ReceiveTheWORD

In Need Of A New Heart

2012-02-27T14:57:00.000-05:00

Life is the mightiest of all possessions. From death to life is the mightiest of all changes. And no change short of this will ever avail to fit a person’s soul for heaven.

It is not a little mending and alteration – a little cleansing and purifying – a little painting and patching – a little whitewashing and varnishing – a little turning over a new leaf and putting on a new outside that is needed. It is the bringing in of something altogether new – the planting within us of a new nature, a new being – a new principle – a new mind. This alone, and nothing less than this, will ever meet the necessities of person’s soul. We need not merely a new skin, but a new heart.

~ J.C. Ryle

Stay or Go?

2012-02-24T09:33:00.000-05:00

Should one stay in churches that affirm beliefs and behaviors that stand opposed to the cross of Christ? Should we remain in such an association in order to work against their delusions and possibly help them change course?

It probably depends on the matter in question, but for those who are deciding what to do in the face of today's watershed theological and social issues, I like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's answer: “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”

Know and Believe God's Word

2012-02-22T09:55:00.003-05:00

Greg Beale's, A New Testament Biblical Theology, scores big points with his perceptive analysis of the ongoing deceptions afflicting the church today. Besides the errors of Adam and Eve and Israel, where they refused to simply trust the truth of God as He spoke, there is the church's continuing failure to simply do what we know . . . be what we profess . . . act on what we say we believe. In spite of all of our knowledge, we still prefer the lie. We still refuse to change our minds, our hearts, our lives. He concludes chapter seven with application for where we live:

The heart of the matter is this: do Christians know God's word, do they believe it, and do they do it? If not, then the lies of the evil one will slip into our lives and churches ever so subtly. When this happens and the process goes unchecked and uncorrected, then the deceptions begin to pour in like an overflowing river (cf. Rev 12:15) . . . Do Christian families make God's word the center of their homes? Do pastors set aside sufficient time to study God's word in preparation for Sunday sermons in order to "be diligent to present yourself approved to God as workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth" (2 Tim 2:15)? If not, then the false teaching of those "who have gone astray from the truth" will make inroads into the church (2 Tim 2:18). (223)

Never grow weary of reading your Bible

2012-02-22T09:28:00.000-05:00

Let's heed Bishop Ryle and never grow weary of the slow, steady, growth that comes from the daily, disciplined, increasing, love affair with reading the Bible.

Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced.
Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible-reading. (J. C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 136)

Not by sight, but by faith

2012-01-20T13:09:00.002-05:00

By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
A group of conservative evangelical leaders met in Texas last weekend and endorsed a Roman Catholic for president. Given the history of evangelical antipathy toward the theological underpinnings of the Roman Catholic Church, that in itself signals a remarkable evolution (pardon the word), along with a considerable amount of political pragmatism.
The blessing of what was once called the “Religious Right” fell on the once-married Rick Santorum and not the thrice married and more recent convert to Catholicism, Newt Gingrich.
The endorsement came on the same weekend when Tebow-mania was at its height, as were the ratings for CBS, which carried the Denver Broncos-New England Patriots football game. Tebow’s Broncos were crushed by the superior and less openly religious Patriots.
Despite evidence that politics (and sports) cannot deliver America from its collective sins, evangelicals repeatedly search for an earthly savior. So desperate are they to find this deliverer that they have glommed onto the Catholic Santorum, a man whose religion many of them vilify and hold in utter contempt, in hopes of trumpeting their conservative values and faith-based initiatives in the coming election. In so doing, they make a mistake their Scriptures warn against.
The Kingdom of God functions best, said the One who ought to know, when it is invisible, or hidden. In his numerous parables, Jesus spoke of it being like a treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44), or as tiny as a mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32). As for prayer, He said to do that privately, not in public “…like the hypocrites...” (Matthew 6:5-6)
Those who spend a lot of time arguing for the inerrancy of Scripture seem to gloss over these instructions when it comes to politics and football.
Why do many evangelicals feel the need to see their faith on public display? Are they that insecure about the One in whom they claim to believe? His Apostle, Paul, said, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) Was he kidding?
I’m sure Tim Tebow is as fine a man as everyone says he is; everyone except Bill Maher and other “apatheist” detractors. But the Jesus about whom Tebow frequently speaks and to whom he drops to one knee to publicly praise, said to go into your closet and pray in secret and then your prayers will be heard.
The point has been made by several commentators that God also loves players on the losing side of games (and elections), so why don’t losers praise Him and we them? Just asking.
Something else evangelicals gloss over. Scripture says all authority comes from God and He puts people in power who serve His purposes, not ours. There are too many verses to cite here. Look it up.
For those who claim to believe the Bible is “the Word of God,” it means God has a purpose for President Obama being in office. Evangelicals may not like it and many may not vote for him, but they can’t credibly deny this truth. In the ultimate church-state moment, Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” Jesus responded that Pilate would not have that power had God not given it to him. (John 19:11) Case closed.
American Christianity is unique and the antithesis of what the faith looks like in much of the world. Elsewhere, Christians pay a high price for their faith. Some are denied their freedom, some are denied jobs and still others are denied their lives. Christian missionaries labor for low pay, receive little recognition and are often persecuted. Jesus said those who are greatest on Earth will be least in Heaven and vice versa. (Matthew 19:30)
Righteousness doesn’t come from the top, but from the bottom. A nation that focuses on money and pleasure will get political leadership that reflects that idolatry. The list of great nations that have collapsed throughout history is a long one. Self-indulgence toppled most of them. Invading armies merely finished the process.
Instead of intensely focusing on football and the next election, perhaps evangelicals ought to pray more; in private, of course, and with the right motives.
(C) 2012 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Heartbeat

2011-09-23T13:08:00.006-04:00

I do not count my life . . . as precious to myself,

if only I may finish my course and . . . testify to the gospel of the grace of God. — Acts 20:24

Quoting someone: “The world cannot be reached in absentia. Sooner or later somebody has to go.” But now it's time to add, “. . . and sooner or later somebody has to stay there!”

Going means little unless missionaries stay where they go. That should be obvious, but herein lies a possible danger. It is the idea that short-term—that is short-stay missions is some sort of magical, new-found key for reaching the world for Christ. It is the idea that individuals and churches have somehow discharged their Great Commission responsibility with their short-term people and programs. There are now those churches who have almost completely stopped sending or supporting career missionaries opting instead for short-termers.

In reality, short-term missions is not even the key for evangelizing Jamaica! And Jamaica is reached a lot more easily than most. Consider that short-term missionaries are not even an option for many of the unreached three billion people in almost 7,000 people groups. And with many hidden away in approximately 60 “closed” countries, we know that these will remain in darkness without something more—a lot more.

That “something more” is people who finish the course . . . people who begin at the starting line and go all out until they complete the race. They will go by every available means and will stay there, all for the main purpose of testifying to the gospel.

TEAMS in Jamaica is primarily about full-time, lifelong, missionary presence. This describes each of our missionaries. By God’s grace these and those who join them will indeed give their lives for the cause of the gospel. May some who read these lines be among them.

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by Ray Shive. Taken from the current Fall 2011 TEAMS for Medical Missions Vital Signs newsletter. TEAMS missionaries serve in Jamaica, West Indies to strengthen the church through . . .

Teaching ~ Evangelism ~ Aid and ~ Medical Services.

Read the entire issue at http://www.t4mm.org/Newsletters.lsp.

I ARISE TODAY - A Declaration of Saint Patrick

2011-09-23T08:52:00.003-04:00

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness.
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim
In obedience of angels
In the service of archangels
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward
In prayers of patriarchs
In predictions of prophets
In preaching of apostles
In faith of confessors
In innocence of holy virgins
In deeds of righteous men

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven
Light of sun
Radiance of moon
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightning
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me
God’s might to uphold me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me
God’s ear to hear me
God’s word to speak to me
God’s hand to guard me
God’s way to lie before me
God’s shield to protect me
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils
From temptations of vices
From everyone who shall wish me ill
Afar and anear
Alone and in multitude

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul
Against incantations of false prophets
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics
Against craft of idolatry
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul

Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning
Against drowning, against wounding
So that there may come to be abundance of reward
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me
Christ in every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the threeness
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation

From, “How The Irish Saved Civilization - The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe”. This prayer was possibly originally penned by Patricius of Britain. He later becomes Patrick, Bishop of Ard Macha and today is referred to as St Patrick.

No Offense

2011-09-22T13:42:00.002-04:00

by Dr. Dean Curry. Evangelicals have grown not only more tolerant, but also more tolerable. Is it possible, however, to be too inoffensive? One can possibly anticipate the conclusion to be reached, but the way Dr. Curry gets there certainly increases it's force. Read more challenging stuff like this at the evangelical portal of www.patheos.com.

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Recent controversies surrounding Jim Wallis's "What Would Jesus Cut?" campaign, as well as Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, are more evidence that today's evangelicalism is notably different than yesterday's evangelicalism. The markers of contemporary evangelicalism are harder to generalize about than they were thirty or forty years ago. Whether the issues involve theology, politics, or personal morality, today's evangelicals are more diverse in their viewpoints and less likely than their predecessors to draw non-negotiable lines in the sands of culture.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter alerted us to these significant changes way back in 1987 in his book, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation. While Hunter's most recent book, To Change the World, has received considerable attention among Christians, revisiting his earlier work with nearly a quarter-century of hindsight is an especially enlightening experience, and not just because the author was so spot on in plotting the trajectory of American evangelicalism. Drawing upon an early 1980s survey project that targeted "the coming generation" of evangelical leaders—i.e., students at evangelical colleges and seminaries—Hunter anticipated, among other things, that a social agenda would slowly supplant traditional evangelical spiritual concerns. Regarding this shift, Hunter concluded in 1987 that "the significance of this trend is highlighted by the precedent set by liberal Protestant theology in the twentieth century, where the Social Gospel achieved proportions unintended by its original advocates."

Apart from his prescience in this area, Hunter's analysis is perhaps most useful in helping us understand the reasons for change within evangelicalism. Of particular note is Hunter's insightful parsing of the dimensions of "civility," one of modernity's unassailable innovations. The essence of civility is tolerance, arguably the primordial concept of our post-modern age, and a habit now widely embraced by evangelicals. But there is another dimension to civility that Hunter identifies as the inversion of tolerance, namely tolerability, and it is this side of civility that Hunter argues is key to understanding the dynamics of transformation that have taken place within American evangelicalism.

The ethic of civility requires not only that individuals be tolerant of others; it also requires that they must be tolerable to others. The implications of this ethic of "studied moderation" are clear: "Convictions are to be tempered by 'good taste' and sensibility. It is an ethic which pleads 'no offense.' The greatest breach of these norms is belligerence and divisiveness; the greatest atrocity is to be offensive and thus intolerable." The appropriation of both dimensions of civility—tolerance and tolerability—is a major reason why the boundaries of evangelical beliefs have become increasingly fuzzy and uncertain. Besides being tolerant of others, "the critical dogma is not to offend but to be genteel . . . in social relations," with the consequence that the contents of traditional evangelical theology and ethics that are offensive in the prevailing cultural zeitgeist are deemphasized. "Anything," writes Hunter, "that hints of moral or religious absolutism and intolerance is underplayed." Indeed, having appropriated civility as a central component of Christian theology, evangelicals face "tremendous social constraints to be less strict, less fanatical, more open-minded, and so on."

It is difficult, of course, to generalize about a sub-culture as large and diverse as American evangelicalism. But anyone familiar with the landscape of contemporary evangelicalism has to be struck by the precision and accuracy of Hunter's 1987 analysis. In fact, when reading Hunter's 1987 book, one has to remind oneself that he was writing a piece of academic sociology, not a prophetic tome. Hunter's 1980s "coming generation" of evangelicals is American evangelicalism today: From the evangelical families in the pews, to the evangelical bloggers, para-church leaders, college professors, and pastors. And true to Hunter's map, among a growing number of these evangelicals, especially their leaders, old, time-worn themes such as hell, homosexuality, abortion, and cultural line-drawing are only faintly heard, while less offensive, genteel themes that often reflect a soft universalism, attention to an agenda of social justice concerns, and an aversion to "offensive" line-drawing are privileged.

It is, to be sure, more complicated than that. And yet, those who care about maintaining the historic boundaries of orthodoxy would be wise not to ignore Hunter's conclusion that although "the evangelical life-world . . . has not gone as far as the modernists in Protestantism, the process is identical."

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Dean C. Curry is director of the College Honors Program and professor of politics at Messiah College.

10 Reasons Why the New 2011 NIV Is Bad for Women

2011-09-21T13:58:00.005-04:00

Being male, if I wrote this I'd probably be in big trouble. Maybe I will be anyway, especially in openly saying that I agree with Mrs. Kassian; agreeing that is except where she says, "Undoubtedly the publishers had good intentions," but I will refrain from weakening her good article by any further curmudgeonry. Please do read her analysis.

By Mary Kassian - The new gender-inclusive NIV was published earlier this year. It contains thousands upon thousands of changes to the Bible's male-gendered language. Having a gender-inclusive Bible appears to be the latest trend amongst cutting-edge, cappuccino-slurping Christian hipsters. Don't get me wrong. I like to be hip. And I enjoy cappuccino as much as the next person. But my biggest beef with gender-inclusive Bibles is that they lack doctrinal precision. If you mess with the words, you mess with the meaning. Respected Bible scholars have explained why inclusive translations such as the New International Version (NIV), New Revised Standard (NRSV), and Common English Bible (CEB) are deeply flawed. If you haven't yet considered their arguments, you might want to check out these Gender Neutral Bible Articles.

Notwithstanding the doctrinal imprecision and blatantly politically-correct translating agenda, there are additional reasons why I dislike gender inclusive Bibles. Undoubtedly the publishers had good intentions, and genuinely wanted to help women, but in my mind, a gender-inclusive Bible is BAD for women. Really, really bad for women! I react to people reading from the new, gender-inclusive NIV the way I react to nails scratching down a black board.

Here are ten reasons why:

1. It obscures the profound symbolism of gender:

Gender has a profound, cosmic meaning. God created manhood, womanhood, marriage and sex to put the love story of Christ and the Church on display. When we mess with the Bible's gender language, we obscure gender's symbolism. We make truths about God and the gospel more difficult to understand.

2. It exalts gender above that to which it points:

Changing the Bible's gender language implies that the Bible's gender language is about us. It's not. The Bible is ultimately not about male and female—it's about Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God. The Bible does not use predominantly male gendered language to exalt men; it uses it to exalt THE man who paid the ultimate price to redeem His Bride.

3. It diminishes the unique beauty of womanhood:

Blurring the Bible's gender language contributes to the blurring of gender distinctions. It diminishes and devalues the unique role and beauty of womanhood.

4. It is less inclusive of women:

Gender inclusive Bibles cast women as "other" rather than part of the collective whole. God collectively named male and female "man" (Hebrew: ‘adam. See Gen. 5:2) to indicate that male and female would share a common condition for which He would provide a common answer. Because both male and female are ‘adam, both are equally represented by the first man, Adam. Both are fallen and in need of a Savior. The good news of the gospel is that both are also equally represented by the Second Man—the Last Adam—Jesus Christ. When God named male and female ‘adam, he had the Last Adam in mind. So when, in order to appease modern sensibilities, we change "man" to something we think is more inclusive," we diminish the theological meaning and exclude woman. If woman is not specifically identified as "man" then how can she be represented by the first man, Adam? What's more, how can she be represented by the Second Man, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ? Gender inclusive Bibles are supposed to be more inclusive of women, but pardoxically, the language theologically does the exact opposite. It excludes women from the collective whole.

5. It demeans women:

Gender inclusive Bibles imply that women are too stupid to figure out that in the Bible, the words "man" and "brothers" are inclusive terms. The male translators have to fix the words for us, since we're not theologically astute enough or bright enough to get it on our own. Quite frankly, I feel like gender-inclusive Bibles insult a woman's intelligence.

6. It patronizes women:

Poor little girls. The translators need to change the words of the Bible so our feelings don't get hurt. Boo hoo. Women are so easily offended. Sorry, . . . but changing the words of the Bible because you think some women might be offended by its language is downright patronizing.

7. It calls God's attitude toward women into question:

Making changes to gender language is based on the premise that God ought to have given gals and guys equal air time. Trying to minimize the discrepancy suggests that God didn't care enough about women to take our feelings into account. The natural conclusion is that He obviously loves his boys more than He loves his girls. The conclusion is wrong. And the premise is wrong.

8. It calls God's wisdom into question:

Poor God. His bad. He needs our help. He wasn't smart enough to get the words right. He obviously isn't as enlightened as people living in the new millennium. We have to step in and update His image, to make the Bible more palatable to woman's modern sensibilities.

9. It encourages further changes to Scripture:

I know of at least one Muslim that is aghast that Christians would have the audacity to tamper with the wording of our Holy Book. And since we're audacious enough to tamper with gender wording for humans, it won't be long till we're audacious enough to tamper with gender wording for God. Translators will undoubtedly feel the need to update God's names so that HE becomes more gender inclusive. Terms like "Mother-Father God," "Jesus, child of woman and man," "Great Source of Being in the Sky" and our "God-Goddess" communicate the concept of a gender-inclusive deity much better than the male-gendered language of the Bible. Don't be naive. I've studied feminist theology long enough to know that naming self leads to naming the world leads to naming god. It's audacious indeed!

10. It leads women away from truth:

I care about women. Deeply. I long to see them experience healing and wholeness in Christ Jesus. I do them a disservice when I apologize for the Bible, fail to embrace its unvarnished beauty and power, and shrink back from sharing the Words that are perceived by some as foolishness and a stumbling block, yet are actually the power and wisdom of God for righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I fail women when I try to make God or His Word more palatable. I empty the cross of its power (1 Cor. 1:17-30).

Gender and gender language is important. It touches on the essence of a woman's identity, the essence of the character of God, and on the essence of the gospel. We get things so very wrong when we think we can improve on the Bible's teaching on gender or the gender language it uses. The big picture informs us that from the very beginning, God's plan for gender has very little to do with us and very much to do with Him. And we need to trust that even if we don't fully understand them, the words, images and means He has chosen to display His glory are not only right, they are also good. Very good! And also very good for women!

A Battle Worth Fighting

I understand that language changes over time, and that translation is not always an easy task. But I am saddened that Christians seem so eager to jump on the cultural bandwagon to update God's Holy Book with inclusive language. I don't think they realize what is at stake. I have had students struggle with understanding concepts about God because their native language did not lend itself to translating/expressing the gendered concepts that exist in the original languages of the Bible. We will lose something very critical and essential if we lose the linguistic concepts afforded us by the gendered nature of English. Retaining gender distinctiveness in our language is a battle worth fighting. There is a great deal at stake.

So ladies, please don't jump on the gender-inclusive Bible bandwagon. Be hip. Be courageous. Be politically incorrect. Insist on a Bible that acurately translates gender language- like the ESV, Holman Christian Standard, or New America Standard. Because in the end, inclusive language, and inclusive language Bibles, are very, very bad for women.

Mary Kassian is an author, speaker and professor of women's studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This column first appeared on her website, GirlsGoneWISE.com. Born and raised in Canada, she lives with her husband in Edmonton, Alberta.

Ten Years Later

2011-09-13T08:22:00.002-04:00

by R. C. Sproul

From the current issue of Tabletalk. I read this with thoughts of Jeremiah's Lamentations and with 3:22-23 the centerpiece of those chapters.

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A full decade has passed since America suffered the tragedy of 9/11. Ten years ago, I repeatedly heard the question raised: “Where was God in all of this? Where was God on 9/11 when the planes crashed into the twin towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania?” My answer then was the same as it is now: God was in the precise place on 9/11 that He was on the day before and the day after. He was on His throne then and continues to be on His throne now because He is the Lord God omnipotent who reigns. He reigns day in and day out in consistent manifestation of His immutable sovereignty. God is immutable, unchanging, even though people and cultures continually change.

When we look at the casualties on 9/11, we see that they were light compared with the casualties suffered in bloody battles during previous times of war. They were light compared to the casualties of Antietam and Gettysburg. They were light compared to the casualties of Hiroshima and the Battle of the Bulge. The victims were few compared to those who were slaughtered in the Holocaust and in the purges under Joseph Stalin in Russia.

But the emotional scars have been enormous in our culture. The most vivid symbol of the changes caused by that cultural crisis may be the lines at airports as people undergo security scanning, an intrusion into their privacy and schedules, before they can board planes for travel. We also see it in the security that surrounds other modes of transportation and public events.

In the days, weeks, and months immediately following 9/11, appealing to God to intervene for the welfare of our country became very common. Suddenly, calls for the separation of church and state, particularly the separation of the state from God, were set aside as we looked to the Creator to help bail us out from the consequences of the terrorist attack on our homeland. Bumper stickers with the request “God bless America” seemed to be ubiquitous.

When two evangelical leaders, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, suggested that 9/11 may have been a divine judgment upon our sinful culture, they were hissed, booed, and shouted down to the point that they issued public recantations. The American psyche has no place for a God who judges people or nations. God can bless us, but God forbid He ever judges us.

We are like Habakkuk, who, in his consternation over the fact that God used a foreign power to chasten His own people, stationed himself in a watchtower, demanding an answer from God as to how He could allow such wickedness to prevail. Unlike Habakkuk’s reaction when God answered that question in His Holy Word, our lips do not quiver, our legs do not shake, our bellies do not tremble, nor does rottenness enter our bones (Hab. 3:16). Rather than repent in dust and ashes before a holy God, we continue to shake our fists in His face, demanding a more benevolent providence from His hand.

But God does not say to us as Americans: “My country right or wrong.” God requires nations as well as individuals to repent of their attempts to be autonomous, sovereign rulers, trying to displace Him. Any nation that seeks to supplant God’s sovereignty with its own is doomed. It is doomed to failure, it is doomed to destruction, and it is doomed to insignificance.

Many things have changed in the last ten years, but some have not. Saddam Hussein is gone, but terrorism is still here. Osama bin Laden is dead, but there still is no peace in the Middle East. Islam has grown exponentially in the West, but it has demonstrated again and again that it is, in fact, not a religion of peace. Its symbol today is the symbol it has had from its beginning — the scimitar or sword. This symbol stands in vivid contrast to the cross, the symbol of the Christian faith. Islam has a theology that glorifies conquest; Christianity has a theology of the cross. In Islam, it is still a virtue to slay an infidel, and this virtue is sought by suicide bombers around the world. But in God’s sight, it is still a virtue to love our enemies and to pray for those who deceitfully use us.

My fear is that we haven’t learned very much from 9/11. On 9/11, ten years ago, more babies were destroyed in the wombs of their mothers than people were killed in the terrorist attack in New York. That destruction continues to this day. The greatest attacks on the sanctity of life come not from al-Qaeda but from those who destroy their young. God will not continue to tolerate any nation that practices that culture of death and barbarism.

What is most tragic is that when we were given a wake-up call ten years ago on 9/11, we pushed the snooze button and went back to sleep.

What Does a Missional Community Look Like?

2011-08-18T13:12:00.001-04:00

"You could actually have a Bible study and be unfaithful to Scripture. So often Bible studies stop [the church]; they don't actually create the church or lead to effective and healthy church. They often think that the goal of the church is the study of the Bible instead of becoming a healthy family on mission . . . We study the Bible and we then come to believe that we should be sharing the Gospel, making disciples, multiplying out and expanding to the point that we reach the nations . . .We shift our thinking about what it means to be the church; that you're always being sent."

We seldom hear or say such things. Possibly because such truth never even enters our minds. Possibly because they are so radical in their inescapable and very personal implications. Possibly also because we are not prepared to take our hypocrisies to the level of blatant profession with obviously no intention of acting on it.

Jeff Vanderstelt does say such things and often. Here's a sample but listen at your own risk:

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/what-does-a-missional-community-look-like

Jeff Vanderstelt is a pastor at Soma Communities, an Acts 29 church in Tacoma, WA. He coaches and trains church planters, serves on the Board of Acts 29, and leads the Soma movement in vision and teaching.

Train the Untrained to Reach the Unreached

2011-08-17T10:54:00.004-04:00

I have added the following to this blog because it poses a great question. It is a Priority-of-God's-Word question placed in a very strategic Great Commission context. Darren Carlson of Training Leaders International asks:

Why take the time train people to be faithful teachers of Scripture when untold millions are going to hell?

That is a helpful question for me to wrestle through as I spend a good deal of my time training international pastors and church leaders.

When most people recount the Great Commission, they usually say something to the effect of, “We must go to all the nations and share the gospel.” To that I say amen! But then something strange happens — we stop. So what about the command in Matthew 28:20 to teach? It is what David Sills has called the Great Omission.

Reached Can Move Backwards to Unreached

If we are not careful, those precious people groups and nations that we have deemed to be reached will be moved back to unreached. Why? Because in our need for speed, we have not helped to deepen the roots of faith, and instead of trees firmly planted by streams of water, the church is blown over with just the slightest amount of false teaching. The supposed explosion of Christian faith around the world has left us with lots of Christians and very few trained pastors.

When I say “trained,” I do not mean “gone to school.” Theological training is just part of a discipleship process, and for a pastor it means learning to rightly handle the Bible. Many pastors have been trained by sitting in jail cells, but they still don’t know their Bible. Or they know a lot of Bible verses, but have no idea how they fit together. So this particular training that is needed is deliberate theological education that is God-centered, Christ-exalting, and Bible-saturated.

I have met many zealous Christians who are clearly gifted evangelists but who hardly know anything about the Bible. I have heard of pastors who asked my friend, “When was Jesus converted?” I have heard the strangest sermons you can imagine — no where close to anything Christian. I have a good friend from West Africa whose country is no longer on the unreached list, and yet he admits he knows only a handful of churches in the entire nation where the gospel is faithfully preached.

Four Ways to Be Strategically Involved

As someone who is currently giving his life to training pastors internationally, I'm convinced of the strategic role that training plays in reaching the unreached. Here are a few thoughts about how the Western Church can be involved:

As we are deeply concerned in going to the unreached peoples of the earth, we should recognize the unique impact of non-Western missionaries and seek to train them. These untrained messengers of the gospel often know at least five languages — they just need theological grounding. What is the main point of the text? How does the whole Bible fit together? They need to see where they fit in God’s story of redeeming the nations and we should be committed to serving them.
Send unemployed PhD-holders to the international classroom. Our seminaries and graduate schools stock Starbucks and UPS with highly competent minds. Might instead we consider our brothers overseas and ask, "How will they teach faithfully if they are not trained? And how will they be trained without someone teaching? And how are we to teach unless we go?"
Send your pastor overseas twice a year to work with another organization that is providing theological education to international pastors and church leaders.
Send your pastor overseas for good and free up pastoral positions for seminary graduates. We need men who have been in pastoral ministry to go. Guys in seminary need a place to land. Makes sense to me!

The end goal is to strengthen the existing church internationally with deep truth that will sustain them and equip them to reach the unreached people groups we long to see worship Jesus.

Darren Carlson is the founder and president of Training Leaders International, a ministry that mentors and sends graduate students and pastors to bring theological education around the world.

As reported by Churchleaders.com

2011-08-02T13:20:00.000-04:00

Results of a new Gallup poll show that only three in ten Americans take the Bible literally as the "actual word of God."

Nearly half of Americans say the Bible is the "inspired" word of God, but it should not be taken literally. About 17 percent say the Bible is simply a book of stories written by men.

In 1980, 40 percent of Americans believed the Bible should be taken literally, with only 27 percent taking it literally in 2001. Forty-six percent of those with less than a high-school level education take the Bible literally; only 16 percent of those with postgraduate educations do. (Noted on July 11,2011).

What the “Word of Faith” Movement Is Saying

2011-06-30T10:15:00.022-04:00

I believe that the "Word of Faith Movement" is an heretical plague. ReceiveTheWORD has addressed this in the past so I will just add the following from The Kairos Journal of Thursday, June 30, 2011.

Consider the following scenario. What if someone approached you and told you that “words are the most powerful things in the universe” and that the “natural world” could literally be reshaped by the words that you speak? What would you call such a person? To what worldview would he subscribe? You might rightly think that the person is a postmodernist—someone who does not believe that there is an objective reality that is fixed and unyielding. Or, you might conclude that he practices some form of mysterious Eastern religion that considers the world to only be an illusion. But such guesses, as good as they are, would both be wrong.

So just who might this stranger be? The answer in this case is perhaps shocking: he is a Christian pastor from America who probably appears weekly on a national television broadcast, sponsored by a station near you. Adherents to what is known as “word of faith” theology, these pastors or evangelists do not belong to any one denomination or organization. But this loose-knit group is characterized by three common themes in their teaching.

Physical healing. The belief that physical healing from sickness and disease is available at all times to believers takes on a radical new meaning in the hands of the “word of faith” teacher. Citing passages such as Isaiah 53:4-5 (“by His scourging we are healed”) and Matthew 8:16-17 (“He Himself took our infirmities”), preachers such as Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland suggest that faith always brings about physical healing. Most of them take the position that physical suffering is evidence of a lack of faith and cannot be God’s will for a Christian. A sick person is thus ultimately to blame for his own infirmity.
Promise of Wealth. A related teaching to the first claims that financial prosperity is acquired by following a simple formula. Citing Mark 10:29-30 as their proof text, “faith” teachers say that the Bible promises Christians a return of a hundred times on any amount of money “sown in faith.” Kenneth Copeland tells his followers that “Every man who invests into the gospel has a right to expect the staggering return of one hundredfold.” This principle has become a centerpiece of the television appeals of leading members of the movement including Frederick Price, Paul Crouch, and Benny Hinn, among others.
“Positive Confession.” The third, and perhaps most shocking, tenet of the word of faith teachers is the doctrine of “positive confession”—an idea which really encapsulates the first two mentioned above. Charles Capps, a former farmer who claimed he received the doctrine by direct revelation, popularized this teaching. Capps asserts that a person’s words literally construct the fabric of reality. “The natural world,” he avers, “is to be controlled by man speaking God’s words. . . . [they are] creative power.” As such, any negative language that a person speaks may usher in that reality. They should never say, “I’m not feeling well,” or else sickness and disease will actually come upon them. Capps’ teaching has been widely accepted in word of faith circles, but it has been retranslated into a new and even more popular format through the preaching of Joel Osteen. In his multi-million seller, Your Best Life Now, Osteen adapts positive confession to include the elimination of negative thoughts and words as a way of activating the power of God.

Why have the “word of faith” teachers attracted such large audiences? Obvious answers include the American penchant for greed and selfish lifestyles. But before critics too quickly (even when rightly) judge the movement and its followers for its serious errors, they should engage in a bit of self-analysis. Perhaps one of the reasons so many Christians are looking to aberrant doctrine stems from the fact that they possess the deep sense that the power of God is missing from the churches they have been attending all of their lives. Heresy hunting is not enough. Defenders of orthodoxy must believe in and practice a religion that is supernatural, or else they run the risk of turning the living church of the Lord Jesus Christ into yet another dead institution of the modern world.

Correct Thinking About Jesus' Commands Is Not Obedience To Them

2011-06-27T15:38:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Parnell writes: In the Introduction to Pastor John Piper's 1979 monograph, Love Your Enemies, he confesses his concern about the hard work of academic reading. He writes:

Every scholarly work on the New Testament is preponderantly an intellectual exercise. The work of thinking which the production of a book like this demands from the author is demanded also from its reader. But because of the nature of the reality with which this work has to do, the necessary preponderance of intellectual work can nevertheless frustrate the goal for which the work is done.
For that reality is and demands far more than thinking. Adolf Schlatter has warned: "Thought can become scholasticism, a mere jangle of words, if the concept replaces the essence, or dogma replaces reality." The reality from which Jesus' command of enemy love springs and the reality at which it aims is not exhausted by correct thinking about the command.
If a book about this command does not ultimately lead beyond mere thinking to an active realization of what the command intends, then that thinking itself, in all its possible technical accuracy, becomes worthless. "Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge . . . and have not love, I am nothing."

'Love Your Enemies:' Jesus' Love Command in the Synoptic Gospels and the Early Christian Paranesis, a history of the tradition and interpretation of its uses, SNTS, 38, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 3, paragraphing Mr. Parnell's.

What would you do if you were offered 500 million dollars not to read the Bible for a year?

2011-05-24T15:20:00.010-04:00

John Piper gave an 18 minute talk a Lausanne on the importance of the Bible. View and listen here:

How Important Is the Bible?

"I cannot control such a God."

2011-05-24T14:48:00.002-04:00

From Chapter 9 of Reaching for the Invisible God by Philip Yancey.

I have learned one absolute principle in calculating God's presence or absence, and that is that I cannot. God, invisible, sovereign, who according to the psalmist "does whatever pleases him," sets the terms of the relationship. As the theologian Karl Barth insisted so fiercely, God is free: free to reveal himself or conceal himself, to intervene or not intervene, to work within nature or outside it, to rule over the world or even to be despised and rejected by the world, to display himself or limit himself. Our own human freedom derives from a God who cherishes freedom.

I cannot control such a God. At best I can put myself in the proper frame to meet him. I can confess sin, remove hindrances, purify my life, wait expectantly, and - perhaps hardest of all - seek solitude and silence. I offer no guaranteed method to obtain God's presence, for God alone governs that. Solitude and silence merely supply the state most conducive to attending to the still, small voice of God. There is, however, a sure way to promote God's absence. C. S. Lewis sets it out clearly: "Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health, and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers. You'll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal."

Lewis adds that he cannot give advice on pursuing God, having never had that experience. "It was the other way round; He was the hunter (or so it seemed to me) and I was the deer ... But it is significant that this long-evaded encounter happened at a time when I was making a serious effort to obey my conscience."

The Influence of Excitement

2010-12-13T14:42:00.002-05:00

There are some wonderful instances of ordinary Christians, not least the young, who are concerned to preach the whole gospel unabashedly and do good first to the household of God and then, as much as is possible, outside as well. That has got biblical mandate behind it. . . .

My warning would be to those who are coming along and talking a lot about, “I want to be faithful to the gospel, but I also want to do social justice and good works.” My warning would be: it is not just what you do, it is what you are excited about.

If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.

If the gospel—even when you are orthodox—becomes something which you primarily assume, but what you are excited about is what you are doing in some sort of social reconstruction, you will be teaching the people that you influence that the gospel really isn’t all that important. You won’t be saying that—you won’t even mean that—but that’s what you will be teaching. And then you are only half a generation away from losing the gospel.

Make sure that in your own practice and excitement, what you talk about, what you think about, what you pray over, what you exude confidence over, joy over, what you are enthusiastic about is Jesus, the gospel, the cross. And out of that framework, by all means, let the transformed life flow. (Boldfaced text is my emphasis).

– Don Carson, lecture, “Is the Culture Shaping Us or are We Shaping the Culture?” delivered at the CBMW Different By Design Conference (Feb. 2, 2009, Minneapolis, MN)..

This Is Priceless!

2010-10-29T08:51:00.001-04:00

Failure and Success: Not Measuring Up
AW Tozer

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. --1 Corinthians 15:58

It is good to come to the understanding that while God wants us to be holy and Spirit-filled, He does not expect us to look like Abraham or to play the harp like David or to have the same spiritual insight given to Paul.

All of those former heroes of the faith are dead. You are alive in your generation. A Bible proverb says that it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. You may wish to be Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, but remember that they have been asleep for long centuries, and you are still around! You can witness for your Lord today. You can still pray. You can still give of your substance to help those in need. You can still encourage the depressed.

I hope you have not missed something good from God's hand because you felt you did not measure up to Gideon or Isaiah. In this your generation, give God all of your attention! Give Him all of your love! Give Him all of your devotion and faithful service! You do not know what holy, happy secret God may want to whisper to your responsive heart.

"Father, I commit myself to faithfulness today. I don't have the great gifts of these 'former heroes of the faith.' But You've given me life today; You've given me the gifts You want me to have and use; You've called me by Your grace to serve You. I give it all to You today. Amen."

Jesus, Author of our Faith, 72.

"But to deviate from the truth . . .

2010-10-28T09:00:00.004-04:00

. . . for the sake of some prospect of hope of our own can never be wise, however slight that deviation may be. It is not our judgment of the situation which can show us what is wise, but only the truth of the Word of God. Here alone lies the promise of God's faithfulness and help. It will always be true that the wisest course for the disciple is always to abide solely by the Word of God in all simplicity."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted by Eugene Peterson in
A Long Obedience In the Same Direction, page 36.

Would Jesus Use Facebook? Probably.

2010-10-28T08:48:00.006-04:00

With a predictably mixed response to yesterday's blog post I am encouraged with the following from the writings of A. W. Tozer. It reminds me that there are indeed things that matter and then there are things that don't matter at all. What I said yesterday, and maintain today, is that for ME, social networking represents one of the choices to be made in "our painfully intricate civilization". And for ME it is one of those things that "unless [I] get out from under them, they will crush [me] body and soul." After all is said and done, the question, "Would Tozer use Facebook?" or for that matter, "Would Jesus?" might well be answered, "ummmmm . . . probably."

Here's the quotation from Failure and Success: The Things That Matter.

...that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. --Philippians 1:10-11

In life there will be found certain great fundamentals, like pillars bearing up the weight of some mighty building....

The wise man will simplify his life by going to the center of it. He will look well to the foundations and, having done that, he will not worry about the rest.

Life as we know it in our painfully intricate civilization can be deadly unless we learn to distinguish the things that matter from those that do not. It is never the major things that destroy us, but invariably the multitude of trifling things which are mistakenly thought to be of major importance. These are so many that, unless we get out from under them, they will crush us body and soul....

Every believer as well as every minister of Christ must decide whether he will put his emphasis upon the majors or the minors. He must decide whether he will stay by the sober truths which constitute the beating heart of the Scriptures or turn his attention to those marginal doctrines which always bring division and which, at their best, could not help us much on our way to the Celestial City. The Next Chapter After the Last, 11,14.

"Oh God, we are so inundated with distracting things and clamorous voices. Deliver me today from the trifling things and help me to spend every minute of the day on 'the things that matter.' Amen.

[Anti]Social Networking

2010-10-27T15:32:00.012-04:00

I begin here to list reasons I no longer use Facebook. I think these would apply to Twitter, MySpace and other social networking instruments although I have never used them. In any case, this is my own list (not a judgement on anyone else) although it could possibly help to guide - and even guard - others.

1. James 4:14 - For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Computers can take over one's entire life and all too easily. I know enough about myself to be wary. I don't need an easy reason to spend more time at the computer. Somehow I think that, Life consisteth not in the abundance of [Facebook Friends] one possesseth (loose paraphrase of Luke 12:15).

2.1Cointhains 10:23 and 6:12 - All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Facebook is for me - and others - but certainly for me, habit-forming if not addictive. And, "that which I cherish is either an idol or an offering." Two issues here: lack of discipline and idolatry.

3. John 3:30 - He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. For me, Facebook is too easily the gasoline that ignites the spark of self - "me, myself, and I". As Josh Harris put it: " I found that [Facebook] encouraged me to think about me even more than I already do–which is admittedly already quite a bit. Without any help from the internet I’m [already] inclined to give way too much time to evaluating myself, thinking about myself and wondering what other people think of me. If that egocentrism is a little flame, than Facebook for me is a gasoline IV feeding the fire. I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he’s written in his word, not what somebody just wrote on my “wall.”

4. If our brains really do have plasticity and are molded in their processes by the tools that we use, then I certainly don't need something else that has me thinking in "sound bytes" and short little bursts of data. Most media and the internet have retooled our minds - rebooted our mental hard drives - so that we neither concentrate nor contemplate as we have and ought. (Nicholas Carr. The Shallows. Neither do we do it nor can we even if we try. Try sitting down and reading a book for two hours or even an hour or even 15 minutes without squirming and itching to check email or in this case, Facebook. I am conscious that having put this on my blog, you will be one of the few that have read this far - skimed it maybe, but not read it - simply because it's too long and most cannot concentrate that long.

5. Ephesians 5:3, 4 - . . . let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; . . . nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. Unless every "Friend" is oriented to Ephesians 5 and Philippians 4:8 very few set as a benchmark for their posts, "think on these things". Meaning then that it can be and often is a magnet for the filthy and the foul; at the least, inanity, shallowness, superficiality, baloney becomes characteristic. Whether writes it himself or invites or engages in such himself, it is still difficult to police, ignore, or hide others.

6. I resist redefinition of English words and phrases - "friend" for example. Someone has written: "As the saying goes, you are lucky if you have two friends who you can completely trust. Most people on Facebook have over a hundred "friends". By using the term to apply to every most casual acquaintance, we devalue its meaning and encourage fleeting superficial relationships. Friends are about quality, not quantity. Facebook friends accumulation is like checking who caught more fish." Someone has identified a significant number of people with this concern. It is called a fear of an Orwellesque Deterioration of Language. But on top of this, English teachers are tearing their hair out at what texting has done to a young person's ability to spell. And that pales next to other linguistic atrocities. Every time I turn around another noun has been turned into a verb - sourced, if you will. Tell me that this does not impact our language, and I've just referenced two examples (or is it three)?

7. True communication is multi-level and one of those levels is the non-verbal level. They say that 80% of communication happens through body language and facial expressions. I miss out on all that with you if you are just a Friend on Facebook..

8. I have seen the incredulity and felt the scorn of those who learn of my general aversion to the Net and to Facebook especially. And people actually get mad at me - or think I am some nutty Luddite - because I try not to check my email out of the office. This kind of thing confirms my suspicions, hardens my resistance, and prove at least to me how questionable the whole thing is.

9. If nothing else, I would have questions about Facebook because of the circumstances under which it was created, the reasons it was created, and the kind of person who created it. Can any good thing come out of that moral and misogynistic mishmash? At what point was it suddenly redeemed? Did I miss something?

10. Bottom line: the charge from Proverbs 4- Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? An article in The Atlantic by Nicholas Carr

Nothing sinister here . . . is there?

2010-10-22T09:26:00.004-04:00

'Tis the season when manger scenes will be stolen or vandalized, retail employees will be strictly instructed how to greet the holiday shoppers, and bumper stickers enjoin the faithful to “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Stephen Colbert’s 2008 Christmas special might even be trotted out to again remind that Xmas is a term only used by militant atheists as part of their culture war against Christianity.

With respect to the latter concern I will just say that there is nothing inherently wrong with "Xmas" . . . unless, in the mind of the user it is indeed intended to keep Christ out of Christmas or make the term more acceptable to atheists or to the Jewish people.

In fact the use of the letter "X" to abbreviate the name of Christ has been used for hundreds of years – first example in 1551 – in religious writing, where the “X” represents a Greek “chi”, the first letter of “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like “Xtian”, “Christian.” But people unaware of the Greek origin of this "X" often mistakenly interpret Xmas as an informal shortening and many frown upon the term because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.

Will I use the term? Probably not much. And that grates on me as it always does when other silliness or evil co opt perfectly good words in the service of some new insanity.

"Woe is me for I am undone." - Isaiah 6:5

2010-10-20T15:22:00.002-04:00

Unlike Isaiah, in our own "undoneness" most of us have a perverse and inexhaustible ability to reinvent ourselves.

When up against harsh, bitter, undeniable disaster that properly understood has so much potential for our good, we rather rationalize, deny, explain, defend, and excuse, and we do this to our eternal confusion.

Our "lostness" (ESV) shines with blinding incandescence and screams to be recognized for what it is. But somehow we miss it and to our everlasting misadventure and dishonor.

Ten Missional Prayers for the Church Today

2010-10-14T13:56:00.002-04:00

These ten prayer themes appeared some weeks ago in a September 16, 2010 blog by Dr. James Emery White. Click here for Dr. White's blog

Some of these so audaciously highlight the church's shameful self-centeredness, irrationality and self-delusion, shallow thinking, and general misbehavior that they almost take one's breath away! Every one of them shakes me a little but I have highlighted those that most do that:

1. That pastors would see other churches in their immediate vicinity as a co-laborer, not as the competition.

2. That members of churches would see themselves as ministers and missionaries, dying to themselves for the sake of the cause, as opposed to consumers who care most about whether they are fed, ministered to, or served themselves.

3. That parachurch organizations would be parachurch organizations - meaning serving alongside the church while giving the local church the pre-eminence it deserves - and allowing the partnership to reach its full redemptive potential in light of the biblical mandate.

4. That church planters would commit to being a) sent by a church; b) called by a community; and c) eager to go where no one has gone. Instead of a) sending themselves; b) going to where they simply desire to live; and c) remaining blind to the reality that they'll be the 11th McDonalds in a row of ten existing ones.

5. That all seminaries would remember that they exist to serve the church, and that they would serve the church to such a degree that their students would be more on fire to serve and build the local church after they have graduated than before they entered.

6. That those committed to discipleship, and rightly so, would quit pitting it against evangelism as if any emphasis on "reaching out" somehow takes away from "building up", creating a false dichotomy that doesn't exist biblically.

7. That older generations would quit worrying about whether they are being catered to sufficiently, and would become more interested in whether they are passing the baton on to the next generation that is so desperate and hungry for mentoring.

8. That the false dichotomy between a concern for personal or sexual morality, and social justice, would evaporate. Instead, that we would see that being salt and light applies to both concerns: being as concerned for a culture of divorce as much as we are for the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

9. That the pendulum between whether to share the gospel or engage in social ministry would also disappear. That we would see them not as an either-or, but a both-and; we are to give a cup of water and the bread of life, feeding both stomach and soul.

10. That we would understand that lost people are not the enemy, but instead the objects of the Father's heart - and thus, they should be the objects of ours. That we would join the Father as He sets out to find His lost sheep, search for His lost coin, and look desperately down the road for His prodigal son.

Corruption

2010-09-08T13:52:00.004-04:00

(My brother, Dave, and a coworker are currently in Indonesia. The following two blog posts are edited emails. They are lengthy but need to be read and understood by Christians who want to think and act as would Jesus Christ. Highlighting is mine).

If you live in the west, you might think you have to deal with corruption. But you ain't seen nothin’ till you travel to other parts of the world. Here are some real instances to give you an idea of the immensity of the spiritual darkness that has engulfed just one nation – the nation of Indonesia:

· Imagine that you have a serious crime problem. You call the police, unless you live in Indonesia. Even if a murder has occurred, the police will favor the person who offers the biggest bribe.

· Imagine that you are pulled over in traffic by a cop. You must have been speeding or committed some other infraction . . . unless you live where darkness reigns. It would almost always be because the police officer is low on finances and needs to "fine" you so he can pay a bill or have some extra cash.

· Imagine that you have to go to court and stand before a judge. You expect justice to be done. But not where it is always winter and never Christmas, because when Satan makes the rules, the person with the biggest bribe always wins.

· Imagine that you are a college student. You enroll in a course, do assignments, take exams, and get a grade. But not in a land where every vestige of good is in the process of being squelched. Here you cannot pass a course without bribing the professor repeatedly for each exam and for a final grade (even though the professor habitually either doesn't show up for class, or shows up unprepared, or dismisses class after a brief discussion about something unrelated to the content of the course).

· Imagine that you have completed all of your college course work. You naturally expect to graduate. Not in a land where the malevolent tyrant has been eradicating hope. After completing your college course work, you still cannot graduate unless you pay a bribe to the dean.

.· Imagine that you are a college graduate, are sincerely motivated, and want to teach school in a needy area to help the students. You will surely find a job and the government will bend over backwards to help you . . . unless you live where despicable wickedness is the rule. Here you cannot get a teaching position without bribing the local principal. One well-meaning teacher wanted to work in a school in a poor, remote area. But first she had to pay the principal $25,000 (US dollars) just to get the job. She borrowed the money from family and friends and, on her low salary, will spend the rest of her life paying it back.

· Imagine that you rent a house, sign a lease, and even make improvements with the owner's guarantee in writing that when the lease is up you have the first right to rent the house for another period of time. Sounds secure . . . unless you live where the father of lies has written the rules. Here no document is backed by the courts (remember the judges take bribes).

· Imagine that you are stopped at a traffic light and a motorcycle crashes into the side of your car. The cyclist is clearly guilty and must pay his own hospital bills and your car repair bills . . . unless you find yourself at the mercy of the master deceiver. Here the person with the most expensive vehicle is assumed to have the most money and must pay all of the hospital and repair bills, regardless of guilt. If you refuse to pay, a mob will assemble and will attack you.

· Imagine that you are a pastor and your church obtains a legal building permit and construction on your church building begins. The government would never come back to you 2 years later and revoke your permit and forbid you to worship in your facility . . . unless your church is in Indonesia where, if enough neighbors complain, the government will withdraw your building permit and mobs can come and disrupt your service and beat up the pastor.

· Imagine that there are "Christians" in Florida who are burning Korans and you, a western missionary, are appalled at such an act and think it is utterly stupid. People around you would never automatically associate you with such insanity . . . unless you live in almost any Muslim context. There every westerner is believed to be a "Christian" who walks in lockstep with the most idiotic actions that other westerners may take against Islam. For safety, you must hide in your house and wait for days for everyone to calm down before you can reappear.

· Imagine traffic laws . . . Oh, forget that one. The only traffic law in many parts of the world is that the first vehicle to land on a piece of pavement has the right to that spot.

This is the world that Roscoe and I have been in for only 3 days and it absolutely drives us crazy. Imagine what a God of beauty, truth, and order thinks of such a place! Imagine missionaries who have intentionally moved here to devote their lives to bringing the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus to people crippled by darkness. Some bring wives, many bring children, and they will often spend 10, 20 or even their whole ministry lives here.

The next time you need justice and it is properly meted out . . . the next time you are promised something and the promise is made good . . . the next time a government official functions with integrity . . . the next time you are rewarded fairly for your labors . . . remember a nation of 240,000,000 people who never get to have such an experience.

And remember thousands of followers of Jesus who, for centuries, have devoted their entire lives to living in such a corrupt and difficult environment because they are passionate that representatives from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people will worship the Lamb throughout eternity.

Burning Muslim Holy Books - A Missionary Update from Indonesia

2010-09-08T13:26:00.000-04:00

(The following is a slightly edited copy of an email received from my brother who is currently in Indonesia doing some training of pastors).

This update goes primarily to Americans who have mainly known a world and culture that is western and formed by a Judeo-Christian worldview. Though not perfect, to us our world is orderly, just, clean, and pure. That is not the world of Indonesia. I will try to give a taste of but nothing short of visiting this country will really tell the story.

Roscoe and I find ourselves in the largest Muslim nation in the world during Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar. We are learning a lot about Islam by being here, but how can I share those things sensitively, graciously, and yet truthfully?

Let me then say a word about the presence of Islam as a majority religion. In the west, there is a lot of confusion about Islam and the church seems to struggle with a healthy attitude towards Muslims. Much of the concern seems to come from confusion as to where our loyalties lie: are we loyal Americans or are we devoted soldiers of the cross of Christ sent on a mission to bless all the families of the earth?

It's amazing how those two thought systems get mixed in together, producing a sad theology that is effete and is incapable robust Christian discipleship.

Let me be clear: I am proud to be an American and I love my country. This is not Jane Fonda in Viet Nam denouncing the USA.

An illustration of our problem is seen in the fact that many evangelical Americans are ideologically (and even theologically) "pro-Israel" and "anti-Arab" or "anti-Palestinian". In all of that it seems to me that we have given short shrift to the theme of the Bible – that is that God intends to bless ALL of the families of the earth. We seem to have forgotten that our priority as evangelical Americans is not to advance the American flag to the four corners of the earth but to penetrate every ethnic group with the liberating truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Therfore, as Americans we may rejoice when Israel wins a war, or when America invades Iraq or Afghanistan. We may even be able to justify our feelings patriotically, theologically, or geo-politically. But what we may fail to take into consideration is that these military initiatives have huge ramifications among those national Christians and missionaries – especially if they are American - who are making great sacrifices for the spread of the Gospel.

American military initiatives are generally perceived by the Muslim world as Christians on a Crusade (with a lot of the historical baggage that carries). The result is that the work of foreign mssnries is set back. The local missionary here told me yesterday that every time America makes a military move against an Islamic nation, Indonesian mobs roam the streets looking for foreigners to beat up. He has to stay home behind locked doors for a week or more until emotions subside.

Again, I am not taking a position here on American military initiatives; I am merely encouraging us to remember that for the Christian with a heart and mind for Christ’s global purposes there is a lot more to this than patriotic jingoism. We must thoughtfully consider the implications of such initiatives for the more important issue of carrying out Jesus' mission.

An isolated situation like a so-called church in Florida having a day to burn the Quran may seem to many of us as some blip on the screen that is annoying but not something to be given serious thought. But the rioting this week here in the capital, Jakarta, where Molotov cocktails are being thrown at the US embassy to protest the Quran burning, should convince us that the Muslim world is watching this situation and is assuming that this incident reflects the deep animus of ALL Americans toward Muslims as people.

These days in Indonesia has told me that there is a more significant issue confronting our world than planes being flown into towers, road bombs killing innocent bystanders, human bombs walking into restaurants and killing people, and Al-Qaeda spawning terrorism around the globe. All of those are very important being also terribly wrong, but there is something that trumps all of that.

What could be more important? It is the deconstructing of the evil system of religion and worldview that has spiritually paralyzed a huge percentage of our world's population. That is the real concern, and there is a loathsome spiritual being named Satan who gloats over his conquest of so many creatures created in God's image. He is our enemy, infinitely more so than even Osama bin Laden.

Satan has shrewdly engineered a religious system that is so evil, so despicable, that it can completely corrupt every part of a culture where it prevails and can totally immobilize the capacity of the people to think clearly or to respond to truly Good News. This is truly worthy of our concern, sadness, indignation, and yes, anger.

But make sure that your anger is not misplaced or misdirected. Transform it into prayer and action that can be translated into a direct assault of the Kingdom of God against this vile kingdom of darkness that holds people in its disgusting grip.

God, Make Us Desperate!

2010-07-29T09:10:00.007-04:00

A few days ago I [Jon Bloom] listened to a sermon by a man who is preparing to lead a missionary team that will plant itself into one of the least reached nations in the world.

The most optimistic estimates of the number of indigenous Christians in this nation is less than the number of people who attend [my church] on a Sunday morning. A lot less.

Listening to him was like listening to the writer of Hebrews. This man knows what he’s getting into. He’s planted a church in this nation already. The cost to follow Jesus in this nation is high. A good week is when no one in the church has been beaten.

These brothers and sisters are experiencing a “hard struggle with sufferings” (Hebrews 10:32). There are beatings, property plunderings, heresies, divisions, and there is immorality. Most church troubles we read about in the Epistles, they have it.

Listening to this missionary left most of us American Christians wondering if we’d be able to hack it. And that’s unnerving.

The New Testament teaches us that whether or not our treasure is really in heaven is most clearly seen when it costs us our earthly treasures in order to obtain it. But American Christians live in the most prosperous nation in world history and the one in which it costs the least to be a Christian.

This environment can be deadly to faith. It allows false faith to masquerade as real very easily. And its power to dissipate zeal and energy and mission-focus and willingness to risk is extraordinary because it doesn’t come to us with a whip and a threat. It comes to us with a pillow and a promise of comfort for us and our children. The former makes us desperate for God. The latter robs our sense of desperation.

And it’s the lack of a sense of desperation for God that is so deadly. If we don’t feel desperate for God, we don’t tend to cry out to him. Love for this present world sets in subtly, like a spiritual leprosy, damaging spiritual nerve endings so that we don’t feel the erosion and decay happening until it’s too late.

So we must fast and pray for and support the suffering church in the diseases that can set in from harsh adversity. But we must also fast and pray for God to deliver us from the diseases that set in from prosperity. We need him. We can discipline ourselves in various ways. But we cannot manufacture our own desperation. Only God can make us desperate for him.

So God, whatever it takes, increase our awareness of our dependence on you in everything! Keep us desperate for you so that the deceitfulness of sin does not harden our hearts (Hebrews 3:13). In Jesus’ name, amen.

Original Jon Bloom article at Desiring God blog.

What the Book teaches matters

2010-07-09T14:51:00.002-04:00

John Piper often speaks and writes specifically about the absolute centrality of the Word of God. This week the following was posted at www.desiringgod.org.

This fourth post in the Essential Piper Series again spotlights Piper's teaching on this theme. It comes from his sermon, "Building Our Lives on the Bible."

We are a people of the Book. We know God through the Book. We meet Christ in the Book. We see the cross in the Book. Our faith and love are kindled by the glorious truths of the Book. We have tasted the divine majesty of the Word and are persuaded that the Book is God's inspired and infallible written revelation. Therefore, what the Book teaches matters…

There is no salvation from sin and guilt and condemnation and hell apart from faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12; Romans 10:13-17; 1 John 5:12). And there is no other authority besides the Scriptures to show you who Christ is and to give you his Word. So don't leave the Bible, children. Don't leave the Bible, young people. Don't neglect the Bible, dads and moms. Don't ignore the Bible, single people. Under God, the "sacred writings," the Scriptures, are the greatest treasure in the world. They alone make us wise unto salvation through Christ. O don't neglect this Book!

The post stands on its own. However, it is well worth your while to click on "Building Our Lives on the Bible" for the full text of the message.

Bonhoeffer Redux

2010-06-24T08:44:00.011-04:00

It is the 65th anniversary year of the Nazi execution of Detrich Bonhoeffer. He died by hanging on April 9, 1945 at the Flossenburg Concentration Camp for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was 39.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (April 2010, Thomas Nelson), by Eric Metaxas, was selected by World Magazine as Runner-Up Book of the Year. You can read my earlier blog entry: Bonhoeffer: A Conscience Captive to the Word of God.

This is without a doubt in the list of the top five books that I have ever bought or read.

See the World Magazine review at

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16863.

I hope you will buy it also.

Bonhoeffer - A Conscience Captive to the Word of God

2010-06-15T17:37:00.010-04:00

Now I know better, my early training notwithstanding. How I regret having never questioned the then prevailing notion that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the theological bad guys - not only was he supposedly suspect as to orthodoxy but actually an enemy of the Gospel. Thankfully, it is not too late to profit from the life and writings of this man of God.

Truly, if ever a man spoke with a "conscience captive to the Word of God" (M. Luther) - it was Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. This is the title of the very revealing and moving new book by Eric Metaxas (also the author of the seminal Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery).

Metaxas' work is sorely needed, not just for me but for so many others who have been misinformed. Bonhoeffer dared to criticize the politicized cultural "Christianity" of Hitler's Germany (primarily the unbiblical "religious" legalism, fomalism, and Nazi compromise). Metaxas emphasizes - and proves - that Bonhoeffer was not, as some have said, a liberal Christian opposing genuine Christianity. Unfortunately, some English-speaking interpreters of his German letters have unjustly distorted his prison-letters and taken certain phrases -- such as "religionless christianity" -- out of context. To see his genuine love for the whole, unabridged Word of God, please see Bonhoeffer's little booklet, Life Together.

Kevin Williamson wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "Bonhoeffer’s is a story that the most imaginative novelist could not have invented." I can tell you that it actually does read like a novel while also opening up that darkest of times; after all these years his descriptions still stretch credulity: How could these things have ever happened? How could such people exist in a civilized world and how could so many have been deceived? And how is it possible that so many died the grisley and horrific deaths that they died?

But more to the point, how could such a man as Bonhoeffer come to be? And how could he - or anyone - stand as he did against the tidal wave of National Socialism? He was often alone, and very often at odds with the Nazi controlled German Christians Church, misunderstood and doubted even by his own Confessing Church?

This is a book that is "unputdownable", but one that you eventually do have to stop reading, if only because it is well-over 500 pages long! But 500-plus gripping and inspiring pages they are. And besides that, with mind and emotions in overload, the only thing that one can do sometimes is set it aside. For me that was often to turn to the Word of God, to meditate, and to pray.

Bonhoeffer's best known work is The Cost of Discipleship. In the beginning of the 1963 Macmillan paperback edition there is a "Memoir" written by G. Leibholz." In it he describes Bonhoeffer's faith and martyrdom. Here is an edited version which includes some quotations directly from Discipleship:

Memoir

"In his hearing before the Gestapo during his imprisonment, defenseless and powerless as he then was, only fortified by the word of God in his heart, he stood erect and unbroken before his tormentors. He refused to recant, and defied the Gestapo machine by openly admitting that, as a Christian, he was an implacable enemy of National Socialism and its totalitarian demands toward the citizen—defied it, although he was continually threatened with torture and with the arrest of his parents, his sisters and his fiancée… In 1944, when friends made an attempt to liberate him and to take him to safety abroad, he decided to remain in prison in order not to endanger others.

"The last service which Dietrich Bonhoeffer held on the day before his death... 'moved all deeply....' Every Nazi inflicted death was calculated to be gruesome; Bonhoeffer's was no different when stripped naked he put his head in a noose of piano wire. "Bonhoeffer, who was never tried, went steadfastly on his last way to be hanged, and died with admirable calmness and dignity. God heard his prayer and granted him the 'costly grace'—that is, the privilege of taking the cross for others and of affirming his faith by martyrdom."

"How can a man wax arrogant if in this life he shares the suffering of God?"

"Both modern liberal theology and secular totalitarianism hold pretty much in common that the message of the Bible has to be adapted more or less, to the requirements of a secular world. No wonder, therefore, that the process of debasing Christianity as by liberal theology led, in the long run, to a complete perversion and falsification of the essence of Christianity...."

A Christian must be prepared, if necessary, to offer his life for this. Thus all kinds of secular totalitarianism which force man to cast aside his religious and moral obligations to God and subordinate the laws of justice and morality to the State are incompatible with his conception of life.…"

"The life of the spirit is not that which shuns death and keeps clear of destruction: rather it endures death and in death it is sustained. It only achieves its truth in the midst of utter destruction."

"In a modern dictatorship, however, with its subterranean ubiquity and all-embracing instruments of oppression, a revolt means certain death to all who support it. ... The future in modern society depends much more on the quiet heroism of the very few who are inspired by God. These few will greatly enjoy the divine inspiration and will be prepared to stand for the dignity of man and true freedom and to keep the law of God, even if it means martyrdom or death--

"… because they 'look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are seen /are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal." [2 Cor. 4:17-18, 33-34]

"Jesus invites all those that labor and are heavy laden, and nothing could be so contrary to our best intentions, and so fatal to our proclamation as to drive men away from him by forcing upon them man-made dogmas. If we did so, we should make the love of Jesus Christ a laughing-stock to Christians and pagans alike."

----------------------------------

Please read the book. I would loan you mine but I got it at the library.

Joel Osteen and the Glory Story

2010-04-22T10:18:00.004-04:00

Joel Osteen and those who are like-minded continue to deliver a counterfeit gospel that baffles untaught believers, confuses everyone else, while reaping monstrous personal profits. We cannot but be concerned for his soul and for the eternal consequences for all those who advance such deliberate deceptions. These teachings are manifestly far fetched; they do not yield to even basic logic and even superficial comparisons with God's Word serve to expose the error.

Please follow the link to Dr. Michael Horton's article: Joel Osteen and the Glory Story: A Case Study.

Again, the answer to all this - Receive the Word!

"How few there are who die so hard."

2010-04-13T06:17:00.013-04:00

The Difficult Death of Adoniram Judson

Yesterday (April 12, 2010) marked the 160th anniversary of the death of Adoniram Judson, America's first foreign missionary. For 38 years—through imprisonment, torture, illness, deep depression, isolation from family and friends, and the loss of two wives and numerous children—he suffered to bring the gospel to the unreached peoples of Burma.

At age 61 he fell ill for the last time. John Piper recounts those final days:

The only hope was to send the desperately ill Judson on a voyage. On April 3, 1850 they carried Adoniram onto the Aristide Mariebound for the Isle of France with one friend, Thomas Ranney, to care for him. In his misery he would be roused from time to time by terrible pain ending in vomiting. One of his last sentences was: "How few there are who . . . who die so hard!"
At 15 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon April 12, 1850 Adoniram Judson died at sea, away from all his family and Burmese Church. That evening the ship hove to.
"The crew assembled quietly. The larboard port was opened. There were no prayers. . . . The captain gave the order. The coffin slid through the port into the night" (To the Golden Shore, p. 505).

He died in obscurity, but to this day the fruit of Judson's life and death proves the promise Jesus gave in John 12:24: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." As Piper observes,

Today it is estimated that the Myanmar (Burma's new name) Baptist Convention to be 3,700 congregations with 617,781 members and 1,900,000 affiliates—the fruit of [Judson's] dead seed.

What significance does this have for us today? Piper asks the hard question, especially of pastors:

Are you sure that God wants you to be a pastor in this comparatively church-saturated land? Or might he be calling you to fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, to fall like a grain of wheat into some distant ground and die, to hate your life in this world and so to keep it forever and bear much fruit?
[...]
The question, brothers, is not whether we will die, but whether we will die in a way that bears much fruit.

* * *

Read or listen to the rest of John Piper's biography of Judson.

"I Never Made A Sacrifice"

2010-03-20T13:54:00.002-04:00

Today is David Livingstone’s birthday. He was born March 19, 1813. He gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the gospel.
On December 4, 1857, he spoke the sentence that has made the greatest impact on me. It is one of the clearest applications I have seen of Jesus’ words in Mark 10:29-30. Jesus said,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Here is what Livingstone said to the Cambridge students about his “leaving” the benefits of England:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

(Cited in Samuel Zwemer, "The Glory of the Impossible" in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Ralph Winter and Stephen Hawthorne, eds. [Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981], p. 259. Emphasis added.

God's Employment Office Is Open

2010-03-17T10:42:00.007-04:00

Did you know that there there can be zero-percent unemployment for the Christian? There are more than enough exciting work opportunities available in the Kingdom Job Bank.

There’s something positive about this current financial cataclysm. Here’s what I mean: Remember what happened on the day Stephen was stoned? “A severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered, and those who were scattered went on their way proclaiming the message of good news” (Acts 8:1,4). And then later, “Those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message” (Acts 11:19).

Trouble. In fact, a cataclysm of persecution. They were scattered; not willingly, but in fact, the persecution “made havoc” of the church. It cost believers everything.

Cataclysm? Yes, but it was good for the church and good for the Gospel because believers began doing what Jesus had told them to do — “They that were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word.”

Our present cataclysm is not the same as this but it has the same potential. Could it possibly even reset the direction of our lives so that 2500+ languages might have a Bible? Or a flood of Christian workers materialize? Or millions of unreached people hear of Christ for the first time? And could it mean that even short term mission agencies will have a surplus of workers?

It all can happen once we are freed from hindrances and delivered from our excuses. It doesn’t require a cataclysm to do this but such an upheaval sure helps create a situation where it is more likely to be done.

None of us really want the losses caused by this financial downturn, but here it is. Now what? Well, remember . . .

The Kingdom Job Bank is open and they are hiring.

Must You Hear the Gospel To Be Saved?

2010-03-12T09:22:00.004-05:00

This book is coming out in mid-year. It is certainly timely and could possibly be a part of the BIG motivation the Church needs - or individuals in the church need - to get off dead center and into God's plan for reconciling the lost world to Himself.

In our shrinking, pluralistic world, the belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation is increasingly called arrogant and even hateful. In the face of this criticism, many shrink back from affirming the global necessity of knowing and believing in him. (From the advance publication materials).

In Jesus: the Only Way to GodJohn Piper offers a timely plea for the evangelical church to consider what is at stake in surrendering the unique, universal place of Jesus in salvation.

Buy this book in advance by calling 888.346.4700.
You will receive your copy after it is released in July.

Price at Desiring God: $4.99
List Price: ~~$5.99~~

One Way A Very Public Figure Spoke

2010-03-11T15:08:00.000-05:00

On September 13, 1980, Charles Malik gave an address called “The Two Tasks” at the opening of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He was the Lebanese Ambassador to the United States. The message was so seminal that in 2006 (his centenary) it was republished with a collection of essays built around it. What strikes us as he stands to speak is the personal dimension and the public scope of his Christian commitment.

I speak to you as a Christian. Jesus Christ is my Lord and God and Savior and Song day and night. I can live without food, without drink, without sleep, without air, but I cannot live without Jesus. Without him I would have perished long ago. Without him and his church reconciling men to God, the world would have perished long ago. I live in and on the Bible for long hours every day. The Bible is the source of every good thought and impulse I have. In the Bible God himself, the Creator of everything from nothing, speaks to me and to the world directly, about himself, about ourselves, and about his will for the course of events and for the consummation of history. And believe me, not a day passes without my crying from the bottom of my heart, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.

Charles Malik (1906-1987), Lebanon's ambassador to the USA (1945-55), President of the UN General Assembly (1958-59), professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut (1962-76). Quoted from “The Two Tasks” in The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar: Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind, eds. William Lane Craig and Paul M. Gould (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007), p. 55.

The Duty of a Christian Leader Is to Speak Up—Ambrose of Milan (c. 339 – 397)

2009-12-31T09:43:00.009-05:00

Late in the fall of 374, the crowd gathered in Milan’s great cathedral turned their attention to Ambrose, the consular prefect of their province. Bishop Auxentius had just died, and the prefect had come to address the anxious gathering. In his usual eloquence he began to plead with the various Christian factions to put their differences aside and elect a new, strong bishop who would unite the Church—but he didn’t get far, for he was quickly interrupted—and shocked—by the call, “Ambrose for bishop!”

When on that fall morning in 374 he entered the great church to give his speech, Ambrose thought he had come to restore order and ask for the bishops to unite the Church; he had no intention of getting into ecclesiastical politics. When the call came, “Ambrose for bishop!” Ambrose ran out of the building, not wanting any part of this, reminding everyone that he was only a catechumen.¹ But the people insisted, and the governor acquiesced, for, in the oldest of Roman customs, vox populi, vox dei, “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” And so, within the span of a week’s time, Ambrose was baptized into the Church, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as a bishop.

In spite of his “irregular” beginning, or perhaps because of it, Ambrose became one of the most beloved bishops in the history of the Church and one of the four doctors² of Western Christianity. An unparalleled writer, theologian, hymnodist, and pastor, Ambrose continued throughout his episcopacy to care both for his city and for his church. The bishop of Milan was never intimidated by either imperial authority or invading armies. When the Goths invaded his province and captured many, Ambrose gave all of his personal wealth to ransom as many as he could and even melted down the golden vessels belonging to his church to ransom many more. And when Emperor Theodosius I (379-395) massacred 7,000 people in Thessalonica in 390, Ambrose excommunicated him and forced him to perform public penance for eight months before he would ever be accepted back into communion.³

Ambrose stood at the threshold of history, where the Church began moving from the margins to the center, from a persecuted minority to a powerful force not only for personal, but also for social transformation. As a bishop, it was his responsibility to God not to accommodate the emperor or the state, but to speak the truth. In one of his letters to Emperor Theodosius he said:

[I]t is not right for an emperor to refuse freedom of speech, nor is it right for a priest to refrain from saying what he knows is right. . . . The difference between good and bad rulers is that the good love liberty and the bad, servitude. There is nothing so dangerous for a priest in the eyes of God and nothing considered so base in him than that he not speak his mind freely. For it is written, “I spoke of your laws in the sight of kings and I was not confused” [Ps. 119:46]. Elsewhere, we read, “Son of man, I made you a watchman of the house of Israel, . . . ” [Ezek. 3:17].

Today, many pastors and leaders of the Church forget their role as “watchmen over Israel” and accommodate the culture around them, trying to be “relevant,” “non-offensive.” Unlike Ambrose they forget that one of the central roles of the Church of Christ is to be the conscience of the people, of culture, and of governments. Her call is to speak openly, clearly, and without compromise, and to bring God’s message of salvation and transformation to all who hear.

Kairos Journal, December 2009

Iain Murray on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Preaching

2009-12-29T15:14:00.014-05:00

"Preaching is a gift from heaven. Revelation is necessary to understand the vital importance of preaching, and why its absence is a disaster worse than a lack of bread and water.* The advance of the church is ever preceded by a recovery of preaching, and in that recovery the memory of those who have spoken with 'the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven' (1 Peter 1:12) has often played an important part. Eminent examples give light to later centuries."

-- Spoken of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones by Iain H. Murray

in the preface to his book, Lloyd Jones: Messenger of Grace.

*"The time is surely coming," says the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the LORD." - Amos 8:11

Calamity will follow calamity; rumor will follow rumor. They will look in vain for a vision from the prophets. They will receive no teaching from the priests and no counsel from the leaders. - Ezekiel 7:26

"Why I Abominate the Prosperity Gospel"

2009-11-03T20:46:00.011-05:00

Pastor John Piper is very clear as to the nature of the "Prosperity Gospel" and why it must be confronted and decisively refuted.

He points out that it is in reality, "another gospel" (2 Corinthians 11:4; Galatians 1:6).

"It is a tragic thing. People are being destroyed by it. Christians are being weakened by it. God is being dishonored by it. Souls are perishing because of it. And a lot of guys are getting rich on it."

View at: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2069_why_i_abominate_the_prosperity_gospel/

The Text of The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy

2009-10-29T13:22:00.005-04:00

From the Preface of

The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To Stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God's own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

The Holy Word of God

2009-10-28T13:47:00.004-04:00

The Holy Word of God was written by Joshua Drake in 2004. He writes: "I wrote this hymn while in Glasgow under the ministry of C. Peter White at Sandyford-Henderson Church of Scotland. Mr. White regularly defended the authority of scripture and I wrote it as an encouragement to him."

The Holy Word of God:
It is the Christian’s rule
To teach, correct, rebuke and train—
The Church’s priceless jewel.

Let others rule by whim
Their lives from day to day.
God’s children have his Holy Word,
Which gladly they obey.

God-breathed, yet penned by man,
Preserved by arms and art,
The Church has born it in her breast—
She dare not from it part!

Nor could she ever do,
Else truth she could not know,
But set adrift in lies and myth
On wayward paths to go.

Yet we’ve no cause to fear.
God’s promises are true.
The gates of hell will not prevail
O’er those His grace imbues.

So let God’s true Church sing:
Those who His word do love—
Whom, as is written, shall be saved
To join His courts above.

There is a God. You are not Him.

2009-10-26T11:49:00.005-04:00

Think about it.

A Promising New Book Is Coming!

2009-10-26T11:00:00.012-04:00

Following are Don Kistler's pre-publication comments on Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible. It is due out in November and promises to be a great resource to those of us who are Sola Scriptura in our orientation to God's Word. Watch for it in the bookstores or order it from https://store.ligonier.org/.

Sola Scriptura, the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation, is essential to genuine Christianity, for it declares that the Bible is the inspired word of God, the church's only rule of faith and practice. Yet this doctrine is under assault today as never before, both from outside and and inside the church. In manifold ways, both blatant and subtle, the idea is being put forth that the Bible is inadequate for the needs of modern man. Such suggestions represent an attack on the very foundations of the Christian faith.

In this book, several leading Reformed pastors and scholars, including Joel Beeke, Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Ray Lanning, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Derek W. H. Thomas, and James White, unpack the meaning of the doctrine of sola Scriptura("Scripture alone"). They also explain where the attacks on the Bible are coming from and show how those who accept the Bible as God's inspired Word should respond. Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible is a treasure trove of information and a comfort to those who grieve to see the twenty-first-century church wandering away from the safe harbor of the Bible.

A Gentle Question - Why?

2009-09-01T13:23:00.003-04:00

I watched a major league pitcher serve up a ball to a sure-fire home run hitter—a hanging curve right up there in the strike zone—a hitter’s dream. As the pitcher watched his offering disappear into oblivion the camera caught the frustration on his face and his mouthing the one word, “Why?” over and over again. “Why? Why?" In other words, "Why did I throw that pitch?”

As discouraging as it was I’m sure he got over it. But it occurs to me that we all face serious Why questions. And these are Why questions not quickly gotten over; questions that can haunt us throughout life, at death, even into eternity. For Christians it might well be the unspeakably painful Why of a life wasted by disobedience. I’m thinking of the times God showed us His leading and we said, “No.” We had a better idea.

God used a tract to move missionary James Fraser to a life of obedience in Burma. It asked: "If our Master returned today to find millions of people not evangelized, and looked—as of course He would look—to us for an explanation, I cannot imagine what explanation we should have to give. Of one thing I am certain, that most of the excuses we are accustomed to make with such good conscience now, we shall be wholly ashamed of then."

The last sentence haunts me. It means that there will be no defense. No justifying. No other word for our disobediences. No excuse will stand and we will be “wholly ashamed.”

That’s one very big, WHY.”

Does it haunt you? For many it means nothing. Maybe because they believe there can be no regrets once we die. However, I think that our good conscience excuses help explain why North America no longer leads in world missions. It is also why almost 7,000 unreached people groups number more than 50% of the world population.

Closer to home, excuses might account for neighbors, family members, and coworkers who are still unsaved. Or it might help to explain why agencies like TEAMS cannot find missionary home staff and why there is so little interest in career missionary opportunities—little interest but plenty of those good conscience excuses. And sadly, they are excuses that any thoughtful person should be wholly ashamed of now—not to mention then, when Jesus might finally ask us His own Why question.

When Isaiah (6:8) offered himself in response to God’s Who question—”Who will go?”—he never again had to worry about the Why question. Know that God is still asking that question and He will continue to do so until that Day—the Day He finally asks it one last time.

America's Ugly Exported "Gospel"

2009-07-31T11:20:00.004-04:00

Watch an excerpt of John Piper protesting the prosperity gospel and the ugliness that follows when teaching goes beyond Scripture; but then, exulting in God, whose glory shines in suffering.

America's Ugly Exported "Gospel"

In Affliction, Consider Christ

2009-07-02T11:30:00.025-04:00

ReceiveTheWORD focuses on the absolute sufficiency of that Word; proclaiming and proceeding, as it does, from an all-sufficient Godhead. Pastor Joel Beeke's article at the Reformation21 blogpost addresses the perennial issue of affliction in order to show that the Bible is enough. This will serve to move the believer toward godly understanding of and response to such trials. Read prayerfully. Willingly. Thankfully.

For extended reading on this general theme read the following by Philip Ryken - especially Part 3:

The Crook In the Lot Part 1

Two Dangers That Lead To Destruction - The Crook In the Lot Part 2

Why God Allows Suffering - The Crook In the Lot Part 3

What Can We Gain From Calvin Today?

2009-07-01T13:30:00.006-04:00

One answer comes from Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church, Idaho:

We gain, he says, "His rock solid, absolute confidence in the Bible."

He goes on to say that Calvin is not like "a modern day inerrantist who says the Bible is technically true but is still somehow apologetic over the fact. He doesn't have his hat in his hand, trying to persuade someone to please accept him even though he believes the Bible."

"The Bible is not something that takes a test from the world. The Bible is, in Calvin, that which administers the test to the world."

From Cornelius Van Til

2009-07-01T13:14:00.004-04:00

"The Bible is authoritative in everything it addresses, and it addresses everything."

One Hymn's Testimony To the Sufficiency of God and His Word

2009-06-26T13:25:00.006-04:00

If Thou But Suffer God To Guide Thee

If thou but suffer God to guide thee
and hope in him through all thy ways,
he'll give thee strength, whate'er betide thee,
and bear thee through the evil days.
who trusts in God's unchanging love
builds on the rock that naught can move.

What can these anxious cares avail thee,
these never-ceasing moans and sighs?
What can it help if thou bewail thee
o'er each dark moment as it flies?
Our cross and trials do but press
the heavier for our bitterness.

Be patient and await his leisure
in cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate'er thy Father's pleasure
and his discerning love hath sent,
Nor doubt our inmost wants are known
to him who chose us for his own.

God knows full well when times of gladness
shall be the needful thing for thee.
When he has tried thy soul with sadness
and from all guile has found thee free,
he comes to thee all unaware
and makes thee own his loving care.

Nor think amid the fiery trial
that God hath cast thee off unheard,
that he whose hopes meet no denial
must surely be of God preferred.
Time passes and much change doth bring
and sets a bound to everything.

All are alike before the highest;
'tis easy to our God, we know,
to raise thee up, though low thou liest,
to make the rich man poor and low.
True wonders still by him are wrought
who setteth up and brings to naught.

Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,
perform thy duties faithfully,
and trust his word, though undeserving,
thou yet shalt find it true for thee.
God never yet forsook in need
the soul that trusted him indeed

Words: Georg Neumark; Catherine Winkworth translation

Music and Meter: Georg Neumark, Wer nur den lieben Gott - 98 98 98
This hymn tune has been used for more than 400 hymns.
Alfred B. Smith's is a later tune.

Why I Don't Have A Television and Rarely Go to Movies

2009-06-26T07:49:00.001-04:00

I suspect that [others] would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it

- John Piper, June 2009

Should We Still Be Sending and Going?

2009-06-25T14:56:00.001-04:00

As our family prepares to move overseas, we sometimes encounter this question in one form or another: Is the Western missionary model still legitimate?”

The question stems from a variety of concerns and perspectives, but our basic answer must be “yes.” Even with the high cost of sending and recent shifts in the global Church, it is still strategic and fitting for Western missionaries to cross geographical and linguistic boundaries in the pursuit of new worshipers of Jesus. Here is why I think so:

1. God wants his name to be great in every place as well as among every people.

Though missiologists in the past couple of decades have rightly emphasized the importance of unreached people groups ("nations") as the focus of the Great Commission, there are a number of texts which seem to require a geographic and not exclusively an ethnic focus (e.g. Malachi 1:11).

The Great Commission cannot be fulfilled by only reaching the unreached who migrate to America, or Christ doesn’t receive the glory he deserves.

2. There are still hundreds of remote peoples who haven’t heard the gospel.

Many Unreached peoples are unrepresented in reached cities. In these cases, someone is going to have to cross cultural and geographic boundaries to deliver the message in the flesh.

3. Too little money is given to missions, not too much.

God has blessed this nation with an abundance of resources, yet a staggeringly low percentage of Christian spending is channeled toward missions, especially missions to the unreached.

When God’s people here in America are biblically calibrated, there are plenty of resources both to continue sending workers from the West, and to support indigenous pastors and church planters.

4. In many cases, the Church in the West has something to offer.

With a long history of Christian thought, abundant resources, and relative lack of persecution, the Western Church can often make a contribution in places where the Church is younger and less grounded.

Just as it would be arrogant to think that we know it all and have no need of the global Church, it would be arrogant to sit on our wealth of resources, history, and doctrinal development rather than make it accessible to the world.

5. Crossing cultures is a fitting means for the message.

When Christians from more privileged and dominant-language cultures (such as America), set aside their comforts, rights, and security in order to identify with and minister to people of lesser-privileged cultures and more obscure languages, something powerful and gospel-adorning is communicated.

It is the purpose of God that the incarnational activities of going and identifying illustrate and glorify the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8).

- by Bill Walsh, International Ministries Director, Desiring God

America's Debt To John Calvin

2009-06-25T14:47:00.003-04:00

In this year of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I don’t know of a better place to read about his impact on America than Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures On Calvinism given at Princeton Seminary in October 1898. Kuyper was a pastor, a journalist, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

John Calvin and Martin Luther were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation. Why do fewer people speak of Luther’s culture-shaping impact on America, but for centuries Calvin has been seen in this light? Kuyper argues,

Luther’s starting-point was the . . . principle of justifying faith; while Calvin’s . . . lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. . . . [Hence] Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life.

It is the personal pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty that makes all the difference. This means that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence.” This “fundamental thought of Calvinism” shaped all of life. “It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang.”

For example, Calvin’s doctrine of “vocation” follows from the fact that every person, great and small, lives “in the Divine Presence.” God’s sovereign purposes govern the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone’s work. This yielded the Protestant work ethic. Huge benefits flow from a cultural shift in which all work is done earnestly and honestly with an eye to God.

Or consider how Calvinism breathed an impulse of freedom into modern history. The decisive principle was the sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. A primordial Sovereignty which eradicates in mankind . . . a threefold . . . supremacy, viz., (1) the sovereignty of the State; (2) the sovereignty in Society; and (3) the sovereignty in the Church.

God’s sovereign claim on every person and every sphere of society relativized all other claims. It began with the churches.

The sovereignty of Christ remains absolutely monarchical, but the government of the Church on earth becomes democratic to its bones and marrow. . . No church may exercise any dominion over another, but . . . all local churches are of equal rank.

This impulse of freedom spread to the political sphere. Calvin and his heirs had a strong predilection for republican government—and an aversion to monarchy. A benevolent dictatorship would be ideal in a sinless world. But in a sinful world, it brings the horrors of tyranny. “Call to mind . . . that Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights.”

We ask: Why then did Calvin endorse the death of Servetus for heresy? How was this part of his liberating impulse? Kuyper’s answer is helpful.

I not only deplore that . . . I unconditionally disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal after-effect of a system, grey with age, which Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet been able entirely to liberate itself.

A thousand years of abuses are not thrown off overnight. But the impulses of liberty, flowing from the decisive principle of the all-embracing sovereignty of God, proved to be unstoppable. “Calvinism has liberated Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England, and in the Pilgrim Fathers has provided the impulse to the prosperity of the United States.”

Kuyper closed his lectures with a claim that for many today sounds preposterous. Do not write him off. Get the book Lectures On Calvinism, and test these words, spoken to Americans in 1898.

In the rise of your university education . . .; in the decentralized . . . character of your local governments; . . . in your championship of free speech, and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this . . . it is demonstrable that you owe this to Calvinism and to Calvinism alone.

- by John Piper, June 19, 2009

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" - Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:35).

2009-06-09T10:42:00.016-04:00

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its stories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy.

It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter.

Here, paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of Hell disclosed.

Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully.

It is a mine of wealth, health to the soul, and a river of pleasure.

It is given to you in life, will be open in the judgment, and be remembered forever.

It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

Pray it in. Read it through. Live it out. And pass it on.

-- Unknown source

Please view - click here.

God Has Spoken By His Prophets

2009-06-08T07:58:00.002-04:00

God has spoken by His prophets,
Spoken His unchanging Word,
Each from age to age proclaiming
God, the one, the righteous Lord.
Mid the world's despair and turmoil,
One firm anchor holding fast;
God is King, His throne eternal,
God the first, and God the last.

God has spoken by Christ Jesus,
Christ, the everlasting Son,
Brightness of the Father's glory,
With the Father ever one;
Spoken by the Word incarnate,
God of God, ere time began,
Light of light, to earth descending,
Man, revealing God to man.

God yet speaks by His own Spirit
Speaking to the hearts of men,
In the age-long Word expounding
God's own message, now as then;
Through the rise and fall of nations
One sure faith yet standing fast,
God is King, His Word unchanging,
God the first, and God the last.

-- George Wallace Briggs

What Is Recession For?

2009-05-18T11:52:00.000-04:00

John Piper asks this question in a February 1, 2009 sermon preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church. The following is a brief excerpt.

I will mention five [of God's reasons for this recession]:

He intends for this recession to expose hidden sin and so bring us to repentance and cleansing.
He intends to wake us up to the constant and desperate condition of most of the world where there is always and only recession of the worst kind.
He intends to relocate the roots of our joy in his grace rather than in our goods, in his mercy rather than our money, in his worth rather than our wealth.
He intends to advance his saving mission in the world—the spread of the gospel and the growth of his church—precisely at a time when human resources are least able to support it. This is how he guards his glory.
He intends for the church to care for its hurting members and to grow in the gift of love.

Plenty Of Jobs At God's Employment Agency

2009-03-31T13:47:00.001-04:00

There’s something positive about this current financial cataclysm.

Here's what I mean: Remember what happened on the day Stephen was stoned? We read that, “A severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered, and those who were scattered went on their way proclaiming the message of good news” (Acts 8:1,4). And later, “Those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message” (Acts 11:19).

In spite of Jesus’ parting “Go ye” words still ringing in their ears, most Jerusalem Christians had remained content in their home town comfort zone. What got their attention? What got them moving? What made them obedient?

Persecution. A cataclysm of persecution. They were scattered. Not willingly, but in fact, the persecution “made havoc” of the church. It cost believers everything.

Cataclysm? Yes, but it was good for the church and good for the Gospel because they began doing what Jesus had told them to do — “They that were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word.”

Our present cataclysm is not the same as this but it has the same potential. Could it reset the direction of our lives so that 2500+ languages might have a Bible? A flood of Christian workers materialize? Billions of unreached people hear of Christ? And could it mean that even short term mission agencies will have a surplus of workers? It all can happen once we are freed from hindrances and delivered from our excuses. It doesn’t require a cataclysm to do this but such an upheaval sure helps create a situation where it is more likely to be done.

None of us really want the losses caused by this financial downturn, but here it is. Now what? Well remember . . .

God’s employment office is open and He has plenty of jobs.

Dear Scientific American,

2009-01-20T09:00:00.002-05:00

Thank you for your recent interesting and informative issue, “The Evolution of Evolution.” I agree. Since a priori we know that evolution explains how we got where we are today, we certainly don’t want any religious fanatics to point out any flaws in our presuppositions or theories. It is important to squelch all debate and make sure there is no meaningful dialogue with opposing viewpoints. So thank you for hanging in there. And thank you for all of the info you packed into this issue.

As a researcher in the medical sciences I frequently see inconsistencies in the data supporting an evolutionary model. It is comforting to know we can hide these inconsistencies from the uninformed and safeguard our mantra of tens of millions of years of “…crazy diversification in the variety and complexity of animal life,” time so vast that no one can comprehend and thus no one can challenge either. Brilliant!

I also was relieved to see the article “The Latest Face of Creationism” exposing the creationist agenda for what it is. It is important to vilify these loonies and make sure no one is hoodwinked by their Trojan Horse attempts to get into our schools or to have laws passed for any sort of equal access. Let’s keep our agenda quiet so no one knows that we secretly harbor some doubts but still will fight any attempts anywhere to challenge our right to indoctrinate all students everywhere. (Thank you Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott et al!) The enemy of our young is the free flow of ideas and opportunity to examine all sides of intellectual issues. We must catch them early or if we allow them to think and evaluate ideas and presuppositions we might lose some innocent minds to Intelligent Design. Heaven forbid! There is too much at stake here. If they realized the religious zealotry in our ranks it would not go over well.

Thanks again for this brilliant and revealing issue of Scientific American.

With gratitude

Steve Shive

Steve - aka Rudy Baga - knows that he will probably never see his tongue-in-cheekiness in print, "but it was fun writing it."

I Am His

2009-01-08T11:04:00.001-05:00

I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His.

Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul.

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)

"Thanks to a merciful God"

2008-10-22T15:41:00.001-04:00

I received a letter today rightfully rejoicing in the healing of a loved one - "thanks to a merciful God," said the writer.

Yes it is "thanks to a merciful God." It is thanks also to a faithful God of compassion.

According to Jeremiah it is [always] because of "the mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed . . . His compassions do not fail . . . . great is [His] faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22, 23).

But I am reminded that the perfections of His mercy, His compassion, and His faithfulness remain just a pure and unsullied should there not be a healing.

Job knew that, as did Esther, and as did also the three Hebrew children. (Job 13:15; Esther 4:16; Daniel 3:18).

If that time should come for any of us, may we all have the strong trust to say, "I am not delivered. Thank you most merciful God."

God Is Great. God Is Good.

2008-10-22T14:21:00.006-04:00

Usually part of a childhood table grace, these six words make up one of the most theologically astute prayers a person can utter.

That is, when it is understood.

At first glance, it could be the most theologically problematic. Most of God's perfections, especially His greatness and goodness, seem to be irreconcilable with life's often harsh realities. If God is great then He becomes some kind of monster if he allows human suffering that he could stop. That kind of God is definitely not good. But neither is he very great if in His goodness He would stop or remove the pain yet is powerless to do so.

We have cancer in our family; we have know it for about a week now. We don't know the future because God has not shown it yet - doctors do not have enough data to give us a prognosis or even set out the treatment options. Nevertheless, we are strong. This means that right now the prayer's significance comes precisely at those two points: His goodness and His greatness as they relate to the perennial so-called "problem of pain."

We are realistic. Both of us have run the emotional gamut. We do not accept simplistic answers to big questions and there is nothing cavalier in our attitudes. We know very well what we are up against.

But, neither have we even come close to asking, "Why me?" "How could God allow such a thing?" We ask none of these questions because we know the answer and we are completely satisfied with it's logic and fairness.

What we DO find ourselves wondering is, "Why not us?" "Why not this?" We might even ask, "Why has there not been even more of this?"

The writer, Terry Johnson, points out that we tend to approach the question of pain and suffering from the wrong direction. We get off on the wrong foot by beginning with a presumption of human innocence instead of human guilt. We might ask for example, "Why would God allow this to happen to such a fine person who deserves so much better?"

In Genesis God promised death to Adam and his progeny. Final death is postponed but in the meantime, life consists of multiple mini-judgments; "mini" because they fall short of eternal death in hell. The fact is that every minute that we spend this side of hell is a problem.

In reality, the problem is not one of pain but one of pleasure. Why are we permitted to enjoy as much pleasure as we do and to escape as much pain as we do? Strict justice demands hell. Anything less than that - injury, poverty, hunger, heartbreak, or cancer - is mercy; "stays of execution," as it were.

While we rejoice in our deliverance from hell's final punishment, the residuals of the death that entered the world through one man's sin, frequently remind of both a great deliverance to come and of the glorified bodies that await us in a future eternal state.

For our family then, the bottom line is simply this:

God is great. God is good.

Out of His greatness and goodness He has ordained suffering. Terry Johnson: "That suffering has a purpose and knowing this, we will not be shaken. Our sovereign and powerful God is on His throne, we are in His hand, our circumstances are His doing, and He is working them for our good."

Hmmmm . . . sounds a bit like Job, doesn't it?