"Ask yourself: Is too much empathy really the problem you see in your church? In your pastor? In your life? We should all examine where we are and seek to accentuate what is right while repenting of what is wrong." - Ken Brown
"As I’ve walked through the meaning of repentance in my own spiritual walk, the Puritans have been helpful in clarifying the meaning of the word repentance. In particular, Thomas Watson’s work entitled The Doctrine of Repentance" - Tim McKnight
Detail from Saint Peter Penitent, Gerard van Honthorst (1592 - 1656)
Read Part 1.
Basically, this is a prayer for spiritual restoration. The psalmist has strayed from the “paths of righteousness,” and he cries out for the Great Shepherd to rescue him. He wants forgiveness, and he wants to know again the joy of his salvation. As he makes his petition he’s conscious of at two realities:
He’s pleads for God’s gracious intervention: “seek your servant.” He not only acknowledges his wayward heart, but he confesses his own inability to do anything about it (cf. 33-37). Taken together, the psalmist’s confession and petition are very similar to a prayer of Saint Augustine: “Lord, to sin I am able. But I am not able to return.” This is the prayer of a man who puts no confidence in the flesh but whose trust is in the Lord.
Detail from Saint Peter Penitent, Gerard van Honthorst (1592 - 1656)
Christian biographies are a great means of edification and godliness. And yet, their benefits aren’t free from dangers. One danger that comes to mind is that of developing an unrealistic view of the Christian life. Often, Christian biographers maximize the virtues and minimize the faults of the saints. The picture they paint has too rosy a hue. We can partly understand this. Obviously, we want to view Christians in the best light. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt. We want to showcase their faithfulness to God. But we can come away with the idea that genuine Christians rarely, if ever, commit sin. This perspective begins to affect the way we view ourselves and one another.
Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t make that mistake. While it does extol the virtues of the saints, it also exposes their sins. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Peter were all great men of God. And their godly lives are worthy of imitation. However, the Bible doesn’t hesitate to present the other side of the story as well. Though it portrays these men as eminent saints, it also portrays them as sinners. Perhaps nowhere is this reality stated more concisely than in the last verse of Psalm 119, which reads,
I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments (119:176 ESV1).
"Some sins are small and easy. We stop and walk the other way. Some sins, like the bicycle, are a little more difficult. ... there is the process of coming to a stop, the process of the turn itself, and the process of getting up to speed in faithfulness. But some sins are enormous.... God works patiently with us, carefully slowing us down, as the captain does with the ship..." - Ligonier
"...free grace theology eliminates the call to repentance over sin. It wrongly teaches that salvation by faith alone means that repentance is not part of the saving response to the gospel. Yet the Scriptures are clear that true saving faith is repentant faith." - Matt Postiff
Reposted from The Cripplegate.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been preparing a review of Latasha Morrison’s Be the Bridge book and Bible study materials. In so doing, I’ve been reading her recommended resources, and have been struck by how central the following claim is to this genre of “racial reconciliation” material: “members of a group have the responsibility to confess and seek reconciliation on behalf of that group for sins that those members themselves may not have even personally committed.”
I went back and forth on whether I should post this portion of my critique separate from my full review of Be the Bridge, or leave it inside the longer review (which is posted here). I decided to run it separately because while it is only a small component of Be the Bridge, this theme reoccurs in other resources. In other words, I’ve encountered a repeated argument that white people have a responsibility to confess the sin of racism that other white people have committed in the past, to repent for those sins, and then to seek reparations on behalf of those wronged by the sin.
So today I want to address that specific argument. Then, in my review of Be the Bridge, I can refer back to this post here.
The ignition of the Great Awakening began at Enfield, Connecticut. It was July 8, 1741, when a local congregation of well-to-do Americans went to church to hear the guest speaker, Jonathan Edwards. He is known in evangelical circles as the man who best articulated a theology of joy. It was Jonathan Edwards who wrote Religious Affections in which he insists that true religion is one that brings joy and satisfaction in Christ alone, and that every decision is made according to man’s greatest desire, and that the only way to live a life pleasing to God is to be so entranced with God’s majesty and beauty, so enraptured with his grace and mercy, that one’s life brims over with the joy of serving him alone. Nascent “Christian hedonism” if you will.
