Psalm 119:89

"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." Psalm 119:89

The word. Truth. Reality. Meaning. It belongs to God, and it dwells in his domain. Its source is a Being so far beyond our understanding we cannot imagine Him, and its habitation is far away in a place we cannot penetrate. However, he has chosen to reveal a portion of this word to us. We live in an age when far more of it is revealed than when the psalmist wrote this simple verse. Do we therefore treasure it?

There's another reason why we should: it is utterly fixed, settled. Unlike the world we live in, it will not pass away, it will not change, and it is not subject to doubt. All the novel information that flies around the internet is fleeting and destined for the trash heap of history, and the wisdom of man is but shaky footing for our minds. Conversely, time spent in God's word is time spent grounding our understanding on that which is eternal. May we with the psalmist say, "O how I love thy law!" But that is so easy to say. Of course we know we ought to love it!" Here's the real key: may that love also lead us to say, "It is my meditation all the day."

The Death of Socrates

Have you ever read the account of the death of Socrates? I did so this week in my book "The Story of Philosophy." It was arresting. He was given the option of exile but chose rather to die, presumably to avoid the shame of exile. He turned down the opportunity to escape, and when the day was come, didn't delay until evening as his emotional friends were hoping. He saw it as inevitable, and rather than resist death he accepted it with calm composure. Perhaps he knew that facing death fearlessly would do more for his memory than anything else he could accomplish in his few remaining natural years (he was seventy).

Reading the account made me feel as uncomfortable as his friends felt. That it did so was curious, because reading of the calm death of martyrs isn't disturbing at all. I knew he wasn't a Christian and that he was suppressing the knowledge of his meeting with God after death just as he had suppressed the knowledge of his responsibility to God before death. Perhaps it was the tension between his present confidence and the shock and horror he would soon experience that jarred me.

Why did he choose death and face it with such casual boldness? He was trying to be the ideal self-reliant man, and in his death he pushed that vision to the limits of human capacity. All who do so fall, and they fall hard. Some before death, and some after. God receives glory all the same, for time and eternity are both bare before him. We are blind to eternity and rarely think about it. Unless, by his grace, he opens in us the eyes of faith just a little and allows us to perceive the judgments and rewards that await all men. May we, unlike Socrates, live and die in the light of that knowledge.

First post

We encounter "arguments," "lofty opinions," and "thoughts" every moment of our lives. They are the value judgments that color virtually all human communication. Value judgments lie behind every subjective idea (and most objective ones) and they are seldom recognized, either in the ideas of others or in our own thoughts.

But these judgments are not neutral. Evil thoughts proceed out of the heart of men. The thoughts of God are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. There is a tension, an unseen war, between these opposing versions of reality. Every Christian must strive with the apostle Paul to take the self-directed thoughts of men and make them to serve Christ and his truths. The trouble is, we all are immersed in a world dominated by the evil thoughts of men, and much of our thinking has been conformed to these falsehoods. I, for one, am determined to crawl inch by inch out of this trap as my thoughts are transformed by God's.

As I continue on this journey, I write. A lot. Most of it never leaves my laptop, as its purpose is simply to help me to identify the presuppositions behind some "lofty opinion" I've heard or read, and to rebuild that opinion on the foundation of biblical truth. This is what I believe it means to take every thought captive, and exercising myself to that end is reason enough for me to write.

It's been suggested that I post the fruits of this effort, and I am torn between my desire to share what may be helpful to others, and my reluctance to release my raw, unfinished ramblings. At this point, I don't have the time to refine my thoughts into more cohesive essays. Most of the posts you'll see here are mere journal entries that got out of hand. Few of them have been read through more than once. I apologize in advance for the flaws and errors, and hope that by God's grace you may find something here that is useful.

Soli deo gloria