In the late 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed the panopticon. This was a new kind of prison that would allow every (“-pan”) prisoner to be under the gaze, or potential gaze (“opticon”) of a guard at all times. This prison would be circular and have the general appearance of a wheel. Cells were to be arrayed in tiers along the outer wall while the center, the spoke, would hold an inspection tower for the guards. Because one-way glass had not yet been invented, Bentham imagined various means through which the guards could conceal their presence. Prisoners would know the guards were in the tower, they would know that at any moment the guards might be looking at them, but they would never be able to tell exactly when this was happening.

Authors Ben and Marthalee Barton describe this kind of institution.

The architecture incorporates a tower central to a circular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also maze-like connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of an observer.

Benthem believed that such an institution would allow a small number of guards to oversee a large number of inmates. He believed that when prisoners knew they were potentially being watched, they would remain compliant. The prisoners would never know if the guard had turned his back and thus they would never feel liberty to take advantage of solitude.

Benthem imagined that this concept might be extended beyond prisons to asylums and factories--even daycares and schools. In the end few panopticons were built; there are a handful prisons in the world that followed some of Bentham’s principles, but few were able to overcome the architectural and technological constraints. It was not until the advent of CCTV that we could capture his vision of the invisible, all-seeing eye.

My Jesus I Love Thee” is a sweet expression of love for the Savior that flows directly from the author’s experience of the Savior’s love for him. A remarkable thing about “My Jesus I Love Thee” is that it was not penned by an aged and experienced hymn-writer like so many of our favorite hymns. Rather, it was originally written as a devotional poem by Willam Ralph Featherston, a teenager who had recently come to faith.

Not much is known about Featherston, except that he attended a Methodist church in Montreal, that he was young when he wrote the poem (12 or 16 years old), and that he died at just 27 years of age. One story about how the poem became public is that Featherston mailed it to his aunt in Los Angeles who, upon reading it, quickly sought its publication.

It wasn’t until several years after Featherston’s death that Adoniram Judson Gordon (founder of Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary [pictured to the right]) added a melody and published it in his book of hymns, thus forever transforming this poem to a song.

As we consider the words of the poem, it is clear to see why Gordon deemed it worthy of wider attention. As we sing Featherson’s words we are all able to declare our intimacy with Christ, to sing of our assurance of salvation, to celebrate the gospel, to delight in Christ’s loveliness, and to resolve to praise Christ through all circumstances. The movement of each of these themes extends from now—this very moment—into eternity.

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I love Thee because Thou has first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree.
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

I'll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I'll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now.

You can find a recent recording on the album Hymns from Page CXVI. You can download it for free (until March 31) at pagecxvi.com/jubilee/. Another excellent and recent recording of this hymn can be found on the album Depth of Mercy by Red Mountain Music. Listen here.

You cannot follow the news these days, and especially technological news, without reading about the perils of sitting. Yes, sitting. In a recent TED talk Nilofer Merchant explained “People spend 9.3 hours per day on their derrieres, eclipsing even the 7.7 hours they spend sleeping. Their sedentary lifestyles contribute 10 percent of the risk of breast and colon cancer, 6 percent of the risk of heart disease, and 7 percent of the risk of type 2 diabetes.” 

“Sitting is so incredibly prevalent that we don't even question how much we're doing it ," Merchant told the TED audience. "And because everyone else is doing it, it doesn't even occur to us that it's not OK."

"In that way, sitting has become the smoking of our generation."

Merchant is far from alone in declaring the dangers of our sedentary office lifestyles. All over the news we find people warning us that all our sitting is killing us.

One of the common solutions is using a standing desk in place of, or in addition to, a normal sitting desk. I am a restless person who is always tapping my foot, shaking my leg or otherwise being annoying. I was just beginning to look into purchasing a standing desk when I was offered an UpDesk if I would consider sharing a review.

The UpDesk is a new product and a unique one in that it goes up and down, allowing it to be both a standing and sitting desk. One version uses a crank while another is electronic. I have been using it for about a month now and have been considering three different things: the value of a standing desk, the value of a desk that can be used for both sitting and standing, and UpDesk’s implementation of each of these.

A Standing Desk. I have enjoyed using a standing desk. It takes some adjustment to do standing what I am accustomed to doing sitting. I found typing, reading, and studying simple enough, but struggled with handwriting. Standing is particularly helpful in the afternoon when my energy is beginning to lag a little bit. Though it seems counter-intuitive, I actually gain energy and focus by standing up instead of sitting.

A Standing & Sitting Desk. While I have enjoyed using a standing desk, I do not want to stand all the time. This is especially true early in the morning and late at night. Standing through a complete 8 or 10 hour workday would be too draining. The ability to have a standing or sitting desk and to be able to transition back-and-forth is brilliant. Most people wind up having two different desks but it is far better, I think, to have one that will do both.

Gospel-centeredness is all the rage today. We are told to live gospel-centered lives, to pray toward a gospel-centered faith, to have gospel-centered humility, to be gospel-centered parents, to form gospel-centered churches, to have gospel-centered marriages, to say goodbye at gospel-centered funerals. The gospel, we are told, must be central to all we are and all we do.

This is good. God really does mean for the gospel to be central to the lives of his people and to be right at the center of the church. Joe Thorn defines the gospel-centered life like this: “[T]he gospel-centered life is a life where a Christian experiences a growing personal reliance on the gospel that protects him from depending on his own religious performance and being seduced and overwhelmed by idols.” Meanwhile the gospel-centered church is “is a church that is about Jesus above everything else. That sounds a little obvious, but when we talk about striving to be and maintain gospel-centrality as a church we are recognizing our tendency to focus on many other things (often good and important things) instead of Jesus. There are really only two options for local churches; they will be gospel-centered, or issue driven.”

I recently went searching for all the gospel-centered books I could find, which is to say, books that explicitly mention “gospel-centered” (or a very close synonym) in the title. Then I went a little further afield and looked for books that clearly and unapologetically teach gospel-centeredness even without using the term in their title. It is an expansive list and one I have shared below.

The sheer volume of gospel-centered books caused me to pause and reflect on both the benefits and concerns of what is clearly a contemporary trend.

Concern: “Gospel-centered” is a relatively new term. In fact, of the books listed below, only a couple of them are more than 10 years old. This may lead us to believe that this generation has captured something unique and it may feed what C.S. Lewis refers to as our chronological snobbery. Yet Christians have been writing gospel-centered books for as long as there have been books, even if they haven’t used the term. John Owen may well be the most gospel-centered writer in Christian history but you won’t find him using those words.

Benefit: “Gospel-centered” reminds us time and again of the utter and essential centrality of the gospel to the Christian life and to the Christianity community. There is no area that is outside the purview of the gospel; there is no area the gospel does not speak to. We can see this simply by looking at the list below, and can see it more clearly by reading some of the books.

Concern: “Gospel-centered” is a popular term and one we may look to as a mark of conformity or orthodoxy, as if using the term is inherently good. However, in some cases it is more of a sales strategy than a theological distinction. Further, not every author means the same thing by it and some authors understand it more fully than others.

Benefit: “Gospel-centered” books are consistently and patiently teaching us that the gospel really does apply to every area of life. As the list below proves, the gospel has direct application to everything. (Note: There is not yet a “Gospel-Centered Sex” book; however, it is probably on the way and may well be very helpful! If a couple consistently applies the implications of the gospel to the marriage bed, they will inevitably have a healthier marriage.)

Concern: “Gospel-centered” is the flavor of the day and with all the material using the term, we will eventually grow weary of it. I think it is safe to predict that ten years from now we will not be publishing nearly as many books that explicitly use the term “gospel-centered.” The danger is not in growing weary of the term--terms come and go--but growing weary of gospel-centeredness itself.

Here, now, is the big list of Gospel-Centered Everything. I have no doubt that even now it is an incomplete list and have no doubt that there will be many titles to add in the months and years to come.

Abide with Me” is one of the best-loved English hymns of the past 150 years. We see this both in its enduring usage in churches today and in its ongoing appearances in modern culture (for example, in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics).

What about the hymn has made it so well loved?

The words, of course, have a lot to do with it. Each verse ends in the plea “abide with me,” making the hymn a sustained call for God’s personal presence in every stage and condition of life. The hymn resonates deeply with the hearts of those who feel their need of God. When Aileen and I suggested this song for our wedding we were told, “It’s a funeral song.” But we saw it as a deep challenge to seek God in all of life’s circumstances, till death do us part. We just went ahead and added it to the program.

Help of the helpless, O abide with me… .
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me… .
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me… .
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

The music has also given the hymn strong appeal. It has been sung to several different tunes over the years, with the most popular being “Eventide” by William Henry Monk, a particularly stirring melody. In 2007, Indelible Grace released a recording of the hymn featuring a fantastic new melody, which they have graciously made available as a free download (see below).

One other aspect of the hymn which may also contribute to its significance is the story of its author and the context in which he wrote it.

The author of the hymn, Henry Francis Lyte, was an Anglican priest and vicar of All Saints Church in Brixham, England. He was also a published poet and accomplished hymnwriter who also penned “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken” and “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.”. For most of his life Lyte suffered from poor health, and he would regularly travel abroad for relief, as was the tradition in that day. Nevertheless, he developed tuberculosis and, at the age of 54, came near to the end of his life. His daughter, Anna Maria Maxwell Hogg, recounts the story of how “Abide with Me” came out of that context.

The summer was passing away, and the month of September (that month in which he was once more to quit his native land) arrived, and each day seemed to have a special value as being one day nearer his departure.

His family were surprised and almost alarmed at his announcing his intention of preaching once more to his people. His weakness and the possible danger attending the effort, were urged to prevent it, but in vain. “It was better”, as he used to say often playfully, when in comparative health, “to wear out than to rust out”. He felt that he should be enabled to fulfil his wish, and feared not for the result. His expectation was well founded. He did preach, and amid the breathless attention of his hearers, gave them a sermon on the Holy Communion… .

In the evening of the same day he placed in the hands of a near and dear relative the little hymn, ‘Abide with Me’, with an air of his own composing, adapted to the words. (A Dictionary of Hymnology, Vol. 1)

Just weeks later, while on holiday in Nice, France, Henry Lyte went to be with Jesus. It was November 20th, 1847.

(The author’s handwritten version; click to see full-size)

Not many hymns have dramatic stories behind them. This one is not all that dramatic; but knowing that it was written by a man who was very near death at a relatively young age helps us feel its weight and sobriety all the more.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea--
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Free Download

Indelible Grace has kindly offered their rendition of “Abide With Me” as a free download from NoiseTrade. It includes a PDF with the handwritten lyrics, lead sheet, chord chart, and piano sheet music. While you have the ability to leave a “tip” for the song, do feel free to take it for free (without guilty conscience! It is their gift to you). Also, if you’d like to buy any of Indelible Grace’s albums you can use the code ABIDE at the official store and get 20% off any CD.

These have been troubling days for C.J. Mahaney and everyone associated with Sovereign Grace Ministries. Once a thriving and growing group of churches, SGM has recently seen many of its key churches and leaders disassociate themselves, including the flagship Covenant Life Church under the leadership of Joshua Harris. This turbulence has followed allegations that C.J. Mahaney has proven to be unqualified as a leader, having damaged many important relationships through pride, judgmentalism and deceit. These charges forced a leave of absence, decisions about church governance, discussions about the jurisdiction of denominational leaders, and so much more. As churches have separated, friendships have been disrupted and long-time working relationships severed. In the midst of all of this, SGM's ministry headquarters relocated from Gaithersburg, Maryland to Louisville, Kentucky, where C.J. has planted Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville.

More recently, the ministry has faced allegations that many years ago there was significant sexual abuse within Covenant Life Church and its associated school. Though none of the current SGM leaders have been implicated in this abuse, a lawsuit that will soon go before the courts alleges that they responded unwisely when it was reported to them and that they failed to take sufficient action on behalf of victims. National media outlets have taken up the story. SGM has sought dismissal of the suit on the basis of the First Amendment and on the basis of unclear allegations.

Today I want to explore how we can think about all of this in what I hope is a distinctly Christian way. Some have heard bits of information through blogs or word of mouth. Some have read stories in the Christian or mainstream media. Most of us struggle to think well and wisely about it. I have no more information than you do, so will be relying on what has already been made public through media new and old.

Before I begin, it may be useful for me to explain the nature of my relationship with C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries, though there is actually very little to explain. I recall meeting Mahaney only one time and for no more than two or three minutes. To my knowledge we have never corresponded by email or any other media. He and I have never shared a speaking platform and I have never spoken at a SGM event (though I did liveblog a couple of them several years ago). All this to say that I write as an outside observer rather than as a personal friend and write this article primarily for the benefit of other outside observers.

Now, let me share how I have been thinking about it.

There Are Implications

Obviously the situation carries far-reaching implications for Mahaney and for SGM. But there are implications for you and me as well. The Bible is clear that a distinguishing characteristic of Christians is to be our love for one another. John 13:35 says it plainly: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Love for other Christians is the great test of our commitment to Christ and our likeness to him. This love is put to the test in a unique way in the midst of trouble and disagreement.

This situation is unfolding before a watching world that loves nothing more than to see Christians in disunity, accusing one another, fighting one another, making a mockery of the gospel that brings peace. You and I are responsible to do well here, to be above reproach in our thoughts, words and actions. We are responsible to be marked by love whether evaluating a difficult situation or taking appropriate action. We can make the gospel look great or we can make it look insignificant.

Believe and Hope All Things

The great theme of the Bible is God's unfailing love. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul explains some of the implications of this love, saying that it "believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things" (v7). This is not a call to be naive or to deny the obvious, but an instruction to maintain a hopeful attitude toward others, even, and perhaps especially, those who have been accused. The Christian's attitude toward others, especially in difficult times, is to be one of optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than doubt. We, of all people, should be slow to put aside hope and belief. This means that I owe it to C.J. Mahaney, to SGM and to those who have levelled allegations to believe the best about them, to hope all things for them.

Admonition, or any kind of tough love, is a Christian responsibility and an often neglected evidence of the Spirit’s work within us. Perhaps for fear of coming across as judgmental, “holier than thou,” or insensitive, or perhaps out of fear of burning a bridge or just plain fear of man, we can neglect warning one another.

Admonition Is Loving

But the Bible teaches us that admonishing or warning one another of the sin (or danger of sin) we see in each others’ lives can be a sign of deep love. In Psalm 81 we see a loving God admonishing his cherished people:

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!
O Israel, if you would but listen to me! …
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
(Psalm 81:8, 10)

We often see this kind of loving admonition in Paul’s ministry as well. On his way back to Jerusalem, in an emotional final meeting with the Ephesian elders, Paul reminds them that “for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears” (Acts 20:31). And to the church in Corinth, after several chapters of correcting them for their divisiveness, Paul clarifies, “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children” (1 Corinthians 4:14). His love for these people was so great that he would not neglect to warn them of sin’s presence and sin’s consequence.

Admonition Is Commanded

Admonition is not only modeled to us in Scripture, but is also clearly commanded:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1Thessalonians 5:14)

Paul commands admonition in these chapters because he knows that, as the author of Hebrews says, we are prone to being “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” and therefore must “exhort one another every day” (Hebrews 3:13) if we are to endure in the Christian life. What may seem a difficult negative is actually a loving positive.

Although admonition can be an unpopular way of loving one another (because, really, who wants to be confrontational or negative?), Scripture tells us it is necessary for our spiritual health and progress and, therefore, provides us with helpful examples of it in action.

A few days ago I reflected on the human brain, God’s masterpiece. Those reflections came as I read the popular book Moonwalking With Einstein, a book that deals with the art and science of remembering everything (or anything, for that).

The first lesson is the one I shared in “God’s Masterpiece”—that the human brain is a remarkable creation that screams the existence of God. The second lesson is a very simple one: there are no foolproof shortcuts to memorizing. There are techniques that can be employed, but for most people most of the time, memorizing will be long and intense labor. The third lesson has to do with the way we treat books today in comparison to the way people treated books in ages past. While we cannot necessarily assume that the old way is the best way, it is worth considering how different our reading is today from days past.

For those early writers, a trained memory wasn't just about gaining easy access to information; it was about strengthening one's personal ethics and becoming a more complete person. A trained memory was the key to cultivating "judgment, citizenship, and piety." What one memorized helped shape one's character. Just as the secret to becoming a chess grand master was to learn old games, the secret to becoming a grand master of life was to learn old texts. In a tight spot, where could one look for guidance about how to act, if not the depths of memory? Mere reading is not necessarily learning—a fact that I am personally confronted with every time I try to remember the contents of a book I’ve just put down. To really learn a text, one had to memorize it. As the early-eighteenth-centry Dutch poet Jan Luyken put it, “One book, printed in the Heart’s own wax / Is worth a thousand in the stacks.”

In ancient days, books were a means to mastery and mastery came through memory. There were relatively few books and those books were mastered rather than skimmed. “The ancient and medieval way of reading was totally different from how we read today. One didn't just memorize texts; one ruminated on them--chewed them up and regurgitated them like cud--and in the process, became intimate with them in a way that made them one's own.” That sounds very much like what David did when he meditated on God’s Word both day and night.

Those who read did so in order to remember. This has important implications.

This is the 24th installment in a series on theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, faith, pride, election, revelation, atonement, adoption, sanctification, incarnation, idolatry, the church, holiness, salvation, judgment, heaven, and hell.

“Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so.” —D. A. Carson, Worship by the Book

If you do a word search in the ESV for worship, you’ll find almost 200 occurrences of some form of the word. Scan through these and you’ll soon learn what the biblical authors meant by worship. Here are the most common ones I see:

1) Worship is about giving glory to God by responding to his self-revelation.

“All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name” (Psalm 86:9).

2) Worship is about bowing down, literally or figuratively, to show subservience to God.

“And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever” (Revelation 4:9-10).

3) Worship is about offering sacrifices to God.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

There is a progression:

• worship is most essentially the glorifying of God by responding to his revelation of himself;
• we glorify God (and therefore worship him) by bowing down and obeying him; and
• we obey God (and therefore glorify him, and therefore worship him) by offering all that we have and all that we are as a sacrifice to him.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss says it well: “Worship is a believer’s response to God’s revelation of Himself. It is expressing wonder, awe, and gratitude for the worthiness, the greatness, and the goodness of our Lord. It is the appropriate response to God’s person, His provision, His power, His promises, and His plan.”

Much of what makes the Internet powerful is tied up in the word “cyberspace.” Oddly, much of what makes the Internet dangerous is tied up in that same word. The word was coined by William Gibson and appeared first in his novel Neuromancer. Whatever its original meaning, cyberspace has come to refer to what happens when we interact with one another through our digital devices. The big trick of cyberspace, and what makes it different from every form of media before it, is that it makes us believe we can extend a sense of self beyond the body. The word “cyberspace” and the idea behind it make us believe that when we go online, we actually go somewhere.

Here is how I explain it in my book The Next Story:

Perhaps the heart of this confusion is our insistence that the Internet is a there, that it is a place. We never referred to the space between my mailbox and my friend's mailbox as a place (letterspace?). Letters were in transit. They were in trucks or on trains, but they were not in a place. When I wrote a letter, I was not entering a "letter world." Similarly, when I watched TV, an inherently nonparticipatory act, I was still in my living room, not in some strange place between my home and the cable company. But when it comes to the Internet, we talk about entering cyberspace, a space that is really no "place" at all. We insist that when we participate in an online forum or take on a character in an Internet-based video game, we are present somewhere and somehow. We take our sense of self, our sense of presence, and transport it into the ethereal world of bits and bytes. Suddenly we are here and there, at a desk in body but in soul or spirit somehow present in cyberspace. And this is new to us, new to the human experience. When we venture into this world, this mediated world, we leave our bodies behind. And more and more of us are finding that we actually like it this way, that being able to experience a space free from the limitations of real presence brings a kind of joy.

Cyberspace has given us a new way of understanding the relationship of life and being to our flesh-and-blood bodies. We now see cyberspace as a place but also as a state of being. Cyberspace gives us a place to be ourselves apart from our bodies. And in many cases the draw is irresistible. Often, we are led to view this as a superior alternative to the real world. Why? Because it is a place that allows us to break free of the limits of our bodies and our God-given circumstances.

Much of the Internet’s power to build new and healthy relationships came from the belief that we were actually together when we interacted online. This blog is successful at least in part because it gives us a closer kind of community than if I were to write all of these things in a newsletter and send them to your mailbox. Yet many of the Internet’s negatives also owe to cyberspace. Internet pornography is powerful at least in part because we feel more closely tied to the naked people on the screen than we do when we see them on the pages of a magazine. Old flames are quickly kindled through Facebook because we somehow feel that we are together with an old boyfriend when we chat with him. Cyber-church gives the illusion that we are together in a genuine community, even if we are a thousand miles away from one another.