If people have been singing a song for a few hundred years, chances are your edit isn’t going to make it better.

This past weekend our boys were baptized. (If you’re puzzled about that, read my brief case for infant baptism.) You can see pictures & video at the family blog.

Our church has a cool tradition where the fathers give a blessing before the baptism of a child. I read a verse for Sam and Foard, and then gave one blessing for both of them. Here it is.

***

Samuel Nash Hunt: Every breath you take is a reminder of what your name means: “God has heard.” 1 Samuel 1:26-28: “For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” Your mother and I pray for you today, that you will belong to God for your entire life, because he has blessed us with you.

Malachi Foard Hunt: We are so glad that you’ve joined us in this crazy season of our life. We pray that like your biblical namesake, you will be a messenger of the Lord of Hosts. Mal 4:2: “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

Our blessing for both of you boys comes from Foard’s verse, and it is simply this: Fear the Lord your God, and nothing else.

Don’t fear man, because he can’t ultimately harm you.
Don’t fear danger, because the Sovereign Lord is your shield.
Don’t fear failure, because your worth is not determined by your accomplishments but Christ’s.
Don’t fear death because he is the Resurrection and the Life.

Don’t fear anything, boys, except that you must fear the Lord your God. We want you to stand in awe of the Holy One of Israel.

Honor him as holy.
Tremble at his Word.
Prize him above all else.

We want you boys to be strong and very courageous. Be bold and daring and adventurous and brave in seeking the glory of our King and his kingdom.

Boys, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you fear the Lord your God, you will have nothing else to fear. And you will be wise sons who make your father and mother glad.

1. God deals with his people by covenanting with them. From the Garden of Eden on, God makes arrangements with his people that bind both parties. There are promised blessings for covenant faithfulness and promised curses for covenant unfaithfulness (Gen 2:15-17).

2. These covenants have implications for the recipients and for their children. Adam’s fall affected all his descendants (Rom 5:12-13). In the same way, God promised to be God to Abraham, and to his children after him (Gen 17:7).

3. God’s covenant with Abraham included a physical sign that was given to his children. The sign of circumcision was to be given to all Abraham’s male children—in fact, to every male in his household (Gen 17:9-14).

4. The New Covenant in Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29; see also Gal 3:7-9).

5. This New Covenant also has a physical sign that sets God’s people apart from the world. Baptism is now the mark that makes a distinction between the people of God and the world (Matt 28:19).

6. The signs of circumcision and baptism point to the same reality. Paul describes Abraham’s circumcision as a “seal of the righteousness he had by faith” (Rom 4:11). Baptism is also a sign of justification by faith (Rom 6:3-4). (“Righteousness” and “justification” translate the same Greek word.)

7. God makes a distinction between the children of believers and those of nonbelievers. In 1 Cor 7:14, Paul says that the children of at least one believing parent are “holy,” where they would otherwise be “unclean.” This is covenantal language, similar to what we see in the book of Leviticus: people, places and things are either “unclean,” common, or they are “holy,” set apart for God.

8. There is no indication in the NT that the covenant sign is no longer to be given to the children of believing parents. It would never have occurred to a first-century Jew, upon coming to Christ and embracing the New Covenant, that the covenant sign was not to be given to his children. For over a millennium God had promised to be God to his people and their children after them. If there was to be a change in the covenantal status of children, it would need to be explained to Jewish believers, and we see no such explanation.

Why do we baptize children? No one is saved by being born into a believing family. We are saved by the work of Christ, which we receive by faith. Infant baptism is based not on the assumption that these children are or will be saved, but on the fact that God regards the children of believing families as part of his covenant family. Our children are not of the world; they are of the church, God’s visible family on earth. As such, they have a right to the mark that sets God’s people apart from the world.

The same man who wrote “Hey Jude” also wrote “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime.”

I just stumbled across John Piper’s answer to this question, and it’s predictably excellent. Some of the points he makes:

• The intellectual appeal of the system of Calvinism draws a certain kind of person, who doesn’t tend to be the warm fuzzy type.
• When people come to believe in the doctrines of grace, they’re often amazed that they missed them for so long, and sometimes angry that their churches haven’t been teaching them.
• Calvinists do want to convince others of the truth of these doctrines. At best this is not out of elitism, but it sometimes comes across that way because of our sin.

Piper does a good job of acknowledging that this stereotype exists, admitting that it’s often accurate, and explaining why it is often inaccurate. It’s a much better answer than a cliche like “A proud Calvinist is an oxymoron.”

Kevin DeYoung (coauthor of Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church, both highly recommended) has a great post today: The Gospel Old and New. He outlines the typical presentation of what he calls the New Gospel (my summary):

1. Start with an apology for how terrible all [other] Christians are.
2. Appeal to “God as love,” with no reference to his wrath.
3. Give an invitation to “join God’s mission,” defined as working for peace and justice on earth.
4. Close with a “studied ambivalence” on eternity: Is there a hell? Who am I to say? But let’s work for the here and now.

His conclusion:

This is no small issue. And it is not just a matter of emphasis. The New Gospel will not sustain the church. It cannot change the heart. And it does not save.

Read the whole thing.

1. “I struggle with…”
2. “Prayer request”
3. “Quiet time” (Actually, there might be something wrong with this one.)

Yours?

Read my professor/pastor/mentor/friend Mike Kruger’s review of the latest book from the predictable-but-always-available-for-an-NPR-interview Bart Ehrman.

Ehrman is chair of the Religious Studies department at UNC-Chapel Hill, and in odd-numbered years he tends to put out a book basically alleging that everything orthodox Christians believe is wrong. This year it’s Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them).

***

UPDATE: More than one intelligent person hasn’t picked up on it, so I need to point out that I’m being sarcastic/ironic/less than serious in the following.

(Incidentally, In the process of making sure I got Ehrman’s title right for this post, I noticed this:

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He came to UNC in 1988, after four years of teaching at Rutgers University. At UNC he has served as both the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

This is the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen. Which is it? Is he a Distinguished Professor, or is he the department chair? Or is he head of Graduate Studies? We’re obviously looking at a conglomeration of at least 3 original sources, all of which had differing– and mutually exclusive– views of Ehrman’s job. Someone doesn’t want us to know the truth.

Moreover, if Ehrman can’t even get his own story straight, why are we supposed to trust that whatever he says about the Bible is right?)

You’ve seen these, right? They make me mad. Why? Because they don’t really mean what they say.

Let’s break it down. We’ll call each worldview by the letter it’s supposed to represent. So:

• C = Islam
• O = Pacifism
• E = “Gender equality” (=the LGBT agenda)
  
• X = Judaism
• I = Wicca / Pagan / Bah’ai
• S =Taoism / Confucianism
• T = Christianity

And let’s assume a very broad definition of “coexist”: living together without calling for the destruction of each other. Here are the problems with that:

• C wants to kill E, X, T, and (by implication) O. If they achieved the world they wanted, I and S would also no longer exist.
• O doesn’t allow for effective resistance or defeat of C.
• E stands in direct opposition to C, X, and T, and accuses those who speak against them of hate speech. Also, they’re trying to edge X and T out of public schools in favor of their own agenda. (They’re afraid C will be offended, so they get less trouble.) E is actually very, very intolerant.
• X’s existence is threatened not only by C but also by O, who invariably supports C over X.
• I and S are statistically insignificant and are mainly on there to complete the bumper sticker.
• T is who the bumper sticker is really arguing against, but poses no physical threat to any of the others.

Historically, T has brought about more tolerance– “coexistence” if you will– than any other movement. But the kind of “coexistence” the people who make this sticker envision is one where at least X and T are completely marginalized.

UPDATE: My wife reminded me that I was supposed to mention this: Worldview issues aside, on a purely graphics basis, this bumper sticker is awesome.

I quit my bookstore job almost a year ago, which explains why I don’t do as many book reviews as I used to (no free books and less time/excuse to read books). Also, I took a Christian book hiatus for a while. But anyway, here are some of my favorite Christian books I’ve read since entering the private sector.

• Christless Christianity
• Give Me This Mountain
• The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism
• To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson
• ESV Study Bible (I’ve said this before, but seriously. Do what you have to do to get this.)

As you can see, I went on a bit of a missionary biography kick. You should too.