1. John Owen, The Holy Spirit (Works, Volume 3) (at 650 pps, this one took a while!)
2. John Fesko, The Rule of Love

November

1. Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation
2. Collection, Luther and Calvin On Secular Authority
3. Robert Godfrey, John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor

December

1. Collection, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology
2. G. I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith : A Study Guide
3. David Hall, Calvin in the Public Square
4. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

Brief comments on the above, if you’re interested, are available here.

Dear family and friends,

It appears that the Lord, in his goodness and wisdom, has decided to call our little one home.

We accept this hard providence as good for the baby, and good for our family (Romans 8:28). We also echo the words of Job: “Shall we receive good from the Lord, and not receive [hardship] also?”

There are important decisions to be made now regarding Megan’s health, namely, whether to wait for a natural passing of the baby or to perform a medical procedure to accomplish this. There are risks and benefits to both options; please pray that He would grant us wisdom and patience as we work through the next steps.

“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Thank you for praying with us.

In His Sovereign grip,
Aron, Megan, and Ethan Gahagan

As best as we can tell, the baby was about 6-8 weeks into the pregnancy. I hadn’t posted the news here yet, but for those who knew about the pregnancy and about Megan’s complications, we do appreciate everyone’s prayers. We embrace this outcome as the Lord’s answer to our prayers – may it never be said that “He did not answer” them. Our pastor visited us recently and read Psalm 139, which had been a great comfort to us during the complications. Through tears, he reminded us that this child was not “taken too soon”, but lived out his full life in the plan of God. We were much comforted by the following verses especially:

15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the infant King, we are truly sorrowful, and yet abundantly joyful. “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away – blessed be the name of the Lord!”

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

The first thing that jumped out was that the “dwelling place of God is with man” – immediately I thought of that theme throughout all of Scripture, beginning in the Garden of Eden. Then the next verse about God being our God, and we being his people – also a recurring covenantal theme running back through Moses to Abraham and back to the protoevangelion (the ’seed promise’ of the gospel), when God’s first gracious act was to “put enmity between” the enemy and his son, Adam (that happens by Adam becoming ‘his people’ again, and not the enemy’s). And yet, the context of all this Edenic ambiance is judgment. I almost felt guilty for focusing on a ’side dish’ of the text – but then I remembered that the only way Eden could be restored is by Christ fulfilling what Adam failed to do, namely, purge the temple. This passage is about the final purging of the cosmic temple – the climax of history when Christ consummates what he inaugurated at Calvary – the cleansing of God’s cosmic ‘garden-temple’. That only happens through judgement – judgement that remains for any and all who are not in Christ, for Christ has already borne the full weight of God’s wrath for all those who are His – the wrath of God has been satisfied.

And yet, judgement remains. Living now, between the ‘first judgement’ (of the Church, in Christ) and the ’second judgement’ (of the enemies of God), I’m reminded of the very first Scripture Christ read when he began his ministry, after his temptation in the wilderness:

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

In reading this passage, he put a period where there was a comma (so to speak) in the text: the passage from Isaiah continues, “…and the day of vengeance of our God…” The day of judgement as come “already” and the day of judgement has “not yet” come. As I wonder at the first Advent of Christ I am thankful that it means  ”God and sinners [are] reconciled.” And it points me forward to the second Advent of Christ, terrible as it will be, when the final judgement will cleanse the cosmic temple, and “God’s dwelling place will be with men” and “we will be his people, and He shall be our God.” It will be “a great and terrible day of the Lord,” but “even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!”

UPDATE: The post above was apparently provoked by A Letter to Non-Believers* by Shane Claibourne, published in Esquire.

*For whatever it’s worth, there is no such thing as a “non-believer”. There are only believers and unbelievers. “Non-believer” implies some kind of neutrality on the question of the true God’s existence, whereas Romans 1:18-23 teaches us that all men know God – but suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness (by denying it). The existence and attributes of God are clearly revealed to all “so that they are without excuse” (Gr., anapologētos – i.e., “without an argument”). There are no sidelines in this game – everyone plays, and you’re either for Him or against Him (Matthew 12:30, Luke 9:50).

Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weaknesses, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.

This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force. You can throw away the dialectical materialism, the Hegelian framework, the technical jargon, the “scientific” analysis, and millions of pretentious words, and you still have the core: the implacable hatred and envy that are the raison d’être for all the rest.

Here also is the root of political correctness – the “Critical Theory” of the Frankfurt School.

(HT: Mises Ec0nomics Blog)

(1) We attended Christ Reformed Church last weekend, which is a newer work of the United Reformed Church. It was a bit different for us – a much more formal liturgy than we’re used to – but still quite good. The building was almost as old as it was beautiful – distractingly beautiful, we thought. And the people were young, warm and inviting. The pastor preached on Romans 9, but what jumped out at me that day was something from the “Old Testament lesson”. It came from Exodus 33, when Moses asks to see God’s glory. What struck me was that God responded by “declaring his name” – instead of displaying something for Moses’s senses, he communicated something to his mind. Now, I’m sure what he ’saw’ and ‘heard’ was astounding — but God answered the glory-request by communicating knowledge in the form of words that Moses could understand. He declared his name, and his character (instead of a light show and liver-shivers).How many times would we lean a little more toward a miraculous “signs and wonders” episode instead of the “pure milk of the word”? I am thankful that we have a communicating God, who desires that we know him truly, and that to that end he has communicated to us about himself, ourselves, reality and history, in a language we can understand.

(2) On the way back this afternoon, the topic of forgiveness came up – particularly, when we ought to forgive. It seems to me that sometimes we’re more quick to forgive when it’s not clear who is really in the wrong – maybe there’s some gray area, perhaps there was some misunderstanding or misinterpreting…we’re willing to give the other the benefit of the doubt, ‘maybe they didn’t really mean what I thought they meant’, etc. But when it’s absolutely clear that it was the other person who was in the wrong? Doesn’t Justice cry out from the roof tops! If you’re like me, your knee-jerk response is a little more eager for justice than for anything else. Then I thought of Jesus’ teaching that we are to ‘turn the other cheek’ – that’s not for when we’re not really sure who’s in the wrong, but when it’s crystal clear that we’ve been struck with malice aforethought and ill intent in the face by another. ‘Justice!’ is the cry of our self-unaware, depravity-hazed eyes. But eyes that see by the gospel’s light see that it’s right then that Christ has directed us to forgive – “from our heart.” (If only I was better at living that out!)

Thanks for dropping by…