Discipling Children: Whose Job Is It Anyway?

A couple of quotes from the book Perspectives on Family Ministry: Three Views, edited by Timothy Paul Jones:

"The idea that any age-focused ministry possesses the capacity or principal responsibility to lead students toward spiritual maturity represents a radical departure not only from the teachings of Scripture but also from centuries of Christian expectation and practice. Yet that seems to be precisely the perspective of many contemporary Christian parents and churches. The discipleship of children is perceived to be the task of the church's programs, not of the children's parents." (p. 22, italics added)

"From the perspective of too many parents, schoolteachers are responsible to grow their children's minds, coaches are employed to train their bodies, and specialized ministers at church ought to develop their souls. When it comes to schooling and coaching, these perspectives may or may not be particularly problematic. When it comes to Christian formation, however, this perspective faces a single critical snag: God specifically calls believing parents to the task of training their children in the Christian faith. This is one task that, from the persepective of Scripture, parents simply cannot hire someone else to do." (p. 23, italics added)

What Precisely Is the Gospel?

That's the question Jeff Purswell seeks to answer today in an excellent post at the Sovereign Grace Ministries Blog. Here's part of his conclusion:

So what is the gospel?

Although this brief survey is far from complete, it consistently reveals that the gospel is good news concerning Jesus and what he did to accomplish salvation for sinners.

In other words, the gospel is objective. It tells us what God has done to save his people. It consists of concrete, historical events, rooted in Old Testament promises, types, and institutions that were fulfilled in Jesus. It promises that all who trust in Christ and his work will receive forgiveness and life. Of course, this isn’t merely a catalogue of events of only historical interest; all of this has massive implications for our lives. But we must not confuse the gospel message itself with the outworking of those implications.

[...]

If the gospel message expands to include “discipleship in the kingdom,” then the objective nature of Christ’s work is minimized. When the gospel is redefined as a call to a social or political movement, Christ’s work is replaced with ours. When the gospel includes my response, then the ground of my assurance lies in me rather than in Christ. Indeed, anytime we shift the definition of the gospel from God’s objective accomplishment to our subjective appropriation, the rock-solid foundation of our faith is misplaced—and the glory of God in the gospel is obscured.

Why is the Resurrection Important?

Sinclair Ferguson:

In Paul’s exposition of the gospel, the categories used to describe the application of redemption to the believer are the categories which explicate the meaning of Christ’s resurrection. In other words, the application of redemption to us is rooted in the application of redemption to Christ.

Jesus’ resurrection is viewed as his justification (1 Tim 3:15). In it he was vindicated or justified by the Spirit. Having been made sin in his death, in his resurrection he was declared as our representative to be (what he in fact always was personally) righteous. He did not ‘see decay’ because he was God’s Holy One (Acts 2:27). Dying in our place as the condemned one, he was raised as the justified one.

Paul also implies that the resurrection can be seen as Jesus’ adoption. As to his human nature, Jesus ‘was a descendent of David’ but ‘through the Spirit of holiness’ he ‘was declared with power to be the Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead’ (Rom 1:4). . . . His resurrection thus constitutes him messianic Son of God with power . . .

The resurrection may also be viewed as the sanctification of Christ. That which is fundamental to our sanctification is found first in Christ himself: he died to sin once for all, and was raised to newness of life in which he lives for ever to God (Rom 6:9-10). . . . In his death Christ came under the dominion of sin; in his resurrection he was delivered from that dominion. this deliverance is the foundation of sanctification, whether in us or in Christ. Hence we may properly speak about Christ’s resurrection in the power of the Spirit as nothing less than his sanctification by the Spirit.

Furthermore, the resurrection constituted Christ’s glorification. As the ‘firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Cor 15:20), he was the first whose body was ‘sown . . . perishable, . . . raised imperishable; . . . sown in dishonour . . . raised in glory; sown in weakness . . . raised in power; . . . sown a natural body . . . raised a spiritual body’ (1 Cor 15:42-44). By the Spirit’s power his bodily existence was transformed into one of glory (cf. Phil. 3:21).

To be ‘in Christ’ means to share in all that Christ has accomplished. More specifically this means that those who are united to the risen Christ share in his justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification.

Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1996), 104-106.

Guarding Our Hearts Against Temptation

Three directions for avoiding temptation, courtesy of John Owen:

1. If you would avoid entering into temptation, labour to know your own heart. Become acquainted with your own spirit, natural temperament, lusts and corruptions, and natural, sinful, or spiritual weaknesses. By finding where your weakness lies, you may be better able to keep at a distance from all occasions of sin.

2. Watch against every kind of occasion, opportunity, activity, society, solitude, or business that tends to entangle your natural temperament, or that provokes your corruption. It may be that there are some situations, some kinds of society or business, in which you have never in your life been able to escape the temptation that arises, because it is so suitable to ensnare or provoke your particular corruption. . . . If you have any love for your soul, it is time for you to awake and deliver yourself, as a bird from an evil snare.

3. Be sure to lay up provisions in store against the approach of any temptation. This is part of our watchfulness over our hearts. . . . As for the provision to be laid up, it is what is provided for us in the gospel. Gospel provisions will do this work; that is, they will keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative in the world against the power of temptation.

And a couple of final quotes to underscore this last point:

"Store up in your hearts a sense of the love of God in Christ, the eternal purpose of his grace, the savour of the blood of Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a taste for the privileges we have through this: our adoption, justification, acceptance with God; fill your hearts with thoughts of the beauty of holiness, as the effect Christ intended in dying for us; and you will, in the ordinary course of walking with God, have great peace and security from the disturbance caused by temptations."

"The apostle tells us that the peace of God will keep our hearts (Phil. 4:7). . . . What is the peace of God? It is a sense of his love and favour in Jesus Christ. Let this abide in you, and it shall garrison you against all assaults whatever. Besides, there is in this sense of love and favour that which is in direct opposition to all the ways and means that temptation uses to approach our souls. Striving to obtain and keep a sense of the love of God in Christ, by its very nature, undermines all the workings and insinuations of temptation. Therefore, lay up a store of gospel provisions which will make the soul a place of defence against all the assaults of temptation."

(from Chapter 16 of John Owen, Temptation Resisted & Repulsed. Edited and abridged by Richard Rushing. Original edition, 1658. New edition, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2007.)

To Autumn

by John Keats

1
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

2
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

WSJ: China Hasn't Changed

From a piece by Ellen Bork in today's Wall Street Journal:

Pollution, skyscrapers and development reflect China's rapid economic growth, not political change. There have been no significant political reforms in China since the 1980s. Meanwhile, economic growth has enabled more intense but sophisticated approach to political repression.

Since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, anything that suggests a degree of organization, or coordination across provinces, is stamped out as quickly as possible and as ruthlessly as necessary. Examples include the religious organization Falun Gong and the China Democracy Party, whose members experienced the most brutal treatment a communist-party system has to dole out, including rape, beatings, shackling and electric shocks, according to Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. While China touts its commitment to the rule of law, lawyers who dare to defend victims of political or religious persecution are increasingly the targets of repression themselves.

The Olympics and their preparations are not leading to a liberalized China. In fact, the opposite is true. Dissidents have been sequestered, detained or sent out of town for the duration of the games. The construction of Olympic venues has led to the eviction of more than one million people. Activists who persist in pointing out the connection between the Olympics and the increase in human rights abuses -- such as Hu Jia, Ye Guozhu and Yang Chunlin -- have been jailed.

Read on . . .

The Beijing Olympics: Rewarding Totalitarianism

Several online sources are tracking the behavior of the oppressive Chinese government in preparation for the Olympics:

• Chuck Colson's Break Point has assembled a helpful array of information and resources spotlighting China's human rights abuses, persecution of Christians, and tight media controls.

• Voice of the Martyrs is documenting the Chinese regime's antics at the Persecution Blog. VoM is also offering free Olympic prayer bands here.
  

• Open Doors USA sent out this press release last week documenting some positive and negative steps taken by the Chinese regime in the run-up to the Olympics.

• Human Rights Watch has published an interesting Reporters' Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics (pdf), aimed at helping foreign reporters evade the Chinese government's cenorship rules.
  

• freedomhouse.org lists Ten Things You Shold Know about China and Five Things You Should Know about the Beijing Olympics.
  

The Christian's Hope

"In one word, the great pillar of the Christian's hope is substitution. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ for the guilty, Christ being made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, Christ offering up a true and proper expiatory and substitutionary sacrifice in the room, place, and stead of as many as the Father gave Him, who are known to God by name and are recognized in their own hearts by their trusting in Jesus--this is the cardinal fact of the Gospel. If this foundation were removed, what could we do? But it stands firm as the throne of God. We know it; we rest on it; we rejoice in it; and our delight is to hold it, to meditate upon it, and to proclaim it, while we desire to be stirred and moved by gratitude for it in every part of our life and conversation. In these days a direct attack is made upon the doctrine of the Atonement. Men cannot bear substitution. They gnash their teeth at the though of the Lamb of God bearing the sin of man. But we, who know by experience the preciousness of this truth, will proclaim it confidently and unceasingly and in defiance of them. We will neither dilute it nor change it, nor distort it in any shape or fashion. It shall still be Christ, a positive substitute, bearing human guilt and suffering in the place of men. We cannot, dare not give it up, for it is our life, and despite every controversy we affirm that "God's firm foundation stands."

--Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening