John Owen – Law of Grace

“Yet the duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God’s tasks. This is a law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover.”

This quote has kept Kristina sane lately.  Raising, loving, and being patient with three kids (one of them being Ben – who can climb anything) requires strength we do not possess.

Some Sermons

I have a new sermon page and I will be putting sermons up every now and then for you to check out if you want.  You can find it here. 

More pics

Blank Bible

For those of you who may not know, Jonathan Edwards was famous for having a copy of the Bible taken apart and resewn with blank pages for notes in between the Bible text pages.  Over the course of time he made around 5,500 entries. Yale Publishers, who print the multi-volume “works” of Edwards, recently published it (look here). 

This has led to a host of people trying to make their own “blank Bible” in order to have a place for sermon notes, study materials, and meditational musings.  The most famous of these is Tony Reinke. On his blog he catalogs the process of making one.  (Here)

I think that I am going to try making one.   

Deacon

The time is near….

How long has it been since I have posted something? Anyway, we have been busy (with a capital everything)!! I thought I would post that we are scheduled to be induced on the 22nd of Feb, 2008 (I put the year in just in case I do not post again for the next year).  Please pray for us that things will go smoothly and our new son will come into the world safely.    
        Have I already posted his name? It will be Deacon Elsworth Taylor. It’s kind of funny. Nobody really makes fun of his name in front of us, but there is the requisite blank stare as people try to process and understand what we just said. Of course, Deacon means servant, but there has been at least one man in history named Deacon who was a bad (meaning good) man — Deacon Jones. His middle name is my father’s middle name — Elsworth.  Its the name of  a man who saved my grandfather’s life in World War 2.   We owe it to that dude.       
     The funny thing is that Elsworth means “pretentious.” I laugh every time I think about the fact that I have named my son “the pretentious servant.”  At least with one named King and one named servant we have covered the entire gamut of societal strata.        
        In closing, remember us at 6 am next Friday.  We’ll post pictures (within the year).  

we got elfed.

check out the taylor “elfing”. http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1394929002

God is not Great

I just saw the interview that Jon Stewart of the Daily Show did with Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not great. I expected more. Renowned atheists usually scare me until I hear them…

Once again Hitchens demonstrates that our hearts really guide our interpretations of the facts — and we humans have a tendency of making facts out of our interpretations. He listed the fact that every religion’s “God” comes into this world in a way that bypasses normal conception through sex and vaginal delivery. For instance, Jesus was born of a virgin and Buddha came out of his mother through a slit in her side, etc. This is true. The stories are different in significant ways, but, nevertheless, there is a similar motif.

Hitchens cites this fact and then interprets it, but he does not differentiate between his facts and his interpretations. He says that these similarities show a common hatred of sex among religious adherents. (At this point he mentions circumcision as another sign of hatred of sex). Religion’s hatred of sex is then presented as a case for its duplicity.

Now, not being religious himself, I wonder how Hitchens knows that stories of virgin births (and the like) are a sign of hatred of sex? I am a Christian and I do not hate sex! I do not see sex as being foundational to humanity’s problems. I interpret these facts as saying that there is something wrong with humanity from birth, therefore something different has to happen at birth to change the problem (ie. Jesus did not have a sinful human nature because of conception by the Spirit). Is it possible that this is the reason for the similarity and not hatred of sex? Maybe we hate the moral weakness displayed by normally born people (ourselves included).

Maybe sex being brought into the discussion at all has to do with Hitchens’ infatuation with sex, and not a religious man’s hatred of it.

I think of another British man (a former atheist) who also was plagued with confusion by the myths that echoed Christian truth. In fact, myth was one of his areas of expertise. It was C.S. Lewis. His interpretation of these mythical similarities was that God was allowing, though the ages, a vocabulary to be created for the truth that was to come in Christianity. In other words, according to Lewis, we would be ready to receive the real because of the myth. I see no compelling reason why Hitchens’ interpretation has any more validity than Lewis’.

I say all of this because Hitchens began the conversation by discussing the fact that he longs for the day when the man of faith will be disparaged in society instead of flattered. He wants people who are shaped only by the facts; and faith is belief without fact. What I am trying to show is there is no person shaped only by facts. We have hearts (inner desire and worldview)  that shape interpretations of those facts, and Hitchens displays fatuity and hubris in failing to acknowledge that fact — pun intended.

Its a boy!

That’s right — I have a good Old Testament wife.

His name will be Deacon. Very few people have liked that name so far, but Kristina and I are absolutely sold on it. Finding out was really funny because of our experience with ultrasounds in the past. The other two times, the tech had to find the baby, then try to get the right angle to determine the sex. With Deacon, when the tech put the “ultrasound thingy” on Kristina it was an instant “money shot.” It took about a second and a half for all of us to go “that’s a boy!!”

To be honest, I am really glad its a boy for one reason: Now Ellie will always be my little girl. Benny is just as special to me (and I could write post after post about how special he is to me), but he has always been “the boy,” not “my little boy.” By the time he came around I was somewhat used to taking care of a baby all by myself on no sleep in seminary on nights when Kristina worked. (That’s not to say two wasn’t a challenge). It was different with Ellie, though. I had to grow up in a hurry with her and learn to do things I did not think myself capable of. Therefore, as much as I know I am going to love to care for Deacon (he will forever be the baby), and as much as I love Benny (He looks like me, but actually has personality), I am glad that Ellie will forever be my little girl.

Sorry

Hello All,

Just in case you were one of the many people who heard from someone else that Kristina was pregnant, I would like to say “we’re sorry.” I think I offended a couple of people. We had no intention of telling anyone until the end of the first trimester (this week), but Kristina has been so sick that we had to tell a few people just so they wouldn’t think she was dry heaving in disgust at them! It spread from there.

So anyway, Things around the old Taylor household have been interesting these past few weeks.  We are super excited about the third baby. Also at this point we are super-excited about my post-birth vasectomy (we still want more kids through adoption; So don’t anybody pull that Dr. Mohler “your family should still be open to children” stuff — either you or He could come hold back Kristina’s hair as she gets sick).

Ellie and Ben are pretty excited.  I think Ellie knows what’s going on. At this point, Benny just wants to yell at Mommy’s stomach to “talk to the baby.” That kid cracks me up.

We should know the sex in about three weeks.

Blessings, Drew