A Review: Distinctively Christian Retirement: A Biblical Call to Serve Jesus Well in Older Age by Simon van Bruchem.
Written by Grover E. Gunn |
Thursday, May 5, 2022
Retirement is no substitute for heaven, but retirement can be satisfying. We must find our identity and contentment in our relationship with Jesus Christ. With that foundation laid, we can find meaningful ways to worship and serve God during our retirement years. Living our final years of life as life was meant to be lived should be our goal, as opposed to trying to check off a “bucket list” – a term first used in 2004 – of self-indulgent projects before we “kick the bucket.”
A few years ago I was talking to a member of the church that I pastor, who is about the same age as I am. He said, “Pastor, you do know that we are now in the decade of death?” He was referring to the decade of life during which most people die. Well, no, I hadn’t thought about it, but he was right. The biblical rule of thumb on human longevity is found in the Psalm 90:8, where Moses says, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty …” This is a very relevant thought today. The demographic bump called the baby boomers has begun to enter the decade of death. What should we think about that or do about that? If we don’t ask such questions, we are like a pilot flying an airplane after skipping the class on executing a safe landing.
Distinctively Christian Retirement is divided into four major sections. The first is about common misconceptions that people have about retirement. Many think that a few decades of fully funded leisure at the end of life is almost a natural right. The reality is that this is a very modern notion. The book even gives specific dates. The modern concept of retirement originated in 1883, and 65 was designated the magic age of retirement in 1916. Over time, the concept of retirement went from something unimagined to something resisted to something expected. Even today, the modern concept of retirement is largely limited to people living in the more affluent economies of the world. Even in richer economies, the goal of providing a fully funded retirement for all is proving to be financially impractical and politically unsustainable.
Too many people today also anticipate the years of retirement as a secular substitute for heaven. Such an expectation can only result in disappointment. Unstructured days with no meaningful purpose can quickly become boring and even depressing. Retirement years do not last forever, and their enjoyment can be diminished by the effects of aging. A truly satisfying ultimate hope must be unending and unencumbered by the curse of sin. It must be something perfect that yet grows fuller every day. That is heaven properly understood. Heaven will not be a static existence but a growing experience of worshiping and serving God, the essential activities for which humanity was created.
Retirement is no substitute for heaven, but retirement can be satisfying. We must find our identity and contentment in our relationship with Jesus Christ. With that foundation laid, we can find meaningful ways to worship and serve God during our retirement years. Living our final years of life as life was meant to be lived should be our goal, as opposed to trying to check off a “bucket list” – a term first used in 2004 – of self-indulgent projects before we “kick the bucket.”
Distinctively Christian Retirement’s second section looks at what the Bible has to say about the mature years of life. The west especially prioritizes youth and beauty, and as a result undervalues the elderly. As a general rule, long life is a gift from God, and the elderly have wisdom gained from experience. We should also accept that the limitations associated with aging are a part of God’s plan. We should not be surprised by them or bitter because of them.
The book examines the lives of some in the Bible who ran the race of life well to the very end. The book also examines the lives of some who started well but faltered near the end. There are lessons to be learned from both. The book also examines the Bible’s call to obedience as it relates to the elderly. The elderly should not rationalize that they are exempt from seeking first the kingdom of God or from loving God with their total being because of the limitations that come with aging.
The third major section of Distinctively Christian Retirement is about some of the practical challenges of the retirement years. In our elderly years, we need to thread the needle of being open to change without compromising the teachings of Scripture. The elderly should not romanticize the past or refuse to recognize that some changes have been for the better. There is a place for reconsidering some traditions, and there is room for some compromises with the younger generation on how things should be done. Yet the elderly should retain their firm commitment to the principles of Scripture as non-negotiable.
Many years ago, an elderly saint told me that getting old was not for the faint of heart. He was right, and the Bible also recognizes the challenges of aging. The book has some helpful comments on Barzillai’s thoughts on old age (2 Samuel 19:34-35) and on the metaphor laden poem on aging found in Ecclesiastes 12. Yet God takes a special delight in using the weak to accomplish His purposes, and our weaknesses stimulate us to prayer.
The fourth and last major section of Distinctively Christian Retirement is on godly living in retirement. As we age, our opportunities to earn money tend to diminish, and this can be frightening. Yet our resources at all stages of life are gifts that God has entrusted to us as His stewards. Our final hope should not be in our bank account but in God. While trying to be good stewards in supplying their own needs, the elderly should also be generous when the opportunity arises, even when the cost is living a more modest lifestyle.
The elderly should also seek to be involved in the local church. The church can overlook the elderly and isolate them through age-based ministries and worship services. Yet there needs to be a mixing of the generations in the church through which the young have an opportunity to learn from the experiences of the elderly and to minister to the special needs of the elderly. The elderly can contribute to the spiritual health of the church simply through faithful attendance of worship services and certainly through spending time in private prayer for the church. The elderly can even be involved in evangelism and efforts to disciple the culture for Christ. The elderly shouldn’t be deterred by the immensity of the task. As the book says,
A small amount of salt influences the whole dish; you notice when someone has added a pinch of salt to a stew. A small amount of light influences the entire room; even one candle added to a previously dark room means people can see. Christians should be like this in the broader world.
In addition to giving insight and counsel on retirement, this book would also be helpful as a source of ideas for a sermon at a nursing home or at a funeral.
The author of Distinctively Christian Retirement is Simon van Bruchem, Pastor of All Nations Presbyterian Church in Perth, Western Australia. He has served there since 2007.
Dr. Grover Gunn is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of MacDonald PCA in Collins, MS.
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Destroying Marriage in Order to Save It
Written by Daniel Frost and Robert P. George |
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Polyamory harms marriage. Its mainstreaming by some would erode everyone else’s ability to understand and live out true marriage. As the late Oxford philosopher Joseph Raz, whose views on sex and marriage were much more liberal than ours, nevertheless conceded, “monogamy, assuming that it is the only valuable form of marriage, cannot be practiced by an individual. It requires a culture which recognizes it, and which supports it through the public’s attitude and through its formal institutions.”A recent article in the New Yorker paints a rosy picture of the many ways that polyamory and non-monogamy are making inroads into American culture. Amid a great deal of wishful thinking, one claim stands out: that opening your marriage to additional sexual partners can make it stronger. The New Yorker article notes that non-monogamy “is increasingly being presented not as a threat to bourgeois marriage but, rather, as a way to save the institution and all that it affords.”
This claim would be laughable if it weren’t being taken so seriously. It’s a bit like the infamous (and apocryphal) claim from an American military officer in the Vietnam War that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Marital infidelity strikes at the heart of marriage, at its total commitment, expressed in vows of permanence and exclusivity. Spouses who engage in sexual non-monogamy, even if they act with each other’s consent, undermine the basis of an authentic and honorable marriage. And when their actions are public, and especially where they are publicly affirmed and celebrated, they further wound the culture of marriage that everyone benefits from when it is secure and flourishing.
Consider, by analogy, friendship. An ordinary friendship has a certain structure and point. In a true friendship, each friend wills the good of the other for the sake of the other. Without this goodwill, there is no friendship. As it weakens, a friendship withers.
Now, imagine that one friend, upset at the other for some perceived wrong, speaks maliciously of his friend behind his back, impugning his character. We would all have to admit that this action was a betrayal of the friendship, defying the norm that each friend acts for the other’s good.
But now imagine that the slanderer’s goal was to blow off steam over the perceived wrong and then return to the friendship with less resentment. If he is successful in this goal, someone might say that “the slander saved the friendship,” but this would be a mistake. The friendship was not saved, because the unrepentant friend stopped willing the good of the other, the very thing that made them friends. The opposite impression depends on a mistake about what friendship is—the deeply mistaken (and harmful) assumption that it’s most fundamentally a matter of feelings, not wills.
Now compare this to marriage. Like friendship, marriage has a structure and point. This structure is not subject to endless revision and modification but is a function of basic aspects of human well-being and fulfillment. As Western law and culture historically recognized, marriage is a two-in-one-flesh (“conjugal”) union of husband and wife. As a distinctive human good, marriage is an all-encompassing union.
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Use the Gifts You Were Given
You may think your work is very ordinary or unimportant, but if it is being done for God, it IS important. And that is why it needs the help of the Holy Spirit to be done right. Whether it is building chairs, cooking foods at a rescue mission, or writing articles for a website, in all these areas – and more – we need the Lord and his empowering. Yes, you might have long felt gifted as a cook or a woodworker or a writer, but if we are doing these things for Christ and the Kingdom, we need his Spirit to guide us and use us as we make use of those giftings and talents. Without him we are nothing great – but with him we can do great things.
We all have gifts and abilities which have been given to us by God. And God expects us to use them for his glory. It may not always be clear what your particular gifting or talent is, but God does have a job for each of us to do, and he equips us for that task. I recently wrote about what my giftings might be. As I said in that piece:
Often the abilities and talents that you had as a non-Christian are what God will have you make use of in Christian service. Before I became a believer I read a lot and I wrote a lot. Of course I was reading a lot of stuff I now no longer embrace, and I wrote things (such as articles for underground newspapers) that I now no longer agree with.
But where did that talent or ability come from? I believe God gave it to me, and for a while I used it for pagan purposes, but upon becoming a Christian God took those same talents and baptised them into his service. So something I always liked and was good at God used for his work. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/01/08/on-reading-and-writing-its-what-i-do/
I also mentioned in that piece that sometimes God may call you to give up a talent or ability:
I think here of the committed Scottish Christian Eric Liddell whose story was made famous in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He was born in China to missionary parents, but studied in the UK. He became a terrific runner and even competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. But he gave this up, returning to China in 1925 as a missionary, where he died 20 years later. He said he ran for the glory of God.
What might be a general rule of thumb is this: Usually we are to use the abilities and talents that we have, knowing that they come from God, although we always need to be willing to give them up if we are asked to do so. What ultimately matters is not any great talents or gifts that we have, but our obedience.
I say all this because as I keep reading through the book of Exodus I was again struck with this notion of God gifting his people to perform his tasks. Exodus is known for several things, most noteworthy being the actual exodus of God’s people out of Egypt. The first third of the book discusses that (chapters 1-18). The next six chapters (19-24) are about Sinai and the giving of the law. The last chapters (25-40) are about the tabernacle and its construction.
Sixteen entire chapters are devoted to this final topic, and great detail is provided there. One thing that stood out to me as I again read this account is that of two individuals who are specially named concerning this task. I refer to Bezalel and Oholiab. They are referred to a number of times in Ex. 31-38, and a few times in Chronicles.
We might call them master craftsmen. That they are specifically highlighted in these chapters tells us of their importance in the making of the tabernacle. Consider these two passages:
Exodus 31:1-11 The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, the table and its utensils, and the pure lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin and its stand, and the finely worked garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, for their service as priests, and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense for the Holy Place. According to all that I have commanded you, they shall do.”
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The Way, Truth, and Life
Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Saturday, August 27, 2022
It’s not enough to have found the way to God, knowing who Christ is. It’s not enough to have learned much truth about God. We also need someone who can make us alive. And this is who Christ is: “I am the life.” He restores our life to how it was always meant to be: enjoyed with God, even in his very presence.Someone’s last words are important. When a loved one speaks just before he passes away, you should listen carefully.
This is what’s going on in John 14. Jesus is with his disciples in the room where they have celebrated one last Passover. But celebration is far from their minds, for the Lord is about to be betrayed and arrested. Soon He’ll be dead. The dark shadow of the cross is looming over his words in verse 6,
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
The next days were going to be unspeakably painful. Yet it had to be this way: the cross was needed because our sin had estranged us from our holy Creator. Our unholiness meant we were banished from God’s presence and barred from ever coming back on our own. Only God could open another way. So on this night before the cross, Jesus announces the gospel by saying that He is “the way.”
We get a picture of this from the ancient world. Imagine a powerful king seated on his throne. Access to his presence is carefully controlled by one of his officials. Not just anyone can approach—and certainly not uninvited. If you dared to come near, it’d probably mean a summary execution.
But supposing that the king had a cherished son, he would put aside the requirement. No permission needed: his son could freely enter. And even the friends of the son, if they accompanied him, could go in to see the king.
That’s who Jesus is: He is the beloved Son. And when we sinners go with Christ, He is our way back to the heavenly Father.
When Jesus says, “I am the way,” He says He is willing to take us by the hand and bring us into God’s presence, even into the glory of God’s holiness. Because Christ died for sin, the way to God is now open.
You’re allowed to pray to God whenever you want. You’re allowed to meet with God in worship every Lord’s day. You’re allowed to hear God’s voice in the Word as often as you open it.
There is just one requirement to go this way: be united to Christ by faith. Remember who was allowed to go in and see the great king: only those who are the friends of the son.
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