I love David Powlison, who died on June 7, 2019, on a Friday, and I would like to honor and rejoice in his Savior by sharing with you seven reasons for this.
I say “master”, not “I love” because that’s what love is like. It does not cease to exist during separations. It’ll be brief.
- I didn’t hide it when I saw it.
- With CS Lewis.
- As someone who could see what was really there.
- It’s no coincidence that Lewis’ anthology is called A Mind Awake.
- And an anthology of David’s name is Seeing with New Eyes Were the two deeply awake to the subtlety of things?Wake up in the morning and pay attention to the consistency of the mattress.
- The pleasant weight of the blanket on your feet.
- The heat of the sun’s rays.
- The gentle murmur of distant circulation.
- The pure essence of things.
Lewis and Powlison gently awakened me from the recurring dream of my mind in theoretical and abstract reconstructions of things, one step ahead of the materiality of reality. These people have noses! (Lewis) Wake up, these people have stories!(Powlison)
I invite you to watch some of David’s short videos on YouTube, when you think there’s nothing more to say about an unstoppable personal problem, he sees it from a new angle, then from another angle and from another angle, then I realize that my lack of Words in the face of this sadness is due to the fact that I’m not aware of what’s really there , wonders, wonders in the broken human being before me and wonders in the word of God, helped me to see again and again. .
Let me illustrate with a story that told
About 1,500 years ago, the warrior leader of a primitive Germanic tribe bluntly asked a visiting missionary, “Why should I believe this Jesus that you are telling me?The man of God answered, “Why do you marvel in Jesus Christ?”Right?.
Did David believe in Jesus Christ? This is the key to seeing and experiencing all things correctly. And everything is wonderful seen the right way. And, once tested correctly, will it heal?Open your eyes, give joy. Jesus, seen and announced wisely, is the key to all that is true, good, complete, honest, and lasting. The Son of God and the word of God will not begging among the secondary reserves of secular philosophies or psychology.
If we are going to serve the people well, David said
“We must know the sheer glory and goodness of what our Father gave us in Jesus Christ. To know Jesus in truth and in love is to find the only thing worth finding, lasting happiness, the purpose of life. “
When we’re about to sit down and look at a book with bright pages, with images of mountains, David grabs our arm and brings us closer to the edge of Himalayan heights and says, “Look at reality!That’s wonderful,much more relevant to any turbulent life than any brilliant representation.
If you look and say nothing, how can you serve someone?But if you can see what’s really wonderful, while describing it with vague abstractions, how will people see and taste the wonders you see?David didn’t do that. You could touch your words, they were real. It’s a gift. For example, he advised,
? Never say words on the call sign? Or “imperative” or?Regulatory, situational, existential? Talking to a human who’s still breathing?.
I laughed when I read this! Don’t overwhelm people with an incomprehensible jargon common to your specialty, strive to leave your estimated abbreviations and use concrete reality, find words that touch the soul.
Don’t use reduced terms like?”‘ Gospel, cross, meta-narrative, justification, sovereignty, historical redeemer, etc. when you have the option to use more precise terms. The Bible uses abbreviated terms only after the meaning Y has been clarified when used, abbreviated biblical terms usually move toward a nuance or new perspective, rather than simply speaking in technical jargon. Most people get very little from abbreviations, but they benefit greatly from details and stories.
Concise language is required. In fact, it is inspired by God, but it is the ‘detail’, the ‘context’, the ‘crystalline sense’, the ‘nuance’, the ‘new perspective’, the ‘stories’ that awakens. This advice might have been ignored by me, but David has my confidence as a lover of the Romans as well as Ruth, so I heard when he said:
“Become”Ruthenian?How are you?Roman-iano?,?Psalms-iano?How are you going to “colossenss-niac”. We, who are reformed by conviction, always love the truth and also love history, but do we still have trouble paying attention to stories and all the other things that are true?
Comedians who tell jokes do not help my happiness or make me more fruitful, frivolity, it seems to me, is what happens to the soul when the search for happiness loses contact with reality, to do good to people do not lose touch. with reality We need to know a few things. For example, David writes:
“We need to know the gravity of our human condition. We tend to defect. We like it badly, are we traitors, compulsive, blind?
The Christian counselor (whom all believers are to some extent) is serious about the terrible propensations he sees in the mirror, but in addition to these terrible deeds, “we must know the glory and goodness of what our Father gave us in Jesus Christ. “Thus, the Christian counselor radiates joy.
At least David was. In my experience, it was never shallow or dark. He didn’t hide the weight of his problems up his sleeve. They made it serious, but not heavy. He wasn’t a party pooper or a jester. He was serious, the opposite of superficially, radiantly serious. No one greeted me like David Powlison, stared at mine, smiling softly, looking, asking.
He devoted some of his best thoughts to how he could benefit from criticism of his best thoughts. Was this part of the whole situation? That God and his word are infallibly true even when we are not infallibly sure. serve is not in the strength of defense, but in the shadow of the Almighty, ready to learn from every serious testimony.
David turned every detractor into a doctor for his soul. Why waste a critique of being defensive?He liked to say, “Are critics, like government officials, ministers of God out of love for you?”(Romans 13,4). As usual, it was much more accurate:
Nobody likes to be criticized. But do critics make us feel good?Or, through our reactions, show that we are temporarily or permanently insane. If a critic’s attitude is elegant or malicious, whether it’s good or bad weather, whether the intent is constructive or destructive, whether the content is truthful, something true or totally false, in any case, the very experience of being criticized reveals to you what madness are you inclined to?
Not many people talk like that. David Powlison speaks. And I’m wiser about it.
You knew that every truth is God’s truth, but more importantly, did you know that any truth separated from God as truth is radically false?Because everything is more important, more beautiful, more precious, more durable. an imitation of the ideas of the world, born of the unsonable roots of reality in God.
God’s path is qualitatively different from anything available in the options bazaar, other tips, other schemes, other practices, other systems.
We are not lost when our roots grow deep and broadly in the vastness of God’s wisdom. “God speaks deeply and globally about the concrete conditions of each person’s life. “
But Christ’s counsel is not only opposed and better than all; It also opens the world as a hidden treasure of human experience. David did not believe it was possible or desirable to go directly from reading the Bible to healing the soul. No one exists in this kind of bubble, where there is only one Bible. , sinful and wounded reader and soul. This reader, this counselor was formed from ten thousand life experiences, in addition to what he sees in the Bible, some harmful. Some useful ones. Some.
David’s argument is this: Does the radically complete, God-centered vision, and exalting Christ of scripture, transform the world into a school of endless wonders?Horrible and beautiful. With Christ as Creator and Master, the universe becomes a university of discovery. Bible reader? The biblical counselor is no longer passive in being shaped by the world, but actively pushes appearances into the depths of discernment in the human experience.
We see this not only in the way David listened with insight (for us), but also in the way he read fiction and history. Mark Helprin (a soldier of the Great War)? He says:
“Of course, I love you differently from what I love about the scriptures. But in addition to the scriptures, I love novels and stories. Because? Because you learn about people. You feel the human experience. You come to understand the riches and nuances that you could never understand simply by knowing the circle of people you know. Do you understand how people differ and how we’re all the same?An extremely valuable element of wisdom. You become a bigger person with a wider field of perception. these things you know illustrate and develop the relevance and wisdom of our God. Do I like fiction and biography for the same reasons an 18th-century pastor read his Bible and Shakespeare?
David Powlison was absolutely convinced that Christ’s counsel was the decisive, indispensable and ultimately authoritarian word of God against anyone who omits God, and knew that the world was a treasure chest of discoveries waiting for Christ as the key.
When you advised a friend that he could not get rid of the feeling that God was distant, yes, he did?(2 Tim 4. 2). Yes, talk from heart to heart with a friend?(Hebrews 3. 13). Yes?Eat and drink the Lord’s food?(Mt 26, 26-29). Yes, take the time to carefully examine the beauty of a flower?(Mt 6:28-29). (He is 13,7). Yes, do you remember that Jesus lived in Lamentations 3 and lived it for you?(Luke 3:22).
But his advice reaches a crescendo on this sweet note
And remember that the most repeated phrase in the entire Bible is “Your unwavering love lasts forever. “God thought it was worth repeating that his unwavering love lasts forever. And it’s worth repeating too. Say it aloud: “The unwavering love of the Lord never ceases. Your mercy has no end.
I’m writing this tribute to Bideford, England, shortly after hearing the news of David’s death. This morning, Christmas and I were walking in a nearby cemetery in Buckland Brewer, the town where my great-grandfather John Piper was born. , among the centuries-old tombstones, there was a circular marker of cement with the word “Reserved”.
Marked or not, your place and my place are reserved by God. The Lord gives and the Lord kidnaps. In life, David Powlison has taught us to live and help others live. In death, it helps us prepare to die. Few reminders can be sweeter than the one that leaves us: “The unwavering love of the Lord never ceases. Are your mercies, infinite? Never.