Prayer For Patient Waiting - II Thessalonians 3:5 Order Printed Copy

Author: Elbert Willis
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About the Book

"Prayer For Patient Waiting - II Thessalonians 3:5" by Elbert Willis is a Christian devotional book focused on the importance of patience and prayer in times of waiting. The author explores the biblical verse II Thessalonians 3:5, which emphasizes the need for patience and perseverance in the face of adversity. Through insightful reflections and practical advice, Willis encourages readers to trust in God's timing and rely on prayer to sustain them during periods of waiting.

Fanny Crosby

"Oh, what a happy soul I am, / although I cannot see! / I am resolved that in this world / Contented I will be." Francis Jane Crosby wrote more than 9,000 hymns, some of which are among the most popular in every Christian denomination. She wrote so many that she was forced to use pen names lest the hymnals be filled with her name above all others. And, for most people, the most remarkable thing about her was that she had done so in spite of her blindness. "I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered so many other gifts upon you," remarked one well-meaning preacher. Fanny Crosby responded at once, as she had heard such comments before. "Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind?" said the poet, who had been able to see only for her first six weeks of life. "Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." Blinded by a quack Born in Putnam County, New York, Crosby became ill within two months. Unfortunately, the family doctor was away, and another man—pretending to be a certified doctor—treated her by prescribing hot mustard poultices to be applied to her eyes. Her illness eventually relented, but the treatment left her blind. When the doctor was revealed to be a quack, he disappeared. A few months later, Crosby's father died. Her mother was forced to find work as a maid to support the family, and Fanny was mostly raised by her Christian grandmother. Her love of poetry began early—her first verse, written at age 8, echoed her lifelong refusal to feel sorry for herself: Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see! I am resolved that in this world Contented I will be. How many blessings I enjoy That other people don't, To weep and sigh because I'm blind I cannot, and I won't! While she enjoyed her poetry, she zealously memorized the Bible. Memorizing five chapters a week, even as a child she could recite the Pentateuch, the Gospels, Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many psalms chapter and verse. Her mother's hard work paid off. Shortly before her fifteenth birthday, Crosby was sent to the recently founded New York Institute for the Blind, which would be her home for 23 years: 12 as a student, 11 as a teacher. She initially indulged in her own poetry and was called upon to pen verses for various occasions. In time the principal asked her to avoid such "distractions" in favor of her general instruction. "We have no right to be vain in the presence of the Owner and Creator of all things," he said. It was the work of a traveling phrenologist (one who studies the shape and irregularities of the skull for insights into character and mental capacity) that changed the school's mind and again ignited her passion. Though his study is now the ridicule of science, the phrenologist's words were to prove prophetic: "Here is a poetess. Give her every possible encouragement. Read the best books to her and teach her the finest that is in poetry. You will hear from this young lady some day." Poetry for presidents It didn't take long. By age 23 Crosby was addressing Congress and making friendships with presidents. In fact, she knew all the chief executives of her lifetime, especially Grover Cleveland, who served as secretary for the Institute for the Blind before his election. Another member of the institute, former pupil Alexander van Alstine, married Crosby in 1858. Considered one of New York's best organists, he wrote the music to many of Crosby's hymns. Crosby herself put music to only a few of hers, though she played harp, piano, guitar, and other instruments. More often, musicians came to her for lyrics. For example, one day musician William Doane dropped by her home for a surprise visit, begging her to put some words to a tune he had recently written and which he was to perform at an upcoming Sunday School convention. The only problem was that his train to the convention was leaving in 35 minutes. He sat at the piano and played the tune. "Your music says, 'Safe in the Arms of Jesus,'" Crosby said, scribbling out the hymn's words immediately. "Read it on the train and hurry. You don't want to be late!" The hymn became one of Crosby's most famous. Though she was under contract to submit three hymns a week to her publisher and often wrote six or seven a day (for a dollar or two each), many became incredibly popular. When Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey began to use them in their crusades, they received even more attention. Among them are "Blessed Assurance," "All the Way My Savior Leads Me," "To God Be the Glory," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," "Rescue the Perishing," and "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross." She could write very complex hymns and compose music with a more classical structure (she could even improvise it), but she preferred to write simple, sentimental verses that could be used for evangelism. She continued to write her poetry up to her death, a month shy of her ninety-fifth birthday. "You will reach the river brink, some sweet day, bye and bye," was her last stanza.

An Excellent New Book on Justification

If a thoughtful layman asked me what he should read to understand the doctrine of justification in relationship to the New Perspective on Paul, I would send him to Stephen Westerholm’s new book, Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme (Eerdmans, 2013). I enjoyed this book so much I found it difficult to put down. It is constructive. That is, it builds a clear and positive view of what justification is, rather than simply criticizing other views. For that reason, it provides a good introduction to the doctrine of justification itself for those who may not be clear on what Paul taught. According to the New Perspective But it is obviously written with a view to explaining and criticizing the so-called New Perspective (including Krister Stendahl, E.P. Sanders, J.D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright). The gist of that perspective is that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not a religion of legalism but of grace, and so, contrary to the historic view of Paul, legalism can hardly be what Paul found wrong with Judaism. His doctrine of justification must have had a different target. Therefore, the New Perspective says, justification “was not about how sinners could find a gracious God (by grace, not by works), but about the terms by which Gentles could be admitted to the people of God (without circumcision, Jewish food laws, and the like). A new Perspective was born” (26). The problem, Westerholm points out, is that the views of grace in contemporary Judaism did not exclude the merit of works alongside it. E.P. Sanders himself shows that the Rabbis “did not have a doctrine of original sin or of the essential sinfulness of each man in the Christian sense” (33). It follows, Westerholm argues, that “humanity’s predicament must be more desperate than Jews otherwise imagined” (33). Desperate for Grace This means that Paul’s “depiction of humanity’s condition required a much more rigorous dependence on divine grace than did Judaism’s” (34). Therefore, to show that Judaism had a doctrine of grace “is no reason to deny that Paul could have understood justification in terms of an exclusive reliance on grace in a way that was foreign to the thinking of contemporary Jews” (34). Therefore, Paul’s doctrine of justification did target not only a Jewish view, but any human view, that presumes to make good works any part of the ground of our being found righteous before God. “For Paul, God’s gift of salvation [i.e., justification] necessarily excludes any part to be played by God-pleasing ‘works’ since human beings are incapable of doing them” (32). “Paul sees the only righteousness available to sinful human beings to be that given as a gift of God’s grace, ‘apart from works’ (Romans 3:24; 4:2, 6; 5:17) — distinguishing grace from works in a way other Jews felt no need to do” (98). What the Doctrine Means In a statement that summarizes the whole book, Westerholm writes that this historic view of justification, shared by the Reformers and most Protestants, cannot be dismissed by the claim that the ancients were not concerned to find a gracious God (how could they not be, in the face of pending divine judgment?); or that it wrongly casts first-century Jews as legalists (its target is rather the sinfulness of all human beings); or that non-Christian Jews, too, depended on divine grace (of course they did, but without Paul’s need to distinguish grace from works); or that ‘righteousness’ means ‘membership in the covenant’ (never did, never will) and the expression ‘works of the law’ refers to the boundary markers of the Jewish people (it refers to all the ‘righteous’ deeds required by the law as its path to righteousness). (98) And, Westerholm observes, it is, of course, right to “emphasize the social implications of Paul’s doctrine of justification . . . in his own day and . . . draw out its social implications for our own” (98). But we should not identify the meaning of justification with its social implications (for example, table fellowship between Gentiles and Jews in Galatians 2; and multi-ethnic implications today). No. “The doctrine of justification means that God declares sinners righteous, apart from righteous deeds, when they believe in Jesus Christ” (99). Confusing the root with the fruit will, in the long run, kill the tree. Article by John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org