The following quotation describes Frodo’s experience in the Elvish land of Lothlorien after Gandalf was lost in the Mines of Moria on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum. It not only illustrates the renewing power of the Gospel but also intensifies longings within me for the renewal of all creation (Romans 8:18-23).

The [other members of the fellowship] cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lorien there was no stain (The Fellowship of the Ring, 365).

Both Tolkien and Lewis have a way of writing that somehow evokes the eternal!

Here’s a little inside look at what often takes place on Saturdays in the Cruver household. About video one: Our boys regularly try to perfect the art of tackling by taking on our Australian Shepherd. These tackling sessions usually last anywhere from 5-15 minutes. About video two: Here’s a warning—If you are of weak constitution, don’t watch it. We Cruvers love to risk life and limb. Although…it might be helpful to know that we live near the end of a deadend street.

Video one:

Video two:

Here are a few more pics from my Scotland trip this past July. The first two were taken on my day trip into the Highlands.

The mountain (823 ft) in the above pic is Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. It provides a great panoramic view of the city.

I took this self-pic from the top of Arthur’s Seat. Edinburgh Castle is directly under my chin. It was very hot and humid that day.

The mountain above is located on the southeastern side of Arthur’s Seat.

Today’s blog recommendation is Conquering Thirst by James Gordon, a former student of mine.  He’s a philosophy major at the University of Michigan-Flint and writes an interesting blog.  Give him a visit.

What should I write about on my blog?  I’d like to write a series of posts that address various issues/topics from a gospel-centered perspective.  For example: “The Gospel and Work” or “The Gospel and Entertainment”, etc.  What topics would you like to see me tackle at some point? The Gospel and ___________.  The sky is the limit (within reason)!

Wrap your mind around this.  T.F. Torrance writes: 

We believe that what God is toward us in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, He is in Himself, antecedently and eternally in Himself; and that what He imparts to us through the Spirit who sheds the love of God into our hearts, He is in Himself, antecedently and eternally in Himself.  It is thus that through Jesus Christ God has given Himself to us and through the Holy Spirit takes us up into communion with Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the one God of all grace whom we know as the God of our salvation.

Think of the immense revolution this means for our understanding of God.

It means that God is not some remote, unknowable Deity, a prisoner in His aloofness or shut up in His solitariness, but on the contrary the God who is free to go outside of Himself, to share in the life of His creatures and enable them to share in His own eternal Life.  It means that God is not limited by our feeble capacities or incapacities, but that in His grace and outgoing love He graciously condescends to enter into fellowship with us, to communicate Himself to us, in such a way as to be received and be known by us.  But of course the doctrine of the Holy Trinity means that the more we know God in Himself in this way the more wonderful we know Him to be, a God who in His inexhaustible Nature infinitely transcends all our thoughts and words about Him, but who in spite of that reveals Himself tenderly and intimately to us through His only Son and in His one Spirit who are of the same divine Nature as God the Father (The Christian Doctrine of God, 3-4).

Today’s musing comes from Graeme Goldsworthy’s newest book which is not available in the US until March, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics: Biblical-theological foundations and principles. The following excerpts come from chapter 3, “Gospel-Centred Hermeneutics” (I’ve inserted a few questions of my own to help you interact with the text).

For hermeneutics to be gospel-centred, it must be based on the person of Jesus Christ. That is, the person and work of Christ are at the heart of our hermeneutics (58).

What, then, is the gospel?

The gospel is the event (or the proclamation of that event) of Jesus Christ that begins with his incarnation and earthly life, and concludes with his death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father. This historical event is interpreted by God as his preordained programme for the salvation of the world (59).

The gospel centres on what God did for us in the incarnate Christ in order to save us from sin, the devil and death. Its goal is the new creation where the people of God redeemed by Christ will enjoy the presence of God for eternity. The gospel is what we must believe in order to be saved. To believe the gospel is to put one’s trust and confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. To preach the gospel is faithfully to proclaim that historical event, along with the God-given interpretation of that event (58-59).

How important is it for preachers to understand what is and what is not the gospel when they enter the pulpit?

It cannot be stressed too much that to confuse the gospel with certain important things that go hand in hand with it is to invite theological, hermeneutical and spiritual confusion. Such ingredients of preaching and teaching that we might want to link with the gospel would include the need for the gospel (sin and judgment), the means of receiving the benefits of the gospel (faith and repentance), the results or fruit of the gospel (regeneration[1], conversion, sanctification, glorification) and the results of rejecting it (wrath, judgment, hell). These, however we define and proclaim them, are not in themselves the gospel. If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousands years ago, it is not the gospel (59).

[1] - Regeneration is a result of the gospel in that it is possible only because of the historic work of Christ. This is not the same as saying that it is the result of a person’s decision to receive the gospel.

Question for discussion: What might happen if the results of the gospel are preached as if they are the gospel?

I took this photo at the the St. Andrews cathedral ruins. The window overlooks the North Sea. On one afternoon I got some fish & chips to go, sat on the otherside of this window, and enjoyed the amazing view as I ate. Nice.

My students are quick to learn that I enjoy all things Middle-Earth.  Tolkien’s mythological world is rich with redemptive themes. If I would let myself, I could use his writings to illustrate some aspect of the gospel every time I step into the classroom.   So, whenever I discover a blog that is dedicated to exploring the redemptive themes contained within J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings, I’m hooked.  I recently discovered such a blog.  It’s called The Lord of the Kingdom: Images of Biblical Character & Themes in the Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Check it out. There’s a lot of interesting material.

Someone recently gave me $30 to purchase a book for myself.  What two or three books would you recommend?  They can be theological or non-theological, fiction or non-fiction.  My only request is that you recommend a few books that you believe are well worth reading.

One of my favorite scenes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the book not the movie) takes place in the land of Rivendell after the hobbits, Frodo and Sam, almost lost their lives at the hands of those seeking to capture the ring of power and before they continued their dangerous journey to the fires of Mount Doom in order to destroy the ring. J.R.R. Tolkien writes:

Such was the virtue of the land of Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song (The Fellowship of the Ring, 287).

The good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is of such a quality that the past, present, or imagined future, “good or ill, are not forgotten, but cease to have any power over the present.” We could write pages of application on this. If you are prone to worry about the tomorrow, you need the gospel.  If you tend to fear people or circumstances, you need the gospel.  If you are paralyzed by regret or plagued by guilt, you need the gospel.  Only the gospel can free us from these things.

How else could we apply this? (that’s an invitation to comment)

You may find this difficult to believe.  Read the article here.

Scott Anderson sent me the link to Jonathan Dodson’s blog.  It’s called Creation Project: Living from the Beginning by Considering the End. I’ve spent some time reading a number of his posts and think you’ll find him informative, insightful, and edifying.  Here’s his explanation of the purpose of his blog:

Welcome to creation project, well, you are actually already a part of the creation project–the purposeful unfolding of the world as we know it, from beginning to end. Perhaps you are thinking, how do we know this world is purposeful? And who says there is a beginning and an end (The Wachoswski brothers [read=The Matrix] certainly do)? 

It is precisely these kind of questions that this blog explores. I, in fact, believe that there was a beginning to the world, to the universe(s), and that even the primordial soup has its origins in the hands of a purposeful Creator. As a result, the world is shot through with meaning and you are not an accident. Knowledge is not merely the product of evolutionary self-enlightenment, nor our existence a cosmic joke.

What can offer such humble confidence? The triune Creator God. Through nature and nanotechnology, science and sport, math and media, art and all things profane, run the two interweaving threads of human purpose and divine drama. A wondrously complex project which has departed from its model, but not from its blueprint, creation and its cultures are destined for perfection. The beginning can only be understood from the end, and the end is a new beginning.

I invite you to join me a search for understanding and redemption, of peoples and cultures, because of the promise of a better ending to this project than beginning, because of the new creation hope offered to all who seek the Creator.

I enjoy movies with redemptive themes.  What are a few relatively unknown or forgotten movies with redemptive themes that you would recommend I watch?

Scottish theologian Thomas F. Torrance writes: 

“In bringing His work to completion Jesus laid hold of man at the very point where he contradicts Him.  Until we recognize that, and allow it to awaken in our own heart the recognition of the same antagonism within us to the love of God, we are evading the issue and destroying the relevance of the Cross to us.  In other words, the Love of God lays hold upon us and exerts its power upon us by exposing in our hearts a deep-seated hostility to God.  Is not the Cross God’s attack upon the pride and inhumanity of man, and is it not man’s attack upon the holiness and love of God?  Jesus did not endure the Cross that we might side-step that whole issue between God and man, but endured the Cross both to expose our strange hatred of His grace and in grace to remove that antagonism through atonement.  But He knows that this antagonism has its roots so deep in man’s heart and will, and even beyond it in a vast evil will, that man is helpless to remove it.  His will has become so much his self-will that whatever he does to escape from it only serves to imprison him deeper in his self-will.  Man’s hostility to God is part of a whole kingdom of evil over which he has no control.  Jesus descended into that to do battle with it, to wrestle with it and to break its power over man, and to hew a way out of its tyranny and lead men back into the freedom of God’s children.

“He who refuses to acknowledge that the hostility that nailed Jesus to the Cross is lodged in his own heart, that he too has his share in the contradiction of sinners against the love of God, renounces the relevance of the Cross to him, and puts himself beyond its saving power.  Only if we are implicated in the Cross can it be an instrument for our salvation.  Only when we allow it to uncover our guilty implication in the crucifixion of the Son of God, and to awaken in us the conviction that in our heart too there is embedded the contradiction of sin against God’s love, does the Cross exert its healing power upon us.  Then it is our Cross and our salvation, for we belong to the sinners who crucified Him and we belong to those for whom He died” (When Christ Comes and Comes Again, T.F. Torrance, 166-167).

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Jesus’ disciples, understanding that this was an identity question, answered, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matthew 16:13-14). Questions about identity are very important. They help us determine how we will or will not relate to any particular individual. If I ask someone, “Who are you?” and he answers, “I’m a career criminal”, I’ll relate to him differently than someone who answers, “I’m a career humanitarian.” Identity really matters.

Whether we realize it or not, we ask and answer the question “Who am I?” every day, multiple times a day. We may not do it knowingly, but our modus operandi is to make daily decisions based upon who we think we are, based upon our functional identity. The answer to the question, “Should I lie to my wife right now?” is dependent upon how you answer the more fundamental “Who am I?” question. If your functional identity is “I’m one who already has been given every blessing that belongs to the Spirit of God in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3), you’ll answer the “Should I lie to my wife right now?” question differently than if your functional identity is “I can’t stand to be wrong.”

Navigating life with a functional gospel-centered identity—an identity freely given to you by God in the gospel (i.e. “I’m one who has been richly blessed in Christ” or “I’m loved with an everlasting love”)—instead of a self-made identity (i.e. “I can’t stand to be wrong” or “I’ve got to be right all the time”) makes a huge difference when we are faced with temptation. I have lived long enough to learn from experience that if I am not actively finding my identity in the gospel, I will find it somewhere else. There is never a moment when I am not locating my identity in something. This is a sobering reality. I am like a fire flicking out its flames searching for something to sustain its life. Identity is not a take-it-or-leave-it commodity. Identity is not something human beings can choose to live without, even if just for convenience’s sake. It has been a part of our DNA since God created Adam and Eve. We’ll develop this more next Monday. 

I’ve been thinking about how I can improve my blogging in 2007. Even though I don’t have a copy of Blogging for Dummies, it definitely should be on my reading list. Why? Because I stink at blogging. I only post a little more frequently on my blog than J.R.R. Tolkien does on his. So, I’ve decided to attempt to become a real blogger in 2007. My goal is to blog five days a week, Monday through Friday. Most of the posts will be brief but hopefully helpful. Here’s what I’m considering doing each Monday to Friday. Feel free to make suggestions.

Mondays: Monday Musings - Monday’s posts will be given to my musings on the gospel. I will either post my thoughts on various biblical texts from a gospel-centered perspective or quotations about the gospel from books I’m currently reading.  Sometimes I’ll post a link to a particularly good gospel-centered sermon I have found.

Tuesdays: Tolkien Tuesdays or Torrance Tuesdays - First, why Tolkien Tuesdays? A blog called “eucatastrophe” that does not post regularly about J.R.R. Tolkien or The Lord of the Rings should be called something else. Therefore, many of Tuesday’s posts will be Tolkien related. I hope to include, from time to time, quotations from The Lord of the Rings that help illustrate some aspect of the gospel. If ever you find some interesting Tolkien tidbit that you think I might want to post, send it my way.  Second, why Torrance Tuesdays? No one has contributed more to my understanding of the gospel than T.F. Torrance.  His thinking on the Hypostatic Union has revolutionized my understanding of the significance of the incarnation.  Torrance is gospel-centered like few others I have ever read.  To read Torrance is to be invited to feast on the gospel.  So, every other Tuesday will highlight a quotation from one of his books.

Wednesdays: What Should I do Wednesdays - This is an idea from Jollyblogger. Here’s how it works: David Wayne writes, “‘What should I do Wednesdays’ will be a place where you, the reader, can give me advice. Each Wednesday I’ll post a question asking for your advice and invite you to share it in the comments. I would also love it if some other bloggers would take this up and do it on their blogs - who knows what kind of collective good advice we might come up with? I’ll also share my own answer to the question, so that will be my ‘what you should do Wednesday’ contribution.”

Thursday: Treasure Trove Thursdays - Thursdays will be dedicated to posting on blogs that I’ve recently discovered. If you know of a blog(s) I might be interested in discovering, send me the link.

Fridays: Foto Friday - If you have any interest in seeing my digital pics, check out my blog on Fridays. I’ll begin by posting pics from my Scotland trip this past July.

I may not (probably won’t) post something everyone of those days, but I do think this blogging strategy will slowly help me become a real blogger.