Playing Triple A Ball

Come again...What did you say?

What is God like? We say Triune (In one God there exists three Persons). We say Immanent (He is near). We say Transcendent (He is far). There are many times when what we say to express what God is like, we succeed!—we use Biblical terms and explanations coming from the Bible. We use terms and we readily understand.  Things hum along. When we do theology this way, we are using cataphatic speech—we say what we can say about God in appropriate ways: our grammar, comparisons and contrasts, and expressions are on target. On the other hand, there are times when we sputter. We know limitations of our grammar and expressions. When we search, when we grope, and when we’re in neck deep, we say things in an apophatic way—“well, let me tell you what I don’t mean… and that’s right too…..God isn’t like that either… and yes…you’re right again….. the Bible doesn’t mean that.” Sometimes our words do not quite pinpoint how to speak of God who is higher, greater, and loftier beyond our human comprehension. Here we say, “What I’m trying to say is He really is more unlike—He’s quite different—than this thing or idea in the world.”

“He is our rock (Psalm 18:2); and yet…. He’s not exactly a rock.”

Cataphatic—more positive words we use.

Apophatic—more negative words we use.

BIG terms—cataphatic expressions of God and apophatic expressions.

G. Mark Sumpter

On Reading

Practice and training with learning

“God chose to send his living Word into the world for 30 years, and his written Word into the world for 2000+ years. Think of the assumption behind this divine decision. People in each generation would be dependent on those who read. Some people, if not all, would have to learn to read—and read well, in order to be faithful to God.” Pastor John Piper


On this blog, I have mentioned the pilgrimage that God has set before me. Having the hope of the Gospel brought to me in my eighteenth year, life became one gigantic appetite for God’s Word and His ways in the world. But a great deal of practice and training with learning needed attention. I am not ashamed to admit that this matter still needs attention.

Learning to read—not merely pronounce the words in a sentence—became the central task back around 1974-75-ish.

Month by month, year by year, my wife—bless her for patience—has been the most helpful to me. She guided me greatly in my 20’s helping me to practice reading sentences not only so words were correctly pronounced but to gain understanding. I remember mixing up immortality and immorality not in pronunciation but in meaning. That was embarrassing.

Another key practice was jumping in to read. C’mon on in—the water’s great! Early on faithful men in our local church put into my hands well-written, meaty, reliable books on the Christian faith. That was key. Reading begets reading. Authors inform. Authors inspire. Authors reinforce.

The first step of exposure—opening the book, looking over the Table of Contents, skimming around in some chapters, checking out footnotes, references and indices—provides initial focus.

But beyond that there’s the motivation to think, meditate and make connections—that’s the work of understanding. Language-based learning, which implements habits of reading, requires the exercise of the brain. Habits like: 1) noting the facts and images presented in the words, sentences and paragraphs, 2) giving consideration to the knowledge and organization of facts already stored in the brain, and 3) assessing and evaluating inferences and conclusions.

For the past 6 or 8 years, I am trying to implement another practice in reading—look for the relationship that one part of knowledge has with another. There’s always some form of interrelatedness. Subjects cannot be studied in isolation of others. What a task! I am trying to make gains on this perspective.

I have just read a book by Peter J. Leithart entitled, Defending Constantine. I am challenged by the height, breadth and width of Dr. Leithart’s knowledge of theology, politics, Roman Empire history and the ecclesiastical landscape of the 3rd and 4th centuries. It might be the first book for me to pick up and read right away a second time. I want to learn how to read.

In the beginning was the Word…

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

G. Mark Sumpter

Fiction for the Rest of Us

Learning Truth from Fiction

A definition of non-fiction goes this way: “Written works intended to give facts, or true accounts of real things and events. Encyclopedias, how-to manuals and biographies are all considered non-fiction and so are kept in the non-fiction section of the library.”

Fiction: “Works telling the tales of imaginary people, places, situations or a combination of all of these.”

As people of the Book, as those concerned to delve into the subjects of reading and writing, we ponder these kinds of definitions in everyday conversation and so we ask: “What is the difference between fiction and nonfiction?”

We often hear nonfiction is true, and fiction—well, it’s false!

How can we develop an answer in the affirmative about fiction carrying the freight of truth? First, mark it well that we have a settled way in which we draw a conclusion about what can and cannot carry truth. Many assume that truth is solely a rational consideration, and so we're told, that fits the non-fiction type of writing. Sure enough, non-fiction with its rational facts is one way to convey truth. Second, consider the aims of fiction. Fiction, it should be remembered, uses the imaginary in order to develop truth. Although God's Book is NOT a fictional book, the Lord uses metaphors, examples, objects and illustrations in fiction-styled ways. He communicates with the use of themes and illustrations (i.e. think of the pattern or development of various themes relative to the Exodus story in the Bible). He develops His story line this way because we live in and through circumstances of history. We are made body and soul, with intellect, will, actions, attitudes, experiences and imagination.

As one writer put it, we “tend to exalt the intellect...We lust for knowledge and think that more [rational] information will solve all of our problems.” Such thinking invites us to conclude: non-fiction is true, fiction is not. But we must conclude otherwise, fiction conveys truth vividly, memorably and often forcefully.

G. Mark Sumpter