The Tulip Driven Life

Religious Foundations This could be a very long section, but for the sake of brevity I will largely deal with the summary given at the beginning of this chapter and interact with it.      The meaning of the Christian religion cannot be determined from the disputed etymology of the word “religion.” The Bible provides no general idea of religion but covenantally presents God’s revelation as its objective side and the fear of the Lord as the subjective side. God is to be revered and his revelation is to be believed and obeyed. Biblical religion is in the first place a matter of the heart; it is never exhausted by external observance.     According to Thomas Aquinas, religion is not a matter of theological virtues (faith, hope, love), which have God as their direct object, but of the moral virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance), in which God is the end. The actual object in religion here is the devotion dutifully offered to God. Religion b...

Well I'll just make it plain- you haven't really taken up the duty of sanctification until you've come to the point where knowing God deeply in order to see the beauty and glory of Himself has become your delight. And I would like to submit to you that a non-sovereign God and a non-saving Savior isn't that glorious and frankly, isn't really worth getting that excited about. But a God who is sovereign and a Savior whose sacrifice actually atones, actually saves, actually gives faith for all whom He died... now that's a game-changer. There's no story like that. It is the greatest story ever told: that the Savior would make such wretches His treasure, His bride, His pleasure, and irresistibly so, conquering my rebellious heart and will, turning me from my love affair with self and sin by His grace, making me willing to behold His face and want all that He is and all that I'm not, breaking my heart from what breaks His.  And all by His power, His Spirit, His...

How do we return to that place? Where we gazed out o'er the earth's face? The sun did not burn; it still shined strong, All was just and bright; we knew no wrong, The beasts, they did roam peacefully, The rivers flowed calm as could be, We tilled the garden, there was no thorn, We knew no loss, no reason to mourn, The moment came; we did not trust, Gave in to greed, our foolish lust, The serpent, yes, he told us a lie, Now we toil and sweat, fated to die, How could we be so senseless? We stole the fruit of goodness, As we took we pondered our fate, Eyes opened now, too little, too late. Embarrassed by this naked frame, We sewed leaves, concealing shame, As God came, we hid ourselves away, Though He still knew right where we did lay, He asked, had I eaten of the tree? I blamed the woman, easily, God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “It was the serpent, he was the one,” Eve said, “He deceived and I ate,” Go...

            As a Christian, there have been a few concepts, a few biblical truths, from a sort of meta-story/meta-narrative perspective, that I live my life by. The first came to me over three years ago- the true gospel. The doctrines of grace/Calvinism (how God saves man), which is intimately connected with the gospel, I would distinguish as the second, though by finding the first you find the other. After this you get an impression of the absolute sovereignty of God and His predestining of all things- not just who will and will not be saved- but all things, every little detail. That would be the third- again they are all interconnected. Most reformed people have these on their lists, and an increasing number view life through John Piper’s formula of “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,” which is explained by changing the conjunction in the Westminster Confession to “Man’s ch...

This is a new blog series I am going to develop over the next few months. It is something that I have had an increasing awareness of and passion for, and I believe its importance for the Christian is far greater than one might imagine. This first post is going to be more of a general overview. Basically, I am going to try and convince you that what I am saying is not merely true biblically, but important. Something very important. Something, perhaps, as important as evangelism itself. First, let's talk about pop culture. I like the way Wikipedia defines it:   Popular culture (commonly known as pop culture) is the totality of ideas , perspectives , attitudes , memes , [1] images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture , especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media , this collec...