The Old One Hundredth

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I came across this old hymn flipping through a book yesterday and realized I hadn’t heard it in a long time. It is based on Psalm 100, and an interesting history of it is here. “Old 100th” is also the name of the music by Louis Bourgeois.

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.

O enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His Name always,
For it is seemly so to do.

For why? the Lord our God is good;
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God Whom Heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.

~ William Kethe

The Week In Words…and a Giveaway!

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that spoke to me this past week:

I saw this on Lisa‘s sidebar of her Twitter feed:

If you understand that God is using all the difficulties you face to perfect you, you’ll be at peace. It’s not all for nothing. ~ John MacArthur

That does help to know God has a purpose in everything He allows, and this is at least one of them.

The next few are from The Invitation by Derick Bingham, all concerning John 12.

From the May 30th reading about Martha serving as many as seventeen people:

[Formerly] Martha was distracted by her serving. Now, she isn’t. She is now serving as wholeheartedly as ever but not to the detriment of ignoring what God wants to say to her.

May it be true of all of God’s Marthas.

From the May 31 reading concerning Mary’s anointing Christ’s feet with a costly ointment:

If we have not what the Bible calls “first love” for Christ we will do more harm than good by the defence of the Christian faith. People have risen in the history of the church with a zeal for truth but because there is no first love for Christ behind it, their zeal narrow into hate. All service for Christ that is not the outgrowth of love for Him is worthless. Activity in the King’s service will not make up for neglect of the King.

There’s a lot in that one, but what particularly grabbed me was the thought of zeal for truth with no love doing more harm than good. I’ve seen people like that, and I believe that’s true. And then the last statement convicts as well: how easy it is to be busy in service and drift away from that first love.

From the June 1 reading commenting on Judas’s disparaging remarks concerning Mary’s act:

If you wait until everybody commends and praises you, then you will never do any good in this world.

True: there will always be naysayers.

Now, as for the giveaway I mentioned in the title. 🙂 I just realized last week that I missed the one year anniversary of hosting The Week In Words. It was begun by Melissa at Breath of Life, and when she had to set it aside I asked if I could take it over, and in May I had been hosting it for a year. And an anniversary is a nice time for a giveaway. One source I’ve shared many quotes from is Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word, a book of short commentary on every chapter in the Bible, so I would like to give away one copy of that book…and I may include a couple of other little surprises as well. If you’d like to be included in the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post, and I’ll announce the winner at the next Week In Words next Monday morning. (You don’t have to leave a quote to enter, but if you have one, please do share it as well! All comments will be entered in the drawing, so if you comment but you are not interested in the book, please let me know. If you already have a copy, this might make a nice gift for someone else.)

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, even if you don’t have any quotes to share! 🙂

Book Review: Women’s Ministry in the Local Church

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Barbara Harper

I finished Women’s Ministry in the Local Church by Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt a few weeks ago, but it is hard to know how to condense everything I’d like to say about it. I typed out many of the quotes I marked so I could have them handy to refer to without flipping back and forth through the book, and just those quotes took up almost three pages, which is much too long for a blog post! So I think I’ll just give you a brief overview of the book and then mention a few things I really liked about it and a couple I didn’t like so much.

The authors first set out the need for such a book to help women to teach other women as Titus 2 instructs, to present the Biblical role of womanhood as opposed to the feminist view promoted by the world, and to promote the necessity and nobility of women’s roles. The authors had found resources teaching many aspects of a woman’s relationship to Christ and women’s groups a para-church organizations, but not one integrating the women’s ministry to the church ministry as a whole. Furthermore, in some churches which do have some type of women’s ministry, that ministry is “event-, task-, or personality-driven. An inherent danger is that any ministry that is not Biblically informed will eventually become competitive and divisive” (p. 31). Ligon Duncan has an excellent section on “Why a Church Needs a Women’s Ministry” in pages 37-42.

After discussing the need and motives of women’s ministry, the authors lay out the foundations and tasks of a healthy women’s ministry and the relationship of the women’s ministry to the rest of the church.

The authors promote a complementarian position, the view “that God created men and women equal in being but assigned different — but equally valuable — functions in His kingdom, and that this gender distinctiveness complements, or harmonizes, to fulfill His purpose” (p. 32), and part of that distinction is “male spiritual leadership in the home and believing community, the Church” (pp. 32-33). A couple of quotes I especially appreciated along these lines were:

Submission has nothing to do with status. Submission is about function. Equality of being and differentiation of function characterize the Trinity. The Persons of the Godhead are ‘the same in substance, equal in power and glory,” but each has a different function in the accomplishment of our salvation (p. 73).

Submission does not restrain women. Submission frees us to accomplish our kingdom purpose (p. 78).

Domestic duties are not a hindrance to sanctification; they are essentials of the common life. The family is a context in which to develop godly character that will qualify women for service beyond hearth and home. When love for Christ is the matrix of domesticity, those duties become an aroma of Christ, the fragrance of life (2 Corinthians 2:15-16) (p. 106).

Since I’ve started sharing quotes, let me see if I can pick out a few of the most pertinent from the three pages I gleaned:

When young women learn more about womanhood from TV, movies, magazines, and the Internet than they do from mature older women, they will often make unbiblical decisions. (p. 53)

Christ, not womanhood or the women’s ministry, must be the reference point. Unless a woman’s ministry is an overflow of the gospel, women will become hinderers and nor helpers in God’s Church. Those who plan for and implement a women’s ministry must be intentional in maintaining a gospel orientation in their hearts and lives (p. 58).

Paul put heavy emphasis on sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is the antidote for error. Sound, which is the key word in these letters, is translated from a Greek word that means whole or healthy. “Christian doctrine is healthy in the same way as the human body is healthy. For Christian doctrine resembles the human body. It is a coordinated system consisting of different parts which relate to one another and together constitute a harmonious whole. If therefore our theology is maimed (with bits missing) or diseased (with bits distorted) it is not ‘sound’ or ‘healthy'” (pp. 59-60).

Titus 2:3-5 instructs the pastor to equip older women to train younger women. If this mandate is disconnected from a biblical perspective of discipleship, it can easily become purely a relational model that magnifies relationship rather than God’s glory, or an academic model that elevates knowledge over the application of the gospel into life (p.60-61).

Without in any way discounting the regular pulpit ministry of the church, we should recognize that there are certain matters more aptly addressed and applied in the context of a specific discipleship of women, whether in large groups, in small groups, or in situations of confidentiality, as women minister to women (p. 84).

The goal is not to get every woman to participate in the women’s ministry, but for the women’s ministry to serve and encourage every woman in the church (p. 111.)

Commenting on Psalm 144:12b: “that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace”: These corner pillars were both beautiful and functional. They gave grace and dignity to the structure even as they supported it. If these pillars weakened, the structure was in danger. David considered these corner pillars to be gifts from God…Unless corner pillars stand on a firm foundation, they will topple. p. 138.

At the end of each chapter is a short testimony from pastors or women about some aspect discussed in the previous chapter. One of the most interesting and enlightening to me were a couple from women in reference to being in a church that did not see the importance of a women’s ministry, or, in some cases, did not even seem to love women:

How are women to love the church when they feel unloved by the church? I have found the answer in Scripture’s admonition to women who are married to unbelieving or disobedient husbands. The failure or weakness of male leadership does not absolve us of our responsibility. We are to run to the Author and Perfecter of our faith with our hurts, wounds, and disappointments. We are to see this season as part of our individual and corporate sanctification offered by our sovereign God who loves us steadfastly. (p. 52-53).

When women are scorned and disrespected by the philosophies of ministry that denigrate the design, calling, and roles of women, we are tempted to react with militant defensiveness. Scripture calls us to remember that Jesus, the King of the Church, delights in us. We are not called to defend ourselves but to defend Christ’s Kingdom through prayer and service. (p. 53).

The “militant defensiveness” stood out to me because I know of a handful of women who have that exact tone in pointing out perceived errors in the church and their voices and tone have become so shrill and bitter that they are doing much more harm than good. If the church is a family, a body, then dealing with problems is not best handled by “militant defensiveness.” That doesn’t mean those problems don’t need to be addressed, but there are better, more restorative and Christ-honoring ways to do it.

There are appendices in the back discussing some practical aspects of women’s discipleship ministries and Bible studies.

There were just a few things I either did not agree with or care for.

On page 75 a quote from a Dr. George Knight that “”Eve…brought herself into transgression by abandoning her role and taking on that of the man.” I don’t think that was her sin or even what led to her sin necessarily: her sin was simply disobeying God’s clear command; her motives: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

This one is perhaps a minor point, but on pages 102-103 there is a section about widows which interprets I Timothy 5:3-10 as referring to two different groups of widows, those who receive church help and those who are a group qualified to minister to others. I had never heard that before, but I don’t see a distinction between two groups there: I believe it is all one group of widows and the lists actions there show what they have done, what they are being honored for, not what they are signing up to do (not that older women should not keep ministering in some way as long as they are able, but that’s another post I am thinking about).

On page 140 the authors say, “Bible studies should equip women to pass on the legacy of biblical womanhood to the next generation and should offer opportunities for them to have hands-on experiences in discipling one another.” I agree, but I don’t think that means Bible studies among women can only cover these topics or the passages that relate directly to women. I think studying books or other topics can be covered and is part of the foundation on which women’s ministry rests, and principles of womanhood can be brought out. Later they warn against a “prideful pursuit of knowledge…that stops short of true discipleship that moves from knowledge to wisdom — to the application of truth into life. They have perfected some Bible study skills, but they do not know how to love as godly, chaste single women, or love their husbands, or care for the sick and oppressed, or support the male leadership of the church…” and more (pp. 140-141). I do think that’s a valid concern.

Related to the above point, there is a section where a pastor compliments the women’s Bible study ministry in his church for coordinating with the pulpit ministry. For instance, when he preached a series on “David: A Man After God’s Own Heart,” the ladies’ Bible study ministry did a study on “A Woman After God’s Own Heart.” I think that’s really neat when that kind of coordination occurs, but again, I don’t think the ladies’ Bible study should be restricted to that kind of coordination any more than the Sunday School classes or children’s ministry or men’s meetings should. Sometimes it’s helpful when every aspect of the church is focused on a particular truth, topic, or section of the Bible, but in most cases it is helpful when the different groups study different parts of Scripture: it’s part of studying the whole counsel of God and balancing the different parts of Scripture. I’ve found that helpful even in my own Bible study or reading: if I am in a particular “heavy” section, like Job or the prophets, it helps to read a Psalm or something from the epistles as well.

I was surprised to find little mention of hospitality in the book. It’s implied but not really discussed much. As I mentioned in Mentoring Women, I think it hospitality is a primary way women can disciple and minister to each other; I don’t know that Paul primarily had classroom instruction and retreats in mind when he penned those verses, though I think it’s fine to use those.

Susan’s writing can be a bit clinical sometimes. I felt this way in her chapters of Becoming God’s True Woman as well (which I thought I had reviewed, but looking back, I just referred to it a number of times.)

This last point is one I want to be the most careful with because I don’t want to cause offense. Let me say first that, though I am in my particular denomination because I feel it best represents my understanding of what Scripture teaches, I know no denomination is flawless, and I can get along fine with people from other denominations if we agree on the major points: the Deity of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith and not by works we do, etc. Many blogs and books I read are by people from other denominations than my own. I can understand that good people can differ on some areas of teaching and application and still do everything they do as unto the Lord and be in right standing with Him.

One of those differences in some denominations is looking at God’s dealings with people through either a covenantal or a dispensational lens. This post is too long already to explain those two views and you can easily find them elsewhere, so I won’t go into all the differences. I can actually see elements of both: there are covenants God made with people throughout history that affected people for years to come, and the New Testament does refer to God’s relating to us through a “new covenant.” But, though God is always the same and people have always been saved by faith, there are different times in the Bible God had different specific requirements for His people. For instance, in our day we don’t have the same command as Adam and Eve not to eat of a certain tree, or the same requirements Old Testament Israel did with the ceremonial law. So while I would probably lean toward a more dispensational view, I certainly don’t discount the covenants and can see Biblical history through that lens as well. I can read books and blogs with those differences without a problem at all.

But this book is very, very, very heavily covenantal. Susan uses the phrases “covenantal community” and “covenantal consciousness” multitudes of times throughout the book to refer to the relationship believers in a church should have with each other. Those phrases are probably infused with meaning to her, but to me they just leave me a little cold. Just taken at face value, a covenant is a binding agreement between people. So relating to each other based on an agreement just doesn’t carry the same meaning to me as the Scriptural metaphors of the church being a family and a body, with different parts and functions all working together in a harmonious whole. Those metaphors are mentioned but not emphasized in the book. Susan urges women’s ministry leaders to use those phrases to remind and emphasize to women their covenant relationship with each other, but the overuse of them in this book seemed to me to be an irritant and a shoving of the concept down the throat. I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with it if she simply stated her view of the church as a covenantal community at the beginning and then went on without using those phrases so very often.

The time and space to explain all of that might seem to give it more weight than intended: it’s not really a major objection and not even an objection, really: I just think the emphasis of the type of community and relationship we’re to have with each other as believers would be better served with the more Scriptural phrases of the church being a body than the denominational phrases of “covenant community” and “covenant consciousness.” I think Susan probably means the same thing by those phrases, but to someone outside a covenantal type of denomination, it just doesn’t come across the same. Her writing is so heavily denominational, it might be off-putting to those from different denominations, but there is much good to glean if you don’t let that phraseology bother you.

It might look like I objected to more than I agreed with, but that is not really the case: it just took a bit more to explain the disagreements, and I didn’t bring out every single point I did agree with. Overall I found the book to be a rich resource and agreed with the great majority of the teaching and application. I would recommend it to anyone contemplating women’s ministry in the church.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week In Words

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Barbara Harper

In honor of Memorial Day:

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. ~ John Quincy Adams

Seen at Semicolon:

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” ~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

This reminds me of Job’s response to God’s questions.

From a friend’s Facebook:

“Lose your cool, lose your cause; before you speak, take a pause.” – Matheny

Wise advice!

Seen at Challies:

Satan, like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish. ~ Thomas Adams

From an Elisabeth Elliot e-mail devotional:

It is the mark of a mature man that his sense of responsibility takes precedence over his own feelings. It is a mark of godliness that he acknowledges God’s care of all men, not only of himself.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, even if you don’t have any quotes to share! 🙂

We look for the Saviour

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Barbara Harper

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Hebrews 9:28.

The heading of my Daily Light reading for today is “We look for the Saviour” from Philippians 3:20, and all the rest of the verses had to do with looking for the Lord’s appearing. After reading and pondering the verses for a while, the difference between what they instruct and what Harold Camping and those like him advocate is clear. Some years ago when there was another prediction of the supposedly exact date of the Lord’s return, some people actually sold all their property and went to some hillside and waited before being sadly disappointed. But Scripture nowhere teaches that response.

Really, most of the New Testament gives instruction about what we’re supposed to be doing til the Lord returns. The Bible does say we’re strangers and pilgrims on this earth and our eventual home is in heaven. But there are some verses that tell us specific things to do in anticipation of His return.

The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:11-14

1. Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts

2. Live soberly, righteously, godly

3. Look for His return while actively living here

4. Be zealous of good works.

We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless, And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation… Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.II Peter 3:13-15a, 17-18.

5. Be at peace with Him.

6. Be without spot and blameless, and be diligent about both of these.

7. Be glad for His longsuffering that gives more people a chance to be saved.

8. Beware of error and falling from steadfastness.

9. Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Philippians 3:17-20

10. Follow the Bible’s teaching.

11. Don’t live for earthly things, even though we partake of them.

12. Remember our conversation, manner of life (citizenship, some translations say), is in heaven.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:1-5

13. Seek those things which are above.

14. Set your affections on things above.

15. Mortify (put to death, or, as the NASB says, consider as dead, echoing Romans 6 about reckoning ourselves dead to sin and not yielding to it any more) our sinful tendencies.

16. The rest of the chapter tells of things not to to and to do.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. I John 3:2-3

17. Purify ourselves.

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Acts 1:7-11

18. Be His witnesses (Matthew 28:18-20: Make disciples and teach them what I have taught you.)

He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Isaiah 25:8-9

19. Rejoice!

The Week In Words

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Here are a few that stood out to me this week:

I saw this on Lisa‘s Twitter sidebar:

“When you labor to show yourself righteous so that God will accept you, you are not submitting to God’s righteousness.” -John Piper

Paul says he wants to “be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9). There are whole systems built on laboring to be righteous to “gain” God’s acceptance, but even those of us who should know better tend to fall back into that mindset sometimes. I am so glad God’s righteousness is by faith.

Seen at Challies:

There can be no victory where there is no combat. —Richard Sibbes

I tend to want victory without having to expend the effort of combat, and it just doesn’t work that way.

And I hadn’t realized it t first, but these quotes might seem to be opposites. How can we expend victory by effort (or combat) if spiritual victory is by faith? Well, the first quote deals with the righteousness we need to stand before a holy God and not be condemned but rather approved, and Christ’s righteousness is the only kind that will suffice. That we receive by faith. We can’t earn it or work it up on our own. With that righteousness we can stand before a holy God without fear. But working that out into our everyday lives is what we call sanctification. Even that is accomplished by faith, and yet there are times God asks us to act on something in faith. In some of Israel’s battles in the Old Testament, God fought for them in unusual ways; in others, they had to actually take up sword and spear and shield and go to battle, yet they had no victory unless God enabled them. So even though my standing before God and his acceptance of me is by faith, in everyday battles, like, say, eating right and getting exercise, I still lean on Him for grace and strength, but I still have to expend effort: my body isn’t going to exercise itself, God isn’t going to exercise it for me, and I am not going to have any victory in weight loss without expending some effort at it. Someone once said “God will help you with your math homework, but He is not going to do it for you.”

I know many of you already know these principles, but I just felt I needed to explain further for anyone who might be confused by those two statements.

In another vein, this struck me from Warren Wiersbe’s With the Word, p. 293, commenting on Job 21, particularly Job’s “friends” trying to tell him that his suffering must be because of sin because God prospers the righteous:

If comfort and wealth are evidences of holiness, our Lord was not holy, for He had little earthly comfort and wealth, and He died a terrible death on the cross. Perhaps you need to examine your own “logic” and see if you are thinking like God or like the devil (Ps. 1:1; Matt. 16:21-28).

I don’t know how the “prosperity gospel” people miss things like that.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, even if you don’t have any quotes to share! 🙂

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Matthew 24:42, 44

Book Review: Words

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Words by Ginny Yttrup came highly recommended by Quilly, (and maybe one or two others whom I can’t remember) and her review as well as the first few paragraphs she had posted from the book drew me in immediately.

I was going to say this at the end but thought perhaps since some of you might feel the same way that I should say at the beginning that normally I would not pick up a book which has abuse a big factor because it would either make me very angry or very sad (or both), and because some books sensationalize it. But Ginny does not sensationalize: unfortunately she speaks from sad and all too real experience, yet her book is as much about healing as it is abuse.

Ten year old Kaylee has lost her words, her voice: she hasn’t been able to speak since her mom left, abandoning her to the care of the mom’s boyfriend — though you could hardly call it “care.” The boyfriend, Jack, not only neglects to take care of Kaylee, but he does unspeakable things to her. Kaylee stays because she has nowhere else to go, no resources, no help, but also she wants to be there in case her mom comes back. Meanwhile, she takes refuge in a dictionary that belonged to her mother, savoring words and their meanings and storing them up in her mind.

Sierra is a woman in her thirties who cannot forgive herself for a wayward period in her past that caused great pain to her family and the loss of her daughter’s life twelve years earlier. She tries to bury the pain that is too raw to bring to light and expresses herself in her art, but those who love her worry that she’s going to crack if she continues to keep her emotions inside. Though she has amended her ways, she has not returned to the God of her childhood.

God brings Kaylee and Sierra together in their vulnerability and works in and through each of them to bring healing through the Word, Jesus Christ.

It’s hard to believe this is Ginny’s first novel: she does a masterful job not only telling the story in a compelling but not maudlin way but also in layering various subtexts throughout the plot. The book is riveting, hard to put down, eloquent, and full of depth.

I especially appreciated one section in which Sierra realizes that oft-misapplied John 8:32 (“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”) isn’t just referring to telling personal truth, but to the fact that Jesus is the truth that heals and frees us.

This book is one of my favorites read this year, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Here is the book trailer:

And a short interview with the author:

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

The Week In Words

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Sorry to be late today! We had a very good but very busy weekend! I just said good-bye to some dear out-of-town company. Without further ado, here are some quotes that spoke to me this week:

This is from Robin Lee Hatcher‘s Facebook page:

“He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes and all of admirable flavor.” — William Godwin

I love that characteization.

This is from another friend’s Facebook:

“It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.”

I wouldn’t say I am a pessimist, but I probably lean slightly more that direction than the other. I thought this was much more poignant than saying “Look on the bright side” — which can seem a bit shallow if the bright side is a little hard to fathom at the moment.

And from Diane‘s Facebook:

“Satan is so much more in earnest than we are–he buys up the opportunity while we are wondering how much it will cost.”— Amy Carmichael

He is, sadly, more relentless in pursuing his goals — that is a rebuke to me.

Don’t forget to leave a comment, even if you don’t have any quotes to share!

If they only knew…

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Barbara Harper

Do you ever ask your kids (or even students or coworkers) to do something and then get a bit of “attitude” back? My kids rarely said, “That’s not fair!” But sometimes (not always) I did sense a bristling of indignation, especially on Saturdays. Some of them seemed to think that Saturdays were made for doing what one wanted all day without any obligations. I tried to get across that days like that are very few and far between, especially the closer you get to being an adult. A day off work (or school, in their cases) didn’t necessarily mean a day just to “play.” The Bible does say, “Six days shalt thou labor” after all, and even though a lot of us have two days off a week, one of those days is usually spent with other kinds of work: running errands, cutting grass, doing house projects, working on the car, etc. The other day for many of us is spent mostly in church, and though there is a rest time in the afternoons and then usually a relaxed evening afterward, the day has obligations all its own. They’re blessed obligations. But obligations still.

We required jobs or “chores” of our children from very early on as we taught them to put toys away and eventually expanded their skills to taking out the trash, dusting, vacuuming, unloading the dishwasher, etc. We gave them an allowance so as to help them learn to handle money, but it was only loosely tied to their jobs. We required their work mainly because that’s part of being a member of a family: everyone pitching in and pulling together to get things done. Even when the older two were in college, though I kept their school and job schedules in mind, I did ask them to take out trash and unload dishwashers when they were home, partly to keep that “pulling together as a family” principle in effect so that as they grew older and started families of their own, they’d be in the habit of contributing to the household even when the rest of life got busy.

Sometimes when I’d parcel out jobs (usually I made a list of what needed to be done and then let them take turns choosing which ones to do), one of them would ask me, “What are you going to do?”

Oh, just go to the grocery store (several times a week!), clean bathrooms (I did offer to let them clean the bathrooms if they’d rather not vacuum floors. They never took me up on it 🙂 ), cook, bake, sweep, mop, do laundry, organize, buy and mend clothes, clean the glass on the front doors, keep on top of everyone’s schedules, taxi kids around, etc. etc.

Sometimes I would just smile and shake my head and think to myself, “They just don’t understand all that’s being done for them — beyond the physical tasks there are financial and emotional expenditures, and besides all that, the love we have for them. If they did, they’d never fuss about being asked to do anything.” Not that we want “payback” as parents, but willing cheerful responses would be nice (and truly, they do respond that way many times). I figured they probably wouldn’t really understand until they were adults, maybe not until they had kids of their own.

Then it hit me just this morning: we do the same thing to God. Sometimes if I sense He wants me to do something, my first thought is, “But….I had my own plans…..I don’t have time….I don’t want to, I’d rather…..”

I had been thinking about worship earlier in the morning and the fact that we don’t worship God as we ought or as often as we should, and then remembered the vice-president of my alma mater preaching one time that we could think of “worship” as “worth-ship” — ascribing to God His worth both by what we say and what we do.

I don’t mean to compare children’s response to their parents as worship. What God has done for us is so much more than what any parent has done for any child, and kids’ attitudes towards parents should include honor but not worship.

But I did see a similar principle. We know some of what God has done for us, and we love and praise Him for it. But in some ways we have no idea of the depths of what Christ went through to secure our salvation nor even of the multitude of everyday ways He blesses and protects us. Even what we do know is plenty enough to motivate us: as the hymn says, “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

So while I took comfort in the fellowship of knowing God understands even this aspect of parenting, the greater lesson was a rebuke to me and a reminder that not only does He have a right to ask anything of me because of who He is, but in light of all He’s done for me, my response should be an obedience motivated and fueled by love.