On Psalm 35

Fifthly, the principle of retribution is an integral part of the rule of God.  Those who fight against God will find God fighting against them.  The net they hid for me will entangle them; they will fall into the pit they dug for me (verses 7-8).  One would not expect to find profound theology in the operas  [actually, operettas] of Gilbert and Sullivan but, amid the buffoonery of The Mikado, there is a terrifying depth to the words “My object all sublime I shall achieve in time, To let the punishment fit the crime.”  We do well to realize this – and, it may be added, to apply it to the wickedness of our own hearts.

From: The Message of Psalms 1-72: Songs for the People of God by Michael Wilcock; The Bible Speaks Today series (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), p. 123.

Augustine on Alypius’s Integrity

One thing, alone, almost led him astray because of his passion for books.  He could have manuscripts copied for his own use at special government rates.  He deliberated on the justice of this, and decided on the better choice, judging it more expedient to keep integrity, which would forbid it, than to use the power by which it was an allowed perquisite.

This is a small matter.  But “he who is faithful in little is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10-22).  The word which proceeds from the mouth of your truth will never be empty (cf. Isaiah 55:11): “If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will give you the true?  And, if you have not been faithful with someone else’s property, who will give you your own?” (Luke 16:11-12).

That was the character of the man who then attached himself to me and used to debate with me, hesitant what manner of life ought to be adopted.

From: Confessions by Augustine; translated from the Latin by Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1992 [1991]), p. 103.  Translating Confessions 6.10.16.

Posted in memory of Henry Chadwick (June 23, 1920 – June 17, 2008), one of the best patristics scholars of the second half of the 20th century.  His translation of this famous spiritual autobiography is a very elegant piece of work, and one of my favorite translations.  Having just discovered that Chadwick died last year, just six days before his 88th birthday, I thought I would post this excerpt in his honor.  (Another favorite translation of this work is R. S. Pine-Coffin’s, from 1961.)

For the Lord’s Day (95)

Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore, my soul keeps them.  The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.  I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments.  Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name.  Keep steady my steps, according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.  Redeem me from man’s oppression, that I may keep your precepts.  Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.  My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.  (Psalm 119:129-136)

Our Best Plea

“Hear me for your mercy-sake,” is our best plea.  He who will not ask such blessings as pardon, and justifying righteousness, and eternal life, must perish for the want of them.  Alas! that so many should make so fearful a choice.  The psalmist warns against sin.  Keep up holy reverence of the glory and majesty of God.  You have a great deal to say to your hearts, they may be spoken with, let it not be unsaid.  Examine them by serious self-reflection; let your thoughts fasten upon that which is good, and keep close to it.  Consider your ways and, before you turn to sleep at night, examine your consciences with respect to what you have done in the day; particularly, what you have done amiss, that you may repent of it.  When you are awake in the night, meditate upon God, and the things that belong to your peace.  Upon a sick-bed, particularly, we should consider our ways.  Be still.  When you have asked conscience a question, be serious, be silent, and wait for an answer.  Open not the mouth to excuse sin.  All confidence only: therefore, after commanding the sacrifices of righteousness, the psalmist says, “Put your trust in the Lord.”  In singing these verses, we must preach to ourselves the doctrine of the provoking nature of sin, the lying vanity of the world, and the unspeakable happiness of God’s people; and we must press upon ourselves the duties of fearing God, conversing with our own hearts, and offering spiritual sacrifices; and, in praying over these verses, we must beg of God grace thus to think and thus to do.

From: Matthew Henry: Daily Readings, edited by Randall J. Pederson (Fearn: Christian Heritage, 2009).  This is the meditation for November 6, which is an adaptation of Henry’s comments on Psalm 4:1-5.

Charles Erdman

Charles Rosenbury Erdman (1866-1960).  Presbyterian clergyman and educator.  Born in Fayetteville, New York, the son of premillennialist leader William Jacob Erdman, Charles Erdman was raised in a New School Presbyterian environment.  After graduating from Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, Erdman served churches in Overbrook and Germantown, Pennsylvania.  In 1906, he assumed the chair of practical theology at Princeton Seminary, which he held until his retirement in 1936.  He pastored First Presbyterian Church, in Princeton, from 1924 to 1934.

In 1925, at the height of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the Presbyterian Church USA, Erdman won election as moderator of the general assembly.  Though a self-described fundamentalist, he believed that the unified evangelical mission of the church was more important than precise doctrinal agreement.  At a crucial moment in the general assembly, when fundamentalists were apparently succeeding in forcing liberal Presbyterians into doctrinal conformity, Erdman referred the issue to a committee and so broke the momentum of the fundamentalist exclusivists.  Erdman was, also, a major voice for inclusivism in an extended feud among Princeton faculty that led to the reorganization of the seminary and the exodus of some faculty to form Westminster Theological Seminary [in Philadelphia]  in 1929.  He, also, sat on the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions from 1906 to 1942 and was president of the board from 1926 to 1940.  Erdman wrote more than thirty books, most of which were biblical commentaries, and contributed to The Fundamentals [1910-1915].  He numbered Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, and Billy Sunday among his friends.

From: Dictionary of the Presbyterian and Reformed Tradition in America, D. G. Hart, general editor (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 92.  The article was written by B. J. Longfield.

Erdman was no relation to William B. Eerdmans, of the well-known publishing company of that name.

Diotrephes

The contrast between the righteous Gaius and unrighteous Diotrephes is striking; the two men were poles apart.  Gaius was graciously hospitable, Diotrephes ungraciously inhospitable.  Gaius loved the truth and loved everyone humbly (vv. 3-6); Diotrephes refused the truth and loved himself, and threatened everyone from his position of self-appointed authority in the church.  One submitted to the words of truth; the other spouted words of contempt.  The difference between the two men was not primarily doctrinal but behavioral; John did not rebuke Diotrephes for heresy, but for haughtiness.

The letter John wrote to Gaius’s church is now lost, perhaps because Diotrephes intercepted and destroyed it.  It could not have been 2 John, since that letter was not written to a church but to an individual.  Nor could it have been 1 John, which does not address the issue of showing hospitality to missionaries.

John’s parenthetical description of Diotrephes as one who loves to be first among them goes to the heart of the issue.  Loves to be first translates a participial form of the Greek verb philoproteuo, a compound word from philos (“love”) and protos (“first”).  It describes a person who is selfish, self-centered, and self-seeking.  The present tense of the participle indicates that this was the constant pattern of Diotrephes’ life.  Proteuo appears in the New Testament only in Colossians 1:18, where it refers to the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ.  By rejecting those who were representing Christ, Diotrephes was, in effect, usurping his role as head of the church.  The name Diotrephes (lit., “nourished by Zeus” or “foster child of Zeus”) was as uncommon as Gaius was common.  Some believe that it was used exclusively in noble families.  If Diotrephes was from a noble family, his arrogant behavior may have been cultivated in that elevated environment.

That Diotrephes did not accept what John said indicates just how far he had gone in his arrogance.  Shockingly, his desire for power and self-glory had driven him to reject the authority of Christ mediated through the apostle John.  Diotrephes was guilty of spiritual pride of the rankest kind.  His attitude was that of a self-promoting demagogue, who refused to serve anyone but wanted all to serve him.  That attitude utterly defies the New Testament’s teaching on servant leadership (cf. Matthew 20:25-28; 1 Corinthians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 4:5; Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Peter 5:3).

From: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1-3 John by John MacArthur (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007), pp. 256-257.  Comment on 3 John 9.

No Neutrality About Jesus

One cannot remain neutral in the presence of Jesus.  He follows the statement about the strong man with the saying, Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.  It is reported that John Wesley used to ask his probationer preachers two questions: “Has anyone been converted?” and “Did anyone get mad?”  If the answer to both was “no,” then he told them he did not think they had been called to preach.  One cannot be neutral to the gospel.  On this occasion, Jesus said Whoever is not with Me is against Me but, at another time, He also said Whoever is not against us is for us (Mark 9:40).  The former statement places those who do not actively support Jesus as enemies, while the latter says that they are friends.  The two statements are not necessarily contradictory, given that they occur in different contexts.  In the first case, the ones not with Jesus are the Pharisees, who were clearly acting as enemies while, in the second case, the ones not with Jesus are those who do good in the name of Jesus (even though they apparently do not really know Him).  They will be rewarded for the good that they do.  No one, however, can ultimately remain neutral.  Everyone must decide on his relationship to Jesus.  He continues, rather enigmatically, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.  It is a reference to harvesting (“gathering”) and it is applied to the harvest of believers at the end of time.  Harvesting has commenced for, in Jesus, the kingdom of God is now present, and those who make the decision to be with Him are those who are part of God’s harvest.  Those who are opposed to Jesus seek to scatter the harvest.

From: The Message of the Trinity: Life in God by Brian Edgar (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 160-161.  This volume is part of the “The Bible Speaks Today: Bible Themes” series.

Brian Edgar, at the time of publication, was director of theology and public policy for the Australian Evangelical Alliance.

The Consultant Pastor

Learning to pass on to professional carers cases which are beyond the pastor’s ability to help enables him to concentrate upon real pastoral work, supplementary and complimentary to the public ministry, for then he is not dealing with those who are torn with irreconcilable inner conflicts but with those who wholeheartedly want Christ and want to live the Christ-life fully, in the church and in the world.  The will to do is half the battle.  Our help to such is, largely, to clarify, specify, and apply the publicly ministered Word to their particular total situation.  Here is where the so-called “consultant pastor” comes into his own.

It is important to make it known that you lay yourself out for this.  If you are not holding down a little church merely until you can get a big one, but really care about people – at least as much as you care for your own wife and children – then you must convey to them a real awareness that you are interested in their problems.  If you are not interested in the problems of sincere, ongoing Christians, you ought not to be in the work of ministry at all.

Of course, you have to deal faithfully with those who are attracted to you and want to be that little farther bit in with you than their sparring partners, and you will have to deal with those who like attention and who manufacture problems, or even excuses, to draw inconsiderately on your time.  Some even love to see a queue waiting to speak to you after a service and maliciously drag out their story to keep others waiting.  But remember, when you are brokenhearted about the sheer cussedness of some, and bitterness, enmities, jealousies, grudges, and feuds seem to rock the boat, remember that, in time – you don’t need to go out of your way to dot Mrs. Brazenface on the nose from the pulpit! – in time, it will all be dealt with by the systematic preaching of the Word.  The answer to every problem, even the ones that have no full and final earthly solution, is in the Word.  Pin your faith to that.  Let the Word solve or settle all.

From: The Work of the Pastor by William Still; reprint (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, and Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2001 [1984]), pp. 41-43.

William Still (1911-1997) was pastor of Gilcomston South Church of Scotland for 52 years (1945-1997).  This book is based on lectures the Rev. Still gave to theological students in 1964 and 1965.

Unbelievers Hearing the Word of God

All these unregenerate persons lack saving grace.  They hear only with the carnal understanding.  They receive the Word, but only in the field of their unsanctified imaginations.  They let it work upon their natural consciences.  It merely plays upon the waves of their natural emotions.  Thus, they may be moved to tears, and they ardently love whatever so affects them.  Yea, they often perform many good works which are truly praiseworthy.  They may even give their goods to the poor and their bodies to be burned.  Their salvation is, therefore, considered to be a matter of fact.  But, the holy apostle completely destroys their hopes, saying, “Tho you speak with the tongues of men and of angels, tho you understand all mystery, tho you give all your goods to feed the poor, and tho you give your body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth you nothing.”

Hence, to be God’s child and not a sounding brass, deep insight into the divine mysteries, an excited imagination, a troubled conscience, and waves of feeling are not required, for all these may be experienced without any real covenant grace.  But, what is needed is true, deep love operating in the heart, illuminating and vitalizing all these things.

From: The Work of the Holy Spirit by Abraham Kuyper; translated from the Dutch by Henri de Vries; reprint (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1941 [1900]), p. 344.  The Dutch original was published in 1888.

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch Calvinist theologian, educator (founder of the Free University of Amsterdam [1879]), and prolific author.  He was also Prime Minister of the Netherlands (1901-1905).

For the Lord’s Day (94)

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.  These things are excellent and profitable for people.  But, avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.  (Titus 3:8-9)