Chris Wermeskerch gives God’s Kitchen a 5 star review on amazon.com

I hate to review a book so highly, ever. It seems dishonest, and it seems like a shill review. But here’s why I rate it so highly:

I’ve always said that one must read outside of their comfort zone. You don’t grow if you only read the same stuff over and over again. Sometimes, you need to read above your level to force your mind to think about new horizons and new possibilities. God’s Kitchen will definitely do that to you. Don’t go into this book without the proper ingredients: the mise en scene needs to be perfectly set. You’ll need to have the Scriptures out, ready to be read at every junction and chapter; have on hand at least two pens and a journal. Before you begin, make sure you have read Bible Matrix I and II, otherwise the whole recipe falls apart. When combining the ingredients, the worst thing you can do is go too quickly. Treat this book like a souffle, and take your time. It’s a delicate recipe that, if done wrong, will become useless. Allow ample time to bake in your mind. Don’t rush this book: even the slowest, most careful chefs will miss aspects of this book. You’ll probably need to practice this recipe multiple times before it all sets in.

Okay, silly metaphors aside. This book isn’t for those not initiated into the Bible Matrix. You’ll learn some of it along the way, but you’ll want a full working knowledge coming into the book into the ins and outs of the method. Read it two or three times and you’ll learn to love it and think the way Mike thinks. And maybe you’ll see things through new eyes because of it.

P.S. The scary photo is me, not Chris.

“The Lord’s Table is for dangerous people.”

If you are going to baptize infants, it makes sense that you would also allow them to take Communion. Baptism brings one into the priesthood (through the Laver) to the court of God, and Communion is fellowship in the priestly kingdom. To unite the two is consistent—as consistent as the two pillars flanking the threshold of Solomon’s Temple.

The inclusion of children in Israel’s religious meals is used to support the practice. Some of those against it have asserted that these meals, even perhaps the Passover, did not include the children. James Jordan has a fascinating chapter entitled “Children and the Religious Meals of the Old Creation” in The Case for Covenant Communion. Where many Reformed writers (including some other authors in this book) get tied up in knots by the Reformers and their own traditions, Jordan’s perspective is always fresh because he looks first to the Bible, not for proof texts but for principles.

Jordan makes a clear case for the inclusion of children in the religious meals of the “old creation.” He lists a number of age specifications for various Israelite offices, and notes that there is no age specified for participation in the Passover meal. He concludes that if God had wanted to, he certainly could have specified a minimum age for participation.

So, children were included in Israel’s religious meals, most notably in the Passover. Since Israel was the Covenant people, then the children in the Christian Church should participate in Communion. Or should they?

The Circumcision of Israel

This sounds logical, of course, but it is the same logic by which one would expect a bruised, bloodied Jesus to wake up in the tomb, crawl out and stagger around with His burial clothes hanging off Him. Paedocommunion doesn’t speak of resurrection so much as resuscitation. And despite the truth concerning the meals of the Old Creation, dragging them into the New Creation, as I have said before, is akin to heaving the bloody Bronze Altar with its flesh and ashes inside the tent. Paedobaptism and paedocommunion are a call for God to accept the flesh.

Appealing to the Old Testament to interpret New Testament events is extremely helpful, but what if the New Testament event is itself a deliberate reinterpretation? Jesus did this all the time, and one of the most important is what He did at His last Passover, or more correctly, what He did to the last Passover.

What was Passover about? Circumcision and Passover were about redeeming Israel’s males from the barrenness of the womb, and the barrenness of the Land, curses upon the Covenant Head which can be traced back to Genesis 3.

What did Jesus do to Passover? He ended it. He ate the Passover with His disciples, and then the meal which spoke of cutting off history (leaven speaks of historical continuity), was itself cut off. There would be no more Passovers because it was only a shadow, and the day was about to dawn. In Jesus, all Israel had been redeemed and grown up. It was time for something new.

During the Passover, Jesus instituted a new meal. A symbolic meal, a “taste,” of risen bread and shared wine was taken out of the old meal. A new Israel was being established out of the corpse of the old one, not spiritually, not socially, not physically, but all three together. The combination of the priestly and kingly pillars in Solomon’s Temple invite the third pillar, the prophetic Shekinah, to indwell. The table of God is a place reserved for prophets.

Now, I could argue that since there were no children present, children cannot participate in Communion. But there were no women present either, and we know that women have always been allowed to take Communion. So there must be something deeper going on here.

Feed My Lambs?

“Jesus’ commission to Peter after His resurrection was not to dole out bread and wine to infants. It was to fatten those who had taken up their crosses, to prepare them for the slaughter to come…”

Tim Gallant, who also contributed to the book mentioned above, authored another book entitled Feed My Lambs: Why the Lord’s Table Should Be Restored to Covenant Children. While I appreciate the pastoral heart behind the desires of these faithful men to see children raised in the knowledge of God, it seems to me they have missed the point of the Last Supper.

Firstly, the title of Tim’s book refers to Jesus’ threefold command to Peter after Peter’s threefold betrayal (John 21:15-17). But what was Jesus actually saying when He gave that commission to Peter? He was, as usual, taking Old Testament architecture and fulfilling it in the flesh as a human Tabernacle. From God’s Kitchen:

In Peter, Jesus takes the people of Israel from outside the tent of Moses to sit inside as priests and elders.

Peter warmed himself at a fire outside the house of the High Priest. Architecturally, he stood at the Bronze Altar. The Covenant Ethics are three tests, symbolized in the blood, the fire and the smoke—or flesh, eyes and life. When tested, Peter refused to identify himself with the Lamb.

Luke records that Jesus “looked” at Peter. Whenever Jesus “looks intently” in the Gospels, He is the Lampstand, the Law, the eyes of God, the watchman lifted up over Israel as sun, moon and stars. The lunar feasts were fast fading as the sun of righteousness arose. And the rooster heralded the dawn.

John records the dawning of a better day. This time the fire is not on the Land but by the Sea. The focus has shifted from the center of Israel to her borders with the wild nations. The resurrected Jesus invites Peter not to offer himself to death but to dine with One who has conquered death on his behalf. Architecturally, Peter has passed through the Laver—from death to life—to join Christ as an elder at the Altar of Incense.

Again, Peter is tested three times. Instead of Altar; Fire; Altar, it is Feed; Tend; Feed. In this way, Jesus deals compassionately with past failure and calls Peter to a better future (as He does with us every week at the Lord’s Table). But in Peter’s recommission, and in ours, there is a call to sacrificial life. There is a transfixing redness to the New Covenant dawn.

The “official” death-and-resurrection of Peter would be repeated in the Firstfruits Church. When Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep, they both knew those sheep, like Peter, were being fattened for the altar.

Animal sacrifices were no longer acceptable now that Jesus had died and risen again.

But in Jesus, human ones were.

For whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and the gospel’s will save it. 
(Mark 8:35)

The reason there were only men at the Last Supper is because a new lamb was being selected for sacrifice: not only a head, but also a body. Following the Ascension Offering in Leviticus 1, the head would be offered first, and then the body would be washed and offered. Sharing in this feast with Jesus made these men members of the sacrificial lamb, that is, parts of its body. Jesus was the first human sacrifice which was acceptable to God. Because the Father accepted Him, as firstfruits, the full harvest, the body, was made acceptable also.

What I am saying here is that the disciples, through transformation into apostles, were human sacrifices. Just as Jesus’ death dealt with the serpent (the counterfeit head), their deaths dealt with the brood of vipers, the fiery serpents ruling Jerusalem (the counterfeit body). This is why there were not women and children present. Corporately speaking, the disciples were the “bones” of the Passover lamb which were not to be broken. They would form the structure of a new house, a new Tabernacle which was made entirely out of lambs. This was about the end of circumcision, which was not about children but about males.

After the resurrection, women are in the picture again, and in a big way. They are the first “witnesses” because the role of the Woman is the sacrifice of praise. After the serpent is felled, she sings and calls down the Covenant curses upon it. But once again, where are the children? Are they absent? No. But it is clear that the New Covenant is not about Jew and Gentile but about a new priesthood for all people. It is not about the cutting of flesh but about witness, about testimony, about telling what you have seen now that you have tasted death under the Law and your eyes have been opened. Having tasted death, as Jesus did for all men, innoculates one against death. It loses its sting. Baptism is for those who confess with their mouths that they are willing to lose their lives for Jesus’ sake and the Gospel’s. Baptism is an act of courage.

So Jesus’ commission to Peter after His resurrection was not to dole out bread and wine to infants. It was to fatten those who had taken up their crosses, to prepare them for the slaughter to come, through which they would bring down Jerusalem and then Rome—”every high thing which exalts itself against the knowledge of God.”

In the Law, a lamb does not speak of a young child but of a blameless son, like Jesus at His baptism. He was vindicated before His earthly father at age twelve and vindicated before His heavenly Father at age 30, ready for holy war. Baptism is not for babies or infants but for holy warriors, and there were no baby Nazirites (but there were women!). To make it so is to miss the point of union with Christ altogether, and make the New Covenant into something social, something carnal, a community according to the flesh. Paedobaptism is poison to the heart of the New Covenant.

To open baptism and Communion to infants is to take the Church back to the Old Covenant, the time of dark sayings and shadows. It is to say that Christ has not come in the flesh, and Christ is not risen from the dead, and this was exactly the motive behind the Herods’ years of glorious Passovers leading up to the destruction of their serpentine rulers, their women, and their children—the entire congregation was “circumcised.”

So, what about our children? We are holy members of the Lamb, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh, but also Spirit of His Spirit. The Lord’s table is not for “feeding” infants the Gospel. Look at the picture above. It is a group of subversives planning to change the world by laying down their lives. The Lord’s Table is for dangerous people, and partaking in the Table is itself a public testimony. It is for living sacrifices, and our physical children, as with all those who hear and have not yet repented, feed upon us. We are the cut up, washed “members” of the lamb on the Altar. We mediate Jesus to them. Only the Gospel transforms the sons of men into the sons of God, and all the sons of God are sacrificial lambs who have willingly taken up the cross. The New Covenant body is a human sacrifice.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:27)

[A helpful review (of sorts) of God’s Kitchen by Dave Bish.]

I’ve been reading Michael Bull’s book God’s Kitchen since a kind brother bought it for me recently.

Presentation matters: It’s a very well designed paperback book – Bull is a graphic designer as well as a theologian. Words should be delivered with music appropriate to their subject. It’s build with short chapters on big themes in the Bible, and in particular themes around food. A most noble subject to write a book about! There are hints along the way about how to make the most of food, about how knowledge is eating, and the place of food in mission.

Disclaimer: To be honest, I’m still trying to get my head round large sections of his thought and ideas and I’m not sure if I ever will. Bull builds on the maximalist interpretation of Peter Leithart and James Jordan. I find them a little outlandish in places and priceless in others. They love story, and images, and really love what the Bible says and I like that. As with every meal: eat the meat, spit the bones. [1]

Good meat: In any case, in the middle of it all are some brilliant observations about leadership.

A few brief quotes to give you a taste…

“If we endure faithfully, we bring gravity with us out of the grave. Life is suddenly more rich, more dense and our words more commanding. True gravitas comes in no other way, even in the life of Christ.”

“Great leadership comes from cruciform [people]; from those who have been broken as bread so that others may come and eat.”

“Men go to Bible College and they know it all. Then the Lord brings poverty, a marriage difficulty, a sick child, bereavement, betrayal… and Gandalf the Grey is torn apart. God, why are you smashing up everything you built me for? Because I am frankincense, or garlic at the very least. Like these, and olives and grapes, I was made to be crushed… this is why novices are vulnerable leaders….”

“The change we long for arrives in trials. As we suffer our moral stink lessens. We become health to others instead of a canker. For the soft-hearted, every trial is an opportunity…”

These are similar to the thinking I expect to find in Paul Tripp’s Dangerous Calling, a book waiting on my bookshelf.

They’re also the kinds thoughts I see when Paul writes, as a spiritual father to his son in the faith, Timothy. The young need older and wiser voices who will walk ahead of them. Bull suggest we need less Alpha Males and more of the Omega variety. Paul – aged, bruised, tempered, refined, scarred, imprisoned, mortal, on death row – calls Timothy to wisdom following him in Christ, through the fire of persecution and the ongoing exposure of his heart to the Scriptures… instead of the brash overconfidence of fools who sabotage themselves with their bold moves.

Brokenness and vulnerability alone aren’t what’s needed. Anyone can confess their sins, though few dare. Rather we need broken people who come empty – like Naomi – saying I’ve got nothing but Christ was broken for me. So too as Timothy is broken with Christ he’ll be able to feed others. And though he wont look impressive an intangible quality will authenticate his persuasive words.

Such people, as they limp, can lead us where we need to be. And can lead us through the messy middle of our journey, where we mostly find ourselves. The gospel is best told by cruciform people.

_________________________________________
[1] There is an entire chapter on the theological/typological significance of bones, and why we spit them out. Just saying.

“Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.”

Finally received my hard copy of God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink.

“The Old Testament is a violent, bloody book, but the more we modern Christians neglect it, the more our gospel loses its teeth. This little book will call you out, cut you up, lift you up, and set you on fire. It begins where all spiritual meat does: not at the dinner table, not in the kitchen, nor even at the market. It begins in the abattoir. The God of the Old Testament is a butcher only because the Christ of the New Testament is a chef.”

Here’s what’s on the menu:

The best cuts    1
Ingredients and Method

The knife drawer    11

1    Cooking as eschatology    29
The eschatological feast is the one where the intimacy prefigured by marriage is actually between every member of the body, and thus, not in this life. It is a festal variety beyond our current capacity.

2    Postmillennial suffering    37
The suffering of the saints is not the mark of an irredeemable world, but the very means of its transformation.

3    The whole bloody Bible    45
The “last days” are only ever the last days of the old order.

4    Love in the abstract    51
As we become living sacrifices, the Sacraments take on flesh.

5    Eat local and die    55
If we insist on a policy of “Eat Local,” and confuse the Lord’s Table with the Love Feast, the Gentiles eventually come, not as guests, but as scavengers.

6    Knowing as we are known    65
The child questions the command with “But why?” The father replies, “Because I am your father.” Adam’s sin was relational.

7    Knowledge and wisdom    73
In some profound way, knowledge is singular but wisdom is plural.

8    Omega males    77
What men really desire is to follow other men…

9    True gravity    81
If we endure faithfully, we bring gravity with us out of the grave.

10    The expendables    87
As my grandfather said, “The trials of life will make you bitter or better.” Either way, you are food.

11    Behind closed doors    95
Doctor Jesus’ X-rays can be a midlife crisis or a call to martyrdom.

12    Fasting as sacrament    101
Baptism and the Lord’s table come from the body of Jesus. Fasting is a sacrament we can give from our own bodies…

13    Jacob’s hollow    107
Unlike Adam, Jacob realized that every serpentine challenge came from the hand of God. He crushed them through crafty obedience and gained great wisdom.

14    Joints and marrow    117
Fighting sin and resting in Christ are two edges of the same blade.

15    Upon this rock    121
It was the bloody rock of priesthood that gave Jesus the keys to death and Sheol to set the captives free.

16    Binding and loosing    125
True apostolic succession is a willingness to be a living sacrifice.

17    Silence of the Lamb    129
Someone carries the curse so that history can move on freely. Someone is bound so that somebody else may be loosed.

18    Creation and Communion    135
God’s creative process is sacrificial. He is a butcher who tears things apart. It is also culinary. He is a chef who puts things together in new ways.

19    Deus ex machina    143
As a “human shield,” a firmament of flesh, the office of Mediator is a position of passivity towards God, and activity towards Creation.

20    Revivals and farming    151
The societal fruits of the great revivals were exactly the kinds of things the (non-revivalist) proponents of dominion theology crave to see in our time.

21    A cast of thousands    157
Could it take anything less than a cast of thousands—or millions—to picture the work of Christ? And perhaps we are still in the early days.

22    The glory are we    165
What’s on the table is not what’s glorious. It’s just a memorial, a token, the foundation plaque on the living house.

23    Eye and tooth    169
An Adam governed by God’s Law is an Adam fit to govern.

24    Horns of Moses    173
What was Moses reflecting? The great white throne of Greater Solomon, of course, the brilliant legal glory of Yahweh. Solomon’s throne was covered in ivory.

25    Bone and flesh    179
Touching a bone made an Israelite unclean. Burning bones upon Jeroboam’s altars defiled them. This was not because bones were unholy but because they were already holy.

26    Skin for skin    187
As in Eden, atonement was an unfair barter, an unequal exchange, in which God was happy to be ripped off.

27    Birds and beasts    197
The blessing for obedience to the Covenant was dominion over the beasts… The Covenant curse, however, was to be eaten by them.

28    The greatest consumer    203
Under the New Covenant, the Church Herself becomes the greatest “scavenger” of all time.

29    Spat out at Jesus’ table    209
Jesus desires His new people to be fire and water, coming out of Egypt.

30    Kids in the kitchen: Passover in the motherland    215
Molech was simply another dragon hijacking the offspring of the woman with an offer of certain food.

31    Seed, flesh and skin    223
In this shedding of immaturity, in obedience to the Covenant, Man is to outdo both tree and serpent.

32    Half the blood    231
Jesus’ blood covered the believers, but we must never forget that His blood was also avenged upon those who refused to believe.

33    Recipe for disaster    237
Israel worked in God’s Garden and served in God’s kitchen, at the gate of the heavenly court. Consequently, hers is a long history of meat and vegetables, Abels and Cains.

34    No more spoon-feeding    241
Every believer is now expected to learn to feed himself. This is a glorious, albeit at times messy, process.

35    Counterfeit virtue    247
In the toolbox of Creation, alcohol is a powersaw.

36    Incantation and incarnation    257
Pharaoh will feed divine meals to his gods, and then flay the Hebrews. Caesar will cut goats’ gizzards, and then torch Christians. This is power religion. The faces of these gods are permanently hidden.

37    The sun of righteousness    265
Samson prefigures not so much the crucifixion of Christ, but the sufferings of Christ “filled up” in the Firstfruits Church.

38    The forbidden feast    269
We are bidden to the forbidden feast, a table where bread and wine are not only served to us as priest-kings, but irretrievably mixed together inside us, nourishment and shalom united at last.

39    Do not harm the oil and the wine    275
Animals can survive on food alone. Men also require a steady diet of truth.

40    Being Cornucopia    281
The horn of plenty marries the curse upon Adam and the curse upon Eve and unites them as a blessing.

41    Out of the eater    289
God is breaking wineskins that we hoped would last forever.

42    Breakfast at dawn    301
In Peter’s recommission, and in ours, there is a call to sacrificial life. There is a transfixing redness to the New Covenant dawn.

43    The hidden power of Groundhog Day    305
Godly conversations around the dinner table with your kids end up toppling godless empires.

44    Corpus Christi    311
Even the most mundane chore is the history of the world hidden in a riddle.

45    Eschatology as cooking    321
We want quick judgments from the prophets, but instead He invites us to take our time and swill the delicate flavors of every single variety of grape in the Vineyard of Wrath.

46    Figures transfigured    329
In one sense, we get our wings in the same way as The Very Hungry Caterpillar did.