So many adjectives, so little opportunity to use them without sinning...

The Chronotype
28 S. Main St.
Rice Lake, WI 54868

Dear Editor:

I didn't want to write this letter. There are times when you have to allow obvious folly to show itself for what it is, as Proverbs says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.” So when I heard that a handful of people from a Baptist church in Kansas showed up in Menomonie last week to increase the pain of an already tragic event, I groaned in disgust and figured everyone else did the same and we would leave it at that.

But then I heard honest people around town asking about Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful protests. “Is that really what you Baptists believe?” people wondered. I groaned again and realized that this time I have to follow the counsel of the next verse in Proverbs: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”

The simple answer is "No." But let me expand on that a little bit.

Like many Christians, most Baptists are concerned about the current moral climate of our nation. In fact, you don't even have to be a Christian to say that. Where people like me part company with the protesters from that organization in Kansas is what we think should be done about it.

Most Christians who believe like I do think our message is powerful enough to change people without emotional manipulation. We don’t need to create persecution by picking fights nor do we need to create publicity by hurting people. The Christian gospel with its exclusive claims does not need our help to make it controversial.

I’ll use a metaphor from another tragedy that is fresh in our minds. If you know the 35W bridge has collapsed, it is not unloving to warn those who are speeding toward the danger to turn around. However, rather than standing by the highway mocking drivers as they plunge over the edge, we think it most loving to both warn of the danger and show them the safe way to cross.

Sincerely,
Steven L. Svendsen, Sr.
Rice Lake Baptist Church

When Joking Becomes Judging

News reports the end of August were full of examples of people messing up. The one that seemed to draw the most media attention—particularly Internet media attention—was the response of a contestant in the Miss Teen USA pageant to a current events question. Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina, was asked this question: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her response: “I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and that I believe our education, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US, should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”

In our pride we may laugh at Miss Upton’s cryptic response. I know I did. I even made a hair color joke out of the story. But, in her defense, few of us know what it's like to have a microphone in our face in front of a national television audience. She is not unlike a lot of women you servants of the Lord end up counseling. A young girl finds herself in a vulnerable situation and does not handle it well. Her wrong response to the vulnerable situation brings mockery and even anger from those who see it.

The Lord Jesus met yet another woman who was subjected to the same kind of public scorn. John 8:1-11 records an incident where some religious leaders brought a woman to Jesus in the temple, claiming she had been caught in the act of adultery. Rather than rendering a verdict from the law of Moses, the Lord Jesus stooped and wrote things on the ground. Whatever he wrote served to show the woman's accusers that they had no business acting as legal prosecutors in this case. We do not know the history, the guilt or the innocence of the woman brought to Jesus, but we do know that he became a servant to her. For the purpose of this blog entry, let's focus on the work of the Lord Jesus toward vulnerable, sinful people—a work he continues today through us.

How are you doing what Jesus did? You can serve people in the same two ways he served this woman (and many others): providing refuge and truth.

Refuge: Like the woman brought to Jesus, many young women you encounter are being used by others. Can we really say the men who brought the woman to Jesus were genuinely interested in glorifying God by helping her? Can we really say all our jokes about the pageant contestant were neighbor-loving?

Truth: Like the woman brought to Jesus, many young women you encounter have made sinful choices. The Savior certainly did not consider the sin of the woman taken in adultery an unimportant matter. His last words called her to leave her life of sin. The Gospel of Christ provides more for us than a home in heaven. It provides help and hope for change right now. Truth is essential even if it is not popular. Evangelism and discipleship are the order of the day in Biblical Counseling.

We might well ask how many of the "accusers" of Miss Teen South Carolina offered her compassionate help in public speaking or geography. Better to identify yourself with the Savior than the accusers.

Do not be impatient today with those who have not yet discovered what you learned yesterday.

Warning: this entry is, without apology, a theology lesson. What does theology have to do with depression, self-mutilation, fear, anger and marriage problems? Everything. What you believe is more important than what you do because what you believe determines what you do. This biblical counselor believes every counseling problem is a theological problem.

People captive to sinful habits are active worshippers at the wrong altar. The false deities of people in sin promise to give them their good feelings without consequences. These idols offer control and ease and never send things that hurt. In short, people in sin only love gods that are less than sovereign.

Now the theology lesson. I am a monergist. That is, I recognize the biblical teaching that salvation is all of God rather than a cooperative effort between God and man. I believe that regeneration is what produces faith in us (John 1:13; 3:3; 1 Peter 1:3) and that both grace and faith fall into the category of "and that not of yourselves" (Ephesians 2:8-10). For lack of a simpler word, that makes me a Calvinist (see a little chunk of my Romans 8 exposition for a biblical description).

It has been a refreshing discovery for me to finally realize that my salvation from start to finish is a work of God. My delight is increasingly found in the author and finisher of my faith instead of in my great choice. My service is increasingly motivated by the desire to see the purposeful work of Christ on the cross bear its certain fruit in the lives of those who are called to faith when I preach the gospel. I have not only learned what it is to rest in Christ, I have learned the right motivation to work hard for Christ.

Having said all that, the balance of this entry is going to chastise some of my theological allies. It is even going to chastise me. Here is a hard question: Do people who, apart from grace, are empty-headed fools have any business saying "Raca" or "Thou fool" (see Matthew 5:22)?

Of all the issues I face in the counseling room, the most destructive is pride. Those of us who embrace the Doctrines of Grace are not in danger of being right. We are in danger of being proud that we are right.

We Calvinists know how to pronounce (and some of us can even correctly spell) Arminian with a tone of disdain. My trouble is this: how can a pride-crushing theology produce pride in the people who embrace it? If the grace of God alone brought me to faith and I cannot boast in the quality of my faith or the smartness of my choice, how can I take any credit for discovering the system of theology that recognizes those truths? "Proud Calvinist" is an oxymoron.

Please remember that your system of theology is more than what you claim to believe. You can answer the delightful question 11 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, saying, "God's providence is His completely holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing every creature and every action" and then live a life that proves you would rather not have a sovereign God tell you how to love your wife, submit to your husband or manage your money.

I do not write these things because I have somehow won this battle myself. Let me take this instruction as I give it. Do not be impatient today with those who have not yet discovered what you learned yesterday. Those who celebrate the free will of man to the exclusion of celebrating the free will of God are in error, but they are not necessarily the enemy. They may be deceived by the enemy.

Yes, there are those who need to be directly confronted. Sharp rebuke may often be in order, but being quarrelsome is never in order. Paul taught Timothy another way of dealing with error: "with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Timothy 2:25-26).

Here is my challenge to you who have been released from the bondage of a man-centered theology:

1. Live life in your home and in your workplace like one who has been rescued from slavery and set free to serve.


2. Take as much credit for your system of theology as you do for your salvation.


3. Present the glorious truths that humble you before the sovereign God with the gentleness that logically springs from your theology.