Blood People

"Dia, What are you doing? Dia! Look at me, look at me. What are you doing? You are Dia Vandy, of the proud Mende tribe. You are a good boy who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much. She waits by the fire making plantains, and red palm oil stew with your sister N'Yanda and the new baby. The cows wait for you. And Babu, the wild dog who minds no one but you. I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again." Blood Diamond (2006)

If you have not seen Blood Diamond, the foregoing dialogue comes from a powerful scene where Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) tries to convince his young son (Kagisa Kuyers), who has been brainwashed by a local warlord, to put down his pistol. Solomon is successful through reminding his son of his love for him and just who he is, and hence bringing him back to reality.

I was reminded of this scene as the pastor preached on 1 Peter 1-2 this morning: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)

Like Vandy's young son, we often need to be reminded of who we are in Christ - a covenant child, heir to the promises, purchased with his son's precious blood, predestined to be his. The apostle Peter opens his first letter accordingly. Only when we know who we are can we truly respond, albeit not perfectly, in love and obedience to our Lord.

How quickly we forget...

Girls and Snakes

"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

It sounds silly now, but growing up I thought the purpose of this verse was primarily to explain why girls did not like snakes. As an adult, I think I just dismissed the verse like so many others that I could not explain. However, after reading Geerhardus Vos' Biblical Theology, I found the Gospel there.

"The emphasis rests on the pronoun: God says 'I will put enmity'. Here is not primarily an appeal to man but a divine promise. Nor does God merely instigate or promote enmity; He sovereignly puts it. . .The essence of the deliverance consists in a reversal of the attitude assumed by man towards the serpent and God respectively. Man in sinning had sides with the serpent and placed himself in opposition to God. Now the attitude towards the serpent becomes one of hostility; this must carry with it a corresponding change in man's attitude toward God. God being the mover in the warfare against Satan, man, joining in this, becomes plainly the ally of God." Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, Banner of Truth Trust, 2004, p. 42.

I look forward to that day when our redemption is complete and we love sin no more.

The Dominion Mandate

"We have only one thing to give up. Our dominion. We don't own the world. We're not kings yet. Not gods. Can we give that up? Too precious, all that control? Too tempting, being a god?" Anthony Hopkins as Ethan Powell. Instinct (1999)

I have found that Hollywood often times portrays the depravity of man correctly. However, it rarely, if ever, gets the solution right. It simply does not understand the Gospel. A few years ago, I might have somewhat agreed with Ethan Powell's statement. That is, I saw mankind as the environment's biggest problem. I did not grasp that all of creation was cracked when Adam sinned. I thought that if we would just let nature take its course, it would work itself out. Today, I see that attitude is entirely unbiblical.

Are we not given the mandate to subdue the earth?

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:28-31 (ESV)

Granted, we will not see a perfect earth until it is restored by our Lord, but in the interim we are in a sense the caretakers of it Mr. Powell. To give up control of it, moreover, not to actively pursue dominion over every corner of it, would cut against scripture.

I was recently given a tour of a large state farm that a good friend of mine supervises. He described the research they were doing to produce better varieties of fruits and vegetables, e.g., ones that were resistant to disease. I thought what a great example of subduing the earth. In effect, should we not be working toward restoration of the earth to its pre-fall condition?