Though learning rapidly, I’m currently no expert on the publishing business, Christian or otherwise.  Thus, I really don’t have anything worthwhile to add to this discussion over at scita >scienda. However, as a writer, I do have some tangential comments to offer, comments that in no way demean the discussion occurring over at S>S.

Article 13 of the Belgic Confession states the following:

Article 13: The Doctrine of God’s Providence

We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.

Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly.

We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what he does that surpasses human understanding and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But in all humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us, being content to be Christ’s disciples, so as to learn only what he shows us in his Word, without going beyond those limits.

This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance but only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father. He watches over us with fatherly care, keeping all creatures under his control, so that not one of the hairs on our heads (for they are all numbered) nor even a little bird can fall to the ground without the will of our Father.

In this thought we rest, knowing that he holds in check the devils and all our enemies, who cannot hurt us without his permission and will.

For that reason we reject the damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God involves himself in nothing and leaves everything to chance.

I general terms, then, God is in charge of everything that comes to pass. For the Christian writer, as for the Christian, this truth should never be too far out in front or too far behind. In fact, it should be woven through every written word, and seen clearly between the lines of every written text. And not only that, when it comes to what we as writers do with a completed text, God’s providence should be our story.

What if you wrote an entire novel and no one ever read it? What about two? Ten?

Actually, that’s impossible for the Christian author. My publisher, Marcher Lord Press, stresses this very truth: there’s first and foremost the audience of one. It’s my publisher’s very first tip in writing, and you can read it here. I have a sign over my desk that reads an audience of one. I’ve bought in to this idea, that if God were your only audience, and He certainly is watching, it’s a better audience than you could ever hope to speak to through your writing.

It’s the same for the preacher with a small congregation. Not only are you preaching to just a few folks on Sunday, but to the great heavenly host and the church universal. The audience of one, truly believed, is an astounding truth. Not only does it have meaning for preachers and writers, but for the life of every Christian who has ever lived. How we worry at times about writing, and other such pursuits when millions have lived in obscurity, or worse. For those who lives have seemed meaningless, forgotten, hopeless, or lived righteously in vain, I remind you of the audience of one. 

He’s always there. He sees. He cares. He doesn’t read the book of your life with one eye on the TV. He doesn’t consider the conflict of your life story fictional. He doesn’t consider your inner drives, aspirations, pains, and emotions–after all you are the main character of your life–as somehow less than reality. He’s intimately involved in your story from beginning to end. Would you really consider a million human readers a better audience given what we know of God as Christians?

He is also not fleeting, not contingent, not becoming, not to be renovated by fire at the last Day. The paper you write on will fade. Your book will be forgotten on bookshelves, if it makes it that far. Computers will rust away; digital files will corrupt and be lost. But the audience of one is eternal: there is no shadow of turning in Him. A written story and a life story offered to the audience of one thereby become eternal stories, flickers of that everlasting glory that is God almighty.

As the confession states, as does God’s word, God is in control of all things that come to pass. Guess what…that includes whether you will ever be published, where you will be published, and how many pages of your book ever are read. He has his own reasons for everything that comes to pass. Ours is just to find our obedient place in His grand scheme. If yours is writing, write to the glory of the audience of one. You can have no higher calling and no greater readership, published or not.

As Randy Brandt would say, “here’s a rant.”

In light of my non-post on Reformation Day last Saturday, I offer the following: the church is in need of reformation, not revival.

Revival benefits a doctrinally sound church whose adherents are obedient, by adding numbers that may be trained into disciples. In doctrinally sound churches whose members have become slothful or have shipwrecked their faith, revival may be successful in exhorting and edifying existing Christians within the church to action, as in Rev 3:20. However, is revival beneficial for a doctrinally unsound church or a church with aberrant practices? What, after all, would be the purpose of reviving doctrinally unsound churches? Can there be a good purpose to revive doctrinally unsound churches?

It seems to me this would only encourage and excite bad belief and bad practice.

I saw a sign outside a church today on the way to pick up the lad from school. No, the sign was not on the way to pick up the lad; I was. Nevertheless, the church’s marquis featured the following in big letters: We are the only hands God has.

Call me theologically pedantic, but the message was all wrong.

Granted, it may have simply been intended as a call to action in this dark world. It may have simply been intended to urge Christians to help those in need. No argument there, but why not just say Christians, help those in need. Why not quote instead Matthew 25:40?

Or, perhaps, the message was intended to convey the truth that God is non-corporeal in nature. If so, it’s difficult to see how we as God’s hands would be included in the message. It would simply say: God is a spirit without a body, or something similar.

What I suspect, though, was something more significant. My best estimate is that the sign represents a common thought within modern Christianity whereby God does not act apart from the will of His saints. Reborn man has dominion over the earth, and through the force of faith, determines what God does and does not do. Why on earth, or in heaven, would we or God want to revive this message, or the church that proclaims it? What is required is reformation.

Sometimes the thought is disseminated this way: God rules the world through the prayers of his saints. Other times this is said: God would never override the free will of his creatures. Still other times the thought comes through as The Prince of the power of the air rules this world or God will not do this that or the other unless you speak it into existence.

Some of these are worse than others–some are downright occultic–but they all fall woefully short of sound biblical teaching. What they all have in common is a misconstrual of God’s sovereignty, and thus His nature. Why would we seek to revive them?

Again, what the church needs, the American church at least, is reformation. Speaking of hands, how about Deuteronomy 32:39-42:

See now that I myself am He! There is no god beside me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.

I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.

If we’re God’s only hands, who’s gonna volunteer for this assignment? Who’s gonna grasp the sword of judgment, or draw back the bow and make the arrows drunk with blood? God forbid, someone out there would probably raise their hand, but I think most of us get the point. And certainly, who of the hands among us will raise their hand and say: I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever…

God forgive us. I know that God does not have hands. I also know He does not need them; He spoke the heavens and the earth into existence without them. I also know that we are called to represent Him on this earth. But it’s as representatives, not His causal agents. We are the new priesthood; we represent him and our high priest Jesus, albeit imperfectly, and representatives always serve a master, and their master’s will.

Yes, I know God does not have hands: God is spirit according to John 4:24, and elsewhere. But what else does John 4 say?

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.

Perhaps they had the best intentions, but God wants spirit and truth. Where there is a lack of truth there will not be revival, but reformation, even if through judgment. Once reformation’s done, revival may not be far behind.