Kuyper has been much talked about in recent years, but too seldom read.  He understood the threat that secular ideology posed to Christian ways of thinking and viewing the world.  He understood how the ideological conflict was working itself out in the debates over politics and society.

The latest issue of Credo Magazine focuses on Christian Platonism. The following is one of the issue’s featured book reviews by Gary Steward. Dr. Steward serves as Associate Professor of History at Colorado Christian University.
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is one of the few Christian theologians in the modern era who articulated a full-orbed political theology and labored to implement specific policies as a political leader of a nation.  As the founder and leader of the Antirevolutionary Party (so named for its opposition to the ideology of the French Revolution) from 1879 to 1920, Kuyper worked out his Reformed theological convictions into a complete political program, serving as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905.  In addition to this, Kuyper wrote much in the area of theology and founded the Free University in Amsterdam in 1880.
Public Theology
So much of Kuyper’s work in the area of public theology and political thought has not been accessible in English until now.  Thanks to the work of the Abraham Kuyper Translation Society and the Acton Institute, the Collected Works in Public Theology have now at last been made available in twelve large volumes that contain a trove of Kuyper’s thought on matters of politics and society.  These volumes contain many pieces that have not been published before in English, and each volume contains helpful explanatory introductions that situate Kuyper’s thought within its historical context.  The editors have gone to great lengths to make sure that the reader can work his way through Kuyper’s works and understand the significance of each piece in its historical and theological setting.  In addition to this particular volume, On Education, the Collected Works contain Kuyper’s Our Program (his political manifesto), Common Grace, Pro Rege, and other volumes with shorter pieces on the Church, Islam, business, economics, charity, and justice.
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His kingdom is still a now and not yet.  The people of Isaiah’s day looked forward to the coming of that king from Galilee, we can look back and say that He is here.  He shines His light on us, but there are still dark shadows.  At this very time those trust Him can celebrate His full and free forgiveness.  At this time those who trust Him can be comforted that He guides us and fathers us in love.  But we too look forward. 

What darkness are you passing through?  This year may have been one where you travelled through the valley of the shadow of death.  Maybe you have struggled with the darkness of depression and despair.  Maybe you feel that uncomfortable feeling of guilt for some sin that haunts you.  Jesus has come to shine His light into your darkness!
Isaiah means ‘God saves’.
The key to understanding the book of Isaiah is found in the prophet’s name.  Isaiah means ‘God saves.’
It is the eighth-century before Christ.  God’s people had been divided into two kingdoms—Israel/Ephraim in the north and Judah in the south.  Isaiah is speaking to the southern kingdom, whose king, Ahaz, is a descendant of the great king David.
The super-power of the day is the Assyrians.  Ephraim/Israel had formed an alliance with a place called Aram to protect themselves against the Assyrians.  Now Ephraim and Aram are threatening Judah: ‘if you do not join with us we will invade you.’  Rather than trust God, Ahaz forms a pact with the Assyrians.  The Assyrians had no plans to do them God.
In short, Ahaz and his people are not trusting God, and the result is going to be disastrous.  But God saves.  He is going to rescue a people who will be guided by His words.
Light from a surprising place.
The light is going to come from the region around Galilee—Zebulun and Naphtali were in the north.  When Israel and Judah were attacked this was the first place to be toppled.  The Galileans knew plenty of slavery and despair.  But God loves to turn things on their head.  From this place of darkness and oppression comes the light of freedom.  Matthew picks up these verses as he introduces the ministry of Jesus (Matthew 4:15-17).
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Written by A. Craig Troxel |
Thursday, May 2, 2024
To be born again means that God has given each of us a new heart. Just as every function and aspect of our old heart was perilously infected by sin, so also nothing in our new heart remains untouched by God’s grace—including our mind. God has graciously enlightened our understanding. Now we see our sin and we see its remedy in Christ so that we might call on the Lord with “a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). God’s grace and truth shine “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). This light does not bypass the mind. It opens the mind. 

Life is filled with choices. Some are as mundane as paper or plastic, while others are more serious, like the friend who insists, “You’re either with me or against me.” We are told that we must choose between success or happiness, hard work or a social life, science or art, being an extrovert or an introvert. It’s this or that. Some Christians would add that you must choose between your head and your heart. It reminds me of the Tin Man in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz who said to the Scarecrow, “But once I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.” The Tin Man apparently considered the head and the heart irreconcilable rivals. Perhaps you agree.
We moderns tend to associate the heart with feeling, not thinking. Naturally, this leads some to think that our knowledge of God and our love for God are two separate things. Or that it’s more spiritual to draw insight from inward intuition than theological reflection. Must a Christian, then, choose between a religion of the intellect and of the affections?
The Bible never asks us to choose between our heart and our thinking. It never encourages the impression that the heart’s mind is somehow less spiritual than the heart’s desires or will. The Bible holds these together, cordially. It might surprise many Christians to hear that according to Scripture, if your heart principally does one thing: it thinks. Let’s explore how Scripture regards the heart and its functions.
The Heart’s Unity and Its Complexity
The Bible uses the word heart more than any other word to describe our inner person (far more than words like soul and spirit). Summarizing the teaching of Scripture, we can say the heart governs the totality of our inner self—everything we think, desire, and choose flows from this one source. It is the fountainhead of every spiritual faculty within us—the spring of every motive, the seat of every passion, and the center of every thought. Your heart is the helm of your ship. The bearing it sets is the course your life will follow. That’s why the Bible interconnects your speech, repentance, faith, service, treasure, obedience, worship, walk, and love with “all your heart.” Put simply, the Bible speaks of your capacity to think, desire, feel, and choose as centered in your heart.
Within this central unity of the heart, however, the Bible also describes a threefold complexity of functions: the mind, the desires, and the will. To put this another way, the heart includes what we know (our intellect, knowledge, thought, intentions, ideas, meditation, memory, imagination), what we love (what we desire, want, seek, crave, yearn for, feel), and what we choose (whether we will resist or submit, whether we will say “yes” or “no”).
The biblical language of the heart, therefore, beautifully brings together this cooperative network of our intellect, affections, and will. This complex unity of the heart has been foundational to my own Reformed theological tradition in both its scholarly and popular forms. As a consistent biblical paradigm, it has also proven itself over time and has been confirmed by contemporary scholarship. Thus the word heart in Scripture is simple enough to reflect our inner unity and comprehensive enough to capture our inner threefold complexity.
The Heart’s Desires
Whether pursued righteously or sinfully, the heart desires companionship, security, encouragement, happiness, comfort, and satisfaction. The word used throughout the Bible for lust, fleshly passion, and worldly desire is the same word Jesus uses to express his desire to eat the Passover with his disciples. The term Paul uses for the desires of the flesh is the same one he uses for the desires of the Spirit (Gal. 5:16–17). Desires become sinful only when their object is out of bounds or the desire itself is out of balance. But all desires are strong cravings—hungry and thirsty spiritual appetites. We desire not simply what we like but what we love—what Christ calls our treasure (Matt. 6:21). We get emotional about our treasure. That is why Scripture associates the heart with feelings like anger, joy, envy, rage, anxiety, longing, sorrow, lovesickness, anguish, despair, and many other emotions (depending on whether our desires are satisfied, frustrated, or denied). Our hearts go out to what we love, and in this way our desires bring out what lies at the core of who we are.
The Heart’s Will
Often when the word heart appears in Scripture, its volitional function is in view: not only what we want but what we choose. The will decides whether we resist or submit to what we desire. Will my heart say yes or no? The battle for control of the heart is fought in the will. Which way the battle goes corresponds with the will’s strength or weakness, its callousness or brokenness, its being hardened by sin or made new by grace. The unbelieving heart’s sinful will is a stubborn, unyielding “heart of stone”—like Pharaoh’s hardened heart that resists God in rebellion. At the same time, this will is weak, unable to resist temptation. It is enslaved, unstable, apathetic, and afraid. The Christian’s heart made new by the Spirit, in direct contrast, enjoys a will that is both surrendered and strengthened. While always imperfect in this life, it nevertheless increasingly bows before God, grieves over sin, and serves Christ with humility. That same renewed heart has resolved to obey the Lord and is emboldened to die to sin, defy the world, and resist the devil. Your heart does not simply know or desire; it decides.
The Heart’s Mind
Finally, according to the Bible, the third function or capacity of the heart is to think. Let’s spend a little more time on this one, since we’re so used to thinking about thinking with our heads. You will not find biblical references to your head as the locale for your thinking.
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