Praying with the Puritans

Bill Bryson described Puritanism as the fear that someone somewhere was having a good time. Sadly, Bryson speaks for a lot of Christians when he writes that. Jared C. Wilson describes that sort of view of the Puritans as 'theologically and historically tone deaf.' As much as i enjoy Bill Bryson, i have to agree with Jared C. Wilson.

I love the Puritans. From John 'is this a sentence or a paragraph,' Owen, to Jonathan 'come and see the view from up here,' Edwards, i never fail to enjoy the time i spend with these men. The Puritans, at their best were true evangelical, experiential Christians.

Comparing their prayer life to mine is like comparing to sun to the embers in a long forgotten fireplace, but for the last three months, i've enjoyed the privilege of praying alongside these great great men. I've been using Joe Thorn's Valley of Vision reading plan.

I must've bought the Valley of Vision years ago, i think even before i moved to the States, but it was always a bit of a mystery, always a bit overwhelming and even inaccessible. I'd prayed some of the daily prayers, the ministers prayers, and the repentance prayers fairly regularly, but i knew i was missing out. This reading plan has been life to me throughout the day this summer.

The plan has you reading three prayers a day, for five days a week, although about half way through i started reading the last two prayers from Friday on Saturday and Sunday. These prayers take you to places you'd heard of, and dreamed about, but never made it to. To penitential depths and joy filled heights, to seeing the horror of sin through the eyes of men who really got it, to seeing the joys of Christ through the hearts of men who knew Him.

Of course there are dangers to reading someone else's prayers, it can become formal and dry. So don't let it. Lay down the wood, and as for the Holy Spirit to set fire to it. I knew when i was praying, because it would take me nearly twenty minutes to cover maybe two minutes of reading.

Using the prayers at the start of the day was great, and warmed my heart up for the Word, but it was the prayers in the middle and at the end of the day that i appreciated the most. To make time to pray, and to be guided in these prayers was so valuable and so helpful. It's scary how easy it is, even when your desk is eleven paces from a church auditorium, to try and work in your own strength. The Valley of Vision was a lovely, life giving, corrective throughout the day.

It's made my prayer life deeper and richer, and i commend it to you without reservation.

You can buy the Valley of Vision here
And download the plan here.

Lord's Day Eve Prayer (Valley of Vision)

 God of the passing hour,

Another week has gone,

and i have been preserved 

in my going out and my coming in.

       Thine has been the vigilance that has turned

    threatened evils aside;

Thine the supplies that have nourished me;

Thine the comforts that have indulged me;

Thine the relations and friends that have

    delighted me;

Thine the means of grace which have edified me;

Thine the Book, which, amidst all my enjoyments,

    has told me that this is not my rest,

    that in all successes one thing alone is needful,

      to love my Saviour.

Nothing can equal the number of thy mercies

  but my imperfections and sins.

These, O God, I will neither conceal nor palliate,

  but confess with a broken heart.

In what condition would secret reviews

    of my life leave me

  were it not for the assurance that with thee

    there is plenteous redemption,

    that thou art a forgiving God,

      that thou mayest be feared!

While I hope for pardon through the blood

    of the cross,

  I pray to be clothed with humility,

      to be quickened in thy way,

      to be more devoted to thee,

      to keep the end of my life in view,

      to be cured of the folly of delay and indecision,

      to know how frail I am,

      to number my days and apply my heart

        unto wisdom.

True Wisdom is a Precious Jewel

How foolish a thing it is for men to lean on their own understanding, and trust their own hearts. If we are so blind, then our own wisdom is not to be depended upon; and that advice of the wise man is most reasonable, 'trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on your own understanding.' 'And he that trusteth in in his own heart is a fool.' They therefore are fools, who trust to their own wisdom, and will question  the mysterious doctrines of religion; because they can not see through them, and will not trust to the infinite wisdom of God.

Let us therefore become fools; be sensible of our own blindness and folly. There is a treasure of wisdom contained in that one sentence, 'if any among you seems wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.' Seeing our own ignorance and blindness is the first step towards having true knowledge,' if any man thinketh he knowest anything, he knoweth nothing as he ought to know.

Let us ask wisdom of God. If we are so blind in ourselves, then knowledge is not to be sought out of our own stock, but must be sought from some other source. And we have nowhere else to go for it, but to the fountain of light and wisdom. True wisdom is a precious jewel; none of our fellow creatures can give it to us, neither can we buy it with nay price we have to give. It is the sovereign gift of God. The way to obtain it is to go to Him, sensible of our weakness and blindness and misery on that account. 'If any lack wisdom, let Him ask of God.' 

Jonathan Edwards, Man's Natural Blindness in Religion, Works Vol 2 Pp 255-256

The Kingdom of God is like

The Kingdom apparently exists in ever changing resemblances. Jesus does not say what it is, only what it's like.

It's like a tiny seed. It's like a big tree. It's like something inside of you. Like a pearl you'd give everything to possess, like wheat growing in weeds, like a camel going through the eye of the needle. Like the way the world looks to children. Like making wise use of the master's money. Like getting a day's pay for an hour's work. Like a crooked magistrate fixing things in your favour. Like a narrow gate, a difficult road, a lamp on a stand. Like a wedding party. Like a wedding party where all the original guests have been dis-invited and replaced by random passers-by. Like yeast in dough. Like treasure, like a harvest, like a door that opens whenever you knock. Or like a door you have to bang on for hours in the middle of the night until a grumpy neighbour wakes up and gives you a loaf. 

The Kingdom is - whatever all these likenesses have in common. The Kingdom, it seems to be saying, is something that can only be grasped in comparisons, because the world contains no actual examples of it. And yet the world winks and shines the with possibility of it.

Unapologetic, Francis Spufford, Pp124-125

Provo. In Three Tweets.

Last week Rachel and I got back from Provo, where we'd spent a few days ministering and sightseeing with some great friends of ours. Here are three tweets that well sum up what i'm thinking about, post Provo.

Any step away from the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus in all things is a step towards cultdom.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 7, 2014

I don't think cultdom is a word, (and neither does my spellchecker) but you know what i mean. Provo is 98% Mormon, which means that everyone you meet is LDS, or lapsed LDS, or pick and choose LDS. There are some weird and not so wonderful things that the LDS church teaches and practices, but in the final reckoning, it all comes down to their view of Jesus. Simply, for the LDS Church, as for every other derivation from Christianity, and every other false religion, Jesus isn't quite enough. Sure, just like everyone else, they want Jesus on their team. They want Jesus in their paradigm, but as a cheerleader, not as a Saviour. As an example, not as a payment. Every step we take away from 'Jesus paid it all,' is a step towards a man focused, man pleasing, man imagined religion.

As indicated by the next tweet:

A man just asked, "How do you guys make it without temples, no priesthood, and no authority?" Bryant said, "We have the Bible." #winprovo
— Logan Michael Wolf (@loganwolf85) July 4, 2014

Provo hosts one of the biggest 4th July festivals in the country, so for part of the trip we helped work the New Morning Church booth there. We were sort of out of the way down an alley, so my suspicion is this guy wanted to come and find us. You see how tweet one links with tweet two? Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so they need a priesthood and temples. Jesus isn't sufficient in the LDS system, so neither is He authoritative. It's a killer. Get away from Jesus, and His Word and you're on sliding scale with women bishops on one end, and your own planet when you die on the other. In our lives, and in our ministry, we must be careful, we must labour all the time, to make sure that we're not just paying lip service to Jesus, but heart service. If not, we'll be cut adrift into the wasteland of our own ideas, and today's cultural mores.

Want to experience a foreign missions trip without leaving the States? Go to Utah.
— Ed Goode (@Ed_Goode) July 9, 2014

I've spent all of nine nights in Provo, so i'm no expert, but it's a different place. Provo is blessed/plagued with moralism. Blessed, because your car probably won't be keyed by a drunk college student in the middle of the night, plagued, because everyone thinks their OK, jack. It feels different. Their history is not America's history, their way of life not America's way of life. Their monuments are not America's monuments. I think it was CS Lewis that said if the devil ran a town the churches would be full (think about it) and i can only imagine he was on his way home from an undocumented trip to the Beehive state when he wrote those words. In ministry, and particularity youth ministry, particularly in the Bible belt, we must slough off every temptation to present a moral Gospel, and instead, with Bibles open and guns ablaze, preach the risky, dirty, bloody, leper-touching, i'm alive so let's have breakfast on the beach, Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Bibliotheca Kickstarter

I'm in favour of anything that makes Bible reading more accessible (like the new ESV Reader's Bible for example) so i'm in favor of this!

 

Five Things From Skokie

I just got back from taking a team of teens and adults to Skokie, in Chicagoland. We were there for five days helping out a new church plant, Living Hope. Here are some lessons i learnt, and things i'm thinking about.

1) Church Planting Is ___________
Hard, wonderful difficult, encouraging, discouraging, and a thousand things more all at once. But vitally necessary. Skokie was a different world from North Carolina, a world that needs more men and women that love Jesus, and more churches filled with those men and women.

2) I Love The South-East, But
I commented to Rachel over the week that people who complain about living in Greenville have probably never lived anywhere else. North Carolina has everything, beaches, mountains, cities, stunning weather. Greenville has all the advantages of a college town with few of the disadvantages. And churches, lots of churches. It was refreshing to be out of the Bible belt for a while and help a pioneer work.

3) Planting Trees
Fifty years ago you could knock fruit off the trees into your church basket. Today you have to plant the tree, and that's if you can find a field. We rejoice at the Biblical, moral, freedom protecting, common sense decision of the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case, but we weep that it took an act of the Supreme Court to get it.

4) Only The Word Creates
The Bible is the rock on which the church stands or falls. Preach it, unleash it, unlock it, let it out and let it roar, and people will grow, and life will be created, and people will be saved. It will be slow, but it will be eternal. No one can convince me that turning the lights down and the music up is at all helpful. It may draw a crowd, but draw a crowd to what?

5) America is Mostly Farms
America isn't Manhattan Island and 90210. We drove the 912 miles to Skokie on Wednesday, and drove every one of those miles back yesterday. Farms brother, just farms. There's a long, dead straight stretch of highway in Indiana where every slight bend in the road feels like an event. From the farms in the Hoosier state, to the broken down old towns in Ohio, to the mountains of West Virginia we saw a great deal of America. Why do i mention this? For two reasons. The people that live in Chillcothe, Ohio and Renssaeler, Indiana need churches. Sure, we must aim for cities, because that's where the people are, but there are people in unfashionable places too. And secondly, because the priorities and passions of the coal miner in Milton, West Virginia are almost irreconcilable with those of the coffee shop owner in Boystown, San Fransico. If the Lord tarries, the next one hundred years of American life will see not just a schism between the two, but a chasm.