The answer to the first question (“What is the chief end of man?”) from The Shorter Catechism is the paradigmatic compound sentence, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

This “chief end” is the design at back the master narrative of humanity. As A. W. Tozer said, “God formed us for himself. . . . God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile” (see The Pursuit of God, Chapter 3).

“[W]e are repeatedly told to “put on Christ” or to “clothe” ourselves with Christ. This is the costume of our new character. Instead of the fig leaves that, as children of Adam and Eve, we used to cover up our shame, God has provided the sacrificial clothing of Jesus Christ and his perfect righteousness, foreshadowed when he clothed Adam and Eve” (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 56).

From the entry on ‘Evolution’: “Some fundamentalists wrongly hold that the theory of biological evolution conflicts with the Genesis account of creation, instead of appreciating the admirable picture it offers of God working with wisdom and power “from the inside” to bring about higher forms of life and eventually the emergence of human beings” (Eds. Gerald O’Collins, S.J. and Edward G. Farrugia, S.J., A Concise Dictionary of Theology, 73).

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All of that just to show that sometimes when one stands up for Biblical truth, because one is a Biblical absolutist, that said someone runs the risk of being mislabeled. But have no fear. Sacerdotalism is not truth. So, just because somebody waves a label over and around you doesn’t mean that label is efficacious: to spite their invocations, at midnight you will not magically turn in to a fundamentalist.

If you want to call creationists ‘fundamentalists’, then so be it. But you’re wrong: we’re not necessarily fundamentalists — I’m sure that some creationists are fundamentalists, the same way some Roman Catholics are evangelicals, believing in justification by faith, but in those cases I like to think of it as the exception and not the rule.

Oh, how we live in a complicated world. 🙂

“Notice that this passage in Ephesians [1:3-10] gives us a place in God’s own heart. His intimate and eternal love for his Son means that all who are “in Christ” are therefore included in that intimate and eternal love that each person of the Godhead has for each other By being recasted in this way, our new story actually begins not simply with our conversion here and now but with a plot that began before the world was created” (Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 55).

“[M]en are not called to the ministry who have no knowledge and no definite belief. When young fellows say that they have not made up their minds upon theology, they ought to go back to the Sunday-school until they have” (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 37).

A minister (and ministerial student) without belief or detached from conviction is like a tree without fruit. What a shame. It is like a groom on a wedding day saying to his bride, “I love you. I think.”

“He [John Owen] had more learning and sound knowledge of Scripture in his little finger than many who depreciate him have in their whole bodies” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 33).

“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science, and act before it’s too late.” — President Barack Obama

Michael Horton discusses Christians being “rescripted” by the story of the Gospel:

But as we proclaim the biblical script, from Genesis to Revelation, a unity emerges not only within its pages, nor only within the community of Christ, but also within us individually as we are incorporated into it. It doesn’t happen all at once, at least in our experience. Gradually, we find ourselves identified, chained, and instead of prophesying we find ourselves prophesied to by God himself, addressed as sinners, enemies of God, “aliens and strangers to the promises of God.” That particular, concrete drama of God and Israel becomes our story, our plot. We begin to know ourselves as we come to see how we fit into that drama” (A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of God-Centered Worship, 54).

Who does God tell this Gospel story to? God tells this story to, God “rescripts”, “Gentiles as well as Jews.”

In Scripture, the Lord reminds us of our sins and our need to confess our sins again, and again, and again, and again. Confession of sin is serious business. Confession of sin is one of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer! However, oftentimes our confession of sin is tepid.

But why is our confession of sin lukewarm? Well, I think our confession of sin is wimpy and lax because our view of sin oftentimes is wimpy and lax. Rather than viewing sin as an ethical disease that plagues mankind and offends mankind’s Creator, I believe that we oftentimes think of sins as though they were dust bunnies — a mere eyesore inconvenience that one can shoo away with some prepackaged “canned air” confession. (We don’t confess, “Lord, yeah yeah yeah, sorry.” Instead, we confesss, “Lord, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” Can you sense the difference? The former is breezy while the latter is penitent.)

But sins are not dust bunnies. Sins are serious business. So serious that Christ’s sacrificial death was the only means by which our sins could be dealt with. All of us need to confess our sins in light of that reality. And if we did, we would stop treating sin like dust bunnies — we would leave our tepid confessions in the dust.

“Justification is the act of God about us, and is not easily discerned by others. Sanctification is the work of God within us, and cannot be hid in its outward manifestation from the eyes of men” (J. C. Ryle, Holiness, 31).