I Peter 1:10-12 The Longing of Angels

It is fascinating to me that Peter comments on the longings of angels and that they are intently interested in what is going to happen in the cosmic story of mankind. It is the salvation of man that they are they are watching so that they might understand what the times and circumstances are leading up to. God has made a promise to man in the presence of all his creation, including the angels and now they are intent on finding out how He will bring this promise to fruition. But my heart in comparison yawns again at the gospel, knowing that my salvation is sure and that Christ has saved me. Why, being the one that is actually being saved, am I not intently looking into the ways of Christ each and everyday? My heart is dull towards the gospel and I should take a lesson from the angels.

Peter also says that the prophets were all pointing towards this moment when Christ would provide a way of salvation. They all look forward, seeking out the Messiah, and trying to understand the greater plan of God. Many of them were confused, as was Peter, thinking that the rule of Christ would be a physical Kingship similar to King David. But Christ was save all through the sacrifice of Himself on the Cross, something that no one saw coming, although all the OT imagery pointed to it. We, as modern day Christians, are so hard on Peter and others for not understanding, but we would have made the same mistakes, if not more, if we were in their shoes.

It was not until the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles that they were truly able to understand what happened to Christ and why it had to happen. The power of the Holy Spirit is not primarily healing, tongues, or miracles. The power of the Spirit is knowledge and understanding. Peter was given this knowledge, a simple fisherman, and his first sermon 3,000 were saved. We as Christians should be seeking after knowledge of what Christ has done and live in response to that. Instead we are often seeking after an experience of power from the Spirit that starts with emotions. Peter's main message here is "READ!" The angels longed to see these things, the prophets always were searching after these things, and you have it written down in a beautiful leather bound book. Stop searching for an emotional experience and begin to search Scripture through intense study and the emotions will flow from the promises found within the Scripture.

I Peter 1:1-9 Where's my Inheritance?

The more I read these first few verses of I Peter, the more I am struck by the profound depth of meaning found within them. I think that as a Christian of many years my eyes moved over these first words with little effort, acknowledging my salvation is from the Lord and that we, as Christians are looking forward to heaven. But I did not allow my self to really soak up the message that Peter is conveying in these opening words. I must remember, he is writing these words within the midst of persecution, and he is declaring that we have an inheritance found in heaven that worth more than any treasure found on this earth. My heart is so consistently over whelmed by material wants and needs. I constantly complain about not having enough of this or that and the stuff I have is not good if it is not new.

But yet Peter telling us that what we have here on this earth is nothing compared to that inheritance found in heaven. What is this inheritance? It is the salvation of our soul from the judgment and condemnation we deserve. My heart is no longer excited about this Truth as it once was. It is taken for granted that a way of salvation has been made clear for me through Jesus. And so I make other things more important that God Himself. Peter goes so far as to say that suffering is a part of this world and as Christians we should expect that persecution because it is a testing ground for our faith. So I should look forward to the suffering that will come my way as a Christian.

The Theology of Peter seems to fly in the face of our current theological leaders of today. The mentality in the church today is that we can find our "Best Life Now". But is certainly not what Peter is promising. Our Best Life is yet to Come and during this life the Best might look like a lot of suffering for making the right choices that acknowledge God as Savior.

The Courage to Be Protestant

When I presented the summer reading books for my teachers, I told them that the first one, The Dumbest Generation, presented a problem, but gave no real answers. This is true as you can see in my previous post, but what is the answer to our cultural issues that we face with education? That is why I submitted the second book for our teachers to read called The Courage to Be Protestant. In this book, I believe we find an answer to our cultural deterioration. That deterioration does not come from the culture of 15-25 year olds but it comes from a deeper source, found in the roots of our nation's spirituality.

America has consistently been termed as a Christian Nation. It has Christian values embedded within the founding documents and to a degree the nation was founded on universal moral laws, agreed upon by the community and taught throughout the educational process to citizens. This objective view of truth, morality, and law have changed through post-modern influences and this can be most readily seen in the church. David Wells identifies the same issues in the church that are in the greater culture. The church today must market itself under the guise of entertainment and consumer preferences. What gets lost in this process is the Truth, or at least an objective view of the Truth.

This is what we are here to fight against in the education of children. At our school we seek to provide that universal, objective understanding of Truth in light of God. Morality flows from the very attributes of God's character and we are not submitting to the cultural pressure to be entertaining. Truth is not always something that we want to hear and therefore we must have courage to preach this Truth to our students. That Truth is the Gospel in all areas of our life.

The Dumbest Generation

I was looking through the Dumbest Generation book again and I am continually taken by how true the thoughts are in the second chapter entitled "Biliophobes." In this chapter the author speaks about how many of our current culture in the 15-25 year old range hate to read books. Especially books with actual pages instead of information found on the Internet. I can see this in myself, as I am only 31 years old, and I would not consider myself a good reader. I have never really embraced reading in a scholarly way and often give up on reading, preferring the ease and entertainment of a movie. But I am beginning to see that it is my heart that is too easily entertained and my mind remains at lower levels of mental processing because it is unexercised.

I am not sure what leads us to disdain the reading of books, but I do know the benefit. As you can see from my blog, I have read all the summer reading books that were assigned to our 7th through 9th graders this summer. In the midst of doing this reading there a few times were I did not enjoy it, but now that I have completed the task, I see the benefit of it. The more I read the quicker I become at it, and the more enjoyable it becomes. It is much like lifting weights. I always hate the first day of working out, and I hate the second day even more. But when I have been consistently working out my muscles for two to three weeks, I find that I somehow look forward to the pain and soreness of a good workout because I know it benefits me in the long run. I sacrifice short-term happiness for a long-term healthiness.

It is same way with reading. Reading is that turn-key subject that allows you to access all others levels of education. If we read well, beyond the elementary levels of reading, then we have the benefit of a sharper mind, a quicker analytical skill, and enjoyment of seeking the deeper meaning in life. These are things that the entertainment of a movie simply do not supply. I say do not supply because movies could do this if they wanted to. But unfortunately, the movies sell what the consumer desires. Our hearts to do not desire to be pushed or prodded to think. We simply want to remain where we are at and be entertained. But our hearts are dazzled by inferior things, rather than what is true, good, and beautiful. The irony, as Os Guinness puts it, is that we have fit bodies and fat minds. We consume mental junk food, without thought, in the movies and television that we watch. But we need to get up off the couch and exercise our mind. That is the true benefit of reading.

The Nine Tailors

It is difficult to write a review of this book without ruining the mystery for you, and I really do not want to reveal the ending. This book was a definite page turner for me as the author keep me guessing throughout the story. There are several elements of the story that are significant for the reader and I will touch on just a few of those thoughts here, but this book could lead to several other conversations.

I think that the most intriguing part of the book is the character development. The time that the author spends on describing the main characters brings depth to the reading itself. For Lord Wimsey all of these characters are new acquaintances as well, so he is discovering these people as well. As he encounters each new character, Sayers takes a great deal of time describing who the person is and their mannerism that define them as people. I find this to be very interesting and unique. It is the little details and descriptions that make a story interesting and clever.

I also enjoyed the use of Logic throughout the novel. In any good murder mystery there is application of deductive logic in which the detective eliminates possible alternatives through logical investigation. After having taught logic for a year it certainly becomes more visible to me when I read any book as to the authors logical patterns. In the modern murder mystery the detective is more or less lead by a hunch, or a feeling. Not so in this story as Lord Wimsey let's rationality be his guide in determining the outcome.

I was also intrigued by the church in the social setting. The church and particularly the church bells, were the center of the community. Everyone came to the church and the priest for help with any situation, not just spiritual. It seems that we have lost this structure in our world today. The church is now a private sector of someone's life and is more of a consumer choice, much like going to Wal-mart and picking out a new shirt. But the church was the focal point in this cultural setting and everyone's life was somehow intertwined with the work of the church. It would seem they had a better connection with the church life than we do today in our cultural settings.

The Dragon and the Raven

The Dragon and the Raven was a fascinating book about the Medeval culture. We are often taken by the tales of this time period as men were faced with the protection of their homes and families. In this story the young earl name Edmund is faced with taking up leadership of a group of people at a very yound age. His heroism protected the way of life for many Saxons from Christians homes.

The most striking feature of this story is the contrast between the barbarism of the Northmen and the Christian values of the Saxon Christians. There is an interesting dialogue about halfway through the book when Edmund has a chance to kill one of the leaders of the invading armies. He spares the life of this man and his daughter is forever grateful to him but also confused by the act mercy. To heroism was to be sought after in a man but mercy was equated with weakness. For the first time she saw mercy in this act of compassion for her father and she is changed by the experience. Later in the story we find that Edmund is captured by the enemy and the man he had spared worked a deal to save his life.

In the end what we see from this story is one barbaric nation seeking to take over another, but through the interactions of the barbaric culture with Christianity, their barbaric ways begin to be conquered. All throughout Medeval culture we see this theme as it repeats. The gospel has gone forth to bring peace to many nations and brings civilization with it. The Christian values of the people allow them to form civilized mankind that is based on the universal moral laws. This will be a major theme throughout our study in Omnibus II.

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is an amazing story of a man, Nathanial Bowditch, who educated himself throughout his life. As a boy of 12 years old his father was forced to have him work as an indentured servant in the local chanlary until he was 21. During this time he was not allowed to go to school and was forced to work. He had always dreamed of attending school and someone sought to go to Harvard. Since he was unable to attend school he decided that he would learn the subjects on his own. He taught himself Latin, French and Spanish but was incredibly gifted in mathmatics. His skills in math enabled him to learn the charts that guided sailors through the sea and he discovered several errors in the mathmatical computations of the charts which in turn saved several ships from making navagational mistakes.

The moral that lies beneath this story is that anyone can learn when they apply themselves to the subject matter. Mr. Bowditch had the ability to teach himself and the character to perservere when learning became difficult. His desire was to gain knowledge and teach others what he had learned. For the reader it is clear that we tend to take education for granted. Often we disdain the educational process and we merely endure learning so that we can jump through the right hoops that the teacher provides so that we can graduate and move on to college or the work force. Mr. Bowditch took learning to an entirely different level. Education was a part of his life in the sense that his desire to attain knowledge was wedded to his identity as a person. He wanted to learn more to become a better person, and you saw this process take place in his sailors.

While at sea he often taught his men how to take a lunar reading, which was a skill that only a few men had mastered. Through this he was able to teach these men several other things that would enable them to do better in their future positions aboard other ships. The captian under which Bowditch sailed commetted that he had never had so few problems with his men as when they were being taught by him. When they returned to port, these men were able to get higher positions on other vessels as first or second mates. It goes to show that when a man is willing he can really learn anything he would like. It just takes a lot of hard work.

And so that is moral for us as well. How hard are we willing to work and for what purpose? Does our school work go beyond that grade or parental approval? Are we simply enduring school? My hope is that as we enter another school year we will come with a passion for knowledge that goes beyond the classroom expectations. My hope is that we place personal expectations upon ourselves that moves from our lest effort to our very best in glorification of the Lord.

The Last Battle

In the final story of the Chronicles of Narnia, for the first time we see the people of Narnia summon the help of the children from our world. Never before in the stories of Narnia have the kings called out for help but here at the end of the story the last king of Narnia calls out for help from Aslan. Aslan allows him to summon the help of all the people that had entered Narnia. Only the youngest of the group is allowed to go into Narnia, but the truly interesting part of this story is that at the end we see all those who had entered into Narnia as children, are in the end found in the Land of Aslan. It would seem that heaven was a place for many "realities" as we know them, both our world and Narnia.

This book is truly about the end, as C.S. Lewis is bringing his world to it's final chapter. In the end he judges all people, animals and creatures. In this final judgment some are taken to the Land of Aslan and others are swallowed up and destroyed. Aslan then proceeds to destroy the world of Narnia in the reverse order that we see creation occur in the first chapters of Genesis. This is truly an interesting scence for the reader to observe because when Aslan is done, the world of Narnia is only darkness. But as the children that had witnessed the end of the world of Narnia enter into the Land of Aslan they move further up and further in they realize that it is exactly like the Narnia they had always known but it seem to be more vibrant and real. And this seems to be a continuing theme in C.S. Lewis' work. The world in which we find Christ is more real than the reality in which we exist.

Seeing the bookends of this work with the Magician's Nephew at the beginning and The Last Battle at the end reminds me that we are still in the middle of our story that ends with the final judgment with Christ. We are in that stage of remembering the work that Christ has promised to do and it seems that we ought to live with a realization that end will come with our final salvation. You see we are saved in our justification, being saved in our sanctification and we will be saved on that final day in our glorification. We are saved before time, within time and at the end of time. What a blessing!

The Silver Chair

Again we see in the work of C.S. Lewis this theme of forgetting and remembering. It would seem that his purpose for writing is to provide entertaining stories so that we might remember our salvation. In the Silver Chair, the rightful prince of Narnia has been lost for ten years. Aslan has sent Eustace and his friend Jill, to help find where Prince Rilian has gone. As the story goes on we see that Prince Rilian has been under an enchantment of an evil witch that does not allow him to remember who he is and imprisons him to the underworld. There is a silver chair which he is bound to one hour a day during which time his normal mind returns to him. All other times he is completely under the power of the witch, who has the plan to conquer Narnia and rule with the Prince.

In the beginning of the story Eustace and Jill are given signs to follow. Jill is told to memorize these signs and follow them so that they are able to rescue the Prince. Throughout the story they consistently mess up these signs and do not follow the guidance that Aslan gave them at the beginning of the story. Subsequently they fall into many troubles and close calls, but it would seem that Aslan is still guiding their steps as they escape. Finally, in the end they are able to remember the final sign that Aslan gave them and this allows them to save Prince Rilian from the spell of the witch.

Remembering what we are suppose to be doing is key to the Christian life as well. We consistently find that we dull, drift and harden our hearts to the Word of God. In Hebrews we find that the Lord says we should be past these elementary elements of the faith but still we need spiritual basics for the Christian life. The encouragement from this story is that Aslan was always aware of the steps his children were taking. In much the same way we must remember and realize the salvation of our great Creator. When we truly realize the nature of grace given to us in Christ, obedience follows. The act of remembering and realizing is always before us in our walk with God.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Out of all the Chronicle of Narnia books, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader has to be my favorite. I am not sure if it is because I am a sailor at heart, or if I simply resonate with the character of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, but I have since my childhood dearly loved this story. As I have re-read these books this summer, I have been surprised as to how many parts of the books I had forgotten. But not this one. I remembered every chapter as it occurred and it is obvious that this story impacted me as a 5th grader.

I love the first lines of this classic work, "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters (teachers) called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none." This character has been so intriguing to me as a child because I could relate to the personality he portrayed. He was a nuisance and sought to annoy people for his amusement. Being a little brother, as I am, I could see myself in him, although I told myself I could not be as bad as Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and I had a lot nicer name.

But throughout the story we see this young man change. It is a slow change and he, in some ways, never really conquers all of his faults, but everyone could tell by the end of the story that he was a better young man that when they started. And that gave me hope to change as well. Eustace had changed so much that by the end of the story he was jumping into the battle with a sea serpent and, although he could not use a sword in any functional way, he tried to fight. He tried, which is something that he was never really known for doing before.

What enabled this transformation of Eustace Clarence? I think that the main picture we see of this transformation comes through the process of becoming undragoned. You see Eustace had found a treasure on Dragon Island and watched the last dragon die. He thought he could have all the gold and proceeded to put a gold ring around his arm in the triumph of his "victory". But he fell asleep in the dragon cave and when he awoke, he was a dragon. This was the first time he had a self-reflection of his true nature. You could say that he saw on the outside what had always been on the inside. Those things that others see in us but for some reason we have trouble seeing ourselves. He returned to the crew and they were horrified but it was Lucy that figured out that the dragon was not there to hurt them, but that he was Eustace.

As the story goes on we see that Eustace began to help the crew in his dragon form and did many things to get the ship back in order. He wanted to change and started to act differently because of that desire. But then he encountered Aslan, the Christ figure. He was told by Aslan to undragon himself. So Eustace tried to tear the scales from himself. He was unsuccessful, although he was commanded to do it and tried several times. Then Aslan said to him, "I must do it". And the Lion tore at him with his great claws to rip away the dragon scales. Eustace was never quite the same after this experience with Aslan.

For the Christian, the message is quite clear. The dragon scales represent our sinful nature and we are commanded to undragon ourselves, although we are not capable to fully accomplish it. Christ Himself must do the work of sanctification in the hearts of believers.

Prince Caspian

It is interesting that in every story that C.S. Lewis has written about Narnia, it is the adults of mankind who have forgotten the stories of Old Narnia. It is as if he wrote children's stories for adults to remember and be awoken from their adult concerns that there is another world that is more real than this one in which we exist. In the story of Prince Caspian it is the evil Uncle Miraz that has forgotten or refuses to remember the Old Narnia that once existed with talking animals and magical creatures. He takes all effort of suppress this thinking in the minds of those he rules in the Land of Narnia. I think that C.S. Lewis is pressing the issue here that what we have learned as children about God, our Father, has been forgotten, or rather suppressed by the culture in which we live. This story is about remembering and reviving the old ways and it is as relevant to us today as it was when he wrote it.

Prince Caspian has heard the old stories from those who have cared for him when he was young in his education. Something inside of him stirs when he hears the stories of the Old Kings and Queens of Narnia and of the Deep Magic within the Lion, Himself. So it is with us that believe in Christ. We often feel that movement within our hearts when we really take time to realize the depth to which the cosmic drama of Christ's death on the cross as gone for our salvation. We are moved to outside of ourselves that no longer seek our selfish ways.

As Prince Caspian escapes the castle and his evil uncle, he finds that there are others of Old Narnia that have been in hiding deep in the forest. There are others that believe and desire to see Aslan move once again the way that once did. It had been a long time since anyone had heard from the great Lion, and it is here that I most resonate with the writing of C.S. Lewis. You see, we are in that time frame right now. The great encouragment of these stories is that Aslan always shows up to save the day and do his will. It is never the way we expect nor the timing we desire. And often our part of the story is done by stumbling our way through life, but Aslan always arrives. We are in that moment of the story where people are not sure they believe. Some are moved to believe what they can not see because they trust the old stories.

Do we trust the old stories we find in Scripture? Are we skeptical about the truth of great Savior that once did miracles and rose from the dead? We can not let the reason of our day overwhelm us with disbelief. We must believe the old stories and trust that Christ will come again when the timing is right. The difference with Narnia is that they did not have a Word written down for them from Aslan. We, however, have the very thoughts of God written out for us.

Ofcourse, in this story Aslan returns and sets all things right with the heroes of our story, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. They are the instruments of Aslan to bring about his will and then they are returned to their world. In what way could we be used today for the will of God?

The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy is the story of an orphan who discovers his true identity as a prince with a twin brother. Clearly the message for us, as Christians, when we read this story is to relate to this theme of being an orphan without a true sense of who we are in Christ. When we try to live without Christ in our life we certainly act in the ways that orphan would. And when we realize who our true Father is, it changes the way we act. We are children of God who have been cared for and loved.

Within this story, Shasta, the orphan, and Bree, a talking horse that had been kidnapped from Narnia as a young colt, flee to the north in order to escape their owners. In their adventure they meet up with two others that are trying to escape to the land of Narnia, Arivis, a daughter promised to be married to a man she did not know or love, and her horse, Hwin, another talking horse stolen from Narnia. It is no coincidence that they found each other in this adventure as Aslan arranged the entire meeting through his chase he gave them in the woods.

As they pursued their goal of freedom in Narnia it was clear that Aslan had a greater purpose for them and especially for Shasta. He would be the one that continued on in the journey alone to warn the Kings and Queens of Narnia that war was coming. Shasta, through this adventure, came to realize that his father was the King of Archenland, and he was a part of the royal family. His new status was almost unbelieveable to a young man who thought he was an orphan his whole life.

It is clear that C.S. Lewis had a underlying theme for us to pay special attention to. As a Christian, we often start our Christian walk looking for personal freedom from the things that we have been enslaved by, but God has shown us, through the process of sanctification, that our freedom or salvation is not the end goal of our walk with God. We have a greater purpose in the battle, just like Shasta. He was given his freedom in Narnia, and given his royal status in Archenland, but given purpose by Aslan. His status as a child belonging to Aslan lead him to greater purpose than a personal desire to be free. Rather he wanted to do the will of the one who had freed him. It is same for us in our Christian walk. We are not saved for freedom so that we can do what we want. We are saved for the purpose of obedience and showing glory to God our Father and His will to be done in us.