Yesterday, I had the pleasure of getting a private teaching session (much of our church came thru at one members’ home) from Dr. Willem VanGeremen of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School on the book of Psalms.

The man is beyond profound. He gave me a lot to chew on and think on and showed me exactly how much growing I need to do and how much I don’t know. He gave a lot of order to how the Psalms are arranged, themes and such and now I can say I have an inkling of a degree of understanding them. He challenged us (everyone at church) to go through the Psalms between this session and the next time he’d be out to our church (April, I believe) – they are God’s prescription for wisdom, or (as he called it) developing a ‘soul life’, whereby we, the people of God, have our minds shaped to view both the sorrowful aspects of life with divine perspective as well as the good aspects, know that God is who He says He is, see how He operates in the world and with/through His people and what the earth should look like (and will look like) when Christ returns to establish His reign and show His glory. These areas encompass not only Christ’s reign over all of human history, His providential and purposeful rule over the lives of believers directly, but also the social and societal impact of these things. They have authenticity to them – they are not simply all happy songs (sorrow is one of the things missing from the modern church’s worship expressions today), but run the gammut of all areas of human experience.

The latest volume of the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (volume 5) has the basic material he covered with us but in expanded form (and with much more). I suggest you pick it up ASAP (VanGemeren does the Psalms). Meeky picked up a copy and forbade me from buying one (she says I can borrow hers). I do have another book from VanGemeren… and he was nice enough to autograph it (and everything else that folks brought over to him).

Yes, I have pictures. I also have MP3’s of his visit to our church during our anniversary conference earlier this year (September). The most interesting thing to me was when he gave structure to the five books of the Psalms and going through the why of why they were arranged the way they were. I confess I’ve always wondered why you’d have a ‘happy’ Psalm in one place and then a triumphant Psalm, then one to make you think… and so on.

You’ll see a lot of his thinking on the Psalms show up in my future work – both on this site and in my blog. Be sure of it.

Prioritizing and Transitioning

My pastor and I were talking last night about Dr. VG’s visit and what type of impact he actually had on me and others. A few of you might remember that I was originaly set up to do a theological exposition of Psalm 1 back in September, but it got pushed back. My pastor is wise. He told me to hold off until after Dr. VanGemeren came to speak…. and I’m glad he did. I told my pastor last night “you probably had it in mind already, but I’ll just beat you to the punch – I feel like I know absolutely nothing regarding the Psalms now and I need to spend more time in them before I step up to speak. Can we put off my speaking indefinitely until I go and learn some more ?” He agreed.

Lots of things have been going on recently – courting Meeky, becoming more of a leader at work, having the trust of both my kids and my parents as well as other school staff and administration, becoming more acclimated to my church family and building stronger relationships with folks there….

My sweetheart crystalized it all last night when she and I were talking. She said “The Lord is transitioning you right now to prepare for some other more important issues in life.” I can see it a bit clearer now, too. I have a boatload of wisdom that I need to sit and soak up and learn to apply. I have whole books of scripture I need to spend more time in and I have marriage to prepare for (I want to be married one day, so I have to get some personal issues in my house in order first before I try to run a house with me and someone else). Thankfully, I’ve been preparing in this area more and more over the past 2-3 years, so I can confidently say today that I *could* take care of a wife and myself. Now my goal is to be able to do that well. My next few months will be dedicated to that… as well as growing in my faith and knowledge of Christ, building more relationships (closer and deeper ones) with my church family and getting to know Meeky much better.

As such…. some things need to go.

Top of the list – my upcoming debate with Jason Bradfield. So Neb, I know you’re reading because someone (probably eternal) has or will forwarded this to you. My pastors’ words on this subject are appropriate here: “What’s the use ? He’s going to believe what he wants to believe and continue.” I don’t know how true or not true that is, but I have noticed a very divisive, non-humble and contentious spirit amongst the bulk of those who hold to full preterism.

In either case, if you’ve read my entire blog entry here, you’ll see my changing and thought about what you believe hasn’t changed, but my priority to argue it with you has. So have the day for now. Maybe in a few years, as the Lord leads me and if we happen to actively cross paths again, or if I happen to be in FL and you’re free, we can sit and talk at a Panera Bread or something. But for now…. nope. Preparing for debates takes time…. and I have too many other important issues that are more lasting than a debate between us.

Top of the list – all worthless debates on the net. All debates on the net are not worthless – but some of them are. Proverbs 26:4-5 read “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he become wise in his own eyes.” Two types of fools – the one who doesn’t know and the other who doesn’t WANT to know. In charity, lately, I’ve grown to be the type of person that gives everyone a chance instead of instantly judge motives based on tone and presentation as I used to do years ago. So, for example, I’ve actually taken the time to interact with an open theist who is visiting my board. I’m praying for more wisdom in knowing which battles are worth fighting and which ones are not, so that the Lord and His truth would be glorified and not simply my desire to be right, shown right, proven right, etc…. this also cuts out a lot political discussions I’d normally be having. Not that I’m no longer going to have any poltical discussions. I’m just going to choose my battles a lot more carefully.

Time is precious. I don’t have anymore to waste.

Things that need to change:

I’m going to start spending more time developing a ‘sole life’ (the other part of what Dr. VanGemeren talked on). More specifically, preparing my heart for ministry (because Seminary is getting closer with each passing day) and marriage. Those two things are my priority right now and everything else is secondary. This includes getting the rest of my finances in order, maybe purchasing a home (Lord willing) and getting things as streamlined and smooth at work as possible so that I have the maximum amount of time outside of work to do the important things.

Some of these purposes overlap with preparing my spiritual interaction with other believers in Christ, but some are strictly a ‘me and Jesus’ thing. I have not yet sought Him as ardently as I should. But I desire to. I need to get more ‘solitude’ in my spiritual diet. I think I’ve been doing ok with the whole concept of meditation – not simply a ’10 minute devotional’, but a consistent life pattern and restructuring of my thought along biblical lines and constantly thinking on, memorizing and applying scripture to all areas of life…. but there is more that I could and should do.

Focus on ministry. I have much to finish on this site that I’ve started (Balancing the Christian Life Series, Unity in the Church Series, etc…), so instead of starting a new project simply for the sake of looking busy, with other stuff cut out of the way (including a cutback on some of my entertainment time and some of my general web-surfing and posting time – which means you’ll see LESS of me in some cases on some websites), I plan to be a lot more focused on getting stuff done. Too many times in life I’ve started projects and let them languish for years and I can’t allow that pattern to continue.

So keep me in prayer. Got lots to do. I still have unfinished business with my old church to resolve as well as some other things.