Ave atque vale: Drew Blackwell, Sr.
December 4, 2008
Two weeks ago I had the privilege of proclaiming Christ at the funeral service of a friend in Macon, Mississippi. Drew Blackwell, Sr. and his family are precious to me and mine, and his unexpected death at the age of 53 brought us back together to weep and to remind each other that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Drew was a good friend and a worthy deacon in the church there.
This week I sat down to write his wife a note, and I thought about a letter of sympathy in The Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell, which I had read in 1993. Some echo of that letter rattled around my brain, and I was able to find it rather quickly. For a painfully brief bio of Thornwell, click here.
March 9, 1859
My dear Mrs. Bishop: I have just this moment received the painful intelligence of your husband’s death. Little did I dream, when I left him on Thursday morning, and when he so confidently expected to visit us in May, that my eyes should never more behold his venerated form…I need not say to you how deeply I sympathize with you in your sad bereavement. You have reason to weep. You have lost one who has left few equals on earth. He was a man of God; a man whose heart was in heaven, while his body freely mingled among the sons of men. He was a man of prayer, full of the Holy Ghost, full of zeal in his Master’s cause, and full of charity ot his fellow men. None knew him without loving him; and the more they knew, the more they loved him. I always esteemed his intimacy and friendship as among the richest blessings of my life.
Your loss is great. But in the midst of your sorrow you have much to be thankful for. You should be thankful for the many years you were privileged to enjoy the society, guidance, confidence, and love of such a man. It was a rich boon, and a boon conferred upon very few of your sex. You should be thankful for the precious memories which you are permitted to cherish of his conversation, his charities, and his zeal. You should bless God for the noble legacy he has left you and your children, in a pure example, a treasury of prayers, and a hearty consecration of you all to God. Depend upon it, you have been highly favoured; and you must not forget that, if your affliction is unusually severe, it is only because your blessings have pre-eminently great.
You know, too, that you shall see him again. Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. He is not dead, but sleepeth; and the Saviour, at the proper time will assuredly wake him; and you shall then see that his death, at this precise juncture, was the for the glory of God. In the meanwhile you are not a widow; for the Lord Jehovah promises to be your husband. Trust in Him, make His promises you portion, and, above all things murmur not against His will. His ways may be in the dark; but infinite wisdom, and goodness, and love, regulate all the dispensations of His providence to His children. What He does, you may not know now, but you shall know hereafter; and when you come to understand it, you will cordially approve it. Trust, therefore, in Him, and commit yourself and your children into His hands. Could your husband speak to you from the skies, this is what he would say to you…
The Lord bless you and keep you, and be the Guardian, Friend, and everlasting portion of you and yours.
Most truly your friend,
J. H. Thornwell
Coffee with Lewis: a secret Master of Ceremonies
November 20, 2008
This is from Lewis’ chapter on Friendship in The Four Loves:
…in Friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others…At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests. It is He, we may dare to hope, who sometimes does, and always should, preside. Let us not reckon without our Host.
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.
10 free dates your wife will love
September 17, 2008
At frugaldad.com you can find suggestions for 10 free dates your wife will love. Tie the children to the bedposts (or get a babysitter) and enjoy. I’m not sure that #3 (house shopping) will work so well in a small town like Kosciusko, unless you enjoy the prospect of spending the next month replying to the “So, I hear y’all are looking for a new house” comments.
What submission is not
August 25, 2008
John Piper, from a sermon on 1 Peter 3:1-6 available at Desiring God Ministries, has listed six things that biblical submission is not. Time did not allow me to share these or elaborate on them at all in yesterday’s sermon on 1 Peter 3:1-7. Here they are:
What Submission Is Not
Here are six things it is not, based on 1 Peter 3:1-6.
1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in v. one: she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world—God. So submission can’t mean submitting to agree with all her husband thinks.
2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. It is not the inability or the unwillingness to think for yourself. Here is a woman who heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. She thought about it. She assessed the truth claims of Jesus. She apprehended in her heart the beauty and worth of Christ and his work, and she chose him. Her husband heard it also. Otherwise, Peter probably wouldn’t say he “disobeyed the word.” He has heard the word, and he has thought about it. And he has not chosen Christ. She thought for herself and she acted. And Peter does not tell her to retreat from that commitment.
3. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change a husband. The whole point of this text is to tell a wife how to “win” her husband. V. 1 says, “Be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” If you didn’t care about the Bible you might say, “Submission has to mean taking a husband the way he is and not trying to change him.” But if you believe what the Bible says, you conclude that submission, paradoxically, is sometimes a strategy for changing him.
4. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband before the will of Christ. The text clearly teaches that the wife is a follower of Jesus before and above being a follower of her husband. Submission to Jesus relativizes submission to husbands—and governments and employers and parents. When Sarah called Abraham “lord” in v. 6, it was lord with a lowercase l. It’s like “sir” or “m’lord.” And the obedience she rendered is qualified obedience because her supreme allegiance is to the Lord with a capital L.
5. Submission does not mean that a wife gets her personal, spiritual strength primarily through her husband. A good husband should indeed strengthen and build up and sustain his wife. He should be a source of strength. But what this text shows is that when a husband’s spiritual leadership is lacking, a Christian wife is not bereft of strength. Submission does not mean she is dependent on him to supply her strength of faith and virtue and character. The text, in fact, assumes just the opposite. She is summoned to develop depth and strength and character not from her husband but for her husband. Verse five says that her hope is in God in the hope that her husband will join her there.
6. Finally submission does not mean that a wife is to act out of fear. V. 6b says, “You are her [Sarah’s] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” In other words, submission is free, not coerced by fear. The Christian woman is a free woman. When she submits to her husband—whether he is a believer or unbeliever—she does it in freedom, not out of fear.
Nota bene. 11.20.07
November 20, 2007
I’m borrowing Joe’s Nota Bene category to post a link to piece written last week by John Piper about a phenomenon sociologists are calling adultolescence–the postponement of adulthood into the late twenties or even into the thirties. I have always defined adulthood as paying your own freight and taking responsibility for providing for yourself and your dependents (if you have any). Piper offers a 15-point strategy by which the Church should respond to this sociological trend in his piece entitled A Church-Based hope for ‘Adultolescence.’
Book Review: Mighty Men
September 18, 2007
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14: Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. John Crotts, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, has written a booklet aimed at spurring men on in that direction called Mighty Men: The Starter’s Guide to Leading Your Family [Sand Springs, OK: Grace & Truth Books, 2004].
In Mighty Men Crotts hopes to give men something of a kick in the pants, but also give them a set of basic tools to set about the work of demonstrating Christ-like love and solid spiritual leadership at home. He correctly identifies the idolatry of laziness and passivity that grips so many men for what it is–idolatry! He also groups with it the laziness of what he calls ‘the Dictator Dad’–the ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ approach to headship, which some numbskulls (pardon my use of technical theological terms) confuse with biblical headship. Crotts also addresses with warmth and compassion what I call the intimidation factor of Christian leadership. He writes, “My assumption is that men are so overwhelmed by inflated expectations of spiritual leadership, they don’t even try to take responsibility for the spiritual well-being of their homes” [37]. Crotts encourages men to think of themselves as managers of their home, working under the sovereignty of the owner. He goes on to apply this in some very practical ways.
The strong points of Mighty Men include:
- It is a booklet–only about 40 pages long. In other words, it is short enough that a man might actually read it! Alas, this short attention span is the norm among the majority of our men, and we must pray and labor that God would cure them of this malady! But in the meantime, it’s good to accommodate teaching to the capacities of the hearers.
- He is simple and illustrative in the points he makes.
- He urges healthy Christian growth through the ordinary means of grace as the foundation for the development of Christian character.
- His advice about family worship and prayer/Bible reading with your wife is some of the best, most practical that I have read.
A booklet such as this one might be faulted for what it does not say, but that is not fair. He sets the matter squarely on the table and within reach of any man. Men must go deeper than Mighty Men will take them, but Crotts work is an excellent, succinct resource for men who need to put the shovel into the ground for the first time. It’s time to act like men.
There is no plan B…
April 23, 2007
Dr. Elliott Greene has been doing a marvelous job at FPC Kosciusko’s annual Bible Conference (look for mp3s of the sermons later this week at fpckosciusko.org), taking us through the book of Ephesians under the title ‘What the Church Would Be If She Knew What She Was.’ In introducing Dr. Greene on Friday evening I read for the second time an excerpt from Dr. Ligon Duncan’s introductory address at the recent Twin Lakes Fellowship. He had posted it on his blog. It sums up so much of the vision of what The Sweet Dropper is about and what FPC Kosciusko is about:
“What do we long to see come out of the Twin Lakes Fellowship?
“. . . a strong coalition of Bible-saturated, truth-driven, God-entranced, prayer-soaked, aggressively evangelistic, Christ-treasuring and exalting, Spirit-filled, sovereign grace-loving, missions-advancing, hell-robbing, strong-thinking, real-need-exposing, soul-winning, mind-engaging, vagueness-rejecting, wartime-life-style-pursuing, risk-taking, justice-advancing, Scripture-expounding, cross-cherishing, homosexuality-opposing, abortion-denouncing, racism-resisting, heaven-desiring, imputation-of-an-alien-righteousness-proclaiming, justification-by-faith-alone-apart-from-doing-preaching, error-exposing, complementarian, joyful, humble, loving, courageous, happy pastors working together for the Gospel. (Thanks to John Piper for many of these words and thoughts).
“And we want to see them leading strong evangelical churches who, while they hold as faithfully and biblically as they know how to certain doctrinal distinctives not shared by all other biblical evangelical churches, band together for the Gospel on a basis that is robustly doctrinal, historic, orthodox, reformational, world-opposing-while-at-the-same-time-world-serving, Bible-preaching, scriptural-theology-inculcating, real-conversion-prizing, deep biblical evangelism-practicing, New Testament church-membership-and-leadership-implementing, church-discipline-applying, healthy and growing Disciple-making – all for the display of God’s glory in the churches.
“May the Lord raise up such a ministerial fraternity – not on the basis of doctrinal minimalism but rather on the basis of shared conviction of the truth and Gospel forbearance in the areas where we differ; not to the detriment of our convictions regarding our distinctives in faith and practice in the local churches and families of churches we serve, but to their enhancement. And may the Lord raise up churches that are truly a witness to grace in this passing age, a display of the glory and power of God’s saving grace, outposts of heaven, suburbs of eternity. For the church is God’s strategy, and there is no plan B.”
