Your pastoral team leaves tomorrow for our semi-annual pastors retreat. We would be grateful for your prayers. Charles Spurgeon once remarked, “A man can do me no greater kindness than to pray for me.” We think the same way. We would be grateful if you would pray:

• For our safety as we travel to and from the retreat.
• That we would enjoy fellowship and the unity of the Spirit.
• For a fruitful, productive time together.
• That God would protect our families while we are away.

Since these retreats tend to be rather full, I don’t expect to have much time for blogging. I’ll be posting some favorite quotations during the week on a variety of topics. Enjoy. And thanks for praying.

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I learned from the ESV Blog that our beloved English Standard Version turns 5 on Sunday.  Check out these impressive stats:

“Today, the ESV is available in more than one hundred formats, has seen nearly 3 million copies distributed worldwide, and is reaching the world in creative and strategic ways.”

J. I. Packer, who has written so many important books that have served the church in so many ways, says this about his role as ESV General Editor:

“I find myself suspecting very strongly that my work on the translation of the ESV Bible was the most important thing that I have done for the Kingdom, and that the product of our labors is perhaps the biggest milestone in Bible translation in the past fifty years or more.”

These are strong words from a strong leader in evangelicalism.  Let us thank God to have such an accurate, readable translation in our own English language.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

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A Picture Of Proverbs
Dads, my familiar experience of cutting the grass the other day was interrupted by an unfamiliar sight. I pushed the mower to the end of a long row, tipped up the front wheels, and swung my Toro in a tight circle, only to find my path blocked by my three-year old pushing one of his toys. I immediately understood: Jack was imitating his daddy, helping to cut the grass with his “mower.”

My next thought was: “hey, this is how Proverbs is supposed to work.” A son following in his father’s footsteps and learning how to navigate life. Later, a different thought popped into my head, the same way a pinecone thumps into the lawnmower bag: “No, this isn’t how Proverbs is intended to work at all.”

I realized that I did not teach Jack about cutting the grass. He just started following my example. My example for my son is extremely important, but the book of Proverbs is about instruction. It’s about a father taking time–a lot of time–to speak to his boy about the opportunities and dangers of life. Over and over, the father in Proverbs appeals to his son on the basis of his instruction and teaching–his words to his son. Examples:

• Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching… (1:8)
• My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you… (2:1)
• My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments… (3:1)
• Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight (4:1)
• Hear, my son, and accept my words… (4:10)
• My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. (4:20)
• My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, (5:1)
• And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. (5:7)
• My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. (6:20)
• My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you… (7:1)
• And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. (7:24)

All of these examples come just from the first seven chapters! There is a clear priority here on a father’s instruction to his Son. A son needs to be instructed in the full range of topics that Proverbs addresses: God, work, money, family, friends, sex, leisure, and more. The topics for discussion aren’t limited to the book of Proverbs; I think we get a taste of the most important area for instruction in Romans 10:14, 17:

“But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?… So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

The most important instruction we can pass on to our sons is not a lesson to learn, but truth to believe. It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ, perfect mediator, come to take away the sins of the world. Above all, we must be sure this lesson gets taught.

How would you assess your instruction to your son? The content, frequency, duration, and depth? Is it sufficient? Let’s make this a topic of conversation with our wives and the men in our caregroups. Let not our boys reach the end and say they didn’t know what to do.

Categories: Thursday Thoughts For Parents, five15 blog
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When I took Drivers Ed, the most-feared lesson was parallel parking. Turn signals I could manage. Checking blind spots? No problem. But we all dreaded parallel parking. It actually turned out to be a lot easier than I expected (especially easy if you drive a Jeep), but I never would have guessed that for some people, finding the parked car would be harder than actually parking the car. World Magazine reports this funny story:

“One British man forgot where he parked his car and just recently found it after a seven-month search. Eric King, 57, parked his car on a residential side street in Suffolk in February. When he come back to retrieve his Ford Focus, he couldn’t find it. THe man returned 10 times from his home over 60 miles away to serch for the auto. Eventually residents on the street got suspicious and reported the abandoned car to the authorities, who then alerted King.”

Moral: pay attention to where you park.

Got a funny parking story?

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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What brings about change in your life? Conviction or consequences? Here’s what I mean: do you endeavor to grow to be more like Christ because you love Him and are grieved by your sin (conviction), or because bad things have happened or will happen if you get caught sinning (consequences).

This came to mind as I read this short sentence in Psalm 78:34:

“When he killed them, they sought him.”

This isn’t genuine conviction: this is change that occurs when God uses consequences to get our attention. Sometimes that’s necessary, but it isn’t sufficient for lasting change. (If you’re not convinced about that, read the remainder of Psalm 78!)

Genuine conviction, on the other hand, comes from knowing who God is, what He is like, and what we are like, and what He has called us to. He is the creator of the world (Genesis 1-2), the infinite, wise, sovereign God (Isaiah 40), who is holy (Isaiah 6, Hab. 1:13). We are sinners (Romans 1-3) who deserve judgment (Romans 6:23), but have received grace and mercy (Ephesians 1-3) and are called to be holy, as God is holy.

When we really get this, we’ll understand it means to change from conviction rather than consequence. Then we’ll understand Romans 2:4:

“…God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance…”

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In the second part of our not-so-big meeting on Saturday night, I gave some advice about how to read Proverbs. Since we’re going to spend the next eight months or so in Drivers Ed series of messages on the book of Proverbs, I thought it might be helpful for us to understand what we’re reading.

First, the all important question when reading Scripture: “what genre is this, anyway?” Genre is simply a category or a classification of something, particularly of music or literature. For instance, the music on your iPod might be divided up into various genre: I listen to classical, jazz, rock, and rap (definitely not country!). The books on your shelf at home can be sorted into genre.

The important thing to remember about literary genre is that you read different genre different ways. In a given day, I might read the sports page, an email from Nicole, the electric bill, a biography of a famous Christian, or an advertisement from a car dealership. Do I read all these genre the same way? Do I come these different genre expecting the same kind of information to be communicated in the same form? Of course not! The same thing is true with the various genre in the Bible, whether it is history, poetry, prophecy, or letter.

The book of Proverbs is a special kind of genre known as wisdom literature. It is instruction and advice about how to live our lives in order to serve the Lord, Yahweh. So when we read Proverbs, we should keep these four points in mind:

1. The Book of Proverbs is part of the Bible. Captain Obvious strikes again. It doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to know this, but it also doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to realize that there is not much of a connection in Proverbs to the wider storyline of the Bible. There’s no reference to the Exodus, the Promised Land, the temple, the kings, etc.

But you can see the connection in Proverbs 1:7 - “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” When you see LORD in caps like that, it’s referring to the name of the God, Yahweh. So Proverbs contains the nitty-gritty details for how to serve this Yahweh. If you want to know who He is and what He’s doing, you’ll need the rest of your Bible. But here are some instructions for how to serve him in your daily life.

2. The Book of Proverbs is in two sections. Chapters 1-9 contain instruction. It’s a series of lessons from a father to his son. It’s like Solomon took his boy over to the nieghborhood Starbucks every Tuesday night for a couple of weeks, and taught him about life. Somebody wrote it down, and we get chapters 1-9.

Chapters 10-31 contain the sayings, the part of Proverbs that usually comes to mind when we think of this book. These are little nuggets of truth designed to give us advice and observations about life.

3. Individual proverbs are snapshots of life. They are generally true, observable in human experience. Proverbs are truisms, meaning that they tend to be true, but aren’t necessarily true in any and every circumstance. An individual Proverb doesn’t necessarily say everything there is to say about a topic. For instance, compare the observation in 17:8 with the warning in 17:23. Some Proverbs are ultimately true, even if they don’t seem to always be true now (16:18, 28:13). Some Proverbs are absolutely true, no matter what the circumstances (15:3).

4. Individual proverbs use poetic imagery. The colorful imagery is intended to ram home a point. Our job is to figure out how the imagery makes that point. It might be a vivid word-picture (18:6, 11:22), a memorable comparison (17:12, 26:18-19), or parallelism, in which the second line of a Proverb expands upon or illustrates the first line (11:12).
There you have it.

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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To all the high school students and their parents, thanks for coming to the not-so-big meeting Saturday night! With Jonathan leading worship, we had a wonderful time of ministry for several teens in response to prophetic words from Molly and Joseph.

Some announcements:

• Harvest Carnival Sign-Ups. This is a Halloween-alternative party that we put on for all the kiddos in the church and in the neighborhood. five15’s contribution is to provide the manpower. That’s where we come in. We’re going to be making this party happen. If you missed the signup, look for it on Sunday morning or at the 10/7 BIG MEETING.
• Wheeled Sports Meeting. Like to ride? Skateboard? Longboard? Scooter? Bike? We’re going to be holding a meeting at the after the 10/7 BIG MEETING for all those who are interested to learn more about when and where riding of any kind will be allow on the property.

We spent the first part of our meeting Saturday night talking about the five15 Challenge. I’m hammering this nail because we tend to forget. All of us drift from serving others to serving ourselves. We need to be reminded that Jesus Christ “died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him…” and one of the many ways we do that is by reaching out to others. That’s what the five15 Challenge is all about.

I recently asked Colin to lead a greeting team, so I interviewed him. He told us about how he wants to put together a team of people whose job will be to welcome others and get to know them, reaching out to them, and introducing them to others.

Want to get involved? Talk to me or Colin!

More to come…

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog
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I’m reading Owen’s Temptation and Sin again, so you can expect to see more Owen quotes in the coming weeks. He says:

“When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy [when a man has so convinced himself that he has grace as mercy] as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness [feeling the freedom to sin], and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

The picture of “swallowing and digesting sin” makes me think of a fish that is so hungry for the lure, he doesn’t just bite it, he swallows it whole. Then he’s really hooked: there’s no getting off that line. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: do we “swallow and digest daily sins”? Most people don’t wake up in the morning thinking: what’s the biggest, baddest sin I can commit today? But small sins quickly become big sins, so we have to be careful each day to put sin to death. If we don’t, we run the risk of being hardened by sin: becoming so insensitive to it, and we don’t even mind sinning in bigger and more serious ways.

Ask your parents today to help you determine if there are ways that you are digesting daily sins. If you find them, turn from your sin to Christ Jesus! Remember Romans 5:20 - “…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…”

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Are They Following Jesus?

I was listening to a sermon by Mark Dever yesterday on Proverbs 8 in which he posed a simple question. It’s a question worth asking any teens who are growing up in the church:

“Are you following Jesus Christ, or do you just happen to be going the same direction for a while?”

Categories: Thursday Thoughts For Parents, five15 blog
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Check it out! We’ve got a five15 not-so-big meeting Saturday night. This meeting is for all high school students and their parents.

Bring your notes from Drivers Ed, Part 1: The Fear of the Lord. We’re going to be talking some more about that, as well as discussing other ways we can apply God’s Word to our lives.

As always:

• Pizza & Ping-Pong starts at 5:15pm
• The not-so-big meeting starts at 6:30pm

See you Saturday night!

Categories: Announcements, five15 blog
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