Progressive Commercials, John Calvin, and Friendliness

The Progressive Insurance “Homeowners-Turning-Into-Their-Parents” commercials seem to be polarizing. I think they’re hilarious, and apparently multitudes of people agree, because Progressive has been using these commercials since at least 2020. If you’re unaware these commercials depict millennial homeowners who, supposedly because of their new homeownership, begin to resemble their home-owning Baby Boomer and Generation X parents in their clothing style and social behaviors. We see khaki shorts and white New Balance shoes on the men (along with belt-clipped cell-phone holders), women talking on speaker phone in public, and over-concern for the cleanliness of the property (even the trash cans). Dr. Rick is a therapist who’s life’s work is to help these “young homeowners turning into their parents” to not fall too far into these behaviors, losing their own personalities. 

Now I don’t want to criticize too much—the commercials are funny. My wife and I will watch through all of them on Youtube sometimes, along with the best of Steve Harvey hosting Family Feud and the old “I have DirectTV…and I have cable” commercials starring Rob Lowe, Peyton Manning, and Randy Moss. The hard thing about a joke is that even if it’s a subtle “shot” at someone (which it almost has to be in order to be a joke), it’s meant to just show something’s native humor, without marginalizing or insulting the person. In the case of the Progressive commercials, the humor lies in younger folks taking on adult responsibilities and then unavoidably adopting Baby Boomer/Gen-X (but mostly Boomers) behavioral norms, which are funny when compared to Millennial norms (not “worse,” just different). 

But this is why the commercials are polarizing: Not everyone likes them. I’ve talked to several Boomers who don’t like the commercials because they feel that they are themselves the butt of the joke. I get it. I just think the commercials are funny, still.

So hopefully you won’t take my point here as a complaint. It’s just an observation which, I think, might point to a larger change that’s happening culturally, and not for the better. More recent Progressive commercials are poking fun at older folks’ (and the young homeowners’) tendency to make friendly small talk. A homeowner is asking his Uber driver how long he’s been Ubering; another one calls the cable company and is on a first-name basis with the customer service rep; and then another is making small-talk with the cashier at the store, all while Dr. Rick is rolling his eyes. It’s all funny! But I wonder if it’s pointing to a larger problematic change: Our dying sociability, and loss of friendliness. 

A recent Sunday sermon in 1 Timothy 6:11 had me especially sensitive to the importance of friendliness. Paul, under God’s inspiration, tells Timothy to flee worldly pursuits and instead to pursue “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.” John Calvin once preached a sermon on this passage in which he summarized Paul’s list as such: Righteousness, godliness, and faith all concern “placing our confidence in God,” and “raising our thoughts to the heavenly kingdom,” while love, patience, and gentleness concern “walking in all good friendship with our neighbors…living in good friendship with each other.”* The word “friendship” can sound a little corny today, and might be a little surprising coming from Calvin’s intellectual and (supposedly) stern pen. But I think he’s onto something: Love requires being a good friend. Just being accessible to our neighbor, treating them the way we’d wish they treat us (Mt.7:12), as such behavior is the fulfilling of God’s Law: “(Such) love does no wrong to a neighbor” (Rom.13:10**). This was a great concern to God under the Old Testament theocracy, him making clear in Leviticus 19 how his people are to love their neighbors: Leave gleanings in your fields for travelers, tell the truth to each other, pay workers fairly, don’t steal, don’t deal dishonestly, don’t lie, don’t oppress anyone, don’t have unjust courts, etc. (Lev.19:9-18). 

So all of that said, if we are to think of ourselves as a neighbor and friend to others, how could small-talk be a bad thing, unless it’s done to avoid a more important conversation? I just wonder something about our new “smart” world: Are our devices, which keep us connected to the rest of the world at large, so isolating us from our immediate surroundings that normal conversation is seen as a Boomer practice? Isolation is dangerous (see Prov.18:1) because we’re made for community, and we need both friendship (true friends) and friendliness (true courtesy from strangers). So is it possible that the commercials are unknowingly contributing to deconstruction of in-person community? We talk all the time about the breakdown of the family. I just wonder if we need to talk more about the breakdown of friendliness and friendship. My fear is that the older generations knew how to be friendly, the younger ones don’t, and the commercials are evidence that practical kindness is a dying art, best used now as a butt of jokes. 

But maybe…and I’m open to this…I’m just a young homeowner becoming like my parents. 

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*Cited as a footnote in Calvin's Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 1 Timothy 6:11, p.161.

**I added "(Such)" because the love in the verse is describing loving behaviors of 13:8-9, which almost perfectly parallel Jesus' own teaching in Matthew 7.

Henry Scrougal on What True Christianity Is

I recently read the Christian classic The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scrougal (1650-1678). I’d never read it before but came across it in several John Piper books. The new Crossway version of The Life of God checks in at 180 very small pages. I was stunned at the depth of Scrougal’s argument, and yet it’s simplicity as well as biblical clarity, as though it was a 300 page book.

The Life of God was not initially written as a book but as a letter by Scrougal to a friend who had been disenfranchised with church. Apparently the letter was expanded and released as a book in 1677, anonymously, just a year before Scrougal’s death of tuberculosis. In the letter Scrougal wanted to encourage his disappointed friend that while church life is messy, yet true religion/Christianity is something deeper than what can be seen on the outside first. In short, true religion is Christ in the believer: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27). The Bible’s message is that man stands before God his creator as a sinner, incapable of bringing himself into God’s presence because sin infects every inch of man’s soul. So God must bring us to himself, which he does in Jesus. Jesus lives the sinless life and dies the sinner’s death to give us positive righteousness (justification), so that his Holy Spirit can come and live in us and conform us to Christ (progressive sanctification), until the end when we’re ready to enter God’s perfect presence to receive our grace-given reward (glorification). In all of it, Christ is living in us (Jn.17:23), dwelling in our hearts by faith (Eph.3:17), keeping us safe as he works on and in us (Jude 24). As such, says Scrougal, true religion is a union between the soul of man and God. It is not our performance before God, and neither is it merely God’s performance before us (although his heavens declare his glory and he wants us to see his love and mercy on all the he’s made). It’s the marriage of the person’s soul to God so that they long to please him, just as he longs to bless and care for us. 

I summarized each of Scrougal’s three chapter divisions into my own notes as seen below. Afterward I’ll give a few concluding thoughts. 

Chapter 1: THE NATURE OF TRUE RELIGION

-Main points: True religion is a union between our mature and God’s, so that from within we love God, love man, and walk in purity and humility. True religion is to be entirely focused on living this way, by these four “pillars.” Christ’s life on earth shows all of this perfectly—he loved God, loved man, and walked in purity and humility. The gospel is that he came not only to show this to us but to give it to us: He’ll make us like himself. 

Chapter 2: THE EXCELLENCE AND ADVANTAGE OF RELIGION

-Main point(s): Each pillar of religion (love of God, love of man, purity, and humility) leads us to happiness: In loving God, we delight in him; in loving others, we delight in their happiness; and in purity we delight in inward rightness, and receiving what God and others do to us with thankfulness (which is humility). 

Chapter 3: THE AIDS TO TRUE RELIGION

-Main point(s): Don’t despair of never getting this. Christ’s heart is all love and holiness was our original state. He wants to make the “morning star to rise in our hearts” (2 Pet.1:19), and he won’t quench us when our “wick” is burning (cf. Matt.12:20, Is.42:3). But he employs our action in the process. We must: a) Shun all sin (you’ll never get better if you won’t stop drinking poison), b) Know what sin actually is, c) Avoid sin, d) Keep watch over ourselves, and e) Employ ourselves in pure things. 

-If you can’t effectively change internal conditions, give yourself to external acts (good works, acts of kindness, service, ministry, etc.) In time it’ll change you. Pray for others’ blessing. Contemplate true doctrine. Meditate on Christ. Take the sacrament (Lord’s supper)—through it Jesus works on us if we take it by faith. 

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Augustine once said that all that God commands, he also gives: “Command what you will, and give what you command,” Augustine prayed. The gospel is that God not only speaks, but that he gives us the godliness we’re lacking, and he does it through Jesus. To have Christ is not only to think well of him but to need him and feed on him as God’s provision for all that we lack and need.

How relevant is Scrougal’s book today, in our day of “dechurching,” where entire generations have given up on church, and churches are so struggling? What the dechurched need to know is what Scrougal told his friend: All that God requires of us he promises to give us in Christ, if we’ll come to him. As such salvation is all of grace. Don’t be so surprised and disappointed at sinful behavior among believers—they’re a mess, and any light they have is Jesus in them. And that’s what he wants to give you, too: His light from within. “Whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn.7:38). You can have this. 

The Gospel and LGBTQ Issues

Below is a typed version of my sermon notes from this past Sunday. For the second straight week we had some technical issues that made the recording of a sermon video impossible. So like last week I decided to make my notes available to my congregation and anyone interested in reading.

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This is a topic with many social and even political implications, as well as personal ones for many of us (most of us are touched by this in family, friendships, or work relationships). 

Maybe surprisingly, homosexual practice was somewhat common in the ancient Greco-Roman world. We could note two New Testament examples: First, Jesus addresses “men in soft clothing” (Mt.11:8), which is a euphemism for effeminate men. Jesus uses this euphemism in a tongue-in-cheek way, with a little sarcasm. Second, in 1 Cor.6:9-11 Paul states that some of the Corinthian Christians had once practiced homosexual living (listed among other sins), before coming to Christ: “Such were some of you” (v.11). The words used in the greek of v.9 refer to both the passive and active partners in homosexual practice (which were thought of and treated differently in the ancient world). But coming to Christ changed them (v.11b): Jesus separated them from that life so that it’s no longer them. 

-Today, leaving that life seems impossible, on the grounds that we assume either a genetic predisposition or addiction to the habit. Perhaps most importantly we understand identity in terms of sexual practice (more on that later). But the early Christians didn’t think this way: If there was a lifestyle opposed to Christ, it needed repented of. Further it needed to be continually mortified, since sin hangs on and rarely falls away without a fight (Heb.12:2). 

-But the point is that the gospel is more powerful than sexual habits, and change is possible, if we’ll let Jesus tell us what’s real and what’s not (if we’re ready). 

Why is this idea—that homosexuality and trans ideology is anti-God and Jesus came to deliver us from it—offensive? 

Our time

Carl Trueman, in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self*, attempts to explain how the late-modern mind was formed across the last several centuries. That is, Trueman tries to show why we think the way that we do, which helps understand the recent normalization of LGBTQ ideology. In summary, Trueman cites: 

a) The rise of the “psychological self” (coined by Philip Reiff)—modern man has made an “inward turn,” so that we understand ourselves in terms of how we feel on the inside, not in terms of what society needs (on the outside). The medieval world was Christian, so at that time, people looked outward and upward (ie, what does God want and what does society need?) Today, we’re self-absorbed: What do I want? I decide who I am. 

b) Freudian sexual obsession—Freud taught that our unhappiness is the result of unfulfilled sexual desires/urges. So sexual gratification becomes central to the modern mind. Since homosexual urges will become a tendency in some, it might feel like acting on those is “the secret” to happiness. I must, then, acted on them. 

c) Post-modern view of history—Since the West’s past is Christian (thus, not putting me and my desires first), it’s oppressive, as is Christianity. So the heroic narrative is dispensing with the Christian past and its hetero-norms. If, then, I’m gay or trans, I’m heroic and brave—and since many celebrate it today (adopting the same post-modern, anti-Christian view of history), I’m entrenched even further in it. 

But however one understands the turn, the Bible is clear that the practice is rebellion against how God made us and intends for us to find happiness. Thus “such were some of you.” They, the new Christians, turned.

Can I prove it? What does the Bible say? 

1. God’s image in humanity is as male and female (Gen.1:26-27), as he creates us (Ps.139:14). “Man” is male and female, and God chooses who we are. (Chromosomal abnormalities are to be expected in a fallen world. But the norm is self-evident.)
2. Through Scripture homosexual practice is always unrighteous and unsafe. We could see Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the men of the city want to “know” the angelic men (“know” is always sexual in the OT, if referring to a person). So Lot begs them to go away, offering them his daughters instead—what a dad! (Unless he was making a sarcastic statement, ie, “How much more do you want, my daughters too?) Further, Lev.18:22 places the prohibition on homosexual practice right after the prohibition on child sacrifice and right before the prohibition on bestiality(!), concluding that such practice is “an abomination.”
3. To Jesus, it’s not normal. In Mt.11:8 he makes fun of the men in soft clothing. Then in Mt.19:1f he defines marriage only in male and female terms. 
4. Homosexual practice AND desires are the effect of a society rejecting God. In Rom.1 societies reject God and one effect is that some will be “given up” (by God) to desire others of the same sex, and to practice such sexual activity with them (Rom.1:24, 26). Godlessness is the disease in all of us, but homosexuality is a symptom of the disease that is not in all of us, but only some (others of us have different symptoms, Rom.1:29-31). 

-So, then, do LGBTQ folks know but deny the truth, ignoring it? No. They don’t know the truth anymore—they used to, but now their hearts are hardened (Rom.1:21-23), and they can’t find their way back to God (like all of us Christians before he found us). 

The gospel, then, is the invitation to come back to God by reading his “map” (Scripture). It’s an invitation into a different “heroic narrative” than the one we so easily accept. Here I’m subject to God and guilty before him, but Jesus comes to the world to save me (he’s the hero). He’ll lead me to “pleasures forevermore” (Ps.16:11) if I’ll bear the cross in this life, which means learning to put his happiness with me before my happiness, until my happiness is one with his. 

How, then, does the church wisely steward this gospel invitation to our LGBTQ neighbors? 

Our stewardship

Evangelical churches in America have simply not know what to do with LGBTQ issues. As an oversimplification, we’ve tended to either become “Love God” churches (affirm Scripture’s truth about sexuality, but demonize the sexually lost) or “Love them” churches (affirm LGBTQ folks “truth”, and demonize Scripture). Option one is safer, but we haven’t grown in our ability to both affirm Scripture and love our neighbors. In other words, we have the gospel but we aren’t doing a good job of sharing it. I want, then, to offer three mind shifts that might be helpful, so that we can better share Christ with our friends, and they might come to him: 

1. From “the Bible says” to “God intends”—I want to be careful here, being an heir of the Reformational sola scriptura heritage. I just wonder if Rick Shenk is right that starting with “the Bible says” starts us off making the Christian faith sound like rule-keeping?** Instead “God intends” personalizes the invitation: It’s about fellowship with him first. And he gives us his word (the Bible) so we’ll know we hear from him clearly. In this shift we’re not jettisoning the Scripture (may it never be); but ministering a personal God to lots souls. 
2. From “your sexuality is the most important thing about you” to “your being an image-bearer is the most important thing about you"—A gay or trans person isn’t first a gay or trans person, but a person, an image-bearer, and they matter to God. They might be under God’s judgment in unbelief (cf. Jn.3:36), but so was I before Jesus found me. I want them to come to church not so they’ll become straight first, but so that they’ll meet Jesus first, and if they do, he’ll change their heart and behavior (again, 1Cor.6). Hell won’t only have gay people in it; but heaven will have only repentant people in it.
3. From enslavement to urges to self-control—Growing up, all the movies I watched had a common denominator: Be true to yourself, do what makes you happy, follow your heart and achieve your dreams, etc. I’m not surprised then that we’ve seen the maturation of self-absorption today, where it’s all about “following your own heart.” Don’t follow your heart, until it’s one with Christ’s. Since that only comes in the beatific vision, scrutinize your hearts with the Scriptures. 

Example: Rosaria Butterfield’s conversion*^: Rosaria, a practicing lesbian and feminist, was befriended by a pastor and his wife, and over years, came to Christ. Her conversion was painful, as it is for many of us (Lk.16:16). But as she obeyed Christ, things became clearer and clearer (cf. Jn.7:17). This is what Larry Osborne calls the dimmer-switch principle: If we obey, God will make our lights brighter so we can see more clearly. If we disobey he’ll dim the light so it becomes harder to see. That’s the invitation of the gospel: Come follow Christ, and learn to see.

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*Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020). 

**Rick Shenk, The Genesis of Marriage (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2018), 150.

*^See Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey Into Christian Faith (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant, 2012). 

On Marriage and the Gospel

We had a technical difficulty in our Sunday service this past week, so we were unable to record the video of my sermon on marriage. So for this month’s blog, I’m going to share an edited version of my notes. For continued reading, see Rick Shenk’s The Genesis of Marriage and Ray Ortlund’s Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel. I leaned heavily on Shenk’s book in my sermon preparation, and can’t recommend it enough. Shenk was my doctoral mentor, but I’ll never write as well and clear as he does. 

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Good Questions: Understanding Marriage - Ephesians 5:28-33 

What is marriage? Most agree that the breakdown of American society is the breakdown of the American family. 

-“Marriage” redefined over the last 50-60 years: “Just a paper.” Divorce numbers the same as when No-Fault-Divorce began in 1969, but it only appears that the rates are down because marriage rates are also down. 50%< of marriages end in divorce. 

-But what we need is not to see what’s wrong with marriage in the world but what’s right with marriage in Scripture.

1. Scripturally, Creation is About Marriage 

-In the creation account(s), the climax is the creation of man and woman to be married. 

-Gen.1: Day 6, male and female in his image 

-Gen.2: “not good” that man is alone, so he makes him a helper FROM him 

-Since “image” is “male and female” (1:26), marriage uniquely depicts God (as the one-and-many God, ie triune; thus “let US make man in our image”). It also depicts his redemption (like a man leaves his father and mother to join to his wife, so God in Christ brings us to himself). 

-Marriage the normal way man images God, unless single unto the Lord. 

-Marriage prominent throughout the biblical story: 

a) Old Testament: So much drama revolves around marriages 

b) Salvation will come through a family/lineage 

c) Prominence in the 10 Commandments (comms 7 and 10)

c) Marriage and adultery are the ways God defines his relationship with us (Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezek.16; Is.54:5-8, 62:5) 

-Is that how you think about your relationship with God, as spouse, or only as rule-giver and rule-follower? 

2. Christ’s First and Second Comings are Ab Marriage 

a) First coming: John 1-3 structured to look like Genesis 1-3, including with the wedding of Gen.2 reflected in the Jn.2 wedding, Jesus’ cleaning the temple, and Jesus saying that we need born again. Thus Jn.3:29 “the bridegroom is here.” These events show that the Bridegroom has come and the Bride must prepare herself.

-Mt.19 Jesus simplifies marriage and divorce down to God’s original purpose 

-Mt.9, 22, 25 — Jesus teaches that he’s the Bridegroom, and his second coming in terms of a bridegroom coming for his bride 

*So in first coming, he pays the bride-price (1 Cor.6:20)

b) Second coming: Revelation - Bible ends with the wedding of Christ to his church (Rev.19), and a joyous marriage (Rev.21-22). 

-So: Bible begins with a marriage that failed and ends with one that succeeds. Rick Shenk: “History has a nuptial structure.”

-Jesus’ first coming: He pays the bride price; second coming: He takes his bride. 

3. Marriage is About Christ’s Marriage 

Eph.5:28f: husbands love your wives like Christ does the church. We’d expect v.32, following the Genesis 2 quote (“the man leaves his father and mother to hold fast…”), to say “Christian husbands, this applies to you.” And v.33 does say that. But only after Paul says in v.32 that it applies to Christ: HE is the son who takes his wife and holds fast to her. Earthly marriage is a mysterious picture of Christ’s marriage to his church, uniting us to himself. Once men know that Christ is faithful to his church, they can learn faithfulness to their wives. 

-Song of Songs: Total intimacy in marriage, supposed to reflect our spiritual intimacy with Christ (Gal.2:20 “loved me; Jn.13:1 “loved his own”). Song is commentary on Gen.2 “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” song--it's an extended version of that shorter song) 

-Are you close to Jesus like that? That’s what discipleship is: Him drawing you deeper in to his heart, so that you not only know you need him, but that you have him. In all of your trials, you closer to him, don’t you? 

-Thus John Piper: Marriage as a “parable of permanence,” in which we reflect God’s triuneness in himself and his redemption of us in faithfulness. A profound mystery. 

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Some practical thoughts: 

1. Divorce: Still 1/2 marriages end. We know “God hates divorce” (Mal.2) and “only for sexual immorality” (Mt.5, 19). Any other allowances? 

-Personally I can’t allow for abuse to continue, especially if it’s abuse of kids. The parents’ job is to protect the children (Eph.6:4), so if they’re letting abuse happen they’re breaking that command! And there’s likely some form of sexual immorality happening if abuse is happening. But I can’t go any further than that: Only cheating and unrepentant physical abuse. 

-“But pastor we were incompatible, and fell out of love. You don’t understand our misery, so we needed to split up.” No, maybe I don’t understand. But maybe you didn’t understand your vows when you took them. You might have divorced for the wrong reasons, and you need to face it squarely. The Lord will forgive you--but don't lie to yourself and make a crooked path where he's made a straight way. 

2. Singleness: Disciples respond to Jesus’ hard teaching on divorce by saying “It’s better to not be married, then.” And Jesus responds (seemingly strangely) by saying, in effect, “Maybe” (“not everyone can receive this.”) (Matt.19:10-12) To Jesus there are two options: 

a) Godly marriage, where faithful man and woman enjoy each other 

b) Godly singleness, where the believer is married to Christ in the Spirit (ie, Paul)

-Today it's thought that sexless living is impossible (Charlie Kirk video: girl who has no category for chaste living). Scripture assumes otherwise: To God, sex is for men and women in marriage as a parable of heavenly bliss (Hans Boersma).

3. Redefinitions of marriage (that is, homosexual, polygamous, incestuous, etc.): The only one with the right to redefine marriage is the one who defined it in the first place. When he “redefined” it (Mt.19) he took it back to the beginning: Man and wife together forever to reflect God and his redemption. 

To God, life is about intimacy: You’ll know and be known by something/someone. Choose Christ. Is there anything more beautiful than companionship and self-sacrifice (Project Hail Mary’s twin themes)? In marriage we learn both as we bear the cross with Jesus, and are promised his glory in the end. 

Not To Us

I look at the calendar and realize that the month of June is almost over, and I have yet to write a post. Let me admit to you, dear reader, that I don’t have the mental bandwidth for a lengthy, in-depth theological post. I’m finishing final edits on my First London Confession study (due out later this year), and I’m fighting a little sickness, along with other responsibilities. I appreciate your understanding! 

That said, I wanted to share the lyrics from a worship song we sing regularly at church. It’s called Not To Us, sung to the old English tune “St. George’s Windsor,” with lyrics written by contemporary pastor and writer Chris Anderson. I’ve been immersed in the song recently because I’ve been transposing and arranging it for our worship team’s guitarists, and I can’t get enough of the lyrics. The lyrics put the words of Psalm 115 to song, reading the psalm as a witness to Christ, emphasizing that he is the true King, and the only one worthy of worship. All other worship is life-sucking; worship of Christ is life-giving. I just think the song so captures the spirit of reformed worship, and the worship of the true, gospel-believing church throughout time.

Not To Us

Psalm 115

Chris Anderson, George Elvey

Not to us be glory Lord, Not to us praise or reward 

You alone be magnified, only Your Name glorified! 

For Your un-relenting love, For your faithful-ness above 

Not to us but to our King: Honor, praise, and glory bring! 

Why should heathen mock the Lord? “Where is he?”—their scoffing word 

In the heav’ns He reigns alone, ruling from His loft-y throne 

What he pleases He per-forms, All to his de-sign conforms 

Not to us but to our King: Honor, praise, and glory bring! 

Foolish men in vain have prayed, to the idols they have made 

Wooden eye and molten ear—gods which neither see nor hear

All who to such stones have fled shall be like them: dull and dead 

Not to us, but to our King: Honor, praise, and glory bring! 

Come, you saints and saints to come; Trust in God, your Help and Home

All who fear Him, He recalls; He will bless us, great and small 

Praise Him! Praise your Shield and Lord, all through life, then ever more! 

Not to us, but to our King: Honor praise, and glory bring! 

Christ has claimed a chosen race for the glory of His grace

Who but He can praises claim? Who boasts such a matchless name? 

We whose song will never cease, long to fade and Christ increase! 

Not to us, but to our King: Honor, praise, and glory bring!