Piece o' Cake?

Published on by D. G. Hart

Not only can Christians put sin to death, they can also take charge of email (and more and more and more). Tim Challies explains how.

Here’s point 7 out of 9 on the sin front:

#7. BATTLE
Battle hard against the first awakenings of that sin. Never, ever allow yourself to play with sin. Never think you will sin this far, but no farther. Do not toy with sin. Do not think you can control your sin and allow only so much of it. If you do that, sin will win every time. The very second you feel that sin awakening within you, slam it down with all your force and all your strength. Cry out to God in that very moment. Call for help from other Christians in that very moment. Sin is like water held back by a dam; the moment there is even a small crack in that dam, the weight of the water pushing against it will blow a hole right through it, and the entire structure will collapse.

Email may not be as significant as sin but it prevents us from glorifying God (which is a form of sin, right?) and requires a similar set of instructions:

I have said that productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God, and to this point I have suggested many different ways of doing that (You can see a series round-up at the bottom of this article). Our topic for this article is taming the email beast.

I think we all have a love-hate relationship with email. On the one hand email brings many good things—it delivers exciting news, encouragement from friends, and fun little notes from family members. It also has immense practical value—it delivers confirmation that the ticket order went through, or that the book we want is on sale. But, of course, there is a dark side as well—the endless spam, the email discussions that go on for far too long, the newsletters we didn’t sign up for, the chain letters promising bad luck if we don’t forward it to twenty more people. Email has become a mess of function and dysfunction. We need it, and yet we hate it.

Is this what Christian counseling sounds like?

Tim Challies’ advice may be helpful on fronts both trivial and sublime (though I usually expect more from Canadians). But I find it troubling to see a mechanical approach to both the gadgets of this earthly existence and mysterious depths of the sin-plagued soul. For the sake of New Calvinism and in the interest of taking such an expression of Calvinism seriously, I suggest that Challies try to sound less like Martha Stewart and more like Paul (“oh, wretched man that I am”).

79 thoughts on “Piece o' Cake?”

  2. The problem with this technique/approach is that while someone (not the Informer of the Reforming surely) focuses on one sin and becomes convinced of a tiny, temporary, dubious victory there maybe three more sneaking up behind. And what about the ones he’s missed — present but not recognized? What happens to the dam then? Good ol’ MLJ, puritan that he was, often counseled that NOT thinking excessively about certain sins and starving them for lack of attention was a good approach. But that makes for a pretty short and uninteresting blog post with no opportunity for list making.

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  3. Unifier, that reminds me of something I either read in Owen, or had told to me, sin is quite devious when we convince ourselves that we have conquered this or that other sin. That leads me to remember Genesis 4:7 when I read that in high school (as elucidated in a certain section of Steinbeck’s East of Eden), but then again, I had two cups of coffee, and really all I should be saying is plus 1 to the above comment, yo.

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  4. It was something along these lines, if you are following along at home.

    http://www.thetransformedsoul.com/additional-studies/spiritual-life-studies/-moritification-of-sin-john-owen

    The second occasion is this: In a time of some judgment, calamity, or pressing affliction; the heart is then taken up with thoughts and contrivances of flying from the present troubles, fears & dangers. This, as a convinced person concludes, is to be done only by relinquishment of sin, which gains peace with God. It is the anger of God in every affliction that galls a convinced person. To be relieved of this, men resolve at such times against their sins – sin shall never more have any place in them; they will never again give up themselves to the service of it. Accordingly, sin is quiet, stirs not, seems to be mortified – the soul has simply possessed its faculties, whereby it naturally exerts itself… but when they are laid aside, however, sin returns again to its former life and vigour. I don’t doubt their sincerity when they sought, and returned, and inquired after God… that they did it with full purpose of heart as to the relinquishment of their sins… and that they did so with earnestness and diligence; yet their sin was unmortified for all this (cf. Ps 78:32-37). This is the state of many humiliations in the days of affliction, and a great deceit in the hearts of believers themselves oftentimes lies herein. These and many other ways there are whereby poor souls deceive themselves, and suppose they have mortified their lusts.

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  8. Bob and his hammer advice. I will say, the man does know how to make a point..

    Pony boy (thx a lot Tom) out.

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  9. Challies – Sin is like water held back by a dam; the moment there is even a small crack in that dam, the weight of the water pushing against it will blow a hole right through it, and the entire structure will collapse.

    Erik – Yeah, that’s why when we sneak a peak at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue 8 hours later we find ourselves in a crack house with 2 tranny hookers.

    Or maybe that’s not how it works.

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  10. Now Tim Challies maybe a very nice guy personally — I suspect he is.

    The fact that he is widely followed and seen as a spiritual guru reveals so much about how absolutely banal evangelicalism has become, however.

    People who live their Christian lives like this are going to end up in a nuthouse, or at a minimum, as a neurotic bore.

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  14. To be fair to Challies, he isn’t making this stuff up, he’s getting it directly from Owen. Seems like it would be handled a lot better if you were able to respond to where you disagree with Own/

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  15. But, of course, there is a dark side as well—the endless spam, the email discussions that go on for far too long, the newsletters we didn’t sign up for, the chain letters promising bad luck if we don’t forward it to twenty more people. Email has become a mess of function and dysfunction. We need it, and yet we hate it.

    Stupid endless Blog convos too.

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  16. Some saints, believe it or not, may not struggle with certain besetting sins like everyone else. They grow up struggling with the desire to commit other ‘sins’, such as the desire to eat shrimp, pork, or drink cider, tell a white lie, not giving their ‘honest opinion’ about their wives’ decorating choices, etc., …………and when they give into these temptations (especially the big ones – after watching the Red Lobster commercials on television – also a no-no) – it’s just too much. For these types of sinners and their sins, it becomes a ‘piece o cake’ (as Dr. Hart has titled it so well) to make progress in 2-3-maybe 7 easy steps. All other Christians who struggle with issues beyond the aforementioned are not really ‘true believers’ in their estimation and are doomed to the infernal regions already.

    Not to slight him, but Challies is not helpful to me, on the whole. What I’ve come to is that he will be popular, along with so many others, because he is so good at giving us the law, including his own ‘Talmud’. People are going to read him and others like him, due to the organic and fallen desire for self-improvement (Law) until such time that they become so despairing in their inability to improve or make the kind of progress that they thought they made (thank you brothers above for your analogies – the dam cracking, etc. – excellent).

    I do believe that sanctification is important, but the only way I can have any real comfort and help is in understanding and knowing that Sanctification is 100% Christ’s work (Phillipians 2:13) in and through me, based upon the priority of knowing-understanding Justification.

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  20. Dr. Hart, I hate that, too – and I agree that it trivializes sin and devotion. If I was younger, and I was sitting under his teaching or another like him, I would be wanting to leave and go somewhere else. Once again, not to slight him, but he comes across to me like the ‘Shell Answer Man’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4flX6xaH46M
    And I sure wouldn’t want to slog through all those volumes either to get to his counsel.

    Thanks CW, for the tracker – and I’m not sure I have ever (might be wrong) read a post from him expounding on Christ’s active obedience, completed work, Justification, the triple cure, etc. – all of the things that help troubled consciences. Being so newly aquainted with the Big Brother series, that’s a great reference – you are so right!

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  21. Semps, Challies’ site is sort of a lifestyle clickhole how-to page replete with lists, product offerings, and light fare — very middle-class in its ethos, very 20th-century evangelical. Piss and vinegar need not apply.

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  23. Andrew,

    Thanks for that blast from the past. Whatever I was on, I need to see my dealer to get a refill.

    “The New Calvinism – A Visual History”: https://s3.amazonaws.com/Challies_VisualTheology/new-calvinism-timeline.html

    “The Grumpy Calvinism – A Somewhat Foggy Remembrance”

    * Darryl Hart, in a bad mood due to Isabelle puking up a hairball on his laptop, starts “Old Life Theological Society” blog.

    * Five minutes later, Nelson Kloosterman denounces project in a 36-page essay in “Christian Recycling” while John Frame vows to do a liturgical dance on Hart’s grave.

    * Jed Paschall waits first table. Spills Shrimp Etouffee in lap of customer.

    * Jason Stellman converts from Presbyterianism to Hare Krishna at LAX. Quickly renounces conversion and announces intention to pursue the Bahai faith. Stellman and brother announce plans to embark on a cross country tour playing the hits of England Dan & John Ford Coley.

    * Darrell Todd Maurina takes up residence in the Missouri Ozarks. Vows to supplement moonshining income with a career in journalism. Writes first expose on Jed and what is at the time known as “Radical Dual Kingdoms Orgonomy”.

    * Doug Sowers, after a mystical middle of the night appearance by what he believes to be the Ghost of Greg Bahnsen, resolves to fight this new theology while continuing his tract ministry at interstate truck stops.

    * Tom Van Dyke fails to score a point on Jeopardy and vows to create a new name for himself blogging.

    * David Van Drunen publishes “Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms”. Many cheap beer enthusiasts mistakenly buy book, thinking it to have something to do with “Natural Light” 24-pack cases.

    * Reformed community is outraged at the contents of Van Drunen’s book. Complains of “way too many footnotes and facts”. As penance, Westminster Seminary California sends Michael Horton to Lookout Mountain, where he is kidnapped by angry faculty and held hostage for six months in a culturally transformative soup kitchen. Horton hides Hart’s “A Secular Faith” under his mattress and reads nightly snippets by flashlight for spiritual sustenance.

    * Bryan Cross begins philosophical quest to prove logically that this is his world and we are all just his patio furniture.

    * Tim Keller renounces Jure divino Presbyterianism and begins to teach “Kinda Sorta if You Feel Like It” Presbyterianism.

    * Alan Strange disappears during trip to New York City to see Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”. Many report seeing him taken straight up to heaven.

    * Moscow, Idaho community concerned as Steve Wilkins takes up residence and begins, with the assistance of Doug Wilson, attempting to plant cotton on plots on the outskirts of town. Christ Church buys last remaining downtown building not already under its control.

    * Tim Bayly writes that, not only is it preferable for women to not work outside the home, it is best if women work under the home in a root cellar.

    * Patriarchy movement takes big hit when Doug Phillips abandons Vision Forum ministry to marry Duggar daughter AND 79-year-old Bill Gothard. The Three vow to move to Utah to advocate for plural AND gay marriage.

    * Marc Driscoll continues to see naked people. Is invited to the Mansion with Johnny Drama and Ralph Macchio for Hef’s 90th.

    * Mark VDM argues that the revision of the Belgic on the civil magistrate has been sorely misunderstood. Begins planning coup in which Dutch Queen Beatrix will overthrow Obama.

    * New Old Life contributor Greg the Terrible speaks out against “Bambi”, denouncing it as thinly veiled bestiality. Todd vigorously defends the film while Erik considers entering the witness protection program.

    * Greg Thornbury is named President of The King’s College on the same day that Harry Potter mysteriously goes missing. Six months later he tragically jumps from the top of the Empire State Building, apparently desolate that no one from the mainstream press has noticed.

    * In spite of best efforts of “The New Calvinists”, New York City remains stubbornly Jewish and untransformed.

    * Richard Smith first touts the virtue of nature walks on Old Life. Denounces non-revivalists as hopeless sinners and announces plans for 37-volume biography of Edwards to take the place of the Bible.

    * Sean loses job. Takes up residence on San Antonio street corner selling self-published memoir of his days in Catholic Seminary. Bryan denounces book as “not saying anything that has not been fully accounted for in my paradigm”, but book becomes a best seller nonetheless. Sean buys former Vision Forum building and revives ministry.

    * Zrim moves to Cambodia, fully convinced that he can submit to Pol Pot.

    * Chortles Weakly returns to Southern Baptist Church after realizing that his Southern PCA is made up of nothing more than Southern Baptists who can read.

    * Rabbi Bret is imprisoned for blowing up what he mistakenly thinks is Hart’s house. Didn’t receive memo that Hart had vacated in 1987. The Baylys disavow responsibility, in spite of the fact that they had given Rabbi Bret matches, TNT, a street map, the blueprints to Hart’s house, and the book “Blowing up S**t for Dummies.”

    * Hart is granted Tenure at Hillsdale. Ceases Old Life blog indefinitely to devote time to writing a “Wire” like series starring Jeff Bridges as lead detective. Coen’s reported to be interested.

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  24. CW – Semps, Challies’ site is sort of a lifestyle clickhole how-to page replete with lists, product offerings, and light fare — very middle-class in its ethos, very 20th-century evangelical. Piss and vinegar need not apply.

    Erik – A 21st century Pat Boone for the Young, Rested, Reformed set.

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  25. It’s gen-u-yne gratitude for you and all the righteous ones sitting on the smart phones reading us goof ball OLers. Erik, have a nice weekend.

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  29. Was it Rabbi Bret who videod his Manson fam….err….I mean, didn’t he video his gathering of five, outside in a group circle?

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  31. Sean,

    You’re confusing that with the Rabbi’s classic sermon series in the trailer park with dogs copulating in the background.

    Thankfully they appear to have disappeared from You Tube.

    Not exactly The Stone Lectures.

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  37. In a real sense, RB is doing all of us a service by providing the theonomists and reconstructionists a place to go so that they no longer feel the need to attend our churches. Maybe we need to start sending money to RB. Keep em all in one spot, in Michigan, in a field. They can practice asserting themselves, in Michigan, in that field. I think they need to practice their asserting for at least 20 years, in Michigan, in that field.

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  39. That vacant lot is earmarked for the “Iron Ink” training center for knighthood and culture warriordom. Young knights-in-training, armed only with a lance, a thermos of coffee, and $35 cash, will be sent out to raise heck in the surrounding community. Whoever best transforms his assigned 4 square blocks will be named “Knight of the Realm” and will be sent to Vision Forum in San Antonio for further studies.

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  40. Erik, no, no, no. That defeats the whole “one spot, in Michigan, in a field” bit. Plus, between the oil field workers and the illegals, and my need for them to remain in Michigan, the whole ‘asserting’ part might get them hurted( in the field I feel they’ll be relatively safe, and more importantly, contained in Michigan). Anyway, It’ll take a good twenty years just getting that field and four blocks, ‘squared’ away. Then, as the Rabbi pointed out, the Boy Scouts need some ‘squaring’ away. They can transition from the field to Boy Scout Troop 1015 Rainbow Coalition, where den mother-Harry’s ‘squaring’ away, should take the remainder of their mustard seed life.

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  45. Darryl, we’re all maxed on windbags here in Texas . Between the Tulsa preachers who end up in the Metroplex, to Joel in Houston, Hagee in San Antonio, Phillips lurking and Redeemer seminaries springing up everywhere, we’re all maxed at on cons, bs, and the imprecise. Y’all need to shoulder your load.

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  46. I forgot about TD Jakes, DTS and the retired Dallas Cowboy evangelists. Y’all need to help us out and take a few more.

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  47. “But I find it troubling to see a mechanical approach to both the gadgets of this earthly existence and mysterious depths of the sin-plagued soul.”

    mechanical approach can be helpful though, don’t you think…
    1. try to read only edifying posts
    2. cut off inappropriate thoughts about them
    3. stop fingers on keyboard from unleashing those same thoughts
    4. stop fingers from slander, mockery, scorn
    5. pick up Bible and read all the wisdom for the ‘mouth’ Prov 18:7
    6. repent for ignoring the heart of the Lord
    7. resolve to honor Him next post
    8. repeat
    Prov 13: 20

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  49. For a second there, I thought Hank had given up his day job in the DEA to become a field preacher. Was he preaching to the birds like st Francis? Now if you say yes, you get transformationalism for the birds, which is way funny, and you also get- wait for it- a reference to a Hitchcock movie about birds who believe that every square inch is theirs. Motivational or what,yo?

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  50. a.,

    The list only works if you’re not still an a.-hole under all those exteriors.

    Brian,

    The audience of three toothless recovering meth-addict souls is never shown in these videos.

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  51. I clicked on Erik’s link too, Brian. Good comparison to Hank. I have a lot of catching up to do, to catch up with the likes of Grim, wounded Sean, and Mr. Hat. To say nothing of having to read all Erik’s comments at this blog. I’ll be in my cave, reading..

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  54. (Shane)a(nderson). but it strikes some a tad lame to describe the Christian life the way Suave does shampoo. At least, those who don’t consider the Bible so much a handbook for pious living as a revelation for pilgrims waiting for a better country to come whose architect is God.

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  57. I confess I don’t want an interesting family life. If your family life is boring that means the kids aren’t getting arrested and the wife is still putting up with you. But I do want blogs to be interesting. Give me commenters who are self-righteous, who talk about one thing all the time, or come wearing the mantle of a prophet. Not all the commenters, mind you, because you only know insanity when you compare it to sanity.

    it helps me to be thankful that I go to a blog for those guys and they aren’t in my home making my life too interesting.

    Anyway, this is really just a roundabout way of saying.”welcome aboard, a.”

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  59. Shane’s been chilling since he was nominated as an elder.

    What he does not yet realize is that being an nominated for elder in a NAPARC church is a lot like being nominated as a cat herder down at the animal shelter.

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  60. “Why do you think I wrote the post?” to make fun of any desire for holiness?

    “So what went wrong?”
    some options? 1)did just as by the Spirit; 2)thought it was by the Spirit but was actually the flesh; 3)it was combo of Spirit work with fleshly contamination; 4)of course it was the flesh 4a) because I’m waiting for eternity for any Jesus conformity (as Krim seems to allude to above); or 4b) I was waiting for Jesus to come through with some sanctifying work in the situation but He didn’t show

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  64. Shane, if you on track towards OP eldership, that’s cool. Greetings from the OPC out west. Have a nice week, I’m done posting for 2014 (just FYI).

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  69. Erik, load that twitter feed widget onto literate comments dot com so I can keep up with your humor (that’s I keep abreast with Mr. Hat, yeah, I really do enjoy the banter), just for me. See you at 20:15 ☺

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  71. Muddy, you will never run out of kooks on here who do a balance beam routine poorly while playing a one string banjo

    And you shockingly have a few of us who deeply enjoy pouring gasoline onto both ends of the balance beam and lighting the match

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  74. From Friday’s Wall Street Journal. Mars Hill is disbanding? Wow, that’s a resilient bunch. Surely The Gospel Corporation (TM) could have come in and held things together.

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/sarah-pulliam-bailey-how-the-cussin-pastor-got-into-megatrouble-1415924941

    How the ‘Cussin’ Pastor’ Got Into Megatrouble

    Mark Driscoll’s tough persona made him and his megachurch famous, but also helped spur his fall.

    By
    Sarah Pulliam Bailey

    Nov. 13, 2014 7:29 p.m. ET

    The remarkable fall from grace of the evangelical preacher Mark Driscoll could provide case-study materials on public ministry for years to come. The Seattle pastor’s resignation from his megachurch on Oct. 14 and the subsequent dissolution of the church he built had nothing to do with the sort of sordid scandals that in the past brought down preachers such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Mr. Driscoll’s downfall had a great deal to do with the online world that he had seemed to master, a world that made him famous but also exposed what he called in his resignation letter his “pride, anger and a domineering spirit.”

    Boosted by live streaming, podcasts and social media, Mr. Driscoll harnessed the Internet to propel his nondenominational ministry beyond Mars Hill, his local congregation. He was known for his muscular, in-your-face style of preaching about Jesus, depicting Christ as more superhero than lamb of God, once declaring: “I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” This aggressive posture, visible online and off, paradoxically made the once “cussin’ pastor” famous but also helped bring down his ministry.

    “The same rough edges that can land you in hot water are the very same things that attracted, in some cases, tens of thousands of people to you in the first place,” Mark DeMoss, whom Mars Hill hired to do public relations for six months before Mr. Driscoll’s resignation, told me.

    Mark Driscoll preaching at his church in Seattle in 2007. ENLARGE
    Mark Driscoll preaching at his church in Seattle in 2007. Associated Press
    .
    Founded in 1996, Mars Hill helped popularize the current model of multisite churches, which stream sermons from one pastor to multiple locations. Under Mr. Driscoll’s leadership, Mars Hill earlier this year drew an estimated 14,000 people at 15 locations across five states. The size of Mars Hill was especially unusual for Seattle, not known as a hotbed of religiosity. Mr. Driscoll was cheered for his ability to build an extensive network of the faithful from a base in that city.

    Not everyone applauded. Initially, Mr. Driscoll’s vocal critics came mainly from outside the church, where his fame—and the online availability of so much of what he said—attracted scrutiny by journalists, bloggers and others.

    Much of the original focus was on his theological views about women’s roles within the home or in the pulpit, his opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. “A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin but she may not be helping him either,” Mr. Driscoll said in 2006, although he later apologized for it.

    Then this summer Web searchers unearthed some particularly unappetizing comments Mr. Driscoll made online 14 years ago, using what he has since admitted was the pseudonym William Wallace II. “Should we form some form of homo Promise Keepers so we can all climb into a stadium and hug each other and cry like damn junior high girls watching Dawson ’s Creek,” went one of the derogatory—but relatively printable—online remarks by “William Wallace II.”

    While Mr. Driscoll faced criticism from bloggers and social-media users—“Beware the horrible hipster pastor,” warned one site—many were not worshipers at Mars Hill. For a long time, in fact, members of the church largely defended Mr. Driscoll. According to Wendy Alsup, a Christian author who attended Mars Hill from 2002 to 2008, members had been “groomed to expect persecution” of their pastor by outsiders. That attitude did not begin to shift until last year, she told me, when journalists and bloggers raised questions about church finances, such as the alleged use of donations to the ministry to promote his book “Real Marriage” in 2012.

    But neither that nor any single other factor led to the collapse of the Driscoll empire. Upon resigning last month, Mr. Driscoll said: “I do not want to be the source of anything that might detract from our church’s mission.” And there was a lot of detracting going on by then. Along with reports that church funds were spent to buy enough copies of “Real Marriage” to thrust it onto the New York Times best-seller list, there were accusations of plagiarism in some of his writings (which he and his publisher denied).

    The day after Mr. Driscoll’s resignation, the church’s board of overseers posted a statement saying that he had not been asked to leave and had “never been charged with any immorality, illegality or heresy.” Mostly, the statement said, Mr. Driscoll had “been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner.”

    “It was a one-man show, Mark’s way or the highway,” Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida, told me. “He was in complete and total control.”

    Once Mr. Driscoll resigned, the network of churches he created swiftly collapsed. Mars Hill will disband by the end of the year. Some observers in the evangelical community had noted that Mr. Driscoll had seemed to shape the church more around himself than around God. When Mr. Driscoll was still ascendant, he reportedly told his staff, “I am the brand.” And then the brand was damaged.

    Ms. Bailey is a national correspondent for Religion News Service.

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  78. Got just the job for Driscoll – head coach of the Chicago Bears. Following a string of disappointing and unnecessary loses, disgruntled fans have been accusing Marc Trestman of not yelling at his players enough, saying that other successful coaches (Ditka, Cower, Lomardy, the Harbaughs, etc.) all yelled at their teams. Perfect match for Mr. Tough Guy.

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