Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Andy Naselli

A Sonnet on Hell

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D. A. Carson, Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 117 (reflecting on Rev 14:9–11; 21:8):

There are no friends in hell: the residents
With zeal display self-love’s destructive art
In narcissistic rage. The better part,
The milk of human kindness, no defense
Against a graceless world, robbed of pretense,
Decays and burns away. To have a heart
Whose every beat demands that God depart—
This is both final curse and gross offense.

Say not that metaphor’s inadequate,
A fearful mask that hides a lake less grim:
Relentless, pain-streaked language seeks to cut
A swath to bleak despair, devoid of him.

This second death’s a wretched, endless thing,
Eternal winter with no hope of spring.

The Rebellious Child

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John Bunyan. “A Book for Boys and Girls: or, Temporal Things Spiritualized.” Pages 746–62 in vol. 3 of The Works of John Bunyan. Edited by George Offor. 3 vols. London: Blackie and Son, 1853. Logos

Upon the Disobedient Child [pp. 761–62]

Children become, while little, our delights!
When they grow bigger, they begin to fright’s.
Their sinful nature prompts them to rebel,
And to delight in paths that lead to hell.
Their parents’ love and care they overlook,
As if relation had them quite forsook.
They take the counsels of the wanton’s, rather
Than the most grave instructions of a father.
They reckon parents ought to do for them,
Though they the fifth commandment do contemn;
They snap and snarl if parents them control,
Though but in things most hurtful to the soul.
They reckon they are masters, and that we
Who parents are, should to them subject be!
If parents fain would have a hand in choosing,
The children have a heart will in refusing.
They’ll by wrong doings, under parents gather,
And say it is no sin to rob a father.
They’ll jostle parents out of place and power,
They’ll make themselves the head, and them devour.
How many children, by becoming head,
Have brought their parents to a piece of bread!
Thus they who, at the first, were parents joy,
Turn that to bitterness, themselves destroy.
But, wretched child, how canst thou thus requite
Thy aged parents, for that great delight
They took in thee, when thou, as helpless, lay
In their indulgent bosoms day by day?
Thy mother, long before she brought thee forth,
Took care thou shouldst want neither food nor cloth.
Thy father glad was at his very heart,
Had he to thee a portion to impart.
Comfort they promised themselves in thee,
But thou, it seems, to them a grief wilt be.
How oft, how willingly brake they their sleep,
If thou, their bantling, didst but winch or weep.
Their love to thee was such they could have giv’n,
That thou mightst live, almost their part of heav’n.
But now, behold how they rewarded are!
For their indulgent love and tender care;
All is forgot, this love he doth despise.
They brought this bird up to pick out their eyes.

God, Make Me a Man

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Darrin Patrick, Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 12:

Being a man is about being tough and tender.

I have three beautiful daughters . . . . But I also have a son, Drew, and because of my keen awareness of and pastoral interaction with the cultural influence of Bans [i.e., “a hybrid of both boy and man,” p. 9], I know that my work is cut out for me when it comes to raising a godly man. As with all of us dads with similar aspirations, my only hope is the Holy Spirit. So I recently wrote a little prayer that reflects the kind of men we need. Drew and I pray this prayer together almost every night. It is a prayer for him and for me:

God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.

Watch Darrin explain that prayer from about 47:30 to 49:00 in the below video: [Read more…] about God, Make Me a Man

The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

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“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

That’s the opening line to Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

Carl Trueman plays on that title in his latest book: The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Chicago: Moody, 2011). (This 41-page book is available only electronically in the Kindle format.)

Some excerpts:

Is there an evangelical mind active today? Nearly two decades ago Mark Noll concluded any evangelical mind had gone soft through lack of use. Today the question is whether a healthy evangelicalism exists to host such a mind. I am not sure, theologically, that such a thing still thrives. (p. 13) [Read more…] about The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

Two New Children’s Books by Matthias Media

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Here are two new children’s books by Matthias Media that you can view online for free:

They’re not our favorites, but they’re not bad.

More info:

You can view them online for free in two ways:

  1. Read them online by clicking “Sample Pages” at the top of the screen (here and here).
  2. Watch them being read online via YouTube at the bottom of the screen (here and here). The resolution of the pictures is not very good, but the narrator has an Aussie accent. (Stories are more interesting with British, Scottish, Irish, or Aussie accents!)

Michael Barrett Collection in Logos

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When Logos added the “Michael Barrett Collection” to pre-pub last October, I immediately pre-ordered it. But I’m disappointed that the collection hasn’t gathered sufficient interest yet to proceed to publication. It still needs some more orders.

Michael Barrett is President of Geneva Reformed Seminary. He’s brilliant, and the books in this collection are accessible and edifying.

Related:

  1. Phil Gons explains more about the Michael Barrett Collection.
  2. Chris Anderson describes Complete in Him (one of the books in the collection).
  3. Kevin Oberlin reviews Beginning at Moses (one of the books in the collection).

Church Planting Is for Wimps

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That’s the provocative title of a little book I recently couldn’t put down once I started reading it:

Mike McKinley. Church Planting Is for Wimps: How God Uses Messed-up People to Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things. IX Marks. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010. 126 pp. [Cf. Mark Dever’s interview of Mike.]

The title may mislead you to think that this isn’t a book for you, but it’s instructive on many levels for church leaders in general—not just for those who are planting or revitalizing churches.

Mike is a witty, self-effacing writer, and the book is light and entertaining, serious and insightful. I probably laughed out loud while reading it about as frequently as I do when reading Carl Trueman. Highly recommended.

What Does It Mean to Love God with Your Mind?

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John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79:

What does it mean to love God “with all your mind” [Matt 22:37]? I take it to mean that we direct our thinking in a certain way; namely, our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things.

Chapter 6 (pp. 79–88) unpacks that definition.

Piper has thought about that definition for a long time. As recently as the mid-1990s, he told Don Carson that he wasn’t sure what it means to love God with your mind.

Cf. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 484:

Noll and others often cite Jesus’ injunction to love the Lord your God your God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30) as if that justifies all intellectual effort expended by a Christian. John Piper, in a private conversation, thoughtfully commented that he was unsure what the passage means: What precisely does it mean to love God with one’s mind? It is not obvious. This is not the place to embark on a full-scale exegesis. Remembering, however, that the “heart” in biblical thought is not so much the seat of the emotions as the seat of thought and of the whole person, both “loving God with your heart” and “loving God with your mind” are bound up with thinking the right things about God. They cannot simply be equated with all intellectual endeavor undertaken by a Christian, even though such endeavor must be undertaken coram Deo. But whatever the full sweep of this injunction, it cannot mean less than a God-inspired delight in all of God’s thoughts insofar as he has disclosed them, and a God-given determination to dethrone all competing systems of thought and bring them into captivity to the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). And that requires constant, thoughtful Bible reading, theological reflection, interaction with Christian thinkers from the past, humble assessment of the currents of our age and courageous determination not to become their slave.

It is precisely here, I fear, that many evangelical intellectuals have failed.