Enjoying God

Our congregation is studying the Shorter Catechism in our Home Fellowship Groups. It was disappointing to see the first chapter of the book that we are using virtually ignoring the question of enjoying God. Glorifying God is only half of our chief end. There is one chief end that encompasses BOTH glorifying and enjoying God.

How different this is to our Puritan and Covenanting forefathers! Ussher begins his Body of Divinity with the question of happiness and what men especially desire. Perkins defined theology as "the science of living blessedly forever". Thomas Vincent in his commentary on the Catechism deals in a balanced way with both glorifying AND enjoying God. This was Puritanism! It was so much more than the Five Points of Calvinism, and pure forms of worship and Church Government.

John Piper's Desiring God is a much needed antidote to the imbalanced half-answer that many Reformed Christians really give to the first question of the Shorter Catechism, even if his "glorifying God BY enjoying Him forever" goes too far (in my opinion).

(Although this blog is called "Ad Gloriam Dei", the real motto of our family is "Ad Gloriam et Delectorem Dei", but that was too much of a mouthful for a blog title.)

Continued...