The Anti-Psalm 131

Here’s Anti-Psalm 131:

Self,

my heart is proud (I’m absorbed in myself),
and my eyes are haughty (I look down on other people),
and I chase after things too great and too difficult for me.

So of course I’m noisy and restless inside, it comes naturally,

like a hungry infant fussing on his mother’s lap,
like a hungry infant, I’m restless with my demands and worries.
I scatter my hopes onto anything and everybody all the time.

Contrast that with the real Psalm 131:

O Lord,

my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Me:
conviction=1
repentance=1
guilt=0
shame=0
condemnation=0
contentment=1

at least that's how it oughtta be...

HT: JT

Haven't laughed this hard in awhile...

This is now my favorite internet movie of all time...
If you don't think its funny, don't tell me. It'll cause a rift in our relationship.
J/K (no, seriously...)

Star Wars: Retold (By Someone Who Hasn't Seen It)

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Spoofs | Star Wars Fan Movie Champions

A Newly Realized Argument for a Definite (Limited) Atonement

He's back, ladies and gentlemen! But don't get too excited, because who knows if or when I will ever have (or take) the time to post again?!

And aren't you glad I chose a heady theological topic for my re-entrance into the blogosphere after an absence of over 4 months? I could have eased you in with updated photos of my daughter...

Or I could have sucked you right in with cutesy pictures of our new puppy, Tobiwan Kenobi... or just Toby if you prefer...

But no... I'm coming right at you with a mind bending discussion of one of the most heated topics in Christendom... For whom, exactly, did Christ die?

Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time rehashing all the arguments on both sides (Arminianism vs Calvinism) of the issue, I really just want to point out an argument that was new to me.

Notice I did not say new. Just new to me... The biblical arguments for a definite or limited atonement are profuse and irrefutable as far as I am concerned, but recently I heard an argument that was both simple and profound, and I heard it from a not unlikely, but unexpected source.

Awhile ago I posted on the rising of new Christian rap artist Lecrae, and in passing mentioned Shai Linne as well. Well at first I couldn't get enough of Lecrae, but Shai Linne has far surpassed him in time spent in my ear over the last few months. His blog is titled "Lyrical Theology" and it is more than fitting for what this man does on the mic...

There is one song in particular, called "Mission Accomplished" that brought out this particular argument about Limited, or Definite Atonement. The song lyrics discuss how (and then Shai Linne explicitly explains, as do the Scriptures) that the Godhead is unified, and all three persons of the Trinity have been working together from the foundation of the world in order to bring about the salvation of God's people, for His glory.

Now, it seems both sides of the argument would agree that The Father, from eternity, chooses specific individuals to save (be it conditionally or unconditionally - that's another argument), that's called election. And both sides also agree that there are specific individuals to whom the Holy Spirit actually gives the new birth, applying what Christ did on the cross (And amazingly, at the end of the day, they happen to be the same people! Go figure!). But if God is unified in His being and in His work, why would Christ's work on the cross be applied universally if what the Father did in eternity, and what the Holy Spirit does now, is limited only to specific individuals? Doesn't that put the Godhead at odds with itself? Why would the Son's work in salvation be for everyone, when the Father's and the Spirit's work in salvation is decidedly not for everyone universally?

Of course the answer is that it is not. Christ's atonement is only for those whom God has chosen from all eternity and those to whom the Holy Spirit effectually applies it in history.

OK, not exactly mind bending... and maybe not even clear. :-)

Here is the song if you want to here it for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-jl6jFn86k

Please disregard the images, as they do not really apply and some could be considered offensive.

Now, back into the void....

The Anti-Psalm 23

David Powlison writes an inversion of the great Psalm 23 in an article @ boundless.org

Go here for the context...

Here is the darkest song I've ever heard:

I'm on my own.
No one looks out for me or protects me.
I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing's quite right.
I'm always restless. I'm easily frustrated and often disappointed.
It's a jungle — I feel overwhelmed. It's a desert — I'm thirsty.
My soul feels broken, twisted, and stuck. I can't fix myself.
I stumble down some dark paths.
Still, I insist: I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want.
But life's confusing. Why don't things ever really work out?
I'm haunted by emptiness and futility — shadows of death.
I fear the big hurt and final loss.
Death is waiting for me at the end of every road,
but I'd rather not think about that.
I spend my life protecting myself. Bad things can happen.
I find no lasting comfort.
I'm alone ... facing everything that could hurt me.
Are my friends really friends?
Other people use me for their own ends.
I can't trust anyone. No one has my back.
No one is really for me — except me.
And I'm so much all about ME, sometimes it's sickening.
I belong to no one except myself.
My cup is never quite full enough. I'm left empty.
Disappointment follows me all the days of my life.
Will I just be obliterated into nothingness?
Will I be alone forever, homeless, free-falling into void?
Sartre said, "Hell is other people."
I have to add, "Hell is also myself."
It's a living death,
and then I die.

What song are you singing?

HT: Justin Taylor

And the Winner is.....

I have been having some serious browser issues lately.

Just like everyone else, I grew up (since the internet started in the early 90's) using Internet Explorer. This was fine. I didn't know any better, didn't know any different. For many years there was nothing different. So I blithely went along with IE until I very slowly and somewhat reluctantly (I am a rare early adopter) made the switch to Firefox while in seminary, around 2003 I believe. I don't even think I had seen it until one of my roommates showed me the light.


Since then, I love Firefox. I have loved how far superior it is to IE for so long, and all the add-ons and customization. It's been a wonderful 6 years together so far, it really has.

However, lately, Firefox has been letting me down. It uses so much RAM, even for a single tab, that it will at times force me to shut it down just to clear some room for the next page. But that is not even the worst part. Now, every time I load the browser, for about 2 and a half minutes it completely hogs all CPU, virtually making the computer unusable, after which it runs normal - which is to say it slowly uses all the other resources. I have tried just about everything for these issues, even completely wiping my install and starting over with no add-ons... no dice.

I got so frustrated with Firefox that I even tried making the switch back to IE with their new piece of garbage, IE8. It started out OK, until of course it never worked. 7 out of 10 times it would simply refuse to connect to a server. Had a headache or something I guess... whatever, that got tired real quick and IE8 was kicked to the curb with its garbage predecessor.

I was so desparate, I even downloaded SAFARI, and I am an avowed MAC hater... this shows how bad things had truly gotten. But I must say that Safari, for being all Mac and crap, was not terrible. It was definitely NOT the fastest broswer, as advertised, but apart from it's poor layout, (which for mac users is probably home) it got the job done. But I just couldn't stomach using it... I barely kept lunch down installing the thing...

Enter my knight in shining armor... Goggle Chrome.

I never would have guessed it, but this has been the best upgrade I could have asked for. It runs on almost no RAM (like 30K for each instance or tab, not bad at all). It uses very little CPU, even to render heavy pages. It's fast. It is by far the best browser I have used to date. I have to give great thanks and kudos to my brother from another mother Aron for pointing me in this direction. So far it is the clear winner. All the best add-ons I would need to install on Firefox are already in Chrome without the extra weight. When you're not using it, it basically doesn't exist as far as your computer is concerned. It's been a great experience so far and I am almost completely on board the Google gravytrain. I recommend you jump on for a ride!

But now, Firefox has release 3.5 .... What to do?
I will have to download it and give it a test drive, but it will be hard pressed, even after 6 years of loving companionship, to get me to come back at this point. Hard pressed indeed.

I-Pod alert: Listen to this...

I have been preaching on suffering and God's sovereignty (as an overarching theme) in that last half of Romans 8 for what seems like a year now... It's been some of the most helpful study I've done (for me, I mean) thus far in my short time in the ministry. 

But I just listened to one of if not the best sermon I've ever heard on the subject of suffering and God's sovereignty, and I wanted to share it with anyone who will hear it:

All the Good that Is Ours in Christ: Seeing God's Gracious Hand in the Hurts Others Do to Us

It is a sermon by Mark Talbot that was preached at the 2005 Desiring God National Conference.  Talbot is returning to the conference this year, and this sermon is being linked on a lot of reformed blogs out there.

Be warned:  This is not for the faint of heart.  It will challenge you intellectually and spiritually.  (It's also pretty long at 1:16ish) So gird up the loins of your mind and strap this one into your ipod and be stretched, and be edified.

How to Be in More Than One Place at One Time - The Phenomenon of the Sattelite Church

Mark Driscoll just posted this the other day on how amazing it will be when he is able to preach eight sermons at the same time.

I don't know how Mars Hill structures its satellite campuses. Maybe they are so blessed with good elders to lead, but none of them can teach? Maybe they have a team of counselors at each site to deal with the day to day issues of the flock? Maybe God has blessed them with so many deacons and other gifted men and women that all their "pastor" has to do is pipe his sermon in on Sunday morning/afternoon/evening and then not have anything else to do with the life of those believers...

I know that Driscoll is a gifted teacher, as is John Piper, whose church has similar satellite campuses... and I'm sure if I vetted my own emotions I would find some dark motives for why I feel this way - I am a human being after all - but something just straight up irks me about the whole satallite campus thing. I mean it REALLY bothers me.

I'm sure no small part of it is that I recently had someone leave a very strong, loving, vibrant local congregation for a 'church' ... err ... a place with no real leadership and no ordained men, that pipes a biblically deficient church service into its christian 'ghetto'.

Somehow this flies in the face of Paul going into each town and training up men to be leaders and pastors in order to lead Gods people in the way they shold go. It just doesn't seem to fit from where I sit.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if Paul had the technological and financial means to do so he would have piped his own message into each of the churches he sweat blood to build up. And especially since he was an apostle, and inspired, perhaps all the other leaders would have preferred that. But there are serious issues that arise from 'doing church' this way. I'm sure I have not thought of all of them, but here are a few that come to mind:

1 - Pastoral care - As gifted as these men are as teachers (and believe me, I eat up their teaching for the most part), they have no other influence or engagement in the lives of their people. And without that, I'm not even sure you can call them pastors, by definition, because they aren't pastoring. They are teaching. Its great teaching, but they are not pastoring. Pastoring goes miles and miles beyond the pulpit.

2 - Cult of Personality - A lot of people will talk about this as a problem for these "mega-churches". And it is a legitimate concern. Many people will flock to the church to hear the 'famous guy' or the gifted guy, and maybe that is not the motivation you want people to have to be coming - but if they are hearing the gospel, then I'm with Paul: Who cares about the motivation as long as Christ is preached? (paraphrase) But I think an even bigger concern is what happens when John Piper goes to be with the Lord? What if Mark Driscoll has an accident (God forbid...)? It's not pleasant to think about these things, but what happens when the 'cult leader' (to be overly dramatic) isn't there anymore? Hopefully they have instilled a love for the church and a love for Gods people that is strong enough to keep them together, but again, we are dealing with human beings here...

3 - Definition of the Church - What is it? What is it meant to be? Where do we draw the line on our use of technology for the good of the church, and where the benefits may no longer outweigh the possible detriments? And on a whole different aspect, how do you grow the church? Are you actively planting new satellites? How far from 'ground zero' do you allow them to reach? And again - what happens to those far off churches after the leader is gone?

4 - Incarnational Ministry - The call for the leadership of the body of Christ is to 'be Christ' for their people. It's the same call as each church member to be Christ to one another, just with higher stakes. The pastor and elders are shouldered with divine accountablility on a mass scale. How are the 'pastors' of satellite churches able to properly incarnate Christ to their people if they rarely if ever see them, let alone actually meet them?

Those are just a few things that come to mind. I realize that I am painting with broad strokes, and admittedly do not know the details of how these particular satellite campuses are set up. I presume that both Piper and Driscoll understand what the church is and have very likely set up the necessary structure to care for the people that come to their satellite campuses. But I am also certain that there are many other churches that are doing these satellites that are not nearly as careful.

Many of these concerns would be repeated in a post about regular "mega-churches", and these satellites take those concerns up a notch further because at least Allistair Begg can actually meet, greet and get to know a few of the 5,000 people he preaches to on a given Sunday.

And that really is the big issue isn't it? The predominant metaphor in Scripture that shows God's care for His people is that of a Shepherd and His sheep. Pastors (keep saying it and you'll understand where the term comes from) are to be the 'under-shepherds' of THE Good Shepherd. We are to emulate that care. Ancient near eastern sheepherding wasn't about butchery. Yes, they had the sacrificial system, but the majority of the livestock, particularly the sheeps, were used for milk and wool. They didn't kill their sheep willy-nilly. In fact, most of the time the shepherd and the sheep had very tight knit relationships. The shepherd cared for the sheep as his own children (which brings a whole new level to the understanding of the sacrifice - and ultimately more so, Christ's sacrifice). When Jesus said "I am the door", he wasn't just being all mystical, he wasn't even talking about heaven overtly - shepherds in those days lay down at the front of their sheep pens in order to keep their sheep inside. They were the protectors, they were the shield, the literal door - and literally 'laying down their life for the sheep' each night. The relationship between the sheep and the shepherd is to be an intimiate one of care and protection and nurture. You can't do that via uplink...

Total Eclipse of the Heart... Reconsidered

If, like me, you grew up in the 80's then you know the song mentioned in the title of this post. I admit that I enjoyed this song quite a bit in those days of leg warmers, florescent colors and huge hair...

That being said, I had completely forgotten about the video... I recall having seen it numerous times when the song was popular, yet I do not remember it being so completely off the wall and nonsensical. The song may tell a story, but whatever that story may be is completely lost is the insanity that is the video, and some folks have helped to make that unequivocally clear.

Enjoy - I thought this was HILARIOUS.

Good Song, Great Message

This song is about Nick Cannon's real life experience in utero, and just how close he came to not getting out alive. Powerful stuff.

Found this Particularly Powerful

Don't read into this... my wife loves me, very much I think. If anything, it is my love (evidenced by my actions, not my words or even my emotions) that is so undeserving of her.

But what I thought was so powerful was the connection JP made between this man's struggle to find favor with his wife, and how we respond to our Lord on a daily basis. I am a pastor who spends hours and hours a day right "next to" Jesus... but like many marriages, there are lots of times we can be sitting right next to our spouses and still be miles away. Let us all recommit to responding to our Savior with love and joy every time an opportunity arises... Let's love Him more than the worlds distractions. (Our spouses too!)

SNY Commercials are Pretty Funny

The Mets cable network channel, covering all NY Sports, has released several new commercials.
I don't have cable, so I have never seen them during an actual game, but luckily there is the interwebs. These are lots of fun, the last one is undoubtedly the best.
Of course, if you don't like sports, and particularly if you don't like NY Sports, you probably won't enjoy them nearly as much as I do... but I digress...

These are all courtesy of SNY.tv

Mandeep and Sharvarish, the owners of the souvenir store "NY NY Sports Sports" in SNY's latest TV campaign, learn about the city's passionate rivalries from the fans that frequent their store.

"The Cable Guy"
Mandeep & Sharvarish install a new television.



"Lessons Learned"
SNY teaches Mandeep and Sharvarish valuable lessons.



"Charades"
A Giants fan takes care of a Jets-dressed mannequin.



"Keith Day"
A Yankees fan faces off with Keith Hernandez.

No, Mr. President: John Piper's Response to President Obama on Abortion