Happy Anniversary, Peg

God is our Faithful God, We're Grateful for 32 Years

Here's a picture of First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage, AK where 32 orbits-around-the sun ago, on this very day, about 150-200 friends and family filled the pews to witness the vow-taking of two young folks--Gregory Mark and Peggy Kay. Dr. Thomas R. Teply, our pastor, officiated. Richard and Patty and Yank and Phyllis looked on with love, hope and blessing.

This shot right below is standing near the Earthquake Park area, the Turnagain Area, and looking back on the city of Anchorage. This area, along the Cook Inlet, is where Peg and I spent many hours taking walks. Good times. Great memories.

Peg is my very best friend, true love and help-meet; and a counselor with balanced insight. God has planted deep faith within her, and she shines with a faithful light for service to Him in His church! What a treat to be able share in life!

G. Mark Sumpter

Children and Youth---Whose Responsibility?, Part 1

On the Idolatrous Over-Correction Nowadays of Some Family Integrated Ministry

There's a timely, well-meant correction, generally, on the part of some brethren nowadays about children, youth and family ministry. Hats off to our brethren. Amen and amen.

I stand with them—1) they have biblical concerns to trounce the entertainment-oriented contemporary expression of youth ministry; 2) they have theological drive to deputize and dispatch children and youth to do hard things, calling our kids to take up the mantle of ministry-charged service in the kingdom of God right now, not when they reach their 20s and 30s; and 3) they have practical cultural sensitivity about standing firm and standing together as today’s family in our broken world; for men in the home, it means entering into and persevering with the masculine mandate to be dominion dads and taking up the yoke of child nurture.

Who can find fault with such reforms?

It’s not these reforms, necessarily, that summon watchful attention. It’s when these reforms are cloaked in over-correction about the role of parents.

Here’s the particular danger for some: it’s the separation of church and parents.

What God has joined together, let not man separate.

In the name of recovering parental responsibility for the nurture, discipleship, and training of their children and young people, parents can be misled into the vulnerable spot of isolation from the wider body of the local church; and ironically, this is the very thing that we’ve been cautioned about regarding our children and youth for the past 25-30 years. Separating children and youth off from the Body of Christ by excessive youth group programming, we’ve been learning, is a no-no. Parents must be cautioned about this same mis-application.

Family training in isolation from the biblically-designed, grace-filled, and grace-dependent relationships of the whole of the church signals danger--an invitation to idolatry of the biological home.

What kind of isolation is meant? There can be isolation of parents from the church when they believe that faithfulness means: 1) being the primary ones to do the Bible and doctrinal teaching with their children and young people, and 2) being the ones, solely, to have responsibility for other things like: hosting social events, service projects and evangelistic ministries. When its family integration in these kinds of expressions—with parent-dominant, often parent-exclusive ministries, then we’ve lost sight of the very important doctrine of The Parenthood of All Believers.

The 16th century Reformation churchman, Martin Luther, recovered proportion about all having access to God, not merely the Roman Catholic priesthood. What he called The Priesthood of All Believers might also be connected to the doctrine of The Communion of the Saints.

The Westminster Confession of Faith 26:1 speaks to this:

All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other's gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

In the Body of Christ, there’s the way of grace with the communion of relationships within the whole of the church. Grace is a gift for every-generation life and ministry. This grace of The Parenthood of All Believers and The Communion of the Saints can be seen by the multiple generational expressions of life and ministry with multiple-callings on hand, varied-marriage and family situations involved and the manifold-gifting of people and their experiences deployed and employed. It’s the church and her needful role as Mother and Household with the children and youth of our homes.

Variety, rightly seen in God's design of this every-generation stewardship, leads to awe-ful, majestic, and grace-promoting glory before God. It’s a God-ward thing. It makes us dependent on Him, not man.

As a father, I have to trust in God for His work in and through the church, the whole of the Household of Faith.

Trust in God about such things reminds me of the Bible’s signature imperative: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”

G. Mark Sumpter

One Year Ago

Fifty-Something PhD-Like Work Was a 4-Week Hebrew Intensive and Field Studies in Israel With My 17 Year Old Son

Last year at this time, Jeremy and I ventured from Grants Pass to Tel Aviv to launch 5 weeks in Israel. The two of us took part in a 4-week intensive in Biblical Hebrew and also went to some 25-30 sites around the land.

Three highlights from this Study Leave for me:

1. I was completely taken by surprise regarding the burden and desire to see reformed and evangelical churches planted in Israel. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Oh Lord, send forth Your Word and bring the strangers home!

2. The Hebrew intensive offered a challenging refresher in the Book of Jonah. Above, you see one of our instructors, Aaron, in our classroom. Fun, fun fun! What a challenge, the hard work, doing the conversational thing and the TPR--Total Physical Response. The Biblical Language Center teachers at Kibbutz Tzuba were top-notch. Jeremy and I still make use of their methods and lessons.

3. The variety of landforms, the old villages and cities, and the connected benchmarks of history were overwhleming. Tops were Qumran Community at the Dead Sea, the amazing structures and memorials of Herod of Great--his fingerprints are all over the land--and the Galilee, in particular, Tel Dan.

God is so very good, who allowed us to take this trip. Amen and Amen.

G. Mark Sumpter

From Skim Milk to Deep-Fried Snickers Bars

Why I've Moved From One Puny Pirouette to Bodacious Back Camel Spins at Christmas

Next year it's lights smothered on the fence out front; someone in 2010 hold me to that, OK?

Peggy and I, back in our early years in the OPC, would tip-toe around the holidays. She followed me in my petty-minded parade about this. I can remember when she made a banner with the text, Luke 1:35, pasted on. She and a relative sewed two or three stand-up figures out of burlap for a manger scene. We draped Christmas lights around the banner and down near the manger scene that was sitting on a TV-tray in the living room. Nothing else displayed the holy mark, the Christian watershed mark of the calendar, regarding the coming of the Lord. For me, it was all reformed simplicty and a well-meant piety to the 10th power, absent the gospel. Silk, no leather. All about finding meaning apart from matter.

What was going on? I had a warped view of the Bible and thus, a truncated view of the cosmic renewal work of Jesus Christ in His life, death and resurrection.

I needed to get saved, and that was about it.

Warped view? My Bible and theology started with the Fall of Adam, not creation. I had the AW Pink cart before the Calvin horse. Sin loomed larger than God's creation. Sin was a broken down relationship with God---me first and only me, the-individual-person me first. That was what Jesus came to fix, to renew.

Truncated view? I was well-versed in my personal experience of conversion, like Acts 9 Damascus Road matters, but somehow Colossians 1, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1:15-22, and 1 Timothy 4:1-5 were avoided like anchovies. Jesus came to fix humans; again, me first. No new creation, only new creatures--men and women, and boys and girls. Jesus could only handle so much at Calvary, you know.

God's creation is good. Read Nancy Pearcy on this, “It becomes unclean only when sinners use it to express their rebellion against God. The line between good and evil is not drawn between one part of the creation and another part, but runs through the human heart itself--in our disposition to use the creation for good or for evil.”

Her quote from Gordon Clark brings in Christmas cheer too: “When Adam fell, it was the result of a rebellious will, and not because he had a body.”

Celebrations, memorials, anniversaries, fanfare, pageantry---you name it, there's to be doxology within contextual decorum of all kinds that get our glad attention.

The Bible does not begin with the Fall of Man but with Creation.

A bunch of us are going caroling tonight, maybe with candy canes and chocolate kisses to boot.

G. Mark Sumpter

Getters, Not Givers at Christmas...Hmmm

God's Giving of His Son Provides the Necessary Reminder: Man is First a Receiver, Then Second a Giver

In re-reading a part of his book, The Lord's Service, PCA pastor Jeff Meyers tells of the first-priority for man to remain a dependent receiver.

Pastor Meyers writes about public worship, “We have been told by well-meaning teachers, even otherwise Reformed theologians, that it is downright wrong to come to church in order to get something...Most of [the authors and teachers] define worship as what the people of God do, the work they perform on the Lord's Day, specifically the adoration, praise, and honor that they ascribe to God. This notion must not be permitted to go unchallenged. It is only half of the truth, and the second half at that. First, and above all, we are called together in order to get, to receive. This is crucial. The Lord gives; we receive.”

Meyers keeps our theology straight on this. He notes that there's a Pelagian camel's nose getting under the tent if we thoughtlessly affirm that man is first to give to God. Does man have strength to do this? Does he have ability to offer something to God? We're to keep the focus on God: He gives.

Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive?”

To elaborate, I found this quote at Michael Gorman's blog. It's from the Methodist Will Willimon. It's excellent application:

“I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story—the one according to Luke not Dickens—is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.

We prefer to think of ourselves as givers—powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we—with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities—had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was to receive it….

The first word of the church, a people born out of so odd a nativity, is that we are receivers before we are givers. Discipleship teaches us the art of seeing our lives as gifts. That’s tough, because I would rather see myself as a giver. I want power—to stand on my own, take charge, set things to rights, perhaps to help those who have nothing. I don’t like picturing myself as dependent, needy, empty-handed….

It’s tough to be on the receiving end of love, God’s or anybody else’s. It requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace, wrote John Wesley a long time ago….

This is often the way God loves us [referring to God's promise to King Ahaz of a baby, not a bigger army---Isaiah 7]: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies, government programs, material comforts and self-fulfillment techniques, we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.

Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are—empty-handed recipients of a gracious God who, rather than leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Anselm of Canterbury

Before the Close of 2009, Anselm Should be Remembered

Anselm, born in Italy in 1033, was blessed with a faithful mother who taught him the ways of God, and that was mainly through her own prayers. As a child being reared around the Italian Alps, he thought of God as above, high and exalted, much like the towering peaks before his eyes. But his young manhood years were not anguish-free. After his mother died, focus turned to his father. He quarreled with his dad, and evidently, the quarreling was over the proverbial concerns of his dad riding him about making something of his life. He ended up leaving home in his late teens.

He headed north and west into France by foot--can you imagine?--crossing the Alps! He nearly died in the trek. We might say that he literally stumbled onto the care of the local abbey of Lu Bec, near Rouen, France. While there in the area, he soon learned about the able French teacher of law, Lanfranc. Anslem made use of some money left to him after his father had passed away and was seated as a student.

Lanfranc soon learned that Anselm worked hard and within a few short years, the dividends paid off academically. This model student became known around the circles of Christian orthodoxy, and that led to a number of assignments: first, as a monk, then to the elevated service as a Prior, and eventually an Abbot. He ended up taking Lanfranc's position in Normandy.

From his letters in the years as an Abbot, we learn of his pastoral approach with respect to the concerns of fellow churchman. He also at this time began to turn to his first writing projects. He wrote his now-famous twin-works: The Monologium and The Proslogium. The Monologium takes up The Existence and Attributes of God. Famous proofs for the existence of God are noted. The Proslogium annotates his pursuit of explanation of various points of theology--he wanted to grow in the faithful understanding of orthodox doctrine. In the writing of his Proslogium, his signature theme surfaces: Faith Seeking Understanding. We hear that a lot in reformed theology. Faith submitting to the Word for understanding. The Word, in accord with the Holy Spirit, directs the thoughts and intellectual quests of man's understanding, not the reverse--not reason and rationality working it's way to faith!

As part of his work as Abbot, Anselm was summoned to England, and after a few urgings, became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093.

Here, at this post as Archbishop, Anselm's major contribution to the biblically conservative, evangelical faith emerged. It's his doctrine of Christ's atonement. His work, Cur Deus Homo, remains a reliable rule for the doctrine of the person and work of Christ to this day. The title is, Why God became Man? The book covers the importance of the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ for the sinner. It rests squarely on the biblical teaching of God's justice rightly due to fall on man as sinner. Sin requires judgment. Anslem explored the fact that God's righteous standard must be maintained, He cannot pardon sinners by lowering His requirements of holiness. He cannot turn and wink at the sinner, and He cannot let sin and justice dissolve. Sin is sin! Justice is justice! In order to satisfy the just reward of death, judgment and hell due to man's sin, someone--a genuine, authentic man--must satisfy and pay according to God's demand. God must be vindicated in keeping with the demands of His own holy nature. So, God became man--very God who became very man.

Christ's death was the penal acceptance offered to God in that He took on Himself the penalty of death, judgment and hell when He died. His death was God's appointed substitution in that He was the One who died for sinners, for us, when He was nailed to the cross. God's wrath must be turned away--we praise Him, for Jesus Christ covers our sin, and covers over the just wrath of God. By faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God pardons the sinner, accepts him and reckons him righteous because of the righteous record and satisfaction of Christ.

Anselm faithfully recovered this potent doctrine of the atonement. He corrected the teaching from the earlier work of the churchman, Origen (d. about 250 A.D.), who taught that Christ died paying a ransom to the devil. Origen viewed Satan as having legal authority over sinners, and in order to be freed from him, payment must be made to him.

Anslem died in April of 1109. He advanced the church's formulation of such essentials for historic backbone and biblical faith. We stand on his shoulders today.

G. Mark Sumpter

Out From the Shadow Lands

Minor Adjustments in Hospital Visitation Bring Huge Results

The patient had been eating like a bird since yesterday afternoon, and didn't want to work on her bedside physical therapy.

The nursing staff decided to get the chaplain's thoughts on the matter.

“We can't seem to make any progress with her, can you help; do you have any suggestions?”

The chaplain stopped in, and he noticed right away that the room was dreary-dark. He asked permission and pulled the curtains back. Within an hour or so, the patient asked for water and ice chips.

Two or three hours later: “Ma'am, do you think you'd like to take a walk? I'd be happy to ask the staff to walk you around the nurse's station?”

“Well...You know, I think, I might like that...but I think I'd like to start with a wheelchair ride first.”

“Yes ma'am, wow...yes...what was I thinking. Let's start with the wheelchair.”

It's the little things, the simplicity of minor adjustments, that show the practical, specific measures of care. Maybe it's the location of a tray, the placement of the phone, the provision of a deck of cards or some flowers and a card.

The minor things can move mountains for these folks who appear to be without hope. The changes in the little things are like dynamite breaking up the despair and depression.

G. Mark Sumpter

Gentle, Mixed Up Mary

Note on Luke 1:26-38 Gabriel with Mary

The practice of saving faith does not hinge on my up-bringing (I was taught the truths of God well in my home, I have well-worn thoughts on how to handle trouble and sin), or my attitudinal disposition (that is, I am given toward sensitivity to spiritual issues; I’m good at catching myself when I sin), nor, last, my habitual practice of keeping up with the spiritual disciplines (good…I’ve had my daily reading time, I feel like I can walk with the King). No. These are giving focus to one’s personal history, inclinations and practices. Do these leave room for God? No. Our trust leans on God alone, His works and His ways. God has accomplished His work for me in Jesus.

One practical thing on this: God kicks out from underneath you all the self-trust stilts of your walk, and He kicks out from underneath you righteous ladder climbing. Refuse to aim for a right, faithful diagnosis of your problems, doubts and sinful habits. Also, refuse to find salvation in your right understanding of how sanctification works. How change will come about…how you can rightly recognize the ups and downs of faithfulness and failure, and how if you only knew the timing of when sound, lasting godly change will finally arrive for you. Knowing and seeing these things are not saviors.

You see, a focus on your own abilities is that just, a focus on you. Redemption has been provided in Jesus Christ. The Father has glorified His Son; the work has been done.

For Mary, she had doubts, insecurities, and fears. It’s called unbelief. She did not understand the ways of God. She did not understand God’s choice to use the anticipated shame before the eyes of the Galilean public—with her coming out-of-wedlock-pregnancy. She did not see connections of God’s ways and God’s accomplishments. But the story ends, vs. 38, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

Submission calls for the demonstration of confidence in, and coming underneath, the sovereign power of the Lord God when all evidence is contrary to our understanding and expectations. He will work His work. He is faithful to His own Word and ways. Remember JC Ryle’s quote? “Faith never rests so calmly and peacefully as when it lays its head on the pillow of God’s omnipotence.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Tony and The Tiger

First Steps of Opportunity for Coach Dungy

Men who confess transgressions need hope, truth and grace. The only way Tiger will get out of the woods is by coming under the sound of the gospel and benefiting from God's appointed means of grace. The men who are orbiting in a certain oikos, God-ordained spheres of family and household-like realms, need to step up and attempt to be vessels of His message of mercy. Dungy and Woods orbit in similar spheres: sports, the public eye and they're men.

Mr. Tony Dungy has been walking in a profession of faith in Christ Jesus, he's spoken with wisdom and compassion regarding Michael Vick; and do you remember his words after accepting the Lombardi Trophy at the Super Bowl in 2007? Beyond words, Tony has demonstrated truth in action.

Tony and Tiger need to meet, and God willing, Tony can confront Tiger with the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

Are you praying for this oikos ministry?

John 1:38-49

They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour). One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

Now when Jesus looked at him, He said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah." You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone). The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Tony to Tiger: “Come and See.”

G.Mark Sumpter

Calling

Linking Verbs and My Pastoral Work

My Tuesdays start at Dark Thirty AM. That's right, it's the Martin Luther thing. German Reformer knee-mail. Remember when Luther said that he if has a milk run of a day he gets up extra early and prays for four hours? For me, it's the pray hard stuff getting ready for Classical Conversations tutoring. Four hours of Pepto Bismol, some pacing, a few cups of coffee, and then back to more pages of samples of Simple Sentences, Verb Linking with a Predicate Noun. Then a little more Pepto Bismol.

On Tuesday afternoons, I am privileged with four classically bodied students and their parents to express more of my calling as a pastor. Recently, [that's an -ly word sentence starter!] I've been born again as an Orthodox Presbyterian Minister. Let's get a brief word of some exegesis.

Back in August, after being asked to tutor four students in English Grammar and Writing, God met me. I was doing just fine on my own Damascus Road, thank you very much. He struck me down with Subject Nouns, Intransitive Verbs and Direct Objects.

"Sumpter, Sumpter, Pick up thy Subject and Predicate, and learn to write and speak My message well."

"Who are You, Word?"

"Go, I will show thee glorious gems of parts of speech."

I got up off the ground, was baptized with some training, and so, now, every Tuesday afternoon, I delight in Grammar and Writing for about two hours with tutoring. If only Mr. Heyworth and Mr. Harrison of Mears Junior High could see the fruit of their seed-sowing! Indeed, God is good.

I am learning to pastor God's World: stories of fancy and fun, and stories of history and Gospel. I am getting more and more sanctified with my earthy and earthly work with words. I remain confident that He who began a good word for me will carry it along, Quid et Quo and all, to the very end. My students are my helping verbs.

Tuesdays are the days I love to hate. It's the pastoral calling-like thing. "Sumpter, go, I am with you!"

It's the Lord's earth with all being His: words, complete sentences, pencils, diagramming, stories, Ancient History-Based Writing and Question Confirmation.

Jesus is God, and He is King. Compound Declarative, Subject-Verb Linking-Predicate Noun.

"Therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say."

Gulp.

G. Mark Sumpter