A Must Read in 2010

I have greatly profited from Bryan Chapell's book the past 6-7 years

“The early church robed adult believers in white after their baptisms. The garments did not indicate believers would never again sin. They signified the holiness of God provides despite our impurities. The robes covered an imperfect person. The implications remain vital for us today. We do not have to despair of ever attaining the perfection that would warrant God's acceptance. By recognizing the richness of his provision, we have the resources necessary to move forward in his service. We need never say, I can't do anything right. I always mess up. I have tried time and time again to live right and I always fail. If I try anything I will only look bad and get God mad, so why try? Some Christians are so afraid of stepping out of line that they never get in step with God. Fear of the loss of what little holiness they think they may have managed to scratch out in life has led to paralysis.”

Pick up the book, Holiness By Grace, and sit with Chapell at his table and dig in. This is from p. 202.

G. Mark Sumpter

Young Timothy Serving In Ephesus

God-reliance, not self-reliance, yet full-throttle initiative

In preparing 1 Timothy 4-5 this week, I am being fed by Expositor Donald Guthrie:

On Timothy's youthfulness... 1 Tim. 4:12...

“Although a young man, he was to excel in those very qualities in which youth is wont to be deficient--gravity, prudence, consideration for others, trustworthiness, mastery over the passions (Guthrie quoting E.F. Scott of Moffat's Commentary). In this way it would become evident to believers that in Christianity authority is contingent upon character and not age.”

Comment: The thing that always captures my heart about younger men serving in the church is there faithful, full-of-faith, less calculated initiative. Amen. There's a place for less calculation; in our scientific age, we want every dot over the I, and every T crossed. Somehow, older mentors need to encourage the full-throttle initiative, all the while urging young men to be God-reliant, teachable and staying within the touch of the wisdom of a mentor's years of service. Possible?

On the charge to Timothy to watch his doctrine and his life, 1 Tim. 4:16...

“Timothy is to ensure that what most impresses other people is his true Christian development, and not some lesser thing such as brilliance of exposition or attactiveness of personality... Moral and spiritual rectitude is an indispensable preliminary to doctrinal orthodoxy.”

Comment: One's life is the sermon ALWAYS being heard. Example, virtue, modeling and living out God's standard pack the punch and make impact with force for the attestation, confirmation and heart-conviction of truth. We always remember lives well lived in Christ Jesus.

The above quotes from Donald Guthrie in his Tyndale Commentary, The Pastoral Epistles, pp. 97, 99.

G. Mark Sumpter

From Boys to Men

The Day that Tretiak, the World's Star (Soviet) Goalie Sat Down

Here is Jim Craig standing in victory.

His counterpart the veritable iron curtain of a goaltender, Tretiak of the Russians, back on this date, sat down.

Near the very end of the first period of the Miracle Game at the Olympics between USA and the Russians, our player, Christian, blasted a long shot at Tretiak, and he blocked it rather easily and yet, he coughed up a rebound.

That's when American Mark Johnson spanked it in. There was controversy about the goal because it happened right near the time of the buzzer. After the officials conferred, the goal was confirmed a bona fide goal, and it was also ruled that there was one tick of the clock left for the end the first period.

The Soviets, who had skated off the ice for the intermission, thinking the period was over, were called back out for a faceoff. The one tick expired. But noticably absent was Vladislav Tretiak. He had been benched; the world's best goalie had been replaced by the Soviet's number two man. Wow.

Today marked the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Team's Miracle on Ice. The young Americans had upset the Soviet Union! Days later, TEAM USA won the gold medal at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY!!

I stopped over at the rink in Northeast Portland shortly thereafter and was beaming. It was a win that was way, way over the top.

My closest reach in trying to touch the 1980 Olympians was skating one scrimmage against Eric Stobel in 1976. Eric played forward for the Miracle Team. He's wearing number 19 in this picture above.

G. Mark Sumpter

Quote for Lent

Loved in Jesus Christ, United in Our Head and Savior!

“What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that HE KNOWS ME. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore when His care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates [i.e. does not lose force]—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good.

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.

There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and I am glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that He knows us.”

From J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, p. 37 IVP

40 days before Easter, Amen! Lent is a forty-day season before the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb. It begins today on Ash Wednesday, and we reflect on the days of the wilderness-temptation scene of our Lord’s life and ministry. The Sundays are not counted in the forty day period, because each Sunday memorializes the historical reality of His Resurrection. Lent ends on April 3, 2010, the day before Easter.

G. Mark Sumpter

Fatal Attraction

Why We Need Faithful Story-Telling, Story-Thinking

OK. I think a head-gasket just blew. Listen to this quote from the great book, Science and Grace—God’s Reign in the Natural Sciences from Crossway Books.

The authors are talking about the place of the study of science within the story of God’s Hand in day to day providence and His Hand of special revelation: that is, His story of Jesus Christ—born, lived, died and raised. Here we go, Science and Grace, pp. 168-170:

“Our Modernist-shaped instincts lead us to assume that science is and should be exclusively about the ‘seen,’ and the material ‘stuff’ of the universe. But the story is being played out—is being gestated and demonstrated—in both the seen and the unseen, and if science is a part of that story, it must be pursued with both the seen and unseen in view….[This] story metaphor can also help us resist the dominance of reductionism—the idea that we are only making progress in understanding the universe when we break it down into smaller and smaller components isolated from the whole.

Story-thinking forces the relationship nature of created being and rich conception of its contingency to the forefront of the discussion…[this] contingency of the universe is based on a moment-by-moment dependency in past, present and future tense. This dependency is not just interesting background information, but is held to be an integral element of what the universe really is. Created being has its existence and meaning only in relation to its Author and Sustainer and the story He intends to tell in and through it. This Author doesn’t stand outside the story but actually enters into it in the incarnation of the Son and by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Individual characters and settings have real existence and significance in themselves, but they cannot be isolated from the story itself without loss of meaning and significance and even a diminishment of their reality.

In the providence of God, the characters would not be the same without the story, and the story would not be the same without the specific characters. In view of this it makes no sense to contend that if we want to really get to know a character in the story, some feature of nature, we must first try to isolate the character entirely from the story. It makes no sense to contend that a true understanding of the story is advanced by focusing on isolated parts without at some point considering each part in context of the whole or that we want to understand the story better, we will consciously try not to pay attention to the Author’s ‘notes’ and His commentary concerning the structure of the story and His purposes in telling it.”

I am humbled by the goodness and skill of these two authors, Mr. Morris and Mr. Petcher. Over the years, I have thought that by getting down to greater and greater specificity that I am getting deeper and deeper into truth. I am one who gravitates to the study of bits and pieces; for example, in the study of God’s Word, I customarily think that in isolating those bits and pieces, I am somehow digging into deep stuff. I have worked from a wrong assumption: that the small bits contain the really, really important stuff, and I have missed the power of context, the relationality of truths—the place of story. I have missed God’s way of the comprehensive cosmic context. I have missed the meaning of the parts by ripping them out of the context of the beauty and power of the whole!

With this in mind, it is the doctrine of the Trinity to the rescue once again! There is only one true God. This one true God exists as three distinct persons. Each person is fully divine. The Father works of himself, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. The One and the Many: Particularity and Wholeness.

G. Mark Sumpter

Light Shining in the Darkness, 1 Samuel 24

Like Two Heavy Weights in the Ring, Saul and David, in the Cave at En Gedi

The Gospel of John tells us: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. See John 1:5.

David has the opportunity to pounce on Saul, to snuff out the Lord's anointed one in the dark, dark cave at En Gedi. It's a cave, Saul is cornered. It's a cave, Saul is alone. It's a cave, Saul has dropped his pants to take care of business. It's a cave, a picture perfect place for his burial.

Has God's providence set the table or what?!! Jump on it, David!

David's own men, as well, chime in; they are in the cave with him saying, This is the Day! (see 1 Samuel 24:4) One writer suggests they were singing like Sunday school kids, This is the day, This is the day that the Lord has made...

But the darkness does not overtake the light; the light conquers all!

David spares the life of Saul. Rather than acting with man-originated answers to take care of his troubles, to take vengeance, he seeks God's way for the coming of the kingdom.

Here is yet one more story of David learning patience. Ten years of learning patience! David entrusted himself to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23).

G. Mark Sumpter

Jonathan Edwards With Adolescence on His Hands Too, Part II

A Form of Adolescence found in Early 1700s New England, way before Stanley Hall’s 1905 “Adolescence”

Also from a bit earlier in the book….

“Edwards’ most lengthy exposition in his catalogue of vices had to do, predictably, with the indulgences of the young. The fault lay first with all parents. Family government and education, the keystone of the old Puritan social system, had fallen badly in decline. Parents, he observed, were reacting against what they felt were too strict upbringings.

The most notorious result was the ‘amazing’ impurities tolerated among the young in recent years. Not only was lasciviousness encouraged by nightwalking and similar frivolities, but New England parents allowed practices of ‘bundling’ in which parents allowed young people to spend the night in bed together partly clothed…

...Bundling, which was supposed to be a way of getting acquainted without sexual intercourse, did not always work as advertised. Pregnancies before marriage were rising dramatically in New England. Even in well-churched Northampton, where premarital pregnancies were rarer than in some parts of the region, the figure had recently risen to one in ten first children born within eight months of marriage. Premarital sex was commonplace. Even when it resulted in pregnancy, so long as the couple married, there was no longer much stigma involved.” pp. 130-131

From, Jonathan Edwards—A Life by George Marsden, Yale University Press, 2003

G. Mark Sumpter

Jonathan Edwards With Adolescence on His Hands Too, Part I

A Form of Adolescence found in Early 1700s New England, way before Stanley Hall’s 1905 “Adolescence”

“The social conditions for young people in western New England had become trying. Families were large, five to nine children on average. During the seventeenth century the town of Northampton had distributed open land to sons as they came of age. That practice, plus scattering tracts and maintaining meadows for common cultivation, had provided a strong economic base for the communalism integral to the Puritan cultural ideal. But after 1705, there was no more land available in the township except some distributed in 1730 to encourage a new settlement at Southampton, about eight miles away…

…With no new land available, young people were living with their parents. While that did not necessarily cause economic deprivation—farms might prosper from having extra family laborers—it did change social patterns. Young people were postponing marriage about three years longer than had their parents, so there the average age of marriage was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine for men and twenty-five for women.

Young people from their mid-teens until their late twenties were likely to be in this in-between situation. They lived in villages with communal structures, but they were not as likely to be participating responsibly in the community as their grandparents had at the same age…

…As Edwards’ sermons against frolicking made clear, unmarried sons and daughters were under the authority of their parents, but—not surprisingly—parental rule was hardly working as he would have liked. For many young people, the official expectation that they postpone all sexual activity until marriage and the disparity between that standard and their actual sexual practices helped to create a sense of guilt…” pp. 158-159

From, Jonathan Edwards—A Life by George Marsden, Yale University Press, 2003

G. Mark Sumpter

Princely Nurture of Children

From the Dutch Hall of Fame--the Berkhof, De Jong, et al Crowd

“We assume that our covenant children have been adopted into the family of the King of Kings--as such they must be given a princely, royal education.”

From Y. P. De Jong and his, God's Covenant with Man

A princely, royal education?

My guess, Y.P. DeJong, did not intend to accent princely and royal as specific points of methodology for our educational nurture of children. But the royal motif fits suitably.

Just as Israel had her centerpiece of worship regulating all of life, and just as that worship was founded on the regiment and nurture of liturgics---I am speaking of the practice of the royal-priestly life and duties of Aaron and his sons---so all of life today moves and has its being in the shadow of priestly nurture, training and modeling.

Tabernacle privilege and parenting are partners. In what way?

First, Aaron and the sons of the Levitical trade, with worship and life, were word and deed oriented. As to the word, Aaron was the assistant of Moses, to be his mouthpiece, with his royal word orientation; and as to deed, Aaron and his sons handled (or mishandled) the censor, oil and other tabernacle, priestly practices. In miniature, the royal-priestly model of tabernacle life and work of the Old Testament was all-of-life encompassing. Words and deeds sandwiched with worship make for a life lived to the glory of God. Worship and work, worship and family, worship and civil matters, and on and on. Father Aaron and his sons provided this method of nurture.

Second, all of the tribes of Jacob camped around the perimeter of the tabernacle, and Numbers 2 tells us: they faced the worship of God. Things were centered on the Lord's presence and His morning-afternoon-evening services of worship. Therefore, every Israelite, with his and her eyes, ears and hands, took cues from Aaron and his sons. It reinforced Deuteronomy 6: nurture and education was an every day, all day devotion, and a matter for all of life. Whether rising up, lying down, walking along the way or busy at the household chores, children were enveloped for instruction and tutelage. Aaron showed the way.

De Jong may have meant simply loftiness and excellence by his comment about princely and royal education for covenant children, but they mark out a robust charter for our worship-based, promise-grounded and all-of-life nurture for our homes. Being children of the King of Kings necessitates training based on tabernacle life. Aaron homeschooled his sons, such royal and priestly training provides the platform for our high calling for today. It's more of the God's Kids, God's Way thing.

HT: the quote above from the Bergeron family, a Classical Conversations family.

G. Mark Sumpter

Kamloops Hockey, One More Time

C.J. Stretch, a Hot-Shot Forward for the Kamloops Blazers, Reflects Back

Go here to read the 20-year old's take on the road trip his club just completed. His comments include words about the game on February 3, when several of us from Grants Pass cheered him on.

Part of his comments give a shout about his SPECIAL fans!

Fun stuff!

G. Mark Sumpter

Rolling Up the Sleeves

God's Total Book for Telling it All, for Telling it Well

This is vintage Alan Bloom on the unraveling of the centrality of the Bible for all in American life:

“In the United States, practically speaking, the Bible was the only common culture, one that united simple and sophisticated, rich and poor, young and old, and--as the very model for a vision of the order of the whole of things, as well as the key to the rest of Western art, the greatest works of which were in one way or another responsive to the Bible--provided access to the seriousness of books. With its gradual and inevitable disappearance, the very idea of such a total book and the possibility and necessity of world-explanation is disappearing.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Born to Reproduce

Will you speak to others for Jesus Christ?

“...Satan puts all his efforts into getting the Christian busy, busy, buy, but not producing.

Men, where is you man? Women, where is your woman? Where is the one whom you led to Christ and who is now going on with Him?

...The curse today is that we are too busy. I am not talking about being busy earning money to buy food. I am talking about being busy doing Christian things. We have spiritual activity with little productivity.”

This is lights out theology from the Navigators founder, Dawson Trotman.

G. Mark Sumpter

Careless, Untutored Queen

The Volume Turned Up on Shall and Will

About four weeks ago at Classical Conversations, I overheard a mild debate over the proper grammatical use of shall.

Someone pinpointed it: Wow, if we abide by traditional grammar on the use of shall, then maybe Queen has misled a whole generation!

Here are the words to their 1977 legend:

Aah
Buddy you're a boy make a big noise
Playin' in the street gonna be a big man some day
You got mud on yo' face You big disgrace
Kickin' your can all over the place Singin'

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

Question: Does Queen get it wrong with the chorus, We will, we will rock you?

Traditional grammar says,

“For formal English, there is a rule which states that in the Simple Future, the auxiliary shall should be used in the first person, and the auxiliary will should be used in the second person and third person. Like the auxiliary will, the auxiliary shall is a modal auxiliary. Thus, in formal English, the Simple Future of the verb to work may be conjugated as follows:

I shall work

you will work

he will work

she will work

it will work

we shall work

they will work”

The future tense in the first person, we, takes shall, and that indicates simple futurity. Queen, therefore, should have used shall. However, grammarians also say will is permitted when stating a promise, intent, or obligation.

Were they singing about something more than simple futurity? If they were promising to rock, intending to rock, then Queen was in the right.

About 45 minutes ago, someone on KLDR radio Grants Pass torqued the volume on the Queen tune, and it reminded me of the will/shall discussion.

The writer and humorist, James Thurber, wrote: “Men who use shall west of the Appalachians are the kind who twirl canes and eat ladyfingers.”

G. Mark Sumpter

Worship, Trust, Covenant Life

Deliberate Order in Hebrews 2:12-13?

He is not ashamed to call them brethren,

12 saying: “ I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

13 And again: “I will put My trust in Him.”

And again: “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.”

14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16 For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham.

Does the writer offer a focused pattern of his instruction in this text? It seems so. He moves from our Lord's presence with His people in worship, vs. 12; then to a general affirmation of Christ's trust, vs. 13a, and then back to worship, His being close in identifying with His people, vs. 13b.

There's the centrality of worship, first; take note, Jesus is singing with His people, and then the outflow of faith and faith's life with others--He's not ashamed of worship and life with His children.

The passage shows the pace-setting grid of worship; Jesus Himself took on this pattern. He gave focus on His Father, and then focus on His brethren.

It is worship that provides influential life-training and discipleship.

G. Mark Sumpter

A Poem From Our Number Three Boy

For Logos School

Jesus School

It might come as a surprise but Logos is in

The business of healing the sick.

Healing is a high calling;

It’s what Jesus did most of his life.

Although, when he worked,

He didn’t have the air-conditioning

Or the polished basketball court

And the people he healed

Didn’t wear ties and jackets

Or skirts and blue sweater vests.

But none of that bothered Jesus;

He simply walked all over the country side

Like he owned the place

Telling people what to do:

Telling the blind to see walking trees,

Telling the lame to run the mile,

Telling the deaf to hear His disciples,

Who seemed to enjoy counting all those baskets of loaves and fish.

He even told the dead to open their eyes

And roll out bed

So they wouldn’t be late for school.

And yes, back in the day, Jesus was a student too.

He even attended a Greek class taught by the Apostle John

And on the first day of classes John told him:

“Jesus, in Greek class, your name is Logos.”

And it stuck.

So, here we are today, Jesus School,

Where the hungry are fed,

Where the crooked handwriting is made straight,

And where Mr. Garfield and Mr. Whitling sit with

First and Second graders at lunch time

Just like Jesus, who feasted with little boys

Who ran around at recess using sticks for guns.

And it’s the same everyday:

The ears of the deaf are opened to hear the Holy Sonnets.

The eyes of the blind are taught to see Classical Allusions.

The mute’s tongue is loosed to give a Confirmatio.

The feet of the lame are taught to run in Lacrosse.

The hands of the cripple are taught to shoot free throws.

And the bodies of the dead are given new life.

Jesse teaches at Logos Christian School in Moscow, Idaho. HT from his blog, The Descending Blue.

G. Mark Sumpter

Hold Me

Some Background Reading on Overcoming Sinful Fear

The words, “Fear not” appear one hundred times in the Bible. This doesn't mean there are no real and present dangers in our lives—things that are sensible to fear. What it does mean is that God does not want us to be immobilized by fear. Instead, He wants us to trust His presence, His love, His protection, and His sovereignty over our fearful circumstances. He wants us to focus on His promises rather than on the circumstances that terrify us. He knows just what we can bear. He also knows how much each difficult situation will stretch us and deepen our faith in Him.

From Vickie Kraft and her Titus 2:4 Ministry.

G. Mark Sumpter

OPC High Tech in the Nick of Time

Peter Lee OPC Pastor in Maryland Preaching On Facebook

Today the Washington, D.C. area is digging out of the ginormous blizzard of 2010. Some areas are reporting anywhere from 25 to 40 inches of snow! OPC pastor, Peter Lee, in the Riverhill area of Howard County, just outside of Columbia, MD has a 7 1/2 minute feed of video of preaching God's Word. He's ministering to his parishioners of Living Hope OPC who are experiencing a forced sabbath--they're staying home due to the white stuff.

G. Mark Sumpter

Listening Skills

The Wisdom of Listening Well

Listening is an active labor, a learned skill, not a passive silence as though two were taking turns at the same game. False listening is waiting for the other to finish; good listening is waiting on the other while he or she speaks, as good servants, with intense attention, wait on their employers. It is a busy service.

From the book, As For Me and My House by Walter Wangerin, Jr. p. 166

G. Mark Sumpter

Skateboarding with Rollo May

The Influence of Humanism Abounds, Watch Out

Back in 1969 and 70, I can remember riding my skateboard from Spenard, the airport area of Anchorage, to downtown. I guess I was probably 12 or 13. Usually it would be an early Saturday morning, obviously in the summer time.

I went downtown to browse the books at the Book Cache on 4th Avenue. I remember walking the aisles in the philosophy section and picking up Rollo May. I really didn’t follow his presentation much, but I liked his pithy quotes. For some reason I was drawn to sentimental, gooey philosophy and psychology. It’s a bit stunning to think what influences 12 and 13 year olds.

Here are some of his quotes from the internet.

Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness. Rollo May

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. Rollo May

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Rollo May

Depression is the inability to construct a future. Rollo May

Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves. Rollo May

Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is. Rollo May

Wikipedia informs us that May graduated from Union Theological Seminary of New York in 1938 with a Bachelor of Divinity. So, his later psychology stems from mixtures of religion and philosophy. Union has reeked with humanism since the days of the German critical influence on its Bible department (1870s-1890s). What does this mean? Essentially, the Bible is a product of the human mind.

Theologian Paul Tillich, one of Rollo May’s teachers at Union, for example, taught that the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is impossible, but the story of Christ rising from the dead restores dignity to Him. After all, remember all the good things Jesus did. It makes a useful, helpful conclusion to His story. Good feelings and human concerns get a measure of satisfaction if in your mind His rising from the dead is true. People of this sort think it to be true, and so, if it’s true in your mind, put your thoughts down into a story. That’s what the apostles did, Tillich taught.

The apostles had lived with Jesus for the three years. When He was arrested, crucified and buried in the tomb they knew Him as He was. So, in order to have the dignity of Christ restored in their own thinking, and in order to have a message for the world around them, the apostles produced gospels and letters (the NT).

Writing the stories about Jesus was good, and it was a help with the concerns, anxieties and needs of the apostles. It is theology based on feeling, not statements of historical truth.

If you go back over the quotes by May, you’ll see this liberal theology unpinning. May wants to weave personal quests, adventure and purpose into humanitarian effort, being wishful and hopeful. It’s about getting more and more into yourself in order to find a story that satisfies your anxieties. It’s meaning found within.

So, back there at that time in Anchorage, a 12 or 13 year old was poking a nose into some of Rollo May’s writings trying to find answers to anxieties and concerns.

Man too readily looks inward for help. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 16:25.

G. Mark Sumpter

How Worship Liturgy Helps with Parenting

A Lord's Day Handbook for Practical Parenting

Wise parents search continually for help and encouragement, for counsel and guidance, and maybe we've been overlooking a glorious gift from God that is right under our nose each Lord's Day. Fathers and mothers are sitting on the proverbial gold mine with lessons for nurture and training from public worship.

Just as the force of gravity provides energy—pulling objects toward the ground, whether we've planned it that way or not—so worship provides energy for parental nurture. By faith, this energy can be harnessed for godliness, for world-and-life-view training for our children and youth.

Worship as Dialog

Perhaps you've heard of the dialogical principle of worship. Parents, you might explain it to your children as the friendship principle of worship. God speaks to his people, and then we respond. Like two friends, God and his people take turns speaking and listening through the parts or elements of public worship. He welcomes us and tells us who he is and what he has done…(for complete article)

G. Mark Sumpter

Trust and Obey as a Son

Obedience showing faith and faith showing obedience: like a child serving his father

God summoned Adam to walk in faith, to live out of the communion he enjoyed with his God and Father. Notice Calvin’s own point about proving out, showing forth, the gift of faith that he already had. Calvin’s words are helpful with respect to holding together the notions of Adam’s sonship-walk and a test of his faith, the probation at the tree in the Garden.

Calvin writes:
“We must, therefore, look deeper than sensual intemperance. The prohibition to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a trial of obedience, that Adam, by observing it, might prove his willing submission to the command of God. For the very term shows the end of the precept to have been to keep him contented with his lot, and not allow him arrogantly to aspire beyond it. The promise, which gave him hope of eternal life as long as he should eat of the tree of life, and, on the other hand, the fearful denunciation of death the moment he should taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, were meant to prove and exercise his faith.”

16th Century French Reformer, John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.1.4

G. Mark Sumpter