Grace to Change My Mind

What?! JM changes his mind?

After a wonderful week in Texas, visiting family, I have thought back on some of the interesting discussions I had with family and friends. Laura teases me about it, but I have an insatiable desire to turn conversations into reflective, theological discussions. Those of last week were stimulating (to say the least!) and precious to me.

It is sort of a truism that at every point in my life (as with almost all of us) I was fairly convinced that my views about all the important things in life were, in fact, the correct views. From where I stand now, I am absolutely certain that I have held some inaccurate, unhelpful, poorly supported opinions. I anticipate that I will need grace to change my mind about some things in the years to come - I just can't imagine which views I hold now need to change!

I remember having a heated (but not well-lit) debate with a family member while I was in high school about Calvinism. My family member, in frustration toward me, said, "John, I used to think that way!" I wondered to myself why anyone would ever move past what I think now. I'd like to give a short list of a few of the ways I have changed my mind on important issues through the years. 'Twas grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home (when I will know fully, even as I have been fully known all the while).

1. I was taught to trust the Bible in all things, but my undergrad shook my confidence in the complete reliability of it. I now believe that the Bible is without error in its original writings, when interpreted correctly.

2. I once believed that miraculous spiritual gifts had ceased after the New Testament period; I now believe that the New Testament seems to anticipate that God would continue bestowing those gifts on his Church.

3. In college, I was very tempted to endorse pacifism because I thought Jesus taught a version of pacifism; I think I misunderstood Jesus' relation to the Old Testament and the remainder of the new - I believe that God still wants governments to practice the "eye for an eye" principle, even including capital punishment and war.

4. From my earliest years as a believer I thought the next major events in God's program for history were the Rapture, the rise of the Antichrist, the salvation of 144,000 Jews, Christ's 2nd coming, the Millenium, the battle at Armageddon, and Eternity; I now think much of this stuff will actually be collapsed into Jesus' return or even into the present age (I'm amillenial and I take the "idealist" view of Revelation).

5. I used to think of marriage as optional and parenting as a contingent option; now I am convinced that marriage is God's will for almost everyone, and having children is part of God's design for marriage (except where there are good reasons not to have children).

6. In college I developed a disdain for denominations generally - but especially my own; now I appreciate the story of the Church that denominations preserve, and my heart is invested in serving within my denomination to help steer its course toward fidelity to Christ in all things.

Look Who's #2

Wesley sported this outfit for an Operation Christmas Child wrapping party. If you are unfamiliar with that worldwide ministry, check out http://www.samaritanspurse.org/. I call the outfit Wesley's oven mitt outfit.

Desperate for attention - our poor dog was once the sole sponge in our house. Now that Wesley requires so much of us, we find that Owen is more prone to insert his "full-grown dog head" (there's a story!) into our activities. But really, the dog has taken to Wesley quite well. We catch him sometimes quietly hanging out in the nursery in the dark while Wesley naps! Other times he just observes the baby.

Suggested Reading

At a conference in 2006, I received a paperback Bible with a yearly reading plan in it. At the time, I was in the habit of slower, more deliberate Bible reading. I took the chance on the reading plan, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it for 18 months or so. This summer I found that Crossway Books/Good News Publishers has the reading plan available online for free. I quickly gave my hard copy to a student (whom I hope is using it). The ESV site has nice search features as well as the audio of the entire Bible - read by a nice, rich-voiced Brit.

I just figured out what an RSS feed was, so I thought I would put it here (top right corner) for both of you who check our blog more than once a week. Now you know (some of) what Wesley and I are reading. We're a couple of days behind in the plan, and we are only reading the Old Testament and Psalms right now (because that is how I've used the reading plan on my own). I decided that I could either separate my personal pursuit of God from time with my son, or I could bring him along on the journey. The second made more sense. I can't wait until he begins asking questions! In the mean time, he will not (nor will I) understand everything. We are finishing up the judgments against the nations at the end of Jeremiah, so I tell him basic truths about God's position as Judge of his Creation. "We must each answer to our Creator for how we have lived." I'm hoping the good news about the Savior who died as a Substitute for us will make sense to him at a young age!

One other thing - because I want to encourage you who read this blog to get better acquainted with the God of the Bible, I'll make a standing offer: if you try out the daily reading chapters and want to discuss them or if you would like tips for benefiting from what you read, just put a comment on one of our posts - or email me/Laura if you like. You might have an idea I've never had, you might not agree with my idea, or we might all be stumped by some of the things written. But I guarantee that each of us will profit by attending a bit more to the Bible.

Wesley's ninth week

Our son has an ongoing project that occupies much of his waketime. He is certain that it will fit.
We're not sure why, but Wesley was a bit grumpy during Laura's parents first time to meet him in person. Even so, Laura's dad showed some talent for helping young master Wesley relax.

Wesley listened to his grandmother intently.

Do you know anybody else who sleeps like this?

Fall Festival - we didn't have this in Texas

For four years running our congregation has hosted a Fall Festival that is open to our community. Each year has been a little bigger and more diverse than previous years. Most of this stuff would seem innoccuous to many, but here are a few that interested me - a taste of life in rural KY! The first picture shows a horse turning the crank that squeezes the juice out of cane (I would call it sugar cane but the folks who make the stuff call it sorghum).

The green stuff in the tank is stuff you eat. Seriously. They cooked the cane juice (also called sorghum by the makers) for hours, stirring it in a way that reminded me of a swimming pool net. The finished product is molasses - stout molasses. My dad ate molasses on waffles when I was a kid, and I thought it was horrid (I thought coffee was, too, but that has changed). The makers gave out some jars of the finished product, and Lela (who was still helping us adjust to parenthood at the time) made some amazing molasses cookies. We have since made three attempts to replicate her achievement, each time falling short.

We had live music throughout the day. The third picture shows one of the best groups of the day. It seems that most of the folks around here enjoy a different genre of music than I do!

We had one of those air-filled bouncy things that is fun for all ages and a dunking booth that looked like it was filled with the same green stuff that was squeezed out of the cane.
The barn that stands behind the dunking booth is a nicer specimen of a common KY feature - a tobacco barn. Most of them we see are missing more planks and appear to be ready to fall over like a house of cards. Tobacco farmers hang the cut tobacco leaves from the multiple levels of rafters in these barns to let the tobacco cure for awhile before stripping it.

Much about our festival and the parts of it that people seem to enjoy most serves as a reminder of bygone years and the way things were.

Let my people...work?

In our small church I (among other responsibilities) lead a class for the broad category "young adults." Though most of our gatherings have been devoted to covering the biblical basis for major points of the Christian faith ("doctrines" for you initiates) and a survey of the Old Testament (two of our weaker points in most evangelical churches), I took a deviation this last Sunday. We looked at what the Bible says about work.

Why do we work? If our best answer is "to provide for ourselves and our families," we have a strong motivator. Proverbs 16 calls this wisdom: "A worker's appetite works for him;his mouth urges him on." (ESV) What if you are "set for life" or retired? What if you have someone else who supplies all you need? If you have no need for gainful employment does that mean you have no need or responsibility to work? Is work a curse from which the wealthy and dependents can and should escape?

No. Genesis 1 and 2 describe work as part of God's perfect design for mankind in his responsibility to God. God's command in Genesis 1 to "be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over..." creation was not an endorsement of exploiting creation! It was a command to fill the earth with families and larger networks of relationships necessary to cultivate order and beneficial structure. With all that is involved in God's design (like the norms of heterosexual marriage and parenting) the normativity of work is certainly a part. Valuable work according to God's design need not be remunerative; in fact, raising children is clearly one of the most important and most demanding tasks the Bible assigns us (something Laura and I do free of charge).

Since work was part of God's design for mankind before sin, and since our (i.e., only those who "belong to Christ at his coming") eternal home will be in the New Creation (an embodied existence without the curse of sin and death), I fully expect we will work as we worship King Jesus. So, I think work is part of our design.

But then there are some interesting practical directives about work in Paul's letters. In 1 Timothy 5, while giving instructions for how churches should care for widows, Paul clearly commands that children and grandchildren care for widowed elderly relatives. Not to do so is tantamount to denying the Christian faith. Paul even seems to suggest that next of kin should always feel responsibility for elderly widows.

This has practical implications for people my age. Grandparents and parents, maybe even aunts and uncles, need to be among our reasons for working for pay. Or maybe the way to please God will be to be the primary care provider or just a roommate for an elderly relative. We need to be ready to "make a return."

One last thing about work, especially for pay: "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." (Eph. 4:28 ESV) Theft is the opposite of how Christians should handle possessions, but most of us aren't "into" theft. Still, we work mostly for ourselves (sort of in the middle of this command) when we should work hard so that we might have something to share with anyone in need. Imagine the force of generosity that would be released on this world if Christians in the US worked hard, saved aggressively - not to raise our standard of living - but to give toward all sorts of worthy causes (most supremely, in my mind, Christian missions)!

There is more to be said about work as Christians, but there is also much to be said about rest and caring for one's body, so I'm off to bed.

The Life of Wesley

Part of the purpose of this blog is to post weekly installments of the latest pictures of Wesley for our families. We were previously doing this via email, and our 9 week update is overdue. Before we do that post, I wanted to do a quick catch up of his short life so far.

Just before Wesley's big arrival

He's finally here! Our first family photo (Momma's a little teary-eyed)

Wesley's fourth day of life

Just after his first bath

One month old

Wesley listening intently to Daddy during their daily Bible reading.

One of my favorites. 7 weeks old