There is a fountain
February 25, 2010
A serious topic: NPR news is broadcasting a series entitled “Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle for Justice.” The stats are alarming: one out of five college women report being the victim of a sexual assault! My experience in campus ministry and as a local church pastor (including 4+ years in a large state university town) has given me more opportunities than I would like to face this ugly reality.
Despite efforts to curb these assaults over the last decade, there’s not much evidence of progress. Why? Simple answers include: victim shame, the haze of alcohol (it tends to reduce clarity about whether sex was consensual or not), the desire of the male to deny and cover up, and (very sadly) the fear in some leaders who worry too much about false accusations. Yes, people do lie. However, the ones who bear that cost are usually victims.
The shame felt by victims stays with them a long time. It hinders marital intimacy and oneness, as a victim often does not tell her husband about “what happened in college,” afraid that he would not marry her if he knew the truth. The victim feels like damaged goods and ends up feeling ruled by the shame.
As Christians, it’s not a question of if we will deal with such issues; it’s more a question of when. Most of us can present the gospel in a way that deals with sins for which we bear responsibility and guilt. While this is true and essential, we also need to speak clearly about the ways the gospel addresses sins that have been committed against us. You cannot repent of being abused, tortured, or raped; however, the blood and righteousness of Christ speak of cleansing and hope for shame and defilement. Your identity must be marked only by what Jesus Christ has done for you and no longer by what has been done by you or to you. The scriptural language of atonement, cleansing, washing and purifying speaks a powerful truth to such souls. Jesus’ sacrifice takes away sin and shame forever for those who trust him. It’s a simple truth, but, as John Owen would say, “exceedingly difficult to exercise faith upon.”
Mark Driscoll and Garry Breshears’ Death by Love: Letters from the Cross has a chapter which addresses this issue wonderfully.
You say awesome, I say awful
February 11, 2010
One of our favorite hymns begins, How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors. Well, John Newton wrote it that way. The editors of the 1990 Trinity Hymnal “updated” it so that now we sing How sweet and awesome is the place…The substitution of awesome for awful (as in, “full of awe”) works. The meaning is nearly identical. But as a lover of words and sometimes reverse-chronological snob, I will often still sing awful in place of awesome anyway. I do the same thing with the last line of last verse of Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, singing the original
Let the amen sound from his people again gladly for aye (with long a) we adore him.
instead of the revised,
Let the amen sound from his people again loudly fore’er we adore him.
But I digress. Awful is one of the English words that is an auto-antonym (AKA antagonym, contranym, Janus word, enantiodrome, self-antonym, oxymoronym). Gene Edward Veith recently posted a partial list of English words with two contradictory meanings:
apology
(1) an admission of error accompanied by a plea for forgiveness (2) a formal defense or justification (as in Plato’s Apology), also referred to as an apologia
before
(1) in advance of (“the future is before us”) (2) at an earlier time, previously (“our forefathers came before us”)
cleave
This is a homophone, where two words, spelled and pronounced alike, have different origins. (1) “To adhere firmly”, from Old English clifian. (2) to split (as with a cleaver), from Old English cleofan
critical
Can mean “vital to success” (a critical component), or “disparaging” (a critical comment).
custom
As a noun, this means “conventional behavior”; but as an adjective, it means “specially designed”.
sanction
“To permit” or “to restrict” (as in “economic sanctions.”)
seed
To add seeds, is in seeding a field, or to remove seeds, as in seeding a fruit.
strike
Normally meaning “to hit”, in baseball it means “to miss”, and an extension of this usage has led to the meaning “to make a mistake”. Further adding to the contradiction, in bowling it refers to the best possible play. Another contradiction results with the phrase strike out: the baseball lineage leads to the meaning “to run out of hope”; but the original lineage also leads to the meaning “to start pursuing a desire”
suspicious
Can mean that a person is acting in a way that suggests wrong-doing, i.e. “He seems very suspicious.” or can mean that the person in question suspects wrong doing in others, i.e. “He was suspicious of her motives.”
Is there not a cause?
February 8, 2010
Dr. Michael A. Milton has posted a manuscript of the first of his two sermons at last month’s Mid-South Men’s Rally in Jackson. If this is your only access point to the rally, you don’t get the glorious sound of more than 1000 men singing, and you don’t get the joyful fellowship, but you do get the meat.
Tripp on pastors
February 3, 2010
Here are notes taken from a Monday pre-conference seminar by Paul Tripp:
I don’t know how many ministers of the gospel read this blog, but this is one you really should read. Elders and anyone else who has the opportunity to be a good friend to his pastor ought to read these notes as well.
God is God and God is love
February 1, 2010
I saw this morning, and it would have fit well into the application of last night’s sermon from Ruth 1 about Naomi’s misery. It comes from Jonathan Edwards’ personal resolutions.
25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.
Boom and bust
February 1, 2010
A little economics lesson…and it beats the old animated Schoolhouse Rock features that fed my brain as a child.
By the way, Hayek was right…
