A Wannabe Puritan

The Shack and the Function of Narrative

2010-01-20T11:37:00.032-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post on The Shack, I do not intend to spend much time and space critiquing the theological and biblical content of this book. But even this week a member of my congregation asked what I thought of the book. So I do not think I can get away with saying nothing at all, although in that earlier post I linked to several sites that do a thorough job exploring and evaluating the doctrinal content of The Shack.

I found some good things theologically in The Shack. There were discussions of love and relationships within the Trinity that echoed Augustine and Jonathan Edwards, though Young takes those ideas and uses them to ascribe a lack of hierarchy in the Trinity that is simply inconsistent with Scripture -- just the relationship between the Father and the Son in John 17 poses problems for Young. He does very well in describing the sin of idolatry, and he is more honest about confronting evil in this world than much Christian fiction. For all of this he is to be commended.

But anyone who puts these words in the mouth of Jesus has to be prepared for scathing critique: "My life was not meant to be an example to copy" (on p. 149 of the edition I read). Compare Matt 16:24, Phil 2:5, and 1 Pet 2:21-25. Young never explains how Jesus' death reconciles the world to God, places the cultural phenomenon of anti-institutionalism in the mouth of Jesus, and borders on antinomianism and universalism. If he does not sail into the waters of modalism when he says that the Father and Spirit were on the cross with the Son, then at the very least he goes wading up to his knees. The book has big theological and biblical problems.

But my critique, however minimal, provokes an objection that I have heard frequently from those who love and endorse this book: "It's just a story, a piece of fiction. The book is not claiming to teach truth -- it's not a theology book. You are making too big a deal out of it. Besides, people are reading this book and connecting with God." This is probably the most common objection I have seen raised in defense of The Shack.

As I think about this objection, it seems to me that behind it lies one of three notions: (1) narratives do not present propositional truth, or (2) narratives are not subject to criticism regarding the truth they teach, or (3) propositional truth does not matter. Otherwise it is hard for me to see where the objection even comes from.

I will not at this point give a lengthy rebuttal of option (3) except to say that no one really believes it. If my wife says, "Pick up some milk on the way home," and I show up with bread instead and cite in my defense hermeneutical differences, I will quickly find out that propositional truth matters and is knowable. Nor will I engage in a lengthy critique of (1) because any study of history and literature proves it wrong. Margaret Atwood has said, "If you want to preach, write a sermon." But her own work The Handmaid's Tale "preaches" quite eloquently through the use of a science fictional dystopia. Abraham Lincoln famously quipped upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stow, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!" Stowe was the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Lincoln and his contemporaries understood very well what she was saying in that novel. Anyone who read my first post on The Shack knew how I felt about the book by the end of the second paragraph, even though I did not mention the book until paragraph three.

Propositional truth does matter, and novels communicate through the tropes of the genre truths that can be re-cast as propositions. After reading The Shack, I can state with great certainty that there are things that William Young wants his readers to believe to be true about God. And that leaves us then with option (2): narratives are not subject to criticism regarding the truth they teach.

Why do we use narrative? Almost everyone likes a good story. Narratives are universal. They help us develop meaning; we feel that we understand and can come to terms with both joy and suffering if we can place them in a narrative framework. We use them to communicate morality; when I want my daughter to understand a truth that is too complicated for her two-year old mind to grasp in propositions, I use analogies and stories instead. I love to preach narrative because truth comes home in a way that most people find accessible. Truth communicated in propositions can feel cold and bloodless; truth communicated in narrative has warmth and vitality. Propositions describe the world we live in, but our actual experience is a narrative, a story. So narrative has persuasive power that goes beyond intellectual engagement and touches something in the human heart and imagination.

Narrative communicates propositional truths in a way that most people find engaging. People like stories. And so I draw the conclusion that works of fiction such as The Shack are not less susceptible to criticism than theology textbooks, but rather that they should be subject to greater scrutiny because of the inherent power of story. The Shack gains no immunity from theological criticism because it is fiction. Rather we must exercise extra care in reading it because it is a story.

And in my next post I plan to talk about how the story of The Shack is developed.

An Apology for Reading The Shack

2009-12-29T17:05:00.004-05:00

When the book and the movie The DaVinci Code came out several years ago, many evangelicals were alarmed. A myriad of books, pamphlets, videos, and websites were published addressing the errors and correcting the falsehoods in Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel. Willow Creek broadcast a video seminar that churches across the country received via satellite, including one megachurch in our area.

I tried to avoid The DaVinci Code. I have been successful at not watching the film – critics across the country panned it, and the buzz quieted quickly. But too many people from within the church had read the book and had questions about it. As a pastor, I felt an obligation to shepherd the sheep. So I blocked out an afternoon in June 2006 and read the book. Dan Brown’s religious agenda and the fictions in which he peddles are well-documented and obvious. The craft of the book itself is mediocre at best and shoddy at worst. I closed the book and wanted those four hours of my life back. But having read it, I was in a better position to pastor my congregation.

In regard to William Young’s book The Shack, I find myself in a similar circumstance. Only the stakes are higher. This is an enormously popular book among evangelicals. Eugene Peterson’s praise for the book comparing it to Pilgrim’s Progress has been widely cited on the Internet and is printed on the cover of the copy I read. I have been asked for my thoughts on the book by friends, family, and parishioners. I have tried to avoid this book, but as I pastor I do not think I can.

The biblical and theological problems with the book are well-documented. While I have some additional qualms with the book, I do not intend to rehash what others have done. There are some genuine strengths of the book that I want to discuss. But what I most desire to do is to offer a few thoughts about The Shack as a novel, to look at the elements that make a novel such as character, plot, setting, and conflict. At that point, I can offer my reflections on The Shack as a book and my concerns for The Shack as a phenomenon.

Looking back and looking forward

2009-12-24T17:07:00.003-05:00

At last, it feels like I can come up for air. The last two months have been chaotic as I have been working full-time and my wife has been caring for our daughter and her mother. At the same time we have been preparing to move to Richmond, VA, to begin what we pray will be a long and fruitful time of ministry.

Back at the end of October, I had the best of intentions for this blog: a final post or two about biblical interpretation, and a belated review of The Shack that will take at least two posts. And over the past weeks I have had several ideas for blog posts that never materialized, including a post reflecting on Payton Manning, last minute victories, and how we sometimes view the sovereignty of God (which I thought sounded incredibly creative at the time). But it never came to pass.

And now it is Christmas Eve. My family intends to go to church tonight, to have family worship and open gifts tomorrow morning, and to rest and enjoy being each other. In less than two weeks my wife, daughter, and I will begin the drive to Richmond. We have hopes and dreams for what that time will be like. But just as my blogging plans did not come to pass, so also the fulfillment of our plans for life does not always come to pass.

I was reflecting on Galatians 4:4-5 today: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." When the fullness of time had come. Here we see God's intentions, God's plan. And His intentions are not like mine. What He intends comes to pass. And even before the foundation of the world, God intended to send His Son to become one of us to redeem His people and give them eternal life (Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 1:9-10; 1 Pet 1:20-21; Rev 13:8). What God intends comes to pass.

And I find that reality to be a great comfort this Christmas. So I still intend to post on biblical interpretation and The Shack. But not till after I enjoy this Christmas with my family.

May the wonder of God incarnate never cease to thrill your soul. And may you always remember the slain and risen Lamb who is the returning King when you think on the babe in a manger.

Historical and cultural context

2009-10-31T21:50:00.006-04:00

I need to revisit a series of posts in which we were discussing different types of context and how they affect how we interpret texts of Scripture. So allow me to offer some thoughts in regard to the role of knowing historical and cultural context.

I have some reservations about the use of historical and cultural context. The controversy within evangelicalism surrounding I Tim 2:8-3:7 might help illuminate why. I am not going to attempt to enter fully into the debate about gender and roles in the church and home in this blog post. But as a complementarian, meaning that I believe that men and women are equal in dignity but different in roles and responsibilities, I read such passages and see male leadership in the home and church as rooted in creation and redemption. An egalitarian reading understands it as culturally and historically conditioned such that it does not apply the same way today. I become suspicious of any approach to Scripture that uses extra-biblical material to undermine what appears to be the plain meaning of the text.

But having reservations is not the same thing as refusing to make use of historical and cultural context. Another controversial issue illustrates how such information can be helpful. The New Testament never explicitly condemns the practice of slavery, and in some places even tells slaves to submit to their masters (Eph 6:5-8; I Pet 2:18). Slavery in the Old Testament was a means, tightly regulated in the Law, of protecting society against the effects of poverty (c.f. Exod 21:2-11). Practices such as the kinsman-redeemer and Jubilee made Hebrew slavery fundamentally distinct from the American institution of the 18th and 19th centuries (Lev 25:10-55). Kidnapping someone in order to enslave them was punishable by death (Exod 21:16). The apostle Paul’s letter to Philemon also effectively undermines the ability of Christians to keep slaves (c.f. Phm 1:15-17). Knowing that slaves in the world of the New Testament were often educated professionals who earned wages and were entrusted with significant responsibility also helps us understand the perspective from which the apostles Paul and Peter were writing.

The principle that seems to emerge is that historical and cultural context are not determinative for getting at the meaning of the text. What we need is there in the Bible. But culture and history are helpful in expanding or nuancing our understanding. Knowing Palestinian farming methods is not necessary for grasping the parable of the sower (Mk 4:1-20), but it does help bring the story to life. Knowing some basics about Ancient Near Eastern history is not necessary to understand what God wants us to see in 1 and 2 Kings, but it does add an element of concreteness – these things really happened in to real human beings.

Weeks both recent and to come

2009-10-01T07:42:00.002-04:00

There will be a delay before I can continue with the series on context and interpretation. The past week has been quite busy, as the next couple of weeks will be as well...

Last week on September 23rd, I had the privilege of preaching at Adirondack Bible Chapel. You can find the audio for the message here, though I seemed to have some trouble staying behind the microphone on the lectern. The text was Luke 15:11-32.

Last weekend my wife and I candidated with a Free Church in Richmond, VA. It was a great weekend, we made many new friends and enjoyed seeing some of Richmond, and the church is joining us in praying and fasting as we seek wisdom from God for 2010 and beyond.

This week will be spent packing. As much as we have enjoyed our stay in the Adirondacks and come to love the people of Adirondack Bible Chapel, the time has come for us to move on. We will be leaving this Monday to spend a few months with Michelle's family in Bloomington, IL, which we hope will be a time to serve her family and to enjoy the holidays with them.

So it's been quite busy, and will continue to be! Once we are more settled, I hope to continue the series on context.

An example of context in narrative

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

Last time I stated that noticing discourse is helpful not only for epistles, but also for other genres. I thought it might be helpful to present a narrative example.

In Mark 8:22-26, Jesus heals a man in two stages. Many a commentator and teacher has foundered in seeking an explanation, especially given that just a few verses earlier in Mark 7:31-37 Jesus healed a deaf-mute completely and immediately, and in Mark 10:46-52 He heals the blind beggar Bartimaeus. The suggestion has even been made that Jesus healed the blind man of Mark 8 in two stages because a two-stage miracle would have looked more powerful to the Jewish authorities in the cultural milieu of the day. I will comment on historical and cultural context in a later post. But for now let me observe that if we paid more attention to the broader flow of the text, we would come up with a more textually and theologically satisfying explanation.

One trope of the Gospel according to Mark is the “Messianic Secret.” More so in Mark than in the other gospels, Jesus commands those with whom He interacts not to tell anyone who He is. The series of stories in Mark 8 helps us understand why as well as what Jesus’ solution is. In vs. 1-9 Jesus performs a great miracle in feeding the 4000. In vs. 10-13 Jesus confronts the Pharisees, and then He warns the disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees in vs. 14-21. When they do not grasp what He means, Jesus rebukes them: “Do you not yet understand?” Why are you worried about mere bread? Do you not yet see who I am? Are you yet so spiritually blind?

Now they come to Bethsaida in vs. 22-26. Jesus partially heals the blind man. Initially he sees in part but not in full. So Jesus continues the healing and gives him full sight. When we see this healing, what we are seeing is an acted-out parable. Rather than telling us a parable about spiritual blindness, Jesus acts it out in a physical healing. The disciples only see in part, but eventually they will come to see in full who Jesus is. And when they do, it will be because Jesus Himself has granted them sight. It is no coincidence that in the very next passage Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, but then receives Jesus rebuke because he does not understand that the Christ must suffer (Mark 8:27-38). Messiah must be kept secret until His work is completed and they receive spiritual sight. But eventually Peter will understand.

When we grasp the narrative flow of Mark’s Gospel, we are kept from confusion and speculation. Instead we arrive at textually grounded truth that is a great encouragement. Jesus gives spiritual sight. Those that belong to Him can come to Him asking for greater insight into the Word of God, and can ask expectantly knowing that Jesus will indeed give sight to the blind. We can also be encouraged in regard to those who do not have faith in Jesus, who lack that kind of "spiritual sight," that Jesus is able to give it to them even as He has done for all who now believe in Him.

The context of the discourse

2009-09-14T13:34:00.005-04:00

Previously we looked at the importance of linking words, of conjunctions and repeated words that link a passage to its immediate context. In a sense, that is just an example of the next type of context, what I will call the context of discourse.

I should note that this post is getting as close as I am going to come to the discipline of discourse analysis. If discourse analysis were a well, then I have taken only a drink or two from it. But there are insights here into handling the biblical text that are helpful. The basic idea is that even as there is structure to a sentence, so also is there a deeper structure to the "discourse" or "text" that goes beyond the grammar of its component sentences.

What I intend to do is take this basic insight that sentences are placed in paragraphs, and paragraphs in larger units, and these larger units in books of the Bible, and apply it to how we handle the Scriptures.

Every book in the Bible is written to make a point or a bundle of points. Genesis tells God’s people how they came to be and where they are situated in God’s world. Isaiah prepares God’s people for their coming exile and offers the hope of pardon and return, particularly through the Servant. Matthew describes Jesus as the new Moses and the true Israel, and defends the Gentile mission to Jewish believers. Galatians serves as a polemic against legalism.

One of the keys to adequately understanding a particular passage of Scripture is to understand how it functions to advance the argument of its book, or how it functions in the discourse. In other words, we need to ask each passage of Scripture how it relates to what comes before it and after it in the book. This is easiest to see in the New Testament letters. But this principle also holds for other genres.

The apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians is often called “the epistle of joy” because its main theme is taken to be joy. And within this letter, Phil 4:10-13 is a key passage for understanding Christian contentment. But when we understand the rhetoric of the letter, we see that the letter is not simply about joy. In the first chapter, Paul reframes the difficulties that both he and they are experiencing so that they will see how God is being glorified and the gospel advanced through it all. In the second chapter, he exhorts them to work towards unity rooted in service for one another, using not only the example of Jesus Christ but also that of Timothy and Epaphroditus. In the third chapter he warns them against the danger of self-righteousness, using the negative example of the circumcision group and the positive example of his own life, pointing them to the righteousness that can only be found through faith in Christ. In the fourth chapter he begins by begging Euodia and Synteche to live at peace before continuing into the familiar teaching on prayer, anxiety, and contentment.

Paul’s immediate concern in Philippians seems to be preserving unity against dangers from without and broken relationships within. The key to unity is self-sacrifice. The ground of self-sacrifice is having our hope, encouragement, joy, and righteousness in Christ alone. So now we can turn to Phil 4:10-13 and understand better what Christian contentment means. Philippians does not teach that we should be content regardless of our circumstances. Too often this passage is used to teach resignation to whatever happens rather than gospel-centered contentment. There are some things with which we should not be content: broken relationships, disunity, self-righteousness, false teaching, lack of gospel-centered living and ministering. But the people who know Jesus Christ as their all-sufficient righteousness and joy, who are therefore freed to live in radical love and self-sacrifice, will not worry about whether they have plenty or poverty, whether they receive praise or disparagement. Those things do not occupy central stage in their hearts.

Seeing the flow of Philippians and the place of 4:10-13 within the book as a whole can keep us from confusing contentment with resignation. The former is a Christian virtue; the latter, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones helpful reminds us in his book Spiritual Depression, is stoicism.

Children's Bibles

2009-09-06T16:04:00.004-04:00

In this review by IX Marks, several children's Bibles are reviewed by Justin Taylor. Some friends whose theological judgment we trust had recommended The Big Picture Story Bible to us for toddlers, so we bought it and started reading it to our daughter before she turned one-year old. And indeed, it has been everything we had hoped for, with a big picture view of God's plan to bring His kingdom, just enough text but not too much for a child her age, helpful questions along the way, and detailed illustrations that keep both children and adults paying close attention.

But as much as we love The Big Picture Story Bible, we recognize its limitations too. Our daughter is now a very precocious two-year old, and soon we will want more text and more detail from the biblical narrative in the children's Bible that we use. So when we saw a copy of The Jesus Storybook Bible during a recent trip to a bookstore, we took a long look while our daughter ran amok in the children's play area.

And we were impressed. While preserving the big picture storyline of the Bible that culminates in Christ, and offering helpful illustrations, there is more explanation. This will help our daughter learn the Bible stories and connect them to the cross. So when Zondervan asked for bloggers to write about The Jesus Storybook Bible (and thereby enter a drawing for free copies), I was happy to oblige. The Jesus Storybook Bible will be the next Bible we use as our little girl continues to grow.

The importance of linking words

2009-09-06T15:57:00.005-04:00

After a lengthy hiatus, I would like to return to the importance of context in interpreting Scripture. In the last post, I wrote about literary context – the kind of writing in which a passage occurs.

The next topic I would like to discuss we could call linking words. Many churchgoers have heard this heuristic of Bible study: If you see the word therefore, ask what it is there for. And that idea is what I mean. We need to notice linking words that connect a passage with what comes before it or after it. That means noticing conjunctions (and, but, for, since, therefore, although, etc.) and repeated words and phrases.

Noticing these sorts of details is crucial to understanding what the writer of Scripture is trying to get done with the passage at hand. In a talk given at the Worship God 2009 conference, John Piper quipped that he spends two or three years with his students at Bethlehem just helping them see conjunctions. (Yes, John Piper quipped.)

An example should help us see how important conjunctions and repeated words are. In 2 John 1:4, the apostle John rejoices that the Christians he is addressing are following the truth. In v. 5 he writes “and now” (kai nun in Greek), indicating not a new command (entole) but a renewed emphasis on an old command to love one another. John tells us in v. 6 that we love God by obeying his commands, and goes on to say that the command we must obey is to love one another. Many commentators take vs. 4-6 and 7-11 as separate units. But notice that in v. 7 the apostle uses the conjunction “for” (gar) to link our love with the problem of false teachers. Through the use of conjunctions and a repeated word, the apostle is telling us that our love for one another within the church is vital to standing firm as a community against the danger of false teaching.

Noticing conjunctions and repetition will make us better students of Scripture, and it will help keep us from using a passage of Scripture for different purposes than that for which it was intended.

Literary context

2009-08-03T19:56:00.009-04:00

In the previous post, I argued that properly understanding any portion of Scripture requires knowing its context, and that most of our errors in interpreting Scripture would be corrected simply by being aware of context. In this post, I want to begin to look at specific ways in which context aids us in biblical interpretation. Or to put it another way, I want to begin to look at specific kinds of contextual tools.

One helpful way to understand context is to understand in what kind of book the passage of Scripture sits – the genre. We need to know the literary context of a passage. We do this automatically in our everyday lives. Take the words, “Toilet paper.” If those words occur on a grocery list, we respond to them differently than if they occur in a short story or newspaper advertisement. We read a grocery list differently than we do a personal letter, and both of those differently than a novel, and all of those differently than an essay in a journal. The kind of material determines how we read it.

The same thing is true in the Bible. When reading a letter, we will want to see how each passage is developing the writer’s argument, and application will often be more direct. When reading a narrative, we need to keep in mind elements such as plot, character development, and conflict when understanding the themes the writer is developing; application may be imitation of behaviors in the story, but may not be since narrative is fundamentally descriptive. And Hebrew poetry is organized around imagery, meter, and parallelism. It does not flow as a letter or a story, so it needs to be handled on its own terms. And there are other genres as well: legal material, apocalyptic, and so on.

Examples are always helpful, so we will look at Luke 15:11-32, commonly called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, to get a feel for the importance of literary context. Parables are short stories, which means they contain the elements found in narratives such as plot, character, theme, and conflict. In addition, parables describe everyday realities in order to make a moral or spiritual point. On the lips of Jesus, parables describe the kingdom of God.

I have heard Lk 15:11-13 used to illustrate the need for wisdom in parenting and in sharing wealth with children. No doubt many a father needs such wisdom, but using those verses to make that point takes them out of their literary context. A parable is a narrative, and we will not understand the role these sentences play in making Jesus’ intended point until the narrative is concluded and plot, character, and thematic development have been analyzed.

Later in the passage in Lk 15:22-24 the father calls for his restored younger son to be given a robe, a ring, and shoes, and for a fattened calf to be slaughtered for a feast. I remember a Bible study in college in which the leader went to great lengths to connect each of those gifts to an Old Testament passage to show what the gift represented (see for example Hag 2:23 or Isa 61:10). Although the effort was well-intentioned, it was also misguided. If a narrative is going to function as an allegory, with each and every element having a deeper meaning, there are typically clues in the narrative (see for example the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:1-20). While the mistake in the previous paragraph underanalyzes the narrative, this mistake overanalyzes it to find meanings that are not there.

The title “Parable of the Prodigal Son” obscures the reality that the father in the parable has two sons, one who has lived a profligate life but then repented, and one who has lived such a moral life that he does not realize his need for repentance. The parables of Jesus use earthly stories to tell us about the kingdom of God; this parable tells us how God relates to the unrighteous and gently challenges the self-righteous to self-examination, an interpretation the previous two parables confirm (Lk 15:1-10).

Perhaps Tim Keller has a better title for this parable: The Prodigal God. Attention to literary context helps us understand what Jesus meant when He spoke, and what Luke meant when he wrote it down.

Context and reading the Bible

2009-07-24T13:30:00.001-04:00

What is the Bible about? Are there central storylines or themes that tie each book of the Bible together? That tie the whole of Scripture together? And does recognizing such storylines and themes aid us in properly interpreting a given passage of Scripture that we come across during devotional reading, Bible studies, or sermons?

I think that the intuitive answer to each of those questions is “yes.” Most of us have had the experience of having something we have said taken out of context. Just a couple of days ago I was speaking with a friend, and one of us described a headache as “feeling like someone kicked you in the head.” A third person approached us just at that moment and heard nothing but “kick you in the head.” He correctly inferred that he must have missed the context. But had he taken it out of context, he could have come to some awful conclusions about the speaker’s character and intentions.

Taking things out of context can lead to interpretations and conclusions that fall wide and short of the mark. That much appears obvious from everyday experience. So why would we make the same mistake when interpreting a text in the Bible? A paragraph surrounds every sentence. An epistle or gospel or some other genre of literature surrounds every passage. The Bible, the grand story of God working in history to redeem humanity and restore His creation in Jesus Christ, surrounds every book in the canon.

We cannot properly understand any portion of Scripture without placing it in its immediate textual context and its context within its book. Otherwise we will miss what the human author intended. And ultimately we need to understand texts in their context in the whole of Scripture. Otherwise we will miss what the Divine Author intends.

That is a fine sounding idea. In principle I agree. But what should I do when confronted with a particular text? There are several tools we can use to help us, tools we will think about in subsequent posts. But in my estimation (though admittedly limited and fallible), most of our goings astray in interpreting Scripture would be corrected merely by being aware that there is a bigger context into which each passage fits. That may sound oversimplified, but it seems to me to be true. The matter of context seems to be where many a Bible study, sermon, or book goes astray. So just being aware of context is helpful.

God's glory and our joy

2009-07-11T14:07:00.044-04:00

Last night, on the final evening of Vacation Bible School at Adirondack Bible Chapel, I spoke to 20 or so teenagers for about a half-hour on Matthew 13:44.

I hoped they would understand that in Jesus Christ there is more joy to be found than in anything else or anyone else we might desire. We started by thinking about what is most valuable to us, whether a possession, a relationship, or an aspiration. Whatever it is, what is so valuable to you that if you lost it, you would be devastated? And I went on to suggest that there was something to be found -- or someone -- still more to be treasured.

This very brief parable of Jesus has at its center a treasure for which a man sells everything he has. I asked why the man did that. The text tells us: the Greek can be translated "in his joy" (NIV, ESV) or "out of joy for it" (similar to NASB). The point is the joy. He wanted the treasure because of the joy it brought him.

So often when talking to teenagers -- and to adults and children for that matter -- we speak of spiritual matters as if rules and living righteously were at the heart of Christianity. I do not mean to suggest that rules and righteous living are unimportant; but if we think they are the heart of our faith then we find ourselves in agreement with the Pharisees and Judaizers. Or we try to scare kids into the kingdom of heaven through threats of hell. I do not mean to suggest that the threat of hell is unimportant; but the Scriptures present us with more than the option of torment versus non-torment. Or we beat teens over the head with truth. I do not mean to suggest that absolute truth is unimportant (ask someone who has disagreed with me on a point of theology or philosophy about that); but there is a Person behind truth who is Himself Truth.

Ultimately we all do what we desire to do. I think this is a reality Jesus recognizes throughout His teachings and especially in this parable. We all ultimately pursue what we think will make us happy. And that is not necessarily wrong -- in fact I would argue that it is part of how we are made. The issue is not whether to pursue joy and happiness or not; rather the issue is what will actually give us lasting, strong, unshakable, and eternal joy. What I wanted desperately, what I was praying that these teenagers would grasp as the Spirit of God quickened their hearts, is that pursuing joy is okay. But the only place to find the deep joy that our hearts yearn for is by knowing God. God Himself is the treasure for which we joyfully sell everything we have.

But there is a problem. We cannot come up with the payment due to purchase the joy God offers. The price He requires is wholehearted, every-moment devotion to Him. And I cannot pay that price -- none of us can. Not only so, but I am already in debt beyond my ability to repay because of my sin, because I continually look in other places to satisfy the craving in my soul for happiness and satisfaction, thereby alienating the God who created me and earning His wrath. Everyone finds themselves in the same state. None of us can buy the field.

So someone else will have to buy it for us. The Father sent the Son to become a man named Jesus. He lived the perfect, wholehearted life for God that I have not lived. By dying as my substitute, as the substitute for all who turn from their idolatry and turn toward Him in faith, He satisfied God's wrath. He rose from the dead. He paid my debt and credited me with His perfect life. Now the treasure is mine. God's Spirit is now at work in me making me more like Christ and enabling me to know increasingly the joy and love that exists between the Father and the Son.

We were made for joy. Those who trust in Christ have been redeemed and re-created for joy (see for starters Ps 27:4; 37:4; 42:1-5; 63:1-3; 73:25-26; 84:10; Hab 3:16-18; Jn 10:10; 15:11; Gal 5:22; Phil 2:1-3; 4:4-6; I Pet 1:3-9). When we rejoice in God, we declare Him to be that which is most valuable, most lovely, most praiseworthy, most glorious, most satisfying in all the universe. Ultimately God's glory in us and our joy in Him through Jesus Christ are one and the same. Christians have known this through the ages. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You" (Confessions I.1). The 17th century pastor Jeremy Taylor once said, "God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy." The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever" (WSC 1). John Piper has said it so many times: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

This is the type of faith that endures when houses, friends, family, jobs, and even churches are lost. This is the type of faith that does not need to turn to sin for happiness, but rejoices in obedience to God regardless of circumstances. Joy is not optional. God demands it of us for our own good. This is the faith toward which He has been drawing me again over the past two months up here in the mountains. It is the faith I desire for those teenagers. And it is the faith for which I hope you, dear reader, yearn as well.

The gospel and counseling

2009-06-11T14:20:00.013-04:00

In the three weeks we have been in the Adirondacks, we have had the wonderful opportunity to slow down and rest. Marveling at the beauty of these mountains while hiking has itself been a means of God's grace for us. Michelle has already read four books, and if I could ever finish The Death of Death I would also have read four. The people of Adirondack Bible Chapel have been overwhelmingly generous and welcoming, and the staff have been generous with their time in meeting with us for encouragement and counseling.

During our time here I have been reflecting on the relationship between the gospel and counseling. I have long been convinced of the sufficiency of Scripture in the context of Christian community to bring healing and maturity (Deut 8:3; Ps 119: 97-104; Eph 4:7-16; 2 Tim 3:14-17; 2 Pet 1:3-4). But this is a conviction that ministries such as CCEF have been exploring and developing far longer than I. So I have no new or profound insights to offer.

But this central conviction has deepened: whatever the struggle for which the child of God seeks counsel, if the gospel is not central to the solution offered, then it is not a real solution. If the cross is not allowed to critique us and show that we are much worse sinners than we ever thought; if the Savior's death is not presented as the Father's final word about our guilt, forgiveness, and adoption; if the power of the resurrection does not form the foundation of our hope for a transformed life; if the risen Christ is not the reason for our confidence and His Spirit not the source of our power; if the Word of God is not our final measuring line; if God's glory reflected in Christlike character is not our goal -- if those things are not present, then counseling cannot properly be called Christian, no matter what the counselor and the one counseled may profess as their creed, no matter what methodology is applied, no matter how many Bible verses get batted about.

The gospel is my only hope. It does not merely make solutions possible -- it is the solution. It is not a first step on the path to wholeness -- it is the means of wholeness. I must constantly relearn such lessons, consistently preach this gospel to myself, and frequently be reoriented away from other "solutions" to God's solution. I need the cross and the empty tomb -- or rather I need the One who died on the cross and walked away from the tomb who purchased God's grace for me.

On the road again...

2009-05-21T00:19:00.005-04:00

...but this time not on a roadtrip. A Free church in the Adirondacks has opened their hearts and their homes to us for the summer. So we are moving to the mountains of upstate New York to stay with our new friends at Adirondack Bible Chapel.

This summer will give us opportunities to rest, heal, and receive mentoring as we seek God and look forward to His provision for us. There will be opportunities for lots of reading, lots of hiking, and lots of ministry. Our prayer is that by the end of the summer, the Lord will provide sufficient wisdom to know what the next steps are for us in ministry. Please join me and my family in thanking God for His wonderful provision for us through Jesus Christ!

Waiting tables

2009-05-09T09:25:00.014-04:00

After a car trip from New York to Chicago and back that lasted a little over two weeks, and a similar two-week long car trip in December from New York to Florida, my wife and I agree on something: the quality of service at restaurants has definitely declined. Now without a doubt there are plenty of restaurant waitstaff who work hard and try to do right by their customers. We encountered a few of them during those two trips. But on the whole we encountered poor service: indifferent service, extra long delays, significant mistakes made with meals with no offer to make things right.

Those experiences prompted me to reflect on my own attitude about service. It is not a big jump -- the most common word in the New Testament for "service," the word from which we get the term deacon, is used in Acts 6:2 of waiting tables. My initial response to the poor service we received was frustration and irritation. But further reflection led me to wonder: Am I so different? When I am called upon to serve, what is my own attitude?

This reflection was God's grace to me, for I fear that much of the time my attitude is poor, especially when such service is inconvenient or unpleasant. But surely this does not reflect the attitude of our Lord, who gladly served and sacrificed (Phil 2:1-11; Heb 12:1-3). And I have concluded that my poor attitude can only come from loving myself and thinking more highly of myself than I ought -- I value my own comfort and pleasure more than I value others, and particularly more than I value and delight in Christ.

A waiter's motivation for good service is a tip. It is external. And while Christ offers us rewards for faithful service (Lk 19:17), those rewards have their greatest value if we already value the one who gives them. "Well done, good and faithful servant" is most meaningful if we highly esteem the One who speaks the words. And that means that something has to change on the inside, that what I love, value, and esteem has to shift away from me to Someone Else. A tip will not do the trick. My heart must change.

But thanks be to God! He has given us the resources we need through His power by His great and precious promises (2 Pet 1:3-4). He has given me a new heart that wants to serve. He has given me food for my soul in His Word. He has sent His Spirit to dwell in my heart and progressively conform me to Christ's image.

Part of my plan for the summer is to dwell on the excellencies of Christ, and to spend some time in introspection asking God to help me see the idols of my heart, that I might turn from them and exult more fully in Christ. And in doing so, my hope is to become a better servant, someone who gladly waits tables.

Go (mid)west, young man

2009-04-12T09:14:00.004-04:00

With my pastorate at Bethel EFC drawing to a close, my family and I are headed to the Midwest for a couple of weeks. We will see family and friends, and will also attend the Gospel Coalition conference outside of Chicago.

There is something symbolic about this roadtrip. As we literally drive west, we are also driving spiritually into the unknown. Where will I minister next? How long will the Lord have us wait? Will it be an associate or senior role, and if it is an associate then how long before I regularly step into a pulpit again? If there is a long delay before my next pastorate, how will I support my family? Lots of unanswered questions.

But the God whose power and might raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the same God who governs all the days of our lives. In the past few weeks, that has not been merely a pious platitude for us. Today on Easter it is the truth that will sustain us through a painful goodbye with our church of three years. And in the weeks to come it will be the bedrock reality that we will likely cling to for life and sanity.

He is risen! And His Father works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28), even if my idea of "good" does not always resemble His.

Where O Death Is Now Thy Sting?

2009-04-12T09:09:00.004-04:00

Heavy-laden weary soul, bearing up a heart of stone;
His Spirit comes to dwell in you, and Christ the weight of sin assume.
All my guilt is cast on Christ,
and His righteousness is mine.
What guilt should weigh upon my head?
For Christ has cleared it all!

The sum of all my sacrifice, though joyful fails to justify.
I cannot pay for grace that’s free, nor add to work that is complete.
Jesus paid it all for me:
This my ransom and my plea
What debt I labor to repay?
For Christ has paid it all!

Through the law comes sin and death, but faith is counted righteousness.
So I will trust in Christ alone, my debt to pay, my sin atone.
And I’ll stand in confidence,
covered by His righteousness.
What shall become of boasting tongues?
For Christ has done it all!

Where O death is now thy sting? Swallowed up in victory!
The Lord of Glory reigns on high, sovereign over earth and sky.
Yes He triumphed o’er the grave,
and He comes again one Day.
What lesser name shall draw our praise?
For Christ has conquered all!

Christ Has Conquered All, Kristie Brasleton

The image of God redeemed

2009-04-02T12:25:00.041-04:00

Although I have not posted on the image of God in some time, more recent developments with embryonic stem cell research, and continuing concern regarding the Freedom of Choice Act, prompt me to take up the thread again.

In the first post in this thread, I attempted to defend biblically the proposition that all homo sapiens, from conception to the grave, bear the image of God. In the second post, I briefly described what it means for human beings today to bear the image of God, differentiating between structural and functional understandings of the image and pointing to the explanatory power of this portrait of human beings.

In this post, I would like to examine one way that the Bible describes salvation. Although the mirror that is human being has been shattered, God does not intend for it to remain that way. All human beings possess the image of God structurally; none of us fully possess it functionally. Through the cross of Christ, God intends to restore His image in human beings.

Notice that I did not say that no human being possesses the image of God functionally. On the other side of humankind's rebellion against God, there is one who perfectly and fully reflects the glory and being of God: Jesus Christ. This truth lies implicit in the biblical teaching that Christ is fully human but wholly without sin (Jn 8:46; Heb 4:15; 9:14; I Pet 1:19). His nature is as our nature, but without sin; Jesus bears the image as we bear the image, but without the mirror being broken. But Christ as the image of God is not only implicit, but Scripture also teaches it explicitly (II Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). Christ fully possesses the structural and functional dimensions of the image of God.

Why is this reality so important? To cite the popular paraphrase from Athanasius' On the Incarnation 54.3, "The Word was made like us so that we could become like Him." Athanasius himself made clear, as John Piper has helpfully pointed out, that we do not assume God's nature in the same way that the Son assumed human nature. Rather, it is a reference to the image of God that all human beings bear. In becoming one of us, and providing justification for us, Christ removes the obstacles of guilt and wrath (Rom 8:3; Phil 2:7). Having forgiven all believers our sins and credited us with Christ's own righteousness, God now looks upon His people with favor and works on their behalf. Through the work of the Spirit He transforms each of His children so that they are not only credited with righteousness, but also live in righteousness, progressively becoming increasingly able to obey God and display His character. In other words, the mirror is being repaired (II Cor 3:18; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10; II Pet 1:4). And at the end of history, when Christ returns and makes all things new, the mirror will be fully restored and we will perfectly image God even as the man Jesus Christ images Him (Rom 8:29; I Cor 15:49).

This teaching of Scripture on the restoration of the image of God should encourage greatly Christ's followers. Everyone who trusts in Christ is a new creation (I Pet 1:3-5; II Cor 5:17) with new desires to please and glorify God (Rom 7:22; 8:5-11). Yet as Scripture and experience attest, we consistently fail to obey Him perfectly (Rom 7:13-20; I Jn 1:8-10). But the image is being restored and will be fully restored. For someone who wants to honor God, that promise gives much hope. It should also help us see that God's purposes cannot be thwarted. God created everything good, including human beings (Gen 1:31). Human and demonic rebellion may have marred what God has created, but it has not undone His purposes for His world. He will remake human nature not only into something that may not sin, but ultimately that cannot sin.

And it reemphasizes the importance of the image of God for our view of human nature. One approach to undermining the dignity of all human life is to find a basis for human personhood not related to the image of God. But that is not an approach that any Bible-believing Christian can take. The image is so important to God that He describes salvation as its restoration, not just in one or two passages, but throughout the New Testament. Christians need to keep God's image front-and-center in our understanding of human beings. It is that important to God.

Five Questions for Evaluating Spiritual Growth

2009-03-22T14:02:00.004-04:00

In his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever shares five questions he asks when he visits with members of his church to help evaluate their spiritual growth (p. 212). We discussed these questions during an adult Sunday School class this morning, and it was a fruitful discussion. So I am posting them here as well.

In what particular way have you grown in your understanding of the Christian life since we last met?
In what particular way have you grown in your practice of the Christian life since we last met?
In what particular way do you feel that you need instruction?
In what particular way are you disappointed in your own pursuit of holiness?
How specifically can I pray for you?

Catching up

2009-03-19T09:55:00.024-04:00

We were sitting in a booth at a local diner, drinking coffee and catching up.

"I noticed you haven't posted anything at your blog in a while," he said. "You know, you might find it easier to build your readership if you actually wrote something."

I grimaced. "I know." I stared out the window for a moment and sighed. "The whole idea was to post once or twice a week with my reflections on theology, ministry, really whatever I was spending my time thinking about. But with all that has happened in the last few weeks..." I shrugged. "I haven't really known what to write."

"Why? What's going on?"

"You haven't heard?" His forehead furrowed as he slowly shook his head. "Oh boy." I sighed again. "There's no easy way to say it. I've submitted my resignation at Bethel."

His shoulders slumped. "I knew it wasn't going well. But I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Yeah." The waitress came by and refilled our coffee. I took my time stirring in milk and sweetener. "The church wasn't healthy when I got here. It's very tempting, and it would be very easy, to blame things on everyone else. But the last few weeks have given me a lot of opportunities to do some self-examination, some self-questioning. And I've realized that you can be right, but still be wrong."

"What do you mean? You think it was your fault?"

"Sort of. Not exactly." I leaned forward over my coffee cup. "I have no regrets about the decisions or changes we made. Our values and convictions come right out of Scripture. The congregation is hooked on expository preaching now. We've seen people grow in their faith, and several people have started following Christ in the last couple of years. But I can look back and see relationships I should have handled differently, or people I should have made more of an effort with, or how I could have taken a different tone or attitude. I didn't always help myself."

He looked thoughtful. "It sounds like God has been doing some work on you too." He grinned. "Maybe you could have blogged about that."

"Maybe I still will." I smiled. "But it's not an online diary. I needed some time to think and pray. And really I'm still processing things. Add to it that my family doesn't yet know where we're headed... There's been a lot going on lately. But it was time to go. My wife and I had already decided that. We wanted to take things in one direction, and many in the church wanted to go in another. So this is best."

"You'll keep me posted on what happens next, right?"

"As soon as there's something to tell." We both took a drink of coffee. "Did you fill out your brackets this year?" He laughed, and the conversation turned to other things.

Created in the image of God

2009-01-23T11:04:00.016-05:00

Picking up on a line of thought from an earlier post, I intend to explore a little more of what it means to be created in God's image.

Those who believe the truthfulness of Scripture must affirm that every human being reflects or "images" who God is, more than any other kind of created being. We bear His image structurally -- it is "hardwired" into what it means to be human -- and can be seen in our faculties to reason, choose, emote, form relationships, make covenants, work, and create. And before humankind rebelled against God's rule and fell under His curse, we bore His image functionally -- we reflected God not only in what we could do but also in how we did it. Human beings were created good; when God created humans He called His creation very good (Gen 1:31).

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and came under the curse (Gen 3:16-19), the image of God remained, but it was damaged in us. The image is retained in its structural sense -- human beings still have the faculties we had before. But the functional image has been lost. We are not capable of doing the good we ought; we do not live and use our abilities in the God-worshiping, neighbor-loving way that we were created for (Ps 143:2; Isa 64:6; Rom 3:9-20). We could describe it this way: Human beings are like mirrors, created to reflect who God is. But through our sin we have struck the mirror in its center so that it is cracked and broken. It still reflects. But what it reflects is now distorted, the image ruined.

The fact that the image of God remains provides a strong basis for human rights and inherent human dignity. This account of human being also explains better than any other how we can see such great good and great evil at the same time in humanity. We are bearers of the image of the Creator, more like Him than anything else in the universe, and are therefore capable of brilliant accomplishments in the arts and sciences. We carry the image of the Holy One, of whom the seraphim cry out, "Holy, Holy, Holy" (Isa 6:3), who calls Himself Love (I Jn 4:8), and are therefore capable of extraordinary acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. But we are broken and shattered as well, and therefore capable of taking science and destroying life with it, of taking the arts and profaning truth and beauty with it, of acting in extraordinarily cruel and selfish ways.

If we are to bear His image properly once again, we will need to be remade. And broken artifacts do not repair themselves. If human beings are to become all of which we are capable, then we will need to learn to look outside of ourselves toward the One who made us.

The image of God and the unborn

2009-01-23T10:30:00.027-05:00

Many churches across the U. S. observe Sanctity of Life Sunday each year. Typically a Sunday is selected near the date when Roe v. Wade was handed down. Our congregation observed Sanctity of Life Sunday on January 18th; other churches will observe it this Sunday, the 25th. We mourn the death of nearly 50 million children since 1973 because of abortion. We pray for our society to repent. We call our congregations to give their time and their resources to aid mothers facing crisis pregnancies and their unborn children.

Why observe the Sanctity of Life each year? Why does the status of the unborn trouble so many Christians? The answers are rooted in the Bible's teaching about the image of God. The repeated teaching of Scripture is that every human being is created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28; Gen 5:1-3; Gen 9:6; Ps 8; Jas 3:9-10). Whole books have been written on what that means (especially this excellent book by Anthony Hoekema, Created in God's Image).

Those who believe the truthfulness of Scripture must affirm that every human being reflects or "images" who God is, more than any other kind of created being. As such, any assault on this image is an assault on God Himself (Gen 9:6; Jas 3:9-10). This reality provides the soil in which inherent human dignity grows. It is the basis for human rights and the sanctity of all human life.

In another post, I will explore a little further what the image of God means. But in thinking about the Sanctity of Life, I want to go in another direction for now. Every human being "images" God. In this respect we are unique in the created order. Image-bearing is part and parcel of what it means to be a human being. Everywhere the creature called homo sapiens is present, there the image of God is present.

That includes those members of homo sapiens who are still in the womb. From the moment of conception, the type of biological being that has been brought into existence is a human being. The DNA that is present is human DNA. Given time, protection, and nutrition, the human zygote becomes a human blastocyst, which becomes a human embryo, which becomes a human fetus, which in fact is a human infant located inside the womb. What kind of being are we talking about? A human being. The stage of development or level of viability does not change the biological reality that the being is human. And where there is human being, there is the image of God. And where there is the image of God, there is life with inherent dignity, worthy of respect and justice.

The way that God relates to the unborn in Scripture confirms their humanity and dignity. In Psalm 139, David describes God's complete knowledge of him and the intimacy of their relationship. He includes these words: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb... Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them" (vs. 13, 16). Exodus 21:22-25, properly understood, showcases God's equal concern for unborn children and their mothers (see this helpful article regarding the ways this passage is misused to justify abortion). The Spirit of God rested on John the Baptist even in his mother's womb (Luke 1:15, 41-44).

From the moment of conception, the image of God is present. The unborn are fully human, fully image bearers, and therefore fully worthy of respect and justice. Abortion is therefore the taking of human life. Legalized abortion is therefore an assault on human dignity. If the God of the Bible is a God of mercy and justice who cares for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow -- the Bible's shorthand for those people in human society who lack power and resources to defend themselves and seek justice -- if that is what God is like, then that is what His people should be like as well (Exod 22:21-24; Deut 10:16-20; Ps 10:17-18; Ps 82:3-4; Isa 1:16-17; Matt 25:31-46; Jas 1:27).

And that means that Christians must defend the cause of the unborn. And that means that as long as the destruction of unborn human life is legal and is considered a moral, acceptable course of action, our churches need to observe Sanctity of Life Sunday.

Death be not proud

2009-01-16T16:19:00.008-05:00

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

John Donne, Holy Sonnet X

Tomorrow morning I will put the body of a dear friend in the ground. Tomorrow morning I will help a man say goodbye to his wife, children say goodbye to their mother, grandchildren say goodbye to the woman they called Grandma. It will be a holy moment. I am honored to have any part to play in this funeral at all.

Helen lived 84 years on this earth. As I hear the stories about her life, as I gather the facts so that I can deliver the eulogy, I can only conclude that she is a remarkable woman. I use "is" on purpose -- Helen's soul may have been torn from her body by death, but she lives still in the presence of her Savior. She is remarkable. Married 63 years to the same man. Mother to two children biologically and to 23 foster children, two of whom came permanently into her home and were embraced into her family as her own. Faithful servant and woman of prayer. A baker of legendary lemon meringue pies.

I never got to know that Helen. When I met her almost three years ago, Alzheimer's had already gripped her body and mind. But some things run deeper than a disease can reach. Her joy, her stubbornness, her generosity were all plain to see. After six months here, my wife and I realized that Helen was one of our best friends. From her we received an unconditional love that far too often is missing from our churches.

Watching her decline was horrible. For the past few months, we could only pray that God would be merciful to her. Last Saturday, they thought she had a kidney infection. On Sunday her kidneys failed. Early Tuesday morning she was finally at peace. But now her family and friends have to learn to go on living without her.

I hate death. I loathe it with a passion I cannot convey through this keyboard. It is a visceral hatred that only intensifies upon further reflection. My only consolation is that God hates it even more than I do, and that one day Christ will conquer the last enemy and throw it into a lake of fire (I Cor 15:26; Rev 20:14). One day I will see Helen again, and her body will not be wracked by age nor her mind eroded by disease. She will be fully alive, her soul aflame with the joy of seeing her risen, triumphant, glorious Lord.

John Donne was not a Puritan. But his poetry speaks to my soul, and Holy Sonnet X expresses my feelings about death as well as any non-inspired writing. It is of some comfort to think on these words: "Death, thou shalt die."

An unexpected time of rest

2009-01-08T12:10:00.007-05:00

I should probably provide some explanation as to why it has been so long since I have posted...

The week of Christmas is always extra busy, all the more so this year because my family was out-of-town December 27th to January 3rd to visit family in South Carolina and Florida. Although the pulpit at Bethel was filled for 12/28, it was not filled for 1/4. So I spent the short week before Christmas preparing for my sermon on 1/4, planning the Christmas Eve services at Bethel, and holding some unexpected meetings with volunteers that were difficult but ultimately helpful. Christmas morning came as quite a relief for the opportunity to rest (my daughter is not yet two years old, so the idea of getting up before the sun to open gifts has not yet possessed her).

Our roadtrip to the South, as happens with most such trips, was a mix of good times and frustrating times. While on the road, I thought about what to post when we got back. In particular, I wanted to find a clever way to use barbecue -- real barbecue cooked slowly over low heat with smoke for superior flavor -- to illustrate some deep theological point.

We were back on Staten Island on Saturday night. We worshiped at Bethel on Sunday. On Monday night, my daughter came down with stomach flu. On Tuesday evening I did. So far my wife has not contracted it. But even though I have continued to do some reading and study from home, any grander plans have been scuttled for now. Instead much of the week has been an unexpected time of rest, with the high point being the introduction of Jell-o into my diet to supplement Gatorade, unsalted crackers, and toast.

I would write about how the stomach flu has deepened my appreciation of food and drink as gifts from God, or how much more I anticipate the return of Christ and the new body that I will receive then. But honestly my faith has been much more focused on asking God to provide swift healing and endurance, and on seeking to keep Christ as my joy and treasure despite how I feel physically. Sometimes when you are sick, that is as profound as you can get.

A meditation on the Good Samaritan

2008-12-17T20:35:00.022-05:00

I am planning, for the first Sunday of 2009, to preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). As I have read, prayed over, and daydreamed about the passage for the past couple of weeks, I have become convinced of at least four things.

Jesus changes the question that we need to ask. The lawyer asks Jesus the question, "Who is my neighbor?" What is noteworthy is that Jesus never answers that question. Look again at the parable. Does Jesus ever say that the injured traveler is the Samaritan's neighbor? No. But in v. 36 he asks which man "proved to be a neighbor." So the question is not "Who is my neighbor?" The question is this: "Am I a neighbor?" In other words, do I treat those with whom I come into contact in a neighborly fashion? This is a startling question. We dare not ignore any class of people, and we need not go out of our way to find someone to love in the Samaritan way. We need only look at whomever is in front of us. I suspect that if I learned to look at my surroundings this way, I would find plenty of pain and poverty to which to minister.
Proper worship of God always leads to sacrificial, self-forgetful love. This story would have been shocking to Jesus' lawyer listener precisely because it was a hated, half-breed Samaritan who was the hero of Jesus' story. Additional reflection shows how disturbing the story must have been to this Jewish legal expert. The Samaritans were despised for being impure ethnically and religiously. But the Samaritans did have the Mosaic Law. This Samaritan man should have known that he faced ritual defilement if the man died. But he stopped anyway, and in doing so proved himself a better master of the Law than either priest or Levite. If concerns for orthodoxy do not translate to orthopraxy, then we do not really know the truth (Hos 4:6).
A key measure of our love is how we serve those who are different from us. The barriers broken down in this story are probably the most cited features of the parable. But the implications are far-reaching. The Bible study that does not welcome people who are different for fear of disrupting their "fellowship," or the congregation that in a dozen small ways lets the family whose skin color or first language is different know that they are not welcome, or the family that will not say hello to their next-door neighbor because they do not approve of the neighbor's lifestyle... All of these attitudes and behaviors fail the test of the Samaritan way of love.
Jesus Christ Himself is the true Good Samaritan. If all I am left with from this parable are the first three convictions, then I am left with Pharisaism that has replaced one set of laws with another. The reality is that I am the traveler left on the side of the road, beaten and bloodied by my own sin, with no right to expect any help from God. I could not love this way even if I were inclined to try, which I was not until Christ laid hold of me. He loved me and paid for my healing at great cost to Himself, bearing God's wrath in my place and washing me in his blood. Only as a ransomed and recreated being can I walk in the Samaritan way, which is in reality the way of Christ himself.

There is much more to say about this parable than what I have said here (those who attend Bethel do not get to skip the worship service on January 4th by reading this). But as Christmas and the New Year rapidly approach, these are the sorts of things I want to be thinking about for my own soul's sake, for my family, and for my church.

What Americans owe to the Puritans

2008-12-03T17:40:00.002-05:00

This essay at Culture11 gives credit to the Puritans for America's "egalitarian political idealism, our love of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and our human enjoyment and happiness." It is hardly a popular idea, a reality the author, Peter Lawler, readily admits. But I am inclined to agree with him as he sketches the development of education and democracy among the Puritans.

Americans owe much to their Puritan forebears, even if we have turned the label into an insult. Though come to think of it, I believe the word "Puritan" was also an insult in the 16th century (according to J.I. Packer's lectures on the Puritans at Reformed Theological Seminary). So maybe things have not changed so much. Though we have largely absorbed and expanded their beliefs regarding education and democracy, we have left their ideals regarding the communal good behind (an ideal we might want to revisit in light of the current economic situation), and even within the church we shy away from being identified with them.

The essay is worth reading. Check it out and let me know what you think.

HT: JT

Humbled by family blessings

2008-11-21T18:09:00.006-05:00

Earlier this week, my wife and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. A friend from church watched our daughter for us so that we could get away overnight. I surprised Michelle with where we were going: up the Hudson River Valley to stay in a bed & breakfast and enjoy some wonderful food and sights. My joy was fulfilled by seeing her joy in our time together. I often joke that I married above myself -- actually, I am only half joking when I say it. She is kinder, more generous, and more patient than I am. She sees my faults for what they are and loves me despite them. I love her deeply and dearly. I do not deserve a woman as wonderful as my wife.

We chose the name Abigail for our daughter because of what it means in Hebrew: my father's joy. Our hope and prayer is that she will indeed be a joy to her Father in heaven, that she will recognize God's Anointed One, even as her namesake did in I Samuel 25, and place her faith in Him. But Abby is also her earthly father's joy. She is more than I deserve.

Today I drove to Newark Liberty Airport to pick up my wife's parents, who will be staying with us for a week for Thanksgiving. I know some men who have difficult relationships with their in-laws. I do not. I love my father-in-law and mother-in-law, and they love me as a son. My wife and I enjoy hanging out with them and have lots of plans for the coming week. They are more than I deserve.

After Christmas, we are planning on traveling to Florida to see my father and his wife. My mother died when I was in college, and Dad remarried. I know that some children begrudge a widowed parent's remarriage, but my stepmother makes my father happy. They are good together. I look forward to seeing them and spending time together. They are more than I deserve.

I am humbled by the family God has given me. It is all of grace. I hope that this Thanksgiving will be more than a time for football and food. I have much to give thanks for.

Humbled by full atonement

2008-11-13T20:23:00.014-05:00

I suspect that while I am still clothed in mortal flesh, I will never fully appreciate the magnitude of the wrong I have done against God.

R. C. Sproul has helpfully highlighted three metaphors that Scripture uses to describe sin: crime, debt, and enmity. In the first case, God is seen as Lawgiver and Judge. In the second, He is Creator and Creditor. In the third, He is King and Master. Now of course God is Lawgiver, Creditor, and King at the same time. The metaphors are not mutually exclusive, but only offered to help us see our sin problem from a number of angles.

If God is Lawgiver and Judge, then I am lawbreaker and criminal. If He is Creator and Creditor, then I am bankrupt and debtor. If He is King and Master, then I am enemy and traitor. Each perspective helps me understand the nature of my sin problem, and what the cross of Christ accomplished for me. At the cross Jesus acted as my substitute, propitiating God's wrath, expiating my guilt, crediting me with His own righteousness so that I am pronounced "Not Guilty!" before the tribunal of God (Rom 3:21-26). At the cross Jesus acted as my surety, paying my debt, ransoming me from my futile ways, canceling the bill against me, and granting me access to the riches of God (I Cor 6:9-11, 20). At the cross Jesus acted as my mediator, reconciling me to God, making peace between us, and grafting me into His holy people (Eph 2:11-22).

All this was accomplished definitively and finally at the cross. The Scripture never uses hypothetical language to describe what Christ accomplished for me or for anyone who believes at the cross. That which the Father planned is that which the Son accomplished and that which the Spirit applied. The Father chose me and sent His Son to die not a generic death, not potentially for me, but really and actually for me (Jn 10:14-16; Gal 2:20). My salvation was decreed from eternity and securely purchased through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. And as John Owen reminds us, in this secure and completed work are grounded "the assurance of our eternal glory and freedom from all accusations."

I deserve none of this. It is all free, extravagant grace, the opposite of what I deserve. But even this contemplation does not breed the humility that I need to cultivate.

Even if I were able to number every last law I had broken, even if the overdrafts on my account printed on a statement, even if on the duties I owed were spelled out in a job description, it would not be sufficient to help me understand the depth of my problem before God. John Piper has helped begin to get even an inkling of this with the following reasoning: God is of infinite worth and value. Therefore when I do not honor, trust, obey, worship, and delight in Him as I ought, I commit an infinitely weighty wrong. In fact, never in my life have I done what I ought in regard to God. And so the justice of God then requires a punishment proportionate to that wrong.

The more I think such thoughts, the more I meditate on passages such as Isaiah 42:8 -- "I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols" -- the more I see that the apostle Paul did not believe himself to be engaging in hyperbole when he called himself the chief of sinners (I Tim 1:15). The more I see that I was by nature and by choice an object of wrath (Eph 2:1-3). And the deeper that conviction runs, the lower my own self-estimation becomes, and the more precious the atoning work of Christ becomes. Philip Bliss captured it well:

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Humbled by regeneration and calling

2008-11-07T10:42:00.018-05:00

In my preparation for Sunday's sermon, I have been thinking about Romans 8:7-8 -- "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

In his commentary on this passage of Scripture, Martin Luther asks the question, "Where then is man's free will?" The more I meditate on it, the more I think Luther is right. The apostle Paul begins with a sheer statements of fact. Those who are "set on the flesh" (as contrasted with the regenerate person who is "set on the Spirit") have a mindset that is hostile to God. Although some might want to protest that "hostile" is too strong a word, that perhaps we know lots of people who are not Christians who do not "hate" God, the brute statement of Romans 8:7 remains, and it is echoed in passages such as Ephesians 4:17-19 and Jeremiah 17:9. But to the person who continues to protest, the apostle adds the statement that those set on the flesh do not submit to God's law and indeed cannot. There is an implicit question to the one who doubts his own hostility to God: Do you then do what He commands? And there is an implicit challenge: Try doing what He commands. You will find that you will not and cannot.

John Calvin writes in his commentary on Romans, "The heart is full of hardness and indomitable contumacy." And he is talking about my heart, apart from the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit attained for me through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Apart from the ever effectual voice of Jesus calling me to come and follow Him (Jn 10:27), apart from from the work of God's Spirit to open my eyes, unstop my ears, uncloud my conscience, soften my heart, and grant me faith and repentance (Jn 3:3-8; Eph 2:1-5; I Pet 1:3), I would never have believed. In fact, I not only would not have believed, I did not want to believe. I not only could not follow Jesus, I did not want to follow Him. I not only could not please God, I did not want to please God. Until I heard Christ's call and received the new birth, I was ever hearing but not understanding, ever seeing but not perceiving (Isa 6:9; Mk 4:12).

But now by God's grace, I can read Romans 8:9 and find hope: "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you." And does He dwell in me? He does if I am in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1-4). And who is in Christ Jesus? The one who has faith in Him (Rom 4:24-25; 5:1-2; 6:1-4). And how do I possess this faith? As a gift from God (Phil 1:29; Eph 2:8-9).

Everything that I have in Christ, every way in which I have ever pleased God, every ability and good work, the life that is at work in me to change me, the very faith that unites me to Christ -- all a free gift of God's grace! There is no room for pride in a heart that is captured by these truths. There is nothing to be proud about. Surely believing our own depravity and inability will help us see the heights of the grace of God, and seeing this grace will root out arrogance and cultivate humility within us. Within me.

Thoughts before I vote today

2008-11-04T14:12:00.012-05:00

In a few hours, I will head to the polls and vote for candidates for a number of offices, from the local to the national level. I am told that as a pastor, I should not publicly endorse one party or one candidate, a stance with which I agree but for different reasons than those given by the IRS. I am less worried about my church's tax-exempt status than I am about becoming beholden to one party over another, or wedding spiritual concerns too closely to political processes, or encouraging the flock with which I have been entrusted and for which I will be held accountable to see solutions to moral and spiritual problems coming from government.

So there will be no endorsements appearing on this blog. But I do have a few thoughts that I would like to share.

First some general convictions:

Every Christian in a democracy has an obligation to vote. This form of government makes its citizens part of the governing process. Those who govern are appointed by God and have the obligation before Him to govern well (Psa 72:1-4; Rom 13:1-7). God's people are also called to do good and seek the welfare of the place that they live (Jer 29:7). By implication, Christians in a democracy are appointed by God to vote responsibly and with an eye toward doing justice for the wicked and the righteous, for the lowly and the powerful.

All Christians have an obligation to pray for and submit to those in power (I Tim 1:1-2; I Pet 2:13-17), regardless of whom we voted for. Our prayers are the most effective weapon we have for influencing the course of affairs for our nation.

Christians should weigh the issues and vote their conscience. But not all issues are created equal. There are "weightier matters of the law" (Matt 23:23). That means that although we may evaluate Candidate A to be stronger on more issues than than Candidate B, if Candidate B is stronger on the weightier matters, or on the weightiest matter of all, then a Christian's conscience should be moved to vote for Candidate B. Go to this short essay-in-the-form-of-a-dialogue for an example of how this reasoning might work (HT: JT).

And now some personal convictions:

I wish I did not have to choose between key issues: the right to life of the unborn; justice for "the alien, the fatherless, and the widow"; stewardship of the created order; national security; economic policy. But choose I must. Opting out is not an option at all.

I am frightened of the prospect of the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act. But I am also aware that our national culture regarding beginning of life issues has changed since 1973. Until the church through our lives, actions, and words has a greater impact for the sake of the gospel, passing and defeating legislation has an important but limited role in seeking justice for the unborn.

I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the very beginning. I do not see how just war theory can be used to justify the invasion. But I am also aware that the situation in Iraq and its neighboring countries has changed since 2003. Leaving too soon could be worse than having invaded in the first place. Leaving too late could keep an independent and stable government from emerging. Anyone who says they know exactly what to do and when to do it in Iraq is foolish.

I do not need the Kyoto Protocol to tell me that stewardship of the created order is a good idea. Nor do I need an advocate of drilling in the ANWR to tell me that greater energy independence is wise. And some might accuse me of being naive or idealistic, but I also do not see a reason that stewardship and energy independence should be mutually exclusive concerns.

Try for a moment to step back from this particular election and these particular candidates. I would be delighted to vote for someone of a different ethnicity than mine. I would even say that having an African-American as my country's president would delight me.

In the end, the injustice of almost 50 million dead unborn children overwhelms any other injustices that I see in the political realm, not merely in this election but in any election. Though I largely agree with this essay by John Piper, I would not define myself as a single-issue voter. But some matters are so weighty that they open and close doors for further matters to be evaluated. The right to life is such an issue, the right not merely to live in a just world, but to live at all.

Wittenberg's Cathedral Door

2008-10-31T10:13:00.007-04:00

Desiring God has an excellent post on Martin Luther. Today is the 491st anniversary of the posting of the 95 Theses, a key event in God's work for His church to recover the biblical gospel through the Reformation.

As I read the post, I was struck by something written there. Martin Luther wanted a debate, not a public scandal. So he posted his theses in Latin. Someone else got hold of them, translated them into German, and published them more broadly.

I observe two things from the way history played itself out. First, under the providence of God we do not always know whom He uses to accomplish His purposes. And it does not seem to matter if we know. We remember Martin Luther. But he was not looking for anything like what happened. Someone else did the translating and publishing that sparked the Reformation. In heaven, I would like to find that person and thank him. But I will have to wait till them, because until then I will not know who it was.

And second, under the providence of God we do not always know how God is going to accomplish His purposes. Luther was an Augustinian monk. He did what scholastic types did when they wanted to debate by nailing his 95 Theses to a cathedral door in Latin. Maybe I should give him more credit, but I doubt very seriously that he had any inkling of what would eventually happen.

I am the pastor of a small church. I do what pastors do -- preaching, teaching, praying, counseling, studying, discipling. I wonder sometimes about the impact I am having. A few generations after I have died, odds are that no one on this sphere will remember me or my ministry. But it is the business of the triune God to build the church (Isa 56:8; Matt 16:18; Eph 1:22-23). I do not know through whom or how He will do it. Martin Luther and his anonymous translator remind me of that and give me both joy and hope.

Humbled by divine election

2008-10-30T12:04:00.015-04:00

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him." I remember reading Ephesians 1:3-4 during the summer of 1993, the summer before my sophomore year of high school. All of the freshmen Bible studies for Campus Crusade at Northwestern University were going to study Ephesians during the Fall Quarter. I had been asked to lead a study, so I was studying through the book ahead of time. I had begun trusting in Christ only two years earlier, and did not know Ephesians very well. These verses stunned and shook me to my core.

Before I knew it, I began seeing divine election throughout the Bible: Isaiah 41:8-10; 43:6-7; John 6:36-40; 15:16; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29-30; 9:6-29; I Peter 1:1-2; Revelation 13:8; 17:8. It was plain enough that God's "knowing" or "foreknowing" meant more than knowing about someone. It meant that His affections were set upon that someone. And a larger pattern of God's sovereignty began to emerge: the calling of Abraham, Israel's election from among the nations, the election of Isaac over Ishmael, of Jacob over Esau. I began to see the sovereignty of God over all the events of my life (Psalm 139:13-16; Proverbs 16:9; 20:24; Matthew 6:25-34; James 4:13-16). And if over all the events of my life, then surely over my salvation as well.

But I missed a few things along the way. Too often I have been too eager to debate what "foreknowledge" means, or whether salvific election is exclusively corporate or embraces individual election as well. There is a place for such debates. The Scriptures do not shy away from election, so neither should we. Too much additional doctrine and ethical implication are built upon election for us not to care about getting it right. But I fear I bruised more than a few brothers and sisters in Christ, and perhaps turned them away from the doctrines of grace, in my eagerness to be right.

What did I miss? The pastoral concern of the apostles and prophets in talking about election. This is a doctrine that is supposed to strengthen quaking knees and crush proud hearts. God would calm our fears and prepare us for trials by reminding us that we are chosen and therefore unshakable. Election is an act of divine love, grounding our sense of security in the Father's affections by a decision made before we can even say "before." Jesus challenges His listeners and exposes the hardness of their hearts by confronting them with the reality of sovereign choice.

Divine election humbles me -- or it should humble me -- because it clearly shows that there is no reason for God to love me outside of Himself. Let that sink in for a moment. Compare it with the relationships we enjoy with other human beings. Almost every relationship we have exists because of some sort of mutual benefit, or mutual attraction, or mutual enjoyment. We love what is lovable. We choose what is attractive or beneficial. If I am loved, it is because there is something about me that someone else likes. And that is an occasion for pride -- I am loved, so there must be something good or lovely about me.

But that is not how God's election works. His election has nothing to do with anything in us. Why does He choose whom He chooses? That is a mystery caught up in the hidden counsel of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before the worlds began. Certainly there is nothing attractive about sinful, rebellious, hostile, traitorous human beings. The consequence of God's election of His people was the sending of the Son to die in order to save them. And yet God chose.

When I am mindful of election, I am laid low by it. And only in that lowliness do any of us find freedom to serve and obey God with joy and without pretention. Perhaps, rather than a quick and ready wit, a humbled heart and changed attitude would do help to persuade others of the greatness of our God.

Humble Orthodoxy

2008-10-28T17:33:00.006-04:00

I recently finished Collin Hansen's excellent book Young, Restless, Reformed. He quotes the following from Joshua Harris:

Behold the truth revealed in the Word of God. Commit to believe in it. Represent it with humility. This is what we call humble orthodoxy... In view of the fact that we were dead in our sins, the only reason we see anything in ourselves is because [God] chose to pour out his grace in our lives. That's why there's no place for [arrogance]... If your theology doesn't shape you, then you haven't understood it.

Though I read them several days ago, Harris' words have remained on my mind. As one of those young Reformed pastors Hansen was writing about, if my theology does not produce humility within me, then I have not really understood it. J. I. Packer writes this in his introduction to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (which is dense and rich enough that I'm only chipping away at it a few pages at a time):

Calvinism is something much broader than the "five points" [of the TULIP acrostic] indicate. Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world's Maker and King... a theocentric way of thinking about all of life under the direction and control of God's own Word.

And later he writes, "We are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God's gift and flows to us from Calvary."

If Harris and Packer are right (and I think they are), then what room is there in my life for any degree of self-centeredness or arrogance? What room is there for boasting, unless it be in the cross of Christ? What room is there for being impatient or argumentative, when no degree of cleverness on my part contributed to my salvation?

So in the next few posts (which I hope will come more frequently now), I would like to spend some time thinking through some theological convictions and how they ought, if genuinely believed, to produce deeper humility, patience, holiness, and love. Maybe we can grow together in the kind of "humble orthodoxy" espoused by so many of the people Hansen writes about, even as it was displayed in the lives of so many of the Puritans they draw inspiration from.

The Refreshment of Fellowship

2008-10-23T17:27:00.011-04:00

Last week was the annual conference for the Eastern District of the EFCA. This is my third year in the Eastern District, and it is the third conference my wife and I have attended. We have looked forward to it all year, and it did not disappoint. In fact, I cannot imagine not attending the EDA conference as long as I am ministering in the district.

What is it that makes these conferences so refreshing for us? There was interesting and helpful teaching, including two excellent sermons, a presentation on the research findings in UnChristian by one of the authors, as well as workshops on worship, pastoral ministry, and community engagement. But as good as all of that was, it was not why we looked forward to the conference or why we look back so fondly. Nor was it the musical worship, though we enjoyed that as well. It was not the book table -- I made no purchases at this conference (not because there was nothing to buy, but because I have already spent my book budget for the year).

We found the conference so refreshing because of the fellowship we enjoyed there. Among the other pastors, pastors' wives, church planters, and district staff at the conference we were able to enjoy the many blessings of relaxed, unguarded fellowship. We were able to take off the "pastor hat" and safely confess both our struggles (Gal 6:2) and our sins (Jas 5:16). We shared meals while discussing our lives, our ministries, and what God is teaching us through the Scriptures (Acts 2:42). We prayed and sang together with joy and gladness (Col 3:16). We shared our dreams and vision to see our churches grow through evangelism and discipleship, having an impact beginning in our communities and extending around the world (Phil 2:2). We glorified God together for the greatness of His being, the excellence of His character, and the majesty of His works. We made much of God together. And as a result, my wife and I came home with a bigger picture of what God is doing in our district and around the world. We came away with our hearts strengthened. I think that is what fellowship is supposed to do (Phm 6).

I am already looking forward to next year.

To Know God

2008-10-14T10:55:00.002-04:00

Normally I do not simply give a link to another blog when I post. There are some really good blogs that do a much better job of keeping up with helpful content from other places, such as Between Two Worlds and Challies.com, which I check almost everyday. So I usually focus on posting original content.

But this post from The Thirsty Theologian was too good, too helpful, too well-written not to pass on. So please read and enjoy.

Here is an extended quotation to whet your appetite:

I want to know God. I want to know his nature and his thoughts... What could possibly be more wonderful, as wonderful, or even remotely wonderful compared to the knowledge of the eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who is the source of all things, the epitome of holiness, righteousness, and justice? The answer is obvious: nothing compares...
Why is it, then, that reading God’s Word becomes, at times, a chore to be done rather than a pleasure to be savored?

HT: Challies

More on Being a Cubs Fan

2008-10-14T10:49:00.002-04:00

I had to share this...

HT: JT

Two Books from Sunday

2008-10-13T11:39:00.004-04:00

During our morning worship service at Bethel last Sunday, I mentioned two books, and pledged to post information on them.

Most Christian books for men that I have read fall into one of three categories. The first is what I call non-Christian Christian books, books that are often filled with powerful illustrations and personal reminiscences, and at the same time are void of biblical truth. The second are how-to Christian books, packed with Scripture references but reducing being a Christian man to 40 things you need to do to be a godly man. The third are bash-the-church Christian books, which describe everything that is wrong with our churches, and sometimes offer practical but not always biblical advice on how to change things.

Tender Warrior by Stu Weber does not fit into one of these three categories. Weber is a pastor in Oregon who himself defies our expectations. On the one hand he is a former high school athlete and Green Beret, and still bow hunts. On the other hand he is a family man who married his high school sweetheart and raised three sons. His book combines biblical truth with helpful personal stories, and each chapter is concluded with study and discussion questions. Our monthly men's group will be reading this book together.

Christians know we need to be humble. In one sense, humility defines what it means to be a Christian -- confessing that you are a sinner and coming to Jesus Christ through faith require humility. But in another sense, humility continues to be elusive even after coming to Christ and having His life at work within you to transform you. In the sermon yesterday on Mark 10:32-45, we learned that humility cannot be reduced to a set of principles or maxims. Humility begins with regarding yourself as ransomed, as no longer belonging to yourself but to the one who bought you, and regarding Him as of greater value than anything or anyone else.

Reducing humility to maxims and principles is precisely what C. J. Mahaney does not do in his excellent little book Humility: True Greatness. He describes the importance of humility in God-centered, cross-focused terms and describes the exercises he employs to cultivate humility, all while freely confessing he has not arrived. I recommended this book during the sermon yesterday, and recommend it now to any readers of this blog.

Reflections on the Financial Bailout

2008-10-10T11:35:00.026-04:00

I am probably coming to this party too late to have much fun, and joining the conversation too late to add anything meaningful. And I am a layman when it comes to economics. But it continues to be big news whether in the newspapers, on the Internet, or during presidential debates. And I think I needed a little bit of time to look around and simply watch before adding my two-cents worth.

First a few links... This article from World Magazine is probably still the best quick-and-easy overview of what went wrong. This article from The American Scene is also helpful because it weighs out the pros and cons of a bailout plan, but it is a little more technical. For a more entertaining account that is simplified but still helpful, see this article from National Review Online and this follow-up. For the most intelligent (but fairly technical) commentary on crises and bailouts that I have found, take a look at the Becker-Posner blog, where two world class economists give their analysis and do not always agree with each other.

And now a few observations... Perhaps was has struck me most forcibly about the discussion surrounding the crisis and bailout is the woefully underinformed and reactionary state of most public opinion. Whether in conversations at the store or in a church, whether in letters to the editor or comments following a Web-based article, many responses betray a lack of understanding of how the U.S. economy works. After the first bailout package was rejected in the House of Representatives, reader comments at both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post (intentionally chosen for their differing political inclinations) were almost uniformly negative regarding the bailout and gleeful regarding its rejection, for the most part arguing that Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street had attempted to pin the cost of their mismanagement on Main Street, and throwing around the number $700BN as if the IRS were going to show up on our individual doorsteps requesting a check for our portion of the bailout within the week, with no hope or recouping the money. Now I might be able to understand opposition to a bailout, but at least have better reasons for it than that, and try to comprehend the consquences for both Wall Street and Main Street of letting major financial institutions fail.

The second observation I would offer is that neither the mainstream media nor the government has helped on the whole in understanding what has happened and why a bailout might be necessary. For example, on Monday my family went out for lunch to a restaurant that had TVs tuned in to CNN. As the Dow "plunged" below 10,000, it seemed that CNN was doing everything possible to make a bigger story out of it than was necessary, including soliciting feedback from viewers on Twitter and Facebook. One viewer's comment especially piqued my interest because he was in a panic over what he should do with his daughter's college savings fund. (The short answer to that concern, unless his daughter is leaving for college in the next year, is to do nothing out of the ordinary. This is a market correction. It is the way the system works. Gains are never guaranteed, especially in the short term. Ride it out.) My wife, whose undergraduate degree is in economics, was growing frustrated with the coverage until CNN had an economist on to discuss the situation, who promptly criticized CNN for the way they were promoting fear and misinformation.

To be fair, this is not meant to target CNN's coverage. Fox and MSNBC have been just as irresponsible. And the administration did an incredibly poor job of selling the bailout to the average voter and taxpayer. It seems to me that good information has been as difficult to come by for the public as liquidity of funds has been for banks.

And now for my two cents. It seems to me that some sort of bailout was necessary and important not only for Wall Street but for Main Street. We can gripe about tax dollars stuffing the pockets of irresponsible executives, but when business owners need loans and cannot get them, or responsible borrowers who are first time homeowners cannot get a mortgage, then the griping will simply shift in content. And many opposed to government assistance now will want government assistance then. The key issue is liquidity, something which the alternate plan proposed by the House Republicans did not sufficiently address.

If I were to defend my position here, I would end up cutting and pasting the arguments of others. Go to the links listed above -- they present the case as well as I could.

So there is one cent. Now for the second. It also seems to me that there is widespread sidestepping of personal responsibility in this mess. We can discuss whether lenders were irresponsible with subprime mortgages. We can discuss whether Freddie and Fannie were irresponsible in buying these mortgages. We can discuss the difficulty of properly fixing the value of securities and the wisdom of then using them as capital to enable more borrowing. We can ask economic questions about moral hazard and government intervention. There is plenty wrong with the way things played out over the past few years. Everyone seems to agree on that.

What about those who did the borrowing? I know I run the risk of giving offense here. I understand the desire to own a home and the advantages of home ownership. But if the only mortgage you could get was an ARM or payment option or Ninja loan, should you take on that kind of debt? The assumption made by many to justify this kind of borrowing was that housing values would continue to go up. But I have to wonder if it is wise to take on the massive amounts of debt associated with a mortgage when you lack the ability to pay it off.

I cannot help but throw in a third cent as well. Where is God in all of this? Isaiah 45:7 teaches us that the Lord brings both good and calamity. All the treasures of the earth belong to Him, and nothing happens that is contrary to His knowledge and plan. Both the initial panic and the current sense of brooding despondency that I pick up here in the New York area, from Christian and non-Christian alike, suggests to me that we believe what God attests about Himself in Scripture to be true more often in the breach than in the observance. Or another way of looking at it is to observe that we are often more ready to declare God's sovereignty when "it" affects someone else rather than us (whatever "it" may be), but that when "it" meddles with our plans and crushes our dreams God's sovereignty falls from our consciousness.

This article from the Desiring God blog was a helpful reminder to me of the need to pray for our country's leaders, both political and economic. But even more useful to me in keeping my head, as I have too have investments that have been affected, is to remember the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6, especially vs. 30-33: "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

The Futility of Being a Cubs Fan

2008-10-03T13:02:00.012-04:00

Maybe next Tuesday, I'll be smiling because the unthinkable happened. Maybe the folks at ESPN and SI are wrong and it isn't over.

I know at some level that it won't happen. Teams just don't recover from being down 0-2 in a best of five series. But I can't let go of that hope, that "maybe this time" attitude. Why? Because I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, and that's the way we are.

I started rooting for the Cubs when I was a little kid. On Saturdays during the summer, my dad would take me and my brother fishing. We'd come back in the afternoon, clean the fish, fry some up, and sit down in front of the TV. Apart from the national game of the week on the networks, there were only two teams to watch: the Braves (thanks to TBS) and the Cubs (thanks to WGN). And so was born an affection that became fandom when I moved to Chicago to go to college.

All season I have hedged my hopes, telling myself the Cubs were going to blow it and not even make the playoffs, that Carlos Zambrano's arm would fall off or that Aramis Ramirez would go into a ghastly 0-for-a-100 hitting slump. But they not only made the playoffs, they won their division and posted the best record in the NL. They were clearly the best team in the National League. So I began to hope...

I thank God that through Christ, I don't need to hedge my hopes, and I need not fear that my hopes will be crushed. I know that might sound tagged on or cliched -- I'm a pastor, and this blog is about Christian stuff, so I have to make it sound Christian... But at least for today as I write this, it's neither tagged on nor cliched. I went to bed last night disappointed, and I woke up feeling down and dragging through my morning. Proverbs 13:12 says that "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," and that is what I was experiencing. Over a baseball team. So I set about meditating on passages such as Romans 5:1-5, Ephesians 1:15-23, Titus 2:11-14, Hebrews 6:17-20, and I Peter 1:3-5.

There is a hope kept in heaven for me, a hope that will not be disappointed but will most certainly be fulfilled. My Lord is more precious and of greater worth than anything else, and certainly moreso than any sporting event or organization. And that is a great encouragement at all times.

And just because they're down 0-2 doesn't mean it's over for the Cubs.

Where I (tenatively) land on engaging culture

2008-10-02T12:39:00.020-04:00

So after five posts (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5) thinking out loud on questions of Christ and culture, I should probably share where I land. I cannot promise anything revolutionary or even especially insightful. And in all likelihood my thinking will shift and evolve with more time. But these six principles sum up what I think (or at least what I think I think) at this point.

The distinction between two biblical uses of "gospel" needs to be retained. In his three posts at the IX Marks blog, Greg Gilbert has convinced me of at least this much (#1, #2, #3). There is a sense in which "gospel" refers to what Christ has done and what a person must believe to be saved (which I will call G1 for short), and a sense in which "gospel" refers to the big picture of what God is doing to reconcile and renew the entire creation (which I will call G2). Both uses have biblical precedent, so neither should be rejected.
The relationship between the two usages of "gospel" needs to be developed. What I specifically have in mind here is that G1 is the doorway into G2. This is true in at least two senses. First, there is no participation in the kingdom of God or in "kingdom work" for human beings (which is G2) unless there is repentance of sins and faith in Jesus Christ (which is G1). In other words, our personal experience and participation in G2 is only consequent on our participation in G1. Second, what is true for the individual is true for the cosmos as well. There is no renewal of all things without the redemption of individual sinners. The created order needs renewal because of the fall of Adam -- God placed all things under a curse as a result of Adam's sin (Genesis 3:17-19, Romans 8:19-23). And the created order will only be renewed because of the redemption of those who are no longer in Adam but in Christ -- in Christ the curse is lifted. See this sermon on Genesis 3 for a more thorough exposition of both the curse and its reversal.
Making disciples, from conversion to maturity, must be the focus of the church. However attractive a Kuyperian vision of cultural engagement might be, I cannot get around passages such as Matthew 28:18-20 and Ephesians 4:7-16. The task of the church is to make disciples. So my short answer to the question of "should a church run a health clinic or affordable housing or a film festival" is not unequivocally no, but it is pretty close. The moment a church as a church begins to engage in work that shifts its focus from evangelism, preaching and teaching, and equipping believers for the work of ministry, that church finds itself in danger of losing sight of its biblical mandate. To put it a different way, if a church emphasizes G2 work at the expense of G1 work, there will soon be no one to experience either the personal salvation of G1 or the corporate salvation of G2. Though some might say that it is not an either-or, the reality is that churches have only so much time and so many resources. Disciple-making must be king.
Responsible contextualization is a necessary part of disciple-making. The reality is that "Christ" and "culture" are never separate. Every attempt to explain the gospel takes place in a particular setting, with a particular language, in the midst of particular cultural assumptions, against the backdrop of a particular people's biblical literacy. That reality is why I favor the Two Ways to Live gospel presentation over most other gospel presentations: for where and when I live, it seems to me to do the best job of explaining the gospel while taking into account a general interest in "spirituality" and a general biblical illiteracy both within and without the church. But responsible contextualization runs deeper. It does not so modify the gospel message for the sake of being relevant that the gospel is lost. Rather it seeks to answer questions such as these: What kinds of sin are woven into the life of this community? What are the symbols of status or the expectations of what it means to be religious? Why do people live here, where do they work, how do they get there, and what do the answers tell the church about how we need to preach, where we go and how we form relationships with non-Christians, and what blind spots to sin the church may have?
Discipleship includes viewing work redemptively. In my mind, this is where the relationship between G1 work and G2 work gets lived out. In this editorial in the Gospel Coalition's journal Themelios, the helpful distinction is made between what the church does as the church and what Christians do as individuals. As the church, the focus must be on disciple-making. But being a disciple means obeying everything Jesus commanded, living all of life under the authority of Jesus and His Word, and learning to see the world through a God-centered worldview. Surely "all of life" includes our work. Most of us spend more time at work than anywhere else. We were made to work. We will continue to work for all eternity. So part of discipleship must mean seeing your work as a vocation from God. A job is not merely a platform for telling others about the gospel. Work is itself intrinsic to what it means to be human and a Christian. Viewing work redemptively means understanding any work, whether in the sciences, manual labor, the liberal arts, government, the fine arts, etc., as flowing out of God's intention for human beings in Genesis 1:28, as affected by the curse, and as being renewed and given new meaning through the gospel. It means looking at the workplace or at the community, asking how things would look different if the gospel were present, and then acting in such a way to bring that vision to pass.
Christians must live in transformed community before we can talk about transforming the culture. The only way the Christian life is lived out is in relationships with one another. Community is a key means God uses to transform His people. I would offer personal transformation does not happen when Christians are not fulfilling the "one another" commands of Scripture and are not living life together in which the Word of Christ dwells richly, characterized by praying, singing, and bearing one another's burdens. If God's people are not transformed by the gospel, they can hardly transform the culture around them. If God's people are not living life together that is transformed by the gospel, they can hardly commend the gospel (whether G1 or G2), and they hardly have something to which they can invite unbelievers to join through faith in Christ.

Great preaching on John and Genesis

2008-09-23T15:17:00.006-04:00

John Piper has begun a preaching series in the Gospel of John, and Mark Dever has begun a series in the book of Genesis. This is wonderfully exciting news!

C. J. Mahaney has commented on several occasions that, on the night before he is to preach, he reads a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on the same passage of Scripture. The inevitable outcome, according to Mahaney, is great humility due to the complete inadequacy of what he has prepared. Mike Bullmore has remarked that after listening to excellent preaching, his heart's response is twofold: a sense of despair at his own perceived lack of ability as a preacher, and a sense of excitement that Sunday is coming and he will have the privilege of stepping again into the pulpit and expounding God's Word.

I have the same experience when listening to John Piper and Mark Dever preach (and in listening to C. J. Mahaney and Mike Bullmore, for that matter). I only wish they had preached these series earlier -- I just finished preaching through the Gospel of John, and two weeks ago I preached on Genesis 3. I look forward to feeling inadequate frequently in the weeks and months to come.

Some Help in Thinking about the Banking Crisis

2008-09-17T19:25:00.009-04:00

Justin Taylor has an excellent interview with David Kotter to help us think biblically about the current banking crisis, as well as to help us put it in its broader economic perspective. Kotter is currently Executive Director for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, but also has an MBA, has taught economics, and was a finance manager for Ford. All of which puts him in a good position to speak both to economics and theology.

The current crisis is big news in New York, and local TV news coverage here the night before Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy was near hysterical. So this interview is very helpful for Christians here. And the financial advise Kotter gives is helpful at all times, not just during a banking crisis.

HT: JT

Understandings of the Gospel and Culture

2008-09-17T19:25:00.007-04:00

I have been thinking out loud for a few weeks about questions of Christ and culture. In this post, I highlight the tensions in evangelical thought today. In a second post, I wrote about Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture and D. A. Carson's Christ and Culture Revisited, advocating Carson's use of the overarching narrative of Scripture as a control for our thinking that allows for flexibility in interacting with culture depending on our particular context. In a third post, I indirectly critiqued the failure in some evangelical circles to engage sufficiently the city of man by critiquing Albert Mohler's book Culture Shift. And in a fourth post, I recommended Mark Driscoll's The Radical Reformission not because of its theological depth, and not because I recommend everything Driscoll does, but because he asks good questions that force us to get to know our communities better if we are to answer.

But in all of this musing and writing, I have not answered this question concretely: How is it that Christians of similar theological convictions can differ on whether the church should be involved in providing affordable housing, health care, or other social and economic aid? Note that I said "the church" and not "Christians." Most evangelicals agree that Christians should be involved in care for "the alien, the fatherless, and the widow" (Deut 27:19; Ps 146:9; Isa 1:17; Lk 4:18; Jas 1:27). Where we disagree is on the question of what the church as a whole should do.

Let's make the point of disagreement clearer. Almost everyone agrees that it is appropriate for members of a church to start a non-profit providing affordable housing. And most agree that it is appropriate for a church to give financial, prayer, support such an organization. But should a church start a community development corporation, such as New Song in Harlem, in which the church begins the CDC but it functions separately? And should a church itself engage in such work by putting volunteers, staff, and budget against such ministries? Is there a difference between running a food pantry, opening a health clinic, and building housing?

The more I read, the more I am convinced that the key issue is a disagreement over how broad or how narrow the gospel is. Does the gospel focus on individual redemption through faith in the Christ who died a substitutionary death for sinners? Or is the gospel broader, such that it includes the renewal of all things? How you answer this question goes a long way toward how you view some of the activities in the above paragraph. If a church gets involved in running a health clinic, is it that a distraction from or a fulfillment of the Great Commission?

In a recent post on the IX Marks blog, Greg Gilbert offered an observation that I found helpful. Folks who disagree over these matters tend to disagree over the right question to ask. In reflecting on what the gospel is, on what the Main Thing is for the church, one group is asking, "What is the message a person must believe to be saved?" The other group is asking, "What is the whole good news of Christianity?" He notes that the word "gospel" is used in Scripture to describe the answer to both questions and that neither question is wrong, and wonders if perhaps much tension would be cleared up among evangelicals if we realized we are asking different questions and using "gospel" in different but biblical ways.

Perhaps this observation seems elementary to some. But for me it was illuminating, so much so that it has led me to some principles that I tentatively offer for thinking through what a church should do in engaging culture. But this post is long enough -- I will talk about them in the next one.

Christ and Culture on the Ground

2008-09-16T15:34:00.019-04:00

Do you ever feel as if you have bitten off more than you can chew? I feel that way when it comes to questions of Christ and culture. I have only written three posts, and I find my thoughts running in dozens of directions. A new book by Andy Crouch has been published that seems to explore the questions I have been wanting to ask. I have been reading more resources from Tim Keller on ministry in cultural centers. There is more to think about and write about than I can possibly do justice to.

So allow me to ground these thoughts in my personal experience. After being on Staten Island for about a year, I felt lost. Perhaps that would put me in good company -- many a New Yorker has felt the same way after visiting the Forgotten Borough. But this is where I live, the place where I pastor, and my expectations for what living in a borough of New York City would be like were very different from the reality. I did not understand this place or the people here, and they did not understand me.

I picked up Mark Driscoll's The Radical Reformission around this time. Driscoll is no stranger to controversy. In fact he seems to enjoy it. Sometimes he is funny, sometimes he is crude. But I found this book helpful. Driscoll begins with the basic idea that Christians are called to love their Lord, their neighbor, and the church, and that fulling these obligations requires us to live in, observe, interact with, critique, and even reform the culture around them. In particular, I found his reformission questions at the end of each chapter helpful. Driscoll reminded and challenged me to get inside the attitudes and assumptions of this new culture by going to the grocery store, picking up the newspaper, and talking to my neighbors.

As I read and began to take another look at the world around me, I began to notice patterns, attitudes, and postures. This new world began to make some sense to me. I began to see things that were good that we as a church could encourage, or of which we could take advantage as we sought to reach our neighbors with the gospel. I began to notice things that were sinful and idolatrous in the community that I could address through teaching, counseling, and preaching. And I started to understand the ways that these cultural patterns, attitudes, and postures, both good and bad, had shaped the way people in the congregation thought about following Christ and belonging to the church.

If a sophisticated theological treatise on culture is what you are looking for, you will not find it in The Radical Reformission. For that matter, Driscoll is at best a mediocre writer; you will not be swept away by the fluidity of his prose. Much of what he does at Mars Hill in Seattle does not translate well to my context (I have the same difficulty with Tim Keller and Redeemer). But Driscoll is observant, and he asks good questions, and that makes his book worth reading.

Seven Years Later

2008-09-12T11:35:00.007-04:00

Just as most Americans, I remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11th, 2001, when I first heard the news about the Twin Towers. I was on my way to class. That fall was the last semester of my M.Div. program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside of Chicago, and I had an early morning class on Small Group Ministry. I had tuned in on WBBM 780 AM to get a traffic update for the Tri-State when I heard a report that something had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. When I was a kid, I had read about a B-25 bomber flying into the Empire State Building in 1945. I wondered if something similar had happened and hoped that no one in the building was hurt.

When I stopped in at the White Horse on campus to get some coffee, I heard conflicting reports from other students. It was a small private plane, some said, implying that it was nothing for us to worry about. But someone else thought they had heard that the other tower had been hit as well. Uncertain what to think, I headed for class. And that is where I heard the truth from students who had cell phones: Two commercial airplanes had slammed into the Twin Towers. We were all badly shaken. After praying together, we proceeded with class. Afterwards I learned that the towers had collapsed.

I remember the images repeated over and over again on television. I had to force myself to turn the TV off and leave it off for several days, limiting myself to the evening news and getting information from news radio and the newspaper. I remember the initial catastrophic estimates for over 10,000 deaths. I remember Mayor Giuliani and President Bush at Ground Zero. I remember a sense of relief when the death toll began to fall till it was "only" 2999. I remember the sense of national outrage, and the swiftness of our national retribution in Afghanistan.

I now live on Staten Island, a borough of New York City, on which so many of the police officers and firefighters who died on 9/11 lived. I have members of my congregation who were at Ground Zero on 9/11 and have experienced long-term medical and emotional problems. One of the men of the church was a firefighter who went into one of the towers and never came out; his body was never found, and a small memorial to him is in the church's front yard. I have been to the memorials at Ground Zero and walked the periphery of that enormous pit. I have been to the "Postcards" Memorial on Staten Island many times. I have visited the Flight 93 Memorial. I have watched movies and documentaries. I have talked and prayed with men and women whose lives were forever changed and scarred.

And I have no idea what it was like or what they have been through.

I have had people close to me die, both friends and family. I remember the fear Chicagoans felt after 9/11 about our own skyscrapers. But after living here several years, I know enough to know that I do not understand the trauma that New York City has undergone. I do not understand the desire by some to reopen the old wounds every year. I do not understand how this city's swagger and in-your-face bravado exist side-by-side with a wounded psyche and lingering insecurity.

So that makes it very difficult to know the appropriate way to respond when 9/11 comes around every year. There are memorials and vigils throughout the city, and this remembering dominates the front pages of newspapers. But I was not here. Three years ago I asked the widow and sons of that firefighter what they wanted me to do that Sunday. They asked me please, please, please not to do anything other than pray. They wanted to move on. So I acceded. During the pastoral prayer, I prayed for families on Staten Island who were still hurting to find healing in Jesus Christ.

And that is still my prayer. Our God is still sovereign, though I do not understand His secret ways. He is still loving and kind. His Son still instructs us to forgive and bless those who harm us. And the same forgiveness and peace can still be found for all who call on His name.

Christ and Culture Shifting

2008-09-07T18:59:00.007-04:00

I would like to pick up on a series I started on questions of Christ and culture. The first post attempted to frame some of the issues and show the tension that exists in evangelicalism. The second post interacted briefly with works by Richard Niebuhr and D. A. Carson.

Carson's contention, with which I agree, is that we need an approach to these sorts of issues that is thoroughly grounded in Scripture, allows for differences in regard to specific settings, yet has sufficient unity that we do not devolve into parochialism or relativism. So while it might seem obvious that the way Christians think about engaging culture will differ (and correctly so) on the South Side of Chicago, in Iraq, and on the East End of London, can we describe why and how those settings demand different responses while staying thoroughly rooted in Scripture?

The biblical theology approach outlined by Carson demands both theological and cultural exegesis. There are no shortcuts. We need to be steeped in Scripture -- to "bleed Bible" as Charles Spurgeon put it -- and to be on the ground interacting with people in our community, reading what they read, eating where they eat, shopping where they shop. This is where Tim Keller has been so helpful to those living in city centers.

But I do not live in a city center. So when I picked up Al Mohler's Culture Shift, I was hoping for some help in thinking through these questions for a setting less sophisticated than Keller's Upper Manhattan. I occasionally visit Dr. Mohler's blog, and the breadth of his reading and force of his intellect were recurring themes at the latest T4G, so I had some reason to be hopeful. And I was helped by the book, but not in the way I had hoped for.

At its best, Culture Shift uses secular/liberal sources to help evangelicals understand some of the moves being made in contemporary public discourse. The first three chapters on secular arguments against the interaction of Christian faith and public policy are helpful to those who pick up The New York Times op/ed page or wander over to the pages of The Nation and do not see the presuppositions or understand what seems to some to be anti-religious bias. The two chapters on abortion spotlight the fissures that have appeared in recent years in the pro-choice movement. This is helpful.

At its worst, Culture Shift fails to engage the "city of man" well enough to understand the issues with sufficient depth and nuance. One example of this failure is the chapter on the Supreme Court and religion, in which Mohler cites one scholar from one essay over and over, does not acknowledge that other constitutional law scholars disagree with this one source, and clearly has not interacted with the decisions of the Supreme Court directly. Perhaps on this particular matter I am oversensitive, since Establishment Clause jurisprudence was a topic of significant study for me in college. But I see the same superficial analysis in other one-source essays (I never thought I would write that about something Mohler wrote, but it is true here. The Supreme Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is a mess -- so what? Tell me something more that is not so obvious.) And the tension in the book between one essay advocating withdrawal from public schools because they are too dangerous for Christian faith, and another essay asking if we are raising a generation of wimps by coddling and sheltering our children, is neither resolved nor acknowledged.

But it is precisely in its failure to engage that I found Culture Shift useful. The book is endorsed by several leaders in evangelicalism that I respect. And that tells me that we evangelicals have not spent enough time on the ground in our communities thinking through how to live out the implications of the gospel. In the next post, I hope to talk about how we can do that better.

Contradictions in politics?

2008-09-05T12:51:00.008-04:00

I try to tread lightly when it comes to talking or writing about politics, due mostly to my role as a pastor and thus as the perceived spokesman for a church. But this was just too good...

We recently received some political advertising in the mail -- New York's state primary for Congress is coming up next week. I will not mention which candidate sent the ad, but I will mention two policies the candidate supports in the ad that left me scratching my head.

Policy #1: "Eliminate the subsidies to farmers for growing grain for ethanol."
Policy #2: Support "New Federal Incentives for Alternative Energy Development"

I read in the ad that the candidate blames ethanol production for higher prices for food. I am familiar with both sides of that argument, and frankly the question is complicated enough it makes evaluation nearly impossible for a layman such as myself (though I will admit that it seems to me that rising food prices might be more closely related to the cost of gas than to ethanol subsidies).

But it did strike me as strange that these two policy positions that seem to be at odds with each other would be listed right next to each other in a bulk political mailing. But that might just be my take.

Driving with Your Eyes Closed

2008-09-05T11:57:00.007-04:00

For the past four days, my family and I have been visiting my relatives in Hot Springs and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I had thought that I would have time in one evening to eke out a post, but things did not work out that way. In fact, very little of our short trip worked out the way I had planned. Had I to do it over, we would not have headed south this past week. For anyone not keeping track of the weather, there was this small matter of Hurricane Gustav that resulted in overcrowded hotels, nonstop rain for three days, and some tense driving conditions. Not that anyone should feel bad for me and my family -- the evacuees have matters much worse, and Baton Rouge is nowhere near recovering from the storm. It's simply to say that we would have changed our plans if we could. But hotels, rental cars, and airline tickets were all booked and paid for back in July, and family that had not seen my daughter for almost a year was expecting us. So travel we did.

On Wednesday we were driving from Hot Springs to Memphis in a downpour of rain when something frightening happened: the driver's side windshield wiper started to come apart. One of the caps on the wiper has missing, and the two rubber blades were beginning to separate. We pulled off I-40 in Hazen, Ark., and found Parts Plus, an auto parts store owned by the Shelman family. I had planned to replace the wiper and present the receipt to the rental company for reimbursement. The Shelmans would not hear it. One of them stripped the cap off another wiper blade, stood out in the rain, and repaired the wiper blade, explaining that since I had no guarantee that the rental company would reimburse me, it made more sense to repair the blade than replace it. When I asked how much I owed them, they would not accept payment.

We chatted about the weather and nearby barbecue restaurants (Craig's in DeValls Bluff is the best pork sandwich on the planet, and Nick's in Carlisle isn't bad either). And then we headed back out on the road. I thought about how much danger we could have been in if the wiper blade had flown apart while on the interstate while driving through the storms trailing Gustav. I would have been completely blind, and we would have been stranded on the shoulder with a long wait for a tow truck and traffic flying by at high speeds with limited visibility. And I thought about the kindness of the Shelman family and our "good luck" at finding their store.

The reality is that even before the wiper went kaput, we were driving with our eyes closed. Perhaps I am using the phrase a little differently than Don Henley, but it is nevertheless true. All of us are. None of us knows what the next five minutes holds, nevermind the next five years or five decades. And none of us sees what invisible hands direct all that happens, even if we know Whose hands are there. The wiper blade stayed together, and we found the help we needed. We certainly enjoyed divine assistance and protection.

But if the wiper blade had flown apart, and we had been stranded for a time, or worse if in my blindness I had driven off the road or into another vehicle, or another vehicle had plowed into us, those invisible hands would have been no less present. Not only do we not see those hands, not only do we not see the future, we also do not see the purposes and plans that direct that future. And these are thoughts that sober me, but also make me grateful for what those hands have provided so far.

Christ and Culture Revisited

2008-08-29T09:14:00.015-04:00

In my last post, I started writing about the question of how Christians may and must engage the culture they live in, using recent addresses by Mark Dever and Tim Keller to help frame the tension that exists in evangelicalism. Today I want to move forward and start providing some direction for finding answers.

Answering this question is impossible, at least in the West, without referring to Richard Niebuhr's classic Christ and Culture. The book is full of flaws that have been very well identified by others, such as an inconsistent concept of "culture" and an inadequate views of Scripture and hermeneutics. But the book, with its fivefold typology for how Christians have approached cultural issues, continues to be useful for several reasons. First, everyone writing on the subject ever since refers to it. Second, it provides a good historical survey of significant church thinkers and their different positions. And third, it associates specific Scripture with different typological positions, which helps the reader see how different Christians come up with different approaches and support them with the Bible.

But Niebuhr's work suffers from two fatal flaws. He pits Scripture against itself, saying for example that 1 John is an example of "Christ against culture" and the Gospel of John is an example of "Christ the transformer of culture." He makes no attempt to synthesize, which is not helpful to anyone that views Scripture as ultimately authored by God and therefore self-consistent. And he puts his typology forward as if any of the categories were acceptable alternatives. There is little help in regard to which type is to be preferred, and it becomes plain to the thoughtful reader that in different historical and cultural situations certain types would be more appropriate than others. Christians in the Orissa state in India are being driven from their homes. Their response to and engagement with the culture will look different from the response of New Song Community Corporation in Harlem, and appropriately so.

This is where D. A. Carson's book Christ and Culture Revisited is so helpful. (Interestingly, both Mark Dever and Tim Keller endorse this book. Does that account for some of the softening of language and convergence I have heard more recently? It is entirely speculation on my part.) Carson begins by reviewing and critiquing Niebuhr, outlines an approach rooted in biblical theology, moves on to engage with postmodern thinkers that might question the whole project of the church standing apart from culture and engaging it, and then applies the biblical metanarrative to some cultural concepts that Americans may think they understand but probably do not: freedom, democracy, equality, etc.

I have seminary-trained friends who have read the book and shrugged their shoulders at it as if to say, "What's the big deal? A call to do biblical theology -- haven't we read dozens of books along those lines?" I must disagree. Carson makes two significant contributions to our understanding of Christ-and-culture questions in his book. First, he reminds us that any approach we adopt needs to engage the entirety of Scripture, and it needs to understand how Scripture hangs together well enough to avoid yanking passages out of context. And second, he actually shows us how to do what he is talking about.

So for example, when someone uses the language of "redeeming culture" by appealing to the cultural mandate, Carson might gently chastise them. You mean well in saying such things, but your understanding of redemption is flawed and needs to be informed by biblical eschatology. But on the other hand, Carson would exhort those who are indifferent to issues of politics, economics, or the fine arts due to wanting to separate from the world to look more closely at their doctrine of creation and God's intent to make all things new. It is a nuanced and helpful approach to Christ-and-culture questions that is thoroughly rooted in Scripture and also allows for flexibility across cultural and historical situations.

Seeing the big picture of the Scriptures, grasping the major plot points of the Bible and mining them for their theological significance, understanding the biblical metanarrative -- this is the first and most important key. We have not yet answered the "may" and "must" questions of cultural engagement (and we may not be able to). But this is the right framework from which to approach such questions.

Christ and Culture

2008-08-27T11:38:00.014-04:00

When Mark Dever critiqued the idea that Christians can somehow "redeem culture" in his address at the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference, there were reverberations felt both in that room and beyond. He has a point: when we read the Scriptures, the world is only fully transformed when the Lord returns and makes all things new. But part of the thrust of his talk seemed to be that cultural engagement and transformation may be legitimate activities for individual Christians, but not necessarily for the church.

Flash forward a few weeks to another conference, the Dwell Conference in New York City hosted by Redeemer Presbyterian and Acts 29. The thrust of the conference was how to live incarnationally in urban contexts for the good of the city and for the glory of God. This sort of conference is precisely the sort of place that language of "redeeming culture" is heard. And the emphasis was not simply on how individual Christians are to engage and transform, but how the church is to do so. Listen especially to Ed Stetzer's and Eric Mason's talks, but also Tim Keller's on persuasion.

There is a real tension here. Mark Dever certainly sounded as if he were critiquing a big part of what the Dwell Conference was about. Tim Keller has certainly used the language of cultural redemption in the past (and others continue to do so, including Tullian Tchividjian of New City Church at his blog). And it is more than merely a theological or hypothetical argument. What should churches appropriately be involved in? Even more important, how must the church engage the world around it in order to be faithful to Scripture?

I find it interesting to note that Dever admitted that he employed hyperbole at T4G in this interview with Ed Stetzer (if you are impatient, skip ahead to the 4 minute mark). In this video for the Gospel Coalition, he sounds out and out Keller-like in his unpacking of the gospel. And at Dwell, Keller deliberately backed away from the language of "redeeming culture," though without backing away from cultural engagement and transformation. So perhaps Drs. Dever and Keller are not quite so far apart as it seems at first. But the questions still remain: How may churches engage culture? How must churches engage culture? Is there one way to answer these questions? How do we remain faithful to Scripture?

I do not intend to even attempt comprehensive answers. That would be rash and arrogant. But in the next few posts I can write about the issues and suggest some directions that we might take. So that is what I intend to do.

Whom Do You Love More?

2008-08-20T13:07:00.010-04:00

Tim Challies recently posted about a question his children asked him: "Daddy, who do you love more, Mommy or us?" Tim writes, "I thought for just a moment and told them the truth. They cried." They cried because Tim answered honestly (and correctly in my estimation) that he loves his wife more. He tried to explain how that's the way it is supposed to be, and how it's better for them, and how one day they would understand more fully.

I commend the post to you, and I don't want to duplicate Tim's reasoning here. What has been just as interesting as the original post are the comments. Many have commented in support of how Tim handled things, but there have been many posts criticizing Tim's answer. Most of the criticisms have centered around priorities and love not going together, or around undermining a child's sense of being loved unconditionally. I'm repeating my comments in modified form here, not to replace but to support and supplement what Tim has already written.

The love between a husband and wife is a high and holy thing. Marriage is called something that God has brought about, that God has joined together and man is not to divide (Matt 19:6), a one flesh relationship of leaving and cleaving (Gen 2:24). Christian marriage is instituted by God to reveal something of the relationship of Christ and His Church (Eph 5:22-33). Note that when Christ says that He came not to bring peace but division within families, the relationship that He leaves unmentioned is the relationship between husband and wife (Matt 10:34-39).

Where in all of Scripture is the love between parent and child put on the same level as that between husband and wife? An appeal to the love between the Father and Son will not suffice — analogies with intertrinitarian relationships break down and should not be pressed further than Scripture itself presses them.

I shared with my wife the question Tim's children asked, and her response was, “I hope he said that he loved his wife more.” My wife and I agree that our daughter needs to know that our love for God is ultimate and our love as husband and wife penultimate for at least four reasons. One, it’s biblical. Two, her own sense of love and security rests in part on her sense of the strength and devotion present in our marriage. Three, she is a sinner and will eventually try to split us to get what she wants. It’s part of what children do. And four, the day will come when our daughter leaves home. My love for my wife preceded my daughter, and it will continue after she moves out. My priority must be my wife. These last two points are made particularly well by Carolyn Mahaney in her book Feminine Appeal.

Perhaps some think it overanalytical to prioritize, or that to prioritize means we do not love our children unconditionally. Think of what that would mean for understanding the Greatest Commandments! To see God as our first love would mean that we do not love our neighbor wholeheartedly or unconditionally? Simply taking that sort of reasoning to its logical conclusions shows that priorities do not lessen love or make it conditional somehow.

I do not want ever to need to choose between God and wife, between God and children, between wife and children. But I live in a fallen world. I am a fallen man. My wife is fallen, and my daughter is fallen. So I must think these things through, and make my priorities, before times of trouble come. So God, wife, children it is.

The Importance of Reading

2008-08-19T15:55:00.009-04:00

In his classic book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders has this to say about reading: "The man who desires to grow spiritually and intellectually will be constantly at his books... The determination to spend a minimum of half an hour a day in reading worthwhile books that provide food for the soul and further mental and spiritual development will prove richly rewarding." Lest Sanders be accused of self-interest (he did after all make the above statements in a book), a commitment to reading seems to have consistently characterized spiritual leaders, starting with the apostle Paul and continuing to the present day in the ministries of pastors such as Tim Keller, John Piper, and Mark Driscoll.

Following Sanders' advice has never been hard for me because I have always read voraciously. It is so important to me that I include the four or five books I am currently juggling as an element on this blog. But not everyone functions that way; I know many pastors who rarely read, and when they do read it is very practical "how to do ministry" reading that is easy to breeze through and digest.

Why is reading so important? I suggest there are at least five good reasons to make a habit out of reading, to carve out time in the morning, during the commute, or before going to bed to devote to reading.

It exercises the mind. This is true not just of theology, but of history, science, or any genre of book that forces you to think. Sadly there are many in our churches who cannot follow the arguments made in Paul's letters because they have been spoonfed what to think. And there are many who make unwise or uninformed decisions in areas ranging from politics to healthcare to grocery shopping because they have never had to stop and reason things through. Reading is a powerful corrective to our reluctance to reason.
It nourishes the heart. I am not talking about the sentimentality of so much of what passes for devotional literature. Reading a missionary biography or meditations on Scripture fortifies the soul for those times of suffering and hardship that inevitably come our way. We live in a quick fix society, but in developing spiritual maturity there are no quick fixes. Reading can help fertilize the soil of our hearts so that we bear much fruit.
It stimulates the imagination. Too often when Christians talk about reading, we overlook fiction and poetry. That is a mistake. Our God is a creative being, and He made us in His image. We are creative beings as well, equipped with the faculty of imagination, and God is glorified when we develop it. We need to read fiction -- and not merely the mindless pageturners that often dominate the bestseller lists. We need to read great fiction both of the past and the present, in which the words have been carefully chosen, in which themes are developed and explored, in which characters become three-dimensional rather than being as flat as the paper on which books are printed.
It makes us better with language. Recently a friend from another country asked me how she could improve her English language skills. I encouraged her to read and write. Mastery of language comes from consistent exposure to it. Mastery of language that proves supple, attractive, even persuasive comes from consistent exposure as well. To become a speaker to whom others enjoy listening, or a writer whom others enjoy reading, requires reading good writing.
It helps us understand people. Reading another person's writing opens a window on how that other person thinks. Reading from a wide variety of times, genres, and cultures opens many such windows. When we read and our minds are stretched, our hearts moved, and our imaginations stirred, we will come to understand the thoughts and feelings of other people better.

I am sure there are plenty of other reasons to read. Those five are the five of which I thought first, and they shape the number and mix of books that I consume.

"Revival," Deception, and a Great Fall (2 of 2)

2008-08-14T16:33:00.003-04:00

In the previous post, I began to write about the Lakeland revivals and recent news about Todd Bentley's ministry and marriage. So far, this may seem pretty outlandish stuff to many non-Pentecostal evangelicals. And Bentley's ministry is a far cry from my own -- our hairline is about the only thing we have in common. So how is this a warning to us?

Let me suggest that it is easier to deceive American evangelicals than we might think. It does not need to be outrageous claims of healing and overwrought big-tent-revival-blaring-music experiences to be alluring. For the typical middle-class evangelical that I know, what entices and allures is more likely to be an economic system or political party. That statement is not meant to focus on the Right or the Left; the division in evangelicalism politically has been well-documented at this point and has been brought to the surface by the current presidential campaign (as shown by the blog response to Rick Warren's Civil Forum).

Or it could be a church health strategy. Witness the reality that after the Reveal study, Willow Creek decided to focus more on discipleship and teaching not because of searching the Scriptures, but because of a social science survey. Or it could be the country club mentality to church that poisons the life of so many congregations and paralyzes them in matters of outreach, compassion ministry, and missions.

As I survey the evangelical landscape, it seems to me that we are an easy people to snooker. We need to develop discernment. According to Hebrews 5:14, discernment is a sign of maturity. Putting it all together, that means that we American evangelicals on the whole are not a very mature people. We need to grow up. We need to ingest a steady diet of the Word of God, seasoned with a daily discipline of prayer, supplemented by sitting under the preaching of the Word, accompanied by the presence and power of the Spirit of God as He accompanies the Word that He breathed out.

And as a minister of the Word of God, I need to be on my guard against building personal kingdoms rather than the kingdom of God. That is the sure road to pride, and as James 4:6 reminds us, God opposes the proud. Proverbs 16:18 warns that pride is all too frequently followed by moral failure. I will not pretend to know Todd Bentley's heart. But I know the claims that he made, I see the failure of his marriage, and whether he succumbed to pride or not, the Scriptures put me on my guard.

That is how Todd Bentley's fraudulent ministry and personal failure serve to warn us. May God bring healing and reconciliation to Bentley's marriage, may He preserve us from such a fall, and may He grant us all discernment and repentance.

"Revival," Deception, and a Great Fall (1 of 2)

2008-08-14T15:24:00.026-04:00

The Lakeland revival has generated national attention, especially among Pentecostals but also within the mainstream media (for example, here and here). But this week the staff and fans of Todd Bentley's ministry received unwelcome news: Bentley and his wife are separating, and he will no longer be involved in the Lakeland meetings.

How did this happen? My intention in writing this post is not to dogpile on a man and ministry that have already received mountains of criticism. Nor is it to give the decisive answer into what has gone wrong in Lakeland. I simply desire to raise a few questions and reflect on how this situation should serve as a warning to Christians everywhere.

Bentley has made some wild claims about himself and his ministry: an angel spoke to him and commissioned him in a hotel room, thousands of people healed, several dozen people raised from the dead. Some may wonder how on earth such a ministry came to become so well-known and even popular. At least part of the answer is this: Despite the strangeness of his practice and wildness of his claims, many people have come away from these Lakeland meetings feeling that they have met with God. And someone who believes that God still heals, and who feels they have no other place to turn, might be willing to at least give Bentley a chance.

That is the situation Bill Dembski and his family found themselves in. They have a severely autistic son, and when Bentley came to Denton, Texas, they decided to go because God still heals, and He is free to use whatever means He sees fit. Dembski's name may sound familiar to some; he is a leading proponent of Intelligent Design and has written several books on the subject. Readers should also know that he is a friend from many years ago, when he did post-doc research at Northwestern University and was the instructor for my first philosophy class. And what Bill and his family discovered was a fake. Bill is very intelligent, but also very open to God working through unexpected means. When he shared his experiences, that sealed my evaluation of Bentley and the Lakeland revival.

None of Bentley's claims were verifiable. He also employed some ministry practices that some find questionable, including violence. The Baptist Press has helpfully documented his ministry and critics. A video of Bentley kicking a man with stage four colon cancer has been widely viewed on YouTube. His ministry is as obvious an example as I can think of today of taking advantage of gullible, spiritually hungry people who lack biblical knowledge and discernment. Even Charisma Magazine, a key outlet for the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement, has come to this conclusion.

I will continue with further reflection in my next post.

Another Public Transportation Experience

2008-08-13T09:11:00.024-04:00

It must be the season for it. I was riding the Staten Island Rail yesterday on my way to the ferry, once again reading a book, when I glanced up and noticed a rider who did not quite fit in with the rest of the commuters. He could not have been more than 22, was wearing dark slacks with a short-sleeved white collared shirt and a conservative tie. His plain haircut and red hair screamed that he was not from Staten Island. As he stood holding onto a pole, he looked at the subway map on the wall of the car, and then at the other passengers, with a look both anxious and furtive. I did not need to see the nametag on his shirt pocket to know that he was a Mormon missionary.

He leaned over to a sitting passenger to ask a question. I finished a paragraph, shut my book, and slipped it into my backpack. I began to pray that God would protect the heart and mind of this other passenger, confuse the tongue of the Mormon missionary, and give me an opportunity to become part of the conversation. Eavesdropping is not normally behavior that I encourage, but I strained to listen in. I grinned when I heard the discussion. The passenger was thoroughly against formal religion and more interested in whether the Mormons believe that dogs have spirits and will join us in heaven. He was also eager to talk, such that the missionary could not disengage from the conversation. After several minutes, the passenger got off. Next I felt a pang of disappointment. At the next stop the missionary got off as well, before I could engage him.

How does a kid from Utah who believes a false gospel find the courage to start a conversation about spiritual matters with a complete stranger; but most evangelical Christians that I know, who are genuinely converted as far as I can tell, who believe in the biblical gospel, struggle to talk openly about their faith with friends, coworkers, and family members? Too often I must include myself in this evaluation. Perhaps the sting of rejection is less with a stranger (though I do not know many Christians who substitute contact evangelism in public spaces for evangelism in the context of relationships). Perhaps the labor of investing in personal relationships and modeling integrity, or the risk of vulnerability and authenticity, are wages many of us are unwilling to pay.

But this is now twice in the course of a week that I have encountered some sort of evangelistic work on public transportation, after over two years of not seeing anything at all. And although I am persuaded that this sort of effort is not the most effective means at our disposal, I think there is heartwork that God is doing in me through these experiences in regard to what I value and what I am willing to risk.

In the Wake of a Street Preacher

2008-08-07T17:12:00.018-04:00

I was reading a book on the Staten Island Ferry while on my way to Lower Manhattan. I saw the police officers walking toward me but not to me -- they were looking at something behind me. Only then did I hear the voice. I turned to look over my shoulder. It was a street preacher, loudly proclaiming the gospel on the ferry. He was dressed as many other commuters in slacks and a collared shirt, but carrying a large black Bible in his hand and declaring to all within earshot that they were sinners in danger of judgment who needed a Savior.

I cringed inside and tried to focus on my book, waiting for the officers to tell him to stop. But they did not tell him to stop. They stood by in case anything else happened, but they let him keep going. Conversations became quiet and eventually stopped; it seemed that people were either listening to this preacher, or hoping that through their silence they would convince him to be silent as well.

As he continued to preach, I wrestled with what was happening inside of me. Truth be told, I was embarrassed. I live in a place in which evangelical Christianity is largely irrelevant, in which stereotypes of evangelicals as Bible-thumping religious crazies are alive and well. And I do not want to have to deal with overcoming hostilities in addition to those that inherently come with preaching Christ and Him crucified (I Cor 1:23; I Pet 2:8). If someone is going to take offense with me, let it be because of the gospel itself. I am not convinced that in a place such as New York City, this kind of street preaching does not do more harm than good. I have done my fair share of contact evangelism on boardwalks and in shopping malls and college dorms, so I thought I could say that my discomfort was with the effectiveness of this preacher's chosen method.

Or could I? How sure was I that my discomfort was not because I did not want to be inconvenienced myself, because I did not want to deal with snide comments made by those sitting next to me, because I did not want to identify with that man carrying that Bible speaking in that loud voice? Did that mean that I was also embarrassed to identify publicly with Christ and His gospel? My heart is wicked (Jer 17:9), and if even the apostle Peter could stumble (Matt 26:69-75; Gal 2:11-13), then I have much reason to mistrust my own motives.

Here is my question for anyone who is reading: What would you have done or felt? I began to pray that some on that boat would hear this preacher's words, fall under conviction of their sins, and trust in Christ. And I steeled myself for comments that passengers sitting near me might make -- I was prepared to say that while I was uncomfortable with the method, I fully embraced the message. No comments came. Eventually I went back to my book. But my wrestling with what was happening in my heart continues.

Article Eight

2008-08-06T20:01:00.006-04:00

The last few posts have been about the EFCA revision of our doctrinal statement. I have wanted to demonstrate, however briefly, why this revision is not only a good thing, but even something worth celebrating. The final reason for celebration is Article Eight of the revision, which I will quote in full here:

We believe that God's justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.

One of the questions that defines the ethos of the Free Church, that the founders of this movement of churches asked one another, is this: How goes your walk? Personal and corporate holiness have always lain at the heart of what it means to be the Free Church. Regeneration should be followed by progressive sanctification. At least in part, the absence of evidences of regeneration, namely personal holiness, drove the formation of the precursors to the EFCA, the free churches of Scandinavia.

In our 1950 Statement of Faith, the EFCA had no more extensive statement on sanctification than this in Article Four, that one ministry of the Holy Spirit is to "empower the believer for godly living and service." But no necessary connection between regeneration and sanctification was made. It was assumed and of vital importance to the writers of the old SOF, but it was not explicitly stated that the Spirit produces holiness in everyone whom He regenerates. Unfortunately that can lead (and has led in many a church) to an "easy believism" approach to the gospel such that church members who profess faith in Christ show little and even no evidence of Christlike character or Godward appetites. And that opens up a whole host of problems that keep a church from being biblical and healthy.

Article Eight of the revised SOF takes this problem head on. Those who are justified are necessarily in the process of being sanctified. And the outlines of this sanctification are drawn: love for God and one another, sacrificial living, desire for Christian community, concern for justice and mercy, spiritual warfare, gospel living in word and deed. My personal attachment to Article Eight is such that I would have traded away every other gain I have written about in the revision process in order to keep this.

Of course, I did not need to. And I thank my God for it. I am grateful for this revised Statement of Faith, and I count myself blessed to be part of the EFCA.

The Things We Smoothed Out

2008-08-02T16:06:00.005-04:00

Another reason for appreciating the revised EFCA Statement of Faith is the way certain inconsistencies and ambiguities were smoothed out. Take for example the centuries-old tension between Arminianism and Calvinism. Is the EFCA Arminian -- do we believe that conversion precedes regeneration? If you read articles four and eight of the 1950 SOF, you might think so. But then if you read articles five and six, you might think that the Free Church is in fact Calvinist -- that we believe that regeneration precedes conversion. So which is it? Or is it neither?

In fact, it's neither. The EFCA has never taken a position on Calvinism or Arminianism, not because the debate is not important, but because we have resolved not to divide over it. And as a Calvinist who values unity with my Arminian brothers and sisters, I am glad for that stance. The goal of the 1950 SOF was not to define the ordo salutis, but rather to define the composition of the church as only the regenerate. The revised SOF better reflects our unity and our intention by sidestepping the debate and putting our intention into more precise language in articles six and eight. And that is something to be grateful for.

The Tools It Gives Us

2008-07-25T17:57:00.019-04:00

This is the third post on why the EFCA's revision of our doctrinal statement is a good thing. In the first post, I gave an overview and linked to an article from Christianity Today that walks through the revised statement. In the second post, I talked about the process and the spirit with which the revision was done.

Now I would like to write briefly about the theological tools that the revised statement gives us. The revised SOF has "beefed up" statements on the doctrine of God, the inerrancy of Scripture, the hypostatic union in the person of Christ, justification by faith alone, the atonement, and individual responsibility to repent and believe. Things that were assumed by the writers of the 1950 SOF are no longer taken for granted among some who call themselves evangelicals. And so that which was assumed must now be made explicit in order to safeguard the faith "delivered once for all to the saints" (Jude 3). I'll focus on two issues in particular now: divine foreknowledge and penal substitution. Without doing a series of posts on each of these issues, I cannot do justice to either of them in this post. So I will only give a summary of what is involved and how the revised SOF handles each of them.

Open theism is the view that God does not exhaustively know the future, not because God is not all-knowing, but because the future is indeterminate and therefore not knowable. For a summary of the issues and the parties involved, read this post by Tim Challies, and for a list of resources available online critiquing openness, go to this page from Monergism.com. One excellent book that the EFCA has made available at its conferences is Steve Roy's How Much Does God Foreknow? My key concern is how to square the indeterminacy of the future with statements in the Bible such as Isaiah 48:5, which seems to indicate that one crucial difference between the true God and false gods is knowledge of the future. It seems clear to me that Scripture plainly teaches God's exhaustive knowledge of the future, and that any view to the contrary involves undermining our view of Scripture.

An advocate of open theism could have signed off on the 1950 EFCA Statement of Faith. But the revision says that God is not only "infinitely perfect" but has "limitless knowledge and sovereign power." What a tremendous improvement! And what an important safeguard to preserve our understanding of God's foreknowledge!

Penal substitution is the understanding that God satisfied His own wrath against sinners by sending His Son as a perfect substitute on behalf of sinners to bear His wrath. It is the doctrine at the heart of justification by faith, central to the Reformation, and the hope and confidence of Christians for centuries. And today it is under attack by some who would call themselves evangelical. One scholar even referred to it as "cosmic child abuse," as if the Father gleefully inflicted vengeance on His unwilling Son. Once again the arguments can get complicated, though the single volume that best addresses them at a fairly accessible level is Pierced for Our Transgressions. Not only do these attacks undermine the only righteousness that any of us can hope to have as we stand before our Creator, King, and Judge, they do not square with straightforward readings of Isaiah 53, Romans 3:21-26, and 1 Peter 3:18. That is only a smattering of passages -- at Bethel we will spend three months of Sundays preaching through passages throughout the Bible to understand what happened in the atonement.

A critic of penal substitution could have signed off on the 1950 EFCA Statement of Faith, which only states that Jesus was "a sacrifice for sins." But the revision says human beings are "under [God's] wrath," that Christ is "our representative and substitute" and that His "atoning death" is the "perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins." Again we see the improvement, in which what was assumed is made explicit. And again we see the safeguarding of the glorious riches of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ!

I could say more about the Scriptures, about the person of Christ, about the ordinances, and much more. And this fall when we teach through the revised SOF in Adult Life Training at Bethel, I will. The revised SOF gives us wonderful theological tools for helping us to understand and safeguard the gospel.

The Way That We Did It

2008-07-24T17:47:00.008-04:00

I want to start explaining why Free Church folk should be excited about the revision of the Statement of Faith by writing about the way we did things. This is not to say that things were always done perfectly all along the way. But the overall process was the right way to do things.

The Spiritual Heritage Committee (SHC) of the EFCA was commissioned by the Board of Directors with drafting and redrafting the revision. The SHC was made up of the EFCA director of credentialing and biblical theology, five pastors, and the president of Trinity International University (the EFCA's college and seminary). These men are pastor-theologians. They are not squirreled away in ivory towers, but are on the front lines of ministry, serving as undershepherds of the flock of God. The revision was not a mere academic exercise, but rather an exercise in practical theology and pastoral care.

In addition, these men handled themselves with great integrity and displayed much love and self-restraint. They were criticized, sometimes rightly, sometimes unfairly. But they consistently responded with humility. I learned much from watching their work.

The process was handled transparently. Each draft was made widely available through mailings, emailings, and the EFCA website. The revision was discussed at national meetings, district meetings, and ministerials. It was written about, blogged about, and debated. It was handled patiently, with the first draft going public in December 2005, but the final vote taking place two and a half years later.

It was done with the right attitude. The debate at the June 2008 National Conference was characterized by a sweet spirit of love and patience, with a genuine desire for unity, but at the same time with an unflinching commitment to truth. In an age in which we see too many denominations being pulled apart by wavering on biblical truth, the EFCA moved in the opposite direction and grasped our biblical convictions with an even fiercer embrace.

The EFCA did it right. I came away from the National Conference rejoicing over being part of this denomination, and worshiping God for His faithfulness to us.

Why the EFCA Doctrinal Revision Is a Good Thing

2008-07-24T17:23:00.008-04:00

After returning from the EFCA National Leadership Conference, I gave a brief report to the congregation during our Sunday worship service. I mentioned the workshops I attended, the networking that I did, the teaching we received on living on mission. No one blinked. I think someone may even have yawned.

And then I shared that the revision of the Statement of Faith had been passed by an 86% affirmative vote. A few folks sat up a bit straighter at that. I did not think it would be that much of a surprise -- we have discussed the revision process at congregational business meetings, and we make copies of EFCA Today available free of charge.

Some of you who are reading this are laughing at me now for being naive. I deserve that. After the service, several people approached board members with questions and with concern. Why change the old Statement of Faith, which has served the EFCA so well for over fifty years? That's a fair question, and I intend to address it through a variety of means: a letter sent to everyone in the congregation two weeks ago, an evening meeting next week, a Sunday school class this fall using the new Statement to help us all know our doctrine better and understand what it means to be the Free Church.

And this blog. I'd like to spend several posts explaining why I think this revision is not just a good thing, but a great thing that all Free Church folk should be excited about. In this post, I want to direct our attention to an article in Christianity Today that gives an excellent overview of the revision and the reasons for it. The key idea is this: By revising now, we saved ourselves much trouble later. The EFCA leadership showed farsighted vision and concern for the church for which they should be commended.

I look forward to diving in with the next post!

The Church's Greatest Issue

2008-07-18T11:18:00.004-04:00

My wife subscribes to the True Woman blog, and I came across this comment from Mary Kassian, professor of Women's Studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her comment is in reference to this question: What do you think is the greatest issue facing the church today in relation to the role of women?

"The greatest issue is that we tend to absorb our beliefs by 'osmosis' rather than by thoughtful, intentional study of Scripture."

What a thoughtful response! And how true not only in relation to the role of women, but in relation to all things regarding Christian living and belief. I recently led a group of men through a study of J.I. Packer's book Knowing God, and this was a recurring point of discussion. How much of what we believe about God, about salvation, about loving and living for Him, comes from thoughtful, intentional study and reflection upon Scripture itself? And how much comes from "osmosis" as we unconsciously and unreflectively absorb what we hear and read around us? Packer argues that knowing God in Christ is our greatest need, both corporately as the church and individually. How strange then that we would be passive in what we believe about Him and about the world He created!

How do you know what you think you know? It is a question well worth pondering.

Wrap-Up on the Puritans

2008-07-17T14:30:00.005-04:00

I started this blog several weeks ago by writing about six gifts that the Puritans have left us. Over these past few weeks, I have written about each of these gifts in the hope that a few readers might be encouraged to pick up a Puritan book or two and discover for themselves the riches therein. My own appetite for the Puritans has been whetted as well.

It seems only fitting to end a series on the Puritans by sharing this link with you. When I came across it, my reading docket was already long... but who's to say a calendar proposed for 2008 couldn't be used in 2009? Or half-way through 2008? So I hope this proves helpful.

Let me especially commend to you The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers. My own soul has been greatly nourished by reading and praying these prayers, so saturated in biblical truth that they often seem to express better than I the things I ought to be praying. Sovereign Grace Ministries also has a CD of worship music inspired by the book -- though no substitute for the book, it does make a good companion.

If you were looking for a starting place in approaching the Puritans, I would recommend starting where that reading calendar starts: Richard Sibbes' The Bruised Reed. It is short and approachable (something not always true of Puritan works), and I have found in it much of Christ's balm for a wounded conscience.

HT: TC

The Real Needs of the Soul

2008-07-16T08:09:00.014-04:00

In my denomination, the EFCA, there is a question that shapes our ethos, that was foundational to the birth of the Free Church. "How goes your walk?" was a question that the Free Church founders asked one another regularly. It was a question that led to the formation of churches free from state control in Scandinavia, churches in which personal piety and holiness were emphasized. It is a question that continues to shape the ethos of the EFCA today. It is a question that points to the real needs of the soul. The writer of Hebrews tells us that without holiness, no one will see the Lord. The apostle Paul tells us that God chose us and saved us for holiness. The apostle Peter argues that salvation, holiness, and joy are inextricably tied together in God's plan for His people.

Some of us need to have our sinfulness proclaimed to us -- we need to be taken by the lapels and shaken so that we wake up. We find that type of proclamation in the Puritans. Some of us need patient, systematic instruction on pursuing holiness. This also we find in the Puritans. But some of us are all too aware of our sins. The words of Isaiah 64:6 ring in our ears, reminding us that our best deeds are no better than polluted garments before the holiness of God. Jeremiah 17:9 is an indictment that pierces the soul: I know that my heart is deceitful and sick. And the danger for those who are sensitive of conscience is that they will despair and give up. Yet even this concern we find addressed in the Puritans, particularly in Richard Sibbes' marvelous little book The Bruised Reed.

Yet even holiness points us towards something greater. The point of holiness, according to Hebrews 12:14, is to see the Lord. We see in I Peter 1:8 that the ground of our joy is that even though we have not seen Jesus, we love Him and believe in Him. Paul opens up so we can see his heart beating inside, and as we read what he writes in Philippians 3:8-11, if our hearts are not similarly quickened, then perhaps we have not the life of God in us:

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Knowing God in Jesus Christ. A consuming passion for knowing Jesus. This brings us back full circle to where we started.

The Puritans understood what human beings really need: holiness and joy that come from knowing God in Christ. That is what you and I really need. And the Puritans can be our guides if that is what we would seek to address.

The Power of Words

2008-07-11T18:27:00.010-04:00

I thought about lumping this post in with the previous post on the Puritans. I decided not to, but I would like to do something different with it. Rather than exploring the contributions of individual Puritans, I want to take the obvious appreciation the Puritans had for the power of words and reflect on it.

And it should be obvious that the Puritans believed words were powerful. They have left us the treasures of their writings in which the explored the things of God. I suppose you could even argue that the Puritans must have believed in the power of words, given the number of words and the complexity of the sentences with which they often wrote. :-)

Today the adequacy of words to convey truth has come under fire, even within the church. If words are inadequate to express truth, let alone truth about God, then being dogmatic about theological matters makes no sense. That includes not only important theological differences about which we may disagree and still be Christians, such as Calvinism and Arminianism, but also more central doctrines such as the nature of the Atonement. One community's website goes so far as to say that they "firmly hold that living in reconciled friendship trumps traditional orthodoxies." What is important is relationship, and what defines community is dialogue. Arguments about truth only divide us.

But is language really so inadequate? I would hardly argue that any one of us have the market cornered on truth. And I can hardly give a full-blown theology of language. But it seems to me that if God spoke first, then words must be capable of more than some today might think. If Genesis 1:3 and Psalm 33:9 are true, then "before" there was anything created at all, God spoke. And His Words bring that which is not into existence. If John 1:1 is true, then a logos, a message, a wisdom, a Word existed eternally with God and was in fact God Himself.

Words have power to communicate truth. And that is part of what I love about the Puritans. Richard Sibbes believed that God could take what Sibbes wrote and use it to comfort the wounded conscience. John Owen believed that God could take what Owen wrote and use it to help believers mortify sin. Jeremiah Burroughs believed that God could take what Burroughs wrote and use it to create contentment.

And so He does. The Puritans knew the power of words that were founded upon the Word. We'd do well to learn the same.

Happy Birthday Dear John

2008-07-10T12:47:00.002-04:00

John Piper reminds us that today is John Calvin's 499th birthday, and he helps us understand why we should be grateful for his ministry.

And I want to add my own thank you to both of these men, for pointing me time and again to the unshakable Word of God and the inexhaustible glory of God in Jesus Christ.

HT: JT

A Love for Preaching

2008-07-09T16:47:00.006-04:00

After some time away to attend the EFCA Leadership Conference and visit family, I have the opportunity to write about one of the chief reasons I love the Puritans: their preaching.

During a class in seminary on preaching narrative, the professor challenged us to try something. (I would be remiss if I did not at this point thank Dr. Mike Bullmore for his instruction and feedback during my time at TEDS.) He observed that narratives tend to have a unifying idea or ideas woven throughout the text. So he challenged us in our preaching for that class to retell the story, highlighting the key elements that help us to see the point the author wants to make. Then after telling the story, draw out that main unifying idea. If you've told the story properly, the congregation should say "of course" when you state the main idea. Then offer points of application based on that main idea and conclude.

I tried. I failed -- it is still the worst experience with preaching I have ever had. But what he said made sense to me. I just needed more exposure to how such preaching looks.

Enter the sermons of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, an early 19th century pastor and preacher that were recommended to me by my pastor at the time. I discovered that the structure of text-doctrine-use was the basic structure his sermons. And then I discovered that he had learned at the feet of the Puritans. So I went further back in time and discovered the preaching of men such as Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Watson. And then I worked my way forward and discovered more disciples of the Puritans in C.H. Spurgeon and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I discovered preaching that was both deeply theological and intensely practical to the soul that seeks to know itself and the Lord more clearly. I discovered preaching that was both logical and passionate.

The Puritans did not think much of dividing the head and the heart. Their preaching laid out the Scripture and reasoned through its implications, and also cut to the quick and pierced the heart. Here I have found the richest of treasure and had my soul ministered to. The church would be much richer if we rediscovered the preaching of the Puritans.

Pardon the Delay...

2008-07-03T10:25:00.002-04:00

...between posts here. I haven't been in town to post properly. Last week my wife and I attended the EFCA Leadership Conference, the past few days have been spent with her family in central Illinois, and the next couple of days will be spent in Chicago at a meet-up for BabyWhisperer.com, a not-for-profit parenting website for which my wife volunteers.

The Leadership Conference (and the passage of a revised doctrinal statement for the Free Church) has given me much to blog about. I'll be home this Saturday, will preach on Sunday, and get resettled over the next couple of days. I'll have plenty to write about (including finishing the series on the Puritans).

Realism about sin and human nature

2008-06-23T11:53:00.007-04:00

I started things off in my first post with an explanation for the title of the blog, and I listed six gifts that the Puritans have left us. My hope is that in working through this list, it will encourage us to rediscover their writings.

The third gift the Puritans left us is their realism about sin and human nature. In The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter gives this piece of advice to pastors that I find both sobering and wonderful: "Take heed to yourselves, for you have a depraved nature, and sinful inclinations, as well as others. If innocent Adam had need of heed, and lost himself and us for want of it, how much more need have such as we!" It sobers me because of the problem it describes and the labor that is involved in keeping watch over ourselves. But we should find it wonderful because we only find real freedom and abundant life when we take seriously the reality of our corrupted condition. If we are indeed depraved as Baxter says, and yet we comfort ourselves with books that offer us our best life now or life without limits, then won't we only delude ourselves into thinking that we are happy and thus distract ourselves from finding satisfaction in Christ? Any self-help approach to living that does not begin with the reality of our wretched condition is not really dealing with reality. And all too often, such approaches reduce biblical religion to using God to get what we want.

Perhaps the seriousness with which the Puritans approached sin and sanctification is part of where their "bad rap" comes from. But it is in their seriousness that the Puritans can be so helpful to us. Their view of God is too big to allow us to use Him. And their view of human nature is too realistic to allow us to delude ourselves.

The Puritan work that has most engaged my thinking in regard to sin is John Owen's Mortification of Sin (now more accessible than ever thanks to the volume edited by Kapic and Taylor). Owen patiently works through the biblical text, systematically laying out the need, the nature, and the means of mortification (the putting to death of sin in the life of the Christian). "Be killing sin or it will be killing you," he writes, and presses on us the reality that mortification is a never-ending labor that embraces every area of human life, but that can only be done through the Holy Spirit. Today we tend to want shortcuts and instant gratification. Owen reminds us that when it comes to sin there are no shortcuts. He cares about us too much, and cares about the glory of God in Christ too much, to allow us to deceive ourselves.

Human beings are corrupt in every part of our being. The Puritans will not let us forget that fact. But they do so not to destroy us, but to point us to the source of liberty, Jesus Christ.

A love for the Bible and biblical theology

2008-06-18T10:39:00.005-04:00

This is the third post in a series on gifts that the Puritans have left the church today, which helps explain why I love their writings so. In the first post, I identified six such gifts. Today I'd like to write about the second on that list, a love for the Bible and for biblical theology.

The Puritans were a Word-centered people. They hungered after the Scriptures, they studied it's every word and nuance, and they sought to apply it to every aspect of human existence. This worked its way out into the way public life was structured. It certainly affected their preaching. I recently spent two sermons preaching on the prayer of Jesus in John 17. The Puritan Thomas Manton preached 44 on the same chapter (at the time of this posting, I am on sermon 39). And these sermons are marvelous, drilling down deep into the text, integrating related passages from other parts of Scripture, and consistently seeking through it all to know God better and apply His Word more thoroughly and consistently.

The Scriptures also saturated intellectual life. This reality is what make reading Jonathan Edwards' philosophical works both a labor and a pleasure. Reading The End for Which God Created the World or On the Freedom of the Will requires discipline and clarity of thought. It is hard work. And in the end, you may criticize Edwards for being too convoluted in his writing, or you may disagree with the conclusions he reaches. But you will not be able to criticize him for being philosophically shallow or for leaving the Scriptures behind. His writings are soaked in the Bible. So were John Bunyan's. The Pilgrim's Progress stands both as a masterwork of English epic poetry and as a book so simultaneously biblical and practical (perhaps the latter flows from the former) that Charles Spurgeon thought it should be required reading for Christians right after the Bible itself. And the Scriptures saturated personal life and piety. Reading works such as The Diary and Journal of David Brainerd, or the letters of Samuel Rutherford help bring the Scriptures to bear in a most helpful way on the heart.

The bottom line is that to the Puritans the Scriptures mattered for all of life. Therein are found depths of piety and love, breadth of application, and heights of intellectual vigor in studying the Scriptures. Scripture should be studied, believed, obeyed, and allowed to speak. That's the essence of what Josh Harris calls "humble orthodoxy" and the reason so many young Christians are being drawn to Reformed theology, the writings of the Puritans, and their theological children such as Piper, Spurgeon, A.W. Pink, and others. We want more Bible. The Puritans did too.

Sources from Previous Post

2008-06-16T08:55:00.003-04:00

Someone suggested that I provide the sources used in my previous post. That's a great suggestion, and something I should have done and gladly do now.

Jonathan Edwards, The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader, eds. Kimnach, Minkema, Sweeney.

John Owen, "The Mortification of Sin," in Overcoming Sin and Temptation, eds. Kapic & Taylor.

Robert M'Cheyne, Memoir and Remains, ed. Andrew Bonar.

John Piper, Desiring God.

I hope that helps. Enjoy!

The glory of God in Jesus Christ

2008-06-14T15:02:00.016-04:00

In my first post, I briefly discussed why I'm a wannabe Puritan, and I listed six gifts the Puritans have left us that I would like to explore. The first of these gifts is a consuming passion for the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

You see it regardless of whom you are reading, from Richard Sibbes to John Owen to Stephen Charnock to John Bunyan to Jonathan Edwards. The Puritans are tough to follow sometimes, with their run-on sentences and their vocabulary that is at times unfamiliar to us. But it's there. And you see it in their theological descendants such as C. H. Spurgeon, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, J. I. Packer, and John Piper. There is a sense of wonder at the glory of God, a simultaneous reverent fear and an awestruck joy at standing before the consuming holiness of a God who took on human nature and died for us so that we could share His holiness and joy. The same Jonathan Edwards who preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God also preached a sermon entitled Heaven Is a World of Love. The same John Owen who wrote, "Be killing sin or it will be killing you" also wrote of Christ, "Consider his mercifulness, tenderness, and kindness, as He is our great High Priest at the right hand of God." Robert M'Cheyne wrote, For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in His beams." The Westminster divines wrote that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. John Piper modified that ever so slightly to say that the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. I would like to think that the Westminster divines would have agreed.

Getting distracted comes easy to most of us. Entertainment options abound. Hours spent at work climb. Family obligations call. Even in the church, we can drown in a sea of programs and services and meetings. But in the midst of my busyness, the words of Psalm 73:25 echo in my mind: "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you."

A consuming passion for the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. I want to settle for nothing less. I hope you will settle for nothing less. And the Puritans can help guide us.

Why Should Anyone Want to be a Puritan?

2008-06-12T12:24:00.011-04:00

Some of the dictionary definitions of words such as "puritan" or "puritanical" are not kind: "a person who is strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so," "someone opposed to sensual pleasures... a person excessively concerned about propriety and decorum." It's according to those definitions that the words are most often used today. As H.L. Mencken once put it, "Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." If that is what it means to be a Puritan, then why would anyone want to be one, let alone advertise such a desire with the title of a brand new blog?

All that most high school students read regarding the Puritans comes from four sources: the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, snippets from Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Nathaniel Hawthorne's distortion in The Scarlet Letter, and Arthur Miller's appropriation of the injustice of the Salem witch trials to critique McCarthyism in The Crucible. Hardly a representative and fair selection of materials with which to judge an entire religious movement and historical period.

The Puritans have gotten a bad rap. They were hardly perfect. But many of the things that "everyone knows" are true about the Puritans have been debunked by books such as Leland Ryken's Worldly Saints. More recently, a new generation of young Christians have rediscovered the writings of the Puritans and their theological descendants and have fallen in love with them. Count me among that number. So what I would like to do in the next few posts is tell you why I love the Puritans, and in the process tell you a little bit about myself too.

I plan on writing about the following gifts the Puritans have left us:

A consuming passion for the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
A love for the Bible and for biblical theology.
Realism about human nature and sin.
A love for preaching.
An appreciation for the power of words.
Pastoral concern for the real needs of the soul.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to beginning this blogging adventure.