The Tiffinian

Morning Coffee - June 20, 2011

2011-06-20T11:24:00.000-04:00

Some stimulating links to start the day:

Andy Naselli: Theistic Evolution is Incompatible with the Bible
Evolution is secular culture’s grand explanation, the overriding ‘meta-narrative’ that sinners accept with joy because it allows them to explain life without reference to God, with no accountability to any Creator, no moral standards to restrain their sin, ‘no fear of God before their eyes’ (Rom. 3:18)—and now theistic evolutionists tell us that Christians can just surrender to this massive attack on the Christian faith and safely, inoffensively, tack on God, not as the omnipotent God who in his infinite wisdom directly created all living things, but as the invisible deity who makes absolutely no detectable difference in the nature of living beings as they exist today. It will not take long for unbelievers to dismiss the idea of such a God who makes no difference at all.

Brian Croft: What can pastors easily forget when preparing for Sunday services?
There is, however, a role the local church plays in the lives of our people that full-time pastors can easily forget. It is a role that those of us who spend much of our days immersed in God’s Word and caring for God’s people do not experience like most all our folks. Here is a role of the weekly public gathering we as full time pastors can forget:

The public, weekly gathering of the church provides a place of refuge, strength, and encouragement to our people who spend 5 days a week immersed in the world, surrounded by those who hate God, and constantly challenge the truths of the gospel they believe.

Forbes: Facebook vs. Apple
In the future, any Facebook user will have to go through Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android system to get to a Facebook app. Facebook fears this could lead to disintermediation — where both of their competitors chip away dollars and market share away from the social networking leader over time.

According to the TechCrunch article, Facebook is attempting to shore up its competitive positioning with a big push to developing its own apps on HTML5 and moving quickly to an online currency to hook users (Facebook Credits).

Is Facebook right to fear Apple and Google? They’d be crazy not to be afraid. Google’s leadership position in the tech world seemed unassailable 3 years ago. Now they seem to be a laggard coming back from weakness.

NYT: My Ex-Gay Friend
Though Michael had agreed to let me visit and write about him, he was skeptical about my motivations. “Why are you here?” he asked minutes after we sat down in the cafe, which was decorated with Christmas lights and staffed by a young waiter attending the Bible school.

It was a good question. Had part of me come to “save” my old friend from the clutches of the Christian right? Though I don’t doubt that sexual attraction can evolve, I was skeptical of Michael’s claim of heterosexuality — and I rejected his argument that “homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within.” Besides, I had a hard time believing that Michael’s “true self” was a fundamentalist Christian who writes derogatorily about being gay. But whatever aspirations I had about persuading Michael to join the ranks of ex-ex-gays, they were no match for his eagerness to save me.
(HT: Denny Burk)

PCMag: Google to Partner with the British Library to Bring 250,000 Books Online
With a catalog of about 14 million books, the British Library's collection is one of the biggest in the world, second only to the U.S. Library of Congress. Many of these titles will soon be available to anyone, anywhere; a new partnership between Google and the British Library will put about 250,000 of those texts online.

Google is footing the bill to digitize content that is no longer under copyright. People can view, copy, and search this content dating from 1700-1870 for free via either the British Library site or the Google Books site. Content will be available in a variety of languages, and a focus will be placed on items that have never been available online before.

WSJ: Daughters and Dad's Approval
We know that fathers play a key role in the development and choices of their daughters. But even for women whose fathers had been neglectful or abusive, I found a hunger for approval. They wanted a warm relationship with men who did not deserve any relationship at all.

Part of this need takes form early in life—when a father is a girl's portal to the world of men. I call fathers a girl's GPS—gender positioning system. It's how women begin to orient themselves in a confusing and (especially of late) fluid landscape of gender expectations.

Morning Coffee - June 10, 2011

2011-06-10T11:38:00.001-04:00

Some stimulating links to start the day:

Baptist Press Sports: Tim Tebow Memoir Released

"It’s about my life, from before I was born, all the way up to my first year in the NFL and everything in between," Tebow said in a Florida Times-Union story. "It’s a lot of cool stuff. Some of it is stories that have been told, but also what isn’t told. There’s a lot of stuff in there that ESPN doesn’t report, just thoughts of mine before big games and different stories that people wouldn’t know unless they were right there with me."

Jhumpa Lahiri: Trading Stories: Notes from an Apprenticeship

For much of my life, I wanted to be other people; here was the central dilemma, the reason, I believe, for my creative stasis. I was always falling short of people’s expectations: my immigrant parents’, my Indian relatives’, my American peers’, above all my own. The writer in me wanted to edit myself. If only there was a little more this, a little less that, depending on the circumstances: then the asterisk that accompanied me would be removed. My upbringing, an amalgam of two hemispheres, was heterodox and complicated; I wanted it to be conventional and contained. I wanted to be anonymous and ordinary, to look like other people, to behave as others did. To anticipate an alternate future, having sprung from a different past. This had been the lure of acting—the comfort of erasing my identity and adopting another. How could I want to be a writer, to articulate what was within me, when I did not wish to be myself?

Jonathan Leeman: How Not to Grow a Healthy Church

Just about every church leader and Christian I know would affirm the doctrine of the sufficiency of God’s Word. But this is an easy box to check in the morning and forget in the afternoon, particularly when you’re sitting in Tuesday’s church staff meeting making decisions about next Sunday. One of the legacies of Mark Dever in my life is the lesson that growing as both a Christian and as a pastor means growing continually in my understanding of the Bible’s sufficiency and power. Believing in this is a faith proposition that needs feeding and nurturing, just like a belief in God and the gospel.

This is especially important for church leaders, who are going to build their congregations on one thing or another. Your beliefs about the Bible are not a box to check. The faithful pastors whom many of us admire are the men who, over the years, grow and grow and grow in knowing the Bible’s power.

NYT Book Review: Books About Bob Dylan

[Greil Marcus'] recent scrapbook compilation, “Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968-2010,” shows him in a decades-long game of chess against the man who is his favorite subject, bugaboo, muse, hobbyhorse and intellectual crush object. Dylan will try to pull a fast one, and Marcus will usually catch him in the act and call him on it. Amusingly enough, he cannot stand one of Dylan’s most beloved songs. “Line by line,” Marcus writes, “ ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ is pious, or falsely innocent — isn’t it obvious whoever wrote ‘Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail / Before she sleeps in the sand?’ already knows the answer, assuming he or anyone can actually bring him or herself to care about such a precious question?” Neither does he care for “The Times They Are A-Changin.’ ” Or Dylan’s religious period. Or most of his 1980s output. Same with a lot of his 1970s material. He takes special glee in pointing out the horridness of a little-heard Dylan composition, from 1963, called “You’ve Been Hiding Too Long.” After quoting a few of its stilted lines, Marcus reports that it “is so awful it’s been erased from Dylan’s published song collections.” He piles on, calling it “self-congratulatory spew” and “the deformed spawn of the impulses behind ‘Masters of War.’ ”

On My Shelf Interview: Mark Dever

Any advice on how to read for comprehension?
This is the order I read nonfiction books: 1) table of contents; 2) prefatory material; 3) intro and conclusion; 4) chapter titles to figure out what the author is trying to do throughout the book; 5) rest of the book.
What book has been best adapted to the movie screen? Worst movie adaptation?
Best = “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Lord of the Rings”; Worst = Prince of Egypt (yes, the Disney animated film).

Wired: How Facebook Got an 'F' for Facial Recognition

It’s a pretty common-sense feature and examined coldly, really not very invasive and perhaps not even that useful. Similar features are baked into Apple’s iPhoto and Google’s Picasa client software. (For my money, the creepiest features of Google and Facebook are Google’s default-on Web History recording and Facebook’s behind-the-scenes ranking of the strength of your friendship with each of your friends.)

But the backlash is really about two things: 1) the fateful combination of the words “Facial Recognition” and “Facebook” and 2) Facebook’s tone-deaf handling of the feature.

"The commencement of godliness is the love of God."

2011-06-09T11:47:00.001-04:00

John Calvin on the greatest commandment (Deut 6:5; Matt 22:37 and parallels):

[N]o man will actually obey God but he who loves Him. But as the wicked and sinful inclinations of the flesh draw us aside from what is right, Moses shows that our life will not be regulated aright till the love of God fill all our senses. Let us therefore learn, that the commencement of godliness is the love of God, because God disdains the forced services of men, and chooses to be worshiped freely and willingly; and let us also learn, that under the love of God is included the reverence due to him.

Morning Coffee - June 9, 2011

2011-06-09T10:40:00.000-04:00

Some links to start the day:

The Atlantic: Sorry, Settlers of Catan Is Not The New Monopoly

Full disclosure: I am a regular Settlers player. At least twice a month I get together with two to five of my friends to "Settle," as the lingo goes. I first learned how to play in 2007, which I guess makes me part of the enclave that popularized the obscure German game with a less-than-marketable name. Since then I've been hooked. My college friends played when we were too lazy to go out. And when I first moved to D.C. I used it as a way to make friends in a city where I knew few people. I get the appeal. I'm just not so quick to call it the next Monopoly or Risk.

Baptist Press: How to Use Twitter to Communicate at #SBC2011

Include the official "#SBC2011" hashtag in your tweets so others can follow your conference updates. Share comments, quotes, photos and other bits of information. Just remember that you only have 140 characters to make it happen. And if you expect people to "retweet" your messages, aim at around 100-120 characters to be safe.

Baptist Press will be tweeting real-time coverage from the floor, sharing breaking news, news stories and photo highlights from an overall convention perspective. Be sure to follow @BaptistPress to track all the parliamentary action, such as motions, resolutions or votes.

Douglas E. Baker: Border Crossings: The SBC of the 21st Century

Trinity Church's membership spans the gamut from young professionals to college students skeptical of Christianity. Many members are not lifelong Southern Baptists, even though the church was established in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention. McCullough isn't shy about being a Southern Baptist, but he is quick to point out that most members in his congregation know next to nothing of the infrastructure that comprises one of the largest denominational ministries in the world.

The small-town Alabama native (still a rabid Auburn fan) graduated from Boyce College (the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) prior to coming to Vanderbilt and works to minimize the work of the denominational machinery when it comes to the church's outreach. His attitude is not one of annoyance or ingratitude. The SBC, he happily admits, "allows us to do more together than we can do alone."

Ross Douthat: Dr. Kevorkian's Victims

We are all dying, day by day: do the terminally ill really occupy a completely different moral category from the rest? A cancer patient’s suffering isn’t necessarily more unbearable than the more indefinite agony of someone living with multiple sclerosis or quadriplegia or manic depression. And not every unbearable agony is medical: if a man losing a battle with Parkinson’s disease can claim the relief of physician-assisted suicide, then why not a devastated widower, or a parent who has lost her only child?

This isn’t a hypothetical slippery slope. Jack Kevorkian spent his career putting this dark, expansive logic into practice. He didn’t just provide death to the dying; he helped anyone whose suffering seemed sufficient to warrant his deadly assistance. When The Detroit Free Press investigated his “practice” in 1997, it found that 60 percent of those he assisted weren’t actually terminally ill. In several cases, autopsies revealed “no anatomical evidence of disease.”

TechLand: Sony Hack Reveals 'Seinfeld' as Most Popular Password

Randomness is also key to password strength. That means using something like “qp}Edhg!13evTOI” rather than “JustinBieberRocks”. So it's interesting that over a third of the passwords analyzed could be found in a common password dictionary. The most frequent passwords use included: seinfeld, password, 123456, purple, princess, maggie, peanut, shadow, ginger, michael, buster, sunshine, tigger, cookie, george, summer, taylor, bosco, abc123, ashley, and bailey.

Timothy Keller: Sinned in a Literal Adam, Saved in a Literal Christ

Many orthodox Christians who believe God used evolutionary biological processes to bring about human life not only do not take Genesis 1 as history, but also deny that Genesis 2 is an account of real events. Adam and Eve, in their view, were not historical figures but an allegory or symbol of the human race. Genesis 2, then, is a symbolic story or myth that conveys the truth that human beings all have and do turn away from God and are sinners.

Before I share my concerns with this view, let me make a clarification. One of my favorite Christian writers (that’s putting it mildly), C. S.Lewis, did not believe in a literal Adam and Eve, and I do not think the lack of such belief means he cannot be saved. But my concern is for the church corporately and for its growth and vitality over time. Will the loss of a belief in the historical fall weaken some of our historical, doctrinal commitments at certain crucial points? Here are two points where that could happen.

Timothy Keller Blog Series on Preaching and Preachers

2011-06-08T16:32:00.000-04:00

Over the last few months, Timothy Keller has been blogging his way through D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' classic book Preaching and Preachers (which is set to be re-issued by Zondervan next year). He's written four posts so far, with more to come:

Lloyd-Jones on the Problem of Preaching

Lloyd-Jones on the Permanence of Preaching

Lloyd-Jones on the Primacy of Preaching

Lloyd-Jones on the Efficacy of Preaching Today

Keller says the book has greatly shaped his own preaching, and suggests one reason why ML-J's views have not gained wider acceptance:

As I re-read his book I realized that [Lloyd-Jones'] views by no means have won the day. The objections to classic preaching have largely been accepted and people are scrambling to find alternatives. I think most young leaders who would pick his book up today will find it completely out of step with any of the last several books they may have read on preaching. And yet here I am, after twenty some years in the middle of New York City, a postmodern city by any definition, having been deeply shaped by the Doctor's definitions and prescriptions for preaching, and they have borne much fruit here. So if this advice has proved effective in the middle of NYC, why are so few people taking it? So why are so many people going in a different direction with preaching? Why aren't more people listening to it?

If you move beyond these posts and read the Doctor's book—as I hope you will—you will quickly see one possible reason why people have not followed him. Dr. Lloyd-Jones makes a host of dogmatic assertions about very specific practices. He believed strongly that the pulpit should be physically above the listeners, that the minister should wear a robe, that he should not make many personal references to himself nor use much humor. He believed that the preacher should not announce his texts and topics ahead of time. (He was that loathe to cater to people's interests and "felt needs.") He thought it was abominable to plan out exactly what your texts and topics would be months in advance. (That did not give enough space for the leading of the Spirit.) He was also opposed to having his sermons recorded (though he reluctantly agreed to it eventually.) He believed that large preaching services (Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Friday night) really would carry virtually all the "freight" of the church's ministry. He frowned on small group ministry and had few other ways for the church to gather as a community or do discipleship and instruction. As it turned out, in the end his church was too preaching-dependent and after his retirement the church experienced a crisis.

I've come to the conclusion that Lloyd-Jones's basic theses about the nature of preaching have not been followed in the U.K. nor here in the U.S. largely because of his own dogmatism on details and also because so many of his followers did not seem to know how to extract the Doctor's particular methods and personal tastes from the broad lines of the argument he laid down. That argument is, I believe, successful and crucial for us in our times.

Morning Coffee

2011-06-08T11:01:00.000-04:00

Some links to start the day:

Carl Trueman: Geoff, Bob and Godly/Churchly Ambition

Aberystwyth is a small town of 18,000 people, 9,000 of whom are students, a university town divided into town and gown, further divided into two languages, Welsh and English, what has been dubbed the cultural capital of Wales. There I have built two churches, our own, and the one everyone goes to. You understand that there were lines that I couldn't cross, ethical lines, theological lines, ecumenical lines, liturgical lines. Others were happy, indeed zealous to cross them, but for me there were issues through which a salvation all of grace in its conception, continuance and consummation would have been compromised if I had crossed those lines, as would have been a worship which must be characterized by reverence and godly fear, for our God . . . our God . . . is a consuming fire.

Church Matters: Baseball Phenoms and Your Flaw Lines

It's true in baseball and it's true in life. We all like to do things that we're good at. We all play to our strengths and away from our weaknesses. But it's the weaknesses that limit us and bring us down. If you can hit fastballs but not curveballs, you're going to be seeing a lot of Uncle Charlie.
Tomorrow marks my sixth year as pastor of my church. And while I'm not a Bryce Harper-style phenom, I can say that life (Satan?) has attacked me at my flaw lines. In fact, I've learned that a lot of leadership consists of knowing your weaknesses and having the humility and strength to acknowledge them and get help with them.

Forbes' SportsMoney: Ohio State is Tressel-ized: The Lessons and the Future

But I say an insightful attribution of blame for a problem should start with root causes of the problem. The problem didn’t start with the players. It didn’t start with Tressel. Of course both made bad decisions but it starts with a failure of the NCAA in not giving adequate living expenses to players who work nearly full time, without real chances to make separate income. Would the players have been so tempted to barter property for pocket change, or for rent, to help pay a car note, if they were just given fuller living expenses? Realistically, they cannot even work for pay during the summer if they wanted to put in an honest day’s work and get paid like any other college student. The NCAA has known for years this was a problem.

NYT Book Review: The Man in the Rockefeller Suit

In the real-life story recounted in the journalist Mark Seal’s fascinating but weirdly incomplete new book, “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit,” one Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter arrives in America from Germany at 17 and over the years assumes a succession of identities, eventually passing himself off as Clark Rockefeller, “reluctant scion of the family with the country’s most famous name.” He finagles jobs with a succession of Wall Street firms; marries a woman named Sandra Boss, who quickly ascends the corporate ladder at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company; and insinuates himself into the privileged world of prep-school-and-Ivy-League-educated, upper-crust New York and Boston.

PCWorld: Why Facebook's Facial Recognition is Creepy

Obviously, we can't stop the world of technology from moving toward the development of accurate facial recognition software. But so far, no facial recognition software has really been a threat to our privacy, because nobody has that huge database of people and photos required. Oh wait, except Facebook totally does.

Yeah. So not only should you opt out of Facebook's facial recognition technology by going to Account > Account Settings > Privacy > Customize Settings > Things Others Share and disabling "Suggest photos of me to friends," you should also upload random pictures of trees and animals and stuffed toys and tag them as yourself.

Russell Moore: Are You Smarter Than Anthony Weiner?

As Christians, we believe that temptation isn’t merely biological. There’s something wild and wicked afoot in the universe. These beings have an ancient strategy, and part of that is to shield us from the future. Desire gives way to sin, James tells us, and “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). Temptation only works if the possible futures open to you are concealed. Consequences, including those of Judgment Day, must be hidden from view or outright denied. That’s why in humanity’s ancestral sin the serpent told our mother Eve, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4).

Spurgeon: On the Folly of Preaching too Long

The speaker's time should be measured out by wisdom. If he is destitute of discretion, and forgets the circumstances of his auditors, he will annoy them more than a little. In one house the pudding is burning, in another the child is needing its mother, in a third a servant is due in the family; the extra quarter of an hour's prosiness puts all out of order.

WSJ Book Review: Those Guys Have All the Fun (oral history of ESPN)

By contrast, relatively little attention is given to the conflicts inherent in a network being the largest promoter of sports, the most powerful partner of sports leagues and the largest journalistic shop covering them. A curious reader might want to hear why the quantity and quality of coverage of such sports as soccer and hockey seems to vary depending on how deeply their parent leagues are partnered with the network. But to wrestle with such questions would require introspection from ESPN's key players and a realistic appraisal of the integrity and quality of their product. You won't find much of that here.

What Is Marriage For?

2011-06-03T16:56:00.000-04:00

Gretchen,

Yesterday we celebrated a decade of marriage. In that time, we've moved from Wisconsin to Illinois to Kentucky, switched jobs a number of times, watched siblings progress from high school to college to married life, buried loved ones, welcomed babies, started and finished seminary, and experienced disappointments and successes. You do a lot of living in ten years.

Such a milestone is cause for celebration and thanksgiving. I am deeply grateful to God for you. Ten years of life together has furnished me with ample evidence that God was especially kind in the wife he gave me. I couldn't have known, on that blustery and cold June day a decade ago, just how great a gift you would be! So one purpose of this post is to publicly give thanks to God for his goodness, and to celebrate his faithfulness to us. Proverbs 18:22 isn't true of everyone, but it's true of me: "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD."

Another purpose is to call to mind and affirm anew the overarching purpose of our marriage. What is marriage for? What are we trying to accomplish? Ephesians 5, which has taken deep root in your heart, tells us that our purpose is to display the gospel of Jesus Christ as we relate to one another in self-giving love, to be a sort of living picture of Christ and his church:

[22] Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
[25] Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [28] In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, [30] because we are members of his body. [31] “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” [32] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. [33] However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Lauren Winner, in an article she wrote a number of years ago, beautifully summarizes this scriptural teaching:

Our surrounding society tells us that marriage is a private endeavor, that what happens between husband and wife behind closed doors is no one else’s concern. But in the Christian grammar, marriage is not only for the married couple. Insofar as marriage tells the Christian community a particular story, marriage is for the community. It reminds us of the communion and community that is possible between and among people who have been made new creatures in Christ. And it hints at the eschatological union between Christ and the Church. As Catholic ethicist Julie Hanlon Rubio has put it, “marriage consists not simply or even primarily of a personal relationship. Rather, it crystallizes the love of the larger church community. The couple is not just two-in-one, but two together within the whole, with specific responsibility for the whole. They must persevere in love, because the community needs to see God’s love actualized among God’s people.”

The inflections of community are important because they get at the very meanings of marriage. Marriage is a gift God gives the church. He does not simply give it to the married people of the church, but to the whole church, just as marriage is designed not only for the benefit of the married couple. It is designed to tell a story to the entire church, a story about God’s own love and fidelity to us.

I praise God for these first ten years, and pray that he will give us many, many more devoted to displaying his love and kindness!

Morning Coffee

2011-06-03T09:59:00.000-04:00

Ten links to start your day:

Albert Mohler: The Church and the 'Clobber Scriptures' -- The Bible on Homosexuality

The Blazing Center: Parenting Police Language

DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Glory of God: Conspicuous Christlikeness

The Official Hobbit Blog: Titles and Release Dates Announced

Moore to the Point: Children's Curriculum That's Not Afraid of Blood

Owen Strachan: The Tressel Fiasco: Christians and Their Sports Heroes

Practical Shepherding: Book Recommendation...for the pastor's family

Sharper Iron: Book Review - The Greener Grass Conspiracy

Tim Challies: Free Stuff Fridays

Worship Matters: Should We Play Music Behind People Praying?

"The Luckiest" -- Ben Folds

2011-06-02T12:27:00.000-04:00

"The Wild Rose" -- by Wendell Berry

2011-06-02T11:52:00.000-04:00

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

Noah's Ark Replica Planned for London Olympics

2011-06-01T15:19:00.000-04:00

Wired.com:

In a mere 422 days, billions of people will be focused on the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. If one eccentric Dutchman has his wish, they’ll be just as focused on what’s in the River Thames as the 100-meter gold medal race.

Contractor Johan Huibers is finishing up work on construction of an ark that is — Biblically speaking — almost exactly the assumed size of Noah’s ark, some 450 feet long and 75 feet wide. Huibers built an initial ark several years ago, but that one was only half the size described in the Bible. With this second rev, Huibers has gone all out.

Built on the shores of Dordrecht, about 60 miles south of Amsterdam, the ark will contain real, stuffed and animatronic animals — all in pairs, of course — with the idea of teaching visitors and inspiring schoolchildren about Christianity.

Read the whole thing here.

Twitter Today: Notable and Quotable

2011-06-01T11:43:00.000-04:00

Notable and quotable tweets from notable and quotable evangelicals:

Albert Mohler: "A thought for my day: 'Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.' -- Benjamin Franklin"

David Platt: "Mid East right now is filled w/unprecedented opportunity & unknown risk. Will we embrace both for the spread of the gospel?"

Denny Burk: "In memoir, Tim Tebow details blessed life rooted in faith - USATODAY.com:http://t.co/hEyUokP"

Ray Ortland: "The Lie: 'My life is basically over now because of my sins and the sins of others. The cross failed.'"

ShaperIron: "|SI Filings| I lost my inheritance to the doomsday prophet! http://bit.ly/l4Ydwb"

Bob Kauflin: "Audio from #thisisnext is now available: http://bit.ly/lwvme8 Carson, Sproul, DeYoung, Purswell, & Oliphint on biblical worldview."

Matt Hall: "Today is National Running Day. To celebrate, Southern Baptists everywhere plan on running to the nearest Chick-fil-A. #motivated"

Morning Coffee

2011-06-01T08:44:00.005-04:00

Ten links to start the day:

Andy Naselli: iPad Resources

Denny Burk: Teaching Gender in Public Schools

Kevin DeYoung: Rehoboam's Folly

Justin Taylor: A Front-Row Seat for Frontier Missions

Mark Driscoll: How to Honor Your Wife

Mary Kassian: What Not to Wear

Pyromaniacs: [another] Open Letter to John Piper

Thabiti Anyabwile: Desire Overcoming Dedication Leading to Destruction

Tom Ascol: John Piper Interviews Rick Warren

Tim Challies: Free Desktop Wallpaper Calendars: June 2011

Debating the Multi-site Model

2011-06-01T08:43:00.002-04:00

Does ekklesia mean "assembly"?

Gregg Allison responds to Mark Dever's comments early in this video clip:

An assembly is certainly in view when Paul addresses celebrating the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34) and regulates the exercise of speaking in tongues and prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:26-40) when the church is gathered together. But ekklēsia cannot mean “assembly” in Acts 8:1, for example, when Luke’s point is that the church was “scattered”—not assembled—because of persecution. In fact, the word church can refer to meetings of Christians in houses (Acts 12:12), the church in a city (1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1), all the believers in a region (Acts 9:31), the universal church (1 Corinthians 10:32), and even the saints already in heaven (Hebrews 12:23). Saying that the word ekklēsia means “assembly” commits a lexical error. (READ ON)

Jonathan Leeman responds to Allison:

[Allison] says that "saying that the word ekklesia means 'assembly' commits a lexical error" since the word is used in the New Testament in places where no assembly is present, such as Acts 8:3: "But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged men and women..." Allison's surely right to observe that the word "church" in a text like this one refers to the church scattered, not gathered. But the multi-site argument actually requires something more. It requires one to say that a church can be a church even if the sites never gather (again, an assembly that never actually assembles). As I look at the text, I would say that the word "church" is used like the word "team." A basketball team (meaning the members of the team) can be gathered or they can be scattered. But the point is, they aren't a team if they never actually gather. The gathering is one aspect of what constitutes a team as a team and a church as a church. (READ ON)

What is a Successful Church?

2011-05-31T14:16:00.001-04:00

Thabiti Anyabwile:

Very often churches and church leaders define their “success” in terms of numbers. Some defend measurement as an acceptable approach to gauging progress and effectiveness. They speak of the number of baptisms or converts, church attendance and budgets, and other numerical assessments as shorthand for “success.” Others reduce “success” to one factor: faithfulness. ”Whether the numbers change or not,” this group tells us, “is not the issue. The issue is whether a leader and church have been true to God’s design and intent.”

Here’s what both points of view can sometimes miss: persons and their stories. We can miss that behind every number are tons of persons. And a “faithful” man may in his own way miss persons by making persons into an abstract mass of “people.” I know that numbers tell us something about people, but only at aggregate levels, levels that become useless with individuals. And I know that a faithful pastor will love and care for people. But he can begin to think that people get in the way of being faithful. What we need are ways of defining and talking about the church and the work of the ministry that tells the stories of God’s work in, with and through persons. Isn’t the church and leadership about God’s design and will for persons? Isn’t the best measurement of “success” what happens in, to, and with persons in all of their beauty and ugly?

Read the whole thing HERE.

The Shepherd's Sling and Staff

2011-05-04T20:00:00.006-04:00

If the charge of pastoral ministry is "shepherd the flock," how, precisely, does a pastor go about doing so? What tasks are involved? Again we look to the Bible for our answer.

A good summary of the way in which pastors care for the flock is found in Acts 6:4, where the apostles who shepherded the Jerusalem church insisted on giving themselves above all “to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” These are the two essential duties of pastoral ministry. A faithful ministry will surely involve more but must never involve less. If the pastor is a shepherd then prayer and the ministry of the word are his sling and staff – the tools he uses to care for the flock.

Prayer - The pastor shepherds the church by diligently praying for it, for “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much” (James 5:16). He prays for the church as a whole to grow in knowledge, discernment, fruitfulness, purity, unity and love. We see prayers of this kind throughout the NT (e.g., John 17; Acts 20:36; Eph 1:15-19; Phil 1:3-11). The pastor also watches over individual members by interceding for each of them regularly, just as Jesus interceded for Peter (Luke 22:31-32) and Paul remembered Timothy “constantly in [his] prayers night and day” (2 Tim 1:3).

Ministry of the Word - The pastor proclaims God’s Word to God’s people: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2). He declares to them “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), the center of which is “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). A robust Word ministry is utterly crucial, for, as pastor Mark Dever has said, “The consistent message of Scripture is that God creates his people and brings them to life through his Word.” Acts 20 highlights several important features of Word ministry:

Public Word ministry - Paul taught “in public,” meaning he preached when the church was gathered together for worship. He later instructed Timothy to do the same: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). “The heart of Christian worship,” says R. Albert Mohler, “is the authentic preaching of the Word of God.” Word ministry in the church’s public gatherings is vital because the pastor is able to communicate God’s Word to the whole congregation at once week by week. He proclaims to them the greatness of God, the sinfulness of humanity and the hope of the gospel, and exhorts the hearers to respond in trust and obedience. Book-by-book expository preaching, which makes the point of the text the point of the sermon, should be the regular diet of the church. In addition to the church’s regular meetings, public Word ministry takes place when the pastor proclaims God’s Word at weddings, funerals and other such gatherings.

Private Word ministry - Paul also taught “from house to house,” meaning he engaged in one-on-one discipleship. He visited people in their homes in order to provide more personal instruction from God’s Word. The pastor must get to know church members personally and become familiar with their unique circumstances, problems and struggles so that he can encourage them in the gospel and teach them how it applies to their lives. In so doing, he shows the members how to disciple one another. Private Word ministry also includes activities such as counseling, personal evangelism, visiting homebound members and making hospital visits.

Setting an example - Paul reminded the Ephesian elders of his hard work and humble service in dependence upon the Lord and exhorted them to follow his example (cf. also 1 Cor 11:1; Phil 3:17). The responsibility to set an example of godliness for the flock is inseparable from the ministry of the Word, for the pastor’s personal walk with Christ gives weight and substance to both his public and private Word ministry. The pastor must invite the flock into his life so that they can imitate his walk. Example-setting also includes the pastor’s responsibility to identify and mentor future leaders “who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2; cf. also Titus 1:5).

Shepherding the Flock

2011-05-04T11:09:00.003-04:00

The Bible’s favorite metaphor for pastoral ministry is shepherding. Like shepherds, pastors watch over the flock of God entrusted to them. In fact, the word translated pastor in our English Bibles (Eph 4:6) is the Greek word for shepherd. So the Apostle Paul charged the Ephesian elders, “Pay careful attention . . . to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God” (Acts 20:28). And Peter exhorted the elders of the churches of Asia Minor to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Peter 5:2). Pastors lead, feed and guard the flock under the authority of Christ, the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4).

The pastor leads the flock, not in a domineering way but by setting an example of godliness (1 Tim 4:12; 1 Peter 5:3) and by serving, just as Christ did (Luke 22:26-27). He says with Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). While governing authority rests with the congregation as a whole, pastors have authority to lead because of their special responsibility to watch over the souls of the flock, for which they will answer to God: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Heb 13:17).

The pastor feeds the flock on the Word of God, for the gospel alone “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). The pastor is not free to feed the flock on his own opinions or on worldly wisdom, but must nourish them with the very words of God (1 Peter 4:11).

The pastor guards the flock from the enemies of their souls, just as Paul warned the Ephesian elders: “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). Thus the pastor must keep alert and persist in plainly declaring the word of God’s grace, just as Charles Spurgeon urged the pastors of his day:

"Cleverness and eloquence – away with them forever! If it is not the truth of God, the more cleverly and eloquently it is preached the more damnable it is. We must have the truth and nothing but the truth, and I charge the fathers in Christ all over England and America to see to this. Get ye to your watchtower and guard the flock, lest the sheep be destroyed while they are asleep."

How, exactly, does a pastor go about shepherding the flock? What tasks are involved? That will be the subject of my next post.

What is the goal of Christian preaching?

2011-01-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

Martin Luther in Concerning Christian Liberty:

Now preaching ought to have the object of promoting faith in [Christ], so that He may not only be Christ, but a Christ for you and for me, and that what is said of Him, and what He is called, may work in us. And this faith is produced and is maintained by preaching why Christ came, what He has brought us and given to us, and to what profit and advantage He is to be received.

Repost: Exmas and Christmas

2010-12-16T13:51:00.003-05:00

Here's a little essay on Christmas by good old Jack.

A Lost Chapter from Herodotus
By C.S. Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and the north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, and though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from other barbarians who occupy the north- western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card . But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the market-place is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest and the most miserable of citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk in the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchasers become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think that some great calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas , which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, O Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For the first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

2010-11-23T18:42:00.011-05:00

Most gracious God, by whose knowledge the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew:

We yield thee hearty thanks and praise for the return of seedtime and harvest, for the increase of the ground and the gathering in of its fruits, and for all the other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people.

And, we beseech thee, give us a just sense of these great mercies, such as may appear in our lives by a humble, holy, and obedient walking before thee all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost be all glory and honor, world without end.

Amen.

(The Book of Common Prayer, p. 840)

When Saints Become Devils

2010-10-07T09:37:00.002-04:00

Have you ever sat through a church business meeting in which some otherwise godly members seemed intent on causing trouble and fostering disunity? Who wanted not only to disagree but to do so in a disagreeable manner? Why do otherwise godly people sometimes behave badly in church business meetings? D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones suggests that one reason is that Christian people fail to think spiritually about every facet of life:

Spurgeon once told his students that they would find that people who in prayer meetings prayed like real saints, and who in general behaved like true saints, in a church meeting could suddenly become devils. Alas, the history of the church proves that what he said is but too true. You see, in praying to God they think spiritually. Then they come to the business of the church and become devils. Why? Because they start off in an unspiritual manner, on the assumption that there is some essential difference between a church meeting and a prayer meeting. They have a party spirit within them and out it comes. It is simply because they forget that they need to think spiritually about everything. The first principle we lay down, therefore is, that we must learn to think spiritually always.

(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Faith Tried and Triumphant, p. 106.)

What's wrong with weddings

2010-08-31T13:18:00.004-04:00

Incisive comments here about how the modern wedding ceremony actually undermines marriage. An excerpt:

[T]he modern wedding, if it does anything, shortens marriages rather than cementing them.
Here's why. The modern wedding, with its stupendous cost (£20,000 on average) and duration, is really a celebration of the participants. They really are unique and precious snowflakes, just as they have suspected all along. In fact, they are each and both of them just the unique and precious people they would like to be. Everyone pretends that for the day the couple really are starring in their own film: following the conventions of modern films, that means nothing really bad can happen to them.
[...]
The great point about completely impersonal ceremonies, whose form is the same for everyone, whether these are religious or entirely civil, is that they remind us that the problems and difficulties of marriage are universal. They come from being human. They can't be dodged just by being our wonderful selves, even all dusted with unicorn sparkle.
On your wedding day you feel thoroughly special, and your guests will go along with this; so that is the moment when the ceremony should remind you that you're not all that. What you're doing isn't a step into fairyland. And if it does turn out to be the gateway to a new life, that is one that will have to be built over time and unglamorously with the unpromising materials of the old one.

Found: 4th-Century images of Apostles John and Andrew

2010-06-25T11:41:00.002-04:00

Archaeologists have found stunningly clear portraits of the apostles John and Andrew in a catacomb under an Italian street. According to the article from the Guardian, the catacomb "is accessed through the unmarked basement door of a drab office building, beyond which dim corridors packed with burial spots wind off through damp tufa stone."

Manute Bol, "fool for Christ"

2010-06-25T11:29:00.002-04:00

Here's a nice tribute to the late Manute Bol, former NBA player, Christian, and humanitarian, by Jon Shields of the Wall Street Journal. Shields says of Bol:

Bol's life and death throws into sharp relief the trivialized manner in which sports journalists employ the concept of redemption. In the world of sports media players are redeemed when they overcome some prior "humiliation" by playing well. Redemption then is deeply connected to personal gain and celebrity. It leads to fatter contracts, shoe endorsements, and adoring women.

Yet as Bol reminds us, the Christian understanding of redemption has always involved lowering and humbling oneself. It leads to suffering and even death.

It is of little surprise, then, that the sort of radical Christianity exemplified by Bol is rarely understood by sports journalists. For all its interest in the intimate details of players' lives, the media has long been tone deaf to the way devout Christianity profoundly shapes some of them.

Encouragement for Parents

2010-04-30T11:17:00.006-04:00

Parents, do you ever lament some of the ways your life has changed since you had kids? That your social life isn't what it used to be, that you don't get out on the town as often as you once did, that you go to bed so early, that your days are so often spent in the realm of diapers and toys and nap times and runny noses and lowered volume on the TV so the baby doesn't wake up?

In his book The Reason for God, Tim Keller observes that these kinds of limitations are in fact noble, and a reflection of God's own self-giving in the person of his Son. Read and be encouraged:

In the real world of relationships it is impossible to love people with a problem or a need without in some sense sharing or even changing places with them. All real life-changing love involves some form of this kind of exchange.

[ . . . ]

Consider parenting. Children come into the world in a condition of complete dependence. They cannot operate as self-sufficient, independent agents unless their parents give up much of their own independence and freedom for years. If you don't allow your children to hinder your freedom in work and play at all, and if you only get to your children when it doesn't inconvenience you, your children will grow up physically only. In all sorts of other ways they will remain emotionally needy, troubled, and over-dependent. The choice is clear. You can either sacrifice your freedom or theirs. It's them or you. To love your children well, you must decrease that they may increase. You must be willing to enter into the dependency they have so eventually they can experience the freedom and independence you have.

All life-changing love toward people with serious needs is a substitutional sacrifice. If you become personally involved with them, in some way, their weaknesses flow toward you as your strengths flow toward them. In The Cross of Christ, John Stott writes that substitution is at the heart of the Christian message:
The essence of sin is we human beings substituting ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for us. We . . . put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God . . . puts himself where we deserve to be [on the Cross].

Your parenting is a wonderful picture of the gospel. It's cosmically significant. Keep at it!

Gift

2010-03-07T21:47:00.003-05:00

a gift, placid round and warm

silent present cries--

they rise called away, a gift

Did Christmas Really Happen?

2009-12-22T08:37:00.004-05:00

That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

Spurgeon's Christmas Sermons

2009-12-18T11:57:00.003-05:00

I've benefited this Advent season from reading some of Charles Spurgeon's Christmas sermons. Spurgeon was a great Baptist preacher in London in the late 19th century. Here are links to a few I've enjoyed so far, and a quote from each:

"No Room for Christ in the Inn"

HAVE YOU ROOM FOR CHRIST? HAVE YOU ROOM FOR CHRIST? As the palace, and the forum, and the inn, have no room for Christ, and as the places of public resort have none, have you room for Christ? "Well," says one, "I have room for him, but I am not worthy that he should come to me." Ah! I did not ask about worthiness; have you room for him? "Oh," says one, "I have an empty void the world can never fill!" Ah! I see you have room for him. "Oh! but the room I have in my heart is so base!" So was the manger. "But it is so despicable!" So was the manger a thing to be despised. "Ah! but my heart is so foul!" So, perhaps, the manger may have been. "Oh! but I feel it is a place not at all fit for Christ!" Nor was the manger a place fit for him, and yet there was he laid." Oh! but I have been such a sinner; I feel as if my heart had been a den of beasts and devils!" Well, the manger had been a place where beasts had fed. Have you room for him? Never mind what the past has been; he can forget and forgive. It mattereth not what even the present state may be if thou mournest it. If thou hast but room for Christ he will come and be thy guest. Do not say, I pray you, "I hope I shall have room for him;" the time is come that he shall be born; Mary cannot wait months and years. Oh! sinner, if thou hast room for him let him be born in thy soul to-day. "To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation." "To-day is the accepted time; today is the day of salvation." Room for Jesus! Room for Jesus now! "Oh!" saith one, "I have room for him, but will he come?" Will he come indeed! Do you but set the door of your heart open, do but say, "Jesus, Master, all unworthy and unclean I look to thee; come, lodge within my heart," and he will come to thee, and he will cleanse the manger of thy heart, nay, will transform it into a golden throne, and there he will sit and reign for ever and for ever.

"Joy Born at Bethlehem"

The key-note of this angelic gospel is joy—"I bring unto you good tidings of great joy." Nature fears in the presence of God—the shepherds were sore afraid. The law itself served to deepen this natural feeling of dismay; seeing men were sinful, and the law came into the world to reveal sin, its tendency was to make men fear and tremble under any and every divine revelation. The Jews unanimously believed that if any man beheld supernatural appearances, he would be sure to die, so that what nature dictated, the law and the general beliefs of those under it also abetted. But the first word of the gospel ended all this, for the angelic evangelist said, "Fear not, behold I bring you good tidings." Henceforth, it is to be no dreadful thing for man to approach his Maker; redeemed man is not to fear when God unveils the splendor of his majesty, since he appears no more a judge upon his throne of terror, but a Father unbending in sacred familiarity before his own beloved children.

"The First Christmas Carol"

Let each one of us go from this place determined, that if we are angry all the year round, this next week shall be an exception; that if we have snarled at everybody last year, this Christmas time we will strive to be kindly affectionate to others; and if we have lived all this year at enmity with God, I pray that by his Spirit he may this week give us peace with him; and then, indeed, my brother, it will be the merriest Christmas we ever had in all our lives. You are going home to your father and mother, young men; many of you are going from your shops to your homes. You remember what I preached on last Christmas time. Go home to thy friends, and tell them what the Lord hath done for thy soul, and that will make a blessed round of stories at the Christmas fire. If you will each of you tell your parents how the Lord met with you in the house of prayer; how, when you left home, you were a gay, wild blade, but have now come back to love your mother's God, and read your father's Bible. Oh, what a happy Christmas that will make! What more shall I say? May God give you peace with yourselves; may he give you good will towards all your friends, your enemies, and your neighbors; and may he give you grace to give glory to God in the highest. I will say no more, except at the close of this sermon to wish every one of you, when the day shall come, the happiest Christmas you ever had in your lives.

Merry Christmas from The Tiffinian!

A Charlie Brown Christmas

2009-12-18T11:50:00.005-05:00

Discipling Children: Whose Job Is It Anyway?

2009-10-22T15:54:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-10-22T10:24:00.003-04:00

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?

2009-04-12T09:18:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-02T09:04:00.005-04:00

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

2008-10-14T17:26:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-07T16:30:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-05T10:15:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-25T16:57:00.005-04:00

"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

Mark 13:24-27 Paper

2008-05-29T11:49:00.002-04:00

Here's a paper on Mark 13:24-27 I wrote this spring.

Mark 13:24-27:

“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven."

Excerpt from the introduction:

"In Mark’s gospel Jesus refers three times to the future coming of the Son of Man (8:38; 13:26; 14:62). These passages have commonly been interpreted as references to the second coming of Christ at the end of this age. A minority of scholars, however, have opted for a different interpretation, arguing that it is not Jesus’ parousia that is in view in these passages but his exaltation in the presence of God after his death. . . . It is my thesis that Mark 13:24-27 points to a time after the tribulation described in Mark 13:14-23 when a series of catastrophic natural events will accompany the powerful and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the clouds to earth. At that time he will send out his angels and he will gather to himself the elect from around the world. In the first section, the exaltation view will be summarized, and then the place of 13:24-27 in Mark’s wider denunciation of the temple will be considered. In the second section, a brief survey of the whole of Mark 13 will be provided, since a careful consideration of the whole of Mark 13 will be required in order to properly interpret 13:24-27. Third, Mark 13:24-27 will be examined carefully, particularly in light of the Old Testament passages it employs. Finally a brief survey of the two parables which close out Mark 13 will be undertaken in order to underline the argument that Mark 13:24-27 does indeed portray the parousia of the Son of Man."

Update on Chinese Persecution

2008-05-14T16:34:00.003-04:00

A Chinese friend of mine whose church in China was raided by government officials has passed along the following note from a member of that church:

Hi, everyone

Please have a look at the following note.

May 11, Sunday morning, as we were about to start worshiping, some officials and policemen came, they claimed that our gathering was lawless, and tried to dismiss people and stop the worship. Very few people left, and the pastor, elder Christians and everyone present refused their request in a peaceable but firm way. The worship went on, with their photographing and videotaping. And after a short teaching, they requested us all to register the name, ID,working/studying place, address, phone number. Most Christians left the information.

I am so thankful to God that during this process, we indeed keep a quiet and steady heart, no panic, no fear, no furious clash with the officials. I think most of us, bold enough to leave our information,show a kind of publicity of the faith, for being a Christian is no shame, even in China.

The elders think there might be some pressure from the government afterwards. Yet no one knows what it will be. Sure the pastor and main workers in the church are under bigger stress, than us.

As you already knew, the next day, big earthquake happened in southwest China. Even in my working place, a 21 floor office in Beijing, the shake was apparent. Thousands of people have died in this calamity, lots of them, might never heard of the gospel. My dear friends, I hope you can pray for China with me, for the people in this tribulation, for gospel's preaching all over the land, for better environment to worship . I do believe, God's hand is working in this country, however stubborn the soil is, His will and His power are unconquerable.

Bless China!

Continue to pray for the endurance of the saints in China and the effectiveness of their witness.

China Stepping Up Persecution Ahead of Olympics

2008-05-12T15:49:00.002-04:00

The Weekly Standard reports:

With less than 100 days to go before the Beijing Olympics, China has stepped up its crackdown on the country’s underground Christian church. Since the beginning of May, the authorities have conducted at least eight raids on house churches. The latest such incident took place yesterday in Beijing. More than two dozen police, along with officials of the religious affairs bureau, interrupted a gathering at the Shouwang Church and took the names, ID card numbers, home addresses, and phone numbers of all church members present.
(READ ON)

Pray for our brothers and sisters in China.

Mahaney Series on Modesty

2008-04-30T13:47:00.003-04:00

Over on his blog, C.J. Mahaney has an excellent series of posts going on the topic of modesty, excerpted from his chapter on the topic in his forthcoming book Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (Crossway, September 2008). Check it out.

Schreiner Interview

2008-04-29T21:19:00.004-04:00

Click here to read a recent interview with my pastor, Tom Schreiner, about his forthcoming book New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ. Here's a quote from the interview:

I've been a preaching pastor for 11 years at Clifton Baptist Church. I hope my academic work is shaped by my pastoral ministry. Good academic work is crucial but my aim is that it will have an impact on the church so that too was one of my purposes. I would hope that those who read it would be moved to praise God for his saving work in Jesus Christ and that those who read it would see that the New Testament calls upon us to give our lives unreservedly to Jesus Christ. Our God is to be trusted, for he fulfills his saving promises.

National Review: R.C. Sproul an Obscurantist

2008-04-02T23:15:00.004-04:00

Yesterday on National Review's blog, John Derbyshire called R.C. Sproul "obscurantist" because he believes God created the universe. Memo to conservative Christians: Don't assume that political conservatives share your worldview. They (read: John McCain) might say what we want to hear and make us feel important to get our votes, but at the end of they day they think we're a bunch of gullible fools.

Spurgeon on True Christian Character

2008-04-01T15:33:00.003-04:00

Some there be, too, who imagine that to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus, it will be quite enough to act publicly as Christ would have acted. They are always talking about points of conscience: "Would Christ have done this" or "that?" And then they answer it according to their own fancies. They see some Christian man who walks under "the perfect law of liberty," and is not bound by the "touch not, taste not, handle not," of the old Mosaic spirit, and they cry over him, "Would Christ have done such a thing?" They see a believer laugh, "Would Christ have done it?" If a Christian man keeps a carriage, "Ah," they say, "did Christ ever ride in a carriage?" And so they think that by putting on a face that is more marred than that of any other man, they shall become the very image of Christ Jesus. You know that in the theatres men come forth as kings, "and strut their little hour;" and for awhile they are the very image of Julius Caesar, or of Richard III; and do you suppose that such is the intention of the Holy Spirit, that you and I should be so dressed, that in outward appearance we should be the image of Christ, and yet not be like Christ really and truly? God forbid we should indulge so idle a dream. The fact is, men and brethren, while practically we must be like the Saviour, yet the greatest conformity to his image must be within; it must be that unseen spirit, that essential holiness which dwells where only God can see it, which shall constitute the main part of our likeness to Christ. You might put on tomorrow, a garment without seam woven from the top throughout; you might put sandals on the soles of your feet; you might wear your beard uncut, and so say, "In all this I seek to be like Christ," and you might even ride through the streets of Jerusalem upon "a colt the foal of an ass," but you would be a great deal more the image of a fool, than you would be the image of Christ. This imitation is not to be in mere externals, it is to be in internals, in the very essence and spirit of your Christian character.

The Son of Man in Mark's Gospel

2008-03-27T19:58:00.002-04:00

If you're interested, you can read a paper I just finished on "the Son of Man" in Mark's gospel HERE.

The Theology Behind the Obama-Wright Affair

2008-03-17T15:32:00.002-04:00

From the Asia Times:

Senator Barack Obama is not a Muslim, contrary to invidious rumors. But he belongs to a Christian church whose doctrine casts Jesus Christ as a "black messiah" and blacks as "the chosen people". At best, this is a radically different kind of Christianity than most Americans acknowledge; at worst it is an ethnocentric heresy. . . .

In the black liberation theology taught by Wright, Cone and Hopkins, Jesus Christ is not for all men, but only for the oppressed:
In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not.
In this respect black liberation theology is identical in content to all the ethnocentric heresies that preceded it. Christianity has no use for the nations, a "drop of the bucket" and "dust on the scales", in the words of Isaiah. It requires that individuals turn their back on their ethnicity to be reborn into Israel in the spirit. That is much easier for Americans than for the citizens of other nations, for Americans have no ethnicity. But the tribes of the world do not want to abandon their Gentile nature and as individuals join the New Israel. Instead they demand eternal life in their own Gentile flesh, that is, to be the "Chosen People".

What's Your Favorite Hymn?

2008-02-19T18:59:00.004-05:00

Respond in the comments section. If you want, you can visit cyberhymnal, find your favorite hymn(s), and paste your favorite verse into your comment.

Also, read Gretchen's post about the great concert at our church last night featuring old hymns set to new tunes.

My favorite(s):

"Be Thou My Vision"

"Here Is Love"

My favorite single verse is from a different hymn, "It Is Well with My Soul":

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

In God's Presence Together

2008-02-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

[T]here is a sense in which we are always in God's presence, always meeting with him. On various occasions, however, God seems to draw nearer. What the New Testament teaches is that when God's people meet together in the name of Jesus God actually does draw nearer. That is true, whether we feel God's nearness or not. It is his promise, and we should rely on it.

What does "draw near" mean in this context? I have said that it is hard to define, but let me try to clarify the idea somewhat. When God draws near, he has special business with us. As in Isaiah's case [in Isaiah 6], he wants to remind us of his greatness and holiness. He wants us to acknowledge that greatness in our praises. He wants to convict us of sin, and he wants us to confess that sin and receive forgiveness. He wants us to hear his word and obey it. He wants to hear our baptismal and membership vows, and to preside at the discipline of the church. He wants to fellowship with us in the Lord's Supper. He wants to receive our gifts. He wants to acknowledge our unity and love for one another as his body. For such purposes, God draws near. And from such fellowship with God in the name of Christ, we arise, empowered by his Spirit, to do his bidding.

-- John M. Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth, p. 34

Christ As Creator, Sustainer, Goal, and Reconciler

2008-02-07T18:34:00.000-05:00

If you worship Christ as the Creator of everything, every cosmic speck across billions of light years of trackless space, the Creator of the textures and shapes and colors that dazzle our eyes; if you worship Christ as the Sustainer of all creation, who by his word holds the atoms of your body and this universe together; if you worship him as the Goal of everything, that all creation is for him; if you further worship Christ as the Reconciler of your soul - then you worship the God of the Bible. Anything less than this is reductionist and idolatrous.

- R. Kent Hughes, in Worship by the Book (D.A. Carson, ed.)

Brenna

2008-02-04T23:08:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Aaron and Melissa on the birth of their daughter, Brenna Paige Herbert, who was born on January 28, 2008 at 4:35 AM, weighing 5 lbs., 10 oz.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, Giver of Life, we thank and praise You for the safe and healthy birth of Brenna Paige. We praise You also for Your kindness in seeing Melissa safely through the last weeks of her pregnancy. We read in Your word, O Father, that Brenna, though so recently born, is nevertheless in need of a second birth. We pray that by Your Spirit You would cause her before long to be born again unto a living hope, that through faith in Jesus Christ she would receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. For Your Name's sake, O Lord, please grant to Aaron and Melissa great wisdom, and faith, and purity of life as they seek to raise Brenna to fear Your name and love the gospel of Your Son. Please use this little life to bring Yourself great glory, O Lord, for You alone are worthy of all glory, honor, and power. Amen.

Watching the Super Bowl to the Glory of God

2008-02-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

C.J. Mahaney offers FOUR SUGGESTIONS (AND A PREDICTION!):

1. Strategically assign the remote.

2. Don't watch passively.

3. Foster fellowship.

4. Draw attention to the eternal.

(HT: B2W)

Worship is Inevitable

2008-02-02T08:37:00.000-05:00

At the heart of the Fall is the self-love that destroys our God-centeredness. Implicitly, of course, all failure to worship God is neither more nor less than idolatry. Because we are finite, we will inevitably worship something or someone. In The Brothers Karamzaov, Dostoyevsky was not wrong to write, "So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship." Yet because we are fallen, we gravitate to false gods: a god that is domesticated and manageable, perhaps a material god, perhaps an abstract god like power or pleasure, or a philosophical god like Marxism or democracy or postmodernism. But worship we will.

- D.A. Carson, Worship by the Book, p. 35

Encouraging Words

2008-01-17T13:02:00.000-05:00

For Emily, who leaves for college today:

From Jesus himself:

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." (Mark 10:29-30)

From William Cowper's hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way":

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

And from Jim Elliot:

Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt in every situation you believe to be the will of God.

Behold the Lamb

2008-01-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

"Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb."
--Rev. 14:1

Christian, here is joy for you; you have looked, and you have seen the Lamb. Through your tears your eyes have seen the Lamb of God taking away your sins. Rejoice then. In a little while, when your eyes shall have been wiped from tears, you will see the same Lamb exalted on His throne. It is the joy of your heart to hold daily fellowship with Jesus. You shall have the same joy to a higher degree in heaven; you shall enjoy the constant vision of His presence; you shall dwell with Him forever. "I looked, and, behold, . . . the Lamb." Why, that Lamb is heaven itself; for as good Rutherford says, "Heaven and Christ are the same thing." To be with Christ is to be in heaven, and to be in heaven is to be with Christ. . . . All you need to make you blessed, supremely blessed, is to be with Christ.

--Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (Crossway, 2003)

One Year Ago Today

2008-01-15T12:59:00.000-05:00

Gretchen and I moved to Louisville one year ago today. The word that best describes the year for me? Increase. We've grown through the ministry of our loving church family, through the friendships we’ve formed, and through the classes we’ve taken. And yet this increase has come in and through struggles of various kinds. Our faith has increased, yet we have known doubt and testing; our godliness has (we trust) increased, yet we have known sin and temptation; our commitment to and love for one another has increased, yet we have known strain; our knowledge has increased, yet we have often had to admit ignorance; warm friendships have formed and increased, yet we have known times of loneliness; our love for Christ and his gospel has increased, yet we have known seasons of spiritual dryness and coldness.

I'm thankful for our (admittedly light) struggles. I'm convinced that the increase has come because of these struggles, not in spite of them. The Bible tells us in many places that this is God's way:

[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:3-5)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

In this [living hope] you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so tha the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

One year ago, we didn’t know what was in store for us. Today, with hearts full of gratitude and joy we praise and thank you, O Lord, for your overwhelming goodness to us:

Praise the LORD, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
Forgreat is his steadfast love toward us,
andthe faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.
Praise the LORD!
--Psalm 117

I’m reminded of these verses from the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”:

Praise to the Lord, who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Christ Has Redeemed Our Bodies

2008-01-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

Christ has redeemed the bodies of all his children. In that day when Christ redeemed our souls, he redeemed the tabernacles in which our souls dwell. At the same moment when the spirit was redeemed by blood, Christ who gave his human soul and his human body to death, purchased the body as well as the soul of every believer. . . .

Though in a little time I shall slumber in the tomb, though worms devour this body, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and because he lives I know that in my flesh I shall see God. These eyes which soon shall be glazed in death, shall not be always closed in darkness; death shall be made to give back his prey; he shall restore all that he has taken. . . .

Christ shall raise them with himself. Think of that, ye that have lost friends--ye weeping children of sorrow! Your redeemed friends shall live again. The very hands that grasped yours with a death clutch, shall, with eye-strings that never shall be broken, wake up in the noon-day of felicity. That very frame which thou didst sorrowfully convey, with dread attire of funeral, to bury in its tomb--yes, that selfsame body, made like the image of Jesus Christ, spiritualized and changed, but nevertheless the selfsame body, shall rise again; and thou, if thou art redeemed, shalt see it, for Christ has purchased it, and Christ shall not die in vain. Death will not have one bone of the righteous--nay, not a particle of their dust--nay, not a hair of their heads. It shall all come back. Christ has purchased all our body, and the whole body shall be completed, and united in heaven with the glorified soul. The bodies of the righteous are redeemed, and redeemed for eternal happiness.

--Charles Spurgeon, "Plenteous Redemption," The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. VII (Pilgrim Publications, 1969)

Avoid Manipulation in Evangelism

2008-01-11T11:10:00.000-05:00

Who can deny that much modern evangelism has become emotionally manipulative, seeking simply to cause a momentary decision of the sinner's will, yet neglecting the biblical idea that conversion is the result of the supernatural, gracious act of God toward the sinner? . . .

When we are involved in a program in which converts are quickly counted, decisions are more likely pressed, and evangelism is gauged by its immediately obvious effect, we are involved in undermining real evangelism and real churches. History is full of people coming to Christ months and years after the gospel is presented to them. That may be the case with you. I know it was with me, and it is with many other Christians. Most of us don't respond the first time we hear the gospel.

--Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, pp. 80-81 (Crossway, 2007)

The Gospel, in Six Sentences

2008-01-10T17:48:00.000-05:00

[T]he good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ's sacrifice and that God's wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into new life, an eternal life with God.

--Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, p. 43 (Crossway, 2007)

Grow in Grace

2008-01-04T11:47:00.000-05:00

"Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." - 2 Peter 3:18

"Grow in grace"--not in one grace, but in all grace. Grow in that root-grace, faith. Believe in the promises more firmly than you have done. Let faith increase in fullness, constancy, simplicity. Grow also in love. Ask that your love may become extended, more intense, more practical, influencing every thought, word, and deed. Grow likewise in humility. Seek to lie very low and know more of your own nothingness. As you grow downward in humility, seek also to grow upward--having nearer approaches to God in prayer and more intimate fellowship with Jesus. May God the Holy Spirit enable you to "grow in . . . the knowledge of our Lord and Savior." He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed. To know Him is "life eternal," and to advance in the knowledge of Him is to increase in happiness.

- Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (Crossway, 2003)

I Don't Believe in Fatalism

2008-01-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

My friend David reminded me the other day of this helpful passage from a book I read a few months back:

Scripture teaches that, as King, [God] orders and controls all things, human actions among them, in accordance with His own eternal purpose. Scripture also teaches that, as Judge, He holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues. Thus, hearers of the gospel are responsible for their reaction; if they reject the good news, they are guilty of unbelief. . . . God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are taught side by side in the same Bible; sometimes, indeed, in the same text [see Luke 22:22, Acts 2:23]. Both are thus guaranteed to us by the same divine authority; both, therefore, are true. It follows that they must be held together, and not played off against each other. Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent. God's sovereignty is a reality, and man's responsibility is a reality too.

(J.I. Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God, pp. 22-23.)

"The Richest Man in Town"

2008-01-02T11:03:00.000-05:00

We spent New Year's Eve at the Stams' house, praying and singing hymns with brothers and sisters from Clifton Baptist Church--hymns such as "The Gospel Song":

Holy God in love became
Perfect Man to bear my blame.
On the Cross He took my sin,
By His death I live again.

We finished around eleven o'clock by singing "Auld Lang Syne," then made it back to our apartment in time to raise a glass and ring in 2008 with our friends Micah and Carrie.

I felt like George Bailey: the richest man in town.

At the End of the Year

2007-12-31T15:11:00.000-05:00

"Mark the providences of this year; how clearly you have seen His hand in things which others esteem chance! God, who has moved the world, has exercised His own vast heart and thought for you. . . . He who counts the hairs of our heads, and keeps us as the apple of His eye, has not forgotten you, but still loves you with an everlasting love."

- Charles Spurgeon, in a letter to his mother, 1850

It's Still Christmas, You Know

2007-12-27T10:07:00.000-05:00

From Wikipedia:

The Twelve Days of Christmas and the associated evenings of those twelve days (Twelve-tide), are the festive days beginning the evening of Christmas Day (December 25) through the morning of Epiphany (January 6). The associated evenings of the twelve days begin on the evening before the specified day. Thus, the first night of Christmas is December 25–26, and Twelfth Night is January 5–6. This period is also known as Christmastide.

READ ON . . .

"A Brief History of Christmas"

2007-12-27T09:56:00.001-05:00

THIS INTERESTING PIECE by John Steele Gordon appeared at opinionjournal.com on Christmas Day. It makes the same distinction C.S. Lewis humorously made HERE. The introduction:

Christmas famously "comes but once a year." In fact, however, it comes twice. The Christmas of the Nativity, the manger and Christ child, the wise men and the star of Bethlehem, "Silent Night" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is one holiday. The Christmas of parties, Santa Claus, evergreens, presents, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells" is quite another.

But because both celebrations fall on Dec. 25, the two are constantly confused. Religious Christians condemn taking "the Christ out of Christmas," while First Amendment absolutists see a threat to the separation of church and state in every poinsettia on public property and school dramatization of "A Christmas Carol."

A little history can clear things up.

READ ON . . .

The Birth of Jesus Christ

2007-12-24T19:58:00.000-05:00

Luke 2:1-21

And it happened in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register the whole world. This registration first happened when Qurenius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth into Judah, into the town of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was from the household and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary who was engaged to him, who was pregnant. And it happened while they were there the days were fulfilled for her to deliver, and she delivered her first-born son and wrapped him in baby clothes and put him to be in a feeding trough, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shined around them, and they feared greatly. And the angel said to them, "Do not fear, for behold I bring to you good news of great joy which is for all the people, that a savior was born to you today in the town of David who is Christ the Lord. And this is the sign for you: you will find the baby wrapped in baby clothes and put to bed in a feeding trough." And it happened that there appeared with the angel a multitude of the army of heaven praising God and saying, "Glory to God on high, and peace upon the earth, goodwill to mankind."

And it happened as the angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go into Bethlehem and see this word which has happened, which the Lord made known to us." And they went hurriedly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby put to bed in a feeding trough. And they beheld what was made known to them in the word which was spoken to them concerning this child. And they all marveled when they heard what was told them by the shepherds. But Mary gathered up all these words, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds departed glorifying and praising God for the things they heard and saw just as it was spoken to them.

And when eight days were fulfilled they circumcised him and called his name Jesus, the name given him by the angel when he was in the womb.

"Affluenza"

2007-12-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the holidays, Josh Harris is in the middle of a series of posts on "affluenza." From part 1:

What is "affluenza"? Affluenza is a nifty little word that some clever sociologist created by mixing two different words together. The word affluence means having a great deal of money. Influenza is a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease. When you mash these two together, you get affluenza, which is a useful word for describing the problems generated by a rich consumer culture that has an endless hunger for more and more stuff. Affluenza is the disease of greed. It's the materialistic mindset that says getting more money and possessions is the ultimate aim of life. Affluenza is the spirit of our age, and it has infected all of us.

From part 4:

Suppose we could, from heaven's vantage point, identify the greatest spiritual peril that Christians in each nation face. Don't you think heaven's "greatest challenge" verdict over American Christians would be the danger of loving the things of this world more than God himself? Is there any question that our greatest peril is having the possessions and the wealth of this world cling to us so much that we take our eyes off the heavenly city to which we're called? Those of us here in the States must acknowledge our unique vulnerability to affluenza if we are going to be vigilant against greed.

Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Tell Them

2007-12-13T13:50:00.000-05:00

I read the following passage yesterday, and received it from the Lord as a good reminder of what should be a regular practice for me and what I should particularly look to do when I'm home this Christmas:

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. And he did not permit him but said to him, "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
(Mark 5:18-21)

O gracious and merciful Lord,
May we be so satisfied in you, so aware of our wretchedness before you, and so grateful for your grace and mercy which we do not deserve, that we are not afraid to speak of the glorious gospel of Christ to our friends and family who do not know you, and to invite them to believe it. Embolden us to "proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness and into his marvelous light." Persuade our hearts that if we do not share Christ with them, we have not loved them but rather hated them. Please make our witness effective for your name's sake, granting faith and repentance to our friends and family.
Amen.

Wednesday is Word Day

2007-12-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

Look for an opportunity to work this word into a conversation over the next few days. Let me know if you succeed. I listed some common misstatements, and many more were listed in the comments, here.

salubrious
(sa·lu·bri·ous)
favorable to or promoting health or well-being <salubrious habits>

Pronunciation:: \sə-ˈlü-brē-əs\
Function:: adjective
Etymology:: Latin salubris; akin to salvus safe, healthy

Comfort

2007-12-08T12:12:00.000-05:00

There is no joy like the joy of heaven,

for in that state are no sad divisions, unchristian quarrels,
contentions, evil designs, weariness, hunger, cold,
sadness, sin, suffering, persecutions, toils of duty.

O healthful place where none are sick!
O happy land where all are kings!
O holy assembly where all are priests!
How free a state where none are servants except to thee!
Bring me speedily to the land of joy.

- from The Valley of Vision, p. 162.

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

"Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

- Proverbs 31:25-31

Biblical Equality and Ephesians 5:21-33

2007-12-06T10:54:00.000-05:00

Does the Bible teach husbands to submit to their wives?

In an an article at the CBE website, Gilbert Bilezikian says that whenever the word head is used in the New Testament to refer to Christ, it means "provider of life" or "source" (in the way that the head of a river is its source, its place of origin) and does not mean "authority, boss or leader." Using this definition he makes the following comment on Eph 5:23:

As head of the church, Christ is its Savior. If head had meant authority, the appropriate designation for Christ would have been "Lord" instead of "Savior" which is consistently a self-sacrificing, life-giving servant role in the New Testament.

His point is that, given his definition of head, Eph 5:23 has nothing to do with authority and everything to do with mutual submission (mentioned two verses earlier, in 5:21). Therefore, according to Dr. Bilezikian, Eph 5:23 does not teach male leadership and female submission.

A bit earlier in the article he mentions that, "A basic rule of sound hermeneutics requires that no biblical term or concept be infused with meanings foreign to it." Of course. And another rule is that every verse should be read in its context. I would suggest that Dr. Bilezikian's interpretation of the present verse does not fit the context in which the verse is situated:

15Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

From the verses above it seems clear, even if we grant Dr. Bilezikian's definition of head (which I am not sure I do), that authority is indeed in view in this passage. Whatever Paul means by head he means it as the ground or reason for the command in verse 22 that wives should submit to their husbands as to the Lord. He repeats this command in verse 24, adding that a wife's submission to her husband is to be like the church's submission to Christ. Therefore, we must reject Dr. Bilezikian's interpretation that Christ is portrayed in this passage merely as a "servant provider." Whatever head means here, the thrust of the passage is that the church owes obedience to Christ and wives owe the same kind of obedience to their husbands.

I would also suggest that verse 24 might explain what Paul means by head in verse 23.

But what should we do with verse 21 ("submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ")? This much is clear. Paul can't mean "all submit to all," for immediately after saying "submit to one another" he goes on to explain at length precisely what he means: Wives are to submit to husbands (verses 22-33), children to parents (6:1-4) and servants to masters (6:5-9). Rather than "all submit to all," Paul seems to mean something like, "Submit to one another in the following relationships."

When Dr. Bilezikian concludes from Eph 5:21 that "Christ makes of husbands servants to their wives in their relationship of mutual submission," he comes close to making a great blunder. It is this. If Eph 5:21ff teaches that husbands and wives should submit to one another, it must also teach that Christ and the church should submit to one another, since that is what the husband-wife relationship is compared to. But this is unthinkable (and perhaps blasphemous). Christ, as Lord of the church, deserves her obedience and owes her none. The book of Ephesians itself teaches us this in numerous places (see for example 1:2, 3, 15, 17; 2:21, 3:11, 4:1, 5; 6:23, 24). Has any of us, in time of prayer, ever commanded Christ to submit to us? I think not.

In conclusion, it seems clear that Eph 5:21-33 teaches us that husbands are to exercise loving and humble leadership over their wives, and that wives are to graciously and gladly submit to their husbands' leadership, even as the church gladly submits to Christ. Every believer knows that personal obedience to Christ is part of the Christian life. We don't think it demeaning to submit to our Lord. Quite the opposite in fact. Don't we all admire those Christians whose lives are marked by humble and unswerving obedience? We see Christ in them - Christ who himself submits to the Father (see John 5:30ff, 8:28). In this connection Dr. Bruce Ware has noted that, "if Christ, who is equal with the Father in essence and glory, submits to the Father, then it is as God-like to submit as to lead." Eph 5:21-33 would have us believe that the wife's submission to her husband is appropriate and beautiful and praiseworthy.

Exmas and Christmas

2007-12-04T08:16:00.003-05:00

Here's a little essay on Christmas by good old Jack.

A Lost Chapter from Herodotus
By C.S. Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and the north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, and though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from other barbarians who occupy the north- western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card . But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the market-place is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest and the most miserable of citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk in the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchasers become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think that some great calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.
But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas , which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, O Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For the first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

An Exegetical Study of 2 Corinthians 1:1-7

2007-11-30T11:33:00.000-05:00

Here's the paper I wrote this semester for Greek Syntax & Exegesis on 2 Corinthians 1:1-7. The introduction:

The Apostle Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian church was a stormy and difficult one. He apparently had many hostile critics in Corinth, but in spite of this he cared deeply for the believers there and felt a fatherly responsibility for them. Out of this care and sense of responsibility he penned 2 Corinthians, knowing very well that in so doing he stood to incur yet more criticism from his opponents. Aware that the Corinthians could potentially be turned against him by his opponents, Paul opens his epistle with a blessing to God that also serves to underline the closeness of his relationship with them and his ongoing commitment to their spiritual good. With this context as a backdrop, the thesis of 2 Corinthians 1:1-7 is that God is to be praised for the way he brings consolation to his children – Paul and his companions are consoled by God in the affliction which befalls them because of their identification with Jesus Christ, and in turn their example brings consolation to the Corinthians in whatever afflictions they might endure.

Misstatements

2007-11-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've recently heard/read several misstatements of some very common expressions:

"we would like to express our up most gratitude" (should be "utmost" - incidentally, this was printed on the stationery of a major university)

"in one swell swoop" (should be "in one fell swoop")

"above bar" (should be "above par")

"I could care less" (should be "I couldn't care less" - this one has been a pet peeve of mine for years)

"that's a mood point" (should be "a moot point")

Have you heard any?

"Who or What Should Have Preeminence?"

2007-11-17T01:19:00.000-05:00

Here's a stirring sermon on the preeminence of Christ by Dwayne Morris.

Way to Go, Mom & Dad!

2007-11-15T08:34:00.000-05:00

My hometown paper recently ran a story on my parents' growing business. Way to go, Mom and Dad!

Last Things

2007-11-13T18:22:00.000-05:00

The closing chapters of Revelation teach us that many blessings await the church in the age to come. In the age to come, we will praise God when he avenges all the wrongs done to us by his enemies (Rev 19:1-3). It will be our privilege to dress in “fine linen, bright and pure” which represents our righteous deeds (19:8) and to be welcomed into the great Marriage Supper of the Lamb, where we will be presented to Christ as a bride (19:9-10). At this banquet we will rejoice and exult and give glory to the Lamb (19:7). We will also reign with Christ on the earth for a thousand years, since the second death has no power over us (20:4-6). During this time we will continue our service as priests of God and Christ (20:6).

After the thousand years heaven and earth will be made new and a new city of Jerusalem will come down from God (21:1-2). At this time the dwelling place of God will be with man: “He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (21:3). All the painful aspects of life will be done away with forever, for God will wipe away all tears and abolish death and crying and pain (21:4). We will drink from the water of life without payment (21:6) and God will be our God and we will be his sons and daughters (21:7). We will dwell in safety within the jewel-encrusted walls of the New Jerusalem in the presence of God himself, and the city will be illuminated by his glory (21:9-26). In this city, we will worship before the throne of God and of the Lamb. We will look upon his face, and his name will be written on our foreheads. We will reign with him forever (22:1-5). This future hope should bolster our faith and strengthen us to endure the hardships of this life. At the same time, the thought of the future that awaits us should cause us to long for the age to come, when God will make all things new.

Sports & Sports Media

2007-11-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

HERE'S an insightful piece by Richard Ford on how the sports media actually diminishes our enjoyment of our favorite sports. Some excerpts:

You could say that sports’ essential self possesses at least three different dimensions. There’s the aforementioned game-as-played. Then there’s the game as it’s described or talked about — what sports journalists and commentators do. And then there’s the game as pondered — which you might say is the happy result of the other two dimensions working on us, and is akin to what we sports fans do alone in our beds at night, or during the long, anticipatory off-seasons . . .

The curious and unhappy turn of fate I just mentioned is that the game as talked about has, in many instances, now corrupted, ignored and trivialized the game itself, the thing we relish — a fact that has unlikable consequences for the game we contemplate.

Ford says his rule-of-thumb for dealing with this state of affairs is "that when it comes to anything I read or hear reported about sports, value must derive from relevance to the game as played." He then offers an example of the sort of coverage worth following and two examples of the kinds of stories that should be ignored:

Therefore, an on-air conversation by the Red Sox radio guys, to the point that fatigue-prone Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka might encounter serious problems in American Major League Baseball because Japanese pitchers learn to pitch by inducing batters to swing, whereas our big-league starters learn to make batters miss — this conversation immediately qualifies as worth hearing and later being thought about, since it refines the experience of spectatorship.

On the other hand, a Sporting News Radio commentator’s remarks, during this year’s Masters, to the point that Phil Mickelson either is or isn’t the great underachiever of his generation, since his less-than-bionic conditioning regimen conceivably makes him a choker, was close to irrelevant for being patently unprovable, given Mickelson’s win percentage. Plus, it’s golf. Everyone doesn’t have to be cut ’n’ buff just because Tiger is.

And at the lowest end of my value scale, any commentary, on-air or on-page, about Milton Bradley’s anger issues, Tank Johnson’s gun jones, Wayne Gretzky’s wife, Manny being Manny, A-Rod being A-Rod, Barry Bonds’s triste over being sent packing by the Giants — all of that stuff’s permanently off my table.

You should read the whole thing now, before you watch the college football pre-game shows.

The Priesthood of Believers

2007-10-31T15:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to a paper I recently finished on the priesthood of believers. Here's the upshot:

It seems that when the Bible speaks of the priesthood of believers it most often associates it with the believers’ responsibility to love and serve one another and their neighbors. This means that, far from being an individualistic doctrine, the priesthood of believers means that “God has so tempered the body that we are all priests to each other.” Instead of a solitary priest representing the people before God, or the believer acting as his or her own priest, all believers may represent one another before God. The priesthood of all believers is more a commission to undertake than a prerogative to claim. Thus the definition proposed above seems correct: the priesthood of believers is the right of all Christians to relate freely and directly to God and to offer spiritual sacrifices to him through Jesus Christ for the good of one another.

Willow Creek Rethinking Its Approach

2007-10-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

Out of Ur reports that Bill Hybels & Company at Willow Creek Community Church are rethinking the way they do ministry, after a multi-year studied revealed that their approach wasn't helping their members grow spiritually. Hybels in his own words:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

This quote from Willow Creek executive pastor Greg Hawkins is even more amazing to me:

Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.

Read on . . .

(Hat tip: Between Two Worlds)

In Praise of Gretchen

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000-04:00

"An excellent wife is the crown of her husband." ~ Proverbs 12:4

Twenty signs of grace in Gretchen's life that have influenced me to be more like Christ:

1. She strives to love Jesus Christ above all things and to tear down idols in her life.

2. She is very generous and flexible with her time, while I tend to guard my time jealously.

3. She is patient and kind to people who aren't thinking right, or who are making poor choices.

4. She loves the Word of God.

5. She is dissatisfied with the sin she sees in her life.

6. She loves children and takes them seriously, which is what Jesus did.

7. She reaches out to people and makes friends easily, while I (proudly) tend to hang back and wait for others to approach me.

8. She strives to be content in whatever circumstance she finds herself, and rarely complains (I complain enough for both of us).

9. She gladly submits to my leadership and encourages me to lead. She avoids saying "I told you so" when my decisions don't work out as I'd hoped.

10. She is patient with my impatience.

11. She is very affirming when I'm freaking out or feeling insecure, while I tend to want to "help her think straight" when she's experiencing similar emotions.

12. She actively seeks to nurture the faith of others, while I'm given to pointing out the faults of others.

13. She strives to be content with the possessions the Lord has given us, while I tend to be discontent and thus an impulse buyer.

14. She doesn't make fun of people who are different in some way.

15. She has a generally happy disposition, while my default mode is somewhere between serious and grouchy.

16. She forgives when wronged--I should know, I've been forgiven by her seventy-times-seven. She doesn't bring up past offenses.

17. She will call me out when I have a sinful attitude or when I sin in some other way.

18. She is an encourager, listener, and trusted counselor to her sisters.

19. She strives to make the best use of her time, daily bringing her body into submission by rising at 5 am for devotions and household chores (she sometimes goes to the grocery or washes and dries our laundry before I even wake up and realize she's been gone).

20. She loves Christian worship and fellowship. She worships earnestly. She is aggressively hospitable.

That's my girl!

The State of Preaching

2007-10-12T13:32:00.000-04:00

In his latest blog, Dr. Mohler reflects on the state of evangelical preaching. He says in part:

Focusing on so-called "perceived needs" and allowing these needs to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in many evangelical pulpits. Fosdick must be smiling from the grave. . . .
The problem is, of course, that the sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace, and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

Read on . . .

Book Review: I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

2007-10-12T13:25:00.000-04:00

You can read my review of I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek HERE.

Seeker Sensitivity

2007-10-10T09:20:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about church growth methods in recent days. Here are some provisional thoughts about the seeker-sensitive approach:

What I appreciate about the seeker-sensitive model:

(1) It reflects a sincere and earnest desire to see lost people converted, and a willingness to work hard to see conversions happen.

(2) It reflects a willingness to try new things instead of clinging to "the way we've always done it."

Some questions about the seeker-sensitive model:

(1) The Bible seems to teach that the weekly gathering is mainly a time for believers to worship God and build up one another, and not mainly a time for evangelism. Unbelievers can't worship God, can they? If the worship gathering is meant for believers, should we gear it to appeal to unbelievers?

(2) This model seems to assume that there are many sincere "seekers" out there. I'm not so sure. The Bible teaches that "no one seeks for God" (Rom 3:11) and that unbelievers are "enemies" of God (Rom 5:10) who are "hostile in mind" (Col 1:21); no one comes to Christ "unless the Father who sent [Christ] draws him" (John 6:44). On the other hand, we must admit and rejoice that there are people with whom the Spirit is dealing, who are in the process of coming to faith. But which category do most people fall into? I think most fall into the first grouping--most people are non-seekers.

(3) This model seems to equate success with growth in numbers, and to assume that if numbers are not increasing we must be doing something wrong. But this doesn't seem to agree with the Apostle Paul's thinking. Consider his comments in 2 Tim 1:11-12: "And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am." People reacted negatively when Paul preached the gospel. In fact, they threw him in prison. Did this cause Paul to waver, or to think he was doing something wrong? Not at all, for he goes on to say, "But I am not ashamed," (v12)--meaning he was confident before God that he had done nothing wrong--and to exhort Timothy to hold fast to the pattern of sound teaching he had received from him (v13)--the same teaching that got Paul thrown in prison.

BRAPSISS Revisted II

2007-10-03T21:41:00.000-04:00

Here's Dr. Saxon's gracious response to my BRAPSISS critique (see previous post):

Josh,

Thank you for referring me to your blog. I appreciate your interaction with Brapsiss. Just a few thoughts:

First, the instruction on the priesthood of the believer that is given in Baptist Heritage class is much broader than the few lines penned in that Sunesis article. The phrase, borrowed as you noted from 2 Cor. 5, that believers carry out a “ministry of reconciliation” expressed in brief form a section of the priesthood lecture that emphasizes the idea you brought forward in your critique. I certainly agree that our priesthood has significant horizontal implications and is tied in key NT texts to evangelism.

Second, however, the idea behind our priesthood is present in various NT texts (such as Heb. 10:19-20) that have vertical significance. I don’t think the one obligation of personal priesthood (evangelism) should be set against the other opportunity of personal priesthood (access). This is not an either/or, but a both/and.

Third, the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of the believer, as enunciated by Luther and all of the other Protestant reformers placed primary focus on the individual before God (and not before a Catholic priest, an authoritative church, etc.) as a corrective to medieval doctrine and practice. The horizontal implications were not omitted, but the vertical relationship was emphasized. (Note also that a quick check of Erickson’s Christian Theology [1085-1086] also emphasized the vertical rather than the horizontal dimension of this teaching.)

In short, I think your conclusion that “BRAPSISS needs to be amended … to better reflect the Bible’s teaching” may be a bit hasty. Both dimensions of the priesthood of the believer are biblically valid and useful, and I try to reflect both in my teaching, and I even tried—albeit briefly—to reflect both in the Sunesis article.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for the respectful way in which you expressed your view.

Lord bless you,

David Saxon

BRAPSISS Revisited

2007-10-01T18:16:00.000-04:00

At my alma mater we were given the handy acrostic BRAPSISS to help us remember the Baptist distinctives:

Bible as only rule of faith and practice
Regenerate church membership
Autonomy of the local church
Priesthood of the believer
Soul liberty
Immersion & Lord's Supper the only ordinances
Separation of Church and State
Separation Ethically and Ecclesiastically

On the whole this seems like a pretty good summary of what it means to be Baptist. I'm not sure about point 4 though. In an article on BRAPSISS, David Saxon defined the "P" this way:

"P—the priesthood of the believer" is the personal application of the principle implicit in the autonomy of the church. Just as local churches cannot be made to answer to man-made institutions, such as the papacy, other episcopal overlords, or extra-church presbyteries, so the individual believer within the context of the local assembly answers to Christ alone. We do not need the church to give us authorized interpretations of Scripture or a priest to hear our confession or dispense grace to us; we ourselves exercise the ministry of reconciliation. In short, we do not need a priest because we are priests.

This definition emphasizes that through Christ every believer enjoys direct access to God. I can represent myself to God because I'm my own priest. This truth is taught in passages such as 1 Tim 2:5 and Rom 5:1-2. But is "each is his own priest" what the Bible teaches when it mentions the believer's priesthood?

We know that Christ, the great High Priest, has put himself forward as a final sacrifice for sins (Heb 10:10). Furthermore, those who are reconciled to God through Christ's blood are also called priests (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev 1:6). When the NT calls believers "priests" it must mean that in some sense believers have a ministry like that of OT priests. The priest's role was to represent the people to God, and God to the people. Through their work the people of Israel were put right with God. The priesthood of NT believers seems to have a "for others" dimension as well, in addition to the teaching that "each is his own priest." When Dr. Saxon mentions the "ministry of reconciliation," he is alluding to 2 Cor 5:11ff. This passage seems to teach that our ministry as God's priests is not mainly for ourselves but for others. Paul explains in 2 Cor 5:19-20 that those who are reconciled to God are in turn charged with a ministry of reconciliation: "[I]n Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

And 1 Peter 2:9 says much the same thing: "But you are . . . a royal priesthood, . . . that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light."

As priests, we pray for others to be reconciled to God and go about proclaiming the message of reconciliation through Christ. We go to God on behalf of people, and to people on behalf of God, and through our prayers and the message of Christ's once-and-for-all sacrifice people are put right with God. This is the biblical meaning of the priesthood of the believer. The NT seems to emphasize the "for others" dimension of each believer's priestly work, and to teach also that "each is his own priest." I would suggest that BRAPSISS needs to be amended on this point to better reflect the Bible's teaching.

The Inflammatory Words of Jesus

2007-09-29T13:04:00.000-04:00

The Jews of Jesus' day cherished their status as God's special covenant people. They were proud to be the children of Abraham and heirs of the covenant God made with him. Moses was their most revered prophet, the one through whom God had delivered the Law and another covenant. They memorized the books of the Old Testament that Moses wrote (the first five) as well as large portions from the Psalms/wisdom literature and the books of the prophets. Their boast was that they alone, among all the peoples of the earth, knew God and were special to him.

With this in mind, Jesus' words to the Jews in the Gospel of John are remarkably provocative. He meant to scandalize them. Just listen, and remember that he's talking to God's chosen people:

"And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard . . . and you do not have his word abiding in you . . . You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. . . . I know that you do not have the love of God within you." (5:39-40, 42)

"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me." (5:45-46)

"You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." (8:19b)

"If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing what your father did. . . . If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God . . . You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. . . . Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." (8:39b-40, 42, 44, 47)

[At this point in Jesus' exchange with the Jews in John 8, the Jews call Jesus a "Samaritan" a subtle way of saying "You're a bastard." They were apparently aware of the unusual circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth. They had made this charge earlier in the discussion too, in 8:39 ("Abraham is our father.") and 8:41 ("We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father--even God."). Jesus responds:]

"If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word." (8:54-55)

[Later, the Jews ask Jesus to state plainly whether he is the Messiah or not. He replies:]

"I told you, and you do not believe. . . . you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (10:25-27)

So much for the wimpy, tame picture of Jesus so many people carry in their minds. It's true that he is tender and compassionate, but he's also fierce and disturbing. Remember when he drove the money-changers out of the temple in John 2? He made a whip and drove them out, poured their profits out on the ground, and flipped over their tables. Imagine the aftermath. The merchants had to come back a little while later to clean up the mess Jesus had made of their flea market. I'm sure they were hoping he was gone. Probably the poor people had taken all the poured-out money, or it had been deposited in the temple treasury. The above exchanges with the Jews almost got him stoned--twice--but he was able to escape both times. No, Jesus is not a wimp. He is not tame.

You might be thinking, "But they ended up killing them, didn't they? So they eventually got the better of him." No. Remember his words in John 10:18: "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again."

One of the glories of Jesus Christ is that he often says and does what we wouldn't expect him to say or do. He's not predictable. He was always taking his discussions with the Jews in directions they didn't anticipate and didn't want to go. In his earthly ministry he had a way of exposing hearts and getting down to root issues. And he's still doing it. As you read your Bible, let Jesus challenge your assumptions. Listen for him to contradict the way you're presently thinking and living. Let him make you uncomfortable. As you read your Bible, listen to the voice of your surprising, untamed, and courageous Good Shepherd, and follow Him--wherever he leads you. This I can testify: I am discovering that life with him, following him, communing with him, is more wonderful than I ever could have imagined.

Interview With Mary Mohler

2007-09-28T13:10:00.000-04:00

Read part 1 of Gretchen's interview with Mary Mohler HERE. Mrs. Mohler is the wife of Southern Seminary president Albert Mohler.

Max Is Here!

2007-09-19T13:11:00.001-04:00

Max Garrett Hafeli was born early yesterday morning.

Kari and Max with the hospital
chaplain, who happens to be
the husband and father.

Max, already looking forward
to Sunday's Packers game--
and his next meal.

Salvation

2007-09-14T13:17:00.000-04:00

Further meditations from John 15:18-16:15, Romans 8, and Ephesians 1:2-14:

These passages also help us understand our salvation. Specifically, we gain insight into God’s decision to save people, the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our salvation, and several blessings saved people receive now and in the future.

We are saved because of God’s decision before creation. Jesus told his disciples that he had chosen them out of the world (Jn. 15:9), and Paul teaches us that we were “chosen before the foundation of the world” and that the purpose of God’s choice was “that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4). We also learn from Paul that God foreknew us; that is, in eternity past he thought of us in a special relationship with himself, and as a result of this foreknowledge he predestined us to be adopted (Rom. 8:29, Eph. 1:4-5). We have been predestined to receive a wonderful inheritance prepared for us by God (Eph 1:11), and the reason God predestined us to adoption is to bring glory to himself for his grace (Eph. 1:6). Those predestined to life before the foundation of the world are called and justified during their earthly lives, and will one day be glorified (Rom. 8:30). These truths remind me that salvation is all of grace. I have no ground for boasting. I thank him for showing kindness and mercy to me by setting his electing love upon me.

God the Son and God the Spirit are active in our salvation. God gave his Son as a sacrifice for sins (Rom. 8:3, 32), and we were chosen “in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4). It was the Spirit who convicted us of sin, righteousness, and judgment when we were unbelievers (Jn. 16:8), and the indwelling Spirit is the firstfruits of our coming inheritance (Rom. 8:23) and the seal (Eph. 1:13) and guarantee of future glory (Eph. 1:14). Our salvation is truly Trinitarian: determined by the Father, accomplished by the Son, and applied by the Spirit! Thus I give thanks to each member of the Godhead for his work in my salvation. Salvation is of the Lord from first to last!

Finally, these passages reveal many blessings that come to us because we are saved. Some are present blessings we can enjoy now, while others are future blessings that we will receive when Christ returns. Presently, there is no longer any condemnation because of sin for we who are in Christ (Rom. 8:1). Instead it is sin that has been condemned through Christ’s death (Rom. 8:2). We now relate to God as a loving Father (Rom. 8:15), and we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9). We who are in Christ no longer have to fear God’s judgment (Rom. 8:15). Additionally, we can rest assured that God uses all circumstances for our growth in Christ likeness (Rom. 8:28), even painful and difficult events (Rom. 8:32-39). Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:39), through whose blood we now have forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7). Many future blessings of salvation await us as well. We will be raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:11), we will be glorified (Rom. 8:20, 30), and then the entire created order will be redeemed from decay (Rom. 8:20). At that time we will receive the full blessing of our inheritance (Eph. 1:14) and all things will be united under Christ (Eph. 1:10). I am so thankful for the present blessings of salvation, which impart great peace in the midst of difficulties! These present blessings cause me to long for Christ’s return, when full salvation will become a reality, and the very presence of sin will vanish! These truths also remind me that I have God's favor and that he cherishes me as his child. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ--God is for me!

The Holy Spirit

2007-09-12T21:32:00.000-04:00

I've been blessed this semester by the Scripture meditations assigned by Dr. Ware for Systematic Theology III. For almost five weeks now, in conjunction with our study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of salvation, everyone in the class has been reading John 15:18-16:15, Romans 8, and Ephesians 1:3-14 three times weekly. The goal is to meditate on these passages with a view to applying them to our lives and ministries. Here's what I've learned so far about the person and work of the Holy Spirit:

In John 15:18--16:15, Romans 8, and Ephesians 1:3-14, I notice several attributes of the Holy Spirit, several privileges the believer receives through the Holy Spirit, several ways the Holy Spirit helps believers grow, and several marks of a true Christian which involve the Holy Spirit.

In these passages we learn several things about the Spirit’s person and his relationships with the other members of the Godhead. Christ sent the Holy Spirit from heaven to minister to believers, for John 15:26 tells us that the Spirit was sent by the Son from the Father, and that he “proceeds from the Father.” He could not be sent until Jesus had departed (Jn. 16:7). His ministry is to declare the message which Christ gives him (Jn. 16:14). The Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of truth” (Jn. 15:26), “the Helper” (Jn. 16:7), “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:10), and “the Spirit of adoption”, (Rom. 8:15). These names teach us that the Spirit is true, his ministry is to comfort or exhort the believer, he is from Christ, and he is the one through whom we are adopted into God’s family. We learn in Rom. 8:27 that the Spirit has a mind, and that God the Father knows the Spirit’s thoughts--clear indications that he is a person. I am encouraged when I think of the Holy Spirit as a person sent from Christ as a gift to me! He dwells in me, ministers to me, helps me, and blesses me. I ought to be more conscious of his presence and work in my life.

Believers receive many privileges through the Holy Spirit. By the law of the Spirit we are set free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2), for those who walk according to the Spirit fulfill the requirements of the law (Rom. 8:4). The one whose mind is set on the Spirit receives life and peace with God, and is empowered to submit to God (Rom. 8:7). It is the Holy Spirit who will raise us from the dead on the last day (Rom. 8:13). Through the Spirit we address God as Father and receive assurance that we are indeed children of God (Rom. 8:15-16). The Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know how to pray (Rom. 8:26-27). He is the “firstfruits” (Rom. 8:23) and the “guarantee” (Eph 1:14) of our future inheritance, and the seal which shows we belong to God (Eph. 1:13). I acknowledge that before this meditation exercise I did not think to praise and thank the Spirit for the many benefits he bestows upon me. I must remind myself of these things regularly and thank the Spirit for the privileges I receive through his work!

The Holy Spirit helps believers grow. In fact, the Spirit’s ministry is so great that Jesus could tell his disciples that his departure was for their good, because when he left he would send the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:7). The Holy Spirit is our Helper (Jn. 15:26), who bears witness about Christ (Jn. 15:26) and glorifies Christ (Jn 16:14). The Spirit leads us (Rom. 8:14), and guides us into all truth (Jn. 16:13). The Spirit convicts the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment (Jn. 16:8), making our witness effective. And by the power of the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:13). I give praise to the Spirit for any growth in grace which has happened in my life and take responsibility myself for the lack. And I pray that he would bless me with yet more growth--that through the Spirit I would see more of Christ’s glory, experience greater effectiveness in my witness, and progress in putting to death the deeds of the body. May it be so!

Finally, we may discern whether someone is really a believer by observing the presence and activity (or lack thereof) of the Holy Spirit in his or her life. A true believer sets his mind on the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5). The Holy Spirit dwells in all true believers, thus anyone who is not indwelt by the Spirit does not belong to Christ (Rom. 8:9). The life of a true child of God is marked by Spirit-enabled obedience to God (Rom. 8:7-8) and Spirit-enabled putting to death of fleshly deeds (Rom. 8:13).

Genealogy

2007-09-07T08:03:00.000-04:00

Dr. James Parker, Professor of Worldview and Culture at SBTS, distributes the following in his classes. I added my name to the list.

The Distinguished Genealogy of the Students at
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Showing a direct line to John Calvin (1509-1564)

JOSH NEISLER, a student at Southern Seminary, who in the summer of 2007 was a student of:

DR. JAMES PARKER III, who is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. While a student at Princeton, he sat at the feet of:

DR. BRUCE METZGER, who as a graduate of that seminary (class of 1933), was a student of:

DR. JOHN ALEXANDER MACKAY, who was also a graduate of the seminary (class of 1915), was a student of:

DR. BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, who was also a graduate of the seminary (1876), being a student of:

DR. CHARLES HODGE, a Princeton Seminary graduate (1819) who, for many years, sat at the feet of:

DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, who was the pupil of:

WILLIAM GRAHAM, a graduate of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in the year 1773, and as such, was under the tutelage of:

DR. SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH, who was himself tutored in the same College by:

DR. JONATHAN EDWARDS, JR., who obviously sat at the feet of:

JONATHAN EDWARDS, the third president of Princeton, being educated at both Yale (A.M., 1773) and as an apprentice to his grandfather:

SOLOMON STODDARD, of Northampton, Massachusetts, who was educated at Harvard College (A.B., 1662) at the feet of:

DR. CHARLES CHAUNCY, an immigrant to this country, having been trained at Trinity College, Cambridge University, at the feet of:

ARCHBISHOP JAMES USSHER, the celebrated Hebraic scholar who was a pupil of:

WALTER TRAVERS, the Puritan divine at Christ's College, Cambridge (an associate of Thomas Cartwright and William Perkins) who traveled to Geneva to come under the instruction of:

THEODORE BEZA, the heir of the Reformed movement of his mentor and friend:

JOHN CALVIN.

Buckeyes Fans Rejoice!

2007-09-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

Michigan's national title hopes were dealt a fatal blow on this, the opening weekend of the college football season, after an embarrassing 34-32 loss to Appalachian State:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - What was supposed to be a tuneup turned into a stunner: Appalachian State 34, No. 5 Michigan 32. Julian Rauch's 24-yard field goal with 26 seconds left put the Mountaineers ahead of the Wolverines and Corey Lynch's blocked field goal in the final seconds sealed one of college football's biggest upsets.

Read More . . .

Keep Up With My Unreality

2007-09-01T08:35:00.000-04:00

Collin Hansen, who wrote THIS a year ago, has begun A NEW COLUMN over at CT aimed at keeping folks up-to-date on current issues in theology. In particular, he notes that this might be a handy way for families to keep abreast of things their son or daughter might be thinking about in seminary. He begins the column this way: "Seminary is not reality. That much became obvious to me the moment I met my classmates and began looking over syllabi for classes on Greek, Hebrew, missions, and biblical theology." Well that's true, however, as Hansen himself goes on to note, seminary affords a unique time in a person's life to give focused attention to important theological matters. I came to seminary to know and love Christ more and to become more like him, and to prepare to serve his Church faithfully. So have the 4,000 other SBTS students, which is what makes this place unreal--and wonderful.

The column will be published online every two weeks. Hansen begins this week by addressing the New Perspective on Paul (there is one, and I've heard--I haven't read for myself at all yet--it dismantles justification by faith alone by suggesting that Martin Luther projected the Medieval Catholicism of his day back into New Testament Judaism, and that every Protestant since has misread Paul). Here's a snippet from Hansen's first installment:

The average churchgoer will never have the time or inclination to focus on theology. Even in our most rigorous churches, the cares of this world interfere. Perhaps an encounter with a seminary graduate has convinced them that theology belongs to arrogant eggheads. As a result, what seems so important in seminary produces blank stares in the pews.
For evangelicals—Christians committed to a high view of Scripture—this is a discouraging scenario. More than that, it's dangerous. Christian colleges and seminaries can grow detached from the churches they serve. Hazardous ideas can percolate for decades without so much as a nod from most churchgoers. And parents wonder why their undergraduate daughter or seminary son graduates with odd ideas about everything. So they blame the theologians and the cycle continues.
But what if they knew more about current debates? What if someone could direct them toward resources that would help them think theologically about current events? I hope that in some small way, this column might help those of you who want to care about theology but lack the time to skim blogs. Maybe you'd consider attending a conference if you only knew when or where to go. You might even read the occasional book if someone explained why it's important. As I draw on the help of scholars and friends, I hope this column will become a destination for you to catch what you might have missed in the last two weeks and discern what you otherwise might not have foreseen. Continue Reading...

(HT: B2W)

Principles of Interpretation

2007-08-07T13:20:00.000-04:00

Today I read a chapter by J.I. Packer in the book Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment. One of Packer's arguments against universalism (the belief that one day all people will be saved and hell will be empty) is that it fails to apply proper principles of interpretation. He summarizes these principles in a paragraph, providing a handy reminder to all of us who are Bible-readers:

Now the proper key principles [of interpretation] here are, and always will be, that interpretation must be context-specific, author-specific, and focus-specific. That means first, that passages must be exegeted in terms of the thought-flow of which they are part and not have their meaning extrapolated beyond the manifest perspectives, limits, and boundaries of that thought-flow; otherwise, we will be reading into them what cannot truly be read out of them. (2) It also means that writers must not be assumed to contradict themselves, but must be respected as knowing their own minds; thus, what they write in one place must be treated as cohering with what they write elsewhere. And it means, finally, that in seeking the writer's meaning, we must never lose sight of the immediate point he is making, the persuasive strategy of which that point is part, and the effect that he shows himself wanting to produce on his readers. The way into the mind, meaning, and message of God the Holy Spirit in the biblical text is always through the mind, meaning, and message of its human writers. Though many passages in their canonical context carry a greater weight of meaning than their divinely led human writers knew, none carries less meaning than its human writer actually expressed, and none should ever be treated as if the three guidelines set out above do not apply to it.

What Defiles

2007-08-06T21:54:00.001-04:00

I read Mark 7:14-23 for my devotions today, and translated the passage for myself tonight. Keep in mind that the Pharisees had just complained to Jesus that his disciples were violating the Levitical law by eating with unwashed hands. Jesus replies scathingly by quoting Isaiah ("The lips of this people honor me, but their heart is far from me. . ."). He then seeks to correct the understanding of the gathered crowd and his disciples:

And when the crowd was called to him again he said to them, “Everyone listen to me and understand. It is not what is outside of a man, then goes into him, which is able to defile him, but that which comes out of a man is what defiles the man.” And when he went from the crowd into a house his followers asked him about the saying. And he said to them, “Are you also thus without understanding? Do you not understand that anything that is outside, then goes into a man, is not able to defile him because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach, and goes out into the latrine? (He pronounced all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a man--that defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of a man, evil designs come forth; sexual immorality, thefts, murder, adultery, greediness, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, covetousness, slander, haughtiness, folly--every one of these evils comes out from within and defiles a man.

I saw a couple of things in the Greek (think of it as HD-TV) that I had never noticed before in the English. First, it's interesting that when the author notes that Jesus pronounced all foods clean, he means that Jesus pronounced it in the way that a priest would declare a healed leper clean. Jesus pronounced all foods Levitically clean. As one cleansed of disease no longer needed to be shunned by the community but could be touched and embraced, foods which had been unclean according to the Law no longer needed to be shunned but could be touched and ingested. Second, it seems pretty evident to me grammatically that the first item in Jesus' laundry-list of sins which come forth from within men is meant to be a general descriptor of the rest of them, like a title over a bulleted list:

Evil Designs

Sexual Immorality
Thefts
Murder
Adultery
Greediness
Wickedness
Deceit
Sensuality
Covetousness
Slander
Haughtiness
Folly

"Evil designs" could be rendered as "evil thoughts" or "evil plans" or "evil purposes." If one really wanted to Anglicize the whole clause it could be rendered, "For from within, out of the heart of a man, evil schemes are hatched." It gets at the idea really well but I think plays too fast and loose with the text. Anyway, I was really sobered by this second one because Jesus is making the point that the Pharisees could do their ritual hand washings all they wanted but it would do nothing to remove their (deeper) defilement in the sight of God, which can't be rinsed off so easily. I was reminded of the fact that sin is not mainly something bad I do because I was provoked by someone/thing outside of me, but a rottenness residing within me that is revealed by my actions. The fact is, the bad things I do don't make me evil, they prove that I'm evil. It's the chicken-and-egg question: What came first, the sinner or the sin? Jesus says the sinner came first. This means that if I curse when I spill my coffee I can't say, "I cursed because I spilled." The spill only revealed that I am profane. If someone is rude to me, I can't say, "The rudeness made me angry." No, the rudeness just revealed that I am angry. If an indecently clothed woman passes me on the street and I have an impure thought I can't say, "I had an impure thought because she wasn't decent." According to Jesus the indecency merely revealed my impurity. This means I can't blame my sin on what someone else does. Provocations don't make me evil, they prove that I'm evil. Sin is in me. Thankfully so is God the Holy Spirit, who continues to work in me to make me "pure and blameless . . . filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ" ( Col. 1:10 & 11).

School Days, School Days

2007-08-04T15:43:00.000-04:00

The fall semester starts a week from Monday, my second at SBTS. It has become clear in recent days that this semester will be very different than planned, but I am very much looking forward to it nonetheless. New students (of both the undergraduate and graduate varieties) are arriving daily. I've seen the undergraduates around campus the last two days with a blue and red folder tucked under every arm and a look that betrays both excitement and uncertainty pasted on every face and I have thought more than once of the Autumn of 1998. . .

I will be taking four classes: Greek Syntax & Exegesis, Systematic Theology III, Church History II, and Personal Evangelism. I'm looking forward to continuing my Greek studies and learning to use the little Greek I know to help me handle the Scriptures more accurately. I signed up for Systematic Theology III for two reasons: Dr. Ware is teaching it, and I want to get a better grasp of where I stand on eschatology sooner rather than later (I've already decided this will be the topic of my term paper in this class). I've already read Sinclair Ferguson's book on the Holy Spirit for this class and it was excellent and stirring. I'm very much looking forward to studying the Protestant Reformation in Church History II. In that class we'll be reading Here I Stand, a biography of Martin Luther, Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George and Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen, plus two other books. Personal Evangelism will no doubt be very helpful as well. I've had many opportunities to share the gospel at work, but I find I'm very poor at sustaining a conversation about the gospel. I didn't know what to say recently when one co-worker said, "I think it's unjust for God to impute Adam's sin to everyone who came after him." I need more training in this area in order to witness for Christ more consistently and faithfully.

Please feel free to pray for me (that I will be very diligent and learn a lot) should the notion strike you.

John 3:1-21

2007-07-05T15:05:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a Greek review class this week and next to help me get ready for Greek II. We've been translating John 3 for practice. Here's my translation of 3:1-21:

1-8
And there was a man from the Pharisees, his name was Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this one came to him at night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one could do these signs which you do, unless God was with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born again, he cannot behold the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can an old man be born? Is he able to enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born from water and Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born from the flesh is flesh, and that which is born from the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'It is necessary for you to be born again.' The Spirit blows where is wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; thus it is with all who are born from the Spirit."

9-15
Nicodemus answered and said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things? Truly, truly I say to you that what we know we speak, and what we have seen we testify, and you do not receive our testimony. If I said earthly things to you and you do not believe, how will you believe if I say heavenly things? For no one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, thus it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up, in order that all those believing in him may have eternal life.

16-21
"For God loved the world in this way, that he gave the only Son*, so that everyone believing in him may not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order that he might judge the world, but in order that he might save the world through him. He does not judge the one who is believing in him; the unbelieving one is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God*. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. For the one practicing evil hates the light and does not go toward the light, in order that his works may not be disclosed; but the one practicing the truth goes toward the light, in order that his works may be disclosed--that it is in God they have been done."

* A note on my translation of verses 16 and 18 ("he has given the only Son"): The traditional translation "only begotten" resulted from an unfortunate historical misunderstanding of the Greek word monogenes. For a long time the word was understood as "only begotten" but twentieth century scholarship has revealed that the meaning is closer to "the only Son"(or "the one-of-a-kind Son" or "the one-and-only Son"--some term which conveys uniqueness). Wayne Grudem helpfully summarizes the problem this way:

For many years [the Greek word monogenes] was thought to be derived from two Greek terms: mono, meaning "only," and gennao, meaning "beget" or "bear". . . But linguistic study in the twentieth century has shown that the second half of the word is not closely related to the verb gennao (beget, bear) but rather to the term genos (class, kind). Thus the word means "one-of-a-kind" Son or the "unique" Son. . . . The fact that the word does not mean "the only son that someone has begotten" can be confirmed by noticing its use in Hebrews 11:17, where Isaac is called Abraham's monogenes--but certainly Isaac was not the only son Abraham had begotten, for he had also begotten Ishmael. The term there means rather that Isaac was Abraham's "unique" son, that there was none other like him. (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1233.)

In this passage the accusative definite article ton (the) precedes the word and the prefix mono (one or only) is added to the front so that the term is rendered in English simply as "the only son". My translation omits the possessive pronoun "his" (as in "his only begotten Son") because it does not appear in the Greek. It is probably implied though and therefore is commonly included. That Jesus is the only son of God is made explicit later in this same passage (3:18: "the only son of God").

Pray For Emily In England

2007-06-30T09:45:00.000-04:00

My sister-in-law Emily is on a mission to England with Word of Life Fellowship. While there, they will conduct Vacation Bible Schools for various evangelical churches, and engage in other evangelistic activities. They will, of course, also spend some time sightseeing. Emily has listed some prayer requests here, and when I talked to her yesterday (as she was en route to the airport) she asked for prayer concerning her accommodations in England (she'd rather not stay alone with a host family and she'd like to have a good roommate). Also, in light of the spate of car-bombings in Great Britain over the past few days, pray for the safety of Emily and her fellow-workers. Please pray that the Lord would use Emily and the entire WOL team for his glory as they proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in a once-Christian nation.

Read some facts about England here.

Pray For Brazil

2007-06-26T16:29:00.001-04:00

Our friends James and Christen left for Brazil yesterday. They'll spend a couple of years under the tutelage of James' parents, Phil and Mary Ruth, in the city of Curitiba before beginning a work of their own in the city of Florianapolis.

You can read about the country of Brazil HERE. Visit James and Christen's blog HERE.

Blessed Blog

2007-06-26T15:56:00.001-04:00

My sister Laura has started a blog called *Blessed*. In her first post she states her reason for starting a blog, and I think it's good:

My purpose for creating this blog is to write down the blessings, activities, and even struggles of my everyday life. I hope this will encourage me to stop and think about my life and realize how blessed I truly am by MY faithful Lord.