Seeznak

Newsflash: Jesus is Relevant Without Any Help From Us

On the seven-mile trek to Emmaus, when Jesus explained to His unwitting disciples the necessity of the atonement (Luke 24:26), “he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27) and thereby provided the church with a paradigm for biblical interpretation: read the Bible through the lens of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We cannot ignore the bold claim of our King that the entire Old Testament, “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44), contained the message of the coming Messiah and was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

This means that the entire Bible is relevant to contemporary believers on the basis of the incarnation, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection unto glory of Jesus Christ. So our job is not to figure out ways of making the gospel relevant to the next generation; it is to proclaim the Christ of Scripture and the offense of the Cross.

On the Brain, Changing the Heart

Reasonably, I think, I have parenting on the brain. I pray that God may make me a father to Micaiah as He is a Father to me. So I’ve been chewing on the following quote from C. J. Mahaney, from a sermon on cross-centered parenting:

“Biblical parenting is seizing every opportunity to creatively and passionately preach the gospel to you children.”

O that my choices and decisions and words and temperament towards my little girl may point to the grace of Jesus Christ!

Too Wonderful for Me

I want to say that they didn’t tell me what it would be like, but they did. They used words like “incredible” and “amazing.” They used phrases such as “there’s nothing like it in the world” or “the best thing ever.” They said it would change my life. But I didn’t get it.

I simply couldn’t grasp the depth of the marvels that were in store for me in holding my very own, precious, tiny daughter. The hackneyed words and phrases were more of a sigh of defeat than a description of the thing, as those who had gone before me into parentaland submitted to the reluctant fact of humanity’s failure to adequately prepare the uninitiated.

Not surprisingly I find myself turning to God’s words to supply my happy lack of sufficient logorrhea (well, thesaurus.com also):

O Lord, you formed Micaiah’s inward parts;

you knitted her together in her mother’s womb.

I praise you, for my daughter is fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

Micaiah’s frame was not hidden from you,

when she was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw her unformed substance,

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for her,

when as yet there were none of them.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

-Psalm 139:13-16, 6