Last night I attended a study group started by some friends who are members of a local Christian Reformed Church (Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church). Atty. Jerry Basiao was the study group leader. They were studying John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. I thought to myself, “Isn’t this something? Who would have thought that in such a small country as the Philippines, and in a relatively small city like Bacolod City, there would be a study group on John Calvin’s Institutes!” Someone stepped to the front and began reading a portion of ch. 1 of the Institutes on the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self. Then Atty. Basiao took over, explained a bit, and began addressing questions to the other members. Then came the fun part: We began sharing inputs, asking questions, offering our interpretations of what Calvin probably meant – it was fun! There were serious moments too, as when Elder Godfrey Serfino (an elder of Ebenezer) asked the group, How do we apply the things we’ve learned to the life of the church? (We were a mixed group actually: some Reformed, some Baptist; we even had a walk-in visitor from Pontevedra whose denominational affiliation we knew nothing about). The session lasted around 2 hours, after which we closed in prayer. Atty. Basiao encouraged each one of us to get our own copy of the Institutes. A couple of members began inspecting the books of John Calvin which the group reader (Bryan I think his name was) brought with him. We all had an enjoyable time. What a way to spend Phlippine Independence Day!
Independence Day, Spiritual Liberty
Today is Philippine Independence day – a good day to reflect not only on political independence but also on spiritual liberty. The Bible says, “If the Son therefore sets you free, you shall be free indeed,” (John viii. 36). These words imply that prior to the Son’s act of liberating us, we are in fact in bondage. We are not free. There are certain things we cannot do precisely because we are sinners and have sinful hearts.
In relation to the verse “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God,” (John 3:3) Thomas Brooks (in Volume IV of his Works) identifies a number of cannots on our part.
1. There is a natural cannot. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. ii. 14)
2. There is a habitual (Brooks uses the word habituated) cannot. “To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach: they have no delight in it.” (Jer. vi. 10) “Having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin…” (2 Pet. ii. 14) “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may he also do good that is accustomed to do evil.” (Jer. xiii. 23)
3. Finally, there is a judicial cannot. “And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed.” (Isa. vi. 9, 10) “They have not known nor understood; for he hath shut their eyes that they cannot see and their hearts that they cannot understand.” (Isa. xliv. 18)
Given our spiritual blindness and bondage, only the grace of God can set us free. And that is precisely what God does in the day of his power:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. iv. 3-6)
Pride
What is pride? Here’s C.J. Mahaney’s definition in his book Humility: True Greatness -
Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon him.
Making use of an insight of Charles Bridges, Mahaney goes on to say that pride is “contending for supremacy with God, and lifting up our hearts against him.”
What then does the proud person seek after? Self-glorification.
Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride – to rob God of legitimate glory and pursue self-glorification , contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive.
“God opposes the proud” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5) – he hates pride with a pure and holy hatred. Mahaney warns that “The proud will not indefinitely escape discipline” because “God’s opposition to pride is an immediate and constant activity.”
I’m just into the first couple of chapters but already this book is proving to be a real blessing. It makes me want to cry out to God for forgiveness for the many times I have been proud, conceited and arrogant. It also makes me realize that I shouldn’t be surprised if I often find myself humbled and even humiliated. God is serious about killing the pride in my heart so that I will learn to seek His glory and not mine. Oh, for the grace to be humble!
Labor Law – Loss of Trust and Confidence
The Supreme Court had the opportunity of reiterating some well-known guidelines pertaining to dismissal due to loss of trust and confidence in the very recent case of M+W ZANDER PHILIPPINES, INC. and ROLF WILTSCHEK, versus TRINIDAD M. ENRIQUEZ, (G.R. No. 169173) promulgated just last week, i.e., June 5, 2009. You can read the facts of the case HERE. The central guidelines on loss of confidence as enunciated in this case are as follows:
Article 282 (c) of the Labor Code allows an employer to terminate the services of an employee for loss of trust and confidence. Certain guidelines must be observed for the employer to terminate an employee for loss of trust and confidence. We held in General Bank and Trust Company v. Court of Appeals, viz.:
[L]oss of confidence should not be simulated. It should not be used as a subterfuge for causes which are improper, illegal, or unjustified. Loss of confidence may not be arbitrarily asserted in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It must be genuine, not a mere afterthought to justify earlier action taken in bad faith.
The first requisite for dismissal on the ground of loss of trust and confidence is that the employee concerned must be one holding a position of trust and confidence.
There are two classes of positions of trust: managerial employees and fiduciary rank-and-file employees.
Managerial employees are defined as those vested with the powers or prerogatives to lay down management policies and to hire, transfer, suspend, lay-off, recall, discharge, assign or discipline employees or effectively recommend such managerial actions. They refer to those whose primary duty consists of the management of the establishment in which they are employed or of a department or a subdivision thereof, and to other officers or members of the managerial staff. Officers and members of the managerial staff perform work directly related to management policies of their employer and customarily and regularly exercise discretion and independent judgment.
The second class or fiduciary rank-and-file employees consist of cashiers, auditors, property custodians, etc., or those who, in the normal exercise of their functions, regularly handle significant amounts of money or property. These employees, though rank-and-file, are routinely charged with the care and custody of the employer’s money or property, and are thus classified as occupying positions of trust and confidence….
The second requisite of terminating an employee for loss of trust and confidence is that there must be an act that would justify the loss of trust and confidence. To be a valid cause for dismissal, the loss of confidence must be based on a willful breach of trust and founded on clearly established facts.
The case also includes a discussion of when and when not to grant moral damages in labor cases, and when is a General Manager personally liable for an illegally dismissed employee’s labor claims. You can read the whole thing HERE.
What is Man? What is Your Life?
What is man? A vessel that the slightest shaking, the slightest toss will break… A body weak and fragile, naked, in its natural state defenceless, dependent upon another’s help and exposed to all the affronts of Fortune.”
(Seneca, quoted in Alan de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy)
The New Testament says something similar; the difference is it subscribes to the idea of providence, not fortune.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)
Civil Yet Firm
I agree with Madeleine Albright on the importance of learning more about Islam (see The Mighty and the Almighty). From an individual Christian’s perspective, the challenge is how to remain committed to one’s faith without being discourteous or uncivil to another person’s faith, and yet remain firm on matters of honest disagreement and not compromise one’s duty to evangelize. The danger of extremism is real, as Albright points out:
It does not take much to lead groups of people with extreme views to believe their faith is under attack and that their duty is to defend it by every available means.
Homer and Paul on Anger
Homer in The Iliad (Lattimore translation) has Achilleus setting aside his anger with these words:
Still, we will let all this be a thing of the past, though it hurts us, and beat down by constraint the anger that rises inside us. Now I am making an end of my anger. It does not become me unrelentingly to rage on.
I am reminded here of the Pauline injunction not to let the sun go down on one’s anger (Eph. 4:26). There are times when anger may be the appropriate response, but generally speaking “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). It does not become a Christian to be a characteristically angry man.
But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col. 3:8-10)
Sound Mind in Sound Body
“A thinker does not spend his life in the processes of digestion.” So says Sertillanges. What has this to do with The Intellectual Life? A lot. He quotes the following (I assume these are from Aristotle, but I may be wrong):
The different dispositions of men for the operations of the soul depend on the different dispositions of their bodies.
To a good bodily constitution corresponds the nobility of the soul.
Sertillanges goes on to say that “Minds can only communicate through the body,” and that “the mind of each one of us can only communicate with truth and with itself through the body.” Thus, it follows that (Sertillanges puts this in the form of a rhetorical question) -
… in order to think, and especially in order to think ardently and wisely throughout a lifetime, it is indispensable to subject to the requirements of thought not only the soul and its various faculties, but also the body and the whole complex of its organic functions.
Practical suggestions then follow, such as: “Endeavour to keep well.” “Live as much in the open air.” “Every day you should take exercise.” “Look after your diet.” He also has this to say to lovers of pleasure:
A lover of pleasure is an enemy of his body and therefore quickly becomes an enemy of his soul. Mortification of the senses is necessary for thought…
Very good advice! We’ve heard it all before: A sound mind in a sound body. All that is left is to follow it.
Purity of Thought, Purity of Soul
In ch. 2 of The Intellectual Life Sertillanges points out that “Purity of thought requires purity of soul.” He quotes St. Thomas of Aquin:
The exercise of moral virtues, of the virtues by which the passions are held in check, is of great importance for the acquisition of knowledge.
He then asks, “What are the enemies of knowledge?” He mentions “sloth, the grave of the best gifts”, “sensuality, which makes the body weak and lethargic, befogs the imagination, dulls the intelligence, scatters the memory”, pride, envy and irritation. It is these obstacles which prevent a man of study from reaching the level of his own gifts.
Great personal intuitions, piercing lights, are in men of equal powers the consequences of moral progress, of detachment from self and from the usual commonplace things, of humility, simplicity, discipline of the senses and the imagination, of an eager impulse towards the great ends.
Be Cautious of Barth
William B. Evans, in a December 2008 article posted on Reformation 21’s website, has this to say about Karl Barth’s influence:
Moreover, the historic influence of Barth – with his problematic view of Scripture, implicit universalism, and low ecclesiology – on churches in Europe, Scotland, and America suggests that the current renaissance of interest in Barth is unlikely to empower the mission of Reformed churches today.
I, for one, am very fond of reading Barth (even if I don’t agree with everything he says), and I’m just too hooked to stop! But Evan’s concerns are well taken and I’ll bear them in mind while continuing to read Barth.
