Faith Firmly Rooted

Have you ever heard of the Puritans?  Most of us hear them slandered at some point early in our gradeschool studies of American History.  If you are a Christian, you need to know that the Puritans in actuality have a lot to teach us...even if we've sometimes gasped at the strictness of their piety.

A couple of great resources you might want to check out are:

The Valley of Vision - This resource is basically a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions.  Arthur Bennet put them together after combing through the writings and journals of people like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, Isaac Watts, Charles Spurgeon, and others.

A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life by J.I. Packer.

Also noteworthy:
   Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were by Leland Ryken.
   The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics. This title says it all.


I'll give you an example of a Puritan prayer from Valley of Vision entitled "Spiritual Growth"

O THOU MOST HIGH,

In the way of thy appointment I am waiting for thee,
My desire is to thy name,
My mind to remembrance of thee.

I am a sinner, but not insensible of my state.
My iniquities are great and numberless,
but thou art adequate to my relief,
for thou art rich in mercy;
the blood of thy Son can cleanse from all sin;
the agency of thy Spirit can subdue
my most powerful lusts.

Give me a tender, wakeful conscience
that can smite and torment me when I sin.
May I be consistent in conversation and conduct,
the same alone as in company,
in prosperity and adversity,
accepting all thy commandments as right,
and hating every false way.

May I never be satisfied with my present spiritual progress,
but to faith add virtue, knowledge, temperance,
godliness, brotherly kindness, charity.

May I never neglect
what is necessary to constitute Christian character,
and needful to complete it.

May I cultivate the expedient,
develop the lovely, adorn the gospel,
recommend the religion of Jesus,
accomodate myself to thy providence.

Keep me from sinking or sinning in the evil day;
Help me to carry into ordinary life
portions of divine truth
and use them on suitable occasions, so that
its doctrines may inform,
its warnings caution,
its rules guide,
its promises comfort me.

The language and word choices may not be all that current for our context today; but surely the heart of the prayer is as relevant and appropriate for our context today as ever.


-RCW

Last year, I was doing a series of entries on reading. Several entries were about Augustine and Reading. Here's another installment. Just read Augustine's Egyptian Gold Analogy. It can be found in both De Doctrina Christiana (In English that title means On Christian Doctrine or Teaching Christianity) as well as The Confessions. In it, Augustine shares an analogy that allows us to answer the question "Is there some sort of value for Christians to read pagan works or works that are written either by non-believers or from a non-Christian perspective. He writes:

If those, however, who are called philosophers happen to have said anything that is true, agreeable to our faith, the Platonists above all, not only should we not be afraid of them, but we should even claim back for our own use what they have said, as from its unjust possessors.  It is like the Egyptians, who not only had idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel abominated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and fine raiment, which the people secretly appropriated for their own, and indeed better use as they went forth from Egypt; and this not on their own initiative, but on God’s instructions, with the Egyptians unwittingly lending them things they were not themselves making good use of.

In the same way, while the heathen certainly have counterfeit and superstitious fictions in all their teachings, and the heavy burdens of entirely unnecessary labor, which everyone of us must abominate and shun as we go forth from the company of the heathen under the leadership of Christ, their teachings also contain liberal disciplines which are more suited to the service of the truth, as well as a number of most useful ethical principles, and some true things are to be found among them about worshiping only the one God. All this is like their gold and silver, and not something they instituted themselves, but something which they mined, so to say, from the ore of divine providence, veins of which are everywhere to be found. As they for their part make perverse and unjust use of it in the service of demons, so Christians for theirs ought, when they separate themselves in spirit from their hapless company, to take these things away from them for proper use of preaching the gospel. Their fine raiment too, meaning, that is, what are indeed their human institutions, but still ones that are suitable for human society, which we cannot do without in this life, are things that it will be lawful to take over and convert to Christian use.

So what does it mean? Click this link for some great insights from Dr. Naugle of Dallas Baptist University distributed at his summer institute in Christian scholarship.

As a Christian, don't be afraid to read a different perspective.  Read Oscar Wilde or a Hindu text or The Celestine Prophecy.  You'll find falsehoods.  But you might find something useful and true as well.  Search for the truth as for gold and silver, harvest it wherever it may be found, sanctify it unto God, and put it in service to Christ--for it is there that it finds its true value.

-RCW

Sometimes people are surprised to find out that we don't have the original manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.  Don't be alarmed.  The sheer amount of the manuscripts we do have exceeds all other ancient documents hundreds of times over.  We have over 5,000 manuscripts that attest to what the originals said, giving us overwhelming confidence that the Greek New Testament of today is accurate, trustworthy, and reliable.  It is the Greek New Testament that is then translated into English for various publishers of the Bible, etc. 

Part of the reason why we don't have the original manuscripts?  Persecution.  During the Roman persecutions of Christians, Christians would frequently be killed for their faith in Christ.  There were several options for a person to prove they weren't a Christian and thereby escape martyrdom.  They would need to denounce Christ, but they could also win favor by turning over other Christians (particularly Christian leaders) or even manuscripts of the scriptures.  Many did so.  Here's just one ancient manuscript that tells us about it.    

All these things were fulfilled in us, when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations, and the Divine and Sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the market-places, and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them captured ignominiously, and mocked by their enemies. (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Book 8, Chapter 2)

As a Christian, don't forget that people have died, risked their lives, and toiled relentlessly so that you could have the Bible...the book that you and I many times casually neglect.

"These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."  ~Deut. 6:6-9 

-RCW

A Brief Review
In my last post, I mentioned Augustine and how reading was instrumental in his own coming to faith in Jesus Christ as his own Savior and Lord (or to call those roles something less familiar - his Rescuer and his King).


I mentioned how at first, Augustine had turned his back on God (and that according to his own acknowledgement, this had resulted in part from reading authors like Cicero.  Apparently, Augustine's self-serving ego and arrogance inflated as he acquired knowledge from them).  But later, Augustine was brought by God to pick up a book by Cicero that is now lost to antiquity...Cicero's Hortensius, which was essentially a work that praised and encouraged people toward the discipline of philosophy, since philosophy is by its very etymology and definition the love of wisdom.  Suddenly, Augustine found within himself a desire to know real wisdom, to be taught truth, to personally love wisdom intensely enough to pursue it as a prize.  Augustine also said that he knew that to acquire real wisdom, he would have to travel in the direction of understanding the scriptures that he had grown up with, but had eventually neglected and scorned.  As Paul stated, in his letter to the Colossians, Augustine was well aware that "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3).  Or to state it yet another way, Augustine knew deep within himself that to get to truth, he would have to be moved closer toward The Truth, Christ Himself, the God of the Bible, Ultimate Reality.  

More to the Story
But I also mentioned that there was more to the story.  There is a second major way that Augustine's conversion was tied to the discipline of reading.*  He tells us of it in Book VIII of his Confessions.

Through a continual lifelong series of events and experiences--an experience reading Cicero in the midst of his very rigorous academic pursuits, encounters with Christians, exposure to the scriptures, through the constant prayers of his faithful Christian mother, through the influence of Ambrose, and much more--Augustine reached a personal crisis of sorts.  He had to wrestle with his will.  He was divided within himself.  On the one hand, he wanted to retain his own selfish pleasures and ungodly habits.  On the other hand, he was increasingly unable to resist the persistent calling of God unto Himself.  

 Eventually, Augustine claims that God allowed him to see himself clearly and become aware of his own sinful and wicked condition.  Distraught, Augustine retreats to a garden and the tears start pouring.  As Augustine pours his heart out to God in agony, he asks the Lord how long he will be torn between belief and unbelief, how long will he remain a miserable slave to his own evil desires.  

But I can summarize no longer.  Augustine must share it with you himself:
 
As I was saying this and weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again 'Pick up and read, pick up and read.' At once my countenance changed...I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely solely as a divine command to me to open the book...So I hurried back to the place where...I had put down the book of the apostle when I had got up.  I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: 'Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts' (Rom. 13:13-14). 
 
I neither wished nor needed to read further.   At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled [VIII.XII].**

The Latin phrase "Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege" (Take up, Read!  Take up, Read!) continues to resound for those who would seek to know Christ and follow after him. 

-RCW

*Certainly there were other ways that reading influenced his conversion and faith.  For example, Augustine speaks of he and his friends' experiences watching (and intruding upon) Ambrose's very disciplined reading habits. 

**Translation is Chadwick's.

I mentioned previously that several early Christians had a more positive opinion than Tertullian did concerning the value of reading both inside and outside of scripture.

For one of the most amazing and influential Christians, St. Augustine, reading was a key that God used to bring about his conversion.  In Augustine's famous Confessions (a classic work in literature, philosophy, theology, spirituality, and Christianity), Augustine cites several ways that reading influenced his spirituality and even his conversion to Christianity.

Augustine explains that even though reading Cicero had originally helped to push him away from God, he had been living apart from God and living entirely for himself until reading Cicero pushed him to return to God...
 
In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius*. But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up and return to you.  [Confessions, III. IV].**
 
He continues: 

My God, how I burned, how I burned with longing to leave earthly things and fly back to you. I did not know what you were doing with me. For "with you is wisdom" (Job 12:13, 16)...This book [Cicero's Hortensius] kindled my love for it [wisdom].  There are some people who use philosophy to lead people astray...That text is a clear demonstration of the salutary admonition given by your Spirit through your good and devoted servant (Paul): "See that no one deceives you by philosophy and vain seduction following human tradition; following the elements of this world and not following Christ, in him dwells all the fullness of divinity in bodily form" (Col. 2:8-9).  At that time, as you know...I did not yet know these words of the apostle.  Nevertheless, the one thing that delighted me in Cicero's exhortation was the advice "not to study one particular sect, but to love and seek and pursue and hold fast and strongly embrace wisdom itself, wherever found". [ibid.]

And yet, Augustine explains that that Cicero's book couldn't entirely grip him because it failed to mention Christ, whom he almost innately knew to be the real source of truth.  He "therefore decided to give attention to the holy scriptures and to find out what they were like" [ibid, III.V].

Augustine's story gets better and involves more about reading...But I will have to continue his story in the next entry.   

-RCW

*One of my biggest disappointments in life is that we don't really have an existing copy of Cicero's Hortensius, which was basically an "Exhortation to Philosophy." All we have are small fragments that give us a general idea of its outline. 

**My translation is mostly that of Henry Chadwick and only minimally from Edward Pusey's.