Wanderlust in the Word

The New New Blog!

2009-09-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, totally disregard that last post. "Chasing the Wind" came and is now gone with the wind. Now there is a new "Wanderlust" over at corey.truebaptist.org. This time, I plan to post reflections each day from my morning devotions.

The new Wanderlust is actually only a part of a larger effort called TrueBaptist.org. There myself and several others hope to create a collaborative community devoted to exploring Baptist doctrine and identity. Come join us!

New Blog Site

2009-06-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hello all. In the tradition of so many other bloggers, I am leaving this site behind in search of greener pastures. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased my own webspace and I've been enjoying playing with it. It didn't take long for me to realize that I would rather have my blog on my own server rather than a public one like blogspot.

The new blog is called Chasing the Wind.

I will warn you that the new blog won't always be ablout theological topics. I'd also like to journal some of my other interests. You should know that I am a geek bar none and some of my geeky hobbies and interests may be featured from time to time at the new blog.

So, with that I will say thank you to blogspot for the great introduction to blogging, and thank you to all of those who have looked in on Wanderlust in the Word from time to time and commented on some of the posts. I've had fun here, but I'm ready to have more fun somewhere else.

Review of "The Shack"

2009-02-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

“The Shack will change the way you think about God forever.”
– Kathie Lee Gifford

That is one of the most frightening endorsements that I have ever seen for a book. It’s the kind of statement that should only be made about a book like Romans or Deuteronomy or one of the Major Prophets, but certainly not a work of contemporary fiction! But what is it about The Shack that has the dubious quality of changing our conceptions about God?

The Shack seeks to alter the way we think about God in two main ways: by presenting a depiction of the Trinity that greatly differs from orthodox Christianity and by removing the unpopular concepts of wrath and condemnation (and therefore righteousness and holiness) from the character of God. To do this, it must completely ignore the clear biblical revelation of God’s nature. In fact, there is an utter disdain for the authority of the Scriptures throughout this book. What we are left with then, in the end, is a writer who has crafted a god in his own image – a god that thrills him with rainbow magic colors, hugs, and a laugh and a wink for every conceivable situation. This is one man’s record of what he wishes God were like, and therefore the Bible (our only authoritative source of information on what God is really like) must be completely set aside.

Nowhere is this departure from Scripture more clearly seen than in the depiction of the four persons of the Trinity (yes, there are four in The Shack). What ought to be immediately troubling is that two of the persons in the Godhead are visible at all. Jesus himself said very clearly that no one has seen the Father (John 6:46), and the Holy Spirit is never depicted in Scripture as anything other than a wind (John 3:8) or a dove (Mark 1:10). But in The Shack, these two are not only depicted as human beings, but are actually personified as women! Though Jesus retains his maleness (if not his masculinity), God the Father is ridiculously portrayed as an elderly, spunky black woman named ‘Papa’ or Elousia and the Holy Spirit is presented as a shimmery Asian woman named Sarayu. In addition, a fourth person is introduced as Sophia – supposedly the wisdom of God given personhood.

Can such a thing be done, however? Can we just simply imagine God to be whatever we wish Him to be? The answer to these questions must be a resounding ‘no’ for all biblically minded Christians. God has intentionally given us a revelation of his character and his nature and threatens great wrath upon all who would remake his image according to their tastes (Exodus 20:4-6). No member of the Trinity is ever referred to in Scripture by female pronouns, and yet here in The Shack femininity is the most prominent characteristic. This is a part of the great desire on the part of the author to emasculate God and make him/her more palatable to modern sensibilities, removing the sternness and high expectations that we see in the Bible and replacing them with a grandmotherly therapist.

Aside from the gender mismatching and renaming of God, though, there is also deeper damage done to the understanding of God’s nature. For one, early on, the main character, Mack, equates the Father of Jesus with the Great Spirit of Native American pagan religion – a serious heresy that is never corrected throughout the rest of the book (p. 33). In fact, later in the book, the Jesus character disapproves of the term ‘Christian’ and makes it clear that people from all faiths have a connection to him (p. 184).

A second destructive heresy in the book related to the Trinitarian nature of God comes when we see that the woman who is supposed to represent God the Father has crucifixion marks in her hands. She makes it clear that she suffered on the cross as well. She even goes so far as to say that “When we three spoke ourselves into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human.” This false teaching terribly mangles the theology of the cross wherein the Father was pleased to crush the Son in order to propitiate His wrath toward sinners (Isaiah 53:10). The Father and the Holy Spirit did not suffer the wrath of the Father against humanity. The Son, whose person was joined to the nature of humanity, alone suffered the wrath of His Father on behalf of sinful man, receiving that condemnation as a man. Young gets this whole picture wrong because he doesn’t believe that sin deserves condemnation (pp. 166, 225). In his view, the cross is really just a statement of love, not an atonement for sin (p. 194).

And why should there be an atonement for sin? The goddess of The Shack doesn’t really require one, because she doesn’t really think of anything as sinful. Even the serial killer who murdered the six-year-old daughter of the main character (among many others) is just a frightened little child of goddess who is acting out because of all of the pain he has been put through in his life (pp. 226-227). Everyone is a victim, their bad behaviors are just cute wrinkles in their child-like faces, and no one’s sins offend the character of the false god of this book, because – frankly – there isn’t much there to offend. This is not the holy God of the Bible, the merest sight of who causes all who see Him to fall on their faces in deep repentance (Isaiah 6:1-5). This is a goddess who swings her hips while she listens to funk music, who laughs like a clown at sin, and who can’t bring herself to punish any of her precious little ones. This false goddess is a joke – a joke that is pointed at my awesome and Almighty God.

If all of the previous isn’t enough to convince someone that biblical revelation is heavily downplayed in this book, the author wants to make it clear that he despises the Scriptural record. On page 95, ‘Papa’ declares that she is appearing as a woman to overcome Mack’s ‘religious conditioning’ from having read the Bible. On pages 124-125, the Jesus character shows utter contempt for the Law – a very different attitude than the biblical Jesus shows (Matthew 5:17-20). On page 136, Sarayu (the Holy Spirit character) tells Mack that it doesn’t really matter if people disbelieve the Bible’s truthfulness, and on page 199, the same character shows utter disdain for the will of God as laid down in the Scriptures.

It should seem obvious that we are not dealing with a ‘Christian’ book here. The Shack is an assault on the God of the Bible and a deliberate attempt to teach false doctrine. A quick look on the inside cover will show you many ‘Christian celebrities’ that endorse the book, however, and no doubt some of our friends have read and enjoyed the book. How did they get past all of this heretical theology? I, for one, cannot offer much help in answering that question. This book disgusted me to the very core. Someone asked me if I could say that there was anything beneficial about the book. My response is that if I had a friend that lost a child, I would not recommend to him a book about how the Baal of the Old Testament could make him feel better. It’s a false god! And it is no less false of a god than the chuckling quartet of Papa, Jesse, Sarayu, and Sophia.

I Know the Way to the Tree of Life

2009-02-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

The following is an article that I wrote for the inaugural issue of the Olney Baptist Association Quarterly. We hope to release this new journal later this month to the churches in our local association.

I know the way to the Tree of Life.

Once there was an immaculate Garden, planted by the Creator and kept by the creature. In this place there was no fear between man and beast. There was no sadness, no pain, and no shame. The Creator had provided exceedingly well for his creatures. Every green thing was given to man and the lesser creatures to eat. They had all they could ever need or want in this perfect Garden.

Amid the myriad of plants that produced fruit good to eat, there stood two unique trees. Each of these trees was special in its own way. The fruit of one had the property of granting wisdom. The other could bestow eternal life.

What should perhaps intrigue us is that a command was given by the Creator regarding only one of these special trees. He said to the man, "You shall surely eat of every tree of the Garden, but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." But what about the other tree? Implicit in God's command not to eat of the one tree was a direct command to joyfully partake of the other, for he had said, "You shall surely eat of every tree of the Garden."

What was set before Adam and his bride was a choice between life and good, death and evil.

But man was not stupid before he made his choice. The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil did not hold for the man the promise of knowing the will of God, because God had already made his will known to man. The fruit would not provide the man with the knowledge of how to work the ground or care for the animals, because God had already given him those abilities. The fruit would not give him a greater knowledge of his Creator, because before he took it and ate, he walked daily with his God. In short, without the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man lived by every word that came from the mouth of God.

What the man chose, then, by taking the Forbidden Fruit, was to gain understanding apart from the word of his Creator. The Serpent questioned the truthfulness and authority of what God spoke, and he encouraged the woman to seek knowledge on her own terms. Man and wife then made the choice to cease eating from the Tree that would cause them to live forever under the authority of their God and to turn instead to the Tree whose fruit promised separation from the Creator's life and authority. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our first parents were removed from their Paradise and forced to work the hard ground. A terribly fearsome creature with a flaming sword was placed at the gate of their former home to guard the way back to the Tree of Life. They had made their choice to live according to their own will rather than the will of God, and so the Tree that that the Creator had once commanded them to eat of was now beyond their grasp. Life would end.

Over a thousand years passed. A flood came upon the earth because of man's evil. Only eight were left. The Garden was buried beneath the water and sediment. No one knew where it had been any longer. The Tree that could grant Life was lost.

Another millennium passed over the world. Then one day, an eighty year old shepherd caught sight of a bush that burned but was not consumed. The Tree was still alive. The Creator once again began to walk with man and expected him once again to live only by his word. The choice again was laid before his people of life and death, good and evil.

These descendants of the first man had inherited his nature, though, and were incapable of living by God's word. Since death was what they chose, God gave them death. They were slaughtered by their enemies, carried into captivity, and dispossessed of their inheritance.

Generations passed. Whispers began to be heard of a Shoot from the stump of Jesse. A Righteous Branch would spring up from David. The Tree would once again grow from the wasted earth.

This time, it was a surprise, however. When the Tree of Life once again appeared in the world of men, it looked like nothing other than a Tree of Death. Nonliving boards tied or nailed together in a twisted mockery of the Living Tree that they resembled held impaled the dying body of the Righteous Branch. The blood of the Creator-made-flesh ran down the rough-hewn trunk of this Tree. The fruit that could grant eternal life was now flesh and blood, and those who wanted to live forever had to feast on this macabre food and drink.

What had happened to the Tree? Why this bloody spectacle? The Fountain of Eternal Life was filled with the slime of our wickedness. The Sinless One became sin for us. The Blessed One became cursed for us, and all of our evil was placed upon him who knew no evil that he might suffer the wrath that was due us because of our sinful choice. For we have all followed in the footsteps of our first parents and have chosen to pursue our own wisdom apart from God's word. The death we see in the Tree of Life is our death, the consequence of our choice.

When we then eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood, we show that the penalty of our sin was placed upon him. When we eat the Bread of Life and drink the Living Water, we partake of the reward that is His by rights. The fruit of the Tree of Life still has the effect of causing those who eat of it to live forever, but its appearance forces us to come to repentance for our sins. The natural man does not want to eat from this Tree. It is disgusting in his eyes. The beauty of Christ on the cross is spiritually discerned. We see our death there, but we see that our death was placed on the shoulders of another. To desire the fruit of this Tree is to see our sin for what it really is. We must hate our evil and turn from our wickedness and cling only to this One who has set us free from the power of sin and the wrath of God.

I know the way to the Tree of Life. It leads me to renounce the wisdom of man that my ancestors sought to obtain through the fruit of the other Tree. It leads me back to every word that comes from the mouth of God as the source of all of my knowledge. It leads me to see my wickedness as God sees it and to hate it as He hates it. It leads me to Jesus Christ as the only One who can deliver me from God's wrath, which I so richly deserve. It leads me to my knees in love, adoration, and worship of the one who took my shame, my curse, my death. It leads me to offer my life as a living sacrifice, taking up my own cross and dying to the desires of my flesh in order to bring glory to the one who has given me eternal life.

We have the directions to Life. May we never forget how to get there, and may we never neglect to point others along the Way.

A Thought about Weather

2009-01-29T09:59:00.000-08:00

At various times throughout my theological education, I have heard it taught that Satan controls the weather. Preachers and teachers get this idea from Ephesians 2:2, where Satan is referred to as "the prince of the power of the air." Since Satan is the prince of the power of the air, so the argument goes, then he is in direct control of all movement of the air, or, in other words, the weather. (See, for example, the entry on Ephesians 2:2 in the Bible Knowledge Commentary, edited by Walvoord and Zuck.)

One of the reasons why, I believe, that certain teachers want to see Satan as being in control of such things is that it is hard to justify God as being one who would send a tornado or hurricane to destroy lives and property. They would rather shift the 'blame' or the responsibility of such actions to Satan. Of course, that does not really remove God from the responsibility for these events, since in the book of Job we indeed see Satan causing such ruckus, but we also see God squarely as the authorizer of such destruction (Job 1:8, 12).

I had an interesting thought about this idea today, though, when I considered that last Sunday, as I was laying out the planned activities of the week to the congregation, I neglected to say, "If the Lord wills" (James 4:15). And, sure enough, on Wednesday of this week, we did not have our planned prayer service. That's when I got to thinking about the difference between saying "if the Lord wills" and "weather permitting." They are essentially saying the same thing, if we understand God as controlling the weather. But what if we believe that Satan controls the weather? Wouldn't then the phrases "weather permitting" and "if Satan wills" be identical?

Well, we certainly don't want to go around saying "if Satan wills", so we better get a more accurate handle on what Ephesians 2:2 is saying!

In the ancient world, the air was thought of as the home of evil spirits. In fact, the word for spirit could also mean wind or breath, so there is clearly a connection. When Paul refers to Satan as the "prince of the power of the air", he is referring to Satan's chief status among the evil spirits. He is the prince of the hosts of the demons, but he is certainly not the lord of weather.

The Bible declares that it is Yahweh who raises the stormy winds (Psalm 107:25). All types of weather obey his commands (Psalm 148:8, cf. the plagues of the Exodus). Jesus himself had power over winds and waves. Even in the one place where we might say that Satan commanded the weather (Job 1), the fire that fell from heaven was reported by the servant to be the "fire of God" (verse 16), which is reminiscent of the fire that fell on Sodom - clearly from God's hand.

No, we cannot declare that Satan is the master of the weather because of Ephesians 2:2. The unanimous declaration of God's word is that God alone controls the storms and winds of heaven. We must never make our plans contingent upon "if Satan wills", but rather upon "if the Lord wills", and "weather permitting" ought to always have that connotation in our minds.

Analogies of Evangelism

2009-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

When most people think about the taint of sin and guilt that man inherits from Adam, they think of a sickness that makes it hard for them to come to God - a sickness that infects their moral nature and makes them more apt to do bad things. In this way of thinking, what man needs is a remedy. He needs the medicine of a better understanding of the truth or the therapy of some good Christian friends to gently steer him in the right direction.

To change the analogy slightly, this sin-sick man is like a traveler on a ship that has been cast overboard and is struggling to stay afloat in the water. His sin is pulling him downward. He needs rescue. In this picture, those who have the saving gospel of Jesus Christ need to throw it to their drowning friends like life-preservers to save them from immanent death. For every drowning man we see, we need to toss a life-preserver. At that point, if only the man would take a hold of it, he could be saved. The offer of salvation is on the table, but he has to stretch out and grab it.

I wonder what effect this analogy has on the mind of the evangelist? He pities those who are drowning. He tries to get the life-preserver that he throws close to the target so that grasping it is not too much of a trouble. He waits in fearful anticipation to see whether the sinner will grasp the promise of life. His hope at this point is a hope in the activity of man.

The Bible doesn't like this analogy of evangelism. The Bible likes to call the lost "dead in their trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Our corrupt human nature is not 'sick', it is 'dead'. The man who does not belong to Christ is not drowning, he is in the latter stages of complete decomposition on the sea floor. He cannot grasp your life-ring. It is many, many fathoms above him. In fact, the whole activity of sailing around the sea casting life rings for drowned sinners starts to look really stupid.

This is the point where people start to sneer at the Calvinists and say, "See! I told you they don't believe in evangelism!" Such a statement is shamefully false, though, because those who base their theology on the Scriptures have a much better picture of how a Christian is to evangelize.

While the Bible never presents evangelism as rescuing the sick or drowning, it does have a great picture of evangelism as raising the dead. In Ezekiel 37, the prophet is led to a valley of dry bones. Now these bones are really dry, pointing to the fact that the people the bones came from are REALLY dead! Ezekiel does not walk around this valley (maybe it used to be a sea floor - actually it was! (Genesis 7)) putting life-preservers near the hands of the dead, hoping that they will reach out a grab a hold. No, instead he is told by God to "Prophesy over these bones...Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live!"

Now, what is in the mind of the evangelist who thinks of his work as telling dead things to come to life? He knows the true nature of the men he speaks to. He knows the absolute inability of his own power to make them live. He knows the abundant power of the word that he proclaims that can even raise the dead, because it is the word of the Almighty and ever-living God. And finally, his hope is not in the dead bones to comprehend what he says, but his hope is in the infinitely powerful, sovereign, and gracious God who gave him this task. His joy at seeing the bones live is a joy in God, not a celebration of a man's decision.

The Great Love Triangle

2008-12-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

I am preparing a Sunday evening sermon series of the same title of this post that will eventually culminate in a study of the book of Revelation. It has been my discovery throughout this process that the entire Bible is really the story of a love triangle. It is a story very similar, in fact, to the story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, and especially Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. This love story is one of a husband and one wife whom he loves, and one whom he does not.

Of course, when we are speaking about the Bible as a whole, the characters materialize into God, as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ: the husband, and the church as his favored bride. The unwanted or unloved or unintended wife is unbelieving, covenant-breaking Israel - who is really no Israel at all (Romans 9:6). Revelation is the glorious end to this story, with the destruction of the whore (unbelieving Israel) and the final beatific and fruitful marriage of the lover (the church).

One unexpected outcome of this study has been a heightened awareness of the importance of covenants in the Bible, since marriage is in essence a covenant, and the covenants in Scripture are in essence the 'marrying' of God and his people. I have been warned by some, however, that a passion for seeing the Bible as a developing covenant can lead to an acceptance of infant baptism, since many traditional 'covenant' theologians hold that the circumcision of the Old Covenant is directly analogous to the baptism of the New Covenant.

I find, though, that given the context, this is actually far from the truth. Understanding baptism to be a covenant sign administered only to those who have become members of the promise by faith rather than by flesh (physical birth) actually makes the most sense in the great story of the Bible. It is not the children of the flesh who inherit the blessings of the covenant, but the children of the promise (Galatians 4). There are many who are descended from Israel who are not Israel (Romans 9:6). These children of the slave woman according to the flesh were also marked according to the flesh at their physical birth. But children of the free woman ("Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother" - Galatians 4:26) are born according to the Spirit, and are marked according to the Spirit at their spiritual birth.

Baptism of disciples alone is not contrary to the proper understanding of the blossoming covenant of grace throughout Scripture. It is perfectly consistent with it. Also, the spiritual aspect of it beautifully matches the overall story of the great love triangle that we find in the pages of Scripture.

What the Church Needs Most Right Now

2008-12-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

What does the church of Jesus Christ need most right now? That is a good and provocative question! I have had many answers to that question over the years: to read the Bible, to understand God's sovereignty in salvation, a return to church discipline, a biblical church government. But now that I have been a pastor for a while, the real greatest need of the church has been slowly stalking up behind me like a feared predator.

I believe that the church needs most right now for pastors to address specific sins in the congregation through their preaching.

Here's what I've noticed: we love to talk about sins like homosexuality and abortion because there is likely no one in our churches that really deals with either of those things. So we can rant and rave all day long about the evils of these specific sins because no one goes home afterward and starts to put together a clandestine group to get the pastor fired.

We can also talk very high and mightily about 'sin' in general. We can discuss holy living as an amorphous entity. We can talk about the need of the church to get involved in missions and evangelism (a favorite soapbox of mine), but all the while, what people really need is to come face to face with that ugly sin that they hide and walk away humbled and repentant.

Who does this today? Now I can point to a whole bunch of prophets and apostles who did this very thing, but that's not what I see in church pulpits today. On the contrary:

All the flabby moral platitudes that roll off the tongues of hired servants in the pulpits — those vague calls to godliness devoid of concrete guidelines of daily behavior - receive the automatic “amens” from the congregations that do the hiring. Let the preaching become specific, and “the preacher is meddling in areas that he knows nothing about.” What the congregations pay for is a weekly affirmation of their status quo. Of course, their status quo may be somebody else’s revolution, so they may regard themselves as being very, very daring, very hip, very chic, the vanguard of change; always, however, their status quo is left undisturbed. That is what they pay for, just as the people of Israel paid for it in the eighth century, B.C. ( Ezek. 14). The result for the people of Israel was captivity. (Gary North, Introduction to Christian Economics, pg. 3)

I think there are two main reasons why preachers don't touch this with a 10-foot pole: 1) when you tell someone that they are sinning heinously against God where they thought they were not, you make them very angry - angry enough to want you gone, and 2) when you start confronting someone else's specific sins, you have to publicly admit to your own or else you become a hypocrite, with 'woes' pronounced against you (Matthew 23:4, 25-28).

What is needed to get us back on track? Right up front we are going to have to realize that we are all sinners, and we all sin in different ways. What would you rather do, go on sinning placing yourself in danger of God's wrath, or get it out in the open and start to be delivered from it? What would you rather your pastor do, participate in some secret sin that you know nothing about, or humbly confess his sins in public as well and start to be delivered from it? There is no victory in darkness when it comes to sin. Light is needed to bring freedom from the darkness.

These thoughts are terrifying and hopeful. I would love to be transparent about my own sinfulness. I know that I need to preach honestly about sin in our congregation. I know the good - the revival even - that would accompany such actions. But I also know that things will get really ugly. The blood-chilling challenge to pastors is whether or not they will put it all on the line to do the right thing. I'll say this, though: I'm not starting this week...

God's Blessing Brings Pain

2008-11-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

One of the oddest stories in the Old Testament is in the 33rd chapter of Genesis where Jacob wrestles...God, I guess. The narrator never clearly names this wrestler, but when he is beaten, he gives Jacob a new name: Israel, which means, 'he wrestles with God'. It's hard for me to understand what exactly is going on in this passage. I know it is important, though, because the name 'Israel' becomes the most important name for Jacob in the entire Bible.

But, even aside from the oddity of a man wrestling God and winning, is the strangeness of the outcome of such a match. Jacob declares to his wrestling partner that he will not let him go until the man blesses him. God does so, and Jacob limps away.

That's the weird part! He limps away! During the wrestling match, the angel/preincarnate Christ touches Jacob's hip and 'wrenches' it. Upon winning, Jacob asks for a blessing, but does not ask for a healed hip. Upon giving the blessing, God does indeed bless him, but does not heal the hip. So Jacob - now Israel - limps away blessed.

I like this picture, because I think that so many Christians today think that blessing means healing or prosperity. That is not the biblical picture at all. Remember that Jacob deceived Isaac into giving him the blessing, and no blessing remained for Esau, and yet we see Esau as being very 'blessed' indeed with possessions and descendants (Genesis 34 and 36). Apparently, that wasn't the point of the blessing. It certainly wasn't the point of the wrestler's blessing, since God had already given Jacob a ton of property and children. He didn't really receive anything new materially as a result of the wrestling match, and, as I said before, he walked away still hurt in the hip, so healing wasn't a part of it, either.

What is the blessing of God then? It is himself! It was through Israel's line that the Messiah would come, not Esau's. It was Jacob who saw the angels of God on a number of occasions. It was Israel who got to wrestle with God face to face and not die. God's blessing on us means that we will have more of him, and that is what our soul truly desires. In fact, many times pain and poverty can bring us closer to him, while health and wealth can cause us to start relying on our own perceived strength.

We ought to desire God's greater blessing of nearness to him, and we ought to let him give that gift no matter how he brings it into our lives. If we ask God to make us more like Christ and to give us more of himself and he sees fit to bring pain into our lives to get us there, then let us carry that pain with joy, limping from our encounter with God, knowing that the reward far outweighs the cost.

Covetousness and Envy

2008-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

This week I am preparing a sermon on the final five commandments in Exodus 20. As I was meditating on the full impact of the 10th commandment, I had an interesting thought on the interplay between covetousness and envy. It goes like this:

Can I covet my neighbor's cool new flat-screen television? In a way, I suppose I can, but most of the time, the feeling that we get when we see our neighbor acquire something new is a feeling of envy. I want something similar. I don't want his, I just don't want to not have one too. Therefore, my solution to this (also sinful, but for different reasons) feeling is that I start to save up money to get a new T.V.

Now, if I decide to to this, you could certainly say that there is some sin in me. Ultimately, my desire would be for a material possession that would give me worldly pleasure. To get it, I may have to "serve money and not God" for a while. But I will submit that my sin would not be one of covetousness.

Look at the things we are not supposed to covet in Exodus 20:17: our neighbor's house, wife, slaves, or animals. Yes, I know that the commandment also includes "or anything that is your neighbor's", but once you see how I am developing this, I think you'll understand where I'm going.

Now, if I covet my neighbor's wife, I cannot simply save up to get an exact copy of her for myself. If I truly want this one woman, then the only way I can get her is by pursuing an adulterous relationship with her, or maybe killing her husband so that I will be free to marry her. This leads to a complete contravention of the spirit of the second half of the Ten Commandments - namely: to love your neighbor as yourself.

If I coveted my neighbor's house, the situation would be very similar. Think of Ahab and Jezebel plotting to take Naboth's vineyard. Again, the idea is that there is only one of this particular item, and to get it, I will have to harm my neighbor in some way - by murder, theft, adultery, or even false witness.

While envy is sinful, it does not seem to go in the same directions as the sin of covetousness. What's the application here? I'm not really sure, to tell the truth. Both attitudes are sinful. I suppose you could say that the covetousness looks a little more sinful, but that's not very helpful. I think that the only helpful application you can make from this distinction is just a more accurate warning concerning what kind of actions can result from real covetousness. If I were truly coveting my neighbor's flat-screen T.V., I would be looking for a way to get my hands on his T.V., not get my own.

Sunday Action School

2008-11-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

I've never liked Sunday School. There, I've said it. It's boring, repetitive, usually taught by people who ought not be teaching ANYTHING, and it is the one school you never graduate from. If I had to sum it up in one word, that word would be mediocre.

I hate mediocrity. My life is ate up with it (pardon the intentionally poor grammar). I don't want one more mediocre, half-hearted attempt at spirituality gypping me out of one more hour of good sleep time on Sunday morning. Of course, I'm a pastor now, so I pretty much have to be there for Sunday School, so I go.

Now I will say that since my friend Scott Hardy has been leading Sunday School at our church, I have enjoyed it immensely more than I ever have before. He's actually teaching DOCTRINE! And we are having fruitful (in my mind) discussions on the deep things of Scripture. That excites me, no matter what the forum is, so I'm pretty pleased with what we have going on right now at our church. It's about to change, though, and so I am once again having thoughts about Sunday School and its place in the church.

I just so happened (as if there were such a concept) to be thinking about this while reading the ninth chapter of John Piper's, Don't Waste Your Life, this afternoon and a really good, really radical idea hit me. I've been also pondering the possibility of putting together an 'action committee' at our church that would brainstorm and put into action radical ideas for reaching our community with the gospel. My crazy thought this afternoon was: what if we combined Sunday School with the 'action committee'? What if each Sunday School class was actually just a group whose purpose was to plan evangelism and missions projects and put them into action and their meeting times were times of brainstorming, planning, arranging, and preparing for outreach?

Just think about that for a second...What would you teach in Sunday School? Well, you could use some of your class time to teach gospel presentation strategies. You could assign homework each week to read various Bible books and passages and maybe choose one person each week to present insights from that material as it relates to the mission of the church. You could have each class devote a more significant amount of its meeting time to prayer. Each class could have a brief worship time together (have a song or two). The lion's share of the work, though, would be outward focused (something that Sunday School classes really need). The class members would be planning and thinking about various ways to reach the lost.

A lot of Sunday School classes have parties and fellowships to help class members get to know one another better. In this new paradigm, there would be even more fellowships than before, but they would all be outreach events as well.

One of the hardest things in our church is moving people from worship-service-only attenders to being full-time attenders (Sunday School, Sunday evening worship, Wednesday prayer service). Imagine the impact this new paradigm of Sunday School class could have on this age-old problem. Much of the real ministry of the church would be wrapped up in the various classes. Attenders would see and hear evidence of this everywhere. It would become very obvious that if you wanted to really participate in this church, you would have to come to the 'other part' as well.

Also, I cannot estimate the value, as a pastor, of having the congregation go through an intensely spiritual outwardly focused meeting of prayer, worship, and preparation prior to the worship service. The influence this would have on the spirit of the worship hour would be amazing.

This idea is in its infancy stage right now in my mind, but I wanted to write it down somewhere so that it would not go away. I hope that any of you that read this would share your thoughts with me on how this could be done.

Ugly Feet or Beautiful?

2008-10-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Most Christians would consider missionary work among the lost peoples of the world to be a good thing. Recently, though, I have encountered a number of people - both pastors and lay people - who have expressed a very troubling idea that threatens the very impetus for world missions. The idea concerns the age-old question, "What happens to the man who has never heard of the name of Jesus?" In the interest of trying to absolve God of any unfairness, it seems that many today are answering that question by saying that those who don't know God or his Son are simply granted eternal life because they didn't have a 'chance' to ever hear the gospel and accept it.

I know that a person comes to a position like this because he or she believes in the great love and mercy of God and because it seems unloving and unmerciful to damn a person who never had an opportunity to hear of that love and mercy. The first problem with the position, though, is that the Bible doesn't say that a person is damned to hell because they reject an offer of mercy and love. Biblically, people are damned to hell because they are sinners. The reality is that all people are sinners, whether they have had the gospel presented to them or not, and therefore are condemned.

The second problem with this position has a direct implication to world missions. If the above opinion is true - namely that those who have never heard the gospel will be saved by default - then what happens when missionaries come into an area where people have never heard the gospel? When a missionary begins to preach to an unreached people, they would lose their default 'salvation' immediately, and all of a sudden most of them would be condemned to hell. If you hold to the opinion that those who haven't heard are saved anyway, then this must be your conclusion. Therefore, missionary feet are not beautiful in this context, but, in fact, would be very, VERY ugly.

As always, though, doctrines and ideas are best formed when we let the Bible speak for itself. In 2 Thessalonians 1:5-9 says,

"This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."

There are two types of people in the passage above who will "suffer the punishment of eternal destruction." They are "those who do not know God" (those are the unreached - those who have never heard) and "those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus" (those are the ones who have heard it but reject it). When we know that those who have never heard of Jesus - who do not know God - will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, then we know that we have to go out and tell people about Jesus. We also know that when our feet show up on their shores, they will indeed be beautiful feet because they bring the hope of salvation, not the certainty of condemnation.

What's the Point of Prayer?

2008-10-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

That's a question that all Christians struggle with at one point or another: what is the point of prayer? Sometimes we pray and absolutely nothing happens. Sometimes we get the opposite of what we ask for. Occasionally it 'works'; we pray and our prayers are answered in dramatic fashion, but we really can't seem to predict when this will be the case or one of the other options.

Also, theologically we know that God knows everything. He knows what we need before we can even ask for it. He's promised to clothe us, feed us, take care of us, and work everything out for good for those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. So why pray?

Well, the easy answer is "because he told us to." I suppose that should be good enough, but inquiring minds still want to know why. Why does he tell us to ask him for things that he knows we need and things that he plans to give us anyway? The classic answer is "God wants us to pray because prayer changes us. Prayer doesn't change God." Well, aside from that answer not being entirely biblical (I mean, there were times when prayer actually changed what God said he was going to do - think Moses), it just doesn't seem to satisfy me either.

This morning I read something in 2 Corinthians, though, that just sort of fixed it all for me. In chapter 1, verse 11 Paul says that "You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many." Now that's pretty significant. Paul wasn't asking for prayer from the Corinthians because he believed that the more Christians he could get praying, the better his chances would be. Jesus said that if two or three agree on something, it will be granted by the Father. So you don't need a thousand, just a couple. Paul asked for the prayers of many so that the many could give thanks when the prayer was answered. That's amazing!

Think about this: in the Lord's Prayer, when Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, why did he tell them to ask for their daily bread? Remember in the Sermon on the Mount when he said that God feeds all his creatures, therefore don't worry about it? So why ask for it every day? I confess that I have lived most of my life eating meals every day without ever asking God to provide them. He does it anyway. I give thanks for the food, but I didn't ask for the food. So, if he's going to provide it anyway, why tell us to ask?

I think that the answer to that is the same as why Paul tells the Corinthians to join in prayer for him. When we ask and then we receive, we give thanks as one whose prayers were answered. When you ask, it makes you more attentive to the way in which what you asked for was provided.

We recently had an opportunity in our church to join in prayer for a missionary's wife who we know well. She had some kind of dangerous cyst that was threatening pregnancy. On a Sunday night, we gathered 'round in a circle at church and prayed specifically for her healing. A few days later, we got the word that the cyst totally and miraculously healed! Now, that was something that God was going to do anyway, apparently, but he wanted us to be able to give thanks for the answer and so we prayed. I'll tell you, when we got the news, my eyes pretty much instantly teared up and I started thinking about what an amazing God we serve. Our whole church got to rejoice over that provision from the Lord.

A similar issue occurred a couple of years ago that illustrates the point from a different angle. One of our good friends had a lethal breast tumor that we knew nothing about. God miraculously healed it too, but we didn't hear about it until after the fact. Now, we were still amazed, and we praised God, but it wasn't nearly as intense as if we would have been involved in the prayer for the miracle itself.

So why do we pray? God wants us to learn to ask for his blessings and provisions so that we can be more attentive to the way he provides and so that we can praise him for answered prayer rather than normal provision (which is anything but normal given our sinful estate) taken for granted. Rather than just thanking God for your lunch today, ask him to provide you with lunch today while you are praying in the morning and then pay close attention to how he provides it, and let the joy of that provision break forth into a real thanksgiving when you pray over that meal. And when you are in a crisis, ask a ton of people to pray for you, not because you think that there is more power when more people pray, but because you know that more people will be able to praise God when your prayers are answered.

Where Does the Joy Go?

2008-10-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you've ever really tasted the pure joy of simply knowing and loving Jesus Christ, then you know that it is the most refined, pleasurable, and addictive joy in the universe. Absolutely nothing can compare with this joy. It manifests itself in various ways and at various times. Sometimes it comes from a deep abiding feeling of simply belonging to God and being sustained by his sovereign might. At other times, the joy manifests itself as we serve our Risen Lord. It comes on the coat tails of sharing the gospel or serving others. Some times it is stronger than others, but every time it is euphoric, and we know one thing: we want more of that!

The problem comes when the joy seems to be absent. Where is it? Especially those of us who are Reformed know that any such joy must come only by the grace of God (we did nothing to earn it; even if it came as a result of sharing the gospel or some other service to God, we know that such good works were crafted for us by God and he made us walk in them [Eph 2:10]). Therefore we haven't done anything to really lose it since we didn't earn it in the first place. So where is it?

The pursuit of this joy can drive a person mad. I haven't read the most recent biography of 'mother' Theresa, but I understand that it brings to light some of her own frantic quest for this joy and her abiding depression at its absence. I totally understand. It seems like that joy was manifest more often and more powerfully when God first started maturing me than it is now. I often think of the level of divine joy in my life being like some sort of evil roller coaster where the hills get smaller and farther apart and most of the ride is taking place in the lowlands, and increasingly so.

A number of times in my life, this feeling of diminishing joy has caused me to take some pretty radical measures. I start to feel like perhaps the worldly things that I enjoy must be driving me away from spiritual joy, so I have a time of weeding in my life where I try to strip away all of the weeds of the world that might dim my joy and choke my fruitfulness. But I have noticed two problems with this practice.

First - and probably most importantly - it doesn't seem to work. The joy doesn't spring back into my life as if I earned a treat. And I shouldn't expect it to, really. As I have said already, I believe that the joy was grace to begin with and not a reward, so why should this work?

Second, I don't really know what to do with my time when I have weeded the world away. In order to live the perfect Christian life, do you just sit around and read Christian books? Really? That's pretty lame and it gets really boring. Maybe you balance reading a ton of good Christian books with door to door witnessing like the Jehovah's Witnesses? That's often not very practical and doesn't really seem very apostolic. Also, it's boring.

I need to think about this, so I sit back and grab a Coke because I'm thirsty. Ahh, now that's good. There's joy in taking a sip of good, cold Coke, with all the carbonation intact. Why am I allowed this joy? I don't deserve it. We all deserve instant and eternal damnation, so this cool drink must be categorized as grace. My Heavenly Father lets me enjoy it and the payment to do so comes from Jesus' suffering on the cross. It has to; there's no other way to understand it.

Right now I'm not experiencing the euphoric joy of pure communion with God, but I am enjoying a very worldly and very geeky book that I'm reading (Werewolf: The Forsaken for those who must know). Is that enjoyment grace? Well, I certainly don't deserve it, so I guess so. What I am starting to see is that there are joys everywhere and all of them are made possible by Jesus' death on the cross. Of those joys, the euphoric divine joy is only one type (albeit the best). God doesn't have to give us any of them, much less the best one continually, but he does give us constant joys and they are all by grace. He doesn't reject us and hate us when he withholds the one kind. He is merely giving us a taste of another. And those of us who have eyes to see the goodness of Christ should thank him for all of them and praise him for all of them and glorify him through all of them - even the worldly ones.

The world can still sink its thorns in and choke us, but if we are putting worldly joys in proper perspective (I need to drink to live and God gives me the gracious joy of a delicious Coke. Praise God!), then we seem to defeat the thorns. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10 that he worked harder than all the other apostles, but that it was only by the grace of God that he did so. Paul worked harder than Peter because God wanted Paul to work harder than Peter. Apparently, Peter enjoyed more free time? Whatever the case, both were blessed, and the different amount of work that was done by them for the gospel was decided by the active force of God's grace, not by their personal zeal. The same will be for us. We ought to desire as much grace as God will give us, and that would include the kind of grace that would work us harder than anyone else for the kingdom, but we also ought to see all the rest of the grace that he has lavished on us for what it truly is and glorify him through it by giving thanks to him for it. Then we see that the joy doesn't really go away, but it just sort of...changes colors?

Rethinking the Cold-Call

2008-09-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently asked me to listen to message by Tim Keller on evangelism (available here) to see what I thought of the ideas presented there. I recommend listening to the whole thing, as I found that my mind was alive with brainstorming about sharing the gospel throughout the whole talk, but I will admit that the best stuff is in the first 45 minutes or so.

The gist of the message can be summed up by an oft repeated phrase from Stephen King's Dark Tower series: "The world has moved on." Keller makes the case that our tried and trusted methods for evangelism have lost all of their effectiveness in this postmodern world in which we live. This is not a new idea, of course, but Keller has a way of thinking through the issue from various angles that helped to stir my own thinking on the subject in a way that even Mark Driscoll has not.

Let me tell you what I heard from this. Now, my ideas spring of course from my own experiences and passions, but I think that one of the ideas that I had while listening may be helpful for others. I heard (or thought) that evangelism encounters do not have to contain the full content of the gospel. Now let me try to explain why that might be important.

I have conducted evangelism experiments and ministries in two large cities and one rural countryside. In Louisville, KY and Louisville, IL, I have sought to make the entire truth of the gospel clear in one conversation. Now, this has often led me to several conundrums. Do you try to explain the Trinity? How can they get the gospel without fully knowing the details of the Godhead? Do you explain creation, election, eschatology? All of those ideas have a direct bearing on the gospel, but are a little too much to pack into even an hour-long conversation. When we have come back from a completely unsuccessful witnessing trip, I have remarked, "Well, it's not like we're trying to get these people to change their toothpaste. We're trying to get them to change their whole life!"

A second observation I have made when conducting these experiments/ministries is that I would have absolutely no idea what to say to this person if I returned to his or her door in three months or so. I have already given them the gospel, what more could I say?

These problems may be solved by some of the ideas that Keller is tossing around. Evangelism has to be more of a process, he says. Paul didn't give the Areopagites all of the gospel, he says. Jonah only gave the Ninevites the barest scrap of warning about judgment. Here's what I take from that: maybe our door-to-door or street evangelism encounters ought to be simply about handling one little truth at a time. Maybe instead of having a pre-programmed presentation, we should simply let the conversation come from what is currently on the subject's mind. That way, we begin to build a relationship that can continue, we begin to sow seeds of a worldview that may blossom, and we have plenty to talk about the next time we meet that person. And then we can be intentional about going back and talking again.

This is not a call to water-down the content of the evangelistic encounter, but rather a call to realize that the "evangelistic encounter" may in fact, by God's sovereign grace, be 25 evangelistic encounters that add up to sum total of the truth being presented over time. Throughout the process, a real relationship is also developed, and facts of theology do not have to be poured out in one disheveled lump.

I like these ideas and will soon try to put them into practice. Please feel free to comment on Keller's message, if you listen, or any of my thoughts.

Copywrong

2008-08-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last year our church used LifeWay's "GameDay Central" Vacation Bible School curriculum. My daughter still sings some of the songs from that VBS as she dances around the house. I would love to a get a copy of the music CD from last year so that she can hear the songs again - especially since I have long forgotten the words and melodies.

The problem is that the CD is not available anywhere. No one sells it. My wife asked, "Why don't they just give every child who comes to VBS a copy of this music?" I replied that it would be illegal to do so since the music is copyrighted material. We both agreed that such a thing was stupid. Kids aren't going to go out and buy the blasted thing (not that they could anyway - it's not available in stores). So, what's left is a bunch of kids who are singing these songs and slowly forgetting them. It's sad, really.

This year we used the curriculum by Answers in Genesis called "Amazon Expedition". In many ways, this curriculum is vastly superior to LifeWay's, especially in the Bible study department, although I must say that LifeWay's is getting steadily better (hopefully Thom Rainer can have a good influence on the publisher). But as I flipped through the material, I saw the familiar copyright statements all over each individual item: "You do not have permission to...blah, blah, blah." Given my recent thoughts on the hard-to-get music situation, these notices really annoyed me. I mean, what in the heck is the purpose of Vacation Bible School material anyway? Is it for a company to make money or is it to spread the message of the gospel?

If the purpose of a publisher of VBS material is really to spread the gospel, then what is the big deal with the copyright junk? Why wouldn't you want some churches to copy material for use by churches with less material means? Why wouldn't you want teachers to copy material to be able to give it to more students? The publishers may claim, "It costs us money to print this stuff!" I would reply, "I'm helping you by printing it on my paper using my ink and am distributing it myself!"

I understand that it costs money to hire writers, etc. to make the material in the first place and that that cost has to be made back through the sales of material, but there will always be churches and individuals that will pay for the service of pre-made color copies and merchandise. I can't believe that the publisher would be in the red simply by allowing churches to make copies of printed material or music, since they would have purchased at least some of it in the first place.

Back to the music for a second, though. Once you teach a song to a child, that song becomes theirs. They sing it all the time long after you are out of the picture. In a very real sense, you can't claim that the song belongs solely to you anymore. The worst thing in the world to do would be to remove all ability of a child to get a hold of the original music. If you're not going to sell it anymore, then at least put it up somewhere for free download.

As far as this other copyright stuff goes, I think that we as Christians need to rethink how we interface with this stuff. Many Christian ministries are now allowing their materials to be aquired and used for free. This is a very good step in the right direction. Our propagation of the gospel should not come with a pricetag. If our reason for spreading our ideas, books, songs, lesson material, etc. is to teach the gospel or to disciple, then it needs to be done for that reason and not for the purpose of making money.

I need to put more thought into the particulars of this idea and develop a possible plan of action and guidelines for when you should and should not charge a price for ministering material. I'll think about it and write again. In the meantime, feel free to interact with anything I've said, or offer your own ideas.

How Can Paul Say That?

2008-07-31T06:16:00.000-07:00

As I have led evangelism teams now in two towns called Louisville (KY and IL), I have encountered a large number of Roman Catholic people at their doorsteps and attempted to share the gospel with them. I am always surprised at how they answer my most basic question, "What do you believe it takes for a person to go to heaven?" Those who grew up in or currently attend some form of Protestant church usually reply with something like, "You have to believe or have faith in Jesus." The Roman Catholics that I talk to, on the other hand, never fail to answer, "You have to be a good person."

Several times now, when I have been given this response, I have asked the person why Roman Catholics tend to answer that way, and I have asked what place Jesus has in the equation. To their credit, all of the ones I have inquired of in this way have clarified their answer to include the grace of God in the sacrifice of Christ for forgiveness of sins. Still, the initial focus on works instead of grace is troubling.

As I was thinking about what I could say or ask that would introduce a wedge of doubt into their theology at this point, I came upon the Philippian jailer's question to Paul in Acts 16:30, "What must I do to be saved?" I thought to myself, that should be the question that I ask these Roman Catholics! If they answer anything other than, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved," then I'll be able to confront them as to why. After all, Paul didn't say anything about sacraments or mass or confessions and penance and venial and mortal sins; he just said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus."

But this morning I got to thinking about the rest of Paul's statement. He did not just promise that the jailer would be saved if he believed in the Lord Jesus; he promised that his whole household would be saved! I realized that I would fail my own test. If someone asked me what he must do to be saved, I would certainly tell him that he must believe in Jesus, but I would definitely not make any promises about his family. They would have to believe in Jesus on their own.

So how could Paul say what he said, then? How could he promise this man that his whole household would be saved? There has been so much debate between paedobaptists and credobaptists on whether or not there were children in the house (since later they all got baptized) that I think that we have overlooked the fact that Paul made this man a promise that didn't seem to take into account the individual faiths of the various members of the jailer's household. Someone might argue that this was a different time and that the members of the household all would follow the lead of the head of the family, but we must remember that though cultural experience has changed in the last 2000 years, human nature has not. Paul was either making a promise that included the instant manifestation of genuine faith in every member of the household, or he was promising that the faith of the head of household would 'cover' the rest of the family (perhaps only until they manifested genuine faith).

Standing as I do in my current convictions as a Reformed credobaptist, I cannot understand how Paul could make this promise with either of these intentions. If anyone would argue that Paul was not making an actual promise that ALL of the household would be saved, I would just point out that they all in fact were, apparently (verse 33). Now, if Paul can make promises like this, can we? In Baptist circles, though we like to talk about male headship in the home, we do not like to talk about the realities of headship in the faith. We have no place in our understanding for a concept like "you and your household," because we believe that each person must have their own experience of Christ. I'm not sure how to resolve the issue, but I love it when I run up against things in Scripture that challenge my current understandings, because that is when I grow.

If anyone reads this and has a personal interpretation or understanding of the issue, please comment and let's continue the discussion.

Undermining Authority

2008-06-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Preaching is a very difficult task. The preacher has to come up with a different message each time he preaches (usually several times a week), all of them are expected to be riveting, and he is accountable to both God and man for what he says. Every preacher ought to be given a modicum of respect even before you hear him speak because of the high calling of his office and the inherent difficulty of his task. Unfortunately, though, it seems like there are a ridiculous number of preachers that bring disgrace to their office by criminally mishandling the revelation with which they have been entrusted.

In D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones work, Preaching and Preachers, he points out the danger of forcing our own ideas on the biblical text that we preach:

Never force your text. An idea may occur to you and it may excite you and thrill you; but if you find that you have to do some manipulating or forcing in order to make that fit into this particular text, don't do it. You must sacrifice a good sermon rather than force a text.

He goes on to give several examples of those who force their own ideas on the text, but I would like to give my own example from a man I heard preach last night on John 1:35-42. I do this not to make fun of the man who preached this, but to try to highlight a misuse of Scripture that I have been witness to very many times in my short life. This kind of loose playing with the Bible is extremely damaging to the minds of those who have to listen to it week in and week out because it gives them the impression that the Bible ought not to be understood in a straightforward way, but rather we are encouraged to simply grab hold of a word or phrase and run away with it, assigning our own meaning to the words while forgetting the context. Let me illustrate with the example from last night.

The man began by talking about John the Baptist and his recognizing of Jesus to be the "Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" in verse 29 of John chapter 1. Then he jumped down to verses 35 to 39 where Jesus comes walking by again the next day and John's disciples go after him. They ask him where he is staying and Jesus replies, "Come and you will see." It was at this point that the first major departure from the text was made. The preacher began to talk about our sinful condition and our need to come to Christ. Jesus says, "Come and see." "You must come to Jesus and see for yourself the salvation that he offers", said the preacher.

No. The disciples of John asked Jesus where he was staying and he said, "Come and see." He was not saying that they must come to him for salvation. He was saying, "I'm staying in that house over there." There is no implication of coming to Christ for salvation in this verse. It is true that we must come to Christ for salvation, but John 1:39 does not teach this. John 1:39 describes Jesus as showing a couple of men which apartment was his.

The preacher went on. The verse says that when the men saw where he was staying, they decided to stay with him that day. The preacher said that when you come to Jesus for salvation, you will want to stay. This is true, but it is not what John 1:39 is about. John 1:39 is about a couple of guys hanging out with Jesus in his apartment. It has absolutely nothing to do with perseverance in salvation or even anything at all to do with salvation.

It goes on. In the next couple of verses, one of the men, Andrew, went to tell his brother, Simon, about Jesus. The preacher says that once you come to Jesus for salvation, you will want to stay, and then you will want to tell others. Again, this statement is true, but it does not come from John 1:41. John 1:41 is not about evangelism. It is a descriptive portion of a story.

John 1:35-42 is about the supremacy of Jesus over John the Baptist. It is about recognizing that he is the Messiah. The disciples of John realized that if this man really were the Lamb of God then they ought to follow him rather than his herald.

Just because "Come and see" sounds like a good text for presenting the gospel doesn't mean that you should do it. There are plenty of places in the Bible where 'come to Jesus for salvation' or 'once you come you'll want to stay' are actually the meaning of the text. Use those passages if you want to preach those ideas. Use Romans 3:21-26 to preach about the necessity of coming to Christ in faith for forgiveness of sins. Use John 6:37 or 44 to preach about God's keeping of the believer until the last day. Don't use a text that has nothing to do with those ideas.

What's the big deal? You're lying! If you misuse or "force" a text like this, you are telling people that the Bible says something that it clearly does not. But, more importantly, I think, is that you are teaching your listeners to do this when they read the Bible for themselves. Since they have heard you take a word or phrase and run off with it, they will do the same. The authority, then, is not in the text where it ought to be, but in the opinion of the person who is reading it who wants to make it say whatever he or she would like it to say.

This is the reason, I believe, that we have so many people in our churches today that don't care a thing about doctrine. Actually, they are usually quite hostile to the idea of doctrine because doctrine says that such and such is right and such and such is wrong. "Well, that's your interpretation!" you hear over and over again. The idea has developed that I can make the Bible say whatever I want it to; I just have to look for one of these cute little secret places like John 1:35-42 and then jump off the deep end with it.

This post is my appeal to preachers to stop doing this. I've done a bit of preaching in my time and I know that we are aware when we are about to shoehorn our sermon ideas into a text that really won't support it. We have to stop it. It's like Lloyd-Jones says, "sacrifice a good sermon rather than force a text."

I would also like to appeal to those in the congregation to stop putting up with this. I am appalled by how many people I see grinning big grins and shouting "Amen!" during sermons like this. Look closely at every text that you hear preached. Think about whether or not the preacher is preaching what the text really means in its context. If not, tell him that you are disappointed by his mangling of the text. The word of God is powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, but if we continue to allow preachers to hold onto the blade while swinging the hilt around, the wrong people are going to get hurt.

Brief Mentions of Election

2008-05-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

For those of us who have wrestled with the complexities of the doctrine of election, it seems strange that in so many of Paul's letters and in the book of Acts, the idea of election receives only a brief mention.

In Acts 13:48, we are told that "all of those who were appointed for eternal life believed." We immediately want to know what that means, but Luke doesn't give us any further help. Likewise, in Pauline epistles like those to the Thessalonians, Paul makes statements like, "For we know that God has chosen you" (1 Thess. 1:4), or "God chose you...to be saved" (2 Thess. 2:13). Again, we want more information on this important way of thinking, but none is forthcoming.

For many students of the Bible, these short mentions of this concept might indicate that the doctrine of election is not all that important to our spiritual growth, and indeed ought not to hold a central place in our theology.

Leon Morris, however, in his masterful exposition of the book of 1 Thessalonians in the New International Commentary of the New Testament, speaking of Paul's brief mention of the idea, says, "He undertakes no explanation of what election is, so that the Thessalonians must have been familiar with the concept; clearly it was part of the original preaching." Now, this is a big thought! What if the reason why the doctrine of election is not expounded in every epistle is because it was a central part of the gospel that Paul explained to every church he started?

That certainly seems likely given the fact that in the one letter he wrote to a church he didn't start, he spends 3 out of 16 chapters explaining God's purpose in election. I am, of course, talking about the letter to the Romans and the 9th through the 11th chapter. In fact, it seems like Romans must contain the meat of what Paul normally taught the churches that he founded, since Romans is considered the great doctrinal exposition of the whole Bible. If that is the case (and I don't know how it could not be), then election ought to be a central part of our teaching and preaching of the gospel as well. We ought to teach our people to understand God's primacy in salvation so that no man may boast and to the point where we can drop statements like, "God chose you to be saved" without anyone raising questions as to what we mean by that.

Don't Waste Your Pulpit

2008-05-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a great short video from John Piper, talking about the absolute necessity to preach the word of God and not man's ideas. This would seem like common sense, but out of the dozens of churches I have attended in my life, I can count on one hand the number of pastors in those churches that actually got their message from the Bible. The grand majority know what they want to say first, and then use the Bible as backup for their ideas. There is not a subtle difference between these two paradigms.

"Judge Not" != "Never Judge"

2008-05-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

My friend, D.J. Williams, has posted some very wise and timely thoughts from my former pastor, Eric Fields, on the subject of Jesus' instruction to "Judge not lest you be judged" over at Sola Miscellany.

By the way, "!=" is a computer programming code that means, "Does not equal".

Praising Imitations

2008-04-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm fascinated with computers, especially the art of making something on the computer simulate real life. This is done all the time in the film industry with computer-generated special effects. Computers can recreate a city and then tear it apart (as in the recent Cloverfield movie). Programmers have found ways to simulate water rippling, bricks falling apart, trees swaying in the wind, sunlight beaming through the clouds, and even people being thrown into the air.

There are computer programs out there that let you design and draw anything that your imagination can dream up, and they do it with simulated physics of light reflection and refraction. The end result can be indistinguishable from an actual photograph.

This concept of simulated reality also makes it way into video games, which are in many ways the 'movies' of the future (or actually, I guess you could say that they are the movies of the now, because video games regularly outsell movies these days). New popular video games are lauded for their ability to simulate real life. Cities have regular traffic patterns (Burnout: Paradise), game characters have real conversations with one another while they go about their daily routines (The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion), and when it starts to rain (according to a realistic weather simulation system), the people who don't have umbrellas hold their newspapers over their heads and run for the nearest awning or awaiting taxi (GTA IV).

For some reason, we are incredibly awed by this while not being quite so fascinated with the real thing. When was the last time that you marveled at complex traffic in real-life? How many times do you just stare at the leaves blowing in the tree outside your window and marvel at the gazillions of air particles that are colliding with individual leaves in seemingly random ways to blow them this way and that? Are you ever stopped in your tracks by the realization that the individual you are talking to is another person like yourself, with a whole world of thoughts and feelings and history? I guess the real world is just too staggering to wow us, we need something smaller.

When we sit down to consider that all of our art is just an extremely simplistic imitation of God's art, our hearts ought to worship. We can simulate the look of sunlight, be he created the giant nuclear ball of gas that could swallow a million earths and that gives light and life to everything on the planet, and he didn't create just one! We can simulate a blade of grass blowing in the wind, but he brought the whole earth alive with vegetation, and even one cell of one tree is more complex in its design than we can imagine. We can make extremely limited artificial intelligences, but he crafts the minds and souls of all living things. We may be able to build an artificial city, but he built the minds that built all the cities in the world, and he built the minds that invented the ways to simulate those cities.

I love computer simulations of reality because in a way, we are trying to be like him. We are like little children who are trying to imitate our Father's work. He gives us our own little child-sized tools and looks on with love at our creations. But we must always remember the one who is really the Creator. Since the dawn of time, men have been bowing down to the work of their hands, and we are perhaps in more danger of that today than ever. Appreciate the wonders that man can create, but do so with all of your awe and worship directed toward the Source: Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:16).

Can I Be Real One More Time?

2008-04-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have just posted some major updates to my previous post, "Can We Be Real". I needed a chance to repent and apologize for many of the things that I wrote there. If you are one who read the earlier post, then I encourage you to read my apology (follow the link above). If you are one who never read the original, then I would encourage you to forget I said anything about it.

Rappers Have More Insight than Most Theologians!

2008-04-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

For those who have yet to sample many of the recent Reformed rappers out there, let me suggest that you look into the work of Shai Linne, Sho Baraka, Flame, and the rest of the 116 Clique. Most of their albums go for $8.99 on Amazon MP3 download, and even if you don't like the musical style, the lyrics will absolutely astound you.

That being said, I want to post the lyrics from one of Shai Linne's songs on his latest album, The Atonement. Let me say that I think that a whole album on the atonement of Christ is a fabulous idea, and one that if not done correctly could be seriously bad. Well, Shai Linne's theology of the atonement is nothing less than stellar, and the tracks all serve to teach the truth of the gospel while bringing the listener into new heights of communion with our Savior.

Here is a song about a very controversial subject: the extent of the atonement. Linne perfectly defends the biblical teaching here and properly stresses the importance of the debate. Without further adieu, here is "Mission Accomplished":

Here’s a controversial subject that tends to divide
For years it’s had Christians lining up on both sides
By God’s grace, I’ll address this without pride
The question concerns those for whom Christ died
Was He trying to save everybody worldwide?
Was He trying to make the entire world His Bride?
Does man’s unbelief keep the Savior’s hands tied?
Biblically, each of these must be denied
It’s true, Jesus gave up His life for His Bride
But His Bride is the elect, to whom His death is applied
If on judgment day, you see that you can’t hide
And because of your sin, God’s wrath on you abides
And hell is the place you eternally reside
That means your wrath from God hasn’t been satisfied
But we believe His mission was accomplished when He died
But how the cross relates to those in hell?
Well, they be saying:
Lord knows He tried (8x)

Father, Son and Spirit: three and yet one
Working as a unit to get things done
Our salvation began in eternity past
God certainly has to bring all His purpose to pass
A triune, eternal bond no one could ever sever
When it comes to the church, peep how they work together
The Father foreknew first, the Son came to earth
To die- the Holy Spirit gives the new birth
The Father elects them, the Son pays their debt and protects them
The Spirit is the One who resurrects them
The Father chooses them, the Son gets bruised for them
The Spirit renews them and produces fruit in them
Everybody’s not elect, the Father decides
And it’s only the elect in whom the Spirit resides
The Father and the Spirit- completely unified
But when it comes to Christ and those in hell?
Well, they be saying:
Lord knows He tried (8x)

My third and final verse- here’s the situation
Just a couple more things for your consideration
If saving everybody was why Christ came in history
With so many in hell, we’d have to say He failed miserably
So many think He only came to make it possible
Let’s follow this solution to a conclusion that’s logical
What about those who were already in the grave?
The Old Testament wicked- condemned as depraved
Did He die for them? C’mon, behave
But worst of all, you’re saying the cross by itself doesn’t save
That we must do something to give the cross its power
That means, at the end of the day, the glory’s ours
That man-centered thinking is not recommended
The cross will save all for whom it was intended
Because for the elect, God’s wrath was satisfied
But still, when it comes to those in hell
Well, they be saying:
Lord knows He tried (8x)

Answered Prayer Will Kill You!

2008-04-03T07:11:00.001-07:00

If someone asked me if God decided to grant any two prayer requests for myself right now, what would they be, I would have to say that my prayer would be for humility and righteousness. Oh, there are many other things that I pray about for myself, but when I really think about it, these two things (I guess you could say that they are really one thing: holiness) would give me the most joy. What a better life I could live if I were free from this damnable pride and sin! I long for purity in my my mind and in my actions. It is the greatest desire of my heart.

But then I started thinking: God is probably not going to grant me those desires today, so how long will he wait to answer my prayer? The answer to that question is that God will not make us holy until this life is over. How ever many more days he has ordained for me on this earth is the number of days until my two prayers are answered.

Now, here's where the brain-bender comes in: If I died today, my two most important prayer requests would be answered! That means that if I am out driving and a drunk-driver crosses into my lane and kills me, God has just granted me the greatest desires of my heart - and more! He would also usher me into his very presence and I would be with the Lord!

How many so-called tragedies are also glorious answers to prayer? If being killed by a drunk driver could be the best thing to ever happen to a person, then why can't being diagnosed with cancer also be a joyful experience? Doesn't God work all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)? If that is true, then we should thank God for everything that comes our way, regardless of how the world thinks about it. Cancer can be the means that God uses to conform you to the image of Christ. A tornado can usher a believer into God's presence with the same effectiveness of Elijah in the chariot of fire.

I realize it is difficult to praise God in the midst of hardship, but I think that this is a problem mainly of perspective and faith. First, try to understand what God could be doing in what you are going through. Then, believe his promise that all he does is for your good and his glory. Thank him for the beautiful disasters that he uses to shape us and perfect us!

When to Bring Yeast to a Party

2008-04-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Leaven is an interesting and important word in the Bible. It refers not just to yeast, as the NIV translates the word in all but one verse (Amos 4:5), but it is actually a chunk of dough that has begun the fermentation process. It would be somewhat like the 'starter' that many women swap these days to make friendship bread or other similar treats.

This leaven-lump has some very infectious properties. If a hunk of leavened dough is kneaded into an unleavened lump, it will quickly infect the whole batch of dough. This infectiousness of leaven provides two main symbolic meanings in Scripture and each of them is associated with its own Old Testament celebration.

The first - and most obvious - festival related to leaven was the Feast of Unleavened Bread which accompanied the Passover celebration. During this time, Jews were to remove all leaven from all of their properties throughout their land. This was to remind them - in part - of their quick flight from Egypt during the Exodus, which meant that they did not have time to allow their bread to rise. But, in this case leaven also symbolized the corrupting influence of evil in the midst of the people of God. They were to be consecrated to the Lord, and the removal of the infectious leaven illustrated their need to 'make no provision for the flesh', as Paul would later write in Romans 13:14. Jesus and Paul both make it clear that leaven is a symbol for the corrupting influence of bad doctrine and sinful attitudes (Matthew 16:5-12, 1 Corinthians 5:6-13).

But leaven does not always symbolize the corrupting presence of evil. If we believe that it does, then we will grossly misunderstand Jesus' parable of the leaven working through the lump of dough in Matthew 13:33. In that passage, Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a little leaven that a woman hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. If we are ignorant of the fact that leaven can be a symbol of a good infectious influence as well, then this parable would mean that the church will be overrun with evil. Rather, we can see how similar this parable is to the parable of the mustard seed directly before it and understand that Jesus is talking about the spread of the gospel around the world from humble roots.

What fascinates me about this concept of leaven is that it is associated with an Old Testament celebration as well: the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost. During this festival, which was to celebrate the firstfruits of harvest, worshippers were to bring cakes that were leavened and wave them as an offering before the Lord. It cannot then be missed that the humble roots of the Kingdom of God first began to spread the infectious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ at exactly this time in Acts chapter 2. At that time - Pentecost - the small group of disciples began to tuck the leaven of the gospel into the dough of the world and reaped a firstfruits of 3000 in one day!

What should this teach us? I believe that we should learn to be wary of the corrupting influences of some things in our lives and remove them from our presence as far as we can, but we also need to recognize the inherent power of the gospel and its tendency to infect others. We do not wield a limp sword when we carry the word of God in our hands and in our hearts and minds. We wield the very power of God which will not return void. Just try to knead the leaven of the gospel into your conversations and watch how God works. It's quite catchy!

Recommended: Gleanings in Exodus

2008-02-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

For anyone not familiar with Arthur Pink's Gleanings In _____ series, let me issue a hearty recommendation. These books are much more than commentaries. In fact, they are not verse by verse explanations of Bible passages at all. Actually, the books in this series seek to explore each book or topic in a much more 'adventurous' (for lack of a better term) way. The result of all of this is that each volume in this series makes for a fascinating read whether you are using it for Scriptural commentary or just personal enjoyment and discipleship.

Gleanings in Exodus is especially insightful as Pink seeks to savor the typological connections between the Egyptian exodus and the New Testament gospel. Expect some chapters to travel quickly over large portions of the narrative in order to gain the big picture as later chapters delve back into specific details.

The application of this book is hard-hitting and welcome correction for all of God's people. Pink plumbs the depths of human condition and the Christian's constant battle with sin, the flesh, and the world, and shows how God's word presents a stern rebuke to us for much of our laziness in combating our own sin. Every chapter is a beautifully painful lesson to the Christian heart and a strong appeal to the unbeliever to repent.

If you are fascinated with the story of Exodus or have occasion to teach or preach it, then this book should be on your resource list.

"But you don't have to take my word for it!"

Amazing Discovery in Job!

2008-02-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I am always surprised when I find one more pointer to Christ or to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. After all, when Jesus taught the two disciples on the road to Emmaus all about himself, he went straight through Moses and the prophets. And the more I read the history, genealogy, and poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures, the more I see him there.

I was still surprised to find him this morning, however, staring up at me from the pages of Job in his role as heavenly Mediator. In Job 16:19-21 we find Job longing for something that only Christ can accomplish. He says that "even now my witness is in heaven...my eye pours out tears to God, that he would argue the case of a man with God." That strikes me as a very strange and very wise statement.

Job understands that the only judge that matters sits enthroned in heaven. To Job, it appears as though that judge has already found him guilty, because he seems to be in the throes of condemnation. Job also knows that the only person who can bear perfect witness to his life is that same judge - his friends certainly don't seem to have a good grasp of his blamelessness up until this point. So, what Job desires with tears is for God to mediate his case with God.

That idea would sound loony to anyone not familiar with the New Testament and Christ's revealed role as Mediator on behalf of his people (Romans 8:34). All Job understands, though, is that this is his only hope of acquittal. As if to confirm our suspicion that this amounts to Job prophesying of one of the roles of the Son, he actually invokes the phrase 'son of man' in the latter half of verse 21: "...that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor."

What an amazingly complex tapestry we hold in our hands as we read God's Word! The strands weave together like a web, all shouting the same consistent message of God's holiness, man's sinfulness, Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice, and the mind-blowing promise of mercy and forgiveness through faith, given as a gift to those God delights to save. And like any good mystery, the end explains the whole, but there are enough clues throughout to solve the puzzle if you have eyes to see.

Baptism in the Ordo Salutis

2008-01-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

Theologians have a term, ordo salutis, which is Latin for 'order of salvation'. This is the logical or temporal order of events that a person goes through in the process of salvation. A good order from a Reformed theologian would go something like this: election, calling/regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. A non-Reformed theologian would put regeneration after justification. In other words, salvation for an individual consists of being elected/chosen by God before the foundation of the world, followed by God's calling a person to Himself in time by means of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. The person then sees the truth of the gospel, responds in faith, repents of sin, is then seen as justified before God and adopted into His family. This is followed by a life of sanctification or progression in holiness because of God's persevering care of the individual through the sealing and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which will all culminate in the eternal glorious life of the person in the presence of God.

What I just realized is missing from the ordo salutis is the baptism of the individual. Romans 6:3 says, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" That seems to be a pretty important part of the order of salvation. Becoming identified with the person of Christ and specifically with his death through the ordinance of baptism is a necessary part of the order.

At this point I must apologize for some rather erroneous arguments I have leveled toward those of the Campbellite tradition in the past. Indeed, I must repent of my first blog post. When we hear that some people say that baptism is necessary for salvation, we tend to get the idea that they mean that baptism earns your salvation. In other words, we are driven away by the thought of a works-based righteousness. That was in fact the subject of my very first post. What is happening is that we are jumping to the conclusion that those who say baptism is required are actually saying that baptism is the basis of salvation. Baptism is no more the basis of salvation than faith is. Grace - specifically the grace of Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on the cross - is the basis of salvation. Faith is an instrument by which we appropriate that grace. Repentance (a part of most theologians' ordo salutis) is also an instrument by which we appropriate that grace.

It is not uncommon to hear a Baptist say that repentance is required for salvation. When we say that, we do not mean that by confessing and repenting you are earning anything. Rather, it is simply something that happens when a person sees their sin rightly and understands the holiness of the God they have offended.

Repentance follows regeneration and faith by length of time. In other words, repentance does not spring forth in the exact moment of regeneration. Faith may or may not be perfectly concurrent with regeneration, but repentance comes a bit later. Could the repenter say that he was a believer before he repented? Yes, the faith was there. But repentance necessarily must come.

Baptism is often overlooked by many Baptists as necessary for salvation because it follows faith at a greater temporal distance. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks after a person is 'saved' before they can be baptized. During those two weeks, the person who has come to Christ certainly feels himself to be a Christian. The Holy Spirit is already present within him and bearing witness to his spirit that he is a child of God. Everyone else in the church thinks of him as already saved, so baptism is just a formality - just an outward sign of an inward change.

If we continue to think this way, though, we do injustice to the many Bible texts that so closely tie baptism with spiritual effects like the putting on of Christ or the washing away of sins (See Galatians 3:27 and Acts 22:16). I would submit that just because baptism follows regeneration and faith by a short period of time, that does not make it unnecessary. Just as repentance is not unnecessary.

The best way to understand baptism would be to think of it in Peter's terms in 1 Peter 3:21. It is "an appeal to God for a good conscience." This is also the passage that says, "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you." In other words, baptism is a part of salvation, but it works as an appeal to God for a good conscience. I think that we can associate the idea with the concept of the 'sinner's prayer'. I hope that everyone would agree that the sinner's prayer is not the basis of our salvation. But we should all also admit that coming to Christ in prayer asking for his forgiveness, confessing sins, and confessing him as Lord is a necessary part to salvation. If you never approach the throne of grace to admit such things, then it is hard to call you a Christian. Ultimately, though, the sinner's prayer is another appeal to God for a good conscience. Saying the prayer doesn't save you, but it is a necessary part of each individual's coming to Christ.

This is the way we should look at baptism. Baptism is not optional, therefore it is necessary. Most would agree that if a person just outright refused to obey the command to be baptized then that person has probably not been genuinely saved. This is not to say that a person who died before he or she could be baptized is going to hell. There is still the story of the thief on the cross to teach us how do think about such exceptions. Just because he wasn't baptized before he died doesn't mean that everybody else gets a choice in the matter, however.

In closing, baptism is much more important part of salvation than I have given it credit for in the past. It certainly deserves a place in the ordo salutis following repentance. Peter told the crowd, "Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts 2:38). We ought to do likewise, and teach likewise.

Is God Dishonest?

2008-01-28T14:53:00.000-08:00

Exodus 3:18 contains a statement that is troubling to most theologians. Most will remember the story of Moses at the burning bush and how God commanded him to go to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. But in 3:18, God tells Moses to only ask for enough time off to take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices.

The trouble is that God's clear intention in all of this is to set the Israelites free permanently. He really never intends for the Jews to only be gone a few days, so why does he present this offer to Pharaoh first? Why not just simply tell Pharaoh how it's going to be? Is God being dishonest with the King of Egypt?

The only answer I can conjure up for this question is that God really meant his offer. Did he know that Pharaoh would refuse? Yes; God even said that he would harden his heart so that he would refuse. But does that mean that the offer was insincere?

I think that we have to say that it wasn't insincere. God offered an easy way out for Pharaoh: one that he would deny and thus heap up more condemnation for himself. God knew what the outcome would be, but made the offer anyway.

To me, this seems analogous to God's promises of blessing and judgment in the Old Testament. Sometimes, he would declare that a great wrath was to come on a certain people (think Nineveh) and then he would relent of his promised judgment if they humbled themselves. Jeremiah 18:7-10 says, "If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it."

Now, we would have to agree that God knew the outcome of these various situations. He knew when he sent Jonah to Nineveh that the city would repent. In fact, we should say that God sent Jonah to Nineveh with a promise of judgment so that they would repent. We see here God offering or promising one course of events when he knows that something else will take place in the end.

We cannot call this dishonesty on God's part, for there is no other way for an omniscient and sovereign Being to act. If I am told that putting a loaded gun to my head and pulling the trigger will kill me, it is not a lie; that will certainly happen. I don't make the person who told me that out to be a liar by not trying it. In fact, that person has potentially saved my life.

God's commands and his sovereignty work in a similar way. Sometimes he promises judgment, but he does so in a way to bring people back to himself. In Pharaoh's case, he promised an easy solution, knowing that Pharaoh would deny him and thus increase the weight of his guilt. It's not dishonest or insincere just because He knows the outcome, just as it's not a lie when God tells Nineveh "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

The Trilogy Finds Its End

2008-01-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

If you are unfamiliar with the runaway blockbuster success that is Hazelwars (at least it busted the 4200 block of Taylor Blvd.), then you have some catching up to do. It is time for the release of the final installment in the Hazelwars trilogy - subtitled, "The Rise of the Knights". For your viewing pleasure, here is the trailer for the third film, which will premiere on February 16 at Hazelwood Baptist Church. For those who have let coolness pass them by until now, I have also linked in the trailers for the first two Hazelwars movies below. Enjoy!

Hazelwars Episode III: The Rise of the Knights

Hazelwars Episode I: The Birth of a Hero

Hazelwars Episode II: The ACLU Strikes Back

The Weak Brother Must Be Held Accountable

2008-01-16T07:10:00.000-08:00

"It is not good to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble."

So reads the 21st verse of Romans chapter 14 - a verse that has been a plague upon the church for the last hundred years or so.

Let me begin by saying that Romans 14:21 is certainly a verse of the Bible that we need to obey. It was breathed out by God through the apostle Paul, and the idea contained in this verse (that people are more important than the things we eat or drink) is appropriate and good and true. With that being said, though, I want to point out the dangers of letting verse 21 be the only sentence in Romans 14 that you read.

My father-in-law said something very wise to me many years ago. It is a statement that has lived with me throughout all of my theological education and into my pastorate: "Mature Christians don't stumble. They just complain." That was basically the gist of what he said, and the idea is that only new/immature Christians stumble in the way spoken of in Romans 14. Maturing Christians aren't in danger of stumbling; they are just mad that you don't agree with them.

That certainly seems to be the case in my experience. If a pastor goes around saying something like, "Beer is a gift from God meant to be enjoyed", alcoholics don't relapse back into drunken stupor. Instead, what happens is that people in the church who want to try to be holier than Jesus (he drank and made wine, remember?) start complaining that the pastor is encouraging people to sin.

The issue at stake here is the difference between the strong and weak brother. According to Paul in Romans 14, the weak brother is one who "abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God." (14:6) Now that is a perfectly noble position, but so is the position of the strong brother who "eats [and drinks] in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God." (14:6)

The potential conflict that arises in this situation is that the strong brother is likely to look down upon the weak brother and think he is stupid for not partaking when it is good to partake. Likewise the weak brother is likely to pass judgment on the strong brother for partaking of something that he feels is not good. Therefore, Paul says, "Let not the one who eats despise (look down on, think of as stupid) the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him." (14:3)

So we have a problem, because both of these attitudes are present in the modern church. But it should be readily agreed that the offense has been greater on the side of the weaker brother in the last hundred years since prohibition. Judgment has indeed been passed against the strong brothers in a very loud voice during this time, especially in certain denominations. The weak brother has reigned as king in many churches for a century, oppressing all who want to enjoy liberty in Christ. Drinking has been outlawed (not just drunkenness, which would be biblical, but ALL drinking of alcohol), so has dancing, gambling, smoking, and chewing tobacco. Some churches have also effectively outlawed going to see movies or playing video games. The abuse must stop.

Paul also says very clearly in Romans 14:16, "Do not let what you regard as good to be spoken of as evil." It is time for the strong to make our voices heard. We will not cause the weak to stumble simply by arguing that such things as beer and poker cards are good. Otherwise, Paul would not have argued that eating meat and drinking wine were acceptable in this chapter. What we do see is that Paul abstained from the practice of such things in the presence of those whom it might cause to stumble. In other words, arguing that drinking in moderation is not a sin does not cause the alcoholic to stumble. When we argue in this way, we are merely teaching the Bible. But if you suck down a couple of beers in front of a weak Christian recovering alcoholic and keep asking him if he wants one, you could definitely cause him to stumble.

Listen well, weak brothers and sisters: you may not pass judgment on the strong! Such a thing is a sin, and you have no business making such judgments. The Bible says "Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God...So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God." (Rom. 14:10,12) It's up to God to judge these cases of freedom. If the Bible does not condemn an action, you better not do so either! Strong brothers, it's time that we began holding our weak brothers accountable for this sinful attitude.

Harsh Wisdom of the Gunslinger

2008-01-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Steven King clearly reads the Bible. It's imagery and meta-narrative flow through his works like the oil that is the base ingredient of the colors used by a painter. He wrestles with the great ideas of Scripture, and - occasionally - he gets some ideas exactly right.

I've been reading The Gunslinger this week, and I can't actually say that I would recommend it, though I will say that I like it. The story is bleak, empty, dirty; it confronts you not with action but with introspection, and it is one of those inward-looking moments in the book which led me to a 'new' idea.

"He fled the light and the knowledge the light implied, and so came back to himself. Even so do the rest of us; even so the best of us."

I felt like King probably spent a while on that line: in his soul and on the page. It reads remarkably like this line from the Gospel according to John, "And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed." (3:19-20)

The question readily comes to our minds: Why do lost people flee that which will heal them and bring them joy?

We might think at first that the answer is simply 'their sin nature', or 'their depravity', or 'that which they inherited from Adam'. But these answer the wrong question. In fact, the question I have asked is hopelessly screwed up. Lost people do not flee the light that will heal them and bring them joy. They flee the light that will expose their evil deeds and condemn them to an eternal torment. That's what Jesus says anyway. Humanly speaking, they ought not run to God, but away.

The unbelieving man flees the darkness because there is no hope there, only pain. Salvation is grace, it is not a ladder toward the light that we must climb. No one looks at the light and sees hope unless they have been born again. Jesus says in the same passage that I quoted from before, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

All that the dead man sees when he looks toward the light is fire. The man made alive by God sees hope and a way out. The difference between these men has nothing to do with their intelligence, ancestry, femininity, happiness, depression, or any other human condition. The difference between them is that one man is dead: dead of himself, dead from Adam, dead when he came into this world. The other man was dead but has been made alive. Both were born of water, one was born again of spirit.

And where does this Spirit come from? "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)

Let me translate: God brings us to life if he wants to and when he wants to. The light looks like damnation to the dead. They won't walk toward it. They flee it. They cannot make themselves alive when they are dead (only Jesus did that) and we cannot make them alive when they are dead. Jesus brings life to the dead. God breathes into our nostrils once again the breath of life and we live. We live not before, and not until he does so.

Bear witness about the light to all, but leave the business of raising the dead to the one who has all the experience.

Are Wives Called Too?

2008-01-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard the statement, "If God calls the husband into ministry, he will call the wife, too"? There are some remarkable and beautiful examples of this statement at work. The lives of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards are a testimony to God's call on a couple.

But there are also some rather glaring examples of couples who did not share the same opinion of God's call on their family. The situation with William Carey and his wife comes first to mind for many people.

It sounds good and proper and politically correct to make a statement like "God calls the wife, too", but is it biblical? Was William Carey out of line when he initially decided to leave his wife behind while he sailed for India? Was he disobeying the will of God for staying while his wife went insane? What does the Bible have to say?

The answer to that question is 'little, but enough'. As far as I can tell, the Bible says that wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22), and that would include submission to calling. In fact, I would say that God has placed a call on the wife if he has called the husband, but that such a call will come through the husband. In that way, it's similar to the Garden of Eden, where God gave Adam the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but (this is inference - but it is strong inference) Eve heard the command only through Adam.

The man who receives the call of God should not have to wait for a mystical call to come for his wife also. He should inform his family of God's direction and they should follow. Any disagreement with this policy would seem to be completely out of sync with the Word of God. That is not to say that such issues should be handled in an unkind way. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, but remember that Jesus commands his church and directs it as he loves it.

In Exodus chapter 4, after Moses has received his calling from God at the burning bush, an interesting thing happens. He returns home to get his father-in-law's permission to leave, but he simply rounds up his wife and children and tells them what they are doing. I think that if the same call were to come in 21st century America, the man would return home to try to persuade his wife and would simply inform his employer that he would be leaving.

We have our hierarchy of authority all screwed up. We spend a lot of time bribing, sweet-talking, and arguing with those who are supposedly under our authority and we pay almost no heed to those whom God has placed in authority over us. This is not progress, this is sin.

The Glory of Eternity

2007-12-19T06:24:00.000-08:00

Next week I will be taking my first vacation since accepting the call to pastor the church where I am now. And even though my week of vacation will be spent driving an insane distance just to see family (a luxury that many take for granted), I am still greatly looking forward to my first real rest since being here.

But have you ever slowed down to meditate on the way we look forward to something? There is a great deal of anticipation leading up to something like a vacation or a day spent with good friends, and then before you know it we are looking at it in the rear-view mirror, fondly recalling the good times. The waiting for the day to come seemed to last forever; we remember the good times for the rest of our lives; but the event itself passed by in a blink.

Therein lies the glory of eternity. Imagine beginning a time of rest and fellowship that is so good it's incomprehensible. Then think about the fact that when tomorrow comes, you will still be there. There will never be that uncomfortable feeling that it is almost time to return to life as usual. There will never be the feeling that you are wasting the precious time you have left because you literally have forever to bask in the glories of the Lord and his rest.

Such a thing is too good for us. O how wondrous is the grace of our merciful God who has lavished these wonders upon us. Come, Lord Jesus and bring your people into their eternal home. Thank you, Jesus, for changing my heart, for revealing yourself to me, for suffering in my place, and for giving me your Holy Spirit. I look forward with all that I am to spending forever with you.

Let's Take the "Mass" Out of Christmas!

2007-12-18T06:06:00.000-08:00

It is troubling to me that the two main Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, both have names that reflect pagan ideas. Easter, for instance, is named after the pagan goddess Ishtar, matron deity of a Middle-Eastern fertility cult. Hence the presence of bunnies and eggs - both of them symbols of fertility - during a celebration that is supposed to be about resurrection.

But what about Christmas? I think we understand the 'Christ' part, but why the three letters on the end? Where did they come from?

Apparently, the first recorded mention of the holiday was in A.D. 1048 and was referred to as Cristes mæsse in Old English. This was altered to become Christemasse in Middle English and Christmas in Modern English. So the holiday originated as 'Christ's Mass'.

For those who are unfamiliar with Roman Catholic dogma, the 'mass' is known by ordinary Catholics as the service where they take Communion. It is customarily offered every day of the week, but Sundays and holidays are much better attended than the daily services throughout the week. In that vein, Christ's Mass was to be a special time of mass that celebrated Jesus' birth.

The word 'mass' itself is relatively harmless. It comes from a Latin word, missa, which just means 'dismissal'. The service of mass took on this name because missa is one of the last words used in the Latin performance of the ritual. The priest would end the service by saying (in Latin), "You are dismissed." The Roman Catholic understanding of the the ritual of the mass itself is much more troubling, however.

The service of mass - Communion - is understood by the Roman Catholic church to be a repeatable bloodless sacrifice of Christ. In other words, each time mass is celebrated, the priest offers the sacrifice of Christ on the cross anew and applies its benefits anew. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way: "The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different. And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner... this sacrifice is truly propitiatory"

This teaching is a clear violation of Scripture and is indeed a return to the pagan idea of continually having to appease a deity. The Bible says in Hebrews 9:24-28,

"For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him."

There is no room for discussion here. "Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly" (Hebrews 9:25). The Roman Catholic mass is damnable heresy, and personally I don't want to call the celebration of Christ's birth a name that is associated with such error. In my opinion, the simple word 'Advent', meaning 'coming' is far better. So, with that I will wish you all a Joyous Advent and a Happy New Year!

Review: The Golden Compass

2007-12-11T05:15:00.000-08:00

This review is for the book form of The Golden Compass. Being a parent of two young children means that I will probably not be able to see the movie until it is released on DVD.

Let me begin by saying that I truly enjoyed the experience of reading this book. Pullman's prose flows smoothly. He has the command of the English language necessary to write a good story. Further, my stomach did not churn with shock at rank heresy throughout the book, my feelings were not hurt, nor were my eyes assaulted with profanity. It was a bit of a page-turner. I had a hard time putting it down, and that's something I can't say about some of the most recent books from my favorite authors.

From a literary standpoint, though, I do not believe that this book represents a good piece of fiction. I can't imagine how it won all of the accolades and awards that it touts on the back cover, unless there has been a serious drought of well-written and thoughtful children's literature over the last decade.

The most glaring downfall here is terrible characterization. Books like Harry Potter thrive on the intricate development of the characters. In many ways, fans of those books continued reading the series only to find out what happened to the characters that they had grown to love. There is no such concern surrounding Lyra, the main character of The Golden Compass.

I feel like Philip Pullman has never met an 11 year old girl. I have taught children for many years, and this Lyra thinks and acts like no child I have met. In fact, she never really acts like an 11 year old or like a girl. Also, her characterization is inconsistent. In one scene, she looks down on an adult nurse for being bland and unimaginative - "the kind of person that could never tell a good story" - and five minutes later Lyra is scorning dolls and stuffed animals - the kind of toys that require imagination to play with. The author later outright says that Lyra herself is unimaginative, spouting some nonsense that her elaborate lying does not really require imagination. In the next paragraph he goes on to describe her imagining of what is happening to her companions. Such confusion makes it hard to develop a solid idea of the character.

In addition, I didn't really like any of the characters - and I don't think that the readers were actually intended to. Lyra seems to be an inconsistent collection of characteristics, acting in whatever way Pullman thinks would be coolest at the time. Roger is the most two-dimensional character I have ever seen. Mrs. Coulter is terribly unlovable. Not even Lyra can love her own father. Ma Costa may be the only half-way likable person in the book, but she herself is very two-dimensional - pretty much only there to give a great big blubbery bear hug when needed.

Aside from characterization, the plotting of the novel was a mixed bag. The overall drive in the story was the secret motif. The reader wants to know what 'Dust' is, and the information is leaked out throughout the story, culminating in an anticlimactic expositional monologue at the end that creates much of the hysteria surrounding the book. No, it's not magic; it's just sin apparently. Hmm, elementary sin particles from another dimension. I feel cheated...

The rest of the plot elements turn out rather well, though. Each stage of the arctic rescue mission has a pleasing amount of danger and adventure. I think that this is where the book really shines. The author has crafted a fairly interesting world with zeppelins and gypsies and - especially - armored polar bears, all set underneath a shimmering otherworldly city glowing in the midst of the aurora. The setting, the visuals, and the explosive combination of all of the above would make for a good movie, so there is no wonder as to why New Line Cinema picked up the rights.

When it comes to emotion and grand themes, though, this story feels very shallow and sad. No one loves each other in Pullman's world. Lyra doesn't love her father or mother. They don't love each other and neither of them love her. It's really the strangest un-love triangle I have seen in a while. Also, Lyra hardly even reacts when the person she has been so intent on rescuing has his 'soul' (or daemon) ripped away from him. I guess she really didn't care about him either. This lack of love in the characters in one thing that keeps the reader from loving the characters themselves.

In fact, the only love that apparently exists in the book is the love for Lyra for her daemon, Pantalaimon. The daemon himself, though, is just another two-dimensional character that seems to not have a personality of his own, so I didn't feel any love toward him. I was told that Lyra felt such agony when he was away from her, but I had a hard time trying to feel it for her. And then we are told in the great expositional monologue that these daemons are like man's sin nature. Eww! So, all of these children's longing for their soul-pets was actually just a longing for their sin nature?

So the great atheistic theme of the novel turns out to be little more than "I like my sinsy-winsy. I don't want to be self-controlled or accountable for my actions. My wickedness is what makes me human." I'm sorry, but that's not very magical or intelligent-sounding. I guess, with all the hysteria, I expected an idea that was more - I don't know - dangerous?

So, Pullman likes his own sin. That's not hard to believe, we all love and revel in our own sin before God changes our hearts. However, when a person comes to Jesus Christ in faith, he or she is finally freed from the slavery to sin and wants to love God and other people. Sin becomes nasty and ugly. And that's sort of the taste that's left in your mouth after reading The Golden Compass. There is no love, no joy, no magic, no hope, and no happiness here. There is just a determination in the characters to cling to their sin - hardly noble. Actually, this book is a great illustration of the bankruptcy of atheism.

To conclude, would I recommend reading this book? Well, I don't think that it's message is earthshaking. I don't think that it poses a threat to the church. And I don't think that it is a wondrous piece of fiction not to be missed. So, all things aside, I would not recommend this book to someone out of the blue as a good book to read. In light of the hysteria, though, I would encourage Christians to read and interact with the book. I think it could be a great learning tool for parents and children to talk through the inadequacies of atheistic thought. But if you want to read a good children's book, pick up The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis or the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Both are far more enjoyable and thoughtful than Pullman's book.

I Haven't Read The Golden Compass, But...

2007-12-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about Philip Pullman's, The Golden Compass, and the new movie that is soon to be released. Having not read the books (although now I suppose I will have to - keeping up with the culture and all), I could only offer some general advice about all such things.

My thoughts are that unbelievers will be unbelievers and that they produce a great amount of art – some of it better than others. As I said, I have not read these books myself, but one of my friends tells me that they are not all that well written (unlike Harry Potter, for example, which was very well written [except that last one]). Aside from that, all art has some message, and if a non-Christian person produces the art, it is a non-Christian message. Star Trek assumes that there is no God and that the universe arose through evolution, but most Christians don’t picket the openings of Star Trek movies. Star Wars is full of eastern religious philosophy, but the same people getting mad at Pullman’s work have a Darth Vader costume in their closet.

I think that a hands-on approach to such things is better than hands-off. If you are concerned about it, go see it (the whole “I don’t want to support such and such and thing” is way overblown anyway), and then learn from it. What is the writer struggling with? If he has problems with the institutionalized church, then are his criticisms valid? Maybe we need to change the way we communicate the gospel and the way we relate to other people so that we avoid these criticisms (note: we do not change the gospel itself, only the methods that we use to communicate it). I’m sure that there are some very wise themes in the book/movie and some very misguided ones. Knowing what those are and being able to speak about such in an informed manner is far better than saying “I heard that man don’t like God!”

When Christians get their panties in a wad over such things, they just give the world more ammunition against us because we are such hypocritical prudes.

One World Amongst Many

2007-11-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

Over at the Baptist Press website there are a series of articles summarizing some of the talks at the recently concluded "Building Bridges: Southern Baptists and Calvinism" conference. One particularly interesting article is entitled, "Does God Choose Who Will Believe?" The fascinating part of this article deals with the theological system known as Molinism.

Ken Keathley, a professor of theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, unpacked the mysteries of Molinist thinking. Apparently, the point in this particular system is to come up with an understanding of how God can choose those who will believe in him before the foundation of the world and still have nothing to do with sin and evil. It is thought that the traditional Calvinistic view of God's foreordination of the elect makes God dirty his hands with sin and evil, because, since he is in control of all things, he must also be in control of evil.

Here's how the Molinist idea goes: "A key to Molinism's ability to better explain God's choosing some men for salvation without violating their free will is its doctrine of "middle knowledge," Keathley said. Middle knowledge postulates that God knows all possible worlds He could have created in addition to the one He chose to make. Thus, God created that particular world in which all of His elect people would experience circumstances appropriate to cause them to freely trust in Christ."

I'm sorry but that just doesn't accomplish what the Molinists hope to accomplish, namely freeing God from the charge of collaborating with evil. God can make a world full of just elect people if he wants. Why even create those who will never come to Christ in faith? Why even ordain that the Son of God be put to death by sinful men in the first place? No, just by saying that this world that we live in is the best of all possible worlds solves nothing.

Also, I think that it is dangerous to try to conceive of a God that is different from the one presented to us in Scripture. The God of the Bible does things like sending an evil spirit to torment King Saul. The God of the Bible also sends a messenger of Satan to torment the apostle Paul. This God of Scripture is totally good and perfect and holy in every way, but he is not hands-off when it comes to evil. He created the serpent in the Garden after all.

We know that God does not sin in what He does. We know that his purposes in anything that He does are good and just and loving. Rather that Molinism, a better understanding of God's interaction with evil is found in Genesis 50:20 "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." How do we understand God's relationship to the evil of the cross? Sinful men meant the death of the Son of God for evil, but God meant it for the good of saving his people and declaring his great love and glory. If God can be exonerated for his sovereign control of this - the most heinous sin in the history of the world - then why can't we find his good and just and loving hand working through adultery and terrorism and lying children?

It's delving into the realm of mystery to try to contemplate God as he reveals himself in His Word. We have to admit frequently that we don't fully get it. But what else would you expect from finite minds trying to conceive of an infinite Divine?

Failing @ Evangelism

2007-11-29T14:54:00.000-08:00

I am a Calvinist, and that means that I have always lived under the shadow of the "You don't believe in evangelism!" critique. Well, honestly such a thing could not be further from the truth. My understanding of the doctrines of grace has been the primary energy behind the drive to share my faith over the last several years. My thinking is that if God is the one who acts, then I just have to be faithful to tell people about Jesus and He will take care of the results. No pressure on me other than to be faithful.

In fact, my theoretical understanding of all things Christian is that if we are just faithful to do what we have been commanded to do in God's Word, then he will bless us with fruitfulness. Such thinking led me in Kentucky to start a door-to-door evangelism effort at our church. We got a bunch of manly men together and boldly went out to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors.

Our message was simple and biblically faithful. We started the conversation by talking about church, then we asked about heaven and hell and how a person gets assigned to either one. The heart of our presentation was the four step explanation of God's holiness, man's sinfulness, the sacrifice of Christ, and the necessity of faith and repentance. Beautiful and powerful, really. One would honestly expect some fruit from such an effort.

The truth is: we tanked. Hundreds of conversations - no conversions. We wanted to share the gospel with integrity, so we weren't just offering false hope. We had three opportunities to lead people in a prayer and claim victory, but we didn't take them. We explained the gospel more carefully and they didn't want it after all.

Failure like that when you're trying to be faithful is a real bottle-rocket in the butt. It hurts. I just want to lead someone to Christ, you know?

Today I took a walk to the post office and I thought about these evangelistic failures. What went wrong? I think I might know the answer.

It always seemed weird to me, when we were laying out the gospel for people, that we were asking them to make a major life change after a fifteen minute conversation with a stranger. I also realized today that just by setting up and carrying out an evangelism strategy like ours, we were drawing a line in the sand. Us versus them. Church people on one side, lost people on the other. We started our conversations by saying, "We're from Hazelwood Baptist Church..." We're not people - not individuals who want to talk - we represent an institution. We are door-to-door salesmen: marketers of an idea. And the people we talked to treated us like door-to-door salesmen. They listened to the pitch and then graciously declined our offer. Some treated us like I treat telemarketers: *click*

Then I think about the New Testament. The apostles were some of the greatest evangelists of all time. So how did they do it? Uh, they didn't go door to door. No, instead God made a big noise during a crowded festival and made a bunch of people start talking at once in different languages and drew a crowd for the apostles. Then, just to stave off the crowd, one of them, Peter, stands up and answers their question: "Are these guys drunk?" As a result of his answer, 3000 people come to Christ.

Then I look at the Great Commission. Surely it says something about cold-call evangelism. What it says is go all over the world. And as you are going, you will make disciples. How? By baptizing them and teaching them to obey what Jesus commanded. Yeah, but what about conversion? Apparently, Jesus does that. Jesus changes their hearts and we make disciples out of new men.

So, now I'm wondering how they'll hear in the first place. I think that the answer is: you have to be friends with people who don't know Jesus. Real good friends; open and honest friends. You can't just pull yourself away from everyone in the world in an effort to be holy and then look on people outside of the church as the enemy to be converted. If anything, we have to climb into the world even more (remember the Great Commission?) and really get close to these people. In so doing, they will see and hear the gospel from our lives and our lips. Not in some fake, clunky way that is all logic and no heart, but they will see and hear the gospel wrapped in flesh.

Wouldn't it be freeing to just think about being friends and loving people rather that telling them some spiel you've memorized about the Roman road? And then, if you yourself are a maturing Christian person who loves Christ, the gospel will just ooze out everywhere in that friendship. You friends will want to come experience your church worship service with you. They will hear the preaching of the gospel. They will hear the praises sung. They will know that it is real, because they see it really lived out in your life. And my thinking is that we will be far more fruitful in winning people to Jesus.

That's my new theory anyway. ; )

Blood and Guts

2007-11-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

This morning I was reading the book of 1 Samuel during my personal devotion time. If you ask me, 1 Samuel to 2 Kings has got to be the greatest part of the Old Testament. I love the alternating stories of victory and defeat. There are so many lessons we can learn here about what pleases God and what makes him mad.

But as I read this morning, I found what may be my new favorite verse of 1 Samuel. In chapter 15, the last half of verse 33 reads, "And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD in Gilgal."

He hacked a man to pieces...and it was a good thing "before the LORD"!

I just love this about the Bible. The Word of God does not conform to our prudish notions. If the Bible were to be a major motion picture, rated 'R' would be too tame. It's full of blood, cussing, sex (even nasty sex), and heck - even the praise songs (Psalms) say things like "Blessed is the one who dashes your babies' heads upon the rocks" (Psalm 137).

This is not a book for the feint of heart!

God always shocks us because he is so different than us. He was mad at Saul for not slaughtering Agag, so the prophet Samuel had to do it. Agag was to be slaughtered because God said so. It was justified because Agag was a sinner. The shocking thing is that so were Saul and Samuel and yet they lived. But before we can start concluding that it is alright to slaughter some people, Jesus shows up and says to turn the other cheek and love our enemies. Huh?

We now live in a time where grace and mercy reign, but we ought to never forget that our God is a God of justice and wrath as well as love. Lest we forget, the last book of the New Testament shows the bloody return of the King at the end of the age with some of the goriest imagery found in the Scriptures. Putting millions of people in a wine press and smashing their bodies like grapes so that the blood flows through Palestine up to the depth of about four feet is just plain nasty. And it's also the Word of God. We need to learn to love our God as he reveals himself to be and not according to what we think would be proper for a God to be like. Personally, it thrills my heart that my God is a loving, compassionate, merciful Warrior.

By the way, it seems everyone is thinking about wrath this morning. Check out Travis Peterson's thoughts on Jeremiah 51-52 here.

Can We Be Real?

2007-11-27T08:08:00.000-08:00

[Warning: The following rant was written during a period of depression and does not represent the way that I feel all the time. For instance, just because someone's mind is tainted by the flesh does not ever give someone the right to put voice to such a taint in an effort to 'be real'. I also understand now that my frustrations over ministry are because of a wrong view of success and effectiveness in ministry, not because I am disallowed to be real. Likewise, my enjoyment of secular employment was mostly due to the fact that it did not demand much of me spiritually and allowed me to wallow in the world a little bit. That is not to be lauded, but rather condemned. With that said, I now repent of the attitude of this post, but I still wish to remain dead-set against self-righteousness in church. We are to act like Christians, though we still have sin within us, but we must not try to make ourselves look more holy than we actually are. That was the sin of Ananias and Saphira.]

Here's a quote from Blue Like Jazz that smacks me upside the head: "I don't have to pretend to be godly in order for people to listen...I love this because by being true I am allowing people to get to know the real me, and it feels better to have people love the real me than the me I invented."

Man, that's a good line.

I used to be a youth minister for two-and-a-half years. I loved it and I loathed it. I loved being the cool guy that all the kids looked up to. I loved putting together an awesome lesson and then seeing it go off perfectly. I hated having to smile and be bubbly when I felt like crap. And the more I worked that job, the more I felt like crap. So my job became the place where I went to lie to everyone about who I was and how happy I was. All in the name of Jesus. [Actually, I was depressed at the time because our youth group didn't grow like high-profile youth groups did, and I thought it was all my fault.]

A lovely thing happened to me about two years ago. I got a job at UPS in Louisville, Kentucky. Man, I loved that job. I got to work around airplanes all day. But the airplanes were not what made that job, it was the people. Now, that's a very cliche thing to say, but let me explain.

I am really a huge nerd. Weird Al's song, "White and Nerdy", seems like it was written about me. I also have a human, fallen mind that is full of all kinds of trash all the time. Sometimes I say some rather risque things around those who I am comfortable with. [Shame on me. That is not a good thing, but is clearly unscriptural.]

After the obligatory month or so of being a self-righteous stiff at UPS (they knew I had been to seminary after all), I started to feel at home with several of the locals. Dave, Amanda, and Ray will always be some of my closest friends. These people let me be a huge nerd in front of them and they laughed at my abrasive lewd comments even while being shocked that preachers say such things. They eventually got over their shock and we were able to have some really deep heartfelt conversations. They really taught me what it was like to be myself around other people. [Let me point out that we can all be ourselves without indulging in our baser desires. I am actually ashamed of any lewd comments I made - not proud of them.]

Then the worst happened. I accepted a call to pastor the little church where I am at now. And by saying this was a hard or bad thing, I don't mean at all that the people in the church are unloving or that I don't feel called to be a pastor. But I knew by accepting this that I was going to have to go back in the closet, so to speak, and become the person I am not. [Actually, being called as pastor of Hoosier Prairie Baptist Church has been the best thing that has ever happened to me rather than the worst. I have learned more here about what it means to be a Christian, what it means to really love people, and what it means to preach than I ever would have elsewhere. And I don't pretend to be what I am not. I am just shy around people until I get to know them. I guess I was just too proud to admit that when I first wrote this post.]

It's really oppressive to pretend all the time. You work so hard to convince people that you are this holy, mature, others-centered person, and then you go home knowing that you are nothing like that. It really drives people into depression and I think it is the reason why so many pastors fall into moral failure. [This statement is true. Somehow, we all as Christians need to learn to live 'in the light' around each other. If there is sin, it needs to be confessed and dealt with.]

But lately, I have been reading books by people like Mark Driscoll and Donald Miller who draw a crowd of unbelieving people around them because they are honest about their failings. The number one criticism that non-believers have of Christians is that we are hypocritical. Heck yes, I'm a hypocrite, and frankly, I'm really dang tired of being one. [Actually, the churches that these individuals are associated with have grown because of God's mysterious acting in their midst - NOT because the leaders act in a certain way. There is no secret formula to winning massive amounts of people to Christ. It is a sovereign work of God. There are many churches and leaders that are very similar to the ones mentioned and yet are not seeing the same results. The lesson here is to be faithful with what you have been called to do. Don't try to figure out the formula for 'numerical blessing'.]

This post is my resolution to try to be real from now on. If someone wants to fire me for saying 'crap' in the pulpit (I say 'crap' all the time - I would actually love to say the other word, the stronger one, but I have been so conditioned against it that I only say it when no one else is around), or if they want to fire me for saying that drinking a beer is a good thing that we should praise God for, then they can go ahead. Self-righteousness and hypocrisy just doesn't bring people to Jesus. And a church that can't see that is doomed to die unfruitful. [Saying dirty words just for the sake of saying dirty words is a sin. God forgive me. However, beer is a good gift from God. And no, you can't go ahead and fire me for saying that, because that would be sinful. I have only made a true and biblical statement.]

Just a disclaimer: I would never condone being as nasty as you can be in the pulpit or anywhere else. Faith in Jesus Christ still creates a change in our lives. We don't want to cause the immature to sin. But we have to realize that we are causing the immature to sin in the areas of self-righteousness, pride, and lying to hide their sin. We can be real without wallowing in the sin of this world. I just want to be me. [Well, at least the concluding paragraph had a good application. Please forgive my ignorant statements above. At the time, I had not pinpointed the source of my distress. Now I understand that much of my anger stemmed from my unrealistic expectations of 'success' in the ministry. The book, Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, by Kent and Barbara Hughes, has been a tremendous help to me. I heartily recommend it.]

Recommended: Blue Like Jazz

2007-11-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

I am admittedly a little late in joining the bandwagon of people reading Donald Miller's fantastically insightful book, Blue Like Jazz, but now that I have discovered it, I simply must rave about it a little.

I have been totally fascinated of late with the idea of becoming more culturally relevant in the way that I relate to people both as an individual and as the pastor of a church. My eyes have been opened to the realization that churches and Christians have gotten awfully out of touch with the world that we live in. If that weren't bad enough, many of us shamefully criticize those Christians who do come across as culturally relevant. We call them sellouts, liberals (some do deserve this name because of their theology, but I am here referring to practice), and carnal. They look like drunkards and gluttons and the friends of sinners.

The problem with these criticisms, though, is that they remind us an awful lot of the ways that the Pharisees criticized Jesus. Books like Blue Like Jazz show us that lost people still want to hang out with Jesus and not with the Pharisees. Sinners want friends, not judges, and with Jesus, they were surprised to find that their friend is the judge. And if the judge of the universe was willing to make friends with the lowlifes in order to die for them so that he would not have to judge them, then why do we avoid these same sinners as if we might catch their disease?

We forget that we not only were lowlifes like that, but that we are still wallowing in our own sinfulness. Miller's candid honesty in this book is infectious. I hear him admit that he has trouble loving people because he is so full of himself and I want to amen. Oh, we want to put on quite a show as we stand in church, dressed in our finest, pretending to be holier than it is possible to be in this flesh, but we all know that we are still broken. Miller's great contribution to this whole mess is that he shows that unbelievers are more impressed with our honesty than with our charade of piety.

Highly recommended!

Bless You for Lying?

2007-11-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

In the second half of Exodus chapter 1, a remarkable event is recorded: two Hebrew midwives defy Pharaoh by not carrying out his order to murder male Hebrew babies as they are born. By doing this, the two women, Shiphrah and Puah, save the lives of many children and are blessed by God for their heroic efforts.

There is just one small catch in the story: the Hebrew midwives also defy another monarch in their rescue attempt - God! In verse 19 of Exodus 1, the two women give their explanation to Pharaoh as to why they were unable to kill the boys and it is a lie! Now, while it is true to say that the Ten Commandments with their "You shall not bear false witness" had not been given yet, it must be understood that God has always hated lying because it goes against his nature. He is Truth (John 14:6).

Now, there have been several attempts to understand why God blessed these women even while they were lying through their teeth. Some have said that the women were actually telling the truth; that the Hebrew women did give birth quickly. If that were the case, however, God would not have seen their actions as praiseworthy since they would have had no control over the matter.

Another popular explanation has been that there is a hierarchy of God's laws and that it is okay to break one of the lesser laws in order to avoid breaking one of the greater laws. In this understanding, lying was permitted by God so as to avoid murder. The great problem with this thinking is that it misunderstands God's hatred of sin. He is not comfortable with and accepting of sins in certain situations. Can you imagine Jesus breaking one of God's commands in order to keep another?

I believe that the wonderful solution to this disobedience dilemma is that God works through and blesses in spite of human sinfulness. We are told in Isaiah that all of our good works are as filthy rags to God. There is some sinfulness that stains each and every good work that we try to do. Some we do from wrong motives. Others have a mixture of disobedience tangled up with them like the lie of the Hebrew midwives. The glorious, encouraging truth is that God is delighted with our faithful service anyway and chooses to bless us for our imperfect efforts. This only happens because of the grace of God flowing from the cross of Christ. Our sin has been wiped out by Christ's sacrifice, effectively bleaching and Scotchgarding the filthy rags, making them beautiful garments of holiness - "holy attire" as Psalm 96 says.

This thinking certainly does not excuse sin; it admits of sin. The point is not to encourage someone in their sin. We should all ask forgiveness of that sinfulness that taints each of our good works. Shiphrah and Puah should have asked God to forgive them for lying (who knows, maybe they did). The point is that we should be humble about the good things that we do (because they are stained), and we should be look forward to God's blessings for obedient acts (even though they are stained). For good or ill, this is the constant state of a believer's life until he or she is loosed from the fallen nature of this flesh.

Are Aliens in the Bible?

2007-11-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

Does the Bible give us any clue as to what to think about extra-terrestrials?

While the Bible doesn't speak about extra-terrestrial fleshly creatures, it does speak of extra-terrestrial spiritual creatures like angels and such that live in the ‘heavens’.

In terms of the first kind, though, I would say that the history and theology of the Bible deny their existence. First of all, it has to be noted that the notion of extra-terrestrial corporeal life stems from deep-seated evolutionary presuppositions. It goes something like this: if life developed here by chance then there’s a chance that it did elsewhere. When you deny these evolutionary presuppositions, though, and hold only to the revealed account of creation given in the Bible, then fanciful thoughts about particles to people evolution happening on other planets goes right out the window.

Second, if you are holding to the purposeful special creation of Genesis 1, then you understand that man was the capstone of creation – made in the image of God. The earth was at the center of the universe. Everything in the heavens was created on day 4 while earth and its greatest denizen – man – were continuing to be lovingly shaped and formed. God dwelt with man before the fall in a special way in the Garden. Any other alien culture on another world would be pathetically neglected in a story like this.

Third, the entire creation (space and all) fell with Adam and now groans awaiting the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:21-23). That means that the destiny of all the universe is tied to the action of one man here (hardly fair for another race of moral beings elsewhere).

Fourth, Christ died here, on Earth, for human beings. He joined himself permanently to the human nature. He will forever have a human body with nail marks in his hands and a spear scar in his side. He does not bear the nature of another alien race whom he also died for. He does not bear extra wounds. And after he rose from the grave he has the perfected human body which cannot die again (1 Corinthians 15).

Fifth, when Christ comes to judge the world and destroys this old world and the old heavens with fire, it all happens because of events here, not elsewhere. If there were any other beings, they would be immolated in the judgment that comes because of human sin.

So, because of these biblical and logical concerns, I don’t believe that aliens could or would exist. For a really good exposure of the lies behind much of the hysteria surrounding UFO phenomenon, try Mind Games by Andre Kole.

Debating Alien Immersion (Gospels)

2007-10-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

In order to fully understand the issue of baptism in the New Testament, it is first necessary to catalogue each use of the word. In the four gospels, the subject of baptism isn't nearly as well developed as it is in the later New Testament. All occurrences of words belonging to the same work group as "baptize" can be categorized as follows (References to John 'the Baptist' alone are excluded):

John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 3:2, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3)
Priests and Levites ask John why he is baptizing if he is not the Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah. (John 1:25)
John baptizes with water in a river. (Matthew 3:6, Mark 1:5, John 1:26)
John says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33)
Jesus says his baptism by John is to 'fulfill all righteousness'. (Matthew 3:15)
Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. (Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:9, Luke 3:21)
Jesus and his disciples begin baptizing others. (John 3:22-26)
Jesus refers to his suffering and death as 'baptism'. (Mark 10:38-39, Luke 12:50)
Jesus asks whether John's baptism was from God. (Matthew 21:25, Mark 11:30, Luke 20:4)
Jesus commands us to make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19)

Conclusions from the Gospels: The main conclusion that one can draw from the treatment of baptism in the Gospels is that it is strongly connected with the idea of repentance. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance that prepared the way for the Messiah. Jesus commands the baptism of those who become his disciples (Matthew 28:19), and it seems that he and the Twelve already began this initiation rite during Jesus' earthly ministry (John 3:22-26). Nothing yet points us to any discoveries about this idea of alien immersion, but it is important to establish at the outset that baptism is is for those who have been made disciples (believers), that it is performed in connection with repentance (thus it is a turning point), and that it was done by immersion in water.

As I stated in the first post regarding this baptism debate, I am being assisted in my studies by some very good books. Most of the material in this post has been condensed from the chapter on "Baptism in the Gospels" in Believer's Baptism.

Thinking about Retirement

2007-10-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

As Christians, what should we think about retirement? Many of us are in a situation where the company we work for provides some sort of retirement benefit. So many of the people we know and love have entered into the retirement lifestyle. But before we settle down too comfortably into a "well deserved rest", we may need to do some thinking biblically about how a Christian should live out his or her later life.

The world which surrounds us (and especially American culture) wants to lull us into entertained oblivion in our later years. These two new videos by John Piper and the Don't Waste Your Life team do a great job of getting us to think about these issues.

More Slo-Mo Tongues

2007-10-16T13:14:00.001-07:00

I had such a good time with the last video that I posted of my daughter, Lydia, speaking in tongues (or at least speaking with a generous amount of tongue) that I decided to follow her around the house again with the camera hoping for some more slo-mo gold.

This one was priceless. This may have to be awarded the "Cutest Baby at 11 Frames Per Second" award.

What About Invitations?

2007-10-15T14:32:00.001-07:00

For years I have held a strong dislike for the invitation at the end of a worship service. It all began when my Father-in-law (my pastor at the time) began to question the wisdom in holding an invitation as the last element of the service. He reasoned that 1) most of the time no one came forward, 2) when no one comes forward, the service feels subconciously like a failure, so 3) most of our services become downers for the congregation, giving us less faith in our church.

I wholeheartedly agreed with this logic at the time, and I still think that it holds up. In the years since then, though, I have noticed another problem with the invitation. We understand from Scripture that "no one comes to [Christ] unless the Father draws him" (John 6:44). We also understand from John 6 that "all that the Father gives to [Christ] will come to [him]" and that "the one who comes to [him] will never be cast out." All of that seems to present a picture of a person saved by Christ who will come to him no matter what. The invitation, on the other hand, seems to indicate that the Spirit's drawing will be missed if not acted upon during the two verses of "Just As I Am" sung after the preaching. It is very much "man-centered" and puts most of the weight on the hearer's willingness to stand up and walk to the front.

I have often stood in the pulpit laying the groundwork for the invitation, trying to give appropriate instructions for how and why to come forward. I have also heard many other preachers do the same. What I notice, however, if there is not some kind of psychological manipulation going on ("every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around", etc.), is that no one comes forward during the invitation unless they have already had a lengthy chat with the pastor about salvation prior to the service and he gave them instructions to come forward during the invitation.

It seems to me, then, that the invitation is completely useless in Christian worship. When people are under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, they go to the pastor during the week or talk to one of their Christian friends who leads them to Christ. Then, once their conversion is confirmed by the pastor, they are told to walk forward during the invitation hymn and let everyone else know. Thus, the invitation system is perpetuated though it played absolutely no role in the person's salvation.

I think that a more helpful and worshipful way to end a worship service would be with...well, worship. We could sing one or two more songs and maybe partake in the Lord's Supper. Dropping the invitation would remove the misconception from the minds of the members that the only reason we are in church is so that somebody can get saved. It would remove the misconception that evangelism means inviting someone to church. It would encourage the pastor and the members to really pursue and talk to the visitors, trying to discern whether or not they are believers, prepared to witness if need be, instead of simply assuming that they are already believers or else not interested because they did not respond to the invitation.

I highly reccommend the small booklet, The Invitation System, by Iain H. Murray. He examines some of the real problems with the invitation system as popularized by Billy Graham and explains why such a thing is unscriptural.

Pagan Days for Christians

2007-10-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

I think that it's probably fair to say that most Christians aren't aware of the pagan roots of the names of our days of the week. I believe that it was Douglas Wilson who said that Thursday (Thor's Day) was not a proper name for the day on which our Great God created the birds and the fish. In that vein, I want to present a list of where all of our current English days got their names and then propose some new Christianized ones.

Sunday - Obviously, this name comes from the sun. It is the Sun's Day. This was not meant as a way of honoring God's creation of the sun, but rather comes from a time when the sun was worshipped as a pagan deity. In many countries and languages today, the name of this day has been changed to "The Lord's Day" - for example, Spanish: Domingo. We Christians in America still preserve the old pagan name.
Monday - This name comes from the moon. It is the Moon's Day. Again, this stems from pagan moon worship.
Tuesday - The name of this day comes from the Old English Tyr's Day. Tyr was the Norse god of war. Compare to Spanish Martes, or Mars' Day. Mars was the Roman god of war.
Wednesday - The name comes from the name of the god Woden, a Germanic god also known as Odin, who was the highest god in Norse mythology.
Thursday - This is one of the most easily recognizable. Thor was the god of thunder in Germanic and Norse mythology. Thursday is Thor's Day.
Friday - Frige was the Germanic goddess of beauty, very much like the Roman Venus. Compare again to Spanish Viernes. Friday is Frige's Day.
Saturday - This is the only day name that comes to English directly from Roman mythology. Saturn was the father of the gods in Roman mythology, much like Cronos, the father of Zeus in Greek paganism.

Now, I would like to handle the discussion of this topic under the rubric of Psalm 16:4, "The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips." Wow! Imagine if we wanted to protect our speech like David. Every time we mention the name of the day, we are speaking the names of pagan deities! We are saying that the day that the Lord has made belongs to Thor and Saturn and Frige and the Moon!

So, I would like to propose some new names for the days. I like the idea hinted at by Wilson (or whoever it was that first said the thing I mentioned earlier) that the day ought to have a name that honored what God created on that particular day of the week. I think that we should combine that idea with the long standing tradition of calling the first day of the week, The Lord's Day. I think that we should just make it official. So here is my list. Feel free to suggest more.

The Lord's Day
Lightday
Heavenday
Landay
Starsday
Birdsday
Manday

I wonder how long it would take to effect change if a large percentage of the population of this country just started using different names for the days.

My Daughter's Secret Prayer Language

2007-10-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well, tonight my daughter Lydia lost her ability to be commissioned as an International Mission Board missionary. I've slowed down the 'evidence' for your edification. I think we can all agree that a second work of grace (or is it first in this case?) has occurred here...

A Conversation with a Pantheist

2007-10-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

The following is a part of a conversation that I had recently with a Pantheist.

Mistery:
I don't believe that worship is required of me or that homage be paid. I think the problem is the use of the word "God" to describe many different things which are inconsistent with each other. Isn't it really a matter of definition / terminology? For me, a perfect being that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent by definition does not require anything (by virtue of being perfect): does not require worship, does not require adherence to a moral code, does not get angry (wrathful ?), does not go around withering fig trees because they fail to fruit out of season.

So yes, I do believe that your wife's corn casserole is part of Everything That Is but I probably wouldn't pay homage to it: that is not a requirement. I don't like to use the word "God" for the reason outline above, but I guess I can say that if there must be a God, then I would prefer her/him to have no requirements, no commandments, no instructions, no preferential treatments, no anger, no jealousy, no paranoia, etc etc.

Corey:
What do you love and respect? Do you delight in the beauty of a sunrise? If the Bible is true, then Yahweh (the name of God in the Bible) created that beauty. Not only did he create such beauty, but his own beauty infinitely surpasses such a sight (there are many passages that describe the lethal intensity of the beauty of God). So, if a sunrise is to be praised for beauty, then why not God?

Do you rejoice when justice is done? If a self-righteous religious person murdered your family in cold blood, would you applaud the judicial system that caught those responsible and issued a proper sentence? God’s justice is perfect. The Bible presents him as a supreme Judge that makes just and appropriate restitution for each crime committed and proper reward for each meritorious act. If a human judge deserves accolades for being just, ought not God?

Jealousy and anger are proper emotions in some circumstances. In the above example, righteous anger on the part of the one whose family has been slain towards the perpetrator is normal and not evil as long as the actions associated with that anger are just. Jealousy of a husband for a cherished wife who forsakes her vows and pursues other lovers is fully expected and right.

The ‘moral code’ (as you call it) of the Bible is just a record of God’s character. He does not lie and steal and so he does not want his creatures to do so either. That is not much different from your wanting your ETI to possess the qualities you prize (having no commandments, instructions, jealousy, etc.). Since your ‘deity’ (if I may use that term in the absence of another, more appropriate one) is of your own design, you want to craft it in your own image. How can you blame the revealed God of the Bible for asking the same of his creation?

And what is wrong with the God of the universe giving instructions or telling us about himself? If an intelligent being did create the universe, don’t you think he would want his creation to know something about himself? The things that he has created already speak volumes (“The heavens declare the glory of God” Psalm 19:1), but he wanted us to know him even more intimately, so he has spoken to many down through the centuries. From Abraham to the time of Jesus Christ, he spoke mainly to Jews. Why the preferential treatment? Since the first man (Adam), we have all transgressed God’s laws. That is, we act disgustingly different than he himself would act. As a result, no one deserves any kind of attention from God accept immediate and ultimate judgment. But, God is far more merciful than you give him credit. He could treat Abraham preferentially because it was all of mercy anyway – and when we’re talking about mercy, no one has a right to demand it.

But what was the point of all of this conversation between God and man? He said, “I’m going to forgive you.” Now, that’s hardly a distasteful thing to say. The record of God’s communication to man (The Bible) is the record of God’s intention to forgive our transgression of his law – which began with Adam – and the ultimate satisfaction of his justice. He said that he would not punish us for our unrighteousness. But, since he is perfectly just, there still must be appropriate punishment for that unrighteousness. So, he sends his perfectly righteous Son to suffer in our stead. Not that God has a biological child – that would be ridiculous. But God as a perfectly unlimited, boundless Spirit had an idea of himself. Since he has always existed, he has always had this ‘reflection’ – if you will – of himself which is his contemplation of his own infinite perfection. You see, as an infinite God reflects on his own infinite perfection, the image that he has of himself is infinitely perfect, and therefore divine in its own right and just as much a part of God as the originator is. Somewhere in this mystery, I think, is the proper understanding of God the Father and the God the Son (The Holy Spirit may be a topic for later).

Now, it should be apparent that the most precious thing in all the universe to God would be this manifestation of his glory. He (for I should really stop referring to Christ as ‘it’) is his ‘Son’ in a very real sense. When the Father sent the Son (the image of himself – one with him) to become a man and die on our behalf (for our transgression merited a human death), he declared the glories of his mercy and grace in the loudest, clearest way imaginable. This is the message of the Bible: God has sent his Son to die for law-breakers. He has cancelled an eternity of debt for those who will but love him and accept the gift. Isn’t that kind of love worthy of worship and honor and respect? The Bible is not a record of God’s cruel injustice. It is a record of his perfect justice and boundless grace.

This is why I say that worshiping the God of the Bible is more glorious than worshiping limp, uncaring dirt. But not only is ETI less glorious; what if your idea is just really wrong? Wouldn’t it be so tragic to discover at the moment you depart this life that the book you always rejected was the actual revelation of the Creator? I say that not to try to get anyone to believe in the Bible just to ‘cover their bases’, but to try to get you to at least read the Scriptures and see if they ring true. Many others far more intelligent than you or I have thought so. It is at least worth a look. I believe it’s worth your life.

Debating Alien Immersion (Introduction)

2007-10-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

It is seriously a joy to be the pastor of a church where the topic for debate is the proper administration of believer's baptism and not the color of the carpet. Our church is currently trying to decide what to do about those who have been baptized as believers in other denominations. Should we accept their profession of faith and vote them into the membership, or should we require them to be re-baptized?

What a healthy thing it is indeed for a church to search the Scriptures together for an answer to a doctrinal conundrum! My goal for our church's discussion of this issue is a heightened awareness of Scriptural authority. I want us all to learn the most important lesson of: "If the Bible says it, then that's the way we do it."

As for me, I hope I am not arrogant enough to think that my current position must be absolutely right just because I have a couple of degrees in theology. To be honest, I am keeping an open mind. I want to let the Bible speak to me just as much as to everyone else.

With that being said, I am embarking on a study of the issue with the use of several good books. I will be chronicling my discoveries here, for no better reason than it will be an easy way for me to keep all my findings in one place. I also hope that some of my church members will travel with me in this endeavor and that some blog readers from outside of our church will offer us some helpful advice along the way.

The books that I'll mainly be using are:

Believer's Baptism, Schreiner & Wright, eds.
Systematic Theology, Robert Duncan Culver.
Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem.
Christian Theology, Millard Erickson.
Baptist Confessions of Faith, William L. Lumpkin.

Each title is linked to its respective page on Amazon.com. Please feel free to suggest other resources.

Mark Driscoll on Church Planters

2007-10-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

I saw this video a few days ago and was very impressed by the message and the one delivering it. Mark Dricoll catches a lot of flak for being very blunt in the way he speaks, but I appreciate the honesty in his choice of words. The video is a message about church planting and church planters, but I think that it is a helpful look at what each Christian seeking to do the work of God in this world ought to be concerned with.

Romans 14 and the Sabbath

2007-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

It seems like the largest question surrounding our understanding of the fourth commandment is what Paul meant by "esteems one day" in Romans 14. Is he referring there to the command to keep the Sabbath holy? If so then it seems that Christians are sort of 'off the hook' when it comes to spending one day in total devotion to God. Whether they are required to spend every day in total devotion to God and rest from worldliness or whether they are permitted to indulge their flesh as much as they want in the spirit of freedom is a discussion for another post. If the answer to the above question is 'no', however, and Paul is not referring to the Sabbath command but instead to all other festival days and celebrations, then we are still to set one day aside to devote to worship, rest, and holiness.

Admittedly, this is a difficult interpretive issue which we may have to place under a Romans 14 rubric after all: "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" - about the interpretation of the verse! But to help with the discussion, I am going to list the thoughts of several commentators. Now, my Romans commentary collection is pretty pathetic, so if anyone else has some different ones, please add them to the discussion no matter which way they go.

R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word, "This controversy over days probably involved Sabbath observance."

Everett F. Harrison, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, "Whether the question of regarding one day as more sacred than another refers to Sabbath observance or to special days for feasting or fasting is not easily determined...Even so, if the day of worship is in view, it is strange that any believer could be said to consider "every day alike.""

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, "He that regards the day—that makes conscience of the observance of the Jewish fasts and festivals, not imposing it upon others, nor laying a stress upon it, but willing to be as he thinks on the surer side, as thinking there is no harm in resting from worldly labours, and worshipping God on those days—it is well."

John Calvin, Romans, "Jews, who had been brought up from their childhood in the doctrine of the law, would not lay aside that reverence for days which they had entertained from the beginning, and to which through life they had been accustomed; nor could they have dared to touch these meats from which they had so long abstained. That they were imbued with these notions, was an evidence of their weakness; they would have thought otherwise, had they possessed a certain and a clear knowledge of Christian liberty. But in abstaining from what they thought to be unlawful, they evidenced piety, as it would have been a proof of presumption and contempt, had they done anything contrary to the dictates of conscience."

Albert Barnes, Barnes New Testament Notes, "The passage means, that he regards every day as consecrated to the Lord, Ro 14:6. The question has been agitated, whether the apostle intends in this to include the Christian Sabbath. Does he mean to say that it is a matter of indifference whether this day be observed, or whether it be devoted to ordinary business or amusements? This is a very important question in regard to the Lord's day. That the apostle did not mean to say that it was a matter of indifference whether it should be kept as holy, or devoted to business or amusement, is plain from the following considerations:
(1.) The discussion had reference only to the peculiar customs of the Jews, to the rites and practices which they would attempt to impose on the Gentiles, and not to any questions which might arise among Christians as Christians. The inquiry pertained to meats, and festival observances among the Jews, and to their scruples about partaking of the food offered to idols, etc.; and there is no more propriety in supposing that the subject of the Lord's day is introduced here than that he advances principles respecting baptism and the Lord's Supper.
(2.) The Lord's day was doubtless observed by all Christians, whether converted from Jews or Gentiles. See 1 Co 16:2; Ac 20:7 Re 1:10. See Barnes "Joh 20:26".
The propriety of observing that day does not appear to have been a matter of controversy. The only inquiry was, whether it was proper to add to that the observance of the Jewish Sabbaths, and days of festivals and fasts.
(3.) It is expressly said, that those who did not regard the day regarded it as not to God, or to honour God, Ro 4:6. They did it as a matter of respect to him and his institutions, to promote his glory, and to advance his kingdom. Was this ever done by those who disregard the Christian Sabbath? Is their design ever to promote his honour, and to advance in the knowledge of him, by neglecting his holy day? Who knows not that the Christian Sabbath has never been neglected or profaned by any design to glorify the Lord Jesus, or to promote his kingdom? It is for purposes of business, gain, war, amusement, dissipation, visiting, crime. Let the heart be filled with a sincere desire to honour the Lord Jesus, and the Christian Sabbath will be reverenced, and devoted to the purposes of piety. And if any man is disposed to plead this passage as an excuse for violating the Sabbath, and devoting it to pleasure or gain, let him quote it, just as it is, i. e., let him neglect the from a conscientious desire to honour Jesus Christ. Unless this is his motive, the passage cannot avail him. But this motive never yet influenced a Sabbath-breaker."

John Piper, "Is There a 'Lord's Day'?", "So, does Romans 14:5 refer to the Lord’s Day when it says, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind”? I answer with Paul Jewett: “It is unconvincing . . . to press Paul’s statement in Romans 14:5 so absolutely as to have considered John [the apostle] a Judaizer for having called one day in the week the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10), thus giving it the preeminence.” (The Lord’s Day, p. 78). Jewett takes John’s conviction as having apostolic authority and assumes he is not among the “weak” of Romans 14:2. That is, John does not call one day in the week “the Lord’s Day” as one option among many. He calls it “the Lord’s day” because he and the early church treat it in a special way among all days.
I cannot escape what seems to me compelling evidence that the Lord’s Day remains till Jesus comes and that it is set apart for the glory of Christ and the good of our souls. May the Lord give you wisdom and freedom and joy as you display his work and his worth on his day."

Current Conclusion: Wanting to see Romans 14:5-6 as license to indulge in worldly pursuits on the Lord's Day seems to completely undermine the spirit of the instruction. If the one seeking to apply Romans 14 to the Sabbath was seeking to do so in order to keep every day sacred according to the Sabbath commandment, then that person would deserve to be heard, but just as Christians in the New Covenant ought to give above the tithe, they also ought to sanctify more of their lives, not less.

Rest: It's Not Just for Jews

2007-09-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I meditated on what the work week should be for us as Christians. We were not told that we should work for five days and rest two; we were told to work six days. But the question remains of what to do with the one day of rest that we are given.

I think part of the reason why we mess this up so much is because we are faced with two rest days. We know that Saturday is a day off from work, so we consider the things that we do on that day to be rest. When the Lord's Day rolls around, then, we tend to treat it very much like Saturday. Yard work, watching sports, hanging out at the mall: all of these things seem like perfectly admissible activities on the Lord's Day.

The command regarding resting on the seventh day in the Bible is stated like this, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work" (Exodus 20:8-10). There are two main ideas here: holiness and rest.

The idea seems to be that we are to set up the seventh day as a day with no anxiety or toil or worldliness, but we are instead to pass the day in quiet worship: gathering with God's people to sing praises and to hear from the word and then treating the rest of the day as sacred time. It seems from the command to keep the day holy that this sacred time should be spent in some way that is devoted to the Lord.

In previous generations, this Sabbath command has been understood by Baptists in a very consistent manner. The Abstract of Principles says in Article XVII: "The Lord's Day is a Christian institution for regular observance, and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, resting from worldly employments and amusements, works of necessity and mercy only excepted."

The New Hampshire Confession of 1833 (my church's founding doctrinal statement) says in Article XV: "That the first day of the week is the Lord's Day, or Christian Sabbath; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and recreations; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God."

I absolutely love that last line: "by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God." What do you think the True Rest of glory will be like? Will you care about football? Man, I hope not! The presence and beauty of the Creator of the universe will be before us. Our eternal reward is in reveling in his glory. We show that we are fit for such a vocation when we spend our God-given weekly rests on this earth following that same passion.

An Awful Public Confession

2007-09-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

I saw a story in the news yesterday about the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) which organizes an annual Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land to participate in the Feast of Tabernacles along with the Jews who live there. This year there is a problem, however. Rabbi Simcha Hacohen Kook said, "According to information that has reached the chief rabbinate, there are participants in this conference who convert Jews to Christianity and perform missionary activity throughout the year."

Oh, may it be so! I would certainly hope that the primary goal of the 6000 or more Christians who attend such an event would be to carry the gospel to the Jews. The ICEJ, though, was quick to dispel such a rumor: "The ICEJ has never conducted any missionary programs in Israel and we clearly instruct our Feast pilgrims against such activity during their stay here."

You see, proselytizing is against the law in Israel, and this is not the first time. In Acts 4:18, the rulers, elders, and scribes in Jerusalem ordered Peter and John to cease speaking or teaching in the name of Jesus. Their response was beautiful: "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard."

Unfortunately, now it is also the 'Christians' who tell disciples of Christ to cease speaking and teaching about Jesus. May we ever be stubbornly disobedient to such words of the Devil.

Work: It's Not Just for Jews

2007-09-24T04:54:00.000-07:00

One particular issue that has been irritating the back of my mind for several years now is the issue of the work week. The following command of Exodus 34:21 is repeated many times in the Old Testament: "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest."

Now the part about resting on the seventh day is an important issue (especially now in southern Illinois where it is most assuredly harvest time). I want to come back to the issue of resting on the seventh day in a future post, but what concerns me at this moment is not the rest, but the work.

Notice the command: "Six days you shall work." This verse (and its accompanying statement in the Ten Commandments) not only requires a rest, but it requires six days of work. That is significant in America, because most people work for five days and play for two (actual Sabbath rest seems to be absent even from most Christians - but more on that later).

And these six days of work are not just for the people of Israel. God ordained a six day work week long before meeting with Moses on Mount Sinai. Back in the creation in Genesis 1, God was establishing a pattern for man to follow by doing the work of creation in six days and resting the seventh. God could have created everything in one microsecond, or he could have taken a thousand days, but instead he ordained the week of six plus one.

It seems we are in need of some repentance on this issue. Many of us have jobs that will pay us for only five days per week. That is not a bad thing, as long as we continue to work on the sixth day. Doing yard work, household chores, automobile repair, etc. on the sixth day is still work. The point is that we ought to see that day as a day to continue our labors so that the seventh day of rest will be properly restful. If we think of that day as a day to play or a day to sleep in and rest, then we are not living as God intended.

Tomorrow I will consider what it means to spend the seventh day in a properly restful way.

Recommended: The Deliberate Church

2007-09-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

It's hard to find a good book on how to do church in a biblical way. It's even harder to find a book like that published in the last two-hundred years that's less that 600 pages long. Dever and Alexander's book, The Deliberate Church, is all three: biblical (shows how to build a church around the gospel), recent (so it deals with contemporary issues facing the church), and brief (so it doesn't freak out ordinary church members).

This book is a treasure trove of biblical principles and practical examples of how to do church in a Scriptural, Reformed, and Baptist kind of way. Chapter topics include: the primacy of preaching, how to do responsible evangelism, church discipline, the regulative principles, ordinances, the role of each type of service throughout the week, music, elders, staffing, business meetings, prayer, and decision making.

When I began to read this book, I thought immediately of using it sometime in the future as a book study to be done with a group of leading men in the church. It would be the perfect way to get the leadership of the church thinking in biblical directions on each aspect of gathered church life, and may even be just the right impetus to get the church moving in a biblical direction in terms of polity. The chapters even have discussion questions interspersed throughout to facilitate group study.

Highly recommended!

The Faithlessness of Children

2007-09-18T04:51:00.000-07:00

As I write this, my youngest daughter is screaming like a banshee (for those that know her, this is a condition we like to call 'normal'). At the same time, I also happen to be reading an account of a similar screaming in Exodus chapters 16 and 17.

As we read the story of the Exodus, it is hard for us to grasp how a people could be led out of the mightiest nation on earth (at that time) by ten of the most powerful and miraculous acts ever recorded and yet still remain faithless before God when they reach the shore of the Red Sea. "What? Weren't there enough graves is Egypt?" they said. "You had to bring us all the way out here to die?"

But instead of pouring out wrath on them for their lack of faith, God does an even greater miracle: he opens the Red Sea for them to cross on dry land.

And, really, that should have been the clincher. When we think about that, we think, "Boy, I wouldn't doubt God's provision again!" But the Israelites did. Just a couple of days afterward they were complaining that they didn't have enough to eat. God sends bread from heaven - bread from heaven! Then they complain about not having enough to drink. God makes a rock shoot forth a stream of water...

The patience and mercy and grace of God are amazing in this story. He just keeps taking care of them when they scream at him. This morning, that reminds me of my children. Their screams are cries of faithlessness. My wife often says something to the effect of, "Child, have we ever neglected to feed you?" But they keep right on screaming until the food is there.

Such a thing is expected of infantile immaturity, but eventually such behavior becomes loathsome. Eventually, God pours out judgment on the grumblers (Numbers 11). If a thirty year old man screams because he's hungry, he's liable to get beat. We need to move toward maturity and trust. May God have mercy on us when we grumble yet teach us to grumble no more.

How Do We Think About the Healer?

2007-09-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

As one who has always looked at Pentecostal happenings with disdain and a critical eye, I have never wanted to put too much emphasis in my own personal theology on divine healing. My thoughts on the subject were that God is sovereign; illnesses and injuries come by his hand; God doesn't have to let a person heal, so if he does, we should thank him; and, finally, there is no moral difference between a person who is frequently ill and one who is mostly healthy.

But I have to temper those thoughts with this statement from Exodus 15:26, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer."

Now, granted, that promise was made to the Israelites, but if it was true for them, why should it not be true for the Bride of Christ, the church? Much of the things that were specific to the nation of Israel were abrogated (superseded) by statements in the New Testament. The old sacrificial laws were abrogated by Christ's sacrifice (Hebrews 9). The old dietary laws were abrogated when Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7). But nowhere does Jesus say, "I will no longer be a healer for you from this moment on."

In fact, it seems that the opposite is true. Jesus went around healing scads of people. Then he turned his apostles loose to heal more! Now, I am not here arguing for starting a miraculous healing ministry among the baptists, but am merely saying that healing was never downplayed in the New Testament.

Since this is the case, what should we think about God's promise to the Israelites in Exodus 15? Should we encourage people with these words? If so, what would you say then to someone who got sick? "Looks like you haven't been following God's commandments very well..."? To be honest, I am not so sure at this point. I will try to think on this some more and post again later. I welcome any comments on the issue, however.

The Sin of Anonymous Open Letters

2007-09-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

Recently, Boyd Luter published an open letter on his blog from an anonymous seminary professor from either The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary or Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary that attacks the character of the presidents of both institutions. Much has been said already in the blogosphere as regards this issue of posting an anonymous confrontation of sin in public (however founded or unfounded it may be).

Just this evening, however, I was researching the original autograph of the book of Matthew and I found a tiny bit of fine print in the 18th chapter where Jesus gives instructions about church discipline.

Matthew 18:15e - "If your brother seems more important than you are, protect your wounded pride by taking pot shots from the shadows. This is the one time when you are not to go to him and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”

Well, I guess that means that Luter and his yellow friend are off the hook after all...

Pharaoh's Unintentional Missionary Strategy

2007-09-13T04:17:00.000-07:00

When Joseph brought his father and his brothers down to Egypt, the Lord had promised that he would make them there into a great nation. But how do 75 people or so turn into millions in just four hundred years? Exodus 1:12 gives the shocking answer.

"But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad."

Oppression grew the people of Israel! Strangely enough, the same exact thing was responsible for the growth of the early church. As the civil and religious leaders put more pressure on the infant church in Jerusalem, it began to grow at an alarming rate. When they began to kill its leaders to stop its growth, it only spread to other cities!

This same principle is still in effect today. Around the world, the church is growing fastest in those places where it is most oppressed.

How should we act in response to this? Christians in America are rarely oppressed. I think that the answer lies in how we act as Christians. There are a lot of commands of the Bible that would lead to serious oppression if followed faithfully. As an example, recently we have been discussing at our church a return to biblical church discipline. For the first 70 years of our church's history, 1 out of every 3 church members was excluded from membership because of sin at some point in their tenure. If such a thing was done today, the outcry from the ungodly would be...well, ungodly! We might have lawsuits and public slander against our church!

The threat of such things has kept us from being obedient for far too long. We miss the principle that the Bible and Christian history teaches over and over: that oppression like this speeds the growth and spread of the Kingdom. It is time that we begin to look for more ways to be obedient to the Word that might draw the ire of the establishment. Always remember that "All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Timothy 3:12). I guess we in America need to start desiring to live a godly life, since we have not been much persecuted.

Don't Waste Your Time and Money

2007-09-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

No matter where we live on this earth, we as Christians are surrounded by the world. The Bible speaks about the world as being all of the stuff that isn't intentionally glorifying to God. As Christians, Jesus desires that we be "in the world and not of it" (John 17:14-15 paraphrase). We live here, we wear the clothes that the world makes (not intentionally glorifying to God), we eat the food that the world produces, we speak the language of the world, but we are not to be of it. We should not settle down here to become fully immersed. Our priorities ought to look different than those of the lost people around us.

Randy Alcorn spoke briefly about this recently as a preview for the Desiring God National Conference that will be held at the end of this month in Minneapolis. Below is the video.

Benjamin Keach on Preaching

2007-09-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) was a very significant Baptist pastor and theologian in England in the seventeenth century. In the preface to his book, The Display of Glorious Grace, he had the following to say about the importance of preaching:

As I preach not to please Men's Ears, so but little regard ought to be had to the Scoffing Reflections of such Men, who condemn everything of this kind, unless it consists of a Fancy-talking Modelation of empty Rhetorick, or a high Florid Style...I am not for Airy and Florid Orations in the ministration of the Work of God, but for that plain way of preaching used by the Holy Apostles, and our Worthy Modern Divines [Puritans]. Besides, could I so Preach or Write, as is the Flesh-pleasing, Ear tickling a-la-mode of the times, of such who study Words more than Matter, it would be utterly dislik'd by all such Pious Christians, for whose sake, and at whose Importunity these Sermons are published.

Some Laughs Hurt

2007-09-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

In Douglas Wilson's fascinating little book, A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking, he sets out to show politically correct Christians that Jesus and the Bible are anything but. When I was first told about this book several years ago, I was warned that I had to be careful after reading it because I would want to slam anyone with whom I had a disagreement with a biting satirical jab. Largely ignoring the warnings, I found that this was indeed the case and got myself into a spot of trouble.

Ahh, but how the truth does hurt! Wilson's argument is that since the proverbs, psalms, prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself cut their opponents with their words ("It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven" comes to mind), we should sometimes talk like this also.

Well, today I had my attention drawn to this blog because of a post over at the Founder's blog. I have read through many of the "news stories" - which are total satire - and they are a riot. I will warn you, though: if you don't have the capacity to roll with the punches, you may find your feelings hurt. I would encourage everyone to enjoy the blog, though. I think that it is a breath of fresh air in our (many times) stale evangelicalism.

I'll put the link to the blog over in the blogroll also, so you will not have to hunt this post in the future if you want to read it. The name of it is Tominthebox News Network.

Away with the Ring!

2007-09-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

I was watching the last few minutes of Return of the King today, and for the first time, I was moved to tears when Frodo said, "It's gone...It's over" after casting the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. I had really started to understand Frodo's burden as the constant presence of sin in each of our lives. When he truly felt that the ring was gone, he was euphoric. For a brief moment, I got a sense of what it would be like to be finally done with the sin that dwells within me.

I think that if Frodo could have been anywhere - the Shire, the Undying Lands, or heaven itself - but still had to carry that ring, he would have preferred to have been on that chunk of volcanic rock in Mordor without it. Our own hope of heaven really should be meaningless if there is still the presence of sin there. Oh how I long to be free of it!

Tonight, I was reading about Hanserd Knollys and I came across this timely quote:

But when that promise came, it was so suitable to my present condition, my heart objections were so answered by it, and it pleased God so clearly to reveal his rich and free love in Christ Jesus to my soul in it, that I could not but with tears and much heart breakings admire the infinite goodness of God to me, and I was so self-ashamed and abased, as that I saw myself the chief of sinners; which promise of the spirit I received by faith, applied to myself, and in the believing that Christ was mine and I his, I was filled with joy unspeakable and glorious; and ever since God hath drawn out my heart more and more after himself, and after holiness, so that he hath caused me more to desire, yea, hunger and thirst after Righteousness and sanctification, than after Heaven.

Oh that that last statement were true of more Christians: that we would hunger and thirst more for righteousness than heaven. Without a doubt, our greatest longing should be to be in the presence of Christ (which means heaven), but we ought to desire holiness more than golden streets, and of course one cannot even exist in the presence of the unveiled glory of Christ with our sin.

But then I thought, If I long for the absence of sin to such a degree, then why do I allow it to overtake me from time to time? You see, the ultimate lie of sin is that it is what we truly want. Our wicked heart tells us that such and such a sin will make us happy, and yet in our more pious times we long for holiness with a physical ache. We ought to see every temptation to sin as a mortal enemy that seeks to rob us of our greatest treasure.

So remember Frodo and his, "It's gone!" Remember Hanserd Knollys and his hunger for righteousness that overshadowed his desire for heaven. And remember Jonathan Edwards who resolved thus: "Resolved, to live so, at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world."

Baptists on Baptism

2007-09-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere has been alight of late with Christ-honoring brotherly disagreement on the issue of baptism, church membership, and the Lord's Supper. It began with Wayne Grudem making a small edit (not so small in some eyes) to the chapter on baptism in his Systematic Theology. Apparently, John Piper got wind of this change and decided to write this response. The debate continued as Grudem responded to Piper.

All of this produced some very healthy discussion on the nature of baptism and church membership across the web, with some notable articles by Mark Dever and Sam Storms. The debate is still rolling on across the blogs.

This is all very fascinating, but yesterday I found history of a debate between John Bunyan (of Pilgrim's Progress fame) and William Kiffin (first name signed to the First London Confession of 1644). Bunyan argued that whether or not a person had been baptized as a believer (or even baptized at all) should not be a factor in their ability to take communion. He said, "You ought to receive no man but upon a comfortable satisfaction of the church, that you are now receiving a believer." In other words, if the church was sufficiently satisfied that such a person was a believer, they were to be allowed to the communion table whether or not they had been baptized. His reason was that Scripture nowhere forbade unbaptized people from taking communion.

William Kiffin responded thus: "What necessity is there to be wise above what is written, and to clamor for Precept or Example, to prove that Baptism is a bar to Communion, since we read everywhere...that all such as were received, were first Baptized; and not one instance in the whole Bible, that any were received without it?"

Bunyan is correct in saying that nowhere in Scripture is communion forbidden on grounds of a person not being baptized, but Kiffin is correct also in that nowhere in Scripture is there a Christian who is not properly baptized. The problem, as I see it, is that today we do have Christians who have not been properly baptized. There are brothers in Christ who love the Lord and seem to have genuine faith (some even dying for their faith) that have been baptized as infants and that believe such baptism is valid. They are not seeking to pervert Scripture. They believe that Scripture teaches that they should baptize their infants.

While I have read their arguments and see many of them as logical and biblical, I believe that their position falls on three accounts. First, there is no biblical support at all for anyone in New Testament times baptizing an infant. The link that Presbyterians and others forge between circumcision and baptism does not have biblical support. Second, this teaching removes the command to "Repent and be baptized" from the individual hearing it and transfers half of it (the "be baptized" part) to that individual's children. Obedience to the command to be baptized now falls on parents and not individuals responding to Christ. Lastly, those who baptize children do so because they believe that those children are under a covenant and that God has promised to be their God. When this falls flat for a child (and it does so often) and the child does not become a believer, the theologians say that the covenant was not broken, God is still that child's God, but only in judgment. Well, that is a pretty lousy covenant, then, because that is the deal that God has with all people: I'll be your God either in salvation or damnation.

But the question remains, what do we say to those who sincerely hold to this belief and yet want to be a part of our Baptist churches and take communion with us? I say that if we as a church are to have any authority to discipline our members (that is: hold the key to their membership or exclusion), then we ought to exercise it on doctrinal matters as well as moral ones. Withholding membership and communion from such a one is the right way to say, "Come back to the truth." We must guard the testimony we have been given and which we hold with conviction, even on "small" grounds like baptism.

Hollywood Has More Guts Than a Baptist Professor!

2007-09-01T14:37:00.001-07:00

After publishing my last post, I sat down to watch a few minutes of "The Fellowship of the Ring." I got to what is probably my favorite part in the film, where Gandalf and Frodo are sitting in the Mines of Moria discussing the meaning of mercy and pity. During the discussion, Frodo says that he wishes that the ring had never come to him. To which, Gandalf replies, "Bilbo was meant to find the ring, which also means you were meant to have it...And that is a very encouraging thought."

I suppose to a certain Baptist professor at a certain Baptist University that would be terrifying! Amazing, though, isn't it, how even the lost screenplay writers of this film are encouraged by meaning and purpose?

What Frightening Lyrics!

2007-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

It seems that these days people with weak-kneed theology are frightened of everything. Roger Olson, a professor at Baylor University in Texas (a Baptist school), mentions the following song in an article that he wrote about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Read the lyrics first:

late at night I wonder why

sometimes I wonder why

sometimes I’m so tired

I don’t even try

seems everything around me fails

but I hold on to the promise

that there is a reason

late at night, the darkness makes it hard to see

the history of the saints who’ve gone in front of me

through famine, plague and disbelief

His hand was still upon them

cause there is a reason

there is a reason

He makes all things good

there’s a time to live and a time to die

a time for wonder and to wonder why

cause there is a reason

there is a reason

i believe in a God who sent His only son

to walk upon this world and give His life for us

with blood and tears on a long, dark night

we know that He believed

that there is a reason

there is a reason

for the lonely nights

and broken hearts

the widow's mite

in the rich man's hand

and the continent

whose blood becomes a traitor

for the child afraid to close their eyes

the prayers that seem unanswered

there is a reason

Now, according to Roger Olson, that song ought to scare you! That God is too powerful! "I'm not sure how to distinguish [that God] from the devil," he says. Really? What confuses you, Mr. Olson? Does your devil have complete control over the world? Does your devil plan things for a reason while your god sits back and watches impotently? If not, then why are you confused? Does your devil make all things good?

If it is more comforting to know that bad things like bridge collapses are under the control and purposes of the devil, then I suppose to each his own, but the God of the Bible is one who is said to have created and to be sustaining all things (Colossians 1:16-17). He says that he works everything for good for those who love him and who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). It is said of him that no one can thwart his will (Job 42:2). As for me, I am only comforted by a God who is in complete control. If your god doesn't have that kind of power, then I will never bow down to him, and pathetically, the little pipsqueak couldn't even make me!

Reflecting on Faith

2007-08-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

The following paragraph about the essence of faith comes from The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace, by John Piper. I have bolded certain parts for emphasis.

"My prayer is that...reflections on the essence of faith will help us avoid superficial, over-simplified statements about believing the promises of God. It is a deep and wonderful thing. You do not have to be a theologian to experience it. God grants the experience to millions who cannot articulate all that is happening in their hearts. But we remain weak if we stay in the unthinking state of that beginning experience. We need to go deeper, and become stronger by understanding biblically what God has wrought in us. I Join the apostle Paul in praying that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we might know the surpassing greatness of his power in us who believe (Ephesians 1:18-19). That power has awakened in us, not just a desire for God to give us a happy future, but for God himself to be the essence of our happy future. It has produced in us, not just a delight in the promises of God, but in the God of the promises. Faith embraces God in all his promises."

In my own reflections on faith, I would say that true saving faith is obedience to the command to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" (Mark 12:30). When that love is absent, so is trust in the Lord. When that love is present, so is trust in the Lord.

Now That's a "Lot" of Hospitatlity

2007-08-29T05:48:00.001-07:00

I think that just about anyone who reads Genesis 19 today is struck by how awful it was that Lot was willing to give his two daughters to the lusty mob outside his house rather than see his guests come to harm. As a father of two girls, I can't imagine ever putting a stranger's safety above theirs.

That just shows me, however, how little hospitality matters in twenty-first century America.

Lot might not seem like a great spiritual role model from the stories of him in Genesis, but in the book of 2 Peter he is held up as a righteous man. Peter says, "and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard" (2 Pet. 2:7-8).

Part of his righteousness, I believe, was in his sacrificial protection of the two angelic visitors. The amazing thing, though, was that Lot did not know that they were angels at that time. He only knew that they were strangers and that they did not deserve to be treated the way the men of the city wanted to treat them.

What are we willing to sacrifice to be good hosts to others? Are we even willing to be hosts in the first place? Hebrews 13:2 gives us the most appropriate command in this regard: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

That's a blessing that I don't want to miss.

Trust, Hope, and Righteousness, Part II

2007-08-28T04:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I asked why hope and trust lead to an imputation of righteousness. I was speaking of Abram's trust that the LORD would fulfill his promise to him and make his descendants like the stars in multitude. Why should a man be reckoned as righteous by God, with a righteousness that is not his own (Phil. 3:9), just because God told him he was going to have children and he believed it? In addition to the staggering grace of such an event, we are left thinking that this pronouncement of righteousness does not have much to do with having children.

Romans 4:18-22 give us an intimate insight into Abram's mind at that moment, so an understanding of that passage is vital to answering the question of why righteousness depends on faith.

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness."

I believe that the answer lies in the words, "but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised." It seems obvious that this is the answer, since Paul tells us, "That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness." Verse 16 gives a further clue: "That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace."

God has always wanted us to trust him. From the very beginning in the Garden, he has wanted us to believe him when he speaks. Distrust and disbelief have always been the very core of sin. When you sin, you show that you do not trust God that his commandments are good.

So then, when we turn from our own attempts to earn for ourselves eternal life - attempts which can only glorify our own goodness - and trust the one who promised to save us by the blood of his Son if only we would trust him (John 3:16), then we glorify God's grace. That trust is a declaration to ourselves and to the whole watching world that we are banking everything on a God that we cannot see, trusting in a book that cannot prove came from his hand (although we have many evidences).

Trust like that says some very glorious things about the one who has made these promises. It says that he is worth it. And as we live out that trust, giving our lives for the sake of spreading that trust to others, God gets the glory all the more.

Trust, Hope, and Righteousness, Part I

2007-08-27T04:49:00.001-07:00

Genesis 15 is, of course, one of the most important chapters in all the Bible. Refrains from God's covenant with Abram echo throughout the Old and New Testaments. Even more important, though, is the fabulously rich verse 6, "And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness."

The New Testament takes this idea and runs with it. The entire doctrine of justification by faith centers on it. Our understanding of the imputation of Christ's righteousness hinges on it. This verse is powerfully expounded in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and James 2, but I want to take a second and reflect on the actual moment of Genesis 15:6.

Abram is heart-broken. He has just taken 318 men and soundly whipped some of the most powerful kingdoms in the world to get his nephew back. He has great possessions and a great reputation, but he starts to feel like there is no point to any of it, since he has no heir. He laments to God, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"

It is at this point that God walks him outside, shows him the stars, and says, "See those stars?" Oh they must have been so bright back then, with no cities to pollute the night sky with the orange glow of a thousand streetlights. "See if you can count them. This is the way your offspring will be: innumerable."

I can imagine the way Abram believes here. His eyes tear up. A joyful laugh catches in his throat. He nods his head emphatically and knows in that moment that God will do it. And it is that: that hope, that trust, that God sees and responds by granting him righteousness.

Why? Why does hope and trust lead to an imputation of righteousness? We will explore that concept tomorrow.

What Must We Do in the Holy Place?

2007-08-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Probably the greatest scene in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is when Christian and Hopeful finally reach the Beulah Land and the Celestial City. And the vision of that place that Bunyan gives his readers is never so glorious and hopeful as when the two pilgrims ask their angelic guide, "What must we do in the holy place?" Let's listen with swelling hearts to the angel's response:

To whom it was answered, You must there receive the comfort of all your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow; you must reap what you have sown, even the fruit of all your prayers, and tears, and sufferings for the King by the way. In that place you must wear crowns of gold, and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One; for “there you shall see him as he is.” There also you shall serve him continually with praise, with shouting and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, though with much difficulty, because of the infirmity of your flesh. There your eyes shall be delighted with seeing, and your ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There you shall enjoy your friends again that are gone thither before you; and there you shall with joy receive even every one that follows into the holy place after you. There also you shall be clothed with glory and majesty, and put into an equipage fit to ride out with the King of Glory. When he shall come with sound of trumpet in the clouds, as upon the wings of the wind, you shall come with him; and when he shall sit upon the throne of judgment, you shall sit by him; yea, and when he shall pass sentence upon all the workers of iniquity, let them be angels or men, you also shall have a voice in that judgment, because they were his and your enemies. Also, when he shall again return to the city, you shall go too with sound of trumpet, and be ever with him.

Amen!

Storms, the Pantheist?

2007-08-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a rather unfortunate quote from a recent post over at the Enjoying God blog: "Simply put: space is God!" Now, I don't think that Dr. Storms really believes that the way it sounds, but it is a strange thing to say, nonetheless.

We ought better to say something like God is everywhere present in all his fullness: within the tiniest atom, with us in our despair, at the deepest part of the earth, across the giant voids of the heavens, and so on.

Space is not God, nor is God space. But God is present at each point in space in all his fullness. There is nowhere that we can go away from his presence (Psalm 139:8).

What's Bugging Cain?

2007-08-24T05:58:00.001-07:00

There have been a number of reasons given over the last few thousand years as to why Cain's sacrifice in Genesis 4 was not accepted by God. Some have said that God's displeasure was based in the fact that Cain brought plants when forgiveness of sins requires blood. Others have claimed that Abel's sacrifice was better because it came from the firstborn of his flock while Cain just brought "some fruit of the ground".

But I think that the real problem with Cain's sacrifice becomes evident through his reaction to God's rejection. He expected some gratitude from God. After all, he could have eaten that fruit himself. If his gift was not going to be appreciated, then why bring it to begin with?

There is a subtle line to walk here. When we serve God and make offerings to him of our money, time, talents, etc., we should do so in order to receive a reward; otherwise Jesus would not have promised a reward for these things in Matthew 6. At the same time, though, we have to realize that God does not have to accept any of these offerings from our hands.

God always has the right to reject our offering because all of our offerings are tainted with sin. It is mercy for him to receive our filthy rags. He is certainly not obligated to do so. We show by how we react when he rejects our offering whether or not we truly believe this.

Adam Leaves Home

2007-08-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

In Genesis chapter 2, foreshadowing of the Fall is everywhere. In the next breath, after giving Adam the command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he says, "It is not good that the man should be alone."

As soon as the woman is made and Adam has finished his rejoicing, the text says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife."

The great tragedy is that this is exactly what happened. Adam indeed left his Father to throw his lot in with his wife, joining her in their rebellion as one flesh.

Isn't it amazing that every human marriage is a picture of both the Fall of man and the union of Christ with his church? We left our Father by this route and we return to him by the same.

Don't Shut the Book!

2007-08-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

The book of Revelation has been a hot topic for some time now. It has dragons, locusts, harlots, valleys of blood, earthquakes, burning mountains that fall into the sea, and a crystal clear golden city full of fruit that makes you live forever. The difficult question about all of this, though, is when on earth was this all supposed to happen?

There have been a number of of ways that Bible scholars and theologians have concocted to explain this book and the timing of its events. Some say that none of this has happened yet and that all of these strange images are prophecies of future judgments to take place at the end of the age. Others, like many of the Reformers, say that this book describes the overall history of the world and that we can currently find ourselves somewhere in the middle of these seals, trumpets, and bowls. A growing minority are claiming that all of this has already happened and that we are now living in the thousand years of Revelation 20.

My purpose in this article today is not to propose some new system of understanding this book, but it is to point out a perhaps overlooked clue to the proper interpretation of it.

In Daniel chapter 8, the prophet Daniel is given a very detailed and specific vision of a ram and a goat. When the angel Gabriel interprets this vision for Daniel, he tells him that the ram is the king of the Medes and the Persians and that the goat is the king of Greece. In the vision, the Grecian goat defeats the Persian ram and then the goat's horn is split into four smaller horns. This perfectly describes the conquest of Alexander the Great and the subsequent dividing of his kingdom into four parts. The prophecy goes on to describe the Seleucid oppression of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes with equal accuracy, even to the duration of the persecution.

This is important because these historical events would not take place until hundreds of years in the future from Daniel's perspective. Daniel is even told by Gabriel to "seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now" (8:26).

Now fast-forward to Revelation 22:10. In that verse, the angel speaking to John says to him, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near." If the angel can tell Daniel to seal it up because it is for many days from now, and the actual amount of time between the writing and the fulfillment was only a couple of hundred years, then how can the (likely) same angel tell John not to seal up his book because the time is near when there is at least two thousand years between prophecy and fulfillment?

Watch Out for the Drowners!

2007-08-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

Paul says in Philippians 3:2, "Watch out for the dogs. Watch out for the workers of evil. Watch out for the mutilation" (author's translation). Here the apostle is referring to those false teachers who trusted in Christ and yet required converts to be circumcised in order to be saved. The idea is not that these false teachers rejected Christ or grace, but that they saw an external rite as necessary to that grace.

Compare these teachers of circumcision (Paul satirically calls them 'the mutilation') with those who preach a very similar gospel in the Christian Church. The following is taken from a question and answer page at Southeast Christian Church's website: http://www.southeastchristian.org/sqa/life.aspx?ID=168

"A person should be baptized at the time he or she trusts in Christ. The Bible teaches we are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8), but in the New Testament church, a person's baptism was always the first expression of faith, not separate from it. So baptism was not just a symbol or a memorial of faith, but was intended to offer a means of union with Christ"

There is no difference between the requirement of an external cutting and the requirement of an external dipping in water. In each case, something is added to grace.

I think that Paul could have found much theological common ground with these dogs in Philippi. They almost definitely held to a proper understanding of the Trinity, of the deity of Christ, of the necessity of Christ's sacrifice, and of the authority of the Word, but they added one thing - one tiny external requirement. For Paul, that was enough to show that they preached a different gospel.

Beware the dogs! Beware the workers of evil! Beware the drowners!