Thomas Sowell on Non-Economic Values

From my favorite economist:

One of the last refuges of someone whose pet project or theory has been exposed as economic nonsense is to say: "Economics is all very well, but there are also non-economic values to consider." Presumably, these are supposed to be higher and nobler concerns that soar above the level of crass materialism. Of course there are non-economic values. In fact, there are only non-economic values. Economics is not a value itself but merely a method of trading off one value against another...Economics does not say you should make the most money possible…. What lofty talk about "non-economic values" usually boils down to is that some people do not want their own particular values weighed against anything.

- Thomas Sowell

How was Christ Made Perfect?

Robert Peterson has recently released an excellent book on the work of Christ. It is very cheap on Kindle. Here is his table of contents:

Part One: Events Introduction to Jesus’s Saving Events

1 Christ’s Incarnation

2 Christ’s Sinless Life

3 Christ’s Death

4 Christ’s Resurrection

5 Christ’s Ascension

6 Christ’s Session

7 Christ’s Pentecost

8 Christ’s Intercession

9 Christ’s Second Coming

Part Two: Pictures Introduction to the Pictures of Jesus’s Saving Events

10 Christ Our Reconciler

11 Christ Our Redeemer

12 Christ Our Legal Substitute

13 Christ Our Victor

Just for a preview of the work, here is an excerpt from the chapter on Christ's sinless life. Here Peterson is dealing with the statement in Hebrews 5:8-10: "

How was the incarnate Son “made perfect”? Certainly, nothing was lacking in his divine nature. And his humanity was always without sin. In what sense, then, did he need to be made perfect? A hint is provided when Hebrews 2:10 says that God made Christ “perfect through suffering.” This idea is expanded when Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered.” The Son was made perfect when, over the course of his earthly life, he learned to obey the Father, especially by enduring suffering. An illustration will help. Imagine that in the first-century Jerusalem Gazette a listing appears in its “Help Wanted” section for the job of Redeemer of the world. There are three requirements for the job. First, the applicant must be God; no others need apply. That would narrow the job pool to three. Second, the applicant must also have become man. That would exclude all but one.

The point of the passages in Hebrews that teach that the incarnate Son was made perfect is found in the third qualification in the job description for Redeemer. Not only must the applicant be God incarnate; he must also have on-the-job experience. Although Jesus’s humanity was never sinful, in God’s plan it must be tried and found true. God did not send his Son to earth as a thirty-three-year-old to die and be raised. He sent him as an infant in order for him to experience human life, with all of its trials and temptations, triumphantly.

It is critical to note the purpose for the Son’s being made perfect, that is, experientially qualified to be Savior by learning obedience through suffering. “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 5:9–10). Jesus’s sinless life was necessary for him to become “the source of eternal salvation” for every believer. His proven sinlessness enabled him to die and rise to save sinners. It qualified him to offer himself as a sacrifice in his ministry as our great “high priest after the order of Melchizedek.”

--Robert A. Peterson,  (2011-11-09). Salvation Accomplished by the Son: The Work of Christ 

 http://www.amazon.com/Salvation-Accomplished-Son-Work-Christ/dp/1433507609

The Day Francis Schaeffer's Plane Almost Crashed in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean

The title and link for this post come from Justin Taylor's blog. 

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/06/20/the-day-francis-schaeffers-plane-almost-crashed-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic-ocean/

Metaphysical Love Poetry

I read this poem a couple of years ago in Dr. Homer Kemp's American Literature class. I have modernized the spelling. If you like Taylor's poems, check him out here:
http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/taylor.htm

“What Love is this of thine, that Cannot be
     In thine Infinity, O Lord, Confined,
Unless it in thy very Person see,
     Infinity, and Finity Conjoin'd?
     What hath thy Godhead, as not satisfied
     Marri'd our Manhood, making it its Bride?

Oh, Matchless Love! filling Heaven to the brim!
     O're running it: all running o're beside
This World! Nay Overflowing Hell; wherein
     For thine Elect, there rose a mighty Tide!
     That there our Veins might through thy Person bleed,
     To quench those flames, that else would on us feed.

Oh! that thy Love might overflow my Heart!
     To fire the same with Love: for Love I would.
But oh! my straight'ned Breast! my Lifeless Spark!
     My Fireless Flame! What Chilly Love, and Cold?
     In measure small! In Manner Chilly! See.
     Lord blow the Coal: Thy Love Enflame in me.

Edward Taylor, "Meditation 1" 

A Desire Which No Experience in this World Can Satisfy

“There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in the first moment of longing, which fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us…If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Is the Bible Perfectly Precise or Fully True?

"The word inerrancy does have a certain disadvantage...The word has come to suggest to many the idea of precision, rather than...mere truth. Now, precision and truth are not synonyms, though they do overlap in meaning. A certain amount of precision is often required for truth, but that but that amount varies from one context to another. In mathematics and science, truth often requires considerable precision. If a student says that 6 + 5 = 10, he has not told the truth. He has committed an error. If a scientist makes a measurement varying by .0004 cm of an actual length, he may describe that as an error, as in the phrase margin of error. 

But outside of science and mathematics, truth and precision are often much more distinct. If you ask someone's age, the person's conventional response...is to tell how old he was on his most recent birthday. But this is, of course, imprecise. It would be precise to tell one's age down to the day, hour, minute, and second. But would that convey more truth? And if one fails to give that much precision, has he made an error? I think not, as we use the terms truth and error in ordinary language. If someone seeks to tell his age down to the second, we usually say that he has told us more than we want to know. The question "What is your age?" does not demand that level of precision. Indeed, when someone gives excess information in an effort to be more precise, he actually frustrates the process of communication, hindering, rather than communicating truth. He buries his real age under a torrent of irrelevant words...

We must always remember that Scripture is, for the most part, ordinary language rather than technical language. Certainly, it is not of the modern scientific genre. In Scripture, God intends to speak to everybody. To do that most efficiently, he (through the human writers) engages in all the shortcuts that we commonly use among ourselves to facilitate conversation: imprecisions, metaphors, hyperbole, parables, and so forth. Not all these convey literal truth, or truth with a precision expected in specialized contexts; but they all convey truth, and in the Bible there is no reason to charge them with error.  

Inerrancy, therefore, means that the Bible is true, not that it is maximally precise. To the extent that precision is necessary for truth, the Bible is sufficiently precise. But it does not always have the amount of precision that some readers demand of it. It has a level of precision sufficient for its own purposes, not for the purposes for which some readers might employ it."

--John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (2010 A.D.)

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Doctrine-Word-Theology-Lordship/dp/0875522645

Should Preachers Use Commentaries?

"In order to be able to expound the Scriptures, and as an aid to your pulpit studies, you will need to be familiar with the commentators: a glorious army, let me tell you, whose acquaintance will be your delight and profit. Of course, you are not such wiseacres as to think or say that you can expound Scripture without assistance from the works of divines and learned men who have laboured before you in the field of exposition. If you are of that opinion, pray remain so, for you are not worth the trouble of conversion, and like a little coterie who think with you, would resent the attempt as an insult to your infallibility. It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others."

-Charles Spurgeon, "Commenting and Commentaries" 

Not the Same Kind of Passion (But Better)

"What you think of as being head over heals in love is in large part a gust of ego gratification, but it’s nothing like the profound satisfaction of being known and loved.

When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us our of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

The kind of love life I am talking about is not devoid of passion, but it’s not the same kind of passion that is there during the days of naiveté. When Kathy first held my hand, it was an almost electrical thrill. Thirty-seven years later, you don’t get the same buzz out of holding your wife’s hand that you did the first time. But as I look back on that initial sensation, I realize that it came not so much from the magnitude of my love for her but from the flattery of her choice of me. In the beginning it goes to your head, and there is some love in that, but there are a lot of other things, too. There is no comparison between that and what it means to hold Kathy’s hand now, after all we’ve been through. We know each other thoroughly now; we have shared innumerable burdens, we have repented, forgiven, and been reconciled to each other over and over. There is certainly passion. But the passion we share now differs from the thrill we had then like a noisy but shallow brook differs from a quieter but much deeper river. Passion may lead you to make a wedding promise, but then that promise over the years makes the passion richer and deeper."

--Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Meaning-Marriage-Complexities-Commitment/dp/0525952470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339590116&sr=8-1&keywords=the+meaning+of+marriage

Conservative Thoughts on Ron Paul

"SOME of what Ron Paul says he wants to do, I want to do too. But I want to do it over a generation, because it absolutely will never get done if it is not done over a generation. The nature of society will not allow for the blowback that would exist by the unthoughtful radicalism of what Paul says he would do (and of course even he knows it would never, ever happen, but you can’t get those $10 donations without it). It took us over 100 years to become this progressive and nanny-dependent as a society. It took over 100 years for the citizen to beg the government to do as much as it does for the citizen, and for the government to oblige said citizen. It will not be undone in 100 minutes. It will take a lot of work. Political change will take a lot of work. Cultural change will take a lot of work. It is work I have dedicated my life to. I work as a senior vice president at a company with 62,000 employees, serve on four or five boards of non-profits and political groups, am raising three children under the age of six, manage the financial well-being of 150 high net worth individuals, families, and institutions, and am beyond passionate about the direction of my country. And frankly, I feel like I am not doing enough! I know that my life’s aspirations can not come true overnight, but I work and I work and I work. And when I die, I hope there will be some change as a result of what I am doing (should God see fit to smile upon my efforts). Where is a vision from the nucleus of Ron Paul cheerleaders? Where is the commitment to multi-generational and incremental change? I understand that the task at hand is going to be HARD, but I find their selection of “Door #3″ to be perverse. Yes, in door #3 you never have to worry about winning an election. You get to comfort yourself with platitudes and self-righteous cliches about being the only one really fighting the good fight. You can protest every candidate, or every bill, but you never get your own candidate elected, or get your own bill passed. You are the quintessential man outside the ring, looking at the two boxers fighting, telling the other bystanders around you how bad the two men fighting are."

--David Bahnsen

"[Ron] Paul routinely says that he's the only candidate who promises real change. For instance, he proposes cutting $1 trillion from the budget in the first year of his presidency. Now, show of hands: Who thinks Ron Paul could get those kinds of cuts through Congress? Anyone? OK, anyone who also believes the Council on Foreign Relations is a secret cabal determined to create a North American super-state?

I thought so.

I like, even love, many of Paul's proposals: turning Medicaid into block grants, getting rid of the Department of Education, etc. But he's not the man to get them accomplished, largely because the president doesn't have unilateral authority.

Presidential power is the power to persuade — Congress, the media and ultimately and most important, the American people. The power of the purse, meanwhile, resides on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Paul has been in Congress, off and on, for nearly 30 years. In that time, he will rightly tell you, Congress has spent money with reckless abandon, expanded the state's police powers, launched numerous wars without a declaration of war and further embraced fiat money (he got into politics when Richard Nixon took us fully off the gold standard). During all of that, he took to the floor and delivered passionate speeches in protest convincing … nobody.
Paul's supporters love to talk about how he was a lone voice of dissent. They never explain why he was alone in his dissent. Why couldn't he convince even his ideologically sympathetic colleagues? Why is there no Ron Paul caucus?

Now he insists that everyone in Washington will suddenly do what he wants once he's in the White House. That's almost painfully naïve. And it's ironic that the only way the libertarian-pure-constitutionalist in the race could do the things he's promising is by using powers not in the Constitution.

--Jonah Goldberg 

 

Stuff White People Like: Organic Food

Humorous satire from Christian Lander. Note: "white people" is code for "hipster."

"Because of the balance of global wealth and power, there is a general assumption that white people are pretty shrewd. And for the most part, history has proven this to be true. But white people have one great weakness: organic food.

Just as with farmer’s markets, white people believe that organic food is grown by farmers who wear overalls, drive tractors, and don’t use pesticides. In spite of the fact that most organic food is made by major agribusiness, which just uses it as an excuse to jack up prices, white people will always lose their mind for organic anything. Never mind the fact that if the entire world were to switch to 100 percent organic food tomorrow there would be mass starvation and famine.

White people don’t care about this. As long as they aren’t eating pesticides, they are pretty sure they can live forever. It’s almost guaranteed that if some Colombian drug lord can start offering “organic” cocaine, he’ll be the richest guy ever."

--Christian Lander, Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions 

You Poor, Wretched Fellow, Have You Taken a Wife?

Marriage advice from Martin Luther, in his usual entertaining style. 

"...Our natural reason . . . takes a look at married life...and says, 'Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labor at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else  of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? O you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Woe, woe upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful, carefree life. I will become a priest or a nun and compel children to do likewise.'

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, 'O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. . .' God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling—not because the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith."

-Martin Luther, "The Estate of Marriage" (1522 A.D.)

Pressing Down a Wildcat

“The paradox is that the natural law is both really known, and really suppressed. Among my Catholic friends, who see the knowledge, I stress the suppression. Among my Reformed friends, who see the suppression, I stress the knowledge. Sometimes people think that suppressed moral knowledge is the same as weakened moral knowledge with weakened power over behavior. On the contrary…pressing down on one’s conscience does not make it weak any more than pressing down a wildcat makes it docile. It only makes it more violent. Its claws are even sharper in a culture with a Christian past, like ours, for then people have more to suppress.”  

J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man

We All Wanna Be Free...or Do We?

"It is a mistake to suppose that all men...want to be free. On the contrary, if  freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it...The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong."

-Theodore Dalrymple 

Smart Kids, Slow Kids, and Academic Ability

“…Adults do not have the option of concealing the truth. Kids know, no matter what. When children of widely differing academic abilities are mixed in classes, their differences are highlighted, not obscured. If the teacher calls on the children equally, then the deficits of the slower children are put on display for all their classmates to see. If the teacher calls only on the brighter children who know the answers, the kids quickly figure out what is going on. Children understand that academic ability varies and know the intellectual pecking order in every classroom. The slower children will get labeled whether or not they are grouped. It will be hurtful to them, to varying degrees. Educators do not have the option of preventing that hurt. What educators can do is put the relationship of performance in the classroom and merit as a person into perspective. People who are academically gifted can be fickle, humorless, dishonest, and cowardly. People who are not academically gifted can be steadfast, funny, honest, and brave. Merit as a person and academic ability are different things"

-Charles Murray, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Education-Bringing-Americas-Schools/dp/0307405397/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338982916&sr=1-1

If I Answered All of Your Intellectual Objections, Would You Believe?

“A friend expressed dozens of objections to the point I was making about God; whenever I shot one down, he just deployed another. Recognizing that he was merely laying down a smoke barrage, I asked ‘Suppose we took a few weeks and I answered every one of your objections to your complete intellectual satisfaction. Would you then believe?’ He answered, ‘No’—and that ‘No’ was a moment of illumination, for he realized for the first time that his real problem with God was not in his mind, but in his will.”

-J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience

Your Biggest Problem

"What Is Your Biggest Problem?

When we rightly identify the source of our problem, we are on our way to a solution that celebrates the grace of Christ. But we must first acknowledge that the problem is us! It is inside us, deep in the recesses of our hearts. How do you react to this news? Are you shocked?

Disappointed? Offended? Angry? It’s certainly not what we want to hear. When I am impatient with my children, the last thing I want to admit is that it is my fault. I want to blame my child and justify my sin! But if we don’t face our own sins, we will never get to the real solution. We will minimize the redeeming love of Father, Son, and Spirit or bypass it completely. This is deadly.

There is nothing more serious!

The Bible says that my real problem is not psychological (low self-esteem or unmet needs), social (bad relationships and influences), historical (my past), or physiological (my body). They are significant influences, but my real problem is spiritual (my straying heart and my need for Christ). I have replaced Christ with something else, and as a consequence, my heart is hopeless and powerless. Its responses reflect its bondage to whatever it is serving instead of Christ. Ultimately, my real problem is a worship disorder."

-Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane, How People Change