10 reasons I love the library

A man visiting Iceland asked his taxi cab driver to show him their country's most popular attractions. The cabbie drove for a little while and then pulled up alongside an old, large building.
"What's this?" the visitor asked.
"It's our library," the cab driver announced proudly.
"No, you don't understand. I want to see your country's major attractions."
"Ah, but this is one of our best attractions!"

I heard this story last week, and as far as I know, it's true. Icelanders really take their books seriously. And they remind all of us that libraries are special.

We don't often appreciate them today, but I for one still love public and school libraries. I love my childhood memories of being in the library. I love exploring new libraries in towns that I visit. And I simply don't think the internet can ever completely replace the library. In fact, I believe the internet makes brick-and-mortar libraries more valuable to us.

Now, I must admit I haven't spent much time studying in a library since seminary. Public libraries are often noisy places full of activity - more like a train station than a convent. But in one sense I'm glad they're busy. That means people are using them. Just as a book in perfect condition is of no use, so a quiet and empty library is pointless. Libraries are meant to be public gathering places, where stuff happens and ideas are exchanged.

Here are ten reasons I love the library:

1. Free books. Of course, the highlight of any library is all the free books available to check-out and renew. Biographies. Novels. Technical manuals. History books. Audio books. For 3-6 weeks, that book is all yours. It's like meeting a new friend. Enjoy it. Learn from it. Journal or tell others something about it. The author may open new worlds of imagination or share an idea that will literally change your life.
   
2. Interlibrary loan. In San Bernardino, it's free to request books from other libraries in our same network. So, we have millions of additional titles available at no charge. Just ask the clerk, or place a hold from your home computer, and the library will call you as soon as the book arrives at your local branch. If there's no waiting list, the book usually comes in a week or so.
3. Book sales. I love browsing the discard shelves and attending Friends of the Library sales. You never know what gems you will discover. We've accumulated many books and sets for our personal family library this way.
4. Periodicals. Nowhere else can you browse hundreds of magazines and check many of them out for free. I've used their Consumer Reports several times before making a big applicance purchase.
5. Internet. For those who do not have home internet access, you can have free access for a limited time at the local library. This is great for those who need to check their email, look for job openings, or do online research. (Of course, many people use them to play games, too).
   
6. Study areas. You'll probably spend $4 on coffee to study at a Starbucks, but the library is completely free. Cozy chairs are often available for reading and working on your laptop, and tables abound for more in-depth research. Public libraries may be noisy, but these sounds are easily blocked out with a good pair of earplugs or a set of earbuds and some relaxing music
7. Special activities. Story time, free literacy programs, crafts, reading clubs, and other activities are often hosted at libraries. Last year, my wife and son got to meet Rachel from the Signing Time sign language video series at our local library.
8. Bulletin boards. The library is a helpful place to announce or learn about community events. Many have bulletin boards or a 3-ring activity binder.
9. Puppets. Our library has a special kids section, complete with bright colorful cushions and animal puppets. This makes it easier for parents and older siblings to browse, while making the library a fun place for even the youngest members of the family.
10. The park. Adjacent to our library is the city park. Rarely do we visit the library without a detour by the slides, monkey bars, and swingset. A great way to combine mental and physical exercise!

Dead to sin

I sometimes hear people who struggle with drug or alcohol addiction say things like "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic," or "once an addict, always an addict." I suspect it's part of their AA or NA rehab counseling.

It may be true that this person will always be tempted in those areas, but the Bible never treats alcohol or drugs as a "disease," nor does it say this condition is incurable. In fact, the doctrine of sanctification gives great hope, because it teaches than any born again believer becomes dead to sin and can gain victory over whatever deeply rooted problems and behavior exist in their lives (drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, etc.).

The Christian is never bound and gagged to the power of sin.

Romans 6:11-14 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Concerning this passage, Wayne Grudem explains,

To be dead to the ruling power of sin means that we as Christians, by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection life of Christ working within us, have power to overcome the temptations and enticements of sin. Sin will no longer be our master, as once it was before we became Christians.

In practical terms, this means that we must affirm two things to be true. On the one hand, we will never be able to say, “I am completely free from sin,” because our sanctification will never be completed (see below). But on the other hand, a Christian should never say (for example), “This sin has defeated me. I give up. I have had a bad temper for thirty-seven years, and I will have one until the day I die, and people are just going to have to put up with me the way I am!” To say this is to say that sin has gained dominion. It is to allow sin to reign in our bodies. It is to admit defeat. It is to deny the truth of Scripture, which tells us, “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). It is to deny the truth of Scripture that tells us that “sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14).

This initial break with sin, then, involves a reorientation of our desires so that we no longer have a dominant love for sin in our lives. Paul knows that his readers were formerly slaves to sin (as all unbelievers are), but he says that they are enslaved no longer. “You who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17–18). This change of one’s primary love and primary desires occurs at the beginning of sanctification. (Systematic Theology, p. 747)

What a blessing that we are not longer slaves to sin but are now slaves to righteousness and new life in Jesus Christ!

The Kingdom of God in the Old Testament

If you had to summarize the entire message of the Bible in a single word, what would it be? Last Sunday, we discovered the best word might be “kingdom.” As John Bright says, “The Bible is one book. Had we to give that book a title, we might with justice call it ‘The Book of the Coming Kingdom of God.”

During our morning service, we traced this theme through the entire Old Testament, from Moses to Malachi, seeing three stages of God’s Mediatorial Kingdom.

1. God Prepares for the Kingdom (Gen. 1:26-28; 12:1-3; 49:8-12). In the Book of Genesis, we are introduced to the idea that God will use human beings to rule over His creation as His mediator. Thousands of years after Adam and Eve fail to rule righteously, God appoints a man named Abram to become the father of a new nation He will rule over. God further announces that His chosen kings will descend from the tribe of Judah.
2. God Establishes the Kingdom (Ex. 19:4-8; Deut. 17:14-28; 1 Sam. 15:24-31, 34-35; 16:12-13; 2 Sam. 7:8-16). In the early years, God ruled His people directly through Moses and the Judges. Later, when the Israelites asked for a king, God instructed them to choose a righteous man who would read the Scriptures and hide God’s word in his heart. Saul failed miserably as king, but then God selected David, a man after His own heart. God blessed David for his devotion and promised that his offspring would always be rightful heirs to the throne. The anointing of David points to the greater “Anointed One” (Messiah) whom God will appoint as an eternal King.
3. God Expands the Kingdom (Jer. 23:5-8; 31:31-37). Despite repeated failure and apostasy by David’s descendants, God promised He would never abandon His people or renege on His promises to Abraham and David. God foretold of a new covenant that would be far superior to the one He made with Moses at Sinai. The major and minor prophets called the people to repentance and spoke of future days when hearts would be changed, the curse would be lifted, and God would raise up a son of David to reign in peace and righteousness.
   

At the beginning of the message, I announced I would be preaching the entire Old Testament in one sermon and encouraged everyone to “fasten their seat belts and put on their crash helmet.” After the service, one member remarked “I think my seat belt flew off!” It certainly was a sermon packed with information, and I was thankful for everyone's attentiveness. But I do hope it captured the “big picture” of our beloved Old Testament and gave us new insight into the central theme of the Bible.

After we look at the kingdom in the New Testament next week, we will spend an entire morning considering the practical implications of kingdom living, but for now, here are a few exhortations:

• Be optimistic. The Christian life is not a naïve attitude of “don’t worry, be happy.” It is a joy much deeper than that. We view history not as some random cyclical process, but as a grand story moving in a linear direction, toward a victorious end.
• Anticipate Christ's return (2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 22:20). Don’t become so preoccupied with the depravity of Romans 1:18-32 and 2 Timothy 3:1-5 that you forget the glorious promises of Christ’s return and reign.
• Trust God. His Word is reliable. He fulfilled so many promises through Christ’s first advent, and we can be confident He will fulfill the remaining promises in Christ’s second advent.
• Study the Old Testament. I pray this overview of the Old Testament will give us a greater appreciation for the Old Testament and whet our appetites for a lifetime of study. The Old Testament is rich and rewarding, because it tells us all about Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King.

(Sunday’s sermon has been uploaded to our podcast site and is available for free download or to listen online.)

May God help us apply His Word this week in our hearts, in our words, and in our actions.

Fighting to please God

The Christian life is a fight for holiness, a daily battle to put off the old self and put on Jesus Christ.

Though we have been saved and justified in God's eyes through His Son, even our best works still contain sin. We will never reach perfection until glory. But this should not cause us to lay down our weapons and stop fighting. God is pleased with our obedience, despite its imperfections. Hear the words of J. C. Ryle:

Sanctification is a thing which cannot justify a man, and yet it pleases God. The holiest actions of the holiest saint that ever lived are all more or less full of defects and imperfections. They are either wrong in their motive or defective in their performance and in themselves are nothing better than “splendid sins,” deserving God’s wrath and condemnation. To suppose that such actions can stand the severity of God’s judgment, atone for sin and merit heaven is simply absurd. “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Rom. 3:20–28).

The only righteousness in which we can appear before God is the righteousness of another—even the perfect righteousness of our Substitute and Representative, Jesus Christ the Lord. His work, and not our work, is our only title to heaven. This is a truth which we should be ready to die to maintain.

For all this, however, the Bible distinctly teaches that the holy actions of a sanctified man, although imperfect, are pleasing in the sight of God. “With such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Heb. 13:16). “Obey your parents . . . for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Col. 3:20). “We . . . do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22).

Let this never be forgotten, for it is a very comfortable doctrine. Just as a parent is pleased with the efforts of his little child to please him, though it be only by picking a daisy or walking across a room, so is our Father in heaven pleased with the poor performances of His believing children. He looks at the motive, principle and intention of their actions and not merely at their quantity and quality. He regards them as members of His own dear Son, and for His sake, wherever there is a single eye, He is well pleased. (Ryle, Holiness, ch. 2)

Book review: The Unforgiving Minute

The Unforgiving Minute is the spellbinding account of a soldier's rigorous training and grueling combat in Afghanistan. It's a dramatic coming-of-age story written by Captain Craig Mullaney, who is a unique mix of one part Army Ranger and one part Oxford Rhodes scholar. (I felt a particular kinship with him because we're the same age. He started at West Point in 1996, only one month before I started at The Master's College. We were both training for battle, though of a different kind.)

Having never served in the military myself, Mullaney's vivid prose gave me a deeper appreciation for our men and women in uniform, and a greater understanding of the Bible's frequent references to war.

Endorsed by General Petraus and Wesley-Clark, this book is an instant classic you will find very hard to put down.

Here's an excerpt, with a great illustration of endurance...

For a moment, sitting on the examining table, I considered quitting. Dozens had already quit. In Ranger parlance, they had LOM'd: dropped out for 'lack of motivation.' At West Point I had always risen to the challenges. The challenges of Ranger School, however, were on a different scale, and I wondered whether I could take two more months of punishment at this voltage. At the moment, motivation was scarce. A medical 'drop' was an honorable reason to leave Ranger School, I rationalized to myself. No one would call me a coward or a failure if I had a legitimate medical excuse. It was the easy way out. I would be on a plane home to Rhode Island in twelve hours, sitting by the pool with a margarita. Covered in mud and sweat, the prospect was especially appealing. Ranger School could wait a couple of years, I told myself. Maybe after Oxford?

Another voice, however, urged me to stay. This sort of decision had an audience of one. Forget what my father would say as he picked me up at the airport. Forget LoFaro, Ostlund, and Charlie. Would I be able to look at myself in the mirror again if I quit? So I stayed in the course, a decision I would curse during every painful march or sleepless night staring out at the dark from a cold patrol base. There were no good days in Ranger School, just variations of bad. It demanded an almost inhuman endurance.... (p. 96)

The universal kingdom of God

My apologies for getting off track the last couple months with our "Doing the Word" blog posts. June was one of the busiest months of my life, and the first half of July was our family road trip to Colorado, so things are just now settling down to some level of normalcy.

Last week, we looked briefly at John 18:28-40 (Jesus’ civil trial before Pilate) before launching into a multi-week series on the kingdom of God. We noted that there are two main ways the “kingdom” theme is used in the Bible.

1. The first is in a general sense – that God is creator and ruler of the entire universe. We can call this His “universal kingdom.” On Sunday, we looked at just two examples of this. (A) In 1 Chronicles 29, when David was an old man, he gathered the people of Israel together and took an offering for the temple. The people gave generously and joyfully, and David expressed His praise to the Lord. He declared “Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all…You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might.” (B) In Daniel 4, when Nebuchadnezzar became puffed up over His achievements, God humbled Him by making him walk on all fours and graze in the field. His hair grew like feathers and his nails like bird claws. Finally, the king humbled himself and confessed, “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom endures from generation to generation… Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just.”
   
2. The second way is in a more local sense – that since the time of Abraham, God has chosen to call out a people for Himself, and to rule over them through appointed men called “mediators.” This began with Moses, the judges, kings, and ultimately Jesus. We can call this His “mediatorial kingdom,” and we will look more in-depth at this aspect of God’s kingdom beginning next week.
   

A few application questions:

• In what areas does a king have authority?
• When you consider that God is a king, how does this make you feel?
• Read 1 Timothy 1:17. What attributes of God are mentioned here? How should we act toward our King?
• The universal kingdom of God is a great remedy for pride. What gifts or personal accomplishments tempt you to become proud? What is the biblical response?
  
• The universal kingdom of God is also a great remedy for anxiety. What makes you afraid? What fears does your mind drift toward? What is the biblical response?

(Sunday’s sermon will be uploaded soon to our podcast site and will be available for free download or to listen online.)

May God help us apply His Word this week in our hearts, in our words, and in our actions.

10 books every new Christian should own

Here's a list of ten books I believe every new Christian should own. They would make a great starter library to begin your walk with God and discover the riches of the Bible.

The first two are the best modern translations of the Bible, accompanied by helpful study notes, maps, charts, and other rich background material:

• The ESV Study Bible
• NASB MacArthur Study Bible

The next four books cover basic Christian beliefs and living:

• Growing In Christ: A Thirteen-Week Follow-Up Course for New and Growing Christians
• The Pursuit of Holiness
• Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

The last four books are basic reference tools. They don't need to be read from cover-to-cover, but are important Bible study tools to keep close at hand on your shelf.

• Nave's Topical Bible
• Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
• The Strongest NASB Exhaustive Concordance
• Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words