Happy Second Friday in Advent,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Solomon, Proverbs 9
The Bible doesn’t try to prove God’s existence. It assumes He exists and focuses instead on revealing 1) what He’s like and 2) how we are to respond. Concerning the second, we are repeatedly told to fear Him. Many argue that “fear” is the wrong term, claiming that “awe” and “respect” are all that is needed. No. Given His gracious, patient, merciful, and sacrificial love, there is directional truth in this claim. We are to not only “fear” God. We are to rest in his gracious care. But we are unwise to downsize the call to fear Him. God’s majesty and holiness are overwhelming to the point of terrifying, and it is a fearful thing to face His wrath. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Trending: Theaters and streaming platforms “are going biblical.” Set aside The Chosen, Netflix, Prime, etc. have released Testament: The Life of Moses, Mary, and House of David. And major studios have released Saints, Bonhoeffer, and Conclave, with many more in the queue. These productions have major budgets, major stars, and wonderful cinematography—i.e., they are not your parents’ Christian films. Alas, most take a lot of liberties with the truth. My advice: as good as some of these movies are, the book is always better.
Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Old habits die screaming.” CS Lewis; 2) “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before.” Taylor Swift.
Overheard: 1) We should not be surprised by the UK’s move towards assisted suicide. A society that allows parents to kill their children will eventually allow children to kill their parents. 2) Like other great poetry, the Psalms do not survive because they’re pretty. They survive because they are honest. 3) Distraction is hell’s greatest asset; consequently, one of the things our Enemy fears most is prayers asking the Lord to focus our attention on what matters.
Pastoring 101: I’ve been spending more time than planned with those navigating the election. In addition to listening, recommending prayer, and offering perspective, I’ve been asking the despondent to write down what they fear and the energized to identify a line they will not cross. (FWIW, the former have an easier time with their assignment than the latter.)
Without Comment: 1) Marriage is a protector against deaths of despair. 2) Sixty-seven percent of the unchurched in the US identify as spiritually curious. 3) The church in India is growing rapidly. Some now claim it’s home to 300M Christians. 4) One-third of homebuyers are currently paying cash. 5) “Men, adults who didn’t grow up in intact families, and those who rarely or never attend religious services” are more likely than others to cheat on their spouse. 6) The share of men 22-35 who haven’t had sex in the last year is higher than 10 years ago, which was higher than 10 years before that. The primary reason for the rise in sexlessness is the delay of marriage. 7) The most politically active Christians in the 2020 presidential cycle were Episcopalians. 8) NYC has 60K surveillance cameras. (BTW, there are 1.9M in Shenzhen, China.) 9) Elton John has declared the move to legalize marijuana in the US and Canada “one of the greatest mistakes of all time.” 10) The US divorce rate is at a 50-year low.
WOTY: Honorable mention goes to lawfare, polarization, depopulation crisis, and replication crisis. Full honors go to post-secular. (Set aside the spate of religious-themed movies, nothing says secularism is struggling like Richard Dawkins claiming to be a “cultural Christian.”)
After Further Review: I stopped citing reports of a “record number” of pastors quitting after realizing I didn’t know any. Did politics, polarization, and COVID do a number on pastors? Yes. Are many weary? Yes. Are some thinking about quitting? For sure. But most are not, and this WAPO piece recently argued that pastors have high job satisfaction.
Holiday Travel: To any reader whose December includes car travel with small children, remember the rules: keep them separated, sleeping, and dehydrated.
Clean Up from Last Week: 1) Thomas Brooks, not Richard Baxter, was the author of Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices; 2) My suggestion that the left moved further left than the right moved right was challenged by both the left and the right. (Some on the right claimed that most on the right moved left.)
Resources: Click here for my interview with Aaron Renn about his book, The Negative World. Click here for last week’s Advent sermon, which explores growing through waiting.
Good Job: Kudos to all who knew that “old habits die screaming” is a Taylor Swift lyric and that “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before,” is from Lewis, not Swift.
Closing Prayer: (for Second Sunday in Advent): O God, who did look on humanity when they had fallen down into death and resolved to redeem them by the advent of your only-begotten Son, grant, we ask you, that we who confess his glorious incarnation may be admitted to the fellowship of him their Redeemer; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Saint Ambrose)