Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Book Commentary’ Category

Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering

Posted in Book Commentary on March 5, 2010| 1 Comment »

Thank you to Justin Taylor for posting yesterday on Nancy Guthrie’s new book, Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering.

I highly recommend watching Justin’s interview with Nancy Guthrie.  She has experienced profound suffering herself in her family, and proclaims God as good and sovereign.

I look forward to reading this book, and probably the others she has written as well!

Read Full Post »

A ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ because of disability?

Posted in Book Commentary, commentary on February 22, 2010| 10 Comments »

Hermeneutics is defined by Random House as:

  1. the science of interpretation, esp. of the Scriptures.
  2. the branch of theology that deals with the principles of Biblical exegesis.

A few years ago I was introduced to the term ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ in the book, Copious Hosting, by Jeanie Weis Block:

“Therefore, scriptural exegesis of the disability passages begins with a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” asking a question not unlike the question posed by many feminist theologians when they inquire if Scripture, with its decidedly patriarchal bias, can be relevant and meaningful to women. Likewise, disability advocates must ask difficult questions such as: Do the Scriptures have an ‘ableist’ bias that ultimately oppresses people with disabilities?” p. 101

While it was buried 100 pages into the book, statements like that just jump off the page.  The arrogance that we have greater wisdom than the Scriptures is stunning – but very, very common.  And not new.

C.S. Lewis wrote a series of essays addressing the idea that we get to judge God and Scriptures rather than see ourselves as standing before God deserving his judgment.  He titled it, God in the Dock.   And he wrote those essays between 1940 and 1963.

We can keep going back into history.  I actually thought of the above quote from Weis Block’s book while reading Luke 6:

On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him.  Luke 6:6-7

The scribes and the Pharisees wanted to SEE A MIRACLE so they could accuse him.  Even observable evidence of omnipotent authority over creation only fueled their certainty that Jesus couldn’t be who he said he was. Talk about a hermeneutic of suspicion!

God does not fit into easy categories because only God is free and righteous and just and holy – all in infinite proportions.  When he says he creates some who are disabled,  he is speaking and acting out of his infinite depths of knowledge and righteousness, not our time-centered, sin-filled, finite perspective.

A ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ of the Scriptures?  No, never.  Please, when certain passages are hard to understand, take the opportunity to dig deeper rather than become suspicious of the author and his authority to do whatever he wills with his creation.  For his glory and our good.

Read Full Post »

Just the Way I Am: God’s Good Design in Disability is coming soon!

Posted in Book Commentary on February 12, 2010| 7 Comments »

I don’t know exactly when it will be ready, but we are now weeks rather than months away from having it, Lord willing.

Here is the cover.

That is Pastor Kempton Turner with his oldest son, Christian.

There is more I will say about this cover later.  For now, just enjoy.

Read Full Post »

“It is right and good to pray for healing.”

Posted in Book Commentary on December 30, 2009| 1 Comment »

John Piper, from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, page 25:

It is right and good to pray for healing. God has purchased it in the death of his Son, with all the other blessings of grace, for all his children (Isa. 53:5). But he has not promised that we get the whole inheritance in this life. And he decides how much. We pray, and we trust his answer. If you ask your Father for bread, he will not give you a stone. If you ask him for a fish, he will not give you a serpent (see Matt. 7:9- 10). It may not be bread. And it may not be a fish. But it will be good for you. That is what he promises (Rom. 8:28)

Read Full Post »

Disability, Disease and Treasuring God

Posted in Book Commentary, Helpful things on December 6, 2009| 3 Comments »

Every household should have a copy of Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper.  Yes, there is a chapter on Christmas, which is very good and helpful.  But I recommend it for other reasons.

Our cancer period had days when it was hard to pray with the children over something as simple as meals.  So we borrowed the Piper’s mealtime prayers, memorizing them for ourselves and for the sake of the children:

Prayer for the midday meal
We’re grateful, Father, for this hour
To rest and draw upon your power,
Which you have shown in sun and rain
And measured out to every grain.
Let all this food which you have made
And graciously  before us laid
Restore our strength for these next hours
That you may have our fullest powers.  (p. 47)
You can read it online at the link above, or buy a copy here.

Read Full Post »

Don’t Waste Your Disease or Disability

Posted in Book Commentary on November 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Within weeks of each other in 2006, John Piper and David Powlison were diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Pastor John wrote a helpful article, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer,” that outlines 10 ways people can waste their cancer.  David Powlison added his thoughts to each of the ten shortly thereafter.  Here is an excerpt:

9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.

David Powlison: Suffering really is meant to wean you from sin and strengthen your faith. If you are God-less, then suffering magnifies sin. Will you become more bitter, despairing, addictive, fearful, frenzied, avoidant, sentimental, godless in how you go about life? Will you pretend it’s business as usual? Will you come to terms with death, on your terms? But if you are God’s, then suffering in Christ’s hands will change you, always slowly, sometimes quickly. You come to terms with life and death on his terms. He will gentle you, purify you, cleanse you of vanities. He will make you need him and love him. He rearranges your priorities, so first things come first more often. He will walk with you. Of course you’ll fail at times, perhaps seized by irritability or brooding, escapism or fears. But he will always pick you up when you stumble. Your inner enemy – a moral cancer 10,000 times more deadly than your physical cancer – will be dying as you continue seeking and finding your Savior: “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is very great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose” (Psalm 25).

 

 

Read Full Post »

Endure to the End

Posted in Book Commentary on November 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

We were weak, fallible, proud and full of sin even before disability entered our family.  How can anyone hope to endure for a day, let alone ‘to the end’?

We trust in the New Covenant promises of sustaining, enabling grace that were obtained for us infallibly and irrevocably by Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. Therefore our fight and our race and endurance is a radically God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent, promise-supported life. It is not a “just do it” ethic. It is not a moral self-improvement program. It is not a “Judeo-Christian ethic” shared by a vaguely spiritual culture with a fading biblical memory. It is a deeply cross-embracing life that knows the Christ of the Bible as the Son of God who was crucified first as our substitute and then as our model of endurance.

From The Roots of Endurance by John Piper, p. 29

Read Full Post »

Paul Wolfe on Cancer and God’s Sovereignty

Posted in Book Commentary on November 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

From Paul Wolfe’s book, My God Is True! Lessons Learned Along Cancer’s Dark Road, p. 14:

And this king is no mere figurehead.  The Lord is a king with control. The traditional term for this divine control is ‘providence’. With holiness, wisdom and power, God preserves and governs all this creatures and all that they do. Nothing that takes place is beyond the scope of his good and purposeful rule (emphasis mine).

And he wrote this AFTER experiencing cancer.

I haven’t read much yet, but he obviously loves the Word of God.  I look forward to reading more.

Read Full Post »

Suffering Always Has Meaning

Posted in Book Commentary on November 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

From Future Grace by John Piper, pp. 346-347:

We do not grasp the great truth that God has purposes of future grace that he intends to give his people through suffering.  We speak of purposes of suffering because it is clearly God’s purpose that we at times suffer for righteousness’ sake and for the sake of the gospel.  For example, “Let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19; see also 3:17; Hebrews 12:4-11).

To live by faith in future grace we must see that the suffering of God’s people is the instrument of grace in their lives.

Read Full Post »

Eugenics, Abortion and the Church Today

Posted in Book Commentary, commentary on October 26, 2009| 3 Comments »

For the past two days I’ve reviewed Amy Laura Hall’s essay on the support some pastors and theologians gave to the eugenics movement in the United States.  As others have also noted, Hall makes the connection between yesterday’s eugenics movement and today’s extraordinarily high rates of abortion of children with disabilities:

(M)any eugenic ideas have jumped the gap from yesterday to today, bridging the chasm between overtly coercive eugenics and purportedly voluntary parental and social responsibility in the land of the free. (Swinton and Brock, p. 78)

Purportedly is the right word.   (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »