your relentless quest for your own meaning

I am reading NT Wright's book Justification. I struggle with assurance of salvation, and a book about justification seems apropos. I'm barely into it, and I am learning so much already.

I want to take some time to summarize some of his main points that I found interesting.

So far Wright has mentioned the Reformers, a tradition of which I am a part of (Disclaimer: I love my church) several times. Apparently, Wright stated that John Piper suggested that he was doing away with a tradition that has lasted centuries. Because Wright questions the Reformed doctrine of "imputed righteousness," he is forsaking tradition, which is so interesting to me that Piper would even bring up tradition in their conversations. Why is it okay that the Reformers -- Luther, Calvin, et al -- questioned the traditions of the Roman Catholic church, and yet we cannot question the traditions of the Reformers?

Wright says, "The greatest honor we can pay the Reformers is not to treat them as infallible -- they would be horrified at that -- but to do as they did." What he is referring to is the intensive spiritual disciplines: "to soak myself in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, to get it into my bloodstream every means possible, in the prayer and hope that I would be able to teach Scripture afresh to the church and the world."

And again, "Wise later readers will honor them, but not canonize them., by thinking through their statements afresh in the light of Scripture itself."

II

Another issue Wright brings up is our tendency to read our questions into Scripture, when the Scripture is talking entirely about something else!

It reminds me of one of the several memes (coming from my own Reformed circle, no less):

Wright states, "If you read your own questions into the text, and try to get an answer from it, when the text itself is talking about something else, you run the risk not only of hearing only the echo of your own voice rather than the word of God but also of missing the key point that the text was actually eager to tell you, and which you have brushed aside in your relentless quest for your own meaning." 

Wow. Talk about a whack in the head (my head). This was a wake-up call to me. I wonder how often I do this. I come to the Bible searching for answers to my questions, but if I eeny-meeny-miny-mo the Bible, I can't expect to find God speaking to me -- to my exact situation with all of its unique, minute details. Context, context, context. But any Reformed person would say that too. 

Wright states (I have to keep saying "states" because "Wright writes" just sounds silly), "[It] is vital (within any Christian theology, and, indeed within good hermeneutical practice on many corpus of texts) to allow one writing to illuminate another."

The vibe I got was that he seems to think this is more uncommon than common. And maybe it is, but not in my tradition. Even as a kid, I can still remember my dad (a then Baptist pastor) saying that we use Scripture to interpret Scripture, which seems to me to be exactly what Wright just said above.

But one thing that is different is that he does address a teaching that is held tightly by the Reformed tradition. It is the belief that when Paul is talking about the law, he is including our efforts to gain good standing with God through moral achievement (as opposed to the laws regarding Jewish ceremonial customs, which is what Wright holds to -- as far as I understand it at least). For more info on that debate, you can read an overview at Ye Olde Source of Wisdom As Long As It Provides Reliable Sources -- Wikipedia.

But as much as I would like to keep reading and writing, I need to go do some cleaning.

Maybe I'll keep this up. Maybe I won't. We shall see.

But hey, it was an actual blog post and not just a quote.

Either way, writing felt good to my soul tonight.

a deeper security

"Trouble can take anything away from you except God. Therefore, if God is to you a greater safety, a deeper security, and a more powerful hope than anything else in the world, you fear no trouble."

[Tim Keller]

He will hurt deeply

"Whom God would use greatly, He will hurt deeply." 

[A. W. Tozer]

Jesus wasn't omni-liked

"When we crave being liked by all, we desire something God doesn’t even possess. Jesus certainly wasn’t omni-liked. In fact, omni-acceptance goes against the grain of the provocative message of Jesus." - Rusty McKie

on the way to the cross

"Even if our own troubles are great, we should still serve. Jesus washed His disciples feet on the way to the cross.”

[Tim Keller]

the quiet and the lengthy

"Love is the quiet and the lengthy, not the noisy and the spectacular."

[Tim Keller]

not half so restrained

"The ungodly are not half so restrained in their blasphemy as we are in our praise."

[Charles Spurgeon]

death wrapped in shiny wrappers

"Our sinful hearts are quick to purchase death wrapped in the shiny wrappers of our lusts."

[Erik Raymond]

the person they are growing into

"When looking for a spouse, you should be looking at the person they are growing into as much as the person they are today."

[Tim Keller]

but also not with their own good

"Who is pure in heart? Only those who have completely given their hearts to Jesus, so that he alone rules in them. Only those who do not stain their hearts with their own evil, but also not with their own good. A pure heart is the simple heart of a child, who does not know about good and evil, the heart of Adam before the fall, the heart in which the will of Jesus rules instead of one’s own conscience.… A pure heart is pure of good and evil; it belongs entirely and undivided to Christ; it looks only to him, who goes on ahead. Those alone will see God who in this life have looked only to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Their hearts are free of defiling images; they are not pulled back and forth by the various wishes and intentions of their own. Their hearts are fully absorbed in seeing God. They will see God whose hearts mirror the image of Jesus Christ."

[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

"There is no greater misery than false joys."

[Bernard of Clairvaux]

everything depends on the heart, on you

"Goods are given to us to be used, but not to be stored away. Just as Israel in the desert received manna daily from God and did not have to worry about food and drink, and just as the manna which was stored from one day for another rotted, so should Jesus’ disciples receive their share daily from God. But if they store it up as lasting treasure, they will spoil both the gift and themselves. The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored–up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.

But where is the boundary between the goods I am supposed to use and the treasure I am not supposed to have? If we turn the statement around and say, What your heart clings to is your treasure, then we have the answer. It can be a very modest treasure; it is not a question of size. Everything depends on the heart, on you. If I continue to ask how can I recognize what my heart clings to, again there is a clear and simple answer: everything which keeps you from loving God above all things, everything which gets between you and your obedience to Jesus is the treasure to which your heart clings."

[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

the secret is Christ in me

"The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances."

[Elisabeth Elliot]

furnace of doubt

"It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

laying hold of His willingness

light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall only work out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory

"The good man is happy in whatsoever condition he is in; and that, First, because no worldly evils can do him any real hurt; secondly, because of those advantages, spiritual joys and satisfactions, he enjoys while here; and thirdly, more especially from the joyful hope and certain expectation, of the enjoyment of the perfection of happiness, eternally, hereafter. But, First. Because no worldly evils can do him any real hurt. The good [man] is exalted out of the reach of all worldly evils; they cannot send forth their baneful influences so high as to touch him, and all the hurt they can do him is but as a sharp medicine. Although it be bitter, yet [it] takes away those diseases that would in the end, if they were let alone, be a thousand times more painful and troublesome to him. A good man may look down upon all the whole army of worldly afflictions under his feet with a slight and disregard (that is, as evils, for he ought to have the greatest regard to them as they are for his good), and consider with himself and joy therein that, however great they are and however numerous, let them all join their forces together against him and put on their most rueful and dreadful habits, forms and appearances, and spend all their strength, vigor and violence with endeavors to do him any real hurt or mischief, and it is all in vain. He may triumph over them all knowing this: light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall only work out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, and, that although sorrow continue for a night, yet joy cometh in the morning: remembering God's promise that all things shall surely work together for his good, and nothing shall offend. If he loses all the worldly good things he has, his estate, friends and relations, or if his body is put to the greatest tortures and pains imaginable, he may consider that it is all best for him that it should be, and that all the hurt they can do him is only to his body. And our Savior has commanded us not to fear them that even kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; and whatever the world does against him, he has that to comfort him, that Christ has overcome the world."

[Jonathan Edwards, from his sermon "Christian Happiness"]

everything is necessary

"Everything is necessary that He sends. Nothing can be necessary that He withholds." 

[John Newton]

have confidence to take risks for His name sake

"Obsessing over the future is not how God wants us to live, because showing us the future is not God's way. His way is to speak to us in the Scriptures and transform us by the renewing of our minds. His way is not a crystal ball. His way is wisdom. We should stop asking for God to reveal the future to us and remove all risk from our lives. We should start looking to God and His character and promises- and thereby have confidence to take risks for His name sake."

[Kevin DeYoung]

resistance to the yoke

It is not the yoke, but resistance to the yoke, that makes it heavy. 

[Andrew Murray]

let me learn by paradox

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold
Thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter
Thy stars shine;

Let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty
Thy glory in my valley.

- Puritan prayer