No Creature But Is Fed

Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens will give His children bread.

—William Cowper

I’m continuing the series on Scriptural Lessons from the Natural World at Out of the Ordinary today.

Scripture uses our knowledge that both humans and animals have food to teach us about God—or, more precisely, to remind us of what we already should know about God. We can know that God exists, and that he is good, wise, and powerful because he feed his creatures.

But there’s more. That God has revealed himself by providing food for us ought to influence what we do. I’ve found four biblical commands based on our knowledge of God’s food provision. The first two apply to everyone, but the last two are especially for believers.

Read the rest of All Creatures Eat (Part 1). 

Getting Our Expectations Straight

From Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books by Michael Kruger, four reasons from Scripture for us to expect some disagreement over the canon in the early stages of Christianity:

1. The Scriptures warn of false teaching (and false teachers) in the church (2 Pet. 2:2; 1 John 2:19). If so, then it is reasonable to think that the church would also face false teaching about the status of canonical and apocryphal writings.
2. We should not overlook the fact that these are spiritual forces opposing the church (Eph. 6:10-20; 1 Pet. 5:8-10; Rev. 12:13-17). Thus we have greater reason to expect there would be controversy, opposition, and heresy in early Christianity.
3. People often resist the Spirit by their sin and disobedience (Acts 7:51; Eph. 4:30; 5:18; 1 Thess. 5:19). For this reason, the testimonium1was never understood by the Reformers as something that would lead to an absolute unity over the canonical books.
4. Not all groups who claim to be the “church” are really part of it. Some claim the name of Christ who are not really his followers (Matt. 7:21-23; John 2:23-25; Phil. 1:15-16; 1 John 2:19). Thus, the canons of these so-called Christian groups (Valentinians?) might differ significantly from those of true Christians. This can give the impression that there was more canonical diversity among early Christians than there actually was.2

Contrary to what some argue,  disagreements over the canon shouldn’t undermine our trust in the ability of the early church to identify the canonical books; but rather, the witness of scripture itself should lead us to expect some dissent.

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Other quotations  from this book:

• A Canon Based on Probability
• Canonical Bookends
• Like a Thermometer, Not a Thermostat

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1The testimonium is “the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit”—“not a private revelation of the Spirit or new information given to the believer—as if the list of canonical books were whispered in our ears—but it is a work of the Spirit that over comes the noetic effect of sin and produces the belief that the Scriptures are the word of God” (page 100).

2Page 198-199.

This Week in Housekeeping

Whew! I barely have time to keep up with the fixing and updating project for the theological terms. It’s been a month since I did any work on them at all. Actually, once a month seems to be the rate for the last half year or so.

perfectionism

• Fixed links to Wayne Grudem’s lectures on the doctrine of sanctification: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. (The Grudem Systematic Theology lectures have been moved around a lot over the years. I’m hoping these are links that last!)
• Added a link to R. C. Sproul’s The Heresy of Perfectionism.

autographs

• Added a link to Michael Kruger’s The Difference Between Original Autographs and Original Texts.

incarnation

• Fixed links to Wayne Grudem’s lectures: The Person of Christ, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• Added related terms advent, ascension of Jesus, crucifixion (of Christ), deity of Christ, humanity of Christ, hypostatic union, virgin birth.
• Added “Filed under Person, Work and Teachings of Christ.”

Theological Term of the Week

cultural mandate
God’s command for the human race to fill the earth and rule over it; also called creation mandate, dominion mandate, or stewardship mandate.

• From scripture:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)

• From ESV Bible study notes on Genesis 1:26-28:

[T]he idea is that the man and woman are to make the earth’s resources beneficial for themselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth’s resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development; the evil uses to which people have put their dominion come as a result of Genesis 3. … As God’s representatives, human beings are to rule over every living thing on the earth. These commands are not, however, a mandate to exploit the earth and its creatures to satisfy human greed, for the fact that Adam and Eve were “in the image of God” implies God’s expectation that human beings will use the earth wisely and govern it with the same sense of responsibility and care that God has toward the whole of his creation. 

• From The Christian Faith by Michael Horton:

All human beings, even as fallen, remain God’s image-bearers—with the original commission to rule, guard, and keep, and to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” extending God’s reign with Eden as the capital (Ge 1:26-28, cf. 2:15). Often referred to as the cultural mandate, this original vocation given to humanity remains the source of that indefatigable impulse to build cities and civilizations, farms and vineyards, houses and empires. Every person, believer and unbeliever alike, receives a distinct vocation for his or her calling in the world, and the Spirit equips each person for these distinct callings in common grace. However, God’s Word in the cultural mandate is “law”: the command to subdue, rule, fill, and expand.

Learn more:

1. 9Marks: What is the cultural mandate? Who is it given to?
2. Cornerstone Presbyterian Church: What is the Cultural Mandate? and How the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission Complement Each Other
3. Greg Johnson: Why the Mona Lisa is going to Heaven
4. John MacArthur: We Must Rightly Understand the Creation Mandate

Related terms:

• creation ex nihilo
• Great Commission
• image of God
• vocation

Filed under Anthropology

Do you have a term you would like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Linked Together: Bird Watching

Nesting Eagles
Watch a pair of bald eagles incubating three eggs on our local eagle’s nest live cam. (Warning: You may wish to supervise young children, since “[e]agles feed on small mammals and fish,” so “the actions of the eagles in this video feed could contain graphic content.” While I’ve watched, however, I’ve seen nothing but an eagle sitting and tree branches blowing.)

Talking Raven
”Merlyn Williams befriended [a raven], which he has named Raymond, three years ago. The raven has been dropping by Williams’s house for bits of food — and even conversation — ever since” (CBC North).

Ravens aren’t pretty, but who needs looks when you’re the smartest bird around? I’ve written about them here and here. 

(Here’s the whole YouTube video mentioned in the story above. )

A Catechism for Boys and Girls

Questions about the Word, the Church and the Ordinances

132. Q. Should babies be baptized?
          A. No; because the Bible neither commands it, nor gives any example of it.

(Click through to read scriptural proofs.)

Click to read more ...

Sunday's Hymn: In Heavenly Love Abiding

In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear.
And safe in such confiding, for nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me, my heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me, and can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me, no want shall turn me back.
My Shepherd is beside me, and nothing can I lack.
His wisdom ever waking, His sight is never dim.
He knows the way He’s taking, and I will walk with Him.

Green pastures are before me, which yet I have not seen.
Bright skies will soon be over me, where darkest clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure, my path to life is free.
My Savior has my treasure, and He will walk with me.

— Anna L. Waring

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Update: By Your Side at Gospel Grace
• Down From His Glory at By Grace Alone
• Heavenly Sunlight at The Happy Wonderer
• Just As I Am at Challies.com
• God Is Ascended Up on High at Conjubilant With Song
• Voices from the Past #19 at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 19, 2013 at The Thirsty Theologian
• You Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: A salute to mothers

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Thankful Thursday

It’s late. I’m tired, but thankful:

• for an exhausting but productive day. I took care of my second granddaughter during the day and then went to a long choir practice after supper. 
• for the immigrant communities in my church. Sunday we will sing hymns and read scripture in all the different native languages—Mandarin, Tagalog, Japanese, Slovak, and many more. (That’s what the choir practice was for: learning to sing verses of familiar hymns in the various languages.)
• for warm weather. It’s been a long, long winter, and I’m thankful that it’s finally over.
• for non-drowsy antihistamines—God’s good gift to me every spring.
• for the promise of a slower day tomorrow.
• for a comfy bed and an open window as I sleep.
• that God never sleeps.

Linked Together: The Older Person

As a Blessing
To the grandchildren:

It’s a pretty magnificent vantage point—getting to see close-up our God at work generation after generation, just like he promised. It’s a huge opportunity—having a chance to speak words of grace and truth into little lives opening in front of you like some time-lapse YouTube clip of flowers blooming. It’s the most consuming kind of fun—as you stop and read a story, and everything else in the world just disappears for a few minutes.

(Kathleen Nielson at The Gospel Coalition Blog.)

In the church:

[T]he Bible instructs the pastor to teach the congregation to be there for one another and does so by tying the generations together so that the built-in expertise of old age gets leveraged for every younger generation. It’s a beautiful thing.

In this way older members of the local church become the front line of discipleship and care. They brighten the future of the church by teaching younger members how to live out the faith, how to avoid mistakes, seize opportunities, practically apply the word of God to their lived realities.

(Thabiti Anyabwile at Pure Church.)

As a Burden
To the children:

I hope my children never have to sacrifice for their father when I’m elderly. But, if they do, I pray I’ll be Christlike enough to crucify my pride and receive their love.

(Russell Moore at Moore to the Point.)

Like a Thermometer, Not a Thermostat

Michael Kruger on the proper role of the church in the authentication of the canon of the New Testament:  

The books received by the church inform our understanding of which books are canonical not because the church is infallible or because it created or constituted the canon, but because the church’s reception of these books is a natural and inevitable outworking of the self-authenticating nature of Scripture. Viewing the role of the church in the context of a self-authenticating Bible can bring fresh understanding to the complex church-canon relationship … . The Catholic model [of the canon] insists that the church’s reception of these books is the sole grounds for the canon’s authority. In the self-authenticating model, however, the church’s reception of these books proves not to be evidence of the church’s authority to create the canon, but evidence of the opposite, namely, the authority, power, and impact of the self-authenticating Scripture to elicit a corporate response from the church. Jesus’s statement that “my sheep hear my voice … and they follow me” (John 10:27) is not evidence for the authority of the sheep’s decision to follow, but evidence for the authority and efficacy of the Shepherd’s voice to call. After all, the act of hearing is, by definition, derivative not constitutive. Thus, when the canon is understood as self-authenticating, it is clear that the church did not choose the canon, but the canon, in a sense, chose itself… . [T]he role of the church is like a thermometer, not a thermostat. Both instruments provide information about the temperature in the room—but one determines it and one reflects it.

Quoting from Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books.

Other quotations from this book:

• A Canon Based on Probability
• Canonical Bookends