrong everyone is who disagrees with them, and suggesting that any humility that is found there is necessarily false.
That saddens me. Not because it is so poisonous, but because there is room for everyone to do some self examination when it comes to such things. Would that we would adorn Christ with the utmost vigor in our intramural discussions.Labels: Advice, edification, how to be a Christian |
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posted by Daniel @
11:50 AM
12 comment(s)
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| New Post for Monday. |
I was going to write about Fleecemongers™ again, but I couldn't remember if I actually posted those posts or left them in draft form. So I sort of lost interest half-way through the post - worried as I was I suppose that I might be repeating myself, and frankly too busy to go and check to see.
But I thought better of it, and will now attempt the nigh-impossible; that is, to state briefly how wrong I think it is to throw out a fleece.
You say - didn't Gideon throw out a fleece? Why yes, I say, yes he did. But Gideon did so before Pentecost - before the Spirit of Christ came to indwell every living believer. Yes, I say, in times past God spoke in many ways (c.f. Hebrews 1:1)- but now He doesn't speak through the Urim and Thummim, through fleeces, through the casting of lots, or to be blunt - through divination of any sort. Now God speaks through the word of God illuminated by the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Period.
That means that it is the mark of someone who is doctrinally fluffy (at best) to throw out a fleece. Look, if you don't know God's will, it is because you don't know the word of God. There is still wisdom in the multitude of counselors, find someone who knows the bible and ask them their opinion before you start giving God your ultimatums in the form of fleece tossing. God's will for you only seems like a riddle when you aren't willing to hear what God is already clearly saying. Tossing a fleece is an expression not of your great trust in God to answer you, but rather an expression of your great doubt that God is already in the process of leading you into truth.
Bottom line. Unless you are a faithful Jew living before Pentecost, your fleece tossing is not going to show you the will of God, it will only show you how far you are willing to go to sidestep God.Labels: Advice, fleecing the flock |
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posted by Daniel @
9:53 AM
25 comment(s)
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| The Pastor's Wife |
 Today's Christian culture dictates to us that the Pastor's wife must be the most spiritually mature matron in the assembly, she must be active in as many public ministries as the church is willing to support, and she must also be a counselor and teacher to all the other women in the church - not to mention she should be looking after the church bulletin, her own family, and her husband as well. There is a notion that her husband's ministry is only half the equation, and she is the other half - she must be perfect in every way, and if she isn't, clearly either her husband isn't really "called" to minister, or she should never have become a pastor's wife...
I have no idea where this comes from. Okay that's not true, I am pretty sure I have some idea of where this sort of thing originated from, and it isn't from God, but that wasn't the point - the point was to articulate my incredulity that Christians who are supposedly are looking to scripture and the Holy Spirit for guidance tend to make up all sorts of traditions for themselves, and to make matters worse, not only do they perpetuate their own ideas, but with each iteration it gets worse. Already there are some pretty big churches that have husband-and-wife pastor teams. Thabiti Anyabwile has a pretty good run down of that particular trend (H/T: David Kjos), and I must say, Thabiti is certainly right in noting how silently such a thing takes root; and if I can add to his writing - I think it begins with that very sort of Christian culture that assumes extra-biblical roles upon the pastor's wife as a matter of course.
If you have never read this Q & A session with Patricia MacArthur (Pastor John MacArthur's wife) it is a very, very good read; her answer to the question, "What is your advice on ministering and raising a family while also maintaining a role as pastor’s wife and fulfilling the needs of the ministry in the church? How do you keep that in balance?" is pure gold.
I wonder how many pulpit ministries are hindered, crippled, or even destroyed by the inflated expectations placed upon a pastor's wife, and by extension (through the fallout) upon his family and his ministry. I also wonder how many congregational cultures have been led so far down this bunny trail that they read "the two shall become one" as a validating scripture for husband/wife pastoral teams - all because people are more willing to follow a well established trend than to crack open their bible and challenge every practice that exalts itself against what they find in God's word! I believe this is the kind of baggage that ought to be tossed out.
I shouldn't have to spell it out, but allow me: It -can- happen that the pastor's wife is not the eldest matron, nor the most spiritually gifted, nor (dare I say it!) the most spiritually mature woman in the church >gasp!< It may be that she is just a common Christian who is married to a person who is a gifted leader and/or teacher. She may not even be the best Christian - the only thing we ought to be concerned about is that she, like everyone else - has her heart set on knowing the Lord, and is unwilling to abide sin, not in the church, not in her household, not in her own life - if she is fighting the good fight, that is enough. Why bind a larger burden on her than the Lord does?
What I say about the entire extra-biblical ministry we have imposed upon the pastor's wife - whether we dreamed it up ourselves or perpetuate the practice by allowing it to go on unchecked - the same applies to other vacuous religious burdens we either create or foster - the watchmen on the wall blow their horns, but who is listening?Labels: Advice |
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posted by Daniel @
1:55 PM
7 comment(s)
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