This just in from the National Post:

BABY PAYS IF LEAVE TOO BRIEF: STUDY: “Women who rush back to work after giving birth may do so at their baby’s peril, suggests a new Canadian study that fuels the emotional debate over career versus parenthood.

The less time a new mother stays off the job, the more likely her child’s motor and social development will be impaired, University of British Columbia researchers concluded. The analysis of federal survey data underlines the importance of government-funded maternity leaves, but does not mean mothers should avoid work outside the home, says Dr. Rebecca Sherlock, the neonatology specialist at the BC Children’s and Women’s Health Centre who spearheaded the research.

[The results] could be used from a public health or policy perspective to say ‘We need to fund women to stay at home longer with their kids,’ ‘ she said. ‘I hope that what wouldn’t be drawn from my conclusions is that all women should just drop their jobs and stay home … When I found what I found, I thought, ‘Oh, God, I hope this isn’t used by some ultra-conservative politician.’ ‘”

No of course not… and you aren’t letting conservative preachers read the paper, too, are you?

What a shocker. If mom spends more time with the kids, they develop better. Who knew?

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

CTV.ca | Multiple bodies found in Victoria, B.C. home: “Multiple bodies found in Victoria, B.C. home”

Not good. Just heard it on the news… Nobody we know, I don’t think, but certainly shocking for sleepy Victoria.

While readying myself to launch a new series in the book of Romans, I am taking a few weeks preaching some material from a book by Wayne Mack, A Homework Manual for Biblical Living, vol. 2. The outline is called “God’s way of Bringing Up Children”. I am essentially stealing the outline, filling it out and personalizing it, and broadening the application to making disciples of any age, including raising children.

The first message in this mini-series was entitled “Pass It On“, taking its theme from the word ‘paideia’ in Eph 6.4 and its text as Dt 6. In this message I focussed on the “How?” of making disciples by answering: by personal integrity in instruction. Dt 6 calls on the nation Israel to love the Lord with all their hearts, and then to instruct their children. Thus the application for discipleship is first of all to be a disciple yourself. Make God the center of your life. While doing so, instruct diligently [while walking, sitting, lying down and rising, i.e., as a natural outflow of every aspect of your life], with a wary eye cast on your surroundings and your attitude lest you stumble in your own discipleship, and to instruct patiently, as your sons come to you with many questions. To sum up this ‘how’ of discipleship, it means to instruct by personal spiritual integrity, by diligent public expression, and by purposeful preparation. [Come to think of it, that last sentence would have made a good outline. If you check my outline linked above, you will see that I was aiming for that outline, but didn’t quite express it that way.]

In our afternoon service, we celebrated our monthly communion service. I preached the second message in a new communion series (begun last month) from Leviticus. I didn’t post a link to last month’s message: An Acceptable Sacrifice, so there it is. This month, our message came from the same chapter, with the title: An Offering Made by Fire. I emphasized four ideas from the burnt offering with this message: Finding acceptance of offering and offeror [peace with God under God’s terms]; Propitiating God’s wrath with an offering of a ‘sweet savour’ [found in the complete destruction of the offering]; Atoning for the sins of the worshipper by the payment of a ransom; and Substituting the victim for the person of the worshipper, making fellowship with God possible.

There are many instructive ideas for our fellowship with God to be found in the Law. It is well worth study and contemplation. It can be very sobering, as we consider the full implications of bloody sacrifice.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Human-animal embryo study wins approval | Science | The Guardian: “Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government’s fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were ‘at ease’ with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.”

Since a majority is ‘at ease’ … we need seek no higher standard, eh?

I follow a blog by Michael A. G. Haykin. He is extremely Calvinistic, but seems to have a very good understanding of history. As such he is interesting to read.

Today he posts on the reasons for his move from the Toronto Baptist Seminary (where he has been Principal for the last four years) to Southern Seminary in Louisville. TBS is the school founded by T. T. Shields, housed in the Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto. TBS would certainly have been in the fundamentalist orbit in the past, I don’t think one would consider it such today.

Dr. Haykin in his post offers these words as an assessment of the situation of orthodox Christianity in Canada, and I don’t think he has in view the positions of fundamentalists, but rather of the more conservative Baptists in Canada.

Historia Ecclesiastica: “Thinking of a move, as I have noted above, has not been easy. I love Ontario and I know, after twenty-five years of teaching in this province, the great need we have for solid theological education. In a word, the churches need a school that is deeply committed to orthodoxy, yet fully in touch with the culture. Not an easy thing to be.

“All too often, it is one or the other: conversant with the culture and out of step with Scriptural realities, or rooted in biblical orthodoxy but fighting old battles that most people no longer remember. As Luther is reported to have once said: if we are fighting and skirmishing where the enemy is not attacking, we are failing to truly fight the war.

“And more than ever I believe we need to be committed to networking and the need to labour alongside those who stand for the same core truths that we love. The absolute independency that some in this province prize is, in my opinion, the high road to impotency. To be sure, if we need to stand alone when others are caving in to theological error and the passing fads of theologia, then stand alone we must. Dare to be a Daniel, as we have long sung. But all too often this translates into a pettiness and a refusal to work with others unless they see utterly everything our way. Without sacrificing theological integrity we need to find essentially like-minded brothers and sisters and labour side by side.“

These sentiments seem to me to be something of what Bob Bixby calls ‘the emerging middle‘. There is this anxious desire for something of a less contentious, but still orthodox theological position. It is the viewpoint of the ‘young fundamentalist’.

The tension between being ‘deeply committed to orthodoxy, yet fully in touch with the culture’ is the evangelical proposition. This IS the issue between fundamentalism and evangelicalism in the 1950s and continues to be the issue today. The evangelical answer to the question is to stand on the ‘in touch with culture’ side of the divide and the fundamentalist answer is to stand on the ‘a pox on culture’ side of the divide.

Dr. Haykin rightly observes the dangers of both answers. On the one hand is to be so culturally ‘hip’ that truth, Christ, and Scripture are left by the wayside, with nods of appreciation and protestations of loyalty. On the other hand is the danger of a descent into another world, where petty personal issues become the crusades of the day.

There are Christians on both sides of the question who don’t fall into the traps their answers risk. I don’t think anyone would seriously question the doctrinal orthodoxy of the current crop of conservative evangelicals the young fundamentalists love so much. That would mean men like Mohler, Dever, MacArthur et al. At the same time, there are men who answer the dividing question with fundamentalist answers. Their orthodoxy is unquestioned, of course, and there is some concession by the young fundamentalist that these, at least, have not strayed into the realm total cultural irrelevancy or descended (too deeply) into petty divisions. In this category we would find names like Bauder and Doran, perhaps.

Those who advocate for the ’emerging middle’ seem to think that parties on both sides of this divide are changing and a new reality is emerging. I don’t see that happening at all. The divide remains. Those answering the question as evangelicals are committed to the evangelical answer to the question.

A change, nevertheless, is occurring. The change is among those wearing the fundamentalist label. Many among them (many of them young, hence the term) are changing their answer to the dividing question. The evangelicals remain evangelicals still. There is still a tendency to make some kinds of concessions to outsiders (more liberal Christians or even the world) in order to remain ‘in touch’ with culture.

You can find examples of these concessions in many evangelical commentaries. They make nuanced statements on some areas of orthodoxy to show that they ‘get it’ and are not so dogmatic as to insist, for example, that John wrote the gospel of John, or that it is possible that Moses’ mother was a woman of exceedingly advanced age before she had children. In discussing the ‘saints’ of this age, they are willing to concede that the works of unbelievers should be ‘admired on their own merits’, all the while criticising their false doctrine. [See this blog by Rick Phillips on Mother Teresa for an example.]

The emerging middle is not a middle. It is a change by those formerly associated with fundamentalism towards evangelicalism. In time, it will be simply that. Fundamentalism will be abandoned, evangelicalism embraced. Those heading in that direction expect fundamentalism to be shattered by these changes, I suspect.

For myself, I really am not all that interested in being ‘in touch with culture’. The culture of this world has nothing to offer in terms of spiritual value. I think we should understand culture in order to understand people, but we should be preaching against the corrosive influence of culture that deadens the soul to spiritual things and we should be calling people out of the culture of this age into a true discipleship of Jesus Christ.

May God grant us the wisdom to do just that.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I have been thinking about this article for the last couple of days:

Cyber Sexuality – Newsletter – ChristianityTodayLibrary.com: “According to Dr. Mark Laaser, director of the Christian Alliance for Sexual Recovery, ‘Historically we would have said women are addicted to romance novels or women are addicted to chat rooms,’ but that’s changing. The number of women hooked on pornography and other ‘more behavioral ways of acting out’ are dramatically rising. Our culture and what we spend our time thinking about are literally changing the way our brains are wired. As a result ‘women are getting rewired to be more visual and aggressive’ and they’re ‘acting out in direct ways.’

This rewiring—which happens in men as well—is changing us neurochemically and neuroanatomically, says Dr. Laaser. And it’s not only through repeated exposure to sexual imagery on TV, in advertising, or online. The primary agent of this mental transformation is due to how we use our minds: what we spend our time thinking about, fantasizing about, and meditating on. Our brains and thoughts are molded by what we surf for, how we chat, and what we write. This negative transformation is the diametric opposite (and dramatic fulfillment) of the principles found in Romans 12:1-2.”

The thing you meditate on tends to dominate your value system and way of life. This article is a negative example of how crucial it is to spend a great deal of time reading and thinking about God’s Word.

The last two years our church spent a good deal of time reading the Bible through. All our sermons were geared to preaching the Bible through. The whole experience lifted the spiritual lives of those committed to the project. (Not all were!)

I was talking about this article and this concept with a visiting pastor friend this week. It occurred to me as we talked how difficult it is to by faith make the focus of your mind the Word of God. God’s Word, while interesting enough to me as a Christian, doesn’t have the sizzle that the world offers to my flesh. The CT article referenced here focuses on illicit and explicit sexuality – an area of huge attraction to the flesh. But there are many other ‘sizzling’ attractions to the flesh in the world besides this particular topic. Consider the sporting world, the fashion world, the music world, and so on. Consider even dry topics like history or genealogical studies — I have a distant cousin who is obsessed with our family tree. Through her efforts I know my family history back to 1550. But this woman cannot hear the gospel because she is obsessed with “Johnson”.

The Word of God, on the other hand, can seem dryer than dry. It can seem that nothing is happening as I read it faithfully day by day. Some days I can’t bring myself to it. That is when faith must act. I look at the Word by faith and I put my time into reading, thinking, absorbing, meditating – and a transformation takes place. This is faith, not sight. And that faith can’t be mere words, it must be faithful action or a spiritual vacuum takes place. And where there is a vacuum, other things rush in to take God’s rightful place in our lives.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

This must be my day for commenting on cool stories on the internet… just one more…

Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament – Telegraph: “‘This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find,’ Dr Finkel said yesterday. ‘If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power.'”

Read the whole article to get the details, but the gist is this: in searching through financial records from the Babylonian empire, a researcher discovered a clay tablet containing the name of Nebuzaradan, a man whose name appears in 12 verses in Jeremiah. The man is a relatively minor player in the destruction of Jerusalem, a man into whose custody Jeremiah was committed by Nebuchadnezzar.

The tablet discovered in the British Museum is a receipt given to Nebuzaradan from a pagan temple in Babylon. The name is the same, though spelled differently in Cuneiform than Hebrew, and the tablet identifies the man as the ‘chief eunuch’, a man in the service of the emperor. It is undoubtedly the same man as named in Jeremiah.

In this minor detail, Jeremiah is seen to be accurate. This speaks volumes for the accuracy of Jeremiah, and by extension, the whole Bible.

Of course, believers have no need of archeology to confirm faith, but it is satisfying to have examples like this to point out to unbelievers. The credibility of the Bible in an unbelieving world takes on additional power when finds such as this are made.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Diamond star thrills astronomers: “Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats, astronomers have discovered. The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. It’s the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk. Astronomers have decided to call the star ‘Lucy’ after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

What a mighty God we serve!

Job 22:12 Is not God in the height of heaven? and behold the height of the stars, how high they are! 13 And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?

Psalm 8:1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: 7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; 8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

These comments on Canada’s alleged public education system:

No student left behind: “‘What it really is, is about passing the buck,’ said Anton Allahar, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. ‘In a system where one is not accountable you pass them on to the next level, from Grade 3 to Grade 4 or from first year, to second year, to third year, so that somebody else later on down the line someone else inherits the problem.’

In their recent book Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis, Prof. Allahar and his colleague James Cote lay significant blame for the current state of affairs at the feet of a public education system they say is breeding ’empowered idiots.’

‘This idea of boosting self-esteem of students, especially those who don’t do well, has led to problems at primary, secondary and university educational levels where you have people who don’t aspire to do well, but still expect the star,’ said Prof. Allahar in an interview.

‘They still expect the reward and they still expect mommy and daddy and teacher to say, ‘Way to go! You gave it your best!’ But they are not giving it at their best. So what people like Jim Cote and I have inherited at the university level is a lot of people with very high self-esteem who are idiots.'”

Sigh…

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3