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If we want to make the Biblical Gospel real for men and women in the church, especially regarding discipleship, a very important question that we would have to ask about the books of the Bible that specialize in gender relations, particularly the Wisdom Books and especially the Song of Solomon, would be this: Are the Wisdom Books worthy of preaching and worthy of our use for discipleship? Plenty of Christians, godly professing Christians and pastors, are divided on this matter. Some pastors do very scarce preaching of the Song of Songs, and they rarely touch the Wisdom Books except for Ecclesiastes and Psalms. This approach corresponds with men and women relating awkwardly between each other and struggling to make the Gospel practical between each other. Other pastors do a very allegorical approach to the Wisdom Books, especially the Song of Solomon. These pastors rightly highlight Christ as the central focus of these books. But often men and women don’t receive practical instruction for wise interactions between each other. And still other pastors are just frozen stiff about how to understand and treat the Wisdom Books, and therefore these books are left aside almost as an afterthought to the canonicity of Scripture.
This blog article continues the sermon series from my pastor Scott Seaton of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) on the book of Exodus, regarding the Lord’s use of weak and deficient believers to serve the Lord’s purposes. I should also note here that I plan to blog other sermons that Scott does down the road on other books of the Bible or other topic series for his church Emmanuel.
I was reading the first book of Chronicles last week, and I got to the passage of David and the troops watching over Israel that went forth as portions of twenty-four thousand troops. I read about Ephraim being one of the names mentioned among the troops. And I got to thinking about the doctrine of new birth, of Christians being born again in Christ, in the Gospel message, and the spiritual warfare of that new birth consisting of putting away our false desires for control in the church, and putting away false desires for control over culture.
“ . . . ‘And as for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcass of them shall be unclean until the even. And whosoever beareth aught of the carcass of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even. The carcasses of every beast which divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted, nor cheweth the cud, are unclean unto you: every one that toucheth them shall be unclean. And whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean unto you: whosoever toucheth their carcass shall be unclean until the even. And he that beareth the carcass of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you.’
. . . The defiled remained unclean ‘until the even,’ . . . even after washing their clothes. The washing of the clothes plainly represents the cleansing in the blood of Jesus. The pollution is washed away by Christ’s death, applied to them by the Spirit. But why, then, remain unclean ‘until even’? . . . [In] truth it is not till next morning that his complete deliverance is apparent to all. It is at the resurrection-morning – after both evening and night is past – that it is undeniably evident that all effects of yesterday’s defilement are gone. He can now enter the dwelling of the righteous; he can go up to the sanctuary; he can stand in the holy hill.
This blog article is my intended substitute article for the article of sermon notes that I would normally write after Sunday worship services at my home church Emmanuel. This past Sunday, I was working for hall patrol of the nursery and children’s education rooms for Emmanuel as part of my community group’s hosting of the Sunday worship service at Emmanuel. My pastor Scott Seaton is preaching through the book of Exodus on God’s covenant promises, God’s family-bond promises, for His believers, and our response of worship out of the foundation of Christ to God as our welcoming Father. I plan on resuming the blogging series on Scott’s sermons next week.
I have profited much from reading through the book of Joshua this year. One passage of Joshua sticks out in my mind as a very practical passage for witnessing the Gospel in major metropolitan cities (as Arlington is becoming): the servant leader Joshua’s dispersion of the inherited lands to the tribes of Israel by lot, from the third lot onward. This passage of the book of Joshua got me thinking about Jesus’ priestly grace, and God the Father’s adoptive grace at the cross of Jesus, God the Son, for believers, and how this impacts the church’s relationship with cities.
As a follow-up to the recent blog article I did on the saving grace and common grace of the Gospel, I decided to update my summer reading list and share my books with blog readers. Some books are fiction novels for reading pleasure. A couple of books are for spiritual growth in the Gospel, especially for resting with the Lord and worshipping the Lord on Sundays.
For summer fiction, I decided to order some new books to read during the course of each weekday. I plan on reading six books on a weekly basis, one book for each day. And I plan to read them in the mornings and evenings as part of soaking in the themes of the stories during the course of each day.
This blog article continues the sermon series that my pastor Scott Seaton of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) is doing through the book of Exodus, on God’s reassurance and covenantal grace in the Gospel for His believers. I write about the sermon from yesterday; but next Sunday, I will in all likelihood not be able to copy down notes from the sermon for blogging the sermon. I have to do hall patrol for the nursery and children’s classrooms of Emmanuel as part of my community group’s hosting of the worship service of Emmanuel. Yes, that means I get to wear the little orange chest belt that kindergarten patrols use to help kids cross the street at Barrett Elementary School. We at Emmanuel are truly dedicated to our city!
“ . . . It would be hard having so many fears not to be angry with people, circumstances, and God. . . . Suppose one’s life is filled with this kind of haunting insecurity and nagging guilt. It’s easy to want to find emotional relief and comfort in bodily pleasures, and for men this often means sexual fantasies, etc., which can confirm him in his judgment that he is worthless. . . . He just thinks insecurity, and the key to his thinking is found in his whole mind-set which even plans as though he were an orphan. To replace this mind-set is entirely possible. I do it almost every day in my whole life. But what I do is different in one crucial way: I reject this negativistic thinking as unbelief and claim my relationship with God as my Father through faith in Jesus Christ.
I go to the Gospels and read and read until I find myself full of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I read Hebrews 11, which tells how the people of faith passed through many dark times. Though they have my weaknesses, they also show me how faith can triumph. Personally I do not see anyone as a special case with special problems.
Growing up, I read a ton of books – basically, whatever I could get my mitts on and understand. I would spend hours on end after elementary school and on the weekends perusing whatever old and scarcely read books were available that I could discover and call my own, and no one else’s. I wore out a couple of library cards getting dozens of books and tiring out the librarians with checkouts. To give you an idea of my nerd youth: I didn’t settle on the Disney version of Pinocchio – I had to get the old Italian hardback with the difficult translated Italian text. At age six.
This blog article continues the sermon series that Scott Seaton, my pastor at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Arlington, is preaching from the book of Exodus, concerning God’s character and identity and gracious promises for His believers. I have thought to blog this sermon series using both my actual notes taken during Scott’s sermons and the audio recordings on the sermons whenever these recordings are available from Emmanuel.
