RUF Mississippi web site
October 31, 2008
The Sweet Dropper is grateful for Reformed University Ministries, the campus ministry of 
the PCA. The campuses under the umbrella of the Mississippi Joint Committee on Campus Work have a new web site with links to the site of each campus, photos, a blog, and online donations.
Reformation Day in Chile
October 30, 2008
The Parliament of Chile has approved Reformation Day as a national holiday: “Día Nacional de las Iglesias Evangélicas y Protestantes”.
P.S. Texas called. It wants its flag back…even the rest of the blue stripe.
Vote as not voting
October 29, 2008
I voted last week at the majestic old Attala County Courthouse. Presbytery meets on the first Tuesday in November, so I’ve never voted on a touch screen or other electronic device that looks like an ATM or one of the “peep show” contraptions that NFL referees use to review disputed plays. It’s old school–paper and pencil, licking an envelope, signing across the seam, and that’s it. I didn’t like most of my choices. That brings me to recommend John Piper’s “Taste and See” article from last week, Let Christians Vote as Though They Were Not Voting. It’s a must-read. I am grateful for Piper’s clear-headedness and warm-heartedness and for his ability to make simple, profound application. He has served the Church of Jesus well again with this.
Love of country and love of neighbor
October 28, 2008
This piece by Robert Thomas Llizo appeared in yesterday’s Scriptorium Daily:
Patriotism Firmly Rooted in Mid-Air
It brought to mind C.S. Lewis’ insightful discussion patriotism in The Four Loves. Lewis anticipated the erosion of the kind of patriotism Llizo is advocating. (Both the current U.S. administration and its rivals get skewered, so if you have no stomach for such prophesying, you may stop reading now):
Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least to prepare for their defence. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If people will spend neither sweat nor blood for “their country” they must be made to feel that they are spending them for justice, civilisation, or humanity. This is a step down, not up…I may without self-reighteousness or hypocrisy think it just to defend my house by force against a burglar; but if I start pretending that I blacked his eye purely on moral grounds–wholly indifferent to the fact that the house in question was mine–I become insufferable. The pretence that when England’s cause is just we are on England’s side–as some neutral Don Quixote might be–for that reason alone, is equally spurious. And nosense draws evil after it. If our country’s cause is the cause of God, wars must be annihilation. A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world.
Lewis speaks to the necessity of love of home and heritage and traditions as an essential ingredient in a patriotism that does not take on a ‘demoniac form’ that shouts the name of Christ and does the works of Molech.
Mining grace
October 23, 2008
Check out Mining Grace, blog of Joe Holland, associate minister here at FPC Kosciusko. You’ll find good content there: book reviews, audio links, reflections on pastoral ministry and family life, and meditations on the Canons of Dort (yes, I’m serious…and they’re very, very good!).
Ave atque vale: Gayle Williams
October 21, 2008
Gayle Williams
Gayle Williams, a 34-year-old dual British-South African national who worked with Christian relief organization SERVE Afghanistan, was gunned down by two assailants on a motorcycle in the streets of Kabul on Monday. Gayle ministered to handicapped Afghans.
Even National Public Radio reported the murder on a top-of-the-hour newscast yesterday. Here is the link to the Yahoo story.
Taliban gunmen kill Christian aid worker in Kabul
As the headline indicates, the Taliban boast of their bloody deed:
A spokesman for the militants said the Taliban ordered her killed because she was accused of proselytizing.”This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to the people of Afghanistan,” Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press. “Our (leaders) issued a decree to kill this woman.”
It is tempting to use a word like tragedy to describe this. But then I think of John Piper’s words in Don’t Waste Your Life (paraphrased): A life spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the sake of Jesus Christ is no tragedy; rather, it is a glory. Her life was neither wasted nor lost (Mark 8:35). By contrast, how many of us are wasting our lives in empty pursuits?
Giving is about harvest, not hoarding
October 20, 2008
This is such an important point, because this is the point that most of us miss or simply don’t believe it. In 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 this is laid out for us: The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that having all contentment in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
Think about what you have—what God has entrusted to you. Now think of yourself as standing with it in front of a garden. You can eat the seed corn, or you can plant the seed corn. What should the gardener do with the seed?
David Livingstone saw this, and spent his life with a harvest mentality. He said, “I place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the kingdom of God. If anything will advance the interests of the kingdom, it shall be given away or kept only as by giving or keeping it I shall promote the glory of him to whom I owe all my hopes in time or eternity.” His whole life given to Africa proved what Livingstone professed.
It’s very tempting for us to say, “Well, Paul must be speaking to someone else other than me, because I’m not rich.” We may have in our minds some arbitrary line which we have not crossed in terms of personal wealth that constitutes “rich.” But let me just remind you of one thing: the one in our midst who has the least has more than the wealthiest person who first heard this letter read in his own congregation. We live in the most affluent society in the history of the world. We are among the wealthiest Christians in the history of the world, and the least of us has more than those who had the most in the congregation Paul was thinking of when he wrote to Timothy. God’s words are to all of us, no matter how little we relatively have in comparison to some others in our community, or even in this congregation. Paul’s words are for all of us.
Pray and seek God’s leading this week as to how you might invest the money God has entrusted to you. How should you use it to lay up treasures in heaven through: giving to support the needs of individuals, giving to support your local church budget so she can fund and expand ministry inside and outside the walls, and giving to support the extension of the Gospel?
Look around. Consider your life. Think of what God has prepared for those who love him—in short, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Sow generously toward that. Remember that great Christian epitaph: “What I spent, I lost. What I saved, I left. What I gave, I have.” That is the secret to eternal life: we invest in the eternities, and we reap assurance, a good conscience and a growing hope.
Giving is about thunder, not lightning
October 14, 2008
Lightning bolts are extremely hot, with temperatures of 30,000 to 50,000 degrees F. That’s hotter than the surface of the sun! When the bolt suddenly heats the air around it to such an extreme, the air instantly expands, sending out a vibration or shock wave we hear as an explosion of sound: thunder! If you are near the stroke of lightning you’ll hear thunder as one sharp crack. When lightning is far away, thunder sounds more like a low rumble as the sound waves reflect and echo off hillsides, buildings and trees. Depending on wind direction and temperature, you may hear thunder for up to fifteen or twenty miles. Which comes first: thunder or lightning? Thunder follows lightning.
Three thousand years ago an elderly King David stood before the assembly of Israel and rejoiced and blessed the Lord. Not out of tithes, but out of freewill offerings, people had given the materials for the construction of the temple that his son Solomon would oversee. 1 Chronicles 29:9 says the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the LORD. In his prayer King David asked, But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.
Ultimately, the giving of ourselves through servanthood and stewardship is not merely a dry duty—as if we somehow have to repay God through our service and sacrifice. In truth, it’s quite the opposite: before you can give, you must possess. Before you can possess, you must receive. Therefore, all your service and giving is simply offering back to God what he has graciously given to you already. Your time, talents and resources are gifts from God, and it is a consummate privilege to offer these gifts to God’s glory and purposes in the world.
I can’t help but think that this is a forgotten truth, that somewhere inside of us there are lies about God that we believe—that God is stingy, that God holds back good things from his children, that God is mean and petty and uncaring as we can be.
This is why we say, “You can’t out-give God.” He shovels it in to you, and you shovel it out. But he has a much bigger shovel than you have. What a gracious invitation Almighty God has given to us that we might ‘participate in the journey’ of the Christian life! What can you think of that is more noble, more meaningful, more joyful, or more fulfilling?
Giving is about benefit, not misery
October 13, 2008
Look at the things Paul urges to Timothy regarding wealth in 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19. He says in v.6, Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. We are prone to lose our contentment with all that God is for us in Christ and begin seeking it somewhere else. Don’t lose your contentment with God so that you start looking for contentment somewhere else—and especially in things that fade away, things that will not hold their value when you draw your last breath. Ecclesiastes 5:11 warns us, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity.”
This is God’s word on money: it does not satisfy those who love it. If we believe him, we will turn away from the love of money. We will recognize that it’s a dead end street. Jesus put it like this in Luke 12:15, “Beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” If the Word of the Lord needed confirming, there are enough miserable rich people in the world to prove that satisfied life does not come from having things.
V.9-10 tell us that those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and into a snare and pierce themselves through with many sorrows. What a clear warning is here for us! We always have sign-up lists on the bulletin board for events and jobs for which we need volunteers. Would you sign a list for “Temptations, Snares, Senseless and Harmful Desires to Plunge You into Ruin and Destruction”? What about a list for “Pathway to Wandering Away from the Faith” or “Piercing Yourself with Many Pangs”? Well, 1 Timothy 6:6–19 makes very clear that what you do with money can do just that: get you involved in all sorts of temptations, snares and senseless and harmful desires. It can place your feet on a pathway to wander away from the faith. It can be a form of self-mutilation, so to speak. What you do with money and possessions can destroy you (v. 9) or can secure your eternal life (v. 19). This passage teaches us to use our money in a way that will bring us the greatest and longest gain.
As you give regularly and systematically, as you provide support for the local church where you receive pastoral care and training, as you give to meet needs of mercy and missions, you are demonstrating a commitment to God and you are protesting against all that passes for ‘life’ around you.
Coffee with Lewis: the horror of the Same Old Thing
October 9, 2008
This is from letter 25 of The Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape advises junior demon Wormwood,
The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. The all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call “Christianity And.” You know–Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians, at least let them be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.
It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Christianity And…Enviromentalism, Republican politics, Classical Education, End-Times Predictions, Self-Esteem, Prosperity…ad nauseum.
