Cross and criticism
March 23, 2010
Few things in life are more difficult to handle rightly than criticism. How hard it is to speak and to respond in a gospel-centered way. As a pastor, I am a frequent recipient of criticism–the constructive and the destructive, the accurate, the half-true, and the utterly false, the well-timed and the ill-timed, the gracious and the malicious–I have learned that how I respond reveals a lot about me. What do I do with my critics? Do I shrink them in my field of vision so that I no longer acknowledge them, regard them, pay any attention to them, share with them, or regard them as part of the family? Or do I inflate them in my field of vision so that I brood over their words and think about them constantly, see them as larger than they really are, give them control over my feelings and decisions, or allow them to lead me around like a bull with a ring in his nose?
I commend to you Alfred J. Poirier’s “The Cross and Criticism,” which appeared in the Spring, 1999, issue of The Journal of Biblical Counseling. Here’s an excerpt:
In light of God’s judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God’s criticism of me in Christ’s cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has. And the most devastating criticism turns out to be the finest mercy. If you thus know yourself as having been crucified with Christ, then you can respond to any criticism, even mistaken or hostile criticism, without bitterness, defensiveness, or blameshifting. Such responses typically exacerbate and intensify conflict, and lead to the rupture of relationships. You can learn to hear criticism as constructive and not condemnatory because God has justified you.
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? (Rom. 8:33-34a).
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it (Ps. 141:5).
The Lord is my shepherd…he laid down his life for his sheep.
December 7, 2009
Joseph Randall at Feeding on Christ wrote this meditation on Christ our Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep:
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. Psalm 23:1
This amazing truth is ultimately fulfilled in the Good Shepherd – the Lord Jesus Christ. Only in Him is this supernatural satisfaction fully realized, and for this realization to happen, Jesus had to lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).
Jesus had to lack everything for His sheep.
Contra rest in green pastures, He had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20)
Contra still waters, He was baptized with the wrath of God (Luke 12:50)
Contra a restored soul, His soul was poured out unto death (Isaiah 53:12)
Contra being led in right paths, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and offered Himself as a propitiation so that God might be proved righteous (Acts 8:32, Romans 3:25-26)
Contra fearing no evil in the dark death valley, He was made evil Who knew no evil and sorrowed unto death as He contemplated the darkness of death that would utterly consume Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, Mark 14:34-36)
Contra having God with him as His comfort, God forsook Him, pouring out His just wrath upon Him (Matthew 27:46)
Contra having a rod and a staff to comfort Him, the rod of the Father was pleased to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10)
Contra having a table spread before Him, He hungered in the wilderness and thirsted unto death (Luke 4:1-2, John 19:28)
Contra having His head anointed with oil, He wore a blood-soaked crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29)
Contra having a cup that overflows, He drank the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs (Isaiah 51:17, Matthew 26:39)
Contra goodness and mercy pursuing Him all His days, wrath and torment pursued Him unto death (Isaiah 53)
Contra dwelling in the house of the LORD, He was banished from the dwelling of the LORD as the unclean and cursed one (Galatians 3:13)
And He did all of this on behalf of stubborn, sinful, hell deserving sheep who rebelled against Him. This is the best news in the world! All who know this Good Shepherd by grace through faith will lack no good thing, for He will provide for them, protect them, comfort them, and satisfy them fully – He will be all and all to them now and forever and ever…
Coffee with Lewis: a little blacker
July 2, 2009
Lewis writes this in Mere Christianity. It speaks to a characteristic of too much of our political discourse these days from pundits and talk radio. It also speaks to many of our personal relationships as well. Don’t read this if you don’t want to feel some sharp conviction:
“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”
In the Westminster Larger Catechism, the lengthy answer to the question ‘What sins are forbidden in the ninth commandment?’ contains these two phrases: ‘scornful contempt’ and ‘fond admiration,’ which are essentially the same sin–seeing only what we want to see in other people. ‘Scornful contempt’ is what Lewis described. It is what David experienced that he poured out to the Lord in Psalm 35:
But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered;
they gathered together against me;
wretches whom I did not know
tore at me without ceasing;
like profane mockers at a feast,
they gnash at me with their teeth…For they do not speak peace,
but against those who are quiet in the land
they devise words of deceit.
They open wide their mouths against me;
they say, “Aha, Aha! Our eyes have seen it!” [Psalm 35:15-16,20-21]
The Lord bless you…bless the Lord
May 8, 2009
In 2001 I was teaching in a seminary in St. Petersburg, Russia. During my lectures on the Psalms, a rather vocal student asked me in good English with a husky Russian accent, “How is it that you can bless God? God is greater than you. He can bless you, but you cannot bless him. Is this right?” I was asked a similar question earlier this week. I think it arose in discussion in one of the adult Sunday School classes.
The idea behind “bless” (Hebrew barak) is to speak a good word about someone. When God blesses someone (e.g., Genesis 12:1-3; Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 29:11), he speaks a good word over that person for his well-being; he does or gives something of value to a person. A related Hebrew word is berakah, a blessing or a gift or present.
Only God has fiat power, i.e., he can speak and it is done. He is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality” [1 Timothy 6:15-16]. He is the only sovereign power and authority in the universe. He is the only sovereign; therefore, he is the happy [blessed] sovereign.
When a person blesses God (Psalm 26:12; 34:1; 103:1,20-22; 104:35; 106:48; Revelation 5:12-13; 7:12), he speaks a good word about God’s steadfast love, generosity, and grace. We typically call speaking a good word about someone praise. So “Bless the Lord, O my soul” means “Praise the Lord, O my soul.”
Psalm 134 is a short psalm that uses barak in both senses. Ephesians 1:3 has the same dual usage. When I bless God, I find that he blesses me (think of the benediction at the end of a worship service). Also, when I consider the way God has heaped blessings upon me in Christ, I can’t help but bless his name.
God’s hard words
September 23, 2008
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we petition God to bring his righteous and gracious reign to bear on our lives, right here and right now. How will this be accomplished? Will it not be accomplished through God’s intervention, either to change people’s hearts and minds or to frustrate and overthrow the schemes of the wicked? Jesus has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against the advance of his Church.
Thirty-six psalms take up such cries. We have to come call the imprecatory psalms. This means they contain curses–the psalmist asking the Lord to bring destruction, shame, judgment, fear, silence, defeat, scattering, confusion and death to the enemies of God. What should we do with those prayers? Should we pass over them in embarrassment? Should we consider them sub-Christian, sinful venting? Or should we consider them as sharp weapons of righteousness in our spiritual warfare? Is praying this way part of loving what God loves and hating what he hates?
At breakpoint.org there is a helpful essay by Stanley Gale entitled “Praying the Imprecatory Psalms: God’s Hard Words”. It is well worth reading. With hearts full of love and zeal and wonder let us prepare to sing the ‘new song’ before God’s throne throughout eternity: Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants; and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her! [Revelation 19:1-3].
Review: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
August 28, 2008
Eugene Peterson’s books are either deeply loved or studiously avoided by Reformed folk. I’ve found him to be a thoughtful, literate writer who shares many of my concerns and passions about pastoral ministry. I read The Contemplative Pastor about three months after I finished seminary, and that book helped me avoid many snares and keep my wits about me. I don’t always agree with Peterson, but he is such a gracious and edifying author that I enjoy disagreeing with him more than I enjoy agreeing with many others. Someone once quipped, “I prefer Uriah drunk to David sober.”
I recently read one of Peterson’s first books, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, first published in 1980 and the released in a revised and expanded version by IVP in 2000. The title is drawn from a surprising place: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (‘The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.’) Peterson takes us to the “Psalms of Ascent” (Psalms 120-134) as a guide and metaphor for following Christ over the long haul. He writes in the introduction:
I knew that following Jesus could never develop into a “long obedience” without a deepening life of prayer and that the Psalms had always been the primary means by which Christians learned to pray everything they lived, and live everything they prayed over the long haul…But the people I was around didn’t pray the Psalms. That puzzled me; Christians have always prayed the Psalms; why didn’t my friends and neighbors?
God has used Peterson’s teaching on Psalms 120-134 to knead them into my imagination again and into my vocabulary of prayer and conversation to speak in practical ways about joy, repentance, service, work, humility, obedience, community and blessing. Here are some samples of Peterson’s work that will give you a sense of the deep, biblical wisdom of A Long Obedience:
On worship: ‘We live in what one writer has called the “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.’ [54]
On the past: ‘The psalmist is not an antiquarian reveling in the past for its own sake but a traveler using what he knows of the past to get to where he is going–to God. For all its interest in history the Bible never refers to the past as “the good old times.” The past is not, for the person of faith, a restored historical site that we tour when we are on vacation; it is a field that we plow and harrow and plant and fertilize and work for a harvest.’ [168]
On joy: ‘A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment. There isn’t a hint of that in Psalm 126.’ [100]
On security: ‘Discipleship is not a contract in which if we break our part of the agreement he is free to break his; it is a covenant in which he establishes the conditions and guarantees the results.’ [90]
On hope: ‘Hoping does not mean doing nothing…It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions…It is imagination put in the harness of faith. it is a willingness to let God to it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it.’ [144]
On repentance: ‘Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god; it is deciding that you were wrong in thinking that you had, or could get, the strength, education and training to make it on your own; it is deciding that you have been told a pack of lies about yourself and your neighbors and your world. And it is deciding that God in Jesus Christ is telling you the truth. Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.’ [29-30]
Peterson includes in the revised edition the Psalms of Ascent in his translation/paraphrase, The Message. This is a plus in the eyes of author and publisher and many readers, but not in mine.
Nevertheless, if you are drawn toward instant, polished-smile, give-me-patience-now Christianity, be warned: there will be little in this book to soothe and cherish your desires. But Peterson’s aged wine is much better than the Zima of contemporary spirituality. Take, read, drink deeply.
Blogging with the big boys
June 9, 2008
Joe Holland, FPC’s uber-blogger, has, in the altered words of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, finally shaken the dust of this crummy little blog off his feet and has joined the line-up of big-league bloggers and writers such as Carl Trueman, Derek Thomas, Philip Ryken, Mark Johnston, et. al., on Reformation21. Ref21 is one of the best blgs out there, and you ought to read Joe’s article on psalm-singing. You can also read Joe’s musings almost daily on his personal blog Mining Grace. A rare medium well-done, Joe.
A prayer for year’s end and beginning
January 1, 2008
Psalm 107 says, ‘Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.’ This past Sunday evening a good number of the Lord’s redeemed testified as to how goodness and mercy followed them during 2007. Laughter was heard, tears were shed, and God was glorified and enjoyed.
Below is a prayer adapted from The Valley of Vision that we pray together at FPC Kosciusko as the calendar turns.
O God, your love is beyond compare. You are good when you give,
when you take away,
when the sun shines upon me,
when the night gathers over me.
You have loved me before the foundation of the world,
and in love you have redeemed my soul.
You love me still, in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.
Your goodness has been with me during another year,
leading me through a twisting wilderness.
Your goodness will be with me in the year ahead;
I launch my boat on the unknown waters of this year,
with you, as the pilot of my future, as of my past.
If you appoint storms of tribulation, you will be with me in them.
If you ordain joy and success, you will receive thanks and honor.
If I die, I shall see your face the sooner;
If I live, I shall walk by faith and not by sight.
Only glorify yourself in me whether in comfort or in trial,
as a chosen vessel suitable always for your use.
Give me your grace to sanctify me,
your comforts to cheer,
your wisdom to teach,
your right hand to guide,
your joy to strengthen,
your law to convict,
your presence to stabilize.
May the fear of the Lord keep me in awe of you,
and may the triumphs of your kingdom be my joy. AMEN.
May 2008 find us all faithful in adversity and thankful in prosperity. Grace and peace to you in the new year.
May it not be charged
November 7, 2007
I have been walking the familiar paths of Paul’s letters while keeping my eyes open for things along the path I have not noticed before. I had one of those moments the other day while reading the end of what we reckon is Paul’s final letter: 2 Timothy. He is writing some closing thoughts (and 4:6 suggests that Paul considers his execution a fait accompli) and warns Timothy about the treachery of Alexander the coppersmith. Paul takes comfort in his assurance that the Lord will certainly deal with Alexander according to his deeds (v.14-15). In the following verses, Paul recalls, At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. Those words deserve some further review.
You can read the commentators’ speculations on exactly what this first hearing incident was among his various encounters with the Roman legal system. Let’s be candid: it’s not that important. At a previous court appearance, Paul felt the disappointment of desertion by friends. He expected some support; instead, no one came. I think back over the last seventeen+ years I have been involved in the gospel ministry, and, while I’ve never faced arraignment before a court, I can identify with Paul to some degree. People let you down. They misunderstand you. They won’t stand with you in the face of opposition. They become hypercritical. They are fickle.
In one case, Paul speaks of enemies in the spirit of the imprecatory psalms–you know, Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun [Psalm 58:8]. In the other, he speaks of friends–people who ought to know and do better–who to a man deserted him at an hour of crisis. But he doesn’t lower the boom on them. Of them he says emphatically, May it not be charged against them! For one party he asks the Lord to repay with vengeance; for the other he seeks their pardon. May it not be charged against them! Paul asks the Lord to repay one to the last penny; to the other he asks the Lord to write the whole thing off.
Calvin comments on this difference:
He desires God to forgive the others, because they had fallen through fear and weakness, for we ought to have compassion on our brethren’s weakness. But Alexander had risen up against God with malice and sacrilegious audacity and was openly attacking the truth he had once confessed, and such wickedness deserves no mercy.
In times past I have been deserted and disappointed by church folk. Maybe there’s been an Alex Coppersmith in my life, but right now I can’t recall. But I can think of many deserters. No unbeliever has ever done me so much harm as fellow believers have. I don’t expect unbelievers to ‘get it.’ When they oppose, that’s par for the course in my book. But when insults, misrepresentations, slander, backbiting, and plain-old meanness and spinlessness come from within the family, that hurts!
Just when I am ready to start singing and praying the imprecatory psalms, I hear the words of Jesus: whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses [Mark 11:25]. Isn’t all of life worship? No, Jesus says. There are times when you stop whatever you’ve been doing to the glory of God and you stand still, and you enter (as it were) the temple of God, and you address God. Then forgiveness becomes a big issue. How often does Jesus speak of the need of his people to forgive those who have sinned against them? Very often. Always he mentions it in the context of our assurance that God has forgiven us. The forgiving heart is a forgiven heart. If we’re not forgiving people then we’ve no reason to believe that God has forgiven us. Jesus teaches this in the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, pray saying, “forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us”. The Lord makes the peril spectacularly clear, that if you forgive men when they sin against you your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you don’t forgive men their sins your Father won’t forgive you your sins. A man in Georgia said to John Wesley, “I never forgive.” Wesley said to him, “I hope you never sin.”
Was it a sin for certain individuals to hang back in the shadows while Paul stood alone defending himself? Absolutely. They prized convenience and safety more than standing with a brother in the midst of hardship. Did Paul ever confront all of these folk about it? Maybe. We don’t know. The loving rebuke of sin is a good thing. Regardless, Paul didn’t write them off. He didn’t savor the offense. He apparently didn’t refuse fellowship with them. On the contrary, he wants the Lord to deal with them as if it had never happened.
I once heard Geoffrey Thomas ask a group of ministers in a sermon, ‘Why do we feel the need to be vindicated all the time? Why the need to be so quick to defend ourselves? What of the glory and honor of Christ suffers when we are misunderstood or criticized?’ I’ll admit, I don’t necessarily like the right answers to those questions. As much as I want to claim to defend truth and righteousness, I am so much more eager to pursue them when my own skin is involved. I am often much more interested in advancing my reputation than that of Christ and his kingdom.
Praise be to God, for he will bring justice to the wicked and avenge the blood of his saints. He alone knows who the subjects of Satan are and when and how he will judge them. We can pray with Bonhoeffer, ‘God, now step in and destroy your enemy. Use your power, let your righteous wrath blaze forth.’ And we must also pray for others, saying, ‘May it not be charged to them. Forgive them for their weaknesses and ignorance and feebleness.’
For me, there can be no grudges. I thank God that he is still at work in me to will and to do of his good pleasure-so much so that I can say more and more, when I remember brothers and sisters who have let me down, May it not be charged to them!
Red Mountain Music
June 26, 2007
Let me encourage you to sample and purchase CDs from the website of Red Mountain Music, a ministry of Red Mountain Church (PCA) in Birmingham, Alabama. Red Mountain has made a number of worthy contributions to the ‘hymn-rewrite’ movement, in which many great hymns forgotten over time or locked away in unsingable or obsolete tunes have been set to newer, simpler music. They call it ‘traditional text with truly contemporary music.’ Groups such as Red Mountain and Indelible Grace, along with individuals such as Chris Miner, are like restorers of antique furniture, who can bring out the true loveliness in an old piece and restore its usefulness.
Brian T. Murphy (who was a student at Auburn University while I was assistant pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Auburn–and he also helped us tremendously by playing piano for our worship services back then) writes on their web site:
…hymns ring true in a way that many modern songs simply do not. At times, it seems our ancestors had a stronger command of the language than we do. Their words drip with truth and paint pictures of the kingdom that make believers long for heaven. I cannot begin to describe what reading through these old hymnals has done to encourage the spirits of the musicians that play here. We find ourselves continually able to rest in the truth of these great lyrics, always with a sense that we are part of something much bigger than us or our little church. We are excited about this time in the church, and we are thrilled about this music.
The peculiar contribution of Red Mountain Music has been the The Gadsby Project, a reworking of 14 hymns from Gadsby’s Hymns, published in several stages during the 19th century. The Gadsby hymnal contains the text of 1,156 settings of psalms and hymns, most of which were penned during the 17th and 18th centuries. A goodly number of lesser-known hymns by masters such as Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Joseph Hart and John Newton have been mined from this hymnal, and Red Mountain Music has done the Church a great service by reacquainting us with these songs of Zion.
I would also recommend their 2006 release Help My Unbelief, which continues in the spirit of The Gadsby Project by drawing from that vast resource. What is remarkable about Help My Unbelief is that it is a collection of hymns on the theme of doubt, struggle, longing, and crying out to God for help. These songs give expression to Christian struggles and laments in a brutally honest way in the biblical expectation that Christ meets us in the midst of the mess of our lives, and he does so as one who ‘will not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax.’ Help My Unbelief is a collection ‘for God’s prodigals and sojourners as they wait patiently for the Kingdom to come.’
