What would you say to the Psalmist in Psalm 88?

Imagine that the Psalmist is a dear friend that comes to you with this “poem” that he has written.  It, he says, vividly portrays the way he is feeling.  How do you counsel him?

88:1 O Lord, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5 like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O Lord, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.

Seminary Wrongly Applied

There are a decent amount of articles popping up on dangers of seminary education.*  I want to offer something that I see as a student beginning my second year. 

A few things to get out of the way first.  First, I absolutely love Southern Seminary and the education I am receiving.  The professors that I have had so far are brilliant, humble, gospel-centered men.  Secondly, I attended a Christian college and received a degree in Christian Education and a minor in Youth Ministry.  Then I spent almost 6 years engaging in youth ministry in the local church while picking up theology in the trenches (though my “trenches” were nothing compared to what many brothers and sisters face).  I am also currently an associate pastor while attending seminary. 

Now that is out of the way, I will offer my suggestion of a danger to the seminary education.  Keep in mind this comes from a limited perspective that could be wrong.  Seminary students often get massacred in their first few churches because they are trained in mastering the Word but not in how to “pastor” in the midst of brokenness. 

I doubt I know the solution.  I think my school, SBTS, has seen this problem and they are doing many things to combat it.  There is much that is encouraging me that Southern will be used by God to assist churches in producing ministers that do not become a sad statistic.  But, my fear is that student naivety is winning the day and gems of pastoral wisdom that professors are passing along are lost in the midst of theological debates. 

We excel in fighting for truth but something is missing when it comes to fighting with truth.   In other words we are not excelling in applying the truth to broken souls.  We often fight the wrong battles. 

Most people in my congregation are trying to figure out the compatibility of a paltry paycheck with a rising mortgage payment.  Seldom do I hear them discussing the compatibility of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I think such theological truths actually provide an anchor and solution to not bouncing checks.  But do we know how to make that connection? 

The professors and seminary leaders are doing everything they can to train us in ministering to brokenness.  They do this because many of them are pastors and they deal with broken people (like us students) all the time.  But I fear, from some of the questions I hear in class, that students are listening for how to win an argument with the Pretribulational 4 Point Calminian that lives next door and largely ignoring many pastoral helps. 

The assumption is that if we can just get our theology correct then everything will fall into place.  But there is a whole host of strongly orthodox believers whose shattered lives and families testify otherwise.  Not to mention the highly orthodox devil himself.  Right theology wrongly applied (or not applied at all) stinks. 

The other assumption is that if we can just figure out how to “do ministry” then everything will fall into place, our churches will thrive, and some day our picture will be on the latest edition of Christianity Today.  But mastering theological truths, and even the “how-to’s” of ministry will mean little if we refuse to apply the gospel to our own souls. 

If we are not deeply in tune with our need for grace and fighting for our own souls, we may still grace the cover of CT--but it will be as the latest in a string of moral failures that rocks Jesus’ precious church. 

I realize that many of the things that I have mentioned are really not supposed to be filled by the seminary but by the local church.  The seminary is to assist and partner with the local church.  And one way it can do that is by laboring to point out its radical inability to produce pastors by tests, papers, and reading books. 

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*Rather than link to a ton of them, I’ll link to this one by Colin Hansen, encourage you to read the comments and follow some links there.  Also check out Between the Times, they have stuff pop up there a ton.

Apostles or Corinthians?

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

1 Corinthians 4:8-13

If God answered my prayers would I look more like the apostles or the Corinthians?

Insane Love

Jesus loved loves William Cowper.  That thought brought me great encouragement this morning because Cowper wrote things like this:

Hatred and vengence -my eternal portion
Scarce can endure delay of execution -
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.

Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.

Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb am
Buried above ground.

Those words were written by Cowper during one of his many bouts with insanity.  You can read some of his story here.  During these periods of insanity Cowper was absolutely convinced that he was of the damned.  My fight against discouragement or feelings of worthlessness pale in comparison to the battle that warred within Cowper’s soul.  That is why contemplating the truth that Jesus loves William Cowper was so freeing to me this morning. 

Of course it is possible that Cowper was right and that he was damned.  But he certainly showed numerous evidences of grace.  John Newton, who proved himself perceptive in caring for souls, was convinced of Cowper’s regenerate state.  More than likely William Cowper is now dancing with Jesus—though he died in a fit of insanity that convinced him that he would soon be tormented along with other damned souls. 

Why is that encouraging?  It is encouraging because my feelings of discouragement do not have the power to damn me.  Neither does my battle with bitterness or cynicism.  Nor does it even matter if I fall into Cowper-like insanity, that drives me to the conclusion that I am damned.  As John Bunyan once said, “I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ.”   

What held Cowper, what held Bunyan, and what continues to hold me is the surety of the work of Jesus Christ on my behalf.  In other words, Romans 8:31-39 is true in the life of the believer whether we grasp it or not:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Even insanity which falsely damns you cannot separate you from the truth of complete redemption that is found in Jesus Christ. 

Sources:

Cowper poem

Bunyan quote

Cowper photo

Fantasy Football

Football season is upon us.  That means that fantasy football season is also here.  Since, I am a Browns fan I typically am relegated to following my fantasy teams after about week 2.  If you love Fantasy Football I have two opportunities for you to join a fun league. 

The first league will be the Borrowed Light League.  I hope to have 20 teams that sign up for this.  If you are interested just leave a comment with access to an email and I will send you a link.

The second league will be the FB Jasper League.  If you come to FB Jasper or even if you do not you can join this league by also leaving a comment with access to an email. 

You can sign up for both leagues, but slots are filling up fast so be certain to respond quickly.  If you only want an invite to one of the leagues be certain to put which league you desire to join.