An Anchor in Unfamiliar Place

I’m in a new place.

It’s all together wonderful and all together difficult. My books aren’t in my office. We are sleeping on a bed that is not our own. My routine is all messed up. Everything is different. We’ve already met wonderful people here in Marionville, and are looking forward to calling this home…but we aren’t quite home yet. We are living in a transitory apartment designed for senior citizens. It’s a tremendous blessing but, again, it isn’t home.

As we start this new chapter in our lives things can seem very fuzzy. The known is gone and every day is learning experience. I’m so happy to have an anchor. I’m also grateful for good solid biblical theology. Because even though some things change—in reality there is nothing new under the sun.

The culture here in Marionville, MO will be different than the culture in Jasper, Indiana. It will also be different than the culture in Northeast, MO where I grew up. I’m setting out to learn something about the believers here in this church. And I’m also trying to understand the culture here in Southwest Missouri. In doing this I find great comfort in this quote from John Calvin:

…miserable men do not rise above themselves as they should, but measure him by the yardstick of their own carnal stupidity, and neglect sound investigation; thus out of curiosity they fly off into empty speculations. They do not therefore apprehend God as he offers himself, but imagine him as they have fashioned him in their own presumption. (Calvin, Institutes, 47)

I find comfort in the yardstick. Even though the numbers on that measuring stick are different in 2015 Indiana than they were in 1560 Geneva, still the heart of man is basically the same. We aren’t unique in our situation. Sinners have always been the same and they (we) are saved the same way as we always have been. A dead and diabolical heart has the same prescription no matter how dead or diabolical it may be.

The yardstick that our community measures by is not decisive. Yes, it is beneficial to know that our context will interpret things through a certain lens. But at the end of the day the gospel is more powerful than those false lenses. Jesus can break the yardstick of our carnal stupidity and rescue us by His grace.

Therefore, I am encouraged today to do the same thing that Calvin did in Geneva; namely, keep preaching the gospel and sharing it with men and women. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation and that never changes. No matter what god your community has fashioned in their own imagination the real God is able to make any Dagon bow before him (1 Samuel 5:2-7).

—

Adapted from here.
Photo source: here