Orphan Protecting is Countercultural

From Adopted for Life by Russell Moore:

The kingdom of Christ is characterized in Scripture as a kingdom of rescued children. Solomon looks to the final reign of God’s anointed and sings, “for he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight” (Ps. 72:12-14). When we protect and welcome children, we’re announcing something about Jesus and his kingdom.

If that characterizes the kingdom to come, then why aren’t our churches—which are, after all, outposts of that rule of Jesus—characterized by it now? When we recognize the face of Jesus reflected in faces we may never see until the resurrection—those of the vulnerable unborn and unwanted—we’re doing more than cultural activism. We are contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

An orphan-protecting adoption culture is countercultural—and always has been. Some of the earliest records we have of the Christian churches speak of how Christians, remarkably, protected children in the face of a culture of death pervasive in the Roman Empire. The followers of Jesus, though, did not kill their offspring, even when it would have made economic or social sense to do so. This is still distinctively Christian in a world that increasingly sees children as, at best, a commodity to be controlled and, at worst, a nuisance to be contained. Think of how revolutionary it is for Christians to adopt a young boy with a cleft palate from a region of India where most people see him as “defective.” Think of how counterintuitive it is for Christians to adopt a Chinese girl—when many there see her as a disappointment. Think of how odd it must seem to American secularists to see Christians adopting a baby whose body trembles with an addiction to the cocaine her mother sent through her bloodstream before birth. Think of the kind of credibility such action lends to the proclamation of our gospel.

 I reviewed this book last week.

Round the Sphere Again

What’s the Hold Up?
Al Mohler says, “the delay of marriage is unwise, not only because of the demonstrated risk of sexual immorality, but because of the loss of so much God gives to us in marriage”. (Read the whole piece.)

Still Speaking
A quote from R. L. Dabney on the “three stages through which preaching has repeatedly passed with the same results.” (Joe Blackmon)

Grateful Praise
Catching up with Sherry’s top 100 hymn project.

• My Hope is Built (55) (I’ve written on the words to this hymn here and here.)
• Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (54)
• All Glory Laud and Honour (53)
• Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (52)
• Of the Father’s Love Begotten (51)
• Because He Lives (50)
• Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (49)
• Abide With Me (48)
• Joy to the World (47)
• The Church’s One Foundation (46) (This one was a near-miss for my top 10 list.)

Pickle Particulars
I prefer dill to sweet, which makes me rather ordinary, since in America, dill pickles are twice as popular as sweet ones. Check out 12 Pickle Facts at mental_floss Blog for more interesting pickle-related tidbits.

God's Power

Another attributes of God post re-edited and reposted so I can link to it in this week’s Theological Term of the Week.

For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. (Romans 1:20 NET)

Although there are statements about God’s power throughout scripture, we don’t need the revelation of scripture to know something of it, for creation itself is a clear witness to the power of God. Every person who sees the natural world we live in knows that its origin was at the hand of an unfathomably powerful God. Anyone who denies that they see God’s power in creation is suppressing what they really do know. We all understand, deep down, that there is a God who possesses eternal power and those who deny him are are choosing, on some level, to fool themselves into believing otherwise.

Not only did God create the world by His power, but we know from scripture that the created order is maintained “by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1). The universe keeps on functioning because of God is constantly exerting his power to sustain it. God spoke the universe into existence and he speaks its continued existence.

That God is omnipotent means that he has the power to execute his will. When Psalm 115 tells us that God does whatever he pleases it is telling us that God is omnipotent. So, too, when Paul tell us in Ephesians 1 that God works all things after the counsel of His will. What God decides to do comes about with certainty because he has the power to accomplish whatever he wills.

If God desired, he could do more than he does. His power could raise up children of Abraham from stones, but He chooses not to work that way (Matthew 3). God had the power to free Jesus from the multitude that took him, for Jesus tells us that he could have called upon the Father and the Father would have sent more than twelve legions of angels to rescue him (Matthew 26:53); but it was God’s will that Christ be delivered over to be crucified in order to work the salvation that had already declared in scripture (Matthew 26:54).

That God is omnipotent doesn’t mean that he can do absolutely anything at all. We are told that God cannot lie, he cannot sin, and he cannot deny himself. What keeps him from doing those things, however, is not lack of power, but steadfastness of character. It is the constancy of God’s perfections, not a shortage of power, that determines that there are certain actions he cannot do.

Every single person knows God’s power through his creative work, but those of us who belong to him have another witness of his power—his re-creative work within us. We know “what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19ff). The power that called Lazarus from the tomb and raised Jesus from the dead has also “called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

And we have no excuses for our failures, do we? We cannot excuse ourselves because we are weak, for while it is true that we are weak, the same power that raised Jesus dwells within us. The power of the resurrection is ours for our sanctification. It is by the work of the One who accomplishes all that He wills that we are becoming righteous. We have no excuse for not doing the works of our salvation, for it is the omnipotent God who is working in us, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

God’s “power toward us who believe” means that we have security despite our weaknesses. The God who spoke the universe into existence, who sustains it by his word, who raised Christ from the dead, and who is always, ever working all things according to the counsel of his will keeps us by his power (1 Peter 1:3-5). The God of all ability is on our side. Who can stand against us?

It is through the power of the One who accomplishes all that he pleases that we are overwhelming conquerors in the most difficult circumstances, so that

…neither death nor life,
nor angels nor principalities nor powers,
nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth,
nor any other created thing,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38,39)

The limitlessness of God’s power is one more reason for us to trust in him.