TheoBros Memo Issue #24: Stephen Charnock, the Eric Dodson Interview, Squirrelly Joe’s Coffee, and Twitter Fire from the TheoBros
TheoBros and TheoSistas,
Stephen Charnock, that great 17th Century writer, tells us that if we think about God, we should say to ourselves: “God is more than this: if I could comprehend him, then he’s not God; for God is incomprehensibly above whatsoever I can say, whatsoever I can think and conceive of Him.”
No matter how long you’ve been a believer, as Stephen Charnock intimates, your God is still too small. But Hosea encourages us in Hosea 6:3,
Let us press on to know the Lord.
Studying and savoring the character of God is hard work — but we must press on.
As Jesus tells His disciples in John 17:3,
This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.
True, eternal life is defined by knowing God. This is why we were bought by the blood of Christ. We were bought and purchased — the eternal, sinless, precious Son of God was crushed by His Father — for the unfathomable priviledge of knowing God. That was the price of admission. The Second Person of the Trinity had to stoop to become a man, truly God and truly man, plunge Himself into the horrors of this cursed world, and drink down to the dregs the cup of His Father’s wrath. It was that important to the God that you know Him.
In fact, knowing God is so central to who we are, so central to being a Christian, Paul can write in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 that “He will inflict vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
If God bores us, if we stand at the bottom of the mountain of his glory and yawn, we will certainly hate Heaven. In fact, we don’t belong there at all. Heaven is all about knowing God and enjoying Him forever.
Therefore, knowing Him now, with sinful, forgetful, faulty bodies — through the ministry of the Holy Spirit — is a taste of what Heaven will be like for us. Christians are the finite trying to understand the infinite. The temporal studying the eternal. A human being trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
No matter how long you’ve been a believer, your God is still too small.
The Eric Dodson Interview: 5/5 Stars
If you missed the latest TheoBros Podcast, you’re gonna’ want to make some time to listen. Eric has a terrific beard and embodies everything TheoBro culture is about: he smokes meat and loves sound theology. But most of all, he loves his church. You can find him on Twitter as @EricWayneDodson. We talk meat-smoking, farming, Phil Vischer, Veggie Tales, and the value of Children’s Ministry on Sunday mornings.
My favorite part of the interview, of course, is Eric’s follow-up explanation of a tweet that went pretty viral.
Big News: Squirrelly Joe’s Coffee is Now an Official Sponsor of the Podcast
I’m really, really excited about this partnership. Squirrelly Joe’s is in Southern Illinois and is run by Joe Morris, a marine and current student at Reformed Theological Seminary. We’re currently working on a “TheoBros Blend” for my readers and listeners. Support the Morris family and the TheoBros Podcast: order your coffee from Squirrelly Joe’s!
From their website: “The average premium bag of coffee will cost you anywhere from $16-$20. Most of these big named roasters are in major cities and have a ton of overhead. We are located in a small town so we are able to keep our costs low to give a GREAT PRICE to our customers. Even though our price is lower than the average, we have not sacrificed quality. We would pit our coffee against the big brands with any of our roasts.”