(The first in a series of paper summaries from this year’s ETS)

 

John Calvin believed that prayer is not an academic problem, but a precious gift and the essence of Christian life. Therefore his theology of prayer is very practical. In his Institutes, Calvin defined prayer: “the communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience… that what they believed was not in vain.” He also said that it is “a communication between God and us whereby we expound to him our desires, our joys, our sighs, in a word, all the thoughts of hearts.” Calvin saw prayer as given for man that he might lay hold of divine riches.

 

Prayer is part of the means that God has ordained to bring about His plan, so it is not useless in light of God’s sovereignty. It does not change God or His decrees because 1) God is immutable, 2) God’s pleasure governs all things 3) God controls everything, including prayer. However, God anticipates our prayers and responds to them. As someone suggested, prayer is a “divine response to a divine initiative in the elect.”

 

Calvin offered at least six purposes for prayer: 1) To go to God in every need and find them met in Him 2) to learn to desire what is right 3) to prepare to humbly receive God’s response 4) to meditate on God’s kindness 5) to delight in His response 6) to confirm God’s faithfulness as we see our prayers answered. Scripture shapes, controls, and restrains the content of our prayers as they spring from faith.

 

Beeke provided four rules of prayer from Calvin: Prayer must maintain a heartfelt sense of 1) reverence 2) need and repentance 3) humility and trust in God and 4) confident hope. “Prayer is given by the Father, is made possible through the Son, and is worked out in the soul by the Spirit, through whom it returns via Christ to the Father.” Our prayers our heard by the Father because of Christ as the Spirit teaches us how to pray.

 

Christian piety is necessarily dependent upon prayer as it is the channel between us and God. By it we submit all things to God and adore Him, both as individuals and corporately. “The prerequisite of effective corporate praying is effective private prayer.” Those who do not pray neglect a precious treasure and commit idolatry by defrauding God. Calvin saw lack of prayer as a denial that God is the author of all good things.

 

Beeke concluded, “Ultimately, for Calvin, prayer is a heavenly act, a holy and precious communing with the Triune God in His glorious throne room, grounded in an assured eschatological hope.”

Themed Bibles are generally a bad idea.  For one thing, every part of God's Word is meant to speak to every Christian.  Themed Bibles tend to emphasize only the parts of the Bible that speak about the particular theme, leaving other potentially important aspects of Scripture under-emphasized or ignored (and here I'm thinking primarily within the context of "daily devotions"). 

Secondly, Scripture purposefully makes use of many different genres (and different themes!) to convey the Gospel message in the most comprehensive way possible.  A Bible that goes out of its way to draw attention to only a single theme can have the unfortunate side effect of obscuring the Gospel message itself. 

Now, none of this is to say that themed Bibles are inherently sinful or that the dangers I've mentioned will necessarily result from using them (I actually own a Couples' Devotional Bible).  So naturally I didn't think much of the new Green Bible.  I assumed it was just another gimmick.  And on one level, it is that.  The paper used in The Green Bible is 100% recycled, the ink is soy-based, and the cover is made of cotton-linen.  At the beginning is a collection of essays about being a "green" Christian by such international figures as Desmund Tutu, N. T. Wright, and even Pope John Paul II.  But it's most prominent feature is that it is the first ever "green letter edition" of the Bible.  No, the words of Christ are not in green.  Rather, every verse that supposedly speaks to the subject of "Creation Care" is printed in green.  Like I said, it's gimmicky.  And if that's all it was, I wouldn't have a problem with it.   Heck, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing myself.  I want to be a good Steward of God's creation as much as the next Christian.  But then I started poking around the book's website.  As it turns out, the green bible may actually be teaching something dangerously close to idolatry.

Here are some sample questions from The Green Bible Quiz:

"2) Which verse praising creation is from the Psalms?"

The answer is Psalm 19:1, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."  What's the problem?  This verse is NOT "praising creation."  It's doing the exact opposite, expressing how creation praises God.  To my mind, this is kind of a big deal (is anyone else thinking of Romans 1:25?).

"4) Where did Jesus go to commune with nature?"

(It's been said before, but it bears repeating here:  Jesus was not a hippy).  The answer to this question is apparently found in Matthew 14:23 (the quiz has the answer as Matthew 4:23, but I assume this is simply a typo), "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray."  Seriously, are the people responsible for the green "bible" actually reading it?  Jesus didn't go up the mountain to commune with nature!  He went up to pray (literally, to commune with God!).  Stretching the meaning of a verse to make a point is one thing.  Butchering a verse and literally replacing God with nature...that's a whole new ballgame. 

Now, maybe this quiz is just a poorly conceived promotional tool that doesn't refelct the actual content of the green bible.  That's certainly possible.  But if the excerpt they provide from one of the opening essays is any indication, the content is no better than what we've seen so far.  In her essay, "The Dominion of Love", Barbara Brown Taylor says of the sixth day of creation:

The "new information" she is referring to is that land animals were also created on day six.  Apparently Ms. Taylor was under the impression that the only thing that made human beings special was that we had a whole day all to ourselves.  She also mentions our being given dominion over the earth, and the fact that God pronounces all of His creation to be good, not just man, but all of this is merely peripheral to the real issue.  If she had consulted even the most elementary level Bible scholarship, instead of simply assuming what I can only imagine are her culturally-inherited misconceptions about traditional Christian teaching, she would have seen very quickly that mankind's special place in creation is founded upon our unique status as image bearers of God.  As it stands, the main point of her essay ends up missing the point entirely. 

I would like to invite comments and feedback from anyone who might be willing to defend the green bible.  It's still possible that I've made egregious leaps and  assumed things based on these short previews that aren't really true of the bible itself.  So if anyone owns a copy and would like to defend it, I'm open to hearing your arguments. 

Like I said, I have no problem becoming "green."  I will probably never buy an SUV (as if that's all it means to be green!).  I really do want to be a good steward of God's creation.  But if the only way to join the "green team" is to accept poor theology and pseudo biblical scholarship that effectively butchers the Word of God...we evangelicals will have to work on starting our own team.  I have no doubt that "God is green" (in a sense, at least), but if He is, He ought to have said so.  We shouldn't have to twist His words to make them say something they're not really saying. 

You heard it here first!

"Religion Alters Visual Perception." 

(HT: Kim Riddlebarger)