Theology That Bites Back
“Some might say, in defense of their idolatrous commitment to an absolutist view of tribal identity, that Scripture tells us to stick to the bounds of our appointed habitation (Acts 17:26)—as though this exercise of God’s sovereignty applied only to remote northern villages in Finland, or to White Town, Oklahoma. But God’s sovereignty in this applies equally to Brooklyn, that hot pot of jumbled ethnicities.”
American Milk and Honey, p. xv
“By faith, Rahab betrayed her homeland (Jos. 2:25). By faith, Ruth abandoned her people (Ruth 1:16). By faith Jeremiah demoralized the patriots, undermining the war effort (Jer. 38:4). By faith Jehoida committed treason (2 Kings 11:14-15). By faith Jonathan disobeyed his faith the king (1 Sam. 19:2). By faith David ran away from the anointed authority (1 Sam. 19:12). They did all this because of their ultimate loyalties, not their proximate loyalties. Be adults in your thinking, and not children.”
American Milk and Honey, p. xiv
“Paul was willing to go to Hell for his kinsmen (Rom. 9:3), but was well aware that they were the ones who were so ardent about killing him (Acts 23:20).”
American Milk and Honey, p. xiv
“There are two kinds of idols. One must be demolished entirely, ground into powder at the brook Kidron, and used to desecrate the graves of the people (2 Kings 23:5-7). There is to be no quarter given to this kind of idol—for example, a statue of Tash in your backyard, to which neighborhood puppies and kittens are sacrificed. That is not the sort of thing that can be gradually opposed. But there is another kind of idol, where natural and good gifts from our Heavenly Father have assumed a wrongful place in the heart loyalties of an individual. He might be greedy for money, which is idolatry (Col. 3:5), and yet after repentance he must still purchase things. He might love his father and mother in such a way as to keep him from becoming a disciple of Christ (Matt. 10:37; cf. Luke 14:26), and yet true repentance does not mean that he needs to shoot his father and mother, and bury them in a desecrated graveyard at the brook Kidron. Rather, it means demoting them from the god shelf of his heart, and honoring them in the proper way more than he ever did in his life before.”
American Milk and Honey, pp. xii-xiii
“A man who is married to a woman can betray her, but a man who never met her cannot do so . . . In other words, we say that all adulterers were never really married. But of course this means that they are not really adulterers . . . In other words, we have two positions: the first is that husbands cannot commit adultery, and the second is that adulterers are not husbands, and hence not adulterers. What never seems to occur to anyone is the duty of fighting our fellow Christians to the last ditch—as Athanasius did with Arius.”
“But it appears that as soon as we are stopped from rummaging around in our own hearts, we have an immediate yearning to rummage around in someone else’s. We either doubt our own salvation with anguish or we doubt someone else’s with satisfaction.”
“If we believe God when He says that He made us one with our wives so that He could have godly offspring, then we should act as though we believe it. This means that we should teach our children to believe it. And this means, in its turns, that they should never know a time when they did not love and honor Jesus Christ, love His gospel, and love His Church. If we do anything else with our children, we are teaching them to doubt, not to believe . . . We must return to the doctrine of covenantal succession. If we hold to infant baptism, we are saying by our participation in that wonderful rite that we believe God’s promises concerning future generations. What this debate has shown is that more than a few paedobaptists are saying, ‘Really? You believe the promises? Isn’t that works?’”
“If God were to have my children turn out on the basis of my works—on one of my good days—they would all be in the penitentiary. But He offers to give me my children, and their children after them. What must I do? I must believe Him when He offers them to me. Now if I believe Him, this faith is organically connected to parental faithfulness. But we are solid Protestants, and so we do not try to have the ox push the plow. Faith first and faith foundationally.”
“Contrary to the assumptions of many, the Half-Way Covenant was not the result of covenantal lethargy, but just the reverse—covenantal rigorism. Everyone had to be ‘born again’ in a highly visible, demonstrable way, but there were a number among the settlers who were not regenerate, along with a number of others who were regenerate but who were unable or unwilling to gin up a credible testimony. But these people believed in Christ, they held to the truth of the Christian religion, and they wanted their children baptized. They lacked the revivalistic tremens, but wanted their children baptized. The Half-Way Covenant allowed for this, but maintained a high fence around the Table of the Lord. This was zeal run amok, not lethargy. Unfortunately, it was a zeal without knowledge.”
“This meaning of grace is its aroma. Having learned this, only then is it safe to learn the practical incarnation forms of grace—sacramental thanksgiving, true sabbath keeping, psalming from the heart, and the rest of a forgiven, righteous life. Practical Christianity without grace is legalism. Grace without practice is gnosticism”
