Spiritual Coffee: A Beautiful Life Raising Kids with Special Needs - Feast of Theology with John Webster - Teaching Children Obedience Without Legalism

Here are three things worth feeding your mind. You can find prior roundups under Spiritual Coffee, and stay tuned for new installments later this week.

The Beautiful Trial of Raising Kids with Special Needs, Paul Martin reviews Andrew and Rachel Wilson's book The Life We Never Expected: Hopeful Reflections on the Challenges of Parenting Children with Special Needs. (TGC)
The Wilsons "are part of the leadership team at Kings Church in Eastbourne in the United Kingdom" and their parenting took a completely unexpected turn when "both their children (Zeke and Anna) showed signs of autism around age 3. It was regressive autism, meaning both had been meeting typical developmental milestones, but then started going in reverse." Most people flee from the idea of having a child with any developmental disabilities or special needs. The Wilsons seem to have done a remarkable job of both showing the beauty and hope involved in parenting these unique and precious children, while also being blunt and honest about the discouragement, difficulty, and demands. Consciously or unconsciously, most of us pin our happiness on having the life we expected. But there is a glorious and breathtaking part of experiencing God that can only be seen and felt by people who have surrendered and let God use them to humbly serve other lives. We usually fight tooth and nail against that surrender, and it is helpful to be shown the reward of what's on the other side by people like the Wilsons who have been taken there.

 "When you read The Life We Never Expected, you feel like you’ve been transported into the Wilsons’ living room to shoot straight with them about life and parenting—only with a twist. 

"God, in his great wisdom, saw fit to bless the Wilsons with two children with autism. It may be worth stopping here to say what autism is and isn’t. Some tend to think a few good spankings, more rigid discipline, and a parenting course or two will straighten things out, but you cannot discipline genetics. Autism is 'a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.' Its cause is unknown, and it manifests in a variety of ways—Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified PDD-NOS, and childhood disintegrative disorder are all related disabilities on the Autism Spectrum." 

"Andrew isn’t ashamed to tell us how, when the second diagnosis came, he

was overwhelmed by the most sweeping, drowning sense of pain and anguish I had ever experienced, ran into the playroom, curled up on the floor, and wailed until I thought there was nothing left. It was, and still is, the lowest point of my entire life.

"That’s the kind of raw honesty that pervades The Life We Never Expected. And that’s what I loved most about it. There’s a kind of denial the Christian church tolerates when it comes to disability. We often ignore things that scare us or we don’t understand. The Wilsons, however, bravely invite us into their world to taste their anguish and joys.  

"This book is much more than a lament. It’s that, but it’s also a vivid description of God’s dependability amid the sorrow and chaos of disability."

Perfection & Presence: God With Us, According to the Christian Confession, John Webster (Carl F.H. Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
Webster, a massively influential theologian, passed away last month. At that time I posted some links to articles detailing his life and contributions to Christianity. Here is a great chance to absorb some of his work through six audio lectures. And yeah, this is probably much more than one coffee break, but consider it a chance to stock up and take these in little sections at a time in order to reflect on them.

"Professor John Webster delivers a rich reflection upon the perfections and presence of God. The question at the center of this lectures series is the nature of human fellowship with God. The Investigation of the nature of this fellowship entails for Webster, a comprehension of the divine perfections and their relation to the Trinitarian relations and missions. From the nature of God, the Trinitarian relations and the nature of Divine presence more generally, it can then be understood more clearly what scripture means when it speaks of the Word becoming flesh. Webster offers, therefore, an extensive reflection upon the human history of the divine Word and the nature of his presence in the flesh. Finally, Webster moves to discuss the nature of the resurrected and exalted Lord’s presence, a presence manifest in his Lordship over his creatures and in the practices and Sacraments of the holy church."

Is It Anti-Gospel to Teach Kids Self-Control Before Conversion? - Owen Strachan (For the Church)
Valuable reflections from a remarkable theologian, who is also the president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (in other words, a man who cares very deeply about families and children). If we really understand the Gospel, then we know that obedience to God does not earn us salvation. Instead, obedience is frequently described in Scripture as "fruit." Fruit only grows on a tree that is already alive. Unless we are made alive by the Spirit, we cannot bring forth the fruit of obedience and good works. These things come after saving faith in Christ, not before. And the last thing we want to do is confuse our children by making them think that they have to "be good" in order to get God's approval, because that is the deadly peril of legalism. Strachan has a very practical answer for parents. Read on:

"No true transformation can happen without miraculous grace.  There is surely truth to this argument.  Without the gospel, we are slaves to sin.  We cannot conquer sin or master it; as long as we are unconverted, sin is in fact our master.  We need God-given faith in Christ to know true and lasting transformation.

"But I am wondering if, in highlighting this ultimate truth, we might forget a penultimate (secondary) reality.  It is good and well to train children, pre-conversion, in obedience and self-control.  If you do this in a way that indicates that successfully resisting a given temptation equates with the highest form of pleasing God, then that’s problematic.  In other words, if you train kids that doing right actions saves them, that’s tragic.  But it’s also tragic to not raise children to discern right from wrong and to think that they have no ability whatsoever to follow commands.

"If, though, you train children in good habits while always holding out the need for repentance and faith, I think you’re being a wise and godly parent.  The father who speaks repeatedly to his son in Proverbs clearly directs him to steer clear of sin.  The father is forming habits in his son, and those habits are not opposed to saving faith.  They are creating channels through which the life-giving water of the gospel will flow."

Spiritual Coffee: Truth Doesn't Divide, Unbelief Does - Helping Women Cherish Being a Weaker Vessel - Novels for a Christian Mind

Here's the best of what I've seen recently for building up your mind in Christ and refreshing your heart. Prior roundups are under Spiritual Coffee.

Division Begins with the Departure from the Truth, Jared C. Wilson (For the Church)

Most of us in the Church have been battered and browbeaten with the modern myth that anyone who insists upon something as true is divisive and disruptive. When a person wants to go their own way, those of us who try to call them back are labeled judgmental and closed-minded. Wilson does a very concise and clear job of demonstrating that it is actually the person who has chosen to depart from what we shared as a belief who is being stubborn and closed-minded. Most orthodox creeds and statements of doctrine were created in response to someone abandoning truth for what is deceptive and misleading. They were reactions to the stubbornness of error and rebellion. This is a welcome reset of our perspective, reminding us we don't cause division and conflict just by remaining true to what we believe.

Fragile, Honored, Undaunted: Women as the Weaker Vessel, Abigail Dodds (Desiring God)

"Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." (1 Peter 3:7).

This verse provokes so many emotional reactions from both men and women. In our age, obsessed with independence and autonomy, the idea of being weak carries with it the implication that you aren't able to assert yourself independently and be free of social stereotypes imposed on you by tradition and culture. No one wants to be weak. I know women struggle over understanding this comparison between men and women, and I know men who struggle with wanting to explain it away out of sympathy and support. Yet it's a teaching of the Bible, and that means that there is something good for us here that we shouldn't miss. We hide from it or dismiss it at our peril, because every time people try to ignore or defy what God has designed and force things into roles and shapes they weren't meant to have, tragedy follows.

Abigail paints a beautiful portrait of the strength and preciousness that coexist with fragility and weakness, illustrating that being weaker does not mean inferior or less capable. The excerpts below speak for themselves - and have a lot to say to both men and women. Although I'm not a woman, I've been married to one for 16 years and I am very familiar with how she has pondered and wrestled through verses like this. She commended this post as among the most helpful things she has read on this verse, and I am grateful to have words like this with which to encourage her. 

"It helps to first acknowledge that what God says through Peter is true. We are weaker, or we could use the synonym fragile. Not stupider. Not less human. Not incapable of reason or achievement. Not emotionally broken. Not more sinful. And not even without great strength, as the Scriptures testify. But weaker. And yet many of us are, or have been at some point, uncomfortable with this because it’s inimical to the spirit of the age and it feels like an offense to our pride. So much so that we may stubbornly spurn 1 Peter’s verity, even as we take every precaution when walking alone in a dark alley.

"Our weakness — the fact that no matter how much time I spent in the gym, I’d likely never be able to overpower an average-sized man or beat him in an arm-wrestling match — is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is to be handled with care, because in it resides exquisite beauties, abilities, and feminine strengths — like the beautiful strength of thick beveled glass."

12 Recent Novels for your Summer Pleasure, Byron Borger (Hearts and Minds Books)

I include this because it is a great joy to discover fiction that brings truth to life with creativity and wisdom, and also because Byron Borger is a voice you should know if you love books. He reviews them often on his Booknotes blog, and his depth of knowledge is astounding. If you're looking for a guide to uncharted wonders and rare jewels in Christian literature and non-fiction, this is your guy. This is the kind of bookstore you wish you could go around the corner to every week. (The one that particularly intrigued me from this list of novels is the sixth one, This Is Why I Came.)

Every year, Byron and his wife Beth put together a remarkable portable bookstore for the Christian Legal Society National Conference, filling a gallery with hundreds of handpicked selections in every imaginable category a Christian may want. Take one look at the organization and care in arranging a room that size with so many useful titles, and you'll know why their experience and knowledge of books is so valuable.

Spiritual Coffee: Safeguarding Church and Family Culture - Who Is David French? - Know Jonathan Edwards in 30 Minutes

Some evening fuel for thought, or a head start on your morning coffee time.
Prior roundups of current links for feeding the Christian mind under Spiritual Coffee.

Carl Trueman Adopts Rod Dreher's Benedict Option ("Eating Locusts Will Be (Benedict) Optional"),

Carl R. Trueman (First Things)
Rod Dreher has been known for the past two years for the idea of "the Benedict Option," which essentially argues that the Church at this cultural crossroads needs to focus on preserving Christian culture in our churches and families and communities rather than putting all our attention into trying to change the wider culture of the world. Dreher has observed that while we were trying to change the culture in society, we lost track of preserving the unique culture of the Church. Now we're in danger of losing that altogether in the next generations. I think Dreher is right, and the Church needs to hear this, so it's encouraging to see more theologians and scholars affirm this. The namesake for his idea comes from the Order of St. Benedict, and the fact that much of the learning and history and philosophy of the world was preserved through the Middle Ages by monks living in private Christian communities. Dreher doesn't advocate for monasticism itself, but he has some really good points about how we should learn from that concept and apply it to safeguarding Christian community and beliefs.

If you want to read more from Dreher on the Benedict Option, here and here are some good pieces to give you the overview. If you prefer video, then use this.
And if you really want to dig into all his historical and anecdotal examples, this is long but very thoroughly explained.

It's not the only thing the Church should focus on, but I think Dreher is spot on that we have failed to realize we aren't preserving a separate and unique culture and community in the Church. We've been so busy trying to shape the wider culture that we lost track of safeguarding and passing on a uniquely Christian culture in the Church, and largely failed to pass Christian faith and teaching in a coherent form on to the next generation. Moreover, we aren't on the offensive against culture now. We're on defense. We need to give great attention to preserving what is Christian in our lives and churches so it doesn't get pushed out by social pressure, because that's what is most likely to happen if we keep trying to wage a culture war the same way and don't re-examine what's happened to our churches.

Who Is David French? And Why Is He Running?, Denny Burk
This is worth reading not just because David French's third-party candidacy is intriguing, but much more because what Burk shares about French's past words and character is a tremendous demonstration of Christian character and faith put to the test under the harshest conditions. Bookmark this for raising your kids to be men and women who take courage in the Lord and honor Him with all their hearts.

Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God, Dane Ortlund (Equipping You in Grace - servantsofgrace.org)
Want to understand what makes Jonathan Edwards such an important Christian theologian, and how some of his remarkable ideas energize faith and the fruit of the spirit in Christian living? Dane Ortlund has got you covered in this podcast. Ortlund is the vice president of Bible publishing at Crossway, and author of several books including Edwards on the Christian Life.

Spiritual Coffee: Power of Christian Narrative in Fantasy - Against the Myth of Progress and Historical Pessimism - Glorifying God as a Generalist

I really enjoyed today's collection of links. I hope that you will as well. Taken together, these three pieces restore some of the excitement and wonder in exploring God's Creation and the endless possibilities of discovery in the Christian mind and imagination. There is even now a great portion of beauty and glory awaiting us.
(Click on Spiritual Coffee for earlier collections of links.)

James Stoddard's Interior Castle, David Randall (First Things)

The quoted section below is enough to excite interest, especially for those who enjoy C.S. Lewis's fiction or The Lord of the Rings. I usually get the most enduring and satisfying enjoyment out of stories that have a great layer of truth underneath them. When you piece together the fantastic and unusual elements of a story and find they reveal a mystery about reality, you gain something personal and permanent. It is always a delight to discover beauty, but to discover something that is both beautiful and true is priceless.

"James Stoddard ought to be famous for his Evenmere trilogy—The High House (1998), The False House (2000, revised 2015), and Evenmere (2015). He isn’t, unfortunately. The High House received the Compton Crook Award for best fantasy by a new novelist, but The False House and Evenmere haven’t gotten much notice. But the three books are wonderfully written fantasy, and Stoddard is nearly as good as C. S. Lewis at recapitulating aspects of the Christian myth. He isn’t just trying to be another Lewis, either. Stoddard’s trilogy does something new and nifty: It is an argument in fiction that narrative is at the center of Christian theology—that the universe is narrative, that Christ is its sacred narrator, and that narrative is the means by which mankind can understand God. Stoddard’s sustained invention and stylish prose are enough by themselves to earn him a place in the mainstream fantasy canon. But his shift of emphasis from Christian myth to Christian narrative makes his trilogy a major work of Christian fantasy."

[I also find this description of the worldview of the villains to be brilliant. The deception that mankind can achieve a perfect world lies behind virtually all modern false ideologies (and the next link from Al Mohler happens to show what it's like for those ideologies to crash down).]

"The books’ villains are the Society of Anarchists, who are ruthlessly dedicated to establishing a perfect world."

Christ’s Exaltation: The Ground of Our Hope, Albert Mohler (Ligonier)
A succinct picture of Christ's reign and how it provides us confidence both now and for the future, contrasted with the hopelessness of faith in "progress" or perfection of humanity and its disillusioned counterpart, historical pessimism.

"'The twentieth century, it is safe to say, has made us all into deep historical pessimists.' So observed Francis Fukuyama in his seminal 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. What happened? The nineteenth century’s humanistic faith in inevitable moral progress was destroyed on the battlefields of two cataclysmic world wars and in the unprecedented murderous cruelty of Hitler’s gas chambers, Stalin’s gulags, and Pol Pot’s Cambodian killing fields. History seemed to point, not to a golden age of moral progress and enlightenment, but toward an age of unspeakable cruelty backed by technological developments that would stagger the moral imagination.

"Fukuyama demonstrated the failure of historical 'faiths' such as Marxism, with its confidence in the ultimate victory of the proletariat through class struggle and revolution. His analysis of modern historical pessimism was correct, at least in this respect, for secular myths did not fare well in the twentieth century, and most contemporary Americans look to the future with a mixed sense of unease and uncertainty.

"The Christian worldview stands in stark contrast both to the humanistic idea of progress and to modern secular pessimism."

How to Glorify God by Being a Generalist, Joe Carter (TGC)

Probably fascinating for anyone who is curious how people like Justin Taylor, Russell Moore, Tim Challies, and departed heroes like Chuck Colson manage to have such diverse knowledge and insight into so many subjects. Carter is careful to say he can only describe his own experience, and that it may not be a calling that applies to many people. Particularly interesting are his conclusions that generalism is artistic, generalism is a personal act of worship to God, and generalism is not primarily pursued for the sake of imparting knowledge to others (although that is a valuable byproduct) but for the sake of beholding the majesty of God in greater and wider detail. The highest reward is a private moment of awe and wonder between the generalist and the Lord.

This line is also helpful and practical for those of us who get stalled out trying to find the perfect way to do things: "sometimes you have to use whatever method works for your personality, even if it’s less than ideal."

"What if we generalists are beckoned to seek knowledge not as a means for some other end but simply as an act of performance before our Creator? This is not to say that the knowledge gained cannot be used for practical purposes or in service of our neighbor. But viewing knowledge-seeking as a performative act done for God and before God frees us to treat it as a form of ongoing artistic worship. Just as David performed for God with leaping and dancing (2 Sam. 6:16) we are free to seek truth, knowledge, and understanding in a variety of areas as a way of glorifying him." [On Sincerity:] "'By validity I mean whether an artist is honest to himself and to his world-view,' Schaeffer says, 'or whether he makes his art only for money or for the sake of being accepted.' If it’s to glorify God as a work of art, generalism cannot be pursued as a means of impressing others with our erudition. For the Christian generalist, the pursuit of knowledge is a performance for God, not an act of pedantry to impress our peers. The validity comes in performing not for the applause of others but for the approval of our divine patron."

"What turns generalism into an art (or at least one major “style” of art) is “sublime pattern-matching,” seeing the interconnectedness of God’s creation in a way that impresses our minds with a sense of awe and veneration of his grandeur and power. 

"God takes delight not in the discovery of the patterns of his revelation (which, of course, he already knows) but with the way that the process leads us to childlike worship. It is the process that leads us to continuously repeat the prayer of the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler: “O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!” It’s the pursuit of knowledge and discovery as a way to glorify our Redeemer by becoming increasingly enchanted by his majesty." “What is elementary, worldly wisdom?” Charles Munger asked. “Well, the first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form.”

Spiritual Coffee: How Pornography Destroys Pleasure and People - Correcting Others Fairly and Accurately - United Methodists Deconstructed

Today's three resources include professor and author Andy Naselli's seminar confronting pornography use as destroying your mind and ability to enjoy pleasure, along with a solid demonstration that most pornography is produced through sex trafficking. I attended the seminar live, and it was very effective and persuasive. The audio has just been posted online.

(Click on Spiritual Coffee for prior roundups to sharpen and equip your Christian thinking and enlarge your heart.)

Pure Pleasure Men's Gathering 2016, Andy Naselli and Sgt. Grant Snyder (Bethlehem Baptist Church)

This is serious stuff. The truth about pornography is ugly, and some of the content in these audio recordings is intense. Use your judgment in sharing with teens. But they need to know a lot of this. Naselli demonstrates from the Scriptures and from people's experiences

how abusing your sexual desires destroys your ability to think, relate to other people, and enjoy pleasure. In addition, he does a compelling and convicting job of proving that most pornography is actually the result of people being lured into sex trafficking and drugged, manipulated, threatened, and forced to do things on camera. This is serious truth spoken with conviction and concern for the fate of your soul.

Sgt. Grant Snyder, a detective and part of a sex trafficking task force, also gives a chilling and sobering look inside the world of sex trafficking, right in Minneapolis. He shows how people get targeted and lured into it. One of his unforgettable comments is that in the hundreds of interviews he has conducted with people arrested for engaging in prostitution with minors, sex crimes, etc., every single one of them was deep into pornography. It's a sin that only drags you further down and down.

The Gospel in Straw-Men on Chairs, Andrew Wilson (THINK)

Wilson does an excellent job of setting things straight on a recent video by a pastor criticizing the way many view the atonement Christ accomplished on the cross. On top of that, this is really worth your while because Wilson demonstrates how unreasonable and ineffective it is for people to dumb down or misrepresent what other people believe in order to criticize it. He identifies and explains several common errors Christians make when disagreeing with others. He also exposes the limits and distortion that can happen when you try to reduce a complicated theological concept down to a simple illustration or skit. Above all, you must be accurate if you are going to be truthful.

For anyone who wants a thorough comparison and explanation of what various Church Fathers and theologians have believed about the atonement and substitution, chapters 5 and 6 in John Stott's The Cross of Christ are just about definitive.

You may have seen Collin Hansen's article Why I'm No Longer a United Methodist (TGC). To flesh out and expand the understanding of what's happening in America's largest mainline denomination, here is a solid collection of information by Emma Green in The Atlantic. Offered not because I particularly agree with where she's coming from, but because she does an excellent job of providing information and observing a lot of the moving pieces. The contrast between how African Methodist congregations and U.S. congregations are approaching things is significant.

On the Political Leanings of Methodists (Emma Green)

The Divided Methodist Church (Emma Green)

For more perspective, Justin Taylor has excerpts from Timothy Tennent, a United Methodist and president of Asbury Theological Seminary, and a link to his whole report on the conference.

Chesterton on Achieving Balance So Good Things Can Run Wild

Another observation by G.K. Chesterton that relates to the theme of the last two posts on freedom and self-control is his conclusion that the only way to give any good thing its full strength is to put it in tension with other good things that balance out or, more precisely, oppose its excesses. Let any one good thing have its full head of steam without any other virtues to hold it in tension, and it will turn into a monster. But if you put all the virtues to work counter-balancing each other, they can all run free together. Here is a very concise set of quotes from his spiritual autobiography Orthodoxy to show what he means. I posted a more lengthy excerpt a few years ago at this link. (n.b. for links to book titles (in italics), I've started using the Goodreads quotes pages for each title because you get the book information and you often also get a great selection of the best quoted passages.)

"Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously.

"And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

"This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery of the new balance. Paganism had been like a pillar of marble, upright because proportioned with symmetry. Christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other, is enthroned there for a thousand years.

"it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfillment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. ...if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness." Orthodoxy, pp. 99-107 (Ignatius Press edition; 1995).

 

For practical guidance in how to handle the good things of life without letting them get out of control and derail each other, the most groundbreaking and helpful recent work is Joe Rigney's The Things of Earth. You can listen to the lectures “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory” on which the book is based or download them for free at his faculty page here at Bethlehem College & Seminary.

Every Christian Action or Argument Has One Aim: Love

This is the center of your ministry. And it is all too often forgotten.

Our essential purpose on earth is to bring each person to know Christ and to bring glory to God.

Yet this mission is pursued in only one way acceptable to God: through love.

If you can't do it with love, don't do it.

Every apostle and leader who wrote the letters in the NT agreed on the centrality of love. Each one is quoted below. Above all, it was Jesus who said: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." 1 Cor. 13:2

"The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and

a good conscience and a sincere faith." 1 Tim. 1:5

"We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions ...the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech and the power of God[.]" 2 Corinthians 6:3-7

"And above all these put on love, which binds

everything together in perfect harmony." Col. 3:14

"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

1 John 3:18

"If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar;

for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen

cannot love God whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom

as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

Gal. 5:13

"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way

into him who is the head, into Christ[.]" Eph. 4:15

"And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,

a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Eph. 5:2

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to

lay down our lives for the brothers." 1 John 3:16

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8

"for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of

power and love and self-control." 2 Tim. 1:7

"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one

who loves another has fulfilled the law." Rom. 13:8

"For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor;

therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." Rom. 13:9-10

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever

loves has been born of God and knows God." 1 John 4:7

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works[.]"

Hebrews 10:24

"If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall

love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well." James 2:8

"But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation." 1 Thes. 5:8

"Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me,

in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." 2 Tim. 1:13

"If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,

but have not love, I gain nothing." 1 Cor. 13:3

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts

for anything, but only faith working through love." Gal. 5:6

"Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example

in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity." 1 Tim. 4:12

"keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." Jude 1:21

"and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love

for one another and for all, as we do for you[.]" 1 Thes. 3:12

"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19

"Let all that you do be done in love." 1 Cor. 16:14

Sunday Salt: G.K. Chesterton on the Tension of Virtues

This week's Sunday Salt seemed to be an appropriate follow-up to last week (C.S. Lewis on how each emotion is right at some time and wrong at another). Today's passage is from G.K. Chesterton, from his amazing and brilliant book Orthodoxy. It is the story of how Chesterton discovered through his own ponderings about life, and his own experiments in searching for truth, beauty, and reason, the great story of Christianity and how it made sense of everything in life. Chesterton was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century, and this is one of his greatest works. I'll share more about it in the future. What follows is an outline in quotations of how Chesterton realized that the tension of two powerful and often conflicting emotions or virtues, and the way Christianity seeks to keep them both powerful and yet both in proper balance, explains some fascinating things about Christian doctrine - and why doctrine is so desperately important.

"Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously. ...

And now I began to find that this duplex passion was the Christian key to ethics everywhere. Everywhere the creed made a moderation out of the still crash of two impetuous emotions. Take, for instance, the matter of modesty, of the balance between mere pride and mere prostration. The average pagan, like the average agnostic, would merely say that he was content with himself, but not insolently self-satisfied, that there were many better and many worse, that his deserts were limited, but he would see that he got them. In short, he would walk with his head in the air; but not necessarily with his nose in the air. This is a manly and rational position, but it is open to the objection... [that being] a mixture of two things, it is a dilution of two things; neither is present in its full strength or contributes its full colour. This proper pride does not lift the heart like the tongue of trumpets; you cannot go glad in crimson and gold for this. On the other hand, this mild rationalist modesty does not cleanse the soul with fire and make it clear like crystal; it does not (like a strict and searching humility) make a man as a little child, who can sit at the feet of the grass. It does not make him look up and see marvels; for Alice must grow small if she is to be Alice in Wonderland. Thus it loses both the poetry of being proud and the poetry of being humble. Christianity sought by this same strange expedient to save both of them." Orthodoxy, pp. 99-100 (Ignatius Press edition; 1995).

"And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild." p. 102

"This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery of the new balance. Paganism had been like a pillar of marble, upright because proportioned with symmetry. Christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other, is enthroned there for a thousand years. ... So in Christendom apparent accidents balanced. Becket wore a hair shirt under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for the combination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold. ...

Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfillment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. ...if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in Europe. ... Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the world might be careless." pp. 105-07