[words]

Two quotes from two great thinkers. The first is from philosopher of science Karl Popper, from his intellectual autobiography Unended Quest:

Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and assertions about facts: theories and hypotheses; the problems they solve; and the problems they raise.

The second is from man of letters G.K. Chesterton, from his hilarious novel The Ball and the Cross:

“Well, we won’t quarrel about a word,” said the other, pleasantly.

“Why on earth not?” said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. “Why shouldn’t we quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are only things worth fighting about.”

What say you? Chesterton or Popper? I think I tend to side with Chesterton…

[sound doctrine pt. 5]

Something I think I’ve been learning lately is that Christian discipleship is largely growth in being satisfied in Jesus. We were created in God’s image to glorify and enjoy Him as the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism so directly reminds us:

Q. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

The tragedy is that, as sinners, we are bent and deviant from this end. We take God’s good created things–other people, our abilities and talents, prestige, sex, food, whatever–and try to make enjoying one or many of those created things our chief end. We are idolators. And we self-destruct in pursuit of these things that, divorced from the enjoyment of God, can never satisfy. Whenever delight in God is first, all of these lesser delights fall into their proper place and can be truly enjoyed with gratefulness toward their Creator.

The Gospel is the good news that God has given us Himself in the life, death, and resurrection of the God-Man Jesus Christ. He has paid the price of our idolatry, and wants to put away our sin so that He, the only One Who can satisfy, can be the treasure of our hearts again. As John Piper has put it, God Himself is the Gospel.

Once God has rescued our idolatrous hearts, we begin the painful and joyful process of cultivating joy in Him above all. We are all trying to get to the place where we can say with Asaph in Psalm 73,

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

There is nothing that I desire besides You; that is, literally, there is nothing I want as much as You. We have other good desires, but all of them ought to pale in comparison to our desire for God Himself and be tempered by gratitude towards Him.

So this song is a musical meditation on that Psalm, and hopefully it will be of some use to us in cultivating satisfaction in Christ. You can get the audio by clicking on the title.

All I Want (Psalm 73)
music and lyrics by Jonathan McGregor
I’ve looked around, and I’ve seen
All the violence and the riches of the proud.
I’ve looked around, and I’ve seen
That righteousness is vanity.
I’ve felt the rod of wrath,
And I have walked a hard and narrow path,
And I have found no rest,
Just a bitter bleeding in my chest.

[tag]

I look to You, and I see
Your glory in the sanctuary.
I look to You, and I see
You governing with equity.
You hold my hand, and I know
To be near You is good for me.
And You will spare no cost to bring
Me with You into glory.

[tag]

Oh, all I want is You.
Oh, all I want is You.

(It cost the cross to bring me near to You.
It costs my life for me to come to You.
My heart, my flesh will fail, but You will not.
You are the Rock Who bears up my heart.
You are my refuge; I will hide in You.
There is no one for me in heaven but You,
And none on earth I want beside You.
You are Your gift, and I receive You.)

[five reasons to thank God for john calvin]

Today is the five-hundredth birthday of Reformation pastor and theologian John Calvin. I can think of at least five reasons to thank God for his life and ministry:

5. In the political sphere, Calvin argued for limited government.

I, for my part, am far from denying that the form which greatly surpasses the others is aristocracy, either pure or modified by popular government, not indeed in itself, but because it very rarely happens that kings so rule themselves as never to dissent from what is just and right, or are possessed of so much acuteness and prudence as always to see correctly. Owing, therefore, to the vices or defects of men, it is safer and more tolerable when several bear rule, that they may thus mutually assist, instruct, and admonish each other, and should any one be disposed to go too far, the others are censors and masters to curb his excess. This has already been proved by experience, and confirmed also by the authority of the Lord himself, when he established an aristocracy bordering on popular government among the Israelites, keeping them under that as the best form, until he exhibited an image of the Messiah in David. Institutes, IV.20.viii

4. By writing the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin systematized the teaching of the Reformation. He left us a great example of writing theology that is relentlessly Biblical, not speculative.

3. Calvin’s commentaries on Scripture continue to provide a wealth of insight to students of God’s Word.

2. Calvin’s Geneva gave refuge to English-speaking Protestants during the reign of “bloody Mary.” With the help of Calvin, his successor Theodore Beza, and the Scottish reformer John Knox, these scholars produced the Geneva Bible, the most important translation of the Bible in English before the King James. The Geneva Bible also included many annotations, making it the first “study Bible” of sorts. Bruce Metzger writes,

For about three-quarters of a century the Geneva version was the household Bible of a large section of English-speaking Protestantism. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I alone, seventy editions of it were published. About 150 editions, either of the whole Bible or of the New Testament alone, were printed between 1560 and 1644…In England the Geneva Bible was the version used by Shakespeare, by John Bunyan, by the men of Cromwell’s army, and was brought to America by the Pilgrims and other early settlers, many of whom would have nothing to do with the more “modern” King James version of 1611…In short, it was chiefly owing to the dissemination of copies of the Geneva version of 1560 that a sturdy and articulate Protestantism was created in Britain, a Protestantism which made a permanent impact upon Anglo-American culture.

1. Calvin points us incessantly, in his life and work, to the glory of God. John Piper writes,

“to set before [man], as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God”. I think this would be a fitting banner over all of John Calvin’s life and work – zeal to illustrate the glory of God. The essential meaning of John Calvin’s life and preaching is that he recovered and embodied a passion for the absolute reality and majesty of God.