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Eugene Peterson’s books are either deeply loved or studiously avoided by Reformed folk. I’ve found him to be a thoughtful, literate writer who shares many of my concerns and passions about pastoral ministry. I read The Contemplative Pastor about three months after I finished seminary, and that book helped me avoid many snares and keep my wits about me. I don’t always agree with Peterson, but he is such a gracious and edifying author that I enjoy disagreeing with him more than I enjoy agreeing with many others. Someone once quipped, “I prefer Uriah drunk to David sober.”

I recently read one of Peterson’s first books, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society, first published in 1980 and the released in a revised and expanded version by IVP in 2000. The title is drawn from a surprising place: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil (’The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.’) Peterson takes us to the “Psalms of Ascent” (Psalms 120-134) as a guide and metaphor for following Christ over the long haul. He writes in the introduction:

I knew that following Jesus could never develop into a “long obedience” without a deepening life of prayer and that the Psalms had always been the primary means by which Christians learned to pray everything they lived, and live everything they prayed over the long haul…But the people I was around didn’t pray the Psalms. That puzzled me; Christians have always prayed the Psalms; why didn’t my friends and neighbors?

God has used Peterson’s teaching on Psalms 120-134 to knead them into my imagination again and into my vocabulary of prayer and conversation to speak in practical ways about joy, repentance, service, work, humility, obedience, community and blessing. Here are some samples of Peterson’s work that will give you a sense of the deep, biblical wisdom of A Long Obedience:

On worship: ‘We live in what one writer has called the “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.’ [54]

On the past: ‘The psalmist is not an antiquarian reveling in the past for its own sake but a traveler using what he knows of the past to get to where he is going–to God. For all its interest in history the Bible never refers to the past as “the good old times.” The past is not, for the person of faith, a restored historical site that we tour when we are on vacation; it is a field that we plow and harrow and plant and fertilize and work for a harvest.’ [168]

On joy: ‘A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment. There isn’t a hint of that in Psalm 126.’ [100]

On security: ‘Discipleship is not a contract in which if we break our part of the agreement he is free to break his; it is a covenant in which he establishes the conditions and guarantees the results.’ [90]

On hope: ‘Hoping does not mean doing nothing…It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions…It is imagination put in the harness of faith. it is a willingness to let God to it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it.’ [144]

On repentance: ‘Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god; it is deciding that you were wrong in thinking that you had, or could get, the strength, education and training to make it on your own; it is deciding that you have been told a pack of lies about yourself and your neighbors and your world. And it is deciding that God in Jesus Christ is telling you the truth. Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.’ [29-30]

Peterson includes in the revised edition the Psalms of Ascent in his translation/paraphrase, The Message. This is a plus in the eyes of author and publisher and many readers, but not in mine.

Nevertheless, if you are drawn toward instant, polished-smile, give-me-patience-now Christianity, be warned: there will be little in this book to soothe and cherish your desires. But Peterson’s aged wine is much better than the Zima of contemporary spirituality. Take, read, drink deeply.

Matt and Elizabeth Schmucker have posted 39 lessons, 20 tips and 10 don’t for parenting at the 9marks site. It’s an excellent collection of biblical wisdom for Christian parents, even if #32 reflects a baptist view of Baptism.

John Piper, from a sermon on 1 Peter 3:1-6 available at Desiring God Ministries, has listed six things that biblical submission is not. Time did not allow me to share these or elaborate on them at all in yesterday’s sermon on 1 Peter 3:1-7. Here they are:

What Submission Is Not
Here are six things it is not, based on 1 Peter 3:1-6.
1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in v. one: she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world—God. So submission can’t mean submitting to agree with all her husband thinks.
2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. It is not the inability or the unwillingness to think for yourself. Here is a woman who heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. She thought about it. She assessed the truth claims of Jesus. She apprehended in her heart the beauty and worth of Christ and his work, and she chose him. Her husband heard it also. Otherwise, Peter probably wouldn’t say he “disobeyed the word.” He has heard the word, and he has thought about it. And he has not chosen Christ. She thought for herself and she acted. And Peter does not tell her to retreat from that commitment.
3. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change a husband. The whole point of this text is to tell a wife how to “win” her husband. V. 1 says, “Be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.” If you didn’t care about the Bible you might say, “Submission has to mean taking a husband the way he is and not trying to change him.” But if you believe what the Bible says, you conclude that submission, paradoxically, is sometimes a strategy for changing him.
4. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband before the will of Christ. The text clearly teaches that the wife is a follower of Jesus before and above being a follower of her husband. Submission to Jesus relativizes submission to husbands—and governments and employers and parents. When Sarah called Abraham “lord” in v. 6, it was lord with a lowercase l. It’s like “sir” or “m’lord.” And the obedience she rendered is qualified obedience because her supreme allegiance is to the Lord with a capital L.
5. Submission does not mean that a wife gets her personal, spiritual strength primarily through her husband. A good husband should indeed strengthen and build up and sustain his wife. He should be a source of strength. But what this text shows is that when a husband’s spiritual leadership is lacking, a Christian wife is not bereft of strength. Submission does not mean she is dependent on him to supply her strength of faith and virtue and character. The text, in fact, assumes just the opposite. She is summoned to develop depth and strength and character not from her husband but for her husband. Verse five says that her hope is in God in the hope that her husband will join her there.
6. Finally submission does not mean that a wife is to act out of fear. V. 6b says, “You are her [Sarah’s] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.” In other words, submission is free, not coerced by fear. The Christian woman is a free woman. When she submits to her husband—whether he is a believer or unbeliever—she does it in freedom, not out of fear.

A sweet, pithy summary of the glory of the gospel from one of our best teachers, R.C. Sproul:

The glory of the gospel is this: The one from whom we need to be saved is the one who saved us.

Last night I read Jesus’ investment advice from Matthew 6:19-20: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

At that moment I thought about the photo of this moth that Melissa Henson sent me. It was taken outside her office in downtown Kosciusko a couple of weeks ago. For the entymology-minded, that’s haploa clymene, the Clymene moth. God has imparted beauty to moths too–cool cruciform marking when the wings are together. If someone sends me a lovely photo of rust, I guess I’ll post that too.

I wish everyone could see a congregation the way I get to see it as a preacher. Some faces are joyful and expectant, others skeptical and wary, others bored and sleepy, others surprised and wondering. I preached this past Sunday night from Proverbs on the sins of meddling, gossip, and slander. I’m not sure how to describe the looks that say, “Hey, how did you know what was going on in this relationship and this situation?” I know because I struggle mightily in this area as well. Who can argue with James when he writes, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man…[James 3:2]? If I can master my tongue, so much of the rest of life would fall right happily into place.

You might think being a pastor simplifies these matters, because I get to breathe the pure, sanctified air of the pastor’s study and am insulated from all the sharp edges of “real life.” If you think that, you’d be wrong. Martin Luther said that unless a minister “smells like death and devil” he’s worthless. One of the devil’s aromas that surrounds me comes from the war of words. Like anyone else I hear rumors and bad reports, slander and abuse. And I’m called to labor for the peace and purity of the Church. I am an ambassador for his kingdom agenda of grace and truth. I hear Jesus saying, Blessed are the peacemakers [Being a peace-keeper is easier by far.]. What do I do with the information that comes to me by observation and report? What do I need to confront? To what do I need to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and cover over with forbearance and compassion? How do I help my brothers and sisters repair and restore broken relationships? When the Bible requires us to purse the more formal avenues of church discipline, how should we deal with evidence and information?

Sometime soon the sermon from 3 August will be posted at fpckosciusko.org and on the free podcast at iTunes. If it helps, thanks be to God. If you want a shorter treatment from some more reputable teachers, read this related post that appeared on 4 August on Justin Taylor’s Between Two Worlds, written by Tim Keller and David Powlison, entitled Should You Pass on Bad Reports? I recommend reading it carefully. In a follow-up to some comments, Powlison writes,

…the leading edge of our argument is to place checks on the tendency we all have to snide, sneering, self-righteous, gossipy, malicious words. Any growth we can make in the direction of Ephesians 4:29 will make life much more joyous for all, and bring much glory to our God. And even criticisms I make become more hearable when I the critic am not posturing, but actually care about others. When I don’t care, my bad attitude and superiority becomes my actual message. Love is patient, love is kind . . . and then love is candid.

How much grace and mercy you and I (well, at least, I) need!

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