You’re Only Human
You know as well as I do that you are a finite being. Yet you know as well as I do that at times you fight against your finitude, you battle against your inevitable limits and boundaries as if they are a problem to be overcome or even a sin to be repented of. Yet what if your limits are not a bug but a feature of your humanity? What if these limitations are God’s gift and, therefore, good and worthy of embrace? These are the kinds of questions Kelly Kapic wants you to consider through his new book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News.
There are times in life when we all run into the reality of our finitude. Whether it’s through weakness or illness, whether it’s through loss or failure, whether it’s through seeing that others are smarter than we are or that others are more capable than we are, we must all at some point face our limitations. We can’t know it all, we can’t do it all, we can’t be it all. Yet “the odd thing is that, even when we run into our inevitable limits, we often hang on to the delusion that if we just work harder, if we simply squeeze tighter, if we become more efficient, we can eventually regain control.” Peace comes only when we embrace finitude as an unavoidable part of being creatures rather than the Creator. This is how we were designed and there is nothing we can do to change it. There’s nothing we should do to even attempt to change it.
There is something deep in the heart of humanity that prompts us to rebel against our finitude, against the reality that we are dependent creatures who cannot exist for a day, or even a moment, apart from God. The very first sin was a rebellion against limits God had imposed on humanity and in some way that was the prototype for every sin that has followed. But what if we were to see that dependency upon God is a gift, not a deficiency? What if we were to go farther and actually embrace our limits and thank God for them, then live at peace with all the things we cannot do and cannot be?
In this book, Kapic says he wants “us to take time to carefully think about our creatureliness. This will reveal limits, dependence, love, reliance on the grace of God, and worship. We will examine the joy of being a creature and the freedom of resting on the promises of the Creator. We will question harmful and unrealistic ideals and begin to appreciate the messiness of our complex lives.” It is only when we come to see the sheer goodness of our limitedness that we can begin to relate properly as finite creatures before an infinite Creator and “worship him as he made us: dignified, purposeful, vulnerable, finite creatures. We do not apologize for our creaturely needs and dependence on others, for we discover this is how God made us, and it is good.”
Kapic does this by considering what God thinks of us in our limitations and considering the humanity of Jesus Christ. He considers the human body and what it says about our limitations and then considers identity in the context of family, culture, and our particular historical setting. With this groundwork in place, he considers humility, time, the process of change, the local church, and living faithfully as believers in Jesus Christ. By the end he has called his readers to see and believe that we were meant to live within our limitations and to live with dependency upon God. “God made us to be limited creatures, able to freely participate in his work, confident in his presence, and grateful for his promises and provision. Let us appreciate the goodness of our finitude as we rest in the love and provision of our infinitely good God. May it be so.” May it be so, indeed.
Kapic makes it clear in this book that it is a passion project, the culmination of many years of reflecting on the subject of finitude. That passion and depth of reflection is obvious from cover to cover and leads to a book that deep in its theology and profound in its teaching. It is at once comforting and challenging. Sinclair Ferguson summarizes it well when he says, “no hastily prepared, cheap-fix antidote, You’re Only Human is the product of years of reflection and concern, the work of a mature Christian theologian and a fine teacher. It is a love gift to the church.” I, like he, am glad to recommend it.
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A La Carte (February 13)
May the Lord be with you and bless you today.
(Yesterday on the blog: Who’s Afraid of the Teenage Years?)I have been intrigued by Rhys Laverty’s writing on providing a pastor a “family wage.” I continue to think through whether or not I agree with him (and perhaps especially so in a location as expensive as Toronto). But am glad to have the opportunity to ponder it.
Is Satan bound or is Satan the ruler of this world? It’s a great question and Derek Thomas, W. Robert Godfrey, and Sinclair Ferguson all answer in slightly different ways in this video from Ligonier.
“I think about heaven a lot. When I’m sad because I’m watching a loved one’s body break down, or because human impact on the environment brings destruction and death, I look to what I know about heaven. In heaven, we will be given new bodies and will inhabit a new earth. One thing will not be made new? Our marriages. The cliché is, ‘it’s a match made in heaven.’ However, in reality, every match made on earth will be unmade in heaven.”
There are few passages more difficult than “she will be saved through childbearing.” Mitch Chase takes it on here and offers a good interpretation. “Peter once wrote that there are ‘some things’ in Paul’s letters “that are hard to understand” (2 Pet. 3:16), and 1 Timothy 2:15 would surely be among ‘some things.’ Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:15 comprise one of the most difficult verses in the whole New Testament.” Indeed.
Samuel James explains why many common arguments against using pornography may not help much as the industry inevitably migrates to the heavy use of AI. (I still think those arguments are good and important, but he’s right that they will need to change alongside the technology.)
“Expressing gratitude is a joy-producing practice. As Christians, we can start by acknowledging that everything we have and are, from each breath we take to our salvation in Christ and every blessing in between, big or small, are gifts from our gracious heavenly Father (Ephesians 1:3). Then, we can be intentional about recognizing the good gifts others give us, both the material and relational, tangible and intangible.”
Paul Grimmond…lays out seven features of our modern Western context that impact dating in profound ways.
I flee for shelter to the blood of Jesus. I will live to Him; I will die to Him. I take heaven and earth to witness that all I am and all I have are His.
—Ebenezer Erskine -
How to use Catechism in Family Worship
This post is sponsored by Christian Focus Publications and written by Ben Preston. Get your copy of The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism here.
For generations upon generations, families have used the Westminster Shorter Catechism to teach their children the biblical truths of the Faith. Here are three helpful pointers in how to use our new illustrated edition of this beloved resource.
Commit time.
We would suggest that the ideal time to open and use our book would be at regular family worship or in the quiet Sabbath afternoon. Children thrive on consistency, and your commitment to them in this manner will quickly become the regular and expected thing that the family does. Family worship doesn’t need to be long, but it does need to be a regular feature of the day. A time where the Bible is read, praise is sung, and the doctrine and practises of the Christian faith are discussed and learnt. Use the Catechism as part of that discussion.
Cooperate in the learning.
It is a great help when parents and guardians commit to learning and memorising the catechism alongside the children. For example, if you ask what the answer is to question 4 ‘What is God?’, it is important that you know the answer without looking. Do persist in this style of memorisation of question and answer, as in our experience both teacher and child can very quickly catch onto what is expected and we trust the modern language used in our book will be an aid to this. Furthermore, we recognise the importance of imagery and with this beautifully illustrated version, there are plenty of visual clues to discuss and hang memorised parts on it. The goal in this is not just robotic parroting of answers but that you would discuss and learn the principles and biblical truths that the Shorter Catechism so clearly reveals.
Community is vital.
Parts of the Shorter Catechism can be hard to understand, and children will come up with tricky questions. In these moments you should remember your place in the church community. Seek advice from your pastor and elders; they would be only too delighted to help you and your family as you seek to pass on our Christian beliefs. In using our book, in teaching the truths of the Christian faith with this pattern of asking questions and memorising answers, you are serving the body of Christ, and laying a lifelong foundation of knowledge. As a minister, I have been at countless bedsides and asked elderly saints questions from the catechism of their youth and found their eyes light up with remembrance of the answer and more importantly the confession of their faith in a God who saves and transforms.
In ending our brief blog, we recognise your great desire to see your children confess the faith. We trust in God’s promises that His salvation is for our children and us, and with given parental responsibility we set out to teach them of God who wills and works in them for His good pleasure. Our prayer is that this illustrated catechism book would be a useful resource for you in that task, but ultimately remember is it God who will provide His children with everything He requires of them. Keeping trusting in God’s promises and availing of His provisions, especially the ordinary means of grace; the Word, and Sacraments.
Get your copy of The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism here. -
A La Carte (May 13)
May the Lord be with you and bless you today.
I have only found one Kindle deals so far today, but it’s a good one at least.
Why Pro-Abortion Activists Desecrate Churches
Carl Trueman: “The church service is not simply a convenient place to intimidate pro-life campaigners. To attack a worship service is not simply to annoy the participants. It is to profane the sacred. It is to enact that which abortion itself represents. It is to spit on the very identity of those worshipping and thus upon the God whom they worship. It is to strike at the very heart of what Christians believe it means to be human, a dependent creature in the presence of a holy God.”
Why I got out of Twitter
Ray Ortlund’s reasons for leaving Twitter sound a lot like my own.
Screaming in the Face of Death
“It is difficult to tell if the countenance is grinning, scowling, or yawning open with insatiable hunger, but it seems that Death’s face is closer than usual as it stares out from the inky shadows at the edges of life. Death feels more present than usual right now.” It really does, doesn’t it?
A Conveyor Belt
“Jesus wants you to do the next thing in your walk with him. The next act of repentance, the next act of forgiveness, crush the next idol, love the next person above yourself, refuse the next temptation, tear down the next boundary. And he wants you to do nothing else.” That’s worth pondering.
Fertility Is Not A Disease
“Sexual pleasure has become the god of our culture to which all other gods must bow. One of its contenders is reproduction itself. We must separate the pleasure of sex from reproduction and fertility, or there can be no sexual freedom. ‘My body, my choice’ is the battle cry of a generation who, whether they realize it or not, are rebelling against their natural design. Nature, not the patriarchy, is what our culture hates most.”
DJ Mattson’s Senior Testimony at The Master’s Seminary
This is quite something. “Twelve days after giving his testimony, DJ graduated. He walked across the platform, received his diploma, moved his tassel from the left to right side of his cap, descended the stairs, and died.”
Flashback: The Joy of Self-Discipline
When we associate discipline only with avoidance of negative outcomes we rob ourselves of a means God uses to promote our joy and ultimately our joy in him. Where would God have you develop a discipline for your joy?As sure as ever God puts his children in the furnace, he will be in the furnace with them. —Charles Spurgeon
