A-TEAM, THE

(The first in a series of paper summaries from this year?s ETS)

 

John Calvin believed that prayer is not an academic problem, but a precious gift and the essence of Christian life. Therefore his theology of prayer is very practical. In his Institutes, Calvin defined prayer: ?the communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience? that what they believed was not in vain.? He also said that it is ?a communication between God and us whereby we expound to him our desires, our joys, our sighs, in a word, all the thoughts of hearts.? Calvin saw prayer as given for man that he might lay hold of divine riches.

 

Prayer is part of the means that God has ordained to bring about His plan, so it is not useless in light of God?s sovereignty. It does not change God or His decrees because 1) God is immutable, 2) God?s pleasure governs all things 3) God controls everything, including prayer. However, God anticipates our prayers and responds to them. As someone suggested, prayer is a ?divine response to a divine initiative in the elect.?

 

Calvin offered at least six purposes for prayer: 1) To go to God in every need and find them met in Him 2) to learn to desire what is right 3) to prepare to humbly receive God?s response 4) to meditate on God?s kindness 5) to delight in His response 6) to confirm God?s faithfulness as we see our prayers answered. Scripture shapes, controls, and restrains the content of our prayers as they spring from faith.

 

Beeke provided four rules of prayer from Calvin: Prayer must maintain a heartfelt sense of 1) reverence 2) need and repentance 3) humility and trust in God and 4) confident hope. ?Prayer is given by the Father, is made possible through the Son, and is worked out in the soul by the Spirit, through whom it returns via Christ to the Father.? Our prayers our heard by the Father because of Christ as the Spirit teaches us how to pray.

 

Christian piety is necessarily dependent upon prayer as it is the channel between us and God. By it we submit all things to God and adore Him, both as individuals and corporately. ?The prerequisite of effective corporate praying is effective private prayer.? Those who do not pray neglect a precious treasure and commit idolatry by defrauding God. Calvin saw lack of prayer as a denial that God is the author of all good things.

 

Beeke concluded, ?Ultimately, for Calvin, prayer is a heavenly act, a holy and precious communing with the Triune God in His glorious throne room, grounded in an assured eschatological hope.?

Some of the folks who are part of the Emergent "movement" recently published their own version of the Bible. I haven't seen it personally, but this review points out some serious problems with it:

I recently purchased a copy of this fresh ?dynamic translation? of Bible and spent some time doing comparative work with key passages of the New Testament from The Voice, The ESV and the Greek text. Sadly I must report that this new Emergent ?translation? is so far off the mark that I think one could reasonably argue that by producing their own distorted version of the Bible the Emergent church has crossed the line from being a ?movement? to actually becoming a cult.

Read the rest of this review (the first in a series).

Themed Bibles are generally a bad idea.  For one thing, every part of God's Word is meant to speak to every Christian.  Themed Bibles tend to emphasize only the parts of the Bible that speak about the particular theme, leaving other potentially important aspects of Scripture under-emphasized or ignored (and here I'm thinking primarily within the context of "daily devotions"). 

Secondly, Scripture purposefully makes use of many different genres (and different themes!) to convey the Gospel message in the most comprehensive way possible.  A Bible that goes out of its way to draw attention to only a single theme can have the unfortunate side effect of obscuring the Gospel message itself. 

Now, none of this is to say that themed Bibles are inherently sinful or that the dangers I've mentioned will necessarily result from using them (I actually own a Couples' Devotional Bible).  So naturally I didn't think much of the new Green Bible.  I assumed it was just another gimmick.  And on one level, it is that.  The paper used in The Green Bible is 100% recycled, the ink is soy-based, and the cover is made of cotton-linen.  At the beginning is a collection of essays about being a "green" Christian by such international figures as Desmund Tutu, N. T. Wright, and even Pope John Paul II.  But it's most prominent feature is that it is the first ever "green letter edition" of the Bible.  No, the words of Christ are not in green.  Rather, every verse that supposedly speaks to the subject of "Creation Care" is printed in green.  Like I said, it's gimmicky.  And if that's all it was, I wouldn't have a problem with it.   Heck, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing myself.  I want to be a good Steward of God's creation as much as the next Christian.  But then I started poking around the book's website.  As it turns out, the green bible may actually be teaching something dangerously close to idolatry.

Here are some sample questions from The Green Bible Quiz:

"2) Which verse praising creation is from the Psalms?"

The answer is Psalm 19:1, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."  What's the problem?  This verse is NOT "praising creation."  It's doing the exact opposite, expressing how creation praises God.  To my mind, this is kind of a big deal (is anyone else thinking of Romans 1:25?).

"4) Where did Jesus go to commune with nature?"

(It's been said before, but it bears repeating here:  Jesus was not a hippy).  The answer to this question is apparently found in Matthew 14:23 (the quiz has the answer as Matthew 4:23, but I assume this is simply a typo), "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray."  Seriously, are the people responsible for the green "bible" actually reading it?  Jesus didn't go up the mountain to commune with nature!  He went up to pray (literally, to commune with God!).  Stretching the meaning of a verse to make a point is one thing.  Butchering a verse and literally replacing God with nature...that's a whole new ballgame. 

Now, maybe this quiz is just a poorly conceived promotional tool that doesn't refelct the actual content of the green bible.  That's certainly possible.  But if the excerpt they provide from one of the opening essays is any indication, the content is no better than what we've seen so far.  In her essay, "The Dominion of Love", Barbara Brown Taylor says of the sixth day of creation:

The "new information" she is referring to is that land animals were also created on day six.  Apparently Ms. Taylor was under the impression that the only thing that made human beings special was that we had a whole day all to ourselves.  She also mentions our being given dominion over the earth, and the fact that God pronounces all of His creation to be good, not just man, but all of this is merely peripheral to the real issue.  If she had consulted even the most elementary level Bible scholarship, instead of simply assuming what I can only imagine are her culturally-inherited misconceptions about traditional Christian teaching, she would have seen very quickly that mankind's special place in creation is founded upon our unique status as image bearers of God.  As it stands, the main point of her essay ends up missing the point entirely. 

I would like to invite comments and feedback from anyone who might be willing to defend the green bible.  It's still possible that I've made egregious leaps and  assumed things based on these short previews that aren't really true of the bible itself.  So if anyone owns a copy and would like to defend it, I'm open to hearing your arguments. 

Like I said, I have no problem becoming "green."  I will probably never buy an SUV (as if that's all it means to be green!).  I really do want to be a good steward of God's creation.  But if the only way to join the "green team" is to accept poor theology and pseudo biblical scholarship that effectively butchers the Word of God...we evangelicals will have to work on starting our own team.  I have no doubt that "God is green" (in a sense, at least), but if He is, He ought to have said so.  We shouldn't have to twist His words to make them say something they're not really saying. 

PBI Spotlight We have said it before and we will say it again, if you ever have any questions about PBI, check out specials. As you know, students in specials have to perform their tasks, so that the the teachers...

You heard it here first!

"Religion Alters Visual Perception." 

(HT: Kim Riddlebarger)

Thanks to Aaron Gleason for passing this link along to me.

I sure am glad that we Evangelicals have moved on to caring about more important social issues. Because if we still cared about protecting the unborn, we'd be in rough shape right now.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert%20P._Obama's%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml

Like I said...please pray for Barack Obama. 

PBI Spotlight Check out the Writer's Workshop in action in Mrs. Bower's 5th grade class! We have some AWESOME authors in this school! We can attribute this to the fact that we have some awesome teachers consistently teaching the Writer's...

Terry O'Reilly was the Master of Ceremonies at last night's ADCC show, and in my opinion, the highlight. (Not to take anything away from the show - which I love, and the work - which I always drool over. ) It was a highlight for me because Terry, an eloquent ambassador for our industry, reminded us that awards DO matter. I am puzzled by people who've won so many awards they're no longer excited by them, saddened by those who have completely given up the notion that they ever will win an...

Lino Dinallo from GJP when they won a Gold A for their work for Vex. He told us he was quoting Hilary Swank's acceptance speech when she won the Best Actress Oscar for Million Dollar Baby. And he said, "I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all of this. I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream." Love. How do you bottle that?...

In his new book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that success is less about innate ability than birthdate and luck - and we may be squandering half of our nation's hockey talent By Sabitri Ghosh, Special to The Globe and Mail, November 10, 2008. NEW YORK - Malcolm Gladwell knows a thing or two about success. His previous books, The Tipping Point and Blink, have sold more than three million copies combined in North America alone. He reportedly commands fees of $40,000 (U.S.) per speaking...

PBI Spotlight Check out Guided Math in action! Guided Math is a new initiative that our intermediate grades are implementing. It is basically the same idea has Guided Reading, but with math. You can see in these pictures, Mrs. Jenkins...

By Victor Frankel According to the Library of Congress, "Man's Search for Meaning" belongs to the list belongs to a list of "the ten most influential books in [the United States]." "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."...

Barack Obama will be the next President.  Regardless of how you feel about this outcome, we must remember that God is at work in all things, and do our duty as Christians and American citizens and pray for our (soon to be) President.

Dr. John Mark Reynolds shares his own thoughts:

We should never take that for granted.

Read the rest of his article, "Morning In America."

I haven't seen his portfolio, but I would put Barack Obama forward as a candidate for every single one of the many Creative Director positions I've filled in the past 11 years. Doesn't he have many of the characteristics as the world's best creative directors? Or the world's best CEO's, Presidents, CFO's? He is a leader. He is able to inspire those around him to believe "Yes we Can". In their darkest hour. When they are consumed with fear of their future. Paralyzed. He's...

Californians have been subject to a variety of ads for and against Proposition 4 over the last few weeks. Since most of the ads I?ve seen are misleading, I thought it might be helpful to shed some light on the arguments that have been made from both sides.

A summary of Prop 4:

Prop 4, also known as ?Sarah?s Law,? would amend the California Constitution so that parental notification would be required 48 hours prior to an abortion. If the minor fears parental notification due to potential abuse, the law would allow for certain adult relatives to be notified and require the doctor to report the parents to Child Protection Services. Exceptions are made for cases of medical emergencies, prior parental waivers, or court waivers. Doctors would be required to report statistical information on the abortions they perform to the state of California. If the parents are not notified properly, the law would allow them to file for damages in a civil lawsuit. The law would also allow for minors to appeal to the courts if they believe they are being coerced into having an abortion.

Fact Check #1:

The group behind Prop 4 named it ?Sarah?s Law? after a fifteen year old who died from complications resulting from an abortion. What they don?t tell you is that this girl was in a common-law marriage with the father. It is unclear whether or not she would have been required to notify her parents in her specific situation. Furthermore, a representative of the Prop 4 support group said that Prop 4 could have saved ?Sarah?s? life. There?s really no reason to believe it would have. While it is hypothetical, given the situation it seems likely she would have gone through with the abortion and would have been equally vulnerable to dying from resulting complications. (source: http://www.lifenews.com/state3440.html)

Fact Check #2:

The most popular argument against Prop 4 is that it would put teens in danger because it requires them to notify potentially abusive parents. A commercial portraying this has been airing constantly and it is all over the ?no? group?s website. These commercials mislead the public into believing that Prop 4 requires pregnant minors to report their abortion only to their parents or legal guardians. However, the option of notifying an adult family member is clearly and thoroughly explained in the proposition. This adult family member could be a grandparent, stepparent, foster parent, aunt, uncle, sibling, half-sibling, or first cousin. Furthermore, opponents to Prop 4 have not been able to cite a single case where the minor was victimized as the result of notification in any of the thirty-five states where similar laws currently exist.

Fact Check #3:

Another story cited by supporters of Prop 4 is that of a fourteen-year-old girl who was raped over one hundred times by a thirty-nine year old man. He took her to Planned Parenthood (PP) twice and the supporters imply that PP performed the abortion. The ad faults PP for not reporting the predator and implies that Prop 4 could have lead to the predator being stopped. Only the pregnancy test was performed at PP, not the abortion. PP could have notified authorities regarding the pregnant minor, but they likely had no way of knowing who the predator was to report him. The predator was actually the minor?s stepfather and both the minor and stepfather claimed he was her father to the hospital that performed the abortion. Had Prop 4 been in effect, it would have changed nothing since it appeared that the parent was notified.

Fact Check #4:

The website against Prop 4 claims that, ?What we see happening in other states with parental notification laws is that some teens opt for a dangerous alternative ? illegal abortion. Teens may even take matters into their own hands (back alley abortions, self abort or worse).? This is a typical slippery-slope argument from pro-choice debaters. Using their logic we could argue that since robbing banks can be dangerous, we should make it legal and banks should make stealing easier. What is the result of Prop 4 on teens who refuse to have a ?safe? abortion due to parental notification? The truth is that there is no evidence that this has ever happened in the 35 states that have similar laws to Prop 4.

Conclusion

Both sides have been misleading in some way in arguing for their position. As voters, it is our responsibility to work through the arguments and attempt to make a thoughtful decision based on the facts, not the rhetoric. The ?yes? and ?no? websites are likely the best places to start sorting fact and fiction:

http://yeson4.net
http://www.noonprop4.org

The problems I point out with the "pro" Prop 4 stories only have to do with their anecdotes. I think the campaign seems to be grasping at any story they can find that can be used to appeal emotionally to voters; to the degree that they misrepresent some of the stories as I pointed out. (There are more stories on their website and I would be surprised if they embellished all of them.) However, the only problems I can find are with their stories; not with the fundamental arguments why the proposition is needed. I think their arguments are sound and compelling, and they do themselves a disservice by the way they appeal to these stories. My criticisms of the "no" side are with their fundamental arguments. They have not provided any good reason to reject the proposition.

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