biblical worldviewing

In case you couldn’t tell, brothers and sisters, I love theology. It’s not a love out of intellect or feeling even, but it is a soul-satisfying love that rejoices in truth and fuels a passion for loving God. Which is what I want to talk about tonight, because this is an extremely practical way in which theology, even though there are those who give up on it so easily because it’s hard to understand or not useful in ministry, has raised me up and brought me to a spacious place, and brought me to a crucial understanding that makes all the difference in the world! Why else would David spend all of Psalm 119 declaring the goodness of God’s word? It is the highest goal to satisfy ourselves in the richness of God, as revealed by his Spirit in his word.

• Psalm 73:25
  Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
• John 6:63
  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
• John 6:67-69
  So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Praise him, find a voice! My confession is: I used to be afraid of dying, not because of death or destruction, but I used to be afraid of eternity itself, even in heaven.

I would think of the word ‘eternity’ or ‘forever’ and try to grasp the nature of an existence that was like that. I remember being terrified. Why would I want anything to go on forever? It doesn’t matter what it could be, forever is too long for it! Forever… that’s like how long it feels like it’s going to take when you sit down to take a 9-page essay exam, have to wait to graduate, or wait for the traffic light when you’re late for an international flight, times infinity. It’s stunning to imagine eternality. This life on earth is limited to probably 60 or 70 years, maybe more or maybe a lot less–so it’s interesting! It matters what happens, what you do, what you say, where you go during your life! It’s all coming to an end soon, and that’s what makes it even sweeter while it lasts–the knowledge it won’t last. It’s what makes it more precious, right? Even more precious, I thought, than life in heaven.

This is the attitude I had before grace made me seeing of the all-sufficiency of grace as understood by a biblically Calvinist understanding of theology.

Notice Psalm 73! Or Psalm 63, as well. They are crying out to us about the author, the crafter, the builder and his singleness of infinity. C. S. Lewis came up with the name ‘false infinites’ for any temptation or sinful pleasure we are drawn to instead of the Lord. Whatever promised satisfaction independant of God is a lie, because whatever satisfaction it can offer is finite and therefore wretchedly inferior to satisfaction OF God which is infinite. This concept, paired with some things I learned about heaven because of Johnathan Edwards began to shed new light upon passages and heaven and the call to delight in the Lord. John Piper has also popularized this idea of ‘Christian hedonism’, which is so biblical and hopeful and marvelous that I cannot contain my gladness at it! Notice the first thing in Romans 1:20 Paul gives attention to about the nature of God, ‘For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.’ Paul appeals to his eternal power as the first thing that’s so obvious about God, making all men without excuse. It’s obvious that the Living God is eternal and, therefore, all other endeavors for delight aside from him are abhorrent and pitiful by comparison.

God is the only source of true delight! He is infinite in his beauty and appeal! This is why heaven must be eternal, and life for the believer, and God’s word shall not pass away; not because they themselves are eternal, but because God is. We will never cease increasing and enlarging our understanding and entrancement of the Lord of all. Knowing God’s infinite riches has shattered my fear or eternality, because now I see it is not an eternity of static bliss, or nirvana, or 76 virgins, or anything else invented by man (that, when experienced in eternity, would lose all meaning like saying a word too many times) but of progressive, infinite increasment of satisfaction and the ability to become satisfied! How many brothers and sisters are there who still believe heaven is a place where we will get together with other people we miss on this world and play golf and relax?

I love theology because it is practice for what heaven will continue into eternity.

Here’s a great message I got from someone who noticed my group online at the university website called ‘Reformed Believers’.

• I saw your reformed believers group and I just wanted to ask you what you know about Calvinism & how it relates to God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ. Though we ask Christians hope that all mankind can be saved b4 the rapture, things will probably not pan out that way, so inevitably, I must agree with you when you make reference to there being a certain number of people who’ll be saved and ready to go before Christ’s return. But I personally don’t think that this has anything to do with preferential love from God. The Father will save all who are willing humble themselves before him and accept His Son. His Grace is available for all who are willing to seek it. I can say with confidence God values all souls equally and wants them all to reside with him in heaven. The problem is that not all souls value God equally. Some of us accept, respect, and obey his Deity in our lives, others of us struggle with it, and too many of us reject it alltogether because of Satan’s deception. In truth I really don’t know all that much about Calvinism, only that Calvin believed in predestination and that the Puritans of the New World who held to that teaching were often greatly distressed b/c they had to face the question of whether or not they were destined for Heaven or Hell. My intention is not all to attack you, I just want to know why you believe what you believe, so that I can be more informed. Sorry for the long message & I hope to hear from you soon.
  Janine

and my response:

• Hey Janine! thanks for writing me. I wanted to respond to your letter in a few ways. Initially, when you say ‘Modern Christianity’ I only think of one thing, ‘Modern Liberalism’. That’s what I associate with Modern Christianity, because that’s what I see again and again. C.S. Lewis was an inclusivist and he doubted the inerrancy of Scripture. Yet, he is the emblem of modern Christians world wide (notice, Narnia). Liberalism in Christianity is not new–the old liberals were named Pelagius and Erasmus, and they argued against Augustine and Luther, who were dead-set on upholding the Bible and not traditions of man. Do you think that ‘Modern Christianity’ is free from Modernism? from Post-modernism? No, when you say ‘Relevance to Modern Christianity’, I don’t consider that a goal–Modern Christianity is not something I think is worth saving, because it’s a Christianity that, by definition, has been influenced by moderns. I think the only thing worth saving is Biblical Christianity. I think that the some of the only Christians worth modeling our lives on are the Apostles, James, Peter, Paul, like they themselves commanded all the churches to imitate them, and to hold fast to their traditions. Is this what ‘Modern Christianity’ concerns itself with? I know what you mean when you say that, but I don’t want to be a modern Christian–I want to be a purist (puritan) Biblical Christian.

  So what are they like? What are the Apostles like, and what do they believe? If you take the teaching of the Bible as a whole and not just bits and pieces you start to see something incredible:

  God really is God!

  We know that God is interested in ONE thing: his own glorification. Starting there, knowing that he is the most high, the most holy, Lord of all, most glorious, most beautiful, most satisfying, most whole, most delightful, how could he desire ANY thing other than his own glory? How could it be right? How could that NOT be idolatry for God? If God ever desired ANYTHING that was apart from being directly for his own glory, then he would be a sad excuse for the most high. Don’t you see?

  It’s like this… you say that you know for sure God values all souls equally and wants them all to reside in heaven. That, however, emasculates Jesus! He says he is the good shepherd, and he knows his sheep and his sheep know him, he says that the Father has given the sheep to him, and that no no one can snatch the sheep from his hand. This is in John 10. Jesus also says in John 17:3 that he has authority over ALL flesh.

  You’re a girl, right? You want a guy to pursue you, don’t you? You want him to desire you–of course you do. What would you think, though, if you knew he desired you above God? That would be pathetic, right? You’d be sickened by that. Well guess what? That’s how sickened I am when I hear ‘Modern Christians’ talking about the way that Jesus desires us to all be saved. The only ones God desires to be saved are the ones God saves. This is what Romans 8:30, the Golden Chain of salvation teaches. It says ‘And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.’

  The essence of Biblical grace is that it is twofold. One, that it is specific to God’s will, and the second goes along with the first, it is effective. John 10 says Jesus will not loose any that the Father has given him. This is the difference between love as it is understood Biblically and love as it is understood by moderns or post-moderns. Love is an ACTION. It is not a general feeling about a group or thing. Love is what you DO. This is why I John 3:16 says ‘we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us’. That is an action.

  At the end of the day, Christians who have a correct understanding of love can see so clearly the work the Lord has done in loving them and the absence of that work in non-Christians, therefore the abscence of that love. Notice John 5:42, where Jesus tells the pharisees they do not understand because he says ‘I know that you do not have the love of God within you’. The modern Christian thinks that the love of God within a person is a feeling that they take on towards God, and from that comes eternal life. The Bible teaches that we cannot possibly have that love from God. I look at John 5:42 as Jesus’ teaching that God’s love is absent from the Pharisees, THEREFORE they do not see the Kingdom of God.

  It’s about cause and effect. Moderns believe we are the cause and God gives us salvation as the effect. I think this is blasphemy. Romans 9, the whole chapter, teaches us that it is God who is the cause of everything. It is grace that is the means of this cause. I hope that helps clear some things up, Janine. and if you don’t mind, I might put some of this on my website. thanks, sister! blake.

I decided to review this film because I was thinking about it for some strange reason tonight. I think that’s reason enough to give a positive review to a film right there: I was thinking about it for some strange reason tonight. It’s called ’staying power’. Which brings me to my first and most substantial point about the film:

• This is a movie of actual substance and moral fiber.

Substance meaning an actual crafted narrative, (some) multi-dimensional characters, and a truly noble subject matter. I admit that I wasn’t expecting too much from this movie (maybe that’s why I am pretty impressed by it?) other than a gimmick, like so many other summer movies that have been produced for a single purpose: to make money and fill in the gap for the really worthwhile films of the late fall/winter. Don’t ask me why the most excellent films typically come out in November, I don’t claim to know that much about movies at all, but I can tell you that National Treasure is not another gimmick movie.

I am not a fan of criminal-sympathizing movies. For some reason I can never really root for the law-breakers, no matter how much more fashionable or witty they are compared to honest folks. That is why I so loved National Treasure for standing up for honesty and integrity throughout. The hero of the film, Nicholas Cage, refuses to resort to crime in his goal of finding the legendary treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the US. However, when he knows the only way to protect the Declaration of Independence is to steal it himself, he does so because he is convinced it is ‘the right thing’. Whether or not it really is the right thing I can withstand not asking and allow for it in keeping with the theme of the movie: that courage acted out in the cause of good may not always triumph over evil, but it sure should. While the film is not very ‘deep’ in an exploration of good/evil sense, it does raise interesting questions of what the ‘right thing’ is in certain cases. I like it how the heros are people of conviction. David McCullough’s book, 1776, demostrates the massive amounts of conviction of right on the part of the ones who led the war against England, and the film really draws from that. I guess that’s what I mean by it is a movie of substance; it stands on the shoulders of giants and draws from a deep well of honor. And it’s pretty funny in parts!

You really can tell the difference between a cash-generating, mass-appeal film and a film done with the intention of actually making a good film, and this is much more of the latter than the former. Another thing about this film I really enjoyed was the ‘free-range’, I guess I could call it, of the setting. I don’t like movies that feel like they were filmed entirely in one studio or one set. I like movies that, in a sense, ‘break down the fourth wall’ and give you a feeling that it is drama and action that is not bridled by set, but really free to go where it wants to. We’ve seen enough domesticated episodes of Star Trek to know what I’m talking about.

4 out of a possible 5 stars overall for its genre. And for the entire art of film? Maybe even as much as 3.

I need grace so desperately. My life depends on grace, totally, completely. It’s not like grace is a train I’m on, and if I jumped out of it, I would keep rolling around on the ground a hundred feet. It’s not like grace is the gas in my car, and if I ran out, I could roll to a stop a thousand feet later. It’s not like grace is the burner heating my teapot, and after it turns off, the water is good for tea for at least twenty minutes hence. It’s not like grace is a feeding tube, and if it were removed from my comatose body, I would have a few weeks before starvation pulled my life from my flesh.

Without grace, I’d fall off the train and into a stone that would crush my body and instantly change its inertia from however many million miles an hour to zero. The tank would run dry, and the car would crush itself into a heap at the point of the hood ornament. The burner would go off, and the teapot would buckle and split open due to the ice that froze in a milisecond. The tube would come out, and I would turn to dust and blow away instantly.

This is how dependant I am on grace. This is how I tremble at my life when grace is not what I lean out on, throwing my whole weight on over the abyss of Mammon.

Have you ever spent an extremely idle half day or sat through a particularly off-color movie, or maybe a party, or a conversation with someone you want to impress, and after it’s done with you suddenly ‘remember’ that you’re a Christian? Have you ever forgotten, or basically acted like you have forgotten that you belong to the Living God? I have. What a sorrowful grief I feel… and what an absurdity it is, what a total mockery. A Prodigal forgetting he has a Father. A snake forgetting it has no legs. A snail forgetting where it lives.

I need grace.