Will you be my Facebook friend?

/ David Thomas / 3 Comments

Over 700 billion minutes are spent each month on Facebook.

Tim Chester has some wise thoughts on Facebook, the good, the bad and the potentially dangerous here and here.

Below are some of the warning signs that Facebook (and twitter, blogs ….) might have a control on us they ought not to:

  • Do you check your Facebook page more than once or twice a day?
  • Do you spend more than 20 minutes a day on Facebook?
  • Do you find it difficult to imagine a day without technology?
  • Have you ever read a text or gone online during our gathering?
  • Have you stayed up beyond your normal bedtime because you were on Facebook or playing online games?
  • Do you use your mobile phone during meals or keep it in the bedroom?

 

Nothing less than a saved world

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“You must not fancy, then, that God sits helplessly by while the world, which He has created for Himself, hurtles hopelessly to destruction, and He is able only to snatch with difficulty here and there a brand from the universal burning. The world does not govern Him in a single one of  its acts: He governs it and leads it steadily onward to the end which, from the beginning, or ever a beam of it had been laid, He had determined for it. . . . Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under His hands the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world.” 

Benjamin B. Warfield, from a sermon on John 3:16 entitled “God’s Immeasurable Love” 

More visual theology

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Tim Challies has been busy again producing  more helpful charts, this time to aid us think more clearly about Our Triune God, and The Tabernacle.

The Tabernacle graphic should be useful as a reference when reading Exodus and Leviticus, but it’s the graphic on the Trinity that’s perhaps most helpful.

Many Christians find the Bible’s teaching on God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit hard to grasp and it’s easy to think that as long as we hold God to be three in some way and one in another way, we can’t go far wrong.  That’s a dangerous path that will get us into all sorts of trouble.

The one true God has revealed himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – one God, three persons, and we must relate to our God according to who he is.  Far from being a theological riddle or a teaching for advanced Christian only, the Trinity underpins everything else  God has revealed about himself and his salvation purposes.

The In a clear way this chart shows us some of the false ideas we can have of God and it should help clarify our thinking of the God whom we worship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God the just is satisfied

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When Satan tempts me to despair, 
And tells me of the guilt within, 
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died, 
My sinful soul is counted free; 
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me

Charitie L. Bancroft, 1863.

These well known words from the hymn, Before the throne of God above, remind us that it is God’s justice that brings comfort to despairing sinners in the shadow of the cross.  Satan may well tempt us to despair with our own unworthiness and the sin that so easily besets even those who have walked along the road of faith for many years.

But Peter tells us of the great transaction that occurred on that first Good Friday.  Why did Christ suffer and die, despised and rejected by men and God?

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24)

Our just God will not, cannot punish sin twice.  If Christ bore my sin then, I have no sin left to bare.  Truly, God the just is satisfied, to look on him and pardon me for my sin has already been answered for.

Positive and negative pride

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“I truly am the best thing this church has ever seen.”

“I really am good for nothing, this church would be better off without me.”

Two statements that seem miles apart but which in fact are both likely to come from sinful pride. Doug Wilson has a good article on pride here.  In particular he highlights the danger of what he refers to as negative pride – the pride of those who have a low opinion of themselves and seek to be the centre of attention because of it.

But someone who has a low opinion of himself can be every bit as self-centered. “Look at everyone watch me. See them stare at me when I tell jokes. Why are they laughing at my clothes?” This person has a low opinion of himself and also seeks to be the center of his known universe.

In my experience this form of pride is just as common and every bit as dangerous as the pride of those who have a high opinion of themselves.

Wilson goes on to highlight the danger of much of modern counselling, and sadly much of what masquerades as Christian counselling, in which someone with low esteem is told to learn to love and value their own self worth.   That kind of counsel is deadly to those seeking to live on and be shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To focus your eyes on anything except the Lord Jesus is spiritually suicidal. If your attention is centered on yourself (whether you see a worm or a superstar is utterly beside the point) you are a priest in the cult of self-worship. A holy life will be God-centered, not self-centered. The antithesis of such holiness is the egocentric demand to be the Main Attraction.

Preaching – a reality check

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Below is a stark reality check for both preachers and those who regularly sit under preaching.  Just what should our expectations be?

“I want to prepare you by setting down a few home truths about preachers and preaching. The first can be put briefly. Great sermons will always be in short supply. Even in the case of first-rate preachers, the church occasionally has to settle for third-rate performances. And in the case of second-rate preachers . . . well, let’s just say that there are more of them than any other kind. That’s not a criticism. It’s one of the facts of church life. I’d only make matters worse if I tried to change the situation by making preachers feel guilty about it. It’s that way in every occupation. The world’s supply of top-notch saxophonists is miniscule compared with the army of honkers who live down the street from you — and the same goes for plumbers, professors, and for you as a preacher” (Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching, p. 55).

HT Doug Wilson