Category Archives: Uncategorized

October 2, 2012

John 3:16 is naked

By paperthinhymn

 

I love reading the Bible. It is my…paradigmatic mirror in which I find meaning and purpose, a violent calmness and a peaceful unrest all rolled into one I like to gorge on it and feast on it. I like to curl up on the couch and read expansive chunks of the law, the gospel, the psalms, the proverbs. But then I see one liners painted on placards and bumper stickers, and I react. These skinny verses, taken out of their rich and complex context, just sit there on shirts and coffee mugs, naked and rude. Even as I love them and relate to their message,  I have an immediate aversion to their aesthetic.

It’s like walking down the street when all of a sudden you see a baby on the side of the road. Naked, bloody, screaming- its umbilical cord and placenta still attached and yet covered in grime and asphalt burns. Its a jarring sight. Its a rattling, disharmonious experience.   It doesn’t make sense. The baby doesn’t belong in that context, but rather its natural place is with its exhausted mother, curled up tight, mouth to breast, warm and blanketed, basking in the glow of warm lights and damp hair. That’s the setting where it belongs. That’s the context which makes sense and in which a rightness and a fluidity of thought flows out of.

Its the same way with Bible verses. They belong side by side with the rest of God’s words. The intent, power, and purpose of John 3:16 lives and rests in the same breath and in the same spittle as Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus. A lone Bible verse, laid out and exposed without the safety and comfort of its context, is alone, naked, and prone to fall prey to the wolves of misunderstanding, eisegesis, and abuse. Yes the verse is good and I love it, but its a fragment of an idea that deserves to be supported and buttressed by the rest of its literary environment.

For example,  John 3:16 without John 3:17 seems to balance itself in the wrong place. John 3:17 says “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” This verse gives me greater clarity into how to read the one that comes before it. It tells me that if Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, then neither should we. The use of the word “might” in the final clause “that the world through him might be saved, tells me that the domain of Christian witness is not salvation [which is God's work] but service, selfless love and sacrifice. John 3:16 standing alone and without the theology of care offered in John 3:17 makes it harder to interpret. [Note: Bible verses that front salvation over Christian service, instead of being important interfaces between Christian homes and the watching world, seem like sneaky little raids- quick and insulated targets into the culture with no sense that a worldview of care lay behind them.]

Or how about verse 18, where we learn that those who do not believe in him are the perishing that are condemned already, or verse 19, which tells us that they love the dark and will not come to the light,  and thus need someone [the Lord]  to bring them? Or that in verse 5, that the nature of what it means to “believe” in John 3:16 must necessarily involve  being born of water and the spirit- that it is its very essence?

I think there is something holy and important about keeping things together as much as possible- of treating the Word of God in such a way that everything we do with it is geared towards offering the clearest, fullest, faithful, and thoughtful explanation and exposition of it. They have a rich and intricate context that, at least to me, seems to cringe at the thought of being plastered naked on whatever product or place is convenient. Seeing it cloudy and murky, purposefully placed in a situation which robs it of clarity and lucidity is not something that appeals to me. It does not help me understand or relate to it better. It does satisfy my soul.

I’ll take cooing and wrapped in its mothers arms, over naked and squalling in the streets any day.

2 comments   |  tags: alone, john 3:16, naked | posted in Uncategorized

September 30, 2012

Mark Driscoll sermon on Esther. Week 1. Jesus is a better King. A critique.

By paperthinhymn

 

I’m in week three of Mark Driscoll’s sermons on Esther, and I wanted to provide an ongoing commentary on the sermon series. As a bit of a backround on men, being a young reformed guy, Mark Driscoll more or less travels in the same circles of people that I look up to, whose sermons I listen to, whose books I read, and whose conference I livestream.  I’m talking about the usual reformed suspects. I’ve appreciated many aspects of his ministry and have been built up and edified by a lot of what he has said, and more often than not I really like the way he says it. I love about 80% of what he says, am uncomfortable and disagree with 10%, and find the last 10% of what he says intolerable and dangerous.

A few days ago I read his blurb on Esther and was not surprised at the level of controversy it generated. I thought some people were spot-on in their pushback, and others were being too critical  and unreasonable. As a results I took an hour or so and shared my thoughts here. I hadn’t even heard the sermons yet, but had based that solely on the release. This post has generated several thousand views, and I take that as encouragement that people are looking for information on this.  As promised, I said I would review his sermons only as far as they relate to that initial statement, and I intend to do just that, with this one being the first in the series.

Jesus is a better King. [Esther 1:1-9]

I really enjoyed this sermon. I thought he did a thorough job at explaining the critical background, historical context, and the settings and characters. I’ve always believed that Mark Driscoll is a gifted communicator, and this sermon is no exception. He delved into the reality of Xerxe’s power, dominion, and the debauched situation he had created- which was a cesspool of sinful decadence and excess. He also effectively and convictingly related it to us in our modern context, using just the right amount of contextualization and relatability to sear our consciences. I think its a gift that, by the end of the sermon, I found myself staring into my soul and seeing all the Xerxes in me- where suddenly a wicked, immoral king wasn’t so far removed from the motivations of my own heart. This was a very good sermon by all accounts.

I found his final few minutes an amazing riff, and worth pointing out.

Here’s what Xerxes says about himself from an inscription that the archaeologists uncovered: “I am Xerxes the Great King, the only king, the king of all countries which speak all kinds of languages, the king of this entire big and far-reaching earth.” Xerxes thought he was Jesus. Some of you think you’re Jesus. Some of you honor, obey, worship, follow, adore people who think they’re Jesus. Jesus is a better King. Amen, Mars Hill? Jesus is a better King.

Xerxes was the son of Darius, but Jesus is the Son of God. Xerxes never tasted poverty nor humility, but Jesus tasted both poverty and humility to identify with us. Xerxes used his power to abuse women, but Jesus used his power to honor women. Xerxes spent his entire life being served, but Jesus spent his entire life serving others. Xerxes killed his enemies with an army of millions, but Jesus died for his enemies, saving billions.

Xerxes sat on a throne in Susa, but Jesus sits on a throne in heaven. Xerxes was the most powerful man on earth, but Jesus made the heavens and the earth and he rules over all creation. Xerxes said he would rule wherever the sun set, but only Jesus made the sun and rules over all of creation.

Xerxes died and today, no one worships Xerxes as god; but Jesus conquered death and today, billions worship Jesus as the only God. Xerxes thought he was a man who became god, but only Jesus is God who became a man. Xerxes’ kingdom had subjects from many nations, but Jesus’ kingdom has joyful worshipers from every nation. Xerxes threw enormous banquets, but the one Jesus is preparing for us makes his pale in comparison. Xerxes’ kingdom came to an end, but Jesus’ kingdom has no end. Xerxes declared himself king of kings, but he died. He stood before and was judged by the one and only King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Mars Hill Church, today is our day of celebration. We are citizens of a greater kingdom. We have received a greater gift. We are looking forward to a greater blessing, and we gather in the name, and the presence, and the fame of Jesus Christ. He is our great King. He is a better King than any king and every king. He is the King of kings, and so now, we will celebrate Jesus Christ. And if they were willing to throw lavish, extravagant, fun, joyful parties for a demonic, false king, how much more should we rejoice and be glad that our King knows us, that our King loves us, that our King saves us, that our King seeks us, that our King serves us, and our King is preparing a banquet for us. Amen?

Amen!

So that was all well and good. It was a very good sermon. But here’s where things get interesting. What stood out to me early in the sermon was this quote, as he was setting up the story and reasons for preaching.

[The book of Esther]…. is that controversial, and part of the reason it is so controversial is it’s difficult to interpret. At no point does the book of Esther tell us what their internal motivations were, what God’s external perspective is. It doesn’t give us any commentary, just history. Some of you will ask, “Well, what does the rest of the Bible have to say about the book of Esther?” Nothing.

I feel the same way about the book of Esther, and I think this is where the biggest disconnect came for me. I tend to take the view that if we don’t know a characters motivations; if the scriptures don’t fill us in on people’s thoughts and reasoning behind their actions, we don’t get to fill that in. We don’t get to assume them motivations that we are not told they expressly have.

This is the great weakness in Pastor Marks sermon. We don’t see this play out in this sermon very much, but we do in the next. After he tells us that the book of Esther does not tell us what Xerxes or Esther or Mordecai’s internal motivations were, he then assigns them some. Whereas in an earlier post I lamented that he was seemingly pulling them from mid-air, I don’t think that anymore. Instead, he seems he to have gotten them from  bits and pieces of commentary from the Talmud, either the Jerusalem or Babylonian, and the Midrash. This is problematic however, because unlike the Scriptures which are infallible, the Talmud isn’t. I’ll delve into this further, but suffice to say this is the source of many of his problems.

I said before that his framework of Esther and her actions only works if he assumes the worst of her, and the worst positive motives on her part and this still holds true. But now I don’t think he’s assuming out of the madness of his own mind, but rather taking his cues from a handful of ancient Jewish rabbinic commentators and giving them way too much credit. We don’t speculate and state for certainty what the Bible has not revealed, and I think instead of taking this idea and running with it, Pastor Mark should have avoided it altogether. And even if he didn’t feel that he could, he should have at least qualified his narrative and stated that its one possibility out of many. That would have made a much better exegesis, and would have avoided much needless guesswork and assumptions.

A note on the critics

I used that picture above to make a point, namely that I think its a gross caricature of Pastor Mark. I believe that Mark Driscoll has some bizarre beliefs and theology, and in recent years has done things that have hurt and sown confusion into the greater Church body [needlessly graphic and explicit sermons, so-called visions of peoples sins, and more recently, his involvement in the Elephant Room with TD Jakes], I don’t recommend his sermons or his books wholesale, and tend to treat his ministry with some caution. I like to think I’m pretty charitable as a whole, but some of the comments and critiques have been disgusting.

Right now my post on Esther and Driscoll is linked on a nominally Christian blog which I do not support or respect  They are the worst offenders, and their collective views could be boiled down to “Pastor Mark hates women and is a sex-crazed manipulator who gets off on dominating, shaming, and using and abusing them, all the while promoting others to to the same.”  They have said that his Esther pre-release notes were essentially a rape apologetic.

That is a crazy, nonsensical, and sinful statement. Driscolls views on Esther in that blurb, while I think are grossly misdirected, are at least consistent with a certain presupposition and framework about Esther, one which at least some Talmudic writers spoke about and postulated. I think it’s wrong, but I’m not so morally and intellectually bankrupt that I would dismiss this whole series as proof positive that Pastor Mark approves of what was going on. Here’s just three small snippets from his sermon which makes it clear that he finds this behavior reprehensible.

“Over in another room, another portion of the palace, is Queen Vashti. She’s got all the women. When no women are present and no rules are in place, men become animals. Amen? What they’re doing is despicable, deplorable, disgusting, and depraved, and there are women there, but these are women who are getting used and abused.”

“He was totally consumed with the harem and all the women who just met all of his evil, sick, sinful, selfish, abusive desires.”

Now at this point, Xerxes, in hearing the story, would feel so proud. “Look at me in all my glory!” But it reveals something of a very wicked, evil, selfish, narcissistic desire to be God, to sit on a throne, to rule over nations, to ravage and abuse women, to indulge in food and drink in excess.”

Conclusion

Like I said- this is a good sermon. It will serve however to set the stage for next weeks, Jesus has a better Kingdom, where the real critique will begin. I’ll be posting it tomorrow.

1 comment   |  tags: critic, esther, jesus is a better king, mark driscoll, rape, series, sermon, sex | posted in Uncategorized

September 12, 2012

Mark Driscoll and Esther: Rape apologism or real exegesis?

By paperthinhymn

Mark Driscoll recently posted a heads-up about a sermons series he was starting, on the book of Esther for September 16. In it he gave several reasons why he was preaching on it and the framework by which he was going to preach. Over the course of his missive, which can be read here, he has said a few things which predictably raise some eyebrows. Specifically

Esther is painfully normal.…Her behaviour is sinful and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king…Today, her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor and wows with an amazing night in bed. She’s simply a person without any character until her own neck is on the line…

and

Esther has been grossly misinterpreted…Feminists have tried to cast Esther’s life as a tragic tale of male domination and female liberation. Many evangelicals have ignored her sexual sin and godless behaviour to make her into a Daniel-like figure, which is inaccurate. Some have even tried to tie her story in with modern-day, sex-slave trafficking…

Some people have called this intro a rape apologetic, while others  have defended the view. Me? I figured I would offer a thoughtful exegesis to see which of these is correct.  I will update this post once I hear the whole sermon, but I thought what little he has posted so far worth examining.

THE CAPTURE

First of all, what are the circumstances that brought Esther to the harem? Without any action on the King, Esther would not have been in the position she was in. Rather, because she was a beautiful virgin with a beautiful figure, probably between the age of 13-16 years old, she was “sought”, “gathered” and “taken” by the Kings officers and put into the palace under the custody of Hegai, the eunuch in charge of the harem.  These men would have spread throughout the kingdom, with the intent of bringing women to the palace to have a single night with the King. It is unlikely that a Jewish girl with Jewish sensibilities would have purposefully sought out to be in the King’s harem. From a historical perspective, women did not have a choice in the matter, and there was no right of refusal. The king took what the king wanted, and there was nothing she could have done about it, and would probably have had herself and Mordecai executed if she refused.

Now, it is theoretically possible that she did seek out to be a part of the harem, but that is unlikely, and that would be a conclusion we would reach only if we were ascribing to Esther the worst possible motives and character-slighting opportunism, a woman with a whore’s heart who intended to use her sexuality to gain power and prominence. We have no reason to believe that is the case. Instead, we see the King telling his officers “Go get me beautiful virgins” and they did that, regardless of what the women thought about it.

THE HAREM

Esther is taken into the harem where she would spend the next year going through an intense beauty regiment. She did not have a choice in this matter, and would not have been able to refuse participation. Somehow though, she managed to please Hegai and win favour. “And he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food, and with seven chosen young women from the king’s palace, and advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem. ” What specifically did Esther do to please Hegai? It doesn’t say. It would not have been anything sexual, as he was a Eunuch and he would have been tortured and executed if any impropriety was even suspected.  More than likely, she possessed and demonstrated personality characteristics that won him over, such as kindness, gentleness, intellect, humour, compassion, or some other indefinable quality. The fact is that we don’t know what it is, and so we don’t get to craft a hermeneutic based on assumptions.

After a year of this routine, a woman leaving that Harem would bring a gift to the King and spend the night with him. Because Esther found favour with Hegai over the course of their year together, he also advised her on what gift to take. Hegai would have been in a unique position to best advise her of the Kings desires and preferences. As a result, she brought only what Hegai told her to, and its safe to assume that what she brought would have been intended to maximize her impression on the King. After a woman spends a night with the King, he would typically not call on her again. She was not free to go home, or back where she came from- to her family and loved ones, but would be relegated to a different harem, where the women who were “used” went, and would have to remain there for the rest of her life unless the king called on her again.

WHAT WENT DOWN

“Now Esther was winning favour in the eyes of all who saw her….And when Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, into his royal palace, in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign,  the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti”

Now if we were following Driscolls framework and unwarranted presuppositions, up to this point Esther had purposefully sought out to join a harem, cajoled Hegai into helping her, and then once she had her night with the King she, despite her virginity and sexual inexperience, managed to capture his attention in ways that other had not by being “amazing” in bed, presumably by being sexually adventurous, extremely eager, and using her body in a skillful way.

That doesn’t make ANY sense culturally, historically or contextually. I think a detail worth noting and which may provide some clues to how the king was pleased is the phrase “”Now Esther was winning favour in the eyes of all who saw her.” Because she was lovely and beautiful and everyone who saw her saw something special in her, that news would have invariably reached the King. I think its a safe bet to say that he probably would have known at least something about her, or heard back a good report regarding her, from Hegai or Shaashgaz or somebody else. This demonstrates a pattern that regardless of the painful, strange,  disorienting and horrific circumstances Esther is going through, something exists in her spirit and actions that other people are able to connect to, and this would be something that the King would have noticed and have experienced as well.

In the case of Esther, she went into his bedchamber, they had sex, and over the course of their time together and probably in the year leading up to these events, something happened that endeared the King’s grace and favour towards her, to the point that he loved her more than all the women,  she became the queen.

REFLECTIONS

1. Driscoll says “Her behaviour is sinful and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king“  

I find this assessment to be bizarre and unsettling.  The narrative storyline clearly shows that Esther was taken, forcibly relocated and coerced into a place of physical and sexual submission by a drunken and despotic man who used power to get whatever he wanted. If a man takes you against your will with the purpose of having sex with you, that’s his sin, not yours. Could she have escaped? It’s extremely doubtful. The harems were highly guarded and impenetrable, but even if she could, she would have invariably been caught and executed. And even if she wouldn’t have been caught, but felt like she would and so chose to remain in the harem, that is not a sin. Its not a sin to choose to endure rape and sexual coercion over a slim possibility of escape. Furthermore, she’s not spending a year in a spa getting dolled up,  she is made to undergo what is essentially a pre-rape regiment for a year against her will. She can’t refuse.  Every time she soaks in myrrh spices she knows its purpose is to prepare her for non-consexual sex with a rapist who would have taken hundreds of women against their will both before her and after her. Did she enjoy the treatments? It doesn’t say. Did she come to enjoy them? It doesn’t say. We don’t read things into this, and for that reason we have no right to favourably compare it to something that is universally looked upon with favour.

2. Driscoll says” her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor and wows with an amazing night in bed.“

No. That comparison is sickening and ludicrous and has so many things wrong with it. First, she wasn’t “living in a major city”. She was somewhere, in the country or city, and then was taken into a fortress that she can’t escape in that city. Second, she is not “allowing men to cater to her needs”, she is put in a position where men must serve her in this manner or be tortured, and she must consent to their orders. Third, she  ”lands a rich guy,” in the same way that a woman walking alone in the park is shoved into a van and gang-raped at knifepoint can be said to have “landed a guy”- two of them in fact. In fact that can be our new euphemism for sexual violence and kidnapping. “Did you hear about that girl? It was late at night…she landed a guy.” Fourth- “meets on the Bachelor”? Why do all of Driscolls language and ideas presupposes a purposeful choice on Esther’s part to be part of the harem? Women seek out to be on the Bachelor. Esther did not seek out to be part of a harem. Fifth “wows with an amazing night in bed”. This ignores the pattern of her ability to find grace and win favour with all the people that she encounters  over the course of her imprisonment via non-sexual means, and that this more than likely would have contributed a hefty portion of why the king found favour. Also,  the king would have had thousands of concubins at his disposal to copulate with, and so Driscoll boils down her ability to find favour with him as by being better in bed than those thousands. That was the source of her salvation and worth- the fact that she could out-maneuver and outperform everyone else sexually. She out-sexed them all!  That’s how he plays it, without considering that it may have been something else.

3. Driscoll says “Feminists have tried to cast Esther’s life as a tragic tale of male domination and female liberation”

I’m no particular friend of feminists and think the hermeneutic of female liberation is a terrible lens to read the Bible through.  But don’t we see a clear pattern of male domination? The man with the power uses his  soldiers to take women against their will and has sex with them. That is a man with all the power dominating and crushing the women who have no power. Its abhorrent.

4. Driscoll says “Many evangelicals have ignored her sexual sin and godless behaviour. “

Again, she only has sexual sin if you purposefully read into this the worst possible scenario and give her the worst possible qualities and characteristics. At face value, and at a deeper level, there is no sexual sin here. There is no Godless behavior. There is only self-preservation and strength by doing what must be done to survive, and faithfully enduring these evils that were foisted upon her so that God’s people might be delivered from the hands of their enemy.

CONCLUSION

Mark Driscoll has taken a woman who is brave, courageous, intelligent, a woman of character and virtue who flourished despite her oppression,  a living hero and example to many, one who has risked her life to save her people from genocide, and created a campaign of scorn, shame and slander against her. He has recast her in the most unflattering light possible with no reason to do so. In doing so he has patently either ignored or embellished details about her life and circumstances to sit his hermeneutic framework.

Not only that, but where is the Lord in all of this? The story of Esther has always been one of God’s sovereignty over the entire situation and his protection of his people. God saving them and keeping a remnant and protecting them against their enemies is a theme that we see over and over. Its not simply a case where a woman, through her own abilities and “unique skillset” saved a people, but rather that the Lord is always in the act and process of saving and preserving his people.  The fact that he reached down to a young woman in a despairing circumstance is  beautiful and powerful. Though God is not mentioned in this book, his divine providence and mercy is on full display. Is there any doubt that the Lord’s hand was on this woman? That he was guiding this all? I know Mark affirms that, and I’ll hold off judgement in that respect until the sermon series, but that seems to be curiously absent from this.

18 comments   |  tags: esther, hadassah, harem, mark driscoll, mars hill, mordecai, rape, sermon series, xerxes | posted in Uncategorized

September 7, 2012

Psalm 40

By paperthinhymn

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from romansfiveeight

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August 26, 2012

How I learned to speak in tongues, and then never do it again. The Conclusion

By paperthinhymn

After that night I would speak in tongues often. I could conjure up this heavenly language in a heartbeat. I would start praying “I love you father- you are so perfect and good, you are the shunda-ra-saka- to-to-to…” and off I went. It was a seamless transition between my worldly, untamed tongue into my redeemed, holy tongue.

When I was at home, on the bus, in line at the supermarket- everywhere. My pastor told me a story of man who went and visited a pastor in Africa. The man greeted him and they spent several days together. While the pastor was friendly and conversant, the man noticed that whenever he wasn’t speaking out loud, his lips would always be moving- all throughout the day. Finally the man asked the pastor what he was doing, and the pastor replied that every second of every day that he wasn’t talking to people he was speaking in tongues quietly and talking to God.

That story resonated with me and that’s who I wanted to be. I wanted to be that kind of person and for a while, maybe a few weeks, I felt like I was living it. It was a beautiful month. On one level, in one particular way, it was the nearest I ever “felt” to God. So many burdens lifted- so many of the old aches, scars, and spiritual cigarette burns began to heal and clear up.  I began to engage with the Church again. Whereas before I was sullen and quiet in worship, now I was bouncing up in down on my feet in the front row- hands raised high. In fact, I even grabbed a flag from the bin up front and started waving it until my arms were spent, speaking in tongues between sets, the first and only time I have ever done that. I would participate in fire tunnels and when it was my turn to pray and prophecy, I would speak in tongues and people I touched would fall to the floor. It was a sacred and awesome power.  I witnessed and shared my faith more, speaking in tongues before and after the encounters.  I began going to all night prayer meetings [From 8pm to 8am] because I knew that I could just sit in a corner and speak in tongues and the time would fly as I connected to God, blessed by these charisms that he had bestowed upon me.

Most importantly though, I felt saved. I felt like a child of God. I didn’t feel like a disappointment to him and in that period I was able to “forgive God” for how I felt deserted and unloved because he never spoke to me. It was, as I look back, a fragment of my life that was wholly unique.

But slowly things started to shift. I realized after a few weeks that the elated feelings began to fade and that the high I was riding was beginning to level out. I thought that If I was speaking directly to God in a language that only him and I understood, that surely that would be more than sufficient to keep me in a state of peace and worship-that I wouldn’t experience the emotional and spiritual lows and highs, but rather would always be high. And yet here I was, falling….falling….falling.

Coupled with this is that I realized that my tongues-vocabulary wasn’t very big. I mean, I would essentially say the same 20 words over and over again, just in different arrangements and sequences. I brought this to the attention of my pastor and he told me that even though I was saying “shundara” over and over again, that because it was a private prayer language,  each time I said it it meant something different.  And so even though it sounded to me like I was saying the same phrase repeatedly, in reality I was not, and in fact was saying all sorts of things in the spiritual realm.

I also found myself praying and speaking in tongues, running through a favorite phrase at breakneck speed, when suddenly I was at a loss for words.  It was a jarring stopgap that yanked me out of the heavenly places. Silence would interrupt me and I would have to think for a moment about what I wanted to say next, and then resume where I left off.

This whole process continued for a year, a slow decline into uncertainty and uncomfortable realities. I could still speak in tongues, but it had none of the energy, vitality, and rush that it had once brought me. While speaking in these tongues brought me a small comfort, in some ways I began to grow disillusioned with them because they seemed more forced as time went on, and none of that emotional spark was there. I didn’t feel like I was talking with God in a private prayer language- it just felt like I was saying “shundara” a lot, over and over, without that connection to something deeper and more profound.

[Note, I'm skipping tons of story here which relates to this, but long story short, I began to realize that much of the teaching from the pulpit was deceptive in nature and was more imaginative than biblical.  I was becoming increasingly alarmed at some of the things that the Pastor said and taught which I believe did not line up with the scriptures. I began to learn enough about basic theology to know that not all was well. I left the Church I had been attending for years, after a showdown in the sanctuary with my Pastor over something he said that I found intolerable. Very shortly after this, I moved up here to Fort McMurray.]

I arrived here a bruised and battered reed. I felt lied to, betrayed, burned, and keenly aware of my own ignorance.  I felt far from God and felt like I really didn’t know him- that I only knew him emotionally and experimentally, but not intellectually or theologically. I knew how he made me felt during worship, but not how my worship meant to him. I eventually began working the night shift at a local retail store stocking shelves. The job was simple enough and so to pass the time, I would load my iPod pass the time. I would scour iTunes and the internet and would load up hundreds of hours of sermons at a time and would play them all night. It didn’t matter who it was- I didn’t know who was good or bad, who was sound or unsound. I listened to everyone across the spectrum, from seeker sensitive pastors to independent fundamental baptists,usually  for fours hours a night. The other four hours I would listen to the audio version of the Bible. I did this for 4 years. Sometimes I would listen to the Bible for the whole week, about 36 hours. Other times I would load up Lutheran homilies, which are about 15-20 minutes each, and would listen to 5 years of that pastors sermons in a matter of days. Other times I would load up lecture series from Christian universities and would listen to 25 lectures on “Christian life in the 8th century” or 18 lectures on”Reformed apologetics”. Still other times I said to myself “I want to listen to the Book of Galatians today” and then loop it for the next 6 hours.

I listened to thousands upon thousands of Bible and sermons in this time frame, and it didn’t take long for my life to change. As it relates to this story, I very quickly began to gravitate toward reformed preachers and teachers. Men like John Piper. John Macarthur. Matt Chandler. R.C Sproul. James White. Ligon Duncan and D.A Carson. These were men whose sermons most closely reflected what I was hearing from the Bible. It seemed they took it extremely serious, and took the greatest pains to exegete the texts rather than prooftexts to score points. That’s what really stuck out to me. And these were men who, to varying degrees, did not believe that the gift of tongues was active and present today. That they were mostly all cessasionists and were able to argue and articulate why that biblically is was incredibly disturbing and challenging for me. In fact, early on I was outright hostile to this part of their beliefs, believing them pretty knowledgeable on most things, but definitely missing it on this one. This was a difficult spot to be in. These were my heroes, and yet they were saying that what I was experiencing was not legitimate.

I began to do research, and as I had in this time developed the ability to study and exegete the biblical texts, found their argumentation extremely compelling. I did my own research and poured over tomes and ancient primary sources,  fervently researching and investigating the glossolaia. I listened to the best defenses and argumentation for speaking in tongues, desperately wanting them to offer an excellent refutation and positive presentation of why biblically they were still for today.

What I found crushed me. My speaking in tongues side, from my perspective, had nothing to offer. They were re-soundly refuted. The arguments that I used to regurgitate for speaking in tongues seemed to me all of a sudden silly and a little bit embarrassing. I understood what tongues were in the Bible, in that time frame, and how it  vastly different than how its practiced now. In short, I became convinced from the biblical evidence that speaking in tongues was an early Christian phenomena that was unique to that period and was not in play today. It was a painful time of self-examination and self-doubt, as I desperately tried to search my heart and figure out what was going on, and how had I gotten there.

And so what was my experience? Some people say its either demonic. Others say it’s emotional hysteria and gibber-jabber. I look back at myself, all my friends and my entire former Church, many of whom spoke in tongues, and I don’t believe it was demonic. Was I caught up in the moment and due to emotional manipulation worked myself up to the point where it burst forth? Was it a psychosomatic reflex- my body birthing what my mind wanted so badly? I don’t know. In retrospect  I can see how maybe that initial gift of tongues may have been bought about by a heightened emotional state, but afterwards? On the bus? At work? Was I that self-deceived? I have come to terms with the fact that I probably was a learned behavior. I think I was encouraged to produce sounds which my brain could then take hold of in an unconscious way and create strings of syllables to speak forth, and once I learned how to do that I was able to keep it up.  I think that might account for the riffs and improvisations that I tended to use. I think that’s probably about it.

The point is this. I became convinced that it was not for today, and because I am committed to binding my conscience to the word of God, I’ve stopped speaking in them. It was an achingly hard thing to do- when everything in your experience tells you that its good, and in fact you can start speaking them right then and there- to have to take that and say “regardless of what my feelings, desires and experiences tells me, I have a higher authority and I must be obedient to it.”

Its been about six years now since I’ve spoken in tongues, and I have no plans to every try to speak in them again. In the years since any and all desire to speak in them has pretty much waned and dissipated. I don’t think of them as a private prayer language that I let go cold and die from disuse, but rather as a childish thing from another life that I’ve shrugged off and have been set free from.

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August 20, 2012

Percentage of abortions performed to save the life of the mother? 0.006%

By paperthinhymn

A few days ago I got into a skirmish with a woman on facebook regarding this issue. She made a comment something along the lines of “Christians “conveniently” forget that the majority of abortions happen to save the life of the mother.” I took exception to that stunningly bad assertion and we went off from there. Today I came across this interesting article, and seeing as how I’m being slack on this site, it might be worth posting.

Via Gene Veith

Abortion is called a woman’s health issue, with the right to abortion necessary to protect a woman’s life, in many instances, and physical well-being in many more.  So what percentage of abortions are to save a mother’s life or to protect her health?  Not very many, according to a British study of abortion in that country:

A report to Parliament has revealed abortions performed in the United Kingdom to save the life of the mother are a stunningly low 0.006 percent of procedures.

David Alton, who for 18 years was a member of the House of Commons, wrote, “When the case for allowing legal abortion was first placed before Parliament it was argued that the law needed to be changed to deal with extremely serious situations.

“More than six million abortions later the figures reveal that in 99.5 percent of the cases where an unborn child’s life is ended there is no risk to the health of the mother,” he said.

The details came in a response from Earl Howe, the parliamentary undersecretary of state in the nation’s Department of Health, to Parliament. He confirmed from 1968 through 2011, the last year for which details were available,there were 6.4 million abortions for women in England and Wales.

“Of these, 143 (0.006 percent) were performed under Section 1(4), i.e. where the termination is immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman,” he wrote.

He noted another 24,778 were done on the grounds that a continued pregnancy would involve more risk to the mother than if the unborn child were destroyed.

Source[s]

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July 27, 2012

John Piper Quote

By paperthinhymn

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July 17, 2012

Great Matt Chandler Quote

By paperthinhymn

“If you ultimately long to be holy, hope to be holy, hate the sin in your life, and are struggling to get there but keep falling short, and you’re in this kind of weird cycle where you kind of run to God for a season, then you run away to clean yourself up, then you run back to God, then you kind of run away when you screw up, and then you run back… If you have yourself in that cycle, I’m telling you, you’re walking in a fear-based religion that does not quite understand that God has already decreed you as holy and blameless. He has, in his adopting work, decreed to the universe that you are his and he delights in you, is proud of you, loves you, and cherishes you. You are a co-heir with Christ of all he has.” Matt Chandler

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July 13, 2012

The Reformation in Lego

By paperthinhymn

 

Here is an interesting link, that shows the reformation in legos. Well, not the whole reformation- just Luther before the diet of worms.

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July 8, 2012

Matt Chandler Quote

By paperthinhymn

“I continually want to lay before you that really in that moment where you blow it, you have this really beautiful opportunity to marvel at the gospel. When your heart goes to a place it shouldn’t, when your mind goes to a place it shouldn’t, when your external actions go to a place you know is forbidden, you have this opportunity to just marvel at the gospel. Just marvel at it. Marvel that you didn’t surprise God, like God didn’t see that one coming. You have this chance to just slow down and rest in, “He calls me holy. He calls me blameless. He calls me spotless. Even in this he delights in me.” Matt Chandler

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