Be Somebody or Do Something
Written by J. V. Fesko |
Friday, April 8, 2022
I think the “be somebody” versus “do something” divide is a really important question to ask for many things in life. All too often we can get caught up in titles and the desire for prestige. Do you want to be a big steeple pastor or do you preach God’s word? Do you want to win marathons or find enjoyment and satisfaction in running? Do you want people to think well of you or live in a manner to gain the approval of your heavenly Father?
Over the years I have had many students come into my office and ask me about pursuing doctoral studies. One of the first questions I ask them is, “Why?” I ask this question because many students don’t know that pursuing doctoral studies is a long, difficult, and burdensome path. Once you finish your master’s degree you have to learn two modern foreign languages (like Latin and French), study for the Graduate Record Exam, apply to different institutions, get in, move, take two to three years of seminars, sit for comprehensive exams, spend a year or two writing a dissertation, defend it, and spend a lot of money and time. Don’t get me wrong—if you’re called to this path, then nothing will keep you from it. The fire in your belly will drive you to pursue your dream. But I ask students why they want to pursue a doctorate because I want them to think about their motivations.
If students reply that they want to teach at a college, then that’s great and it’s a good reason to pursue a PhD. But if they tell me that they want to learn more about theology, I press them for more information.
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5 Things You Should Know about Sanctification
Though sanctification is based on what Christ accomplished in His death and resurrection and is experienced in the lives of believers by the power of the Holy Spirit, God has appointed certain means to assist believers in the pursuit of growth in grace. The believer’s progressive sanctification will be commensurate with his employment of the means of grace. The central means that God has appointed for the sanctification of His people are the Word, sacraments, and prayer.
If you were seeking a succinct definition of the biblical doctrine of sanctification, you would be hard-pressed to find a better one than that found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In the answer to Question 35, the Westminster divines wrote, “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” Although this is an accurate definition of the progressive nature of sanctification, Scripture sets out several other important aspects of sanctification that are necessary for us to gain a full-orbed understanding of this benefit of redemption. Consider the following five things:
1. Christ is the source of sanctification.
Believers are sanctified by virtue of their union with Christ. He is the singular source of sanctification insomuch as He supplies His people with all that they need to grow spiritually as they abide in Him by faith. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “You are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30, emphasis added). To become the source of sanctification for His people, Jesus had to sanctify Himself in the work of redemption (John 17:19). Though He had no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), He consecrated Himself for His people by perfectly obeying the law of God as well as the mediatorial commands of God (John 10:17–18). Geerhardus Vos explained, “This . . . is not to be understood as a change in the Savior, as if this sanctification presupposes a previous lack of holiness, but as the consecration of His life in mediatorial obedience (passive and active) to God.” In addition to His obedient life, Christ was sanctified for us when He died on the cross. Since the sins of believers have been imputed to Christ, and He bore them in His body on the tree, they were judicially purged when He fell under the fiery wrath of God.
2. Regeneration is the fountain of sanctification.
Since justification is a legal benefit of redemption (i.e., a once-for-all act), sanctification more properly flows from the transformative blessing of regeneration. The implementation of a new nature (i.e., regeneration) into the lives of believers at the beginning of their Christian experience begins the process of sanctification.
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The Christian’s Ongoing Battle with the Devil
Anyone who has served Jesus for any length of time will appreciate the truth of there being an evil entity who is intensely opposed to the reign of Christ. Plans to prayerfully spread the Gospel are met with a myriad of obstacles, and we often experience persecution (Revelation 2:9). Especially, getting the family ready for church on a Sunday morning is often a battle. Why? Because we have an enemy who wants to discourage and stumble us in whatever way he can.
Every Christian faces a three-fold enemy of the world, the flesh and the Devil. Even though Satan has been defeated by the person and work of Jesus (Luke 10:18; John 12:31; 1 John 3:8), the spiritual battle continues. And while it is impossible for someone who has been born again to be possessed by an unclean spirit, there is still a sense in which believers are oppressed by the Devil. This article examines what the Bible says we should expect in this regard.
1 Peter 5:8 tells us we should be self-controlled and alert because our enemy the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. What’s more, we’re told that if we submit ourselves to God and resist the Devil, then he will immediately flee (James 4:7). While we are ultimately kept safe by the sovereign power of God (Jude 1, 24; Phil 1:3-6) this doesn’t mean that there are not real spiritual threats or dangers.
Setbacks and Opposition in Ministry
In 1 Thessalonians 2:18 the apostle Paul says, “We wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, did, again and again — but Satan stopped us.” Clearly, the Devil has a certain amount of influence in this present world. Elsewhere, in Ephesians 6, Paul famously writes that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly realms.
While within divinely predetermined limits, the experience of Job is also illuminating. In chapters 1 and 2, we are explicitly told how the Devil was the cause of Job’s suffering. Whether it be the theft of oxen and donkeys by the Sabeans, a fire from heaven which destroyed his sheep, three lots of Chaldean raiding parties who carried off his camels, a mighty wind which caused the death of his children, or the personal suffering of physical illness. Each and every one of these things are directly attributable to Satan.
Anyone who has served Jesus for any length of time will appreciate the truth of there being an evil entity who is intensely opposed to the reign of Christ. Plans to prayerfully spread the Gospel are met with a myriad of obstacles, and we often experience persecution (Revelation 2:9). Especially, getting the family ready for church on a Sunday morning is often a battle. Why? Because we have an enemy who wants to discourage and stumble us in whatever way he can.
Unresolved Anger
One of the things which is striking about the work of Satan — particularly in the New Testament epistles — is how ‘ordinary’ it is. Take for instance Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:26-27. “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
Note the logical flow between the two verses. In verse 26 we are told not to allow our anger to be expressed in sinful ways. Being angry in and of itself is not a sin. As with Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Mark 3:1-6, sometimes anger is not only justified, but a godly response. Although, being continually angry all the time doesn’t bring about righteous life which God requires (see James 1:19-20).
The key though is to not let the sun go down while we are still angry about something and we haven’t made an attempt to resolve it. Sweeping our anger under the carpet like that doesn’t solve things, but only makes it worse. Indeed, it gives the Devil a ‘foothold’ in twisting our hearts and driving a wedge between ourselves and the other person.
Unforgiveness and Division
Closely following on from the previous point, is Satan’s strategy to “divide and conquer”. The Lord Jesus says that even the Devil would not drive out a demon from someone because it would destroy what he is doing (i.e. Matthew 12:25-28). Alternatively, though, Satan seeks to divide Christians against each other (contra Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-23).
One of the chief ways in which Devil does this is through division. And the mechanism through which this is achieved is unforgiveness. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 the apostle Paul refers to the restoration of an individual who had previously undergone some form of church discipline.
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The Curious Rise in Disability: How Changing Language Alters the Nature of Reality
By changing language, the state attempts to solve a metaphysical quandary, and something intangible changes about our reality. Our government’s rush toward one-size-fits-all solutions means the particularities of individual lives become lost in the maze of a bureaucratic process. Disability is a stark reminder of the human condition. It is more than a problem to be solved, although there are real problems for disabled people that need real solutions. Disability is a valuable teacher. It can catechize us on the nature of our humanity, and teach us about our mortality. We all can and should hope for redemption for our broken bodies.
My son is blind, immobile, nonverbal, and hearing-impaired, with multiple brain abnormalities and complex orofacial birth defects. Is he disabled? It depends on whom you ask.
According to Pew Research, thirteen percent of all Americans are disabled. However, the CDC considers more than twenty-five percent of all Americans as disabled, including seventeen percent of children. In contrast, the National Survey of Child Health considers just over four percent of American children to be disabled. These statistics represent alternate realities.
What is the reason for this wide disparity? Some definitions of disability are limited to activities of daily living, or ADLs, such as eating, walking, bathing, and toileting. Others are broader, including behavioral, mental health, and sensory impairments. While disabilities have increased for all Americans, children, in particular, have experienced a huge rise in disability. An NIH study uses the capacious “developmental disabilities” category for its analysis, incorporating recent rises in ADHD, autism, and learning disabilities, making up a majority of new inclusions. Under this definition, more than half of those children considered disabled have ADHD, with blindness by comparison only contributing to 0.16 percent of the total. More broadly still, one researcher defines disability in children as “activity limitations” including “anything that the parent identifies that their child isn’t able to do in the same way other children are able to do.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, this definition resulted in a twenty-eight percent relative increase in childhood disability within well-off households relative to those in poverty. This definitional morass has significant implications for politicians, educators, and parents, as state resources are allocated using widely disparate disability markers.
Changing definitions of disability create policy headaches and alter our perception of reality. By broadening the definition of disability, the state sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Driving the state’s changing standards of language is both political self-protection and political reward. Lumping complex social factors under one label is the state’s sleight of hand. By using such a broad understanding of disability, and therefore limiting conversation about other social, environmental, or economic factors, the state can both absolve itself of needing to provide real policy solutions and proclaim itself the protector of a victimized class.
As the state mediates our social interactions by adapting our language to fit its own ends, our social fabric frays and Christian charity weakens. The church has a unique responsibility to use precise language to describe the full range of human brokenness, particularly in children, allowing us to accurately attend to the real needs of others while offering true hope in the renewal of creation.
Three Models of Disability: Medical, Social, and Equity
Our government currently uses three models to define disability for both adults and children. The state categorizes human interactions and experiences of disability in definitions that both create and support a bureaucratic process. Language changes reality. These models, while emerging chronologically, are used simultaneously. The definition of disability has expanded under each subsequent model, moving from a limited definition under the medical model, to a more inclusive social definition, to finally a potentially unlimited definition of disability under the equity model.
First Wave: The Medical Model of Disability
The medical model, true to its name, views disability as a purely physiological issue to be handled within the bounds of the medical system. This is the oldest operative view of disability, with origins in the scientific model of medicine that began in the nineteenth century. Under the medical or pathological model, disability is primarily a disease, diagnosed by a physician, subsequently necessitating medical intervention to alleviate, manage, or cure. One cannot be both healthy and disabled. Under the medical model, disability is a function of the body, limited to the individual experience.
This paradigm views disability as purely a problem of the individual, disregarding quality of life concerns and communities of care outside of the medical system. Diagnostic terms and prognoses can be unnecessarily deterministic, potentially legitimizing social stigma against the disabled. The medical model is uninterested in the broader political and social milieu in which the disabled person finds himself. Naming disability as a disease implies a fixed reality to life with a disability that advocates adamantly protest. Interpreting disability through the medical model can seem like a life sentence to a diminished reality, one where the disabled individual is always diseased.
The medical model of disability is the original building block that has now given way to models that better fit current social values. However, vestiges of the medical model remain. The best example is the use of ADLs, or activities of daily living, to define disability. According to guidelines from the Health and Human Services Department, any survey form assessing disability must include six questions “representing a minimum standard.” These questions focus on an individual’s difficulty with vision, hearing, cognition, mobility, and self-care limited to dressing or bathing.
Using the medical model to define disability results in fewer disabled Americans when compared to other models. Under its definition, a 2019 report from the Census Bureau states only 4.3 percent of American children are disabled. A similar 2010 report from the Census Bureau found that 4.4 percent of those aged six and older needed assistance with one or more activities of daily living.
Second Wave: The Social Model of Disability
The social model of disability was introduced in the 1960s as advocates for the disabled preferred a more holistic approach to understanding disability. It stands in contrast to the limited medical model that many felt was discriminatory. Proponents of disability rights pushed back against the idea that disability was a disease to be cured, and instead advocated a definition of disability that recognized the relationships between individuals and society.
The social model distinguishes between “physical impairments” inherent to the body, and “disabilities” that advocates see as the limitations of society. As such, the disabling factor is not our biological reality, but society’s shortcomings. If we weren’t ableists, social model proponents claim, then impairments wouldn’t be disabling. The social model of disability discredits the medical model, claiming that health issues are not always disabling if the social environment is adequately accommodating.
To its credit, the social model introduced numerous benefits. It laid the groundwork for legally required accommodations in work and public life that are life-changing for many people, notably, through the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The ADA includes in its definition protection for a range of physical disabilities as well as mental and behavioral health conditions, including dyslexia, ADHD, and autism, among others. The broadening category of disability under the social model leads to an increase in disability. As a result, according to the Social Security Administration, since the 1970s, the number of disabled beneficiaries has increased from 1.8 million to 9.2 million in 2021.
The social model of disability centers on the individual’s relationship to society, not the individual himself or his biological reality. On one webpage, the CDC defines disability as an “interaction with various barriers [that] may hinder . . . full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.” Disability is now a function of one’s social environment, not just how one functions within one’s social environment.
Disability has moved from a biophysical to a psychosocial marker, increasing those under disability’s umbrella. And yet another change looms on the horizon, as a recent press release from the NIH has redefined disability yet again.
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