What is kidney stone pain like?

Posted on July 17, 2023 by RC

The most frequent comparison is to child birth. Having only experienced one of the two kinds of pain I can’t speak to that. Ladies, however, who have been through both have attested either that they are on par, or that passing a kidney stone is worse. Either way it is important to remember not just the relative pain, but the relative reward. I have passed over a dozen stones, and not once did anyone send a gift or put on a shower. No one ever noted that a stone had my cheekbones. In short, there is no reward. One cannot even boast about beating the stone. Like Apollo Creed at the end of Rocky, we just cry out that there won’t be a rematch. Sadly, I’ve had more rematches than Rocky has had sequels.

Of course I’m not unique or alone. Some people go through their lives with zero stones. Some have one. Then there are those like me, with quarries for kidneys. I don’t recall ever having an x-ray that came back negative for stones. They are always there. The only question is when they will make a break for it. Stones in a kidney are an annoyance. Stones on the exit ramp are a car crash.

Which brings us to the real pain. Many assume, based on a lack of anatomical understanding, that the difficult part is when the stone leaves the body. Not at all. That pain is minimal, a mere irritant. The hardship is when the stone leaves the kidney and heads for the bladder. In between it travels through and obstructs that which typically carries urine to the bladder. You have a jagged, hard stone moving through a narrow passageway of soft tissue which tissue squeezes down on the stone, with pressure behind it from the blocked urine. It is kryptonite, a perfect storm of agony. This is why kidney stone is my leading candidate for what Paul described as the “thorn in his side.”

Some side dishes that go with this pain stew are infections and the accompanying fever. There is nausea caused by the backup plus nausea caused by the extreme pain. There is also the embarrassment of the moaning, screaming, crying over the pain.

The good news is that it also comes with dessert, the very thing our Lord served Paul. He told Paul He would not remove the thorn because it taught Paul of his weakness, of his dependance on His grace. That, not the absence of pain, is what I need above all else. The stones, though they may be made of calcium oxalate, are precious stones, a gift from my Father who loves me. The Lord taketh away. The Lord giveth. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

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Smart is Not a Fruit

Posted on July 14, 2023 by RC

Leave it to Reformed people to miss the point. When Paul describes the body of Christ as a body, part of which includes hands, ears, and so forth, we are quick to mark our territory — we are the brain of the church. We are the ones who are so rightly careful about our theology. The great minds of the church have been Reformed, and one could certainly argue that the greatest mind, theological or otherwise, ever to grace our North American shores was one Jonathan Edwards.

There is no question the man had a towering intellect. We would be wise to sit at his feet and learn from him. Edwards on the will is unanswerable genius. Edwards on the Trinity will make your head spin. Edwards was a titanic mind whose brilliance was overshadowed only by his earnest and passionate heart. Should we embrace the theological wisdom of Edwards? Of course, by all means. It would be better still, however, if we would just taste of his soul’s devotion.

We do not, of course, increase the fervor of our emotions by dimming the capacity of our brains. Neither, however, will we ever bear the fruit of the Spirit if the seed of the Word is planted only in the rocky soil of our brains rather than the fertile soil of the heart. We surely must know Him to love Him. We surely must study Him to know Him. But no one has studied Him more thoroughly than the Devil, and it hasn’t done him a bit of good.

Some years ago the first class I taught at Reformation Bible College had a rather pretentious name: ST101 Theological Prolegomena. This highbrow title translates roughly into “Introduction to Systematic Theology.” It is the study we do before we begin our study.Historically, such a class would begin, logically enough, with the doctrine of revelation, exploring how God reveals Himself in His Word and nature. It would consider issues of the canon and various theories of inspiration. We would, eventually, get to those important issues. In another semester, we turned our attention to what we call “theology proper,” the actual study of God’s nature and His tributes. Despite the subject matter of that future class, we began this first class with a classic work, The Holiness of God.

My fear, as I looked out at that first class, was that we would fall into the trap that has captured so many Reformed people. I feared that even with the glorious truths of Scripture, we might end up tickling ears. I would be guilty of ear tickling if, in my teaching, I encouraged the students to conclude, “What a smart person I am,” rather than, “What a glorious gospel has rescued such a wretched sinner as me.” I wanted, through studying this book together, for us all to look to the mirror of His character and glory so that we would never lose sight of just how vile we are. I wanted us to understand something of the scope of His transcendence lest we should ever be tempted to conclude that our studies had reached into the heavens like the Tower of Babel. I feared for my students precisely because I remembered what I was like as a student. What a clever Devil we battle with, who can turn our study of sound theology into an occasion for pride.

We will not begin to get better until we embrace this obvious truth: smart is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. Of course we are to love God with all our minds. But we are to love God with all our minds, not merely understand Him. When our knowledge cannot traverse the distance from our heads down to our hearts, we are suffering from spiritual constipation. We will not begin to get better until we come to embrace this obvious truth: we come into the kingdom not as scholars or students, but as children. We will not, in short, get better unless and until we learn to stop pursuing academic respectability and start seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We are to put behind us all our earthly worries. We are to stop seeking those things that the Gentiles seek.

The fruit of love, in the end, is the fruit of the Spirit. Love begets love. Love bears joy. Love bestows peace. Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control: all these break forth like the great bunches of grapes the twelve Israelite spies found in the Promised Land. None of these, however, come forth from the barren soil of our intellectual curiosity, far less the scorched earth of intellectual pride.

Edwards was a great man of God. He was so, however, because he aspired to be a man of God rather than a great man. That his descendants were senators and governors, professors and college presidents, meant not a thing to him. That they would humbly follow the carpenter’s Son from Galilee — that was what he hoped, prayed, and worked for. That is the fruit of charity.

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Pilgrims to the Promised Land

Posted on July 13, 2023 by RC

I doubt there are many believers who don’t want to go. I believe there are fewer still who have gone and aren’t glad they did. I doubt as well, however, that those who haven’t gone know well enough what they are missing. My goal isn’t to shame anyone, but below are 5 reasons why you should make it a priority to tour the Promised Land.

1. It will help you remember that the Bible is true. Because its stories are long ago and far away it is too easy for us to see the Bible like a collection of religious stories. Going to Israel helps diminish the “far away” part. The point of walking where they walked, of drinking water from the same stream Gideon’s men drank water from isn’t to have some kind of mystical experience but to have a profoundly down to earth experience. Gideon was a regular man, called to extraordinary service, just like us.

2. It will help you understand the Bible. It has been said that the two biggest problems we have in seeking to understand the Bible is that we come to it as 21st century westerners and second, that we don’t come to it as 1st century Jews. The foundation of good hermeneutics is here- if we would understand the message of a given text, we first must understand what the original author was seeking teach his original audience. We don’t live in the geography of the middle east. We don’t work in an agrarian economy. The original audience did, as did the original authors. When you go and sit in the entranceway to a millenia old sheepfold you better understand why Jesus said that He is the door, that the sheep know His voice.

3. It will help you understand His providence. The people and places that make up the true story of the Bible are not there by accident. God didn’t choose the land for His people by accident. He didn’t send them first to Jericho randomly. Seeing the geography helps us grasp His reasoning, to get more of the big picture of history.

4. It will help you better appreciate the gospel. The depth and reality of His suffering for us comes to life when we walk the via dolorosa. The beauty of the resurrection shines at the traditional site of His tomb. Grasping the innerworkings of the scribes, the Pharisees, the Romans and the disciples manifests the beauty of God’s tapestry of grace.

5. It will help you better appreciate the universal need of the gospel. Visiting Israel is not a trip you take to meet with all your spiritual kin. Instead you see there, among the living, the myriad paths of the walking dead. Whether it is pious Jews chanting at the wailing wall, superstitious Roman Catholics rubbing their saint charms on the rock of the annunciation, dedicated Muslims heeding their call to prayer, or the vapid scurrying about of the hardened secularists, you will be surrounded, just like at home, by people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Both earth and heaven are full of believers who never saw the land of Israel. Going there won’t save anyone. But if you can go, you will be glad you did.

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Sacred Marriage; Prophetic Voting; Calling His Name & More

Posted on July 12, 2023 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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What About Me and My Weeds?

Posted on July 11, 2023 by RC

Jesus’ message about the one with the log in his eye trying to help the one with the speck in his eye isn’t just about measuring different sized irritants in our eyes or different sized sins in our hearts. Its message isn’t simply, “Be sure to rebuke only those who are less godly than you are.” Rather it reminds us of the importance of giving our attention to our own weaknesses before we worry about the supposed weaknesses we see in others.

CS Lewis made a similar point in his Screwtape Letters. Therein he had Screwtape, the senior demon encourage Wormwood, the junior demon to encourage his “patient” to cultivate an amorphous and powerless love for distant abstractions while disdaining a love for his annoying neighbor in the pew beside him. We do the same with sin. We find it so much easier to raise up our moral outrage against people and sins that are far from us. It’s a rather handy distraction from ourselves and the sins that are in us. Angry Greta can hate with the heat of a thousand suns those nameless capitalists that are fiddling while Gaia burns, and in so doing pay no attention to the large sinner footprint she is laying down on her way to eternal warming. Shame on her.

We should not be surprised when unbelievers do this. But aiming close, we find we have much the same problem. I too find it easy to rage against the sins of people I’ve never met, and in so doing construct a delusion that they are worse than I am. The good news, on the other hand, is that there is so much more I can do about my own sins and failures than I can do about geo-politics in Hong Kong, or internal intrigue in the Kremlin, however brutal things may be. Whether it is a log or a splinter, by looking into that mirror which is the Word of God, I can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, take it out. Not so I can then give my attention to the sins of others, but that I can turn my attention to the other sins of mine. There isn’t one mere speck, nor one mere log in there. There’s enough stacked wood for a New England winter in my eye.

When you and I determine to debate over the relative merits of him, whomever he may be, whichever side I may take, we have both taken ourselves out of the one arena where we can do the most good- worrying about our own sins. Yes, of course there’s a time and a place to warn of wolves, to mark the divisive man. That time, however, isn’t in the midst of our battle with our own wolves, nor when we are being the divisive man. Let us pick up the prophet’s mantle, and prophesy against our own failures. And God will have mercy.

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What is biblical theology?

Posted on July 10, 2023 by RC

Given that our theology ought to stem from God’s revelation of Himself in His Word, one might expect that biblical theology is simply sound theology, theology that matches the Bible. While sound theology is biblical, the adjective “biblical” here has a different purpose, to describe a particular way of practicing theology. It stands in contrast with systematic theology. The two approaches are equally important and equally valuable, each informing the other.

Systematic theology takes all that the Bible teaches on a given subject and seeks to understand it in relationship to every other subject. It seeks to ensure that what we say about the person of Christ melds together with what we say about His work, what His work tells us about the sacraments, what the sacraments tell us about the church. It takes the content of the Bible and arranges it in an orderly fashion.

Biblical theology, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of letting the Bible not only say what it says, but to say it the way it says it. It acknowledges that the Bible doesn’t begin where our systematics books begin, explaining the doctrine of revelation. Instead it begins with the true story of how He made the world. Biblical theology leaves the elements of story in place and sees the value in those elements.

There is a beautiful illustration of this distinction in CS Lewis (who, of course, has countless beautiful illustrations in his writings) and his Narnia tale, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There, Eustace Scrubb, (and he almost deserved the name), representing the prissiness of modernism, meets Ramandu, a retired star. Eustace points out that in our world stars are great balls of burning gas. Ramandu replies to this effect, “They may be made of burning gas, but such is not what they are.” Reducing a star down to its atomic make-up doesn’t get us closer to understanding stars, but farther away.

Biblical theology pushes against the weakness of systematics that can sometimes descend into abstract Aristotelian notions. When we are so busy parsing the meaning of expiation and propitiation that we miss that our heavenly Father loves us, we’re doing something wrong. Of course it is possible to err in the other direction, to allow literary flights of fancy to lead us outside the safe harbor of orthodoxy.

Which is why they are both necessary. Systematic theology is the beautiful fence God has built to keep us safe. Outside the fence is heterodoxy and worse, heresy. Biblical theology, however, is the grass inside the fence. The fence lets us know the grass is safe. What we should be eating, however, is the grass, not the fence. If your study of systematics doesn’t drive you to doxology, to tears, to worship you have turned God into an object under your microscope. If your embrace of biblical theology leads you into wild speculation, you have untethered your imagination from sound doctrine and are eating the deadly grass outside the fence.

If you have an interest in further study of biblical theology, but want to study with trustworthy guides, let me commend to you Geerhardus Vos, T. Desmond Alexander, and my friend Dr. Michael Morales.

If you have a question you’d like me to try to tackle, feel free to email me at hellorcjr@gmail.com.

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Eyes to See

Posted on July 7, 2023 by RC


It was my habit — my sophomoric habit — to proudly argue from my ignorance that we ought always to consider last things last. That is, recognizing the great difficulty in grasping the meaning of the end times and the final book of God’s Word, I thought discretion the better part of valor, and I suggested formerly that we can wait to figure out what the end means until after we have mastered all the other important stuff, like the stuff I was interested in and with which I felt reasonably competent.

I was awakened from my eschatological slumbers, however, not by finally finding a crystal clear exposition of the issues but by simply seeing the title of the book. If God revealed truths about Jesus to John, and John, by the power of the Spirit, is revealing those same truths to the church, it is not humility but arrogance that suggests, “Let’s set this aside for another time.” Jesus is revealed in the book of Revelation. His kingdom is revealed in the book of Revelation. And that is something we are called to see, even as we are called to seek.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told His disciples that they were called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. How, though, would they know when they had found it? What would their eyes see when they beheld it?

When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus whether He was the One, Jesus sent back this message: “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matt. 11:4–5). Are we to look for signs and wonders in order to recognize the kingdom?

In another instance, the disciples sought to keep children away from Jesus. They reasoned that He was far too busy for such a distraction. Jesus, however, had a surprising response: “They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:13–14). Should we, then, be looking for the kingdom where we find children? Do we recognize its borders by the youth of its citizens?

In a third instance, after Jesus had been crucified, after He had been raised from the dead, and just as He was about to ascend to His throne, the disciples asked whether the kingdom would now come. Jesus replied that they would not be told the day and the hour, but that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth after the Spirit came in power. Should we, then, look for the kingdom where tongues of fire descend or where the gospel has discipled the nations?

The gospel did, even in the first century, go forth as Jesus predicted in Acts 1. Many were brought into the kingdom. When the Christian faith arrived at Thessalonica, the angry crowd described our missionaries as “men who have turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). From humble beginnings, we see in the book of Acts the gospel changing the world. Is that, then, where we find the kingdom — where believers have unbelievers shaking in their boots?

It was not long after Jesus’ ascension, however, that a counteroffensive was launched on two competing fronts. First, the Jewish authorities kicked the faithful out of the temple and out of the synagogues. Second, the Roman Empire turned on Christians, persecuting them fiercely and putting them to death. It was in this context that John wrote what he saw. He showed the people of God the better country for which they longed. He showed them the kingdom they were seeking. Revelation reveals Jesus not in His humility, not in His tender care of the broken, not in the agony of His passion, and not in the joy of His resurrection. What the book of Revelation reveals is Jesus as our King, the Jesus who reigns. This is what is revealed — the King ruling over His kingdom.

Because we are soft, we think we are likewise being “persecuted.” Hollywood makes fun of us. Academia mocks us. And Washington turns a deaf ear to our concerns. We tear our clothes, throw dust in the air, and weep bitterly because we cannot see the kingdom, because we are weak and despised.

The same Spirit, however, who revealed the truth to John is revealing the same truth to us. He is giving us eyes to see. Our Lord reigns. He reigns in heaven, and from there goes forth into battle with principalities and powers. He reigns also, however, on earth — not just in our hearts and not just in our churches. No, Jesus reigns wher’er the sun doth its successive journeys run. All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto Him. Wherever there is a there, there you will find the kingdom of God. Last things first — Jesus is Lord.

Posted in Biblical Doctrines, Biblical theology, church, eschatology, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, persecution, politics, RC Sproul JR, sovereignty | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ears to Hear

Posted on July 6, 2023 by RC

My father and I had a few rituals. One we practiced whenever he was about to speak at a conference. I typically sat in the front row, right beside him. As he would rise to get behind the pulpit I’d whisper three words to him, “Tell the truth.” No one, of course, would accuse my father of being a coward. He earned multiple Purple Hearts from multiple campaigns in defense of biblical fidelity. All of us, however, are not immune from the desire to be liked. I didn’t doubt him. I just wanted to encourage him to tell it straight.

Ear ticklers don’t tell it straight. They give their audience not what they need to hear, but what they want to hear. We ought to look down our noses at those who tickle our ears. Too often, however, we don’t. We find it easy to rebuke those who tickle the ears of others. At the same time we insist on having our own ears tickled. We miss it, in part, because the message we want to hear isn’t the same as others want to hear. Sometimes, in fact, our ears are tickled when we’re listening to someone rebuking ear ticklers.

Just as much as ear ticklers need to be rebuked, those seeking to have their ears tickled need to be rebuked. One stand-up comic helped me gain a better perspective when he said, “You’re not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.” You can’t have one without the other. Buyers find sellers and sellers find buyers, and when the “product” isn’t so good, they both have blame to share.

The test to determine when I am under the sway of an ear tickler is a pretty simple one- do I come away thinking, “Boy, those xxxxx’s really need to change, to get it together.” Or am I tempted to conclude, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men, the ones being rebuked by this message.” When these things happen I’m in the wrong audience. I’m reading someone else’s mail. If, on the other hand, my response is, “Boy, I really need to repent and work on this failure of mine, or, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner” then I am listening to the right man. Then I am under the care of an under-shepherd and not a hireling.

The message isn’t the issue. The audience is. One can be a faithful shepherd when speaking words of peace and comfort. One can be a hireling when thundering against sin. The repentant are to be given the message of peace and comfort, the unrepentant the thundering against sin. Any audience, however, will get the messages they tend to praise. Encourage then those who step on your toes. Flee from those who heal the wounds of sin lightly. Ask not to be tickled, but to be convicted. May God give us all ears to hear.

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Sacred Marriage, 7th Commandment; Why The Supremes Are Wrong

Posted on July 5, 2023 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Compromising Positions

Posted on July 4, 2023 by RC

It is surely possible for different people to share the same goals, but to employ different strategies. What I am increasingly seeing, however, is how easy it is for strategies and goals to meld together. We all want, I trust, to grow in grace and wisdom, to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We can all agree also, I trust, that careful study of theology can be used as a means to that end, a strategy if you will. What if, however, the strategy and the goal get so entwined that we end up measuring our spiritual maturity not by the standard of godliness, but by the standard of our libraries?

I first noticed this shift in the pro-life movement. Everyone, presumably, wants the babies to be protected. Along the way some have adopted what might be called an incrementalist strategy- we work on stopping the most heinous abortions, and eventually move on to the “exceptions.” For a time that meant pro-lifers were encouraged to support both legislation and candidates that allowed for these exceptions. What totally flummoxed me, however, was in 2000, when the National Right to Life Committee not only encouraged us to vote for George W. Bush, but bestowed on him the title “Pro-Life.” This for a man who expressly, straightforwardly affirmed his conviction that the federal government ought to protect the “right” of doctors and mothers to murder babies conceived in the process of rape or incest. This is the “pro-life” candidate that evangelicals and pro-lifers voted for in droves.

More recently we have seen whole swaths of the “pro-life” movement embracing and laboring for informed consent laws, waiting periods, and clinic regulations- all bits of legislation that conclude, after every hurdle has been jumped- “and then you can kill the baby.” After forty years of this “strategy” we have sunk to crafting, lobbying for and electing officials in support of legislation on how, when and where babies can be murdered. We have confused our strategy and our goal. This, even after Roe is no more.

All of which tells us how important goals are, and how dangerous strategies can be. My goal with respect to me is that I would become a more godly man, that I would more faithfully obey the law and more joyfully embrace the grace of God. On the life issue the goal isn’t to limit the availability of abortions, nor reduce the number of circumstances in which they might take place. The goal isn’t even that the sanctity of life would be more widely recognized, nor that more babies would be saved. The goal is that God would be honored, in the faithfulness of His people, and in the protecting of His image bearers. Life is not sacred. God is sacred.

We need to learn what Joshua learned outside the walls of Jericho- we don’t seek to enlist God on our side. Instead we seek to serve Him, the Captain of the Lord’s Hosts. Our calling is to fidelity. He will bring the victory. May we go forth into this battle, as with every battle, not following our strategies, but following the Ark of the Covenant- His law, His grace, His presence. And the walls will come tumbling down.

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