Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

I’ve been slowly working my way through Paul Tripp’s book, Broken-Down House.  I haven’t finished it yet, but I think that it will be one of the books that I’m frequently recommending in the future.  Tripp uses the image of a broken-down house to explain and describe the world we live in.  It is a world that has been profoundly affected by the Fall.

Tripp doesn’t merely describe our fallen world and our experience in it, but he describes how we might live productively in this fallen world.  Living productively in this fallen world means that we must first recognize that it is a broken world, and not only that, we must constantly remember that we live in a fallen world.  As Christians, we often forget that we live in a fallen world, and Tripp calls this “location amnesia.”  Here’s how Tripp describes it:

“We are confronted every day with the sights and sounds of a world in distress – our world.  These things should assault our eyes and ears.  Instead, they have become the familiar background and ambient noise of our daily lives.  They have become so ‘normal’ that we simply no longer hear and no longer see.  The result? We no longer pay attention.  I think that many of us live in a permanent state of location amnesia.  We have forgotten where we live.  Lose sight of the fact that we live in a broken-down house where nothing works quite right, and it sets you up for all kinds of trouble.”[1]

The Bible is God’s kind reminder to us that we live in a broken and sin-filled world.  It not only describes where we live, but what God is doing and will do to make all things new.  Knowing what our world is really like and remembering where we really live focuses our vision on what ministry in this broken world should look like.  Ministry in this broken world should point men, women, and children to the One who was sent to “bind up the brokenhearted.”[2] It is my prayer that the Lord would give us grace to do that today as we live and minister to others who are broken in this broken-world.

[2] Isaiah 61:1

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