I haven't been writing much, not because I haven't had anything to write, but because my writing attention has been on my dissertation. At the time of this writing, I am roughly four weeks from submission, so I'm "under the gun," as they say. But I need a fresh blog post so that I don't totally get out of practice.
Over the last several years, my reading has been divided into several subsections, in many cases where books cause cross categories: First is research-reading, in which I read for the specific purpose of guiding higher academic pursuits (whether it be PhD, or proposed articles, papers for conferences, or publishing possibilities); second is personal theological growth, which is reading geared toward growth in "knowledge of Christ Jesus" (2 Pet. 3:18); third is pastoral and pedagogical reading, which is reading that assists my preaching and teaching at church, as well as what assists my teaching in the classroom setting; finally is personal growth and fun reading, in which I read things that I think help me either to practically follow Jesus or are just sort of decompression-reading.
For the first category, Matthew Barrett's 900-page Reformation as Renewal is a current pursuit; in it he argues for an alternative reading of the history of the Reformation and the age in which it occurred than what is traditionally believed by both Protestant and Roman Catholic (highly, highly recommended). For the second category, I'm reading Peter Kreeft's Summa of the Summa, which is an annotated commentary on major portions of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (also highly recommended). For the third category, I'm reading Jim Davis and Michael Graham's The Great Dechurching, in which they break down the exodus from the church that has occurred in America over the last 40 years. It is well worth any Christian's time - the church has work to do, because a lot of people have left churches for reasons that are avoidable. (And one fact worth considering is that the higher the level of a person's education, the lower likelihood of dechurching. In a world where we hear that progressive education is the problem in America, it is actually the case that church attenders who had high levels of academic achievement were less likely to leave church!)*
But one example of reading that belongs to the final category is the Puritan Thomas Brooks' Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. I've owned it for a long time, but haven't spent much time in it until recently. Oh my goodness, is it helpful. Christians are to be in a constant defensive position against the devil, because his mission this side of the cross and leading to Christ's final coming is to destroy our faith (2 Cor. 4:4, Eph. 6:13f., 1 Pet. 5:8-10). It is not "fundamentalist" to believe that Satan is an actual entity at work in the world^; everyone, I think, believes evil exists. What is the source of evil, then? The devil, who has "devices" or "designs" (2 Cor. 2:11), of which we are to be made aware.
Brooks (1608-80) spends the entirety of his pastoral work on the various "devices" Satan uses to destroy believers, giving several "precious remedies" that assist the believer in their battle. One of those devices which Satan employs to
"keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition, and so making their life a hell, is, by causing them to be still poring and musing upon sin, to mind their sins more than their Savior; yea, so to mind their sins as to forget, yea, to neglect their Savior...Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease that they cannot see the remedy, though it be near."*^
This is a device in which the devil tries to keep the believer, still inhabited by sin and sin tendencies (1 Jn. 1:8, 10), so focused on their sin condition that they cannot see the Savior who has cleansed them and is available to them. Hence becomes fulfilled what Isaiah wrote, that the rebellious, by their sin, have made a wall between themselves and God, such that he cannot hear their prayers (Is. 59:1-2). Satan wants people to think that they're so bad, and hopelessly so, that God cannot (because he would not) listen.
And Brooks' first precious remedy almost took my breath away when I read it:
"The first remedy is for weak believers to consider, That though Jesus Christ hath not freed them from the presence of sin, yet he hath freed them from the damnatory power of sin. It is most true that sin and grace were never born together, neither shall sin and grace die together; yet while a believer breathes in this world, they must live together, they must keep house together. Christ in this life will not free any believer from the presence of any one sin, though he doth free every believer from the damning power of every sin."#
I was stunned at Brooks' comment that sin and grace were not born together (for grace has to do with God's eternal giving nature, and sin, with a reactive refusal to participate in God), and thus they will not die together (that is, I'll one day be set free from sin's presence, but grace will continue). So until the end, sin and grace have to live together. They can't not. That's why Paul says the flesh and the Spirit are at war within believers (Gal. 5:16), and why everywhere the New Testament cautions against letting sin fester, for it can balloon to unmanageable bigness (i.e. Heb. 3:13, 12:15). We will not attain a practical perfection in this life, though it must never be because we are not seeking to be perfect like our Father (Mt. 5:48). We are all seeking something, living in light of some picture of the "good life." So we must always pursue God's "good life," which he has for us.
So when we consider consistent sin struggles, areas where we are not growing like we should, frustrations with lack of love for God or for others, etc. we should remember that the devil would have us focus all of our attention on those areas. But much better is to remember that sin and grace are living together inside of each of us, and that they will do so until the end. And as Brooks says on the next page, if Jesus doesn't dispense entirely with particular sins in this life, it is because he has chosen not to, and thus he will forgive us when we slip, when we return to him and ask.^^
While it is true that Jesus did not die and rise again so that we would live this life defeated and hopeless in sin, it is also true that he does not leave us in this life of misery for us to feel defeated by our lack of growth and Christlikeness. Our faith is not seen in our perfection but in the ability of He who is perfect to cause us to keep returning to him. If the devil accuses--which is what he does--I counter his attack by returning to Jesus again, and again, and again, so on. And such reflection should be balm to a weary soul.
*See Davis, Graham, The Great Dechurching, 111-12.
^See, for instance, John Mark Comer's helpful Live No Lies, which is a book about Satan and evil, written from a decidedly non-fundamentalist perspective.
*^Precious Remedies, Puritan Paperback edition, 142, emph original.
#Ibid, 143, emph original.
^^Ibid, 144.
