SUBSCRIBER LOGIN

Search
First Things

Loading

RSS

Masthead

Recent Comments

  • teleologist: Thanks you for the opportunity to express our opinions with the time that we had. Tongues will cease,...
  • Orthodoxdj: As Tolkien said to Lewis as they parted on that fateful night in Oxford, “Goodbye.”
  • Livingston Dell: I didn’t always comment as frequently as I had liked to on these articles, but I always...
  • Nikolai Volk: You know, we had a hell of a run in these comment sections. I’ve had many a great discussion with...
  • David Strunk: Hey Joe, I also appreciated what you guys did here, and always had this blog on my RSS feed to see the...
  • Amy K. Hall: Thanks for starting the blog, Joe. It was an honor to be included.

    • Archives

    Categories

    Monthly



    A Different Kind of Party
    Friday, December 18, 2009, 7:00 AM

    nativeSince this is the last post in this series, let me say frankly that I think most people don’t care about this series of thoughts on what Christmas is all about – because it’s a bit much. You know: theology shouldn’t screw up our fun. The church (or Church, for some people) says we should have a feast day on Dec 25th, we can go to the local branch for a fixer-upper around 10 AM since we were up with the kids at 6 AM to open presents, and then the rest of the day can be a mix of naps and fighting over Phillips-head screwdrivers and AA-batteries. It’s family time, and that’s good enough for us, Frank: would you please shut up about prostitutes and the wrath of God?

    It’s funny because Linus makes the grave reading of Luke 2 for Charlie Brown and says, “That’s what it’s all about, Charlie Brown,” and we feel like something really important® has been said by Dollie Madison cakes and Coca-Cola. But Luke 2 isn’t in a vacuum. The matter of what happened on the night in question in the city of David when there was no room in the inn is not really about anything – unless there is something more to this child than a birth in poverty into an indifferent world.
    (more…)


    Not that kind of girl anymore
    Monday, December 14, 2009, 7:01 AM

    red_brideMy point, so far, is that God’s wrath is coming, and Jesus — whose birth we celebrate at Christmas — is the savior from that wrath. It’s a point a lot of people got because that’s what a savior is — and it’s a point I have made here before, so you were probably with me on it by way of preparation, one way or the other.

    Now, the question is: is that enough? That is, if we understand that what we deserve is God’s wrath and what we get is God’s savior, can we now have some ham and some applesauce and some casserole and maybe (in presbyterian and Lutheran homes, of course) a glass of wine, a decent night’s sleep, and then open the presents on Christmas morn after an appropriately-solemn reading of Luke 2? I mean, seriously: enough’s enough.

    Listen: Christmas is not about a logical argument, an intellectual affirmation, and then a secular session of either greed or idolatry (or maybe both). Christmas is about God with us.
    (more…)


    Not Just Optimism
    Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 7:15 AM

    As I’m writing this fourth part, I’m betting that you’re worn out already — “OK, Frank: wrath of God. I got it. Christ was born to satisfy the wrath of God, and that’s good, and that’s a really sound reason to have joy at Christmas. Amen — I’m going shopping with a very reverent look on my face.”

    Yeah, the comments are of course all going south, too, with people thinking that I’m not a cheery person and that I want to abolish the gingerbread and the mistletoe. On Earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests, Frank: It’s a Wonderful Life! Don’t write this 6-part thing on with all your dour Calvinism bringing the rest of us down.
    (more…)


    With Interest
    Sunday, December 6, 2009, 9:15 AM

    harsh_rulerAt , we think –- we, Americans who say we are Christians –- we deserve a break from the things we do every day. We deserve a rest. We deserve to sleep on the sofa, and to have a big meal, and then to sleep on the sofa again, and watch a parade or some football, or whatever it is that gets done on the only day of the year WAL*MART closes for business.

    But what happens at Christmas happens exactly because we don’t deserve a break. What we deserve is, frankly, the wrath of God. That’s why Malachi gave that warning when he was closing up the Prophetic shop of the Old Testament – that’s what we deserve. That’s why, 400 years later, John is in the Wilderness in the spirit and power of Elijah demanding that we make a straight path for God, and that we repent from sin.

    It’s because the King is coming. See: the King is coming here. If your football buddy is coming to dinner, you clean the house up a little – but what if the Governor of your state was coming to dinner? You’d probably get some help to clean up, wouldn’t you? You’d recruit people to make sure your lawn wasn’t a disgrace, and your whole house – from linen closet to kitchen sink – would be ready for him to come. You’d do something extra because the Governor is important.
    (more…)


    Kill-joys at the Yuletide
    Friday, December 4, 2009, 6:01 AM

    angelSo some of you are thinking, “Frank, you’re a jerk, you know that? This is the Christmas season, and you’re ignoring the fact that the Angels we have heard on High sang Glo-o-o-ria in-ex-chel-sis-day-o. They were happy – John Piper would say they were happy. John Mark Reynolds would say they were happy. I’ll bet Frank Beckwith would say they were happy. You ‘say’ we Christians should be happy and not frowny-faced kill-joys at the Yuletide. Christmas is about happy! You’re off the chain, bro, to say that ought to be scarier than Halloween.”

    Listen: there’s no question that the angels gave up a “Joy to the World! And Heaven and nature Sings!” to the Shepherds. No question. The matter is whether they were celebrating some sugar-and-cinnamon baked goods, or if they were celebrating something which requires a host angels — creatures the Bible calls “as a flame of fire” which are ministers to God — singing in a way which brings fear into the hearts of the first-century equivalent of cattle-herding cowboys.

    There is joy at Christmas – holy, beautiful joy which ought to blow our pride and our smallness to pieces, and make us, as Paul wrote, even in a severe test of affliction coupled with extreme poverty, overflowing with a wealth of generosity. We ought to be people who are crazy about giving to others because of what we celebrate at Christmas.
    (more…)


    Famous Last Words
    Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 1:01 AM

    You know: when most people get ready to write a little something for the season, they fire up the Yule log, and they have a little eggnog, and toss a little tinsel, and eat a cookie, and then they have this sweet smell on their breath as they talk about how joyful a season this is.

    I’m going to try something different this year, and I hope you’re ready to come with me. We’re going to start in Malachi:

    Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

    “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.

    “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

    “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” [ESV]

    Those are the last words from the Old Testament – the last part of the book of Malachi, and the last words God spoke to the nation Israel for 400 years. It doesn’t sound like God was getting ready to make any cookies to me – it sounds like God is spelling it out for Israel:

    My wrath is coming.

    “The day that is coming shall set them ablaze.” That’s not very holly-jolly, is it? I mean – what kind of person can have Christmas when what God’s last words before a 400-year silence prior to Christ’s birth say explicitly that He’s getting ready to burn evildoers up like what’s left over after a harvest?

    (more…)

    Links

    Blogs

    Find Us

    Contact