Monday, January 26, 2009

Lines of Reasoning

I appreciated the various "talking points" about abortion posted recently at desiringgod.org. John Piper's questions for President Obama are also important to consider. The gist of these posts is to say that the standard arguments in favor of abortion are desperately weak.
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Inauguration and Religious Talk

I was impressed by the pomp and circumstance of last week’s presi­dential inauguration. And it really is quite remarkable how this transfer of power has come off peacefully for these 200+ years. There’s a lot to thank God for when it comes to our nation’s story.

There was a great deal of religious talk involved. Pastor Rick Warren, for example, delivered his much-anticipated invocation, and it was a God-focused, God-honoring prayer. He wasn’t shy about making his plea in Jesus’ name—in fact, by naming Jesus in four lang­uages he helped the world see that Christ isn’t some contrived Western deity but the life-transforming Savior and Commander-in-Chief over all that is.

By contrast, there was spiritual fog and confusion at Washington DC’s National Cathedral the next day—“The National Prayer Service,” involving Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and professing Christian leaders of Catholic, Ortho­dox, and Protestant backgrounds. This interfaith event featured “newly written prayers meant to emphasize liberty and diversity” in light of Obama’s embrace of religious liberalism (washingtonpost.com). Rev. Sharon Watkins gave the sermon, quoting “a wide range of religious leaders and traditions, from Ghandi to Islam to Cherokee Indians, urging the new president to remain focused on ethical and religious values such as common good, justice and compassion.”

But there’s an elephant in the room—do you see it?


It’s this: the Bible consistently testifies that Christian ethics and good deeds must be grounded in faith; right conduct is rooted in and results from conscious personal faith in Jesus Christ. The New Testament has stinging warnings for wandering churches that separate a regimen of deeds from dependence on the grace of God (e.g., Gal 1-2). Yes, true Christian faith leads to good works (Gal 5:6; Jas 2:14-26), but ethics and morals not springing from trust in the One who changed our hearts and set us free from guilt eternally amount to self-promotion if not self-justification. Further, good deeds that lack accompanying words of witness highlighting the supremacy of Christ, the only Savior (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), are woefully inadequate.

The frightful messages coming out of this event were that you can be a Christian without Christ, that ethical decency is the essence of Christian experience, and that all religions are basically variant paths to the same broad “common good” and the same beige god. All in all, a remarkable failure to represent Christ and Christianity faithfully.

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Praying God's Word

Since God is God and not our peer, and since God has spoken (i.e., revealed himself and his purposes in human language through his holy, inspired Word, the Bible), it would follow that we’d want to pray to God about the matters HE has already brought up. How foolish it would be for us to sit down in God’s presence and talk (i.e., pray), prattling on and on about our agenda and disregarding his (i.e., the Bible). This was my point last Sunday: we ought to prioritize “praying the Word,” taking what God says and turning it around in the form of prayers to him. We can do this in various ways. Let me mention two:

First, by echoing prayers recorded in the Bible. Jesus gave “The Lord’s Prayer” (Matt 6:9-13) as a model, but there are hundreds of other biblical examples too. Psalms consists mostly of prayers (praise, thanks, confes­sion, lament, longing…). Let these heart-cries become your own as you read and reflect on them. A few other biblical prayers are: Gen 32:9-12; Josh 7:6-9; 2 Sam 7:18-29; 1 Kgs 8:22-61; 1 Chr 17:16-27; 29:10-19; 2 Chr 20:5-12 (desperation); Ezra 9:6-15; Neh 1:4-11; 9:6-38; Job 42:1-6; Ps 51 (confession); Ps 67 (mission praise); Isa 37:16-20; Jer 32:16-25; Dan 9:3-19; John 17; Acts 4:24-31 (a knock-out praise); Eph 1:15-23; 3:14-21 (a lofty vision!). If you pray these texts, watch out!

Second, by turning every kind of Bible passage into prayer. Take promises for example: thank God for what’s promised; confess past failures to trust the promise; ask for help to rest in what’s promised. Or commands: confess failure to obey; plead for power to obey; ask for discernment how to obey (e.g., when to love your neighbor by saying yes and when by saying no). Or warnings: ask God to humble our hearts so we’d gladly heed his warnings (rather than being resistant); thank God for guarding us against some danger by giving the warning. Or stories: ask for wisdom to identify the main thrust of the story; then pray for power to obey what’s taught; give praise to our Great God for how he acts in the various biblical narratives (e.g., his prison rescues in Acts 5, 12, and 16!). Whatever the genre, let it catapult you to God in praise, confession, thanks, and petitions in related to his message!

What happens when we “pray the Word”? The Lord lifts us up from the earth-bound bog of anxieties and self-groveling, setting our sights on the majestic peak of his glory. Our prayers are enlarged, our faith is built up, our fellowship is enriched, and our hearts are moved with awe at God!

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