Changes, and some Bunyan

First, on a personal note… due to getting busier at work as well as the start of school, I will only be posting somewhere around once a week going into this fall and winter. However I do still greatly appreciate your patronage and I will check the blog daily to reply to comments and for general housekeeping.

Second, I am reading John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, which is the second most popular book in history after the Bible. I am still early on in the story, but I am already in awe of the clarity that can emerge through this story enveloped in allegory. As an example, check out the dialog between Christian, the main character who is on a journey seeking God, and the Interpreter, who is discussing Christian’s journey to this point and the fruits of the characteristics of Passion and Patience:

Then said Christian, “now I see that Patience has the best Wisdom, and that upon many accounts. 1. Because he stays for the best things. 2. And also because he will have the glory of His [God's] when the other hath nothing but Raggs.”

Interpreter: “Nay, you mad add another; to wit, The glory of the next world will never wear out; but these are suddenly gone. Therefore Passion had not so much reason to laugh at Patience, because he had his good things first, as Patience will have to laugh at Passion, because he had his best things last; for first must give place to last, because last must have his time to come, but last gives place to nothing; for there is not another to succeed:

“He therefore that hath his Portion first, must needs have a time to spend it; but he that has his Portion last, must have it lastingly. Therefore it is said of Dives [Luke 16], In thy life thou receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and though are tormented.”

May we never be blinded of eternity because of the allure of the present, or trade the eternal riches of heaven for wispy gain in this life!

Luther on Study

Check out these words from Martin Luther. He applies his comments to preachers, but I see no reason to stop there. We have all been given God’s Word, and it is our duty to live it and be able to talk about it as it comes up in daily life. Read and reflect (thanks to HePrayed.com for text in full), and I welcome any comments… thanks for reading!

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They rely on these and other good books to get a sermon out of them. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. It is just as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose…

Therefore the call is: Watch, study, attende lectioni (attend to reading). In truth, you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well. Experto crede Ruperto (Believe a man who has found this out). It is the devil, it is the world, it is our flesh that are raging and ravaging against us.

Therefore, dear sirs and brethren, pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be diligent. Truly, this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring. Use the gift that has been entrusted to you, and reveal the mystery of Christ.

-Martin Luther

Musing on a Paradox

What comes to mind when you read the phrase fatal success?

I happened across it on p.46 of John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life.

As far as what it is, it could go one of two ways:

• Either a hit man whacked a wise guy who wasn’t wise enough, or
• Goals are reached, and they lead to death

As far as what it looks like, Piper provides a striking story that exemplifies what this type of success might resemble. He describes an article in the February 1998 Reader’s Digest:

[The article] tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.”

At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t.

Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life – your one and only precious, God-given life – and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account ot your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.”

Of course vacations aren’t bad, relaxing isn’t bad, and retirement isn’t bad… but what would fatal success look like for you?

How can we seek to use our lives for Christ instead?

Another instance of quality over quantity

A great thought quoted by Tim Challies on his blog Challies.com:

Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee’s touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.

-from Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks

Here’s the permalink to Tim’s post.