I’ve been listening all along to sermons by Martin Emmrich who pastors an OPC church in Corvallis, Oregon. I’ve tried not to rave about every sermon because I figure people won’t believe me if I do, but since I know a lot of people bouncing through here are writers, I have to call your attention to this sermon, Words of Art. It’s not about writing–it’s about everyday communication–but writers, of all people, should understand and embrace what he’s saying in this sermon.

So if you have an hour to spare–and if not, why not take an hour from some other unessential activity?–listen to this sermon. And consider God’s agenda in your communications.

The kids and I got several shots yesterday. The health department was out of the yellow fever so we’ll go back next week for that.

There are few things more enjoyable for a person prone to panic attacks than reading all the warnings of possible severe reactions on the literature handed out before you get your shots. Before the nurse even gets near you with the needle you can feel your face going numb and your throat closing up.

=0)

I’m kidding. It wasn’t bad at all. I’ve learned to manage the panic attacks and they haven’t bothered me much in the last couple of years. When I start feeling one coming on, I just remind myself that if God thinks I need to suffer, he’ll manage to make me suffer whether or not I get the stupid inoculation (or whatever else it is that I’m afraid of).

It’s quite freeing to realize that you can’t protect yourself from God. Because once you look at it in those terms you see how silly that is. As if you needed to protect yourself from God.

Duh!

But I do believe in secondary causes–I do believe God uses prayer (along with inoculations) to take care of us. So if you have time this week, we’d love prayer for the physical health of the team.

Four from our team (two adults and two kids) went down last week. They’ve joined ten down there (two families) for a trip up the Beni River. There are two doctors and two nurses in the group and they are hoping to work with primitive peoples. Please pray for their health and protection as well as God’s blessings on the contacts they make.

The rest of the team members here in the States are learning Spanish songs. That’s fun. We’re also working on VBS plans.

Here is a picture of some of the Aore (pronounced IRA–like the Irish Republican Army, not the man’s name) children our team will be working with when we go down next month. With their chubby cheeks they remind me of the little kids from the Alaskan villages.

Thanks for praying for us!

sally

On my children’s book blog, I’ve posted for the last several days on the book by Shelley Adina, it’s all about us.

If you have teen or pre-teen daughters, you might be interested in my evaluation of the book.

The posts are here, here, and here.

So he’s back on that pedestal with this sermon from Exodus. Unfortunately the recording ends before the sermon is done. Still a good listen.

And I think I should seriously say, so there is no mistake about it, because Bob seemed to think I might be swayed toward Open Theism, I really believe that Open Theism is heretical. I don’t say that lightly. We may debate time and how it was created and where God sits in relation to it. I’m not sure I’ve read Bible passages that claim that God sits outside of time. What I’m convinced of from scripture is that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. And if you believe in a God who is not omniscient, you don’t believe in the God of the Christian scriptures.

God knows all things. Nothing is hidden from his eye. Before he formed us in the womb, he knew us. He perceives our thoughts from afar and before a word is on our tongues he knows it. He knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads, and the deceitfulness of our hearts. He ordains the days of our lives. He can say with perfect precision what will happen in the future. He does know the end from the beginning. He did know that not one of Jesus’ bones would be broken and that the guard would cast lots for his clothing. And he does know the New Jerusalem will come down.

Just take one instance–the guards casting lots for Jesus’ clothes. How could God know such a thing? He has visions of the future? But only sometimes? He sees, from the time of the fall, that a seed will come and be bruised by the serpent and will crush the serpent’s head. He sees Christ and promises Abraham that through him all nations will be blessed. He gives Moses the plans to the tabernacle, making sure that everything points to Christ, he even sees the guards casting lots for Jesus’ clothing, but he can’t see Abraham taking up the knife to kill his son before it happens?

Why not? What would make it so God can see some things but not others? Who gives God visions of the future sometimes and withholds them at other times? Either God can see what lies ahead (in our human story) or he can’t. To think that he sometimes has this ability and other times loses it, is to make him a different God from who he claims to be in Scripture.

Ack, ack, ack! My favorite preacher has fallen from his pedestal with this sermon from Matthew.

Nah, I didn’t really have him on a pedestal. He’s said things in the past that I disagree with. The reason he’s my favorite preacher is that he limits himself to the word and doesn’t bring in a lot of outside sources. He looks at a passage and he says, “What does this passage say to us? What is the Author trying to convey?” He does that rather than making up a lecture on this or that problem and then searching out scripture verses that support his theory and offer a jumping-off place from which he may launch his lecture.

So he’s still my favorite preacher. And today, as I listened to his sermon on the Parable of the Sower, I was with him for quite a while. Even when he got to the part where he said that sometimes holding to certain statements of faith can block the hearing of God’s word. And I was still with him when he said that even in the OPC there might be repression or oppression, or something like that, because people are so committed to the Westminster Confession that they can’t hear God’s word.

I’ve lived in the OPC and one of the reasons I’m in the PCA now is that I’ve sought counsel from some OPC elders and gotten the Westminster Confession quoted to me, instead of being fed God’s word, which has the power to convict.

But the PCA I’m in, love it as I do–and I do love it because it’s the best, most balanced, church I’ve ever been in–is a struggle for me, too, sometimes. It is more ecumenical than I like. I was born in an RPCNA crib and raised in an OPC nursery, after all. And here I am in a clappy, happy PCA with a pastor who prays with United Methodists. I’d like to rebel. The reason I don’t is that I believe that God has given me this church and he’s given me these pastors and elders because they can help me. They are fine Christian men and if we don’t agree on all points, so what? I’m not perfect and neither are they. We are all growing in our understanding and we will keep growing until we die. So I don’t have to run from a church every time the elders do something I don’t like. If I did that, I’d have no church to go to because all elders sin and they all do things I don’t like.

I’m pretty sure they feel the same way about me. I think they can see some of my many faults.

So, I bring up this PCA because here I sit chuckling in my “loose by OPC standards” church, as my old pal Martin Emmrich tosses a little rebuke at those in the OPC who elevate the Westminster Confession above scripture. He’s absolutely right to do so. We are quick to complain about the Romans and the Eastern Orthodox elevating tradition above scripture. When they say that Holy Tradition is equal to Holy Scripture they are, in fact, putting it above scripture. Because whatever interprets scripture has the ultimate authority.

What’s the problem with the Confession, then? It says itself that Scripture alone is our only rule of faith and practice. It makes no claims at being equal to scripture. It clearly elevates scripture above all.

The problem is that, say what we like, there are OPC elders who have the confession memorized and who seem unfamiliar with scripture. There are those who argue a point every time by going to the Confession and never get around to looking at what scripture has to say on the matter. They are so sure that the Confession is without error that they wouldn’t think of changing it. They say it is not inerrant and not on par with scripture, but they treat it as if it is inerrant and cannot be improved upon.

So, since I was tracking so well with the sermon, what knocked perfect Martin off the pedestal today? He made his case, convicting us of our refusal to hear scripture, by going first to the place where God says, “Now, I know” about Abraham’s willingness to obey and sacrifice Isaac. Martin says we shouldn’t say that God knows everything therefore this passage can’t mean that God really didn’t know what Abraham would do.

He’s wrong.

Or maybe I should say I’d be interested in hearing him flesh this out a little so I can be sure I understand what he’s trying to say.

Because some things we do know about God. We know he’s all-knowing. So when I look at this statement, “Now, I know…” I most certainly can say it doesn’t mean that God didn’t know what Abraham would do. I don’t have to say what it does mean. I may not know what it does mean. And I don’t care if Martin can’t say what it does mean. But I do care if he says it might mean God didn’t already know.

I’ve had lots of friends see the illogical stance of Arminianism and, hating Calvinism as they do because they believe Calvin’s God is an ogre who denies hapless people the ability to repent and believe, they slide to the only place they can reconcile with their finite brains–Open Theism.

We don’t have to go there. We know that God is all-knowing. We know that God is all-loving. We know that God is all-powerful. And if we look at the world or the word and see apparent contradictions we can let them lie, content to have them answered later when we will fully know even as we are fully known.

Martin also brings up another thing that keeps us from hearing God’s word. Self-righteousness. Thinking, “So and so should have heard this sermon,” and never applying it to ourselves. So here I sit saying there are OPC elders who need to hear the rebuke Martin levels, but, by golly, I’m not going to give an inch on my surety that God did too know Abraham would obey him.

Well, I’m willing to be convinced. I’ll read the Bible with an eye open for passages that say God doesn’t know the end from the beginning. I’ll go that far. Open Theism gives me the willies, but if it’s true what does it matter how I feel about it? I need to ask God to make me love truth. Because, honestly, my first reaction is often to hate truth.

However, I’ve been made new. And sometimes those feelings of distaste are not self-righteousness. Sometimes they come from having a mind and heart in tune with Christ.

We shall see.