Alan Hardy’s Blog

This is an excerpt from a recent study on decision making.

The human faculty for decision making is the will. In the words of Jonathan Edwards, the will is “that by which the mind chooses any thing.” The will is the mind deciding. When a decision is to be made the will is determined “by that motive, which, as it stands in view of the mind, is the strongest”. Thus, according to Edwards, decisions are made on the basis of the strongest influence.

It follows that the goal of a man who wants to make good decisions should be to acquire, as it were, the right store of strongest influences. Another way to put this is that such a man should seek wisdom and experience which will guide him properly in his decisions.

This helps us to better understand why Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

It also becomes clearer how God, through His sovereign control over all things, arranges the experience of those He loves so that the strongest influences in us are shaped in a way that will direct future decisions according to His will. In this way He directs our paths, causing various acts of our will to be irresistible, whether they relate to matters of salvation or otherwise.

The ways of God are intriguing.

Read On: Decision Making
See also: Decision Making and the Thinking Christian

A hymn of John Newton. Olney Hymns (1799), Book III, 36. Printed in P T Forsyth, Positive Preaching

I ask’d the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.

‘Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favour’d hour
At once He’d answer my request,
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea, more, with His own hand He seem’d
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Cross’d all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourd, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this: I trembling cried,
Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death: ‘
‘Tis in this way,’ the Lord replied,
‘I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou may’st seek thy all in Me.’

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Eph 6:4

There must be countless Christian books about raising children. They usually spruik a set of Biblically based principles about how to do it. A few of them might have good advice.

The passage quoted above seems to take a different angle. It starts by describing blokes who are leaning into the wind in their fatherhood, and who then take out the frustration they feel for being an inadequate parent on their children.

So what alternative does the passage give us? The way the second half of the verse is usually read is as an encouragement to take the Bible to our kids and to train them in the way the Scriptures tell us to. Although this must be a good direction to be heading, when I looked at Eph 6:4 today it was plumbing deeper riches.

The vast theme of God’s fatherhood in Scripture expresses to us His passionate participation in the lives of those he loves. It is thus worthy to consider this passage as an encouragement to recognise our adoption into God’s family, in which He is working in fatherly discipline and encouragement to bring us through until the final day. All He has called in covenant fall under this mantle, and this necessarily includes our children.

We are thus to acknowledge God’s willingness to be a present blessing to our families and a right response is that we bring our children to Him so that they may come under and appreciate His training and instruction. In this sense the latter half of the passage could be worded “bring them up in the Lord’s training and instruction”.

On reflection, this reality came home to me a number of years ago when a health crisis made visible the possibility that I may not be around to father our five young children. It’s where the rubber hits the road, you might say. God’s assurance to me and my family: “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18); “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb 13:5)

Recommended Reading: Christian Parents and Their Children

If I say that we are prone to error then I am only describing man. Heresy is a type of error which needs to be dealt with in the church. This was no less a challenge in the first century than today.

Last October I delivered a sermon on Colossians 2 and have since developed it in longer form to get my head around the ideas a bit more.

Read it here: Heresy in Colosse

I’ve been muddling through this for a while now, trying to figure out where my thinking is heading on the topic of work.

There are numerous notions I’m trying to grapple with. If you’re interested then …

Check it out here: Reflections on Work.

And for what it’s worth, here are some thoughts from Calvin:

… the Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling. For He knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life. … It is enough if we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing. And if there is anyone who will not direct himself to it, he will never hold to the straight path in his duties. (Institutes of the Christian Religion. 3.10.6)

Little things stick with you from what you have read. It was a few years ago that a friend loaned me Dick Keyes’ book, True Heroism in a World of Celebrity Counterfeits. Here is a strong theme I got from it.

Keyes quotes Jacques Ellul who said that our age is characterised by a “lust for recognition”. The point is made that we spend so much time concerned about how we look before others that we forget the real audience. “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales” says Isaiah (40:15). If we’re concerned about how we are regarded by the people that matter then here is a ready reckoner. The aggregation of all fame, wealth and power in the world adds up to next to zip compared with God. Not only that, we are more visible to him than by men and cared for more deeply.

In view of this, if self-esteem is something we should seek, then it comes from knowing that we are loved by God and that we are secure in that love.

If we really thought like this then it would take a great burden from us in terms of maintaining our image and reputation before others. It would free us to naturally be what we’re cut out for. “Heroism is compatible with ‘ordinary life’ lived well” says Keyes. I’m sure that this means being human, men and women, acting responsibly with what we have been given towards God and man.

I will sacrifice fat animals to you and an offering of rams; I will offer bulls and goats - Ps 66: 15

A casual reading of this verse suggests that someone is offering animals from their herd up to God. But there is a message here which is more threatening to our sense of self-reliance. Here is something which sprang from a discussion in one of our evening Bible readings.

Grazing businesses are keenly concerned about the bloodlines of their herds and a key to this is the careful selection of breeding stock. In this process the choice of male animals is crucial. In that a herd of hundreds of cows will be serviced by as few as a dozen bulls one can understand how bull selection can be the most powerful method of improvement of a herd.

The offering of bulls and rams was thus done at great sacrifice for the owner of a herd and especially when we consider that it was always the best that was offered up to God. This relates something more than willingness to give up a piece of what one has, but rather a radical confidence where one surrenders their very means of livelihood; a turning from reliance on natural principles and on to God Himself.

What makes this type of faith credible? It is not the faith of a fool, who leaps into the dark without knowledge of who it is that will catch him. Rather it is a faith like that of Abraham, who took up the dagger to his son because he knew from his past dealings that God would provide a sacrifice; who “made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country … for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:9-10).

Modern economies are based on the trading of resources and services. Men deal in this setting confident of their ability to control it, yet both the resources and the ability to render services are created by God, and therefore rightly belong to him anyway. The idea that these things belong to us and that we give a little back in appreciation is flawed. Our proper manner in these things is to respect Christ’s ownership and command over creation and to be warmed by the confidence that this makes him able to complete his promise that if we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33).

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”- Mother Theresa

This is a plug for a recent work by a member of our family, Elizabeth, who has recently completed a research project on abortion. The paper highlights the inconsistency of the pro-abortion debate, in that while the pro-choice argument seeks self-determination for women, it denies this right to the unborn.

Here’s an abstract, based on the text of the paper:

“In the 21st Century legalised abortion is seen by many as a positive outcome of the feminist movement. … Yet looking at feminist ideology it can be argued that abortion isn’t a positive fruit of the movement at all, and that by fighting to legalise abortion the feminist movement has committed its greatest crime and contradiction. … When a woman terminates a pregnancy, she is putting her child under treatment which is strikingly similar to the way she was once treated, taking from it what is duly its own - respect, freedom of choice and life.”

“Women united because they believed that their interests, needs and opinions were valuable. … It seems ironic that this contradictory war goes by mostly ignored, and when noticed, justified. We have another victim among us who unlike the last is completely at its oppressor’s mercy, without a voice of its own. And those waging the war against it are the very ones who were the victims in the last struggle.”

Read on … Abortion: The Feminist Contradiction

“… I reserve seven thousand in Israel - all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.” 1 Kings 19:18

This passage intrigues me. Elijah has just destroyed the pagan spiritual powerhouse of his day. He is then threatened by Jezebel, the battle-axe wife of King Ahab, has an abrupt turn-about in courage and runs for his life. During his pity-party that follows he moans to God in v14 that he is the only prophet left. God’s answer is that there is not one left, but seven thousand.

It begs the questions - who were these seven thousand and why were they not known to Elijah? Perhaps it is more pointed to ask if they were hidden or whether Elijah just failed to see them. Did the seven thousand belong to a different expression to Elijah, or perhaps to many different expressions?

Pointing the finger back at us, does this image reflect the diversity within Christ’s family? Are we so sectarian in our views that we think that we are the only ones left? Do we in our bigotry fail to see that it is God who reserves his own? Christ’s body is not the visible church but the invisible.

There is a slide taking place toward a non-thinking populace. The most amazing thing is that this slide is persisting despite the huge resources that have been committed to education in recent years.

The trend toward mass education accelerated markedly in the second half of the twentieth century. The 1960’s in particular has been described by Paul Johnson as “the most explosive in the entire history of educational expansion”.[i] In Britain the Robbins Report of 1963 resulted in the doubling of university places within a decade. During the period 1950 to 1970 the number of teachers in the USA rose from 1 million to 2.3 million and spending per person rose by over 100 per cent. Between 1960 and 1975 the number of tertiary students in the US rose from 3.6 million to 9.4 million, the total annual cost rising to $45 billion.[ii] This pattern was reflected throughout the West, including Australia where an explosion of tertiary funding took place during the Whitlam years of the mid-1970’s. In 1996 the level of annual funding required for teacher’s salaries and on-costs in NSW alone was estimated at $3.2 billion.[iii]

The result of this injection of resources is not a civilisation of advanced thinkers but nations of people who are, in George Steiner’s words, “semi-literate”. Os Guiness writes that:

The ability to read is widespread, but the inability to read any but the shallowest texts is equally widespread … recent estimates put the literacy of more than half the population of the US at the level of 12 year olds.[iv]

Closer to home, reports keep reaching us about the levels of literacy in NSW schools and the show the situation to be little different. We have a populace that can read and write but applies these skills to little more than reading magazines and junk novels and writing shopping lists.

In contrast, during a period in which access to formal education was limited, one report indicates that:

Many common people in the 18th and 19th centuries had a knowledge of Shakespeare and the Bible that people today would view as the preserve of the literary scholar or theologian. … The prevailing taste for books of every kind [was such] that almost every man [was] a reader.[v]

This data is difficult to confirm. However it is consistent with the well-founded observation that a transition in emphasis from reason to feeling has taken place over the past 200 years. The result is that even the huge efforts to create an educated population have not stemmed the slide to a non-thinking culture. This is not as much a failure of educational process as it is the result of a shift in the overall attitude of people toward the mind. People do not see the point in thinking.

This is sobering but not less sobering than the tragedy that the church has followed suit in this process. When Kant’s idea that revelation could not bring forth truth was infiltrating the thinking of Western minds, the church was already well into its retreat from the realm of reason and toward a base of experience and practice. In the past two centuries the church has placed little emphasis on the mind and, because of this, it has not been equipped to meet the intellectual challenge of modern humanism. Our humiliation has not taken place because of the supremacy of secular truth but because Christians have failed to equip themselves. Scientific discoveries have not superceded the Bible. The church has been seduced, subtly but surely by changes in philosophy. The end-point we have reached, as Harry Blamires put it, is that “there is no longer a Christian mind”.[vi]

[i] Johnson, P. A History of the Modern World. Weidenfeld. 1991. P 641

[ii] Johnson, P. ibid. Pp 641-2.

[iii] The cost of the 1996 NSW Teacher’s Federation claim for a 12.5 per cent pay increase was estimated by the NSW Minister for Education, John Acquilina, in March 1996 to be $400 million. The figure of $3.2 billion here was derived by multiplying the $400 million out to 100 per cent.

[iv] Guiness, O. Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think And What To Do About It. Baker. 1994. P 72.

[v] Guiness, O. ibid.

[vi] Blamires, H. The Christian Mind. SPCK. 1963. P.3