Blog

Steve Jobs vs. Porn on the iPhone and iPad

Tue, 18 May 2010 17:37:20 -0400

I love the Apple products, but never would have thought of them being, in any way, positive from a moral perspective, only from a business perspective. However, in this post Justin Taylor shows us how Apple has taken a stand against pornography with the iPhone and iPad.

Christian Growth - How Does it Happen?

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:33:22 -0400

I recently came across a short quote from an influential American preacher of the early 20th century, Vance Havner. Havner succinctly articulates a true-to-life answer to a question that we, as Christians, continually ask of ourselves - "Am I growing?" "How does growth happen?" "What does growth look like?" The question of Christian growth is fundamentally one that can only be answered by looking backwards and evaluating where we have been and how those steps stand in contrast to where we currently find ourselves. But do we realize that most of our growth comes from the everyday, ordinary faithfulness, rather than the mountain top or valley experiences? Christian growth is day by day, through small decisions made poorly and well, through relationships that blossom and those that are strained, through daily stresses and daily responsibilities. The question is, do we desire that those everyday and ordinary places, decisions, and responsibilities be the training ground for our exercise unto godliness? I hope you find Havner's thoughts encouraging as you reflect on your own growth in grace over the past months...

"We do not grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ by leaps and bounds but some try. They bounce from one mountain peak of Christian experience to another. Every year or so they make a new start, turn a new leaf, have a new thrill. Children do not grow by suddenly gaining a few inches or adding a few pounds now and then. They grow gradually, daily, by food, rest, and exercise. Christian growth comes the same way by feeding on the Word, resting in the Lord, and exercising unto godliness. It has been said that nothing is more detrimental to Christian experience than too many Christian “experiences.”

(Vance Havner, The Vance Havner Devotional Treasury: Daily Meditations for a Year; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976, 49.)

Such a Strange Way to Show Your Pride

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:54:14 -0400

The heart is an idol factory, John Calvin tells us. This is evident in the way we are always looking to build up and show off ourselves. It seems that our number one idol is always me, myself and I. We're constantly thinking about how things will affect us and how everything will make people think about us, even though most people are probably too busy thinking about themselves to worry about us, most of the time. Brian Regan does a funny bit about the "Me Monster" at a dinner party (see below).

The most uncomfortable part of it is that we all can identify with it on some level. Carl Trueman has a great article over at Reformation 21, where he shows us one more way that modern American evangelicalism has found for putting ourselves up on a pedestal. While we (not just American evangelicalism, but people in general) have always tried to tell everyone how wonderful we are, he points out that many have now taken to the internet to do this, just so that we make sure we don't miss anyone. It's a great article, well worth reading.

Dug Down Deep

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:52:12 -0400

Dug Down Deep is the latest book from Joshua Harris. He takes a dip into new waters with this book. Harris leaves the subject of dating, courtship, lust, and dating the church, in order to tackle theology. It's not a systematic theology, rather it is a book on the importance of knowing theology.

"If you or someone you know is tired of swimming in the shallow end of the pool," writes Kevin DeYoung, "Harris will be a gentle hand pulling you into deeper waters. If you find theology (and those who love it) distasteful, this book will offer good doctrine with a spoon full of sugar. Teens, young adults and those attracted to a Christianity too cool for convictions will do especially well to read this book.

Rather than tell you any more, just watch this excellent promo video:

DugDownDeep_Carnahan.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Accepting a New Call to Ministry

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:26:02 -0500

Friends,

It is with sadness and hopeful anticipation of God’s call that I write to inform you that I will be stepping down from my position as Minister of Discipleship and Young Adults to accept a new call to ministry as the Assistant Minister for Church Planting at Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin, TN.

It is so difficult to say goodbye, and to move away from a friends, family, and a fruitful vineyard for ministry. If it were not for the power of prayer and wise counsel, we would never even considered it. But God has over time warmed our heart toward this new venture and confirmed his direction in many important ways.

As we look forward to the future, we can't help but fight back the pain and sadness of leaving. When you see us, you will more than likely see smiles on our faces and tears running down our cheeks. The reason for this is that Jackson and First Presbyterian Church have become home, and it is never easy leaving a place you love so much.

In the eight weeks we have left in Jackson, I look forward to speaking with many if not all of you personally. To steal a line from the Apostle Paul, "We thank God for you." We love you, and we will miss you all.

“You will make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”—Psalm 16:11

Grace & Peace,
Nate, Christy, Rosalyn, Katie, and Knox.

Speaking of Resolutions...

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:41:11 -0500

Several of you read through the Bible this last year for the first time. What a feat! And what a blessing! Some of you have expressed interest in reading through the Bible this year, and you have wondered the best way for making the journey. There's many excellent Bible reading plans from which to choose: Biblical Order, Chronology, Type of Literature, etc. If you have questions about pros and cons of various plans or approaches, don't hesitate to drop me a line. I would love to speak with you about it.

But for those of you who want a straightforward plan that dips into the Old Testament and New Testament each day, let me suggest this standard plan by Ligonier ministries.

If you haven't started yet, you better get cracking. We're already two days in to 2010!

New Year's Resolutions & The Gospel

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:26:31 -0500

Burk Parsons, Editor of Tabletalk Magazine, has written a helpful piece on the role of resolutions in the Christian's life and practice. I commend it to you. You can find it here.

31 Questions to Ask Yourself at the Start of a New Year

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:44:39 -0500

From Don Whitney:

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?

12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could simplify in that area?

13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?

14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?

15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?

16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?

17. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?

18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?

19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?

20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?

21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?

22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?

23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?

24. What's the most important trip you want to take this year?

25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?

26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?

27. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?

28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?

29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?

30. What's the most important new item you want to buy this year?

31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:12:12 -0500

"Light of lights! All gloom dispelling,

Thou didst come to make thy dwelling

Here within our world of sight.

Lord, in pity and in power,

Thou didst in our darkest hour

Rend the clouds and show thy light.

Praise to thee in earth and heaven

Now and evermore be given,

Christ, who art our sun and shield.

Lord, for us thy life thou gavest,

Those who trust in thee thou savest,

All thy mercy stands revealed."--St. Thomas Aquinas

"Before the paling of the stars,

Before the winter morn,

Before the earliest cock-crow

Jesus Christ was born

Born in a stable,

Cradled in a manger

In the world His hand had made

Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep

In Jerusalem,

Young and old lay fast asleep

In crowded Bethlehem:

Saint and angel, ox and ass,

Kept a watch together,

Before the Christmas daybreak

in the winter weather.

Jesus on His mother's breast

In the stable cold,

Spotless Lamb of God was He,

Shepherd of the fold:

Let us kneel with Mary maid,

With Joseph bent and hoary,

With saint and angel, ox and ass,

To hail the King of Glory."--Christina Rossetti

"The Word disguised Himself by appearing in a body, that He might, as Man, transfer men to Himself, and center their senses on Himself."--Athanasius

"I sing the birth was born to-night,

The author both of life and light;

The angels so did sound it.

And like the ravished shepherds said,

Who saw the light, and were afraid,

Yet searched, and true they found it.

The Son of God, th' eternal king,

That did us all salvation bring,

And freed the soul from danger;

He whom the whole world could not take,

The Word which heaven and earth did make,

Was now laid in a manger.

The Father's wisdom willed it so,

The Son's obedience knew no 'No,'

Both wills were in one stature;

And as that wisdom had decreed,

The Word was no made flesh indeed,

and took on him our nature.

What comfort by him do we win,

Who made himself the price of sin,

To make us heirs of glory!

To see this babe all innocence;

A martyr born in our defence:

Can man forget the story?"--Ben Johnson

"Moonless darkness
stands between,
Past, O Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of Him who freed me
From the self that I have been.

Make me pure, Lord:
Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord:
Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas Day."--Gerald Manley Hopkins

And in him all things hold together...

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:07:30 -0500

John 1:1-3, 14 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

HT: Justin Taylor

Paul Helm's Christmas Cracker

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:30:22 -0500

Every year for reformation21 Paul Helm writes a "Christmas Cracker." His 2009 piece, "A Caller From Cyberspace" was released a few days ago. You can find the piece here.

Tim Keller Article on Multi-Site

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:48:24 -0500

USA Today sent Cathy Grossman to quiz Tim Keller on the benefits of multi-sites as opposed to megachurches. Check it out here.

The Perfect Birthing Experience

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:14:37 -0500

Scotty Smith, Pastor for Preaching, Teaching, and Worship at Christ Community Church, just posted a prayer inspired by the circumstances of Christ's birth. I thought I'd share it with you. Enjoy!

“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4:4-7

Dear Lord Jesus, like others, I often sentimentalize the circumstances of your birth, judging Jerusalem for missing “her moment,” inn-keepers for gross inhospitality, and pitying Joseph and Mary for the birthing room they had to endure. Yet everything happened just as you, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit planned. “Doing all things well” didn’t just start to happen after your resurrection.

“When the time had fully come” you came, not a day early, and not a day late. As humbling as it was to be born under the ceiling of a stable, being born under the weight of the law was a far greater burden. Yet, that’s exactly why you came into the world—to be born under God’s law, to redeem us… to redeem me from my sin and my rebellion, from my unwillingness and my inability, to love and obey God as he deserves. There’s no way in the world I could have ever fulfilled the demands of God’s righteous, perfect and holy law. But you alone could, and you alone did. Be praised, adored and worshipped, Lord Jesus!

Because you lived in my place and died in my place, Lord Jesus, I’m no longer a slave, but a full-righted son of the living and loving God. Abba, Father has robed this prodigal with your righteousness and has sent his Spirit to live in my heart. My future looks pretty good too, as I will co-inherit the new heaven and new earth with you! Oh my… what can I say but “Hallelujah, what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a salvation!”

I don’t judge inn-keepers.”

When Helping Hurts

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:01:05 -0500

Many of you are aware and some of you have read the recently published book from The Chalmers Center written by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. The book is entitled, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Ourselves. We will be spending time this next summer reading and discussing this work for our YA book club. It is a very helpful resource in the continuing conversation on how to honor God, build the church, and strengthen the wider community while meeting the needs of the poor. For our own context, this book will help us evaluate our past efforts at mercy ministry and help promote better thinking, deeper relationships, wiser action plans, and steadfastness in follow up.

Yesterday CNN posted an article on the book. You can find the article here.

Heaven & Earth Surprised

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:46:00 -0500

When the Creator of the world entered creation, the earth was not silent. Quite the opposite. From the birth of Jesus to his death and resurrection, earth responded in surprising ways to the presence of his Creator.

In the Christmas story, we see the heavens responding by sending a star to shine gloriously over the spot of Jesus' birth. It's presence was such a celestial phenomenon that the wise men from the East noticed its rising and followed it. It led them to the Christ child. Though earth was largely unaware of the birth of Christ, heaven couldn't contain its excitement!

Though men often rejected Jesus, his own people most noticeably, Jesus always enjoyed the recognition and worship of creation. In a word, he could direct the wind, and in a single action, he could make water a solid floor. Creation obeyed his every command (Matt.14).

At Jesus death, creation witnessed the tragedy before anyone else--the earth shook, the sun darkened, and the ground gave up the dead (Matthew 25). Why such earthly upheaval? In short, the death of Jesus was no normal death, and so creation could not respond normally. In reading the creation's response, one gets the sense that the fabric of the world was shaken to its very core. He who holds all things together was in that moment torn apart (Col.2). It is only fitting that the earth would grieve too.

Three days later at the resurrection of Christ the earth responds again with a tremendous earthquake (Matt.27). As the Creator reenters and reroutes sin and death, we get the sense the old world with its old ways will give way sooner or later to a New Heavens and a New Earth. It is the beginning of the end of this world, and the end of the beginning of the world to come.

As we approach Christmas, we do well to remember that Christ's power and redemption extend beyond humanity to the whole of the cosmos. In Christ, God has given us a new world order. Old things are passing away and behold new things have come... and will come.

"The Christ child stood on Mary's knee,

His hair was like a crown,

And all the flowers looked up at him,

And all the stars looked down."--G.K. Chesterton

Savior of the Nations, Come

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:52:49 -0500

Christmas is a time of year filled with reflections, songs, antiphons, chants, hymns, poems and many other various and sundry forms of verse and rhyme. Why has Christmas inspired Christians from ever century of history to write? There's many reasons to be sure, but chief among them is the simple truth that Christmas is a time for worship. The Christmas story teaches us this important truth.

Following the announcement of the birth of Jesus, the angels lead us in the most (maybe the only) fitting response to the birth of Christ: singing! We read in Luke 2:13-14, "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.'"

Since that wondrous night 2,000 years ago, Christians have sought to follow the angels lead by writing words and composing music that captures something of the wonder of the birth of Christ. These words and tunes are stored within the collective memory of the church throughout the centuries, and they are revisited each year during Advent to lead us once again to worship.

Below is a beautiful text from the 4th century written by Ambrose of Milan. It was recovered for Protestant worship by Martin Luther in the 15th century; he translated it from the original Latin to German and used it during the season of Advent. It was translated a few years ago by Calvin Seerveld into English.

Savior of the nations, come,

Show yourself, the virgin's son,

Fill with wonder, all the earth,

That our God chose such a birth.

Not by human power or seed

Did the Woman's womb conceive;

Only by the Spirit's breath

Was the Word of God made flesh.

Mary then was found with child,

Still a virgin, chaste and mild.

God had favored her with grace

To receive the Prince of Peace.

Christ laid down his majesty,

Passed through dark Gethsemane.

Though he left his Father's home,

Christ now sits on God's own throne.

Since the star at Bethlehem

Brought new light to earth again,

May our faith shine bright each day;

Faithful God, keep sin away.

Christ in glory, intercede

For your creatures' suffering need.

Let your resurrected power

Soon complete the victory hour.

Praise to you, O Lord, we sing,

Praise to Christ, our newborn King!

With the Father, Spirit, one,

Let your lasting Kingdom come.

Manhattan Declaration Fallout

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:48:02 -0500

For those of you who are interested in following the fallout from the Manhattan Declaration, you can visit our own Derek Thomas' blog post at reformation21. While you're there, you should take the time to read Ligon's fine defense of why he chose to sign the document.

The Manhattan Declaration

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:58:13 -0500

As Christians, we are called to be witnesses for Christ in a fallen and broken world. This means, among many other things, that our attention and energy is required in the public sphere; that we are to bring to bear the whole counsel of God's Word in our individual lives and also in the world at large.

Throughout church history, Christian cultural engagement in the public sphere has included the drafting of statements or position papers on certain social or cultural issues. Such papers help bring clarity to complicated cultural issues by making certain affirmations and denials.

Recently, a group of Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians have joined hands on some of the crucial cultural issues of our day. These collaborative efforts have produced a document called the Manhattan Declaration. If you're at all interested in these issues, please take the time to read this important document. Whether you agree with the document or disagree, like some sections and not others, it is worthy of your attention and consideration.

December in the Young Adult World

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:50:04 -0500

It was good to return to Pathway on Sunday after a six month absence. As I stood in front of the class, I thought to myself, "Six months is a long time." There were many new faces and some newly returned old faces that I was so glad to meet or re-meet. I look forward to much more time in the near future, especially as we pace through the holidays and into 2010.

This is an important time of year, and we want to redeem the opportunities the Lord has given us together. On that note, don't forget the annual Neighborhood Christian Center Cookie Jar Project this Sunday night (December 13). We need many volunteers to make this project a success. You'll find all the important details on the front page of the website.

Also, the Young Adult Christmas Party at Beth Archer's house is Thursday, December 17. We will enjoy fellowship around a meal together and close the night with singing and a short Christmas devotional. I do hope you'll make plans to attend. By God's grace, this time has proved to be a tremendous refreshment to the soul, as we turn our hearts toward Christ together.

While I'm rambling on, let me take this moment to express how thankful I am for Brad and Steve. Many of you have expressed your appreciation for their teaching ministry these last six months. Without their aid, I literally would not have survived. So like you I'm very encouraged by their work among us.

For December through February, we turn our attention to Deuteronomy. The title of our series is "Homeward Bound: Selections from Deuteronomy." Some of you may be asking, "Why Deuteronomy?" It's a good question, and there's a good answer. Deuteronomy plays a pivotal role in the unfolding of the covenant promises in the whole of the Old Testament. It is not an overstatement to say that it would be almost impossible to understand the theological thrust of the OT without this book! In large measure, Deuteronomy introduces us to the major themes of the OT--retributive justice, grace and law, the presence of God, the necessity of atonement, etc--and it provides a vision for understanding how the pieces fit together. Very important indeed!

Furthermore, Deuteronomy lays all the necessary foundations for the coming of Christ. In other words, all God's promises in Christ are found in seed form in the book of Deuteronomy, and so as we read it and study it together, I believe we will find our souls warmed by the never dying, always pertinent, ever expanding promises of the gospel.

It should be a great quarter together. Come and join us!

It will cost you everything

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:21:01 -0500

It Will Cost You Everything from I'll Be Honest on Vimeo.

The Beginning of Advent

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:41:56 -0500

Yesterday was the beginning of what has traditionally been called "Advent" in the church calendar. It is a season of heart preparation, filled with meaningful remembrances of Jesus first coming and loving anticipations of his return. In one sense, Advent is a season like all others; a season of reflection, commitment, and worship of God. In another sense, Advent is a unique time of year, set aside for concentrated attention on the fulfillment of God's covenant promises in the incarnation of Christ. Amidst all the busyness that usually accompanies this season, I hope you will set aside time for meditative, prayerful, and worshipful reflection on the true wonder of Christmas.

"Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David A Savior, who is Christ the Lord."--Luke 2:11

The Blind Side

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:06:28 -0500

The world was introduced to the life story of Michael Oher in 2006 following the publishing of Michael Lewis' bestselling book, The Blind Side. Now left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, then a junior at the University of Mississippi, Michael Oher became a living example of the enduring power of true love to completely change a person's life.

Oher's life story has recently been adapted for the big screen and will be released to theaters everywhere on November 20th. John Lee Hancock, the film's writer and director, was compelled by the message the story communicated: a young couple (Leigh Anne and Sean Touhy) are filled with compassion for a troubled young man and open their lives to him, providing all he needed to succeed, especially love. Most importantly, however, is the fact that this couple's love for Michael Oher was rooted in, motivated by, and an expression of their still deeper love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Working with the Touhy's during the film's production, Hancock was more than a little impressed by their genuineness of their faith. But Hancock wasn't the only one who witnessed this. Apparently leading actress Sandra Bullock, who plays the role of the wife (Leigh Ann Touhy) in the film, was equally encouraged by the authenticity of the Touhy's faith. After working with Leigh Ann and Sean for months, Bullock says, "I now have faith in those who say they represent a faith. I finally met people who walk the walk."

An encouraging review was recently released by World Magazine. You can find the review here.

Parchman Prison Trip

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:25:11 -0500

Our church will be sponsoring its annual Christmas trip to Parchman Prison on Saturday, December 5, 2010. This is an excellent opportunity to take the message of Christ to the prisoners, as it will be their only celebration of Christmas. Only men and women, 21 years of age and older, are allowed to participate in this event. Please sign up no later than Friday, November 20, by contacting Allison Hurley at 601-973-9111 or allisonh@fpcjackson.org.

"...I was in prison, and you came to me."--Matthew 25:36

Men's New Testament Bible Study

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:42:55 -0400

Many of you have asked me how the NT Bible study is going this quarter. I'm pleased to announce that God has done a great work in our midst and has faithfully encouraged our study week after week. Men from every age and stage of life are attending and mutually encouraging one another in the Faith.

For those of you who cannot meet with us weekly but are interested in keeping up with the study, I have posted the NT handouts on the website for your spiritual benefit. There is a possibility that audio files will be available in the not to distant future. So, watch this space.

I pray you find this material useful to your growth in Christ.

Brad's Recommended Reads

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:02:03 -0400

I don't always have time to create a new blog post but oftentimes I want to suggest another blog or article that I have read online. One of the easiest ways to share these articles is with Google Reader. These are my latest recommended reads.

Two Excellent Sermons to Read

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:20:27 -0400

Thomas ChalmersIn this mornings lesson on Lack of Self-Control I quoted from two sermons that I have linked to below. Both authors have a way with words that may shed some light on a deep truth that has evaded you in the past. Join the crowd of people who have been blessed by them.

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection by Thomas Chalmers
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis

I also recommended that you take the time to pray through Psalm 130.

A Song of Ascents.

130:1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!

2 O Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness,

that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I hope;

6 my soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen for the morning,

more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with him is plentiful redemption.

8 And he will redeem Israel

from all his iniquities.

Holy Hip Hop

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:10:15 -0400

My good friend, Josh Kines, sent me this fascinating Christian hip-hop website complete with Christian rap and "sermon jams." For some reason, I feel compelled to share this with you. (By the way, I hope the irony of the fact that I'm the guy posting this is not lost on you).

Keep it real.

Run To Christ

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:09:50 -0400

For personal edification, I've been taking in a collection of short devotional reflections entitled, The Loveliness of Christ. It is a small compendium of quotes and meditations from the 17th century Scottish theologian, Samuel Rutherford. This little volume has become a regular well of spiritual refreshment for me in recent days. The quotes below are intended to encourage quick movement to Christ. Do not linger in distance from your Savior. He is ready to receive you. May the Lord encourage you today and in preparation for the Lord's Day as you consider the instructions and pleadings of one of our great elder brothers in the Faith.

"It is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens upon Christ. Let him find much employment for his calling with you; for he is such a Friend as delighteth to be burdened with suits and employments; and the more homely ye be with him, the more welcome."--Samuel Rutherford

"God hath made many fair flowers, but the fairest of them all is heaven, and the flower of all flowers is Christ."--Samuel Rutherford

"I am in as sweet communion with Christ as a poor sinner can be; and am only pained that he hath much beauty and fairness, and I little love; he great power and mercy, and I little faith; he much light and I bleared eyes."--Samuel Rutherford

"There are many heads lying in Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest."--Samuel Rutherford

Special Revelation (WCF Series - Part 4)

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:33:21 -0400

This is the fourth post in a series on the Westminster Confession of Faith. You may want to read the Introduction to the series, The Value of Creeds and Confessions, and General Revelation before reading this article.

1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.

In my previous post, commenting on this section of the Westminster Confession of Faith, I gave an overview of the reformed understanding of general revelation. In conclusion, I said that "general revelation is not sufficient to save anyone, it only condemns." In this post, I want to provide an overview of special revelation.

The WCF asserts that special revelation is required for salvation. This is due to the fact that general revelation does not disclose to us anything about our savior, Jesus Christ. Those who only know about God through general revelation do not know Christ.

In Ephesians 4:12, Paul tells Gentiles to "remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Those who do not have Christ do not have hope and they are "without God".

A question that often arises at this point is what happens to those who have never heard the Gospel? Or, stated more bluntly, would God send someone to Hell who never had the opportunity to believe in Him? How can God hold someone accountable for something they were unaware of?

Some say that a person must reject the Gospel in order to warrant God's judgment and wrath. But Romans 1:18 tells us that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." Rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ is one sin among many sins a person will be judged for. Romans 3:23 says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Therefore, God's wrath is only poured out on the ungodly and everyone is guilty. In other words, people will go to Hell because they have sinned. Their rejection of the Gospel will only add guilt to their already sinful condition.

The question we should be asking is how can anyone be saved?

Were general revelation sufficient for salvation there would have been no reason for God to provide special revelation. "God does nothing in vain," writes Robert Shaw, "and were the light of nature sufficient to guide men to eternal happiness, it cannot be supposed that a divine revelation would have been given."[1] To argue otherwise makes the cross unnecessary. Why would God have sent His Son to die on the cross if people could be saved through general revelation alone? What would be the point of missionaries if people can know God apart from his Word?

Annie Dillard tells the story of an Eskimo and a missionary priest in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Somewhere, and I can't find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No', said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?'

This hypothetical missionary was sadly mistaken. The reason missionaries preach the Gospel to those who have never heard it before is because that is their only hope of salvation. Once again we can turn to Romans for confirmation. Paul tells us in Romans 10:14, "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?"

Next time we will take a look at the implications of the cessation of special revelation. What does this mean for those who say the Holy Spirit continues to distribute the gifts of prophecy and tongues to the church today?

[1] Robert Shaw, The Reformed Faith, (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p.40.

The Death of Meaning

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:17:11 -0400

Carl Trueman takes aim at the way the media handled the recent deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy. It's worth a read. You can find the article here.

Worldview Questions

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:48:23 -0400

Greg Wilbur recently wrote a short piece in preparation for an upcoming Film Conference at Kings Meadow Study Center that I found to be helpful instruction for living wisely in the world. I've posted the article below in full.

Seven Worldview Questions & Narrative

In several of his works, including The Universe Next Door, James Sire identifies seven questions that articulate and define various worldviews. All belief systems and perspectives have an explicit or implicit answer to each of these questions and those answers help determine what it is someone truly believes. When evaluating literature, art, music, film, political rhetoric, textbooks, essays, etc., these seven questions can help direct the process of determining the perspective and beliefs of the artist/creator/speaker.

1. What is prime reality-the really real?

2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?

3. What is a human being or the nature of humanity?

4. What happens to a person at death?

5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?

6. How do we know what is right and wrong? What is the basis of morality?

7. What is the meaning of human history?

When evaluating the content of the narrative, understanding the worldview presented is an essential first step. The next step is assessing the medium of the story and its relationship to the inherent worldview of the narrative.

For example, the dominant answer to Question Six in popular media is whatever feels right or whatever works in this moment. In other words, the basis of morality is individual, situational, pragmatic, and subjective. The Biblical basis for morality is what God Almighty said and it is corporate, unchanging, transcendent, and objective.

Does this mean that we should burn all movies with subjective morality? No, but we should be aware of what motivates the actions and conclusions in the story. The tension and release inherent in the narrative-that which catches us and moves us-may be based upon faulty and false premises. To not be fully cognizant of the worldview perspective of something that moves us emotionally is to open ourselves to the very real possibility of worldview drift. Our emotional connection to something that is not true will change the way that we think and act.

Part of taking every thought captive is to be aware of what thoughts and perspectives surround us and which ones we invite into our lives. Our desire should be to think God's thoughts after Him, to strive after holiness, to be careful how we fill the hours that He has redeemed for us, and to turn from all malice and wickedness. This does not mean that we shelter from the world and try to live pseudo-Victorian lives in the 21st century, but it does mean that we need to set a watch at the gate and be careful about who and what we let inside the citadel of our hearts.

Greg Wilbur is the Director of Kings Meadow Study Center, Franklin, TN

Speaking of Sin...

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:01:40 -0400

I'm hearing good things about the current Sunday school series on sins that divide the church. Big thanks to Steve and Brad on developing the idea and putting the series together.

Along these same lines, Kansas State University published a piece in Wired magazine entitled, "American Vice: Mapping the Seven Deadly Sins." It's interesting to say the least, even if the science is a bit sketchy. Take a look for yourself and then weigh in. I'd be interested to know what you think about it.

HT: Gate Davis

The Trinity and Everyday Life: Part Six

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:09:45 -0400

Well, it has been a few weeks since the last post in this series so you may have forgotten where we are in our study. Last time i mentioned that we are going to be ' turning back the clocks' to some of the earliest formulators of the theology of the Trinity.

We also noted how by the end of the first century the church held sort of a hodge podge of beliefs concerning what we call the Trinity today. Now, if any one of these beliefs were examined individually, it was clear enough to understand and accept. Problems arose, however, when people looked at them in tandem.

In exactly what way is the Son God ? What was the exact relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit? Questions like these and many others were just waiting to be answered by the church. But as one can imagine, there were not a few disagreements as to how all of these beliefs comported with one another. And it is into this context to which we now dive into.

Just as any sizable edifice needs a good foundation, so the doctrine of Trinity needed a solid bedrock if it was to stand the test of time and controversy. Insert Tertullian. By God's providence this Renaissance man ( a bit of anachronistic, i know! ) was up to the task. Tertullian flourished in North Africa around the middle of the second century to the beginning of the Third. He was a lawyer by profession, but also had proficiency in medicine, literature, and military tactics.

The problems created by a Roman named Praxeus got the attention of this blunt and square- shooting North African. According to Tertullian, Praxeus was "doing the Devil's work in Rome" by teaching what is called Patripassionism. According to Praxeus it was the Father who became incarnate and suffered and died on the cross at Calvary. Thus, he conflated the Father and the Son into one being.

Frankly, Tertullian would have none of this. Out of his response to Praxeus the very foundational terminology that the church need to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity was borne. And this is the greatest achievement that Tertullian bequeathed to the church (we still use his terminology today!). Quoting 1 Cor. 15:24, Tertullian emphasized, without demeaning the unity of God, that the Father and the Son were distinct from One Another.

He is also the first to coin the term Trinity to speak of God. He makes the point that this term does not simply mean threeness but rather three-in-oneness. The designation of essence or being to describe the Oneness of God is also attributed to Tertullian. Probably his biggest contribution, however, was his use of the word Person to describe the way in which God is both One and Three.

In Tertullians' own words: "The three persons are of One, by unity of essence" or perhaps more clear, " These three are on in essence, not in person". Now, it must be noted that this terminology of 'person' did lead to some confusion in the early church, of which we do not have time to get into.

The important thing to take away from this is that, though the terminology is not perfect, it is hard to do better than Tertullian did: In the One being of God there are three Persons. Up until this very day it seems that no one has done better than this formulation. And it is for such terminology that all of us, as heirs of this great doctrine, are indebted to him for.

Next time we fast forward to the beginning of the fourth century and look the contributions of a Bishop named Athanasius.

Men of the Covenant: Elbert McGowen

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:17:56 -0400

Men, our second meeting of the Men of the Covenant is this Thursday (October 1). We continue with our theme for the fall, "A Man After God's Own Heart." This month Rev. Elbert McGowen, Reformed University Fellowship Minister at Jackson State University, will be speaking on the always pertinent topic of repentance.

Elbert is a native of Jackson, MS. He graduated from Alabama A&M University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. After working for several years, Elbert sensed the call of God to enter full time Christian ministry. In answer to this call, Elbert returned to Jackson to attend Reformed Theological Seminary where he earned a Master of Divinity degree. In his final year of seminary, the Lord opened up the opportunity for Elbert to begin a new work with RUF on the campus of Jackson State University. He has been serving the Lord in this post for three years. Elbert is married to Karen and has two young children, Charis and Trip.

Reservations are not required for the Men of the Covenant Luncheon. The cost of the lunch is $5 and will be collected at the door. If you have any questions, please contact Shannon Craft at 601-326-9243 or shannonc@fpcjackson.org

Paul Miller's "A Praying Life"

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:59:53 -0400

Bob Thune at the Coram Deo blogsite penned a brief but helpful review of Paul Miller's excellent new work, A Praying Life. Check it out here.

WCF Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scriptures, Section 1 - General Revelation

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:18:07 -0400

This is the third post in a series on the Westminster Confession of Faith. You may want to read the Introduction to the series and The Value of Creeds and Confessions before reading this article.

1. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.

The first thing we notice is that the Westminster Confession of Faith begins with our understanding of Scripture. Some have objected that they should have begun with God, but R.C. Sproul provides two reasons why the Westminster divines chose to begin with Scripture. 1) God can only be understood through his revelation, and 2) Sola Scriptura which, "acknowledges that the final authority in all matters of theology and in all controversies of faith and life is not the decrees or traditions of the church, but sacred Scripture itself."[i]

This section of the Confession affirms that Scripture teaches us two modes of divine revelation. God reveals himself to us through general and special revelation.

General Revelation

General revelation refers the many ways that we can know God through "the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence." Romans 1:18-20 might provide the clearest picture of God's revelation through creation:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse."

In this passage Paul clarifies that God does not inflict his wrath upon undeserving and innocent people. According to Paul, creation not only proves God's existence, but it also teaches us about God's character. The wrath of God is shown to unrighteous men who "suppress the truth." We know this is true because they have rejected God even though his design is evident throughout creation. They are blind to that which is plainly visible before them every day.

Regarding the Gentiles, who did not grow up with the law like the Jews did, Paul mentions that the law is "written on their hearts," (Rom. 2:14-15). In other words, everyone has a conscience. They are born with an innate understanding of right and wrong. This can be seen in every civilization at every point in history. God's providential hand touches every avenue of the globe.

I love how Thomas O. Chisholm puts in in his hymn, 'Great is Thy Faithfulness,'

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

"All men know God, the true God, the only God," states G.I. Williamson, "They do not merely have the capacity for knowing him; they actually do know him, and cannot possibly evade knowing him."[ii] However, while all men know God through his creation and their conscience, nature does not reveal to us who Jesus Christ is. General revelation saves no one, but it leaves everyone "without excuse," (Rom. 1:20). They are without excuse for their sin.

Thus, general revelation is not sufficient to save anyone, it only condemns. Special revelation is needed for salvation. Lord willing, that is what we will take a look at next week.

[i] R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2006), p.5.

[ii] G.I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004), p.3.

John Piper Sermon

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:58:45 -0400

If you have not had a chance to listen to pastor John Piper's (pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota) sermon entitled, "Greatness, Humility, Servanthood" then do so now!!! I pray that it will force you to search your heart and spur you on to seek true humility as it did me.

The Trinity and Everyday Life: Part Five

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:31:01 -0400

Over the past few weeks we have looked at various areas in which the doctrine of the Trinity could use some revitalization in our day and age. Over the next few weeks we are going to ‘turn back the clocks’ a bit and travel back to the days of the early church.

Hopefully by now those reading are convinced that freshly reorienting our thinking with the doctrine of the Trinity is a necessity. There was a time however when such “reorienting” was not possible. What am I talking about? Simply that at one point there was no developed doctrine of the Trinity to be reoriented too!

Please don’t misunderstand me here! I do not mean to say that the Trinity did not exist before the end of the first few centuries of church history, only that the theological terminology that attempts to describe and define the Trinity simply didn’t exist!

Now I think one sin we are all guilty of committing at one time or another is our ignorance of church history in general and the history of doctrine in particular. The latter may not sound like a thrill ride for many reading this, but it truly is! What prima facie sounds as dry as the Arizona heat ( which I experienced first hand a few weeks ago on my trip home!) is actually not only vital to our appreciation of the faith but also extremely exciting.

Thus far in our study, we have been mainly focusing on the contemporary scene but now I want to pull back a bit. The rationale for beginning with the modern day situation was to hopefully demonstrate the importance of having an interest in this great doctrine.

But this great doctrine of the Trinity which we possess today did not always exist in its present form. Let me explain. Believe it or not, God did not drop an ESV study bible (complete with great study notes on the Trinity!) from the sky to early Christians. God chose to reveal Himself progressively. OT believers did not have as full of a picture of God as did NT Christians.

A quote from the great Princeton theologian, B.B Warfield, is a good place to start in this regard: “It is a plain matter of fact that none who have depended on the revelation embodied in the OT alone have ever attained to the doctrine of the Trinity”. Paul’s God was the same God whom Moses worshipped to be sure, but Paul had a clearer and fuller grasp on the nature of that God.

The OT writers may definitely have eluded to the Triune nature of God in the OT, but they most likely wrote beyond what they could fully comprehend. And it is not until the more full disclosure of the NT that we can more clearly see those implicit elusions more explicitly. To loosely paraphrase Augustine: The Old Testament is like a room well furnished but dimly lit. The NT doctrine of the Trinity does not add anything new to the doctrine of God; it simply 'turns the light on' to the God who was already there in the first place.

But there was also progression in our understanding of the Trinity even after the New Testament books were completed by the end of the first century. While revelation ceased with the writing of the last NT book, Christians still had the task of understanding and synthesizing that revelation. And this progression in understanding was provided an impetus by sharp conflict in the early centuries of the church.

We are indebted to many great and godly men for the doctrine of the Trinity that we have in our possession today. More specifically, we are indebted to them for so much of the language that we use when discussing and describing the doctrine of the Trinity.

Think with me, if you can, to roughly the beginning of the second century. The church had not yet had the benefit of centuries of theological and doctrinal reflection with respect to great doctrines such as the Trinity. The early Christians found themselves having a wide range of theological convictions but had not worked to synthesize those convictions in a coherent and logical fashion.

They believed there was one God. They believed that salvation came from a 3-fold source- the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They also believed that the Father is not the Son, nor is Spirit the Father or the Son. As you can imagine, however, many questions arose in the minds of these early Christians (as they still do for us today).

It is easy to gather each of these beliefs individual from Scripture and to believe them individually. But the early church soon found out that it was not equally as easy trying to figure out how all of these beliefs could be held collectively.

How can God be one and three at the same time? In what way was the Son God? What was the relation of the Spirit to both Son and Father? If Jesus is described as God’s Son, then does that subordinate him to God the Father in any way? And as you can also imagine, if such questions are not handled with care, trouble could arise very quickly in the church.

And this is exactly what happened. When trouble arose, however, God also raised up competent and godly men to meet that trouble head on. And as is so often the case in the church, the church (and her doctrine) ended up being better for the siege.

It was over the red-hot coals of conflict that the great doctrine of the Trinity which we possess today was forged. Over the next couple of weeks I want to single out a few of the most instrumental of God’s servants whom God raised up to help defend and define this great doctrine.

Join me as continue our study of the doctrine of the Trinity. We begin next week with in the second century with Tertullian and conclude our journey a few weeks later with John Calvin in the sixteenth century.

The Trinity and Everyday Life: Part Four

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:45:02 -0400

Over the past few posts I have attempted to press home the necessity recovering the doctrine of the Trinity in a number of areas for our generation. We have seen that the recovery of this doctrine is necessary if we are to worship God rightly and deeply, recover a biblical doctrine of creation, and also to entering into the kind of deep meaningful relationships that God has called us into.

In this post i want to make a specific application of the problem of "the one and the many" mentioned a few weeks back. And I want to do that in the area of evangelism.

A recovery of the Doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely essential if we are going to be faithful witnesses for Christ in a sin sick world, a world in which there are so many other competitors in the market place for ideas. On a daily basis Christians are confronted with smorgasbord of religions/ worldviews. Entering into ‘another world’ may only be a cubicle away.

How can the God of the bible ‘stand out’ in an atmosphere such as this? Simply put, it is only the distinctly Trinitarian God who can account for reality being the way that it is. In other words, if the God of the bible did not exist, the world as we know it would be a much different place (in fact, it wouldn’t even exist!).

One Christian apologist concisely summed up this idea when he said that we prove Christianity by “the impossibility of the contrary”. That is, if we grant the truth claims of any other worldview (for the sake of argument) and seriously examine those truth claims with reference to the world that we find ourselves in then our experience of this world would be utterly unintelligible.

To put it positively: it is only the Christian worldview that can make sense of the world that we find ourselves living in.

Demonstrating this to persons who embrace rival religious claims can be one of the most effective ways of convincing others (via the Holy Spirit of course) of not only the falsity of their view but especially of the truthfulness of the Christian worldview.

A few weeks ago we saw that it is only the Christian God who can account for the harmony between the unity and the diversity that we find in our experience. This was the case because in the Triune God both unity and diversity are ‘equally ultimate’ to use Cornelius Van Till’s language again. In that post, however, much of what was talked about dealt mainly in the realm of the abstract.

Now, in the area of evangelism we are going to see this claim worked out in a more practical way. Since this consideration is so foundational to everyday life, any religion/worldview that contends that its particular claims about the world comport with what actually is the case about the world must have some way of accounting for the unity and diversity in the world.

If it cannot, it might make one feel good or serve some other psychological need, but it cannot be true. As a test case, let us look at the religion of Islam.

Now, I use Islam because many people find it one of the hardest religions to witness too or to defend against because it has some ‘main things’ in common with Christianity. Because of these similarities many believe that it is much harder to make the Christian God ‘stand out’ when He is standing next to Allah than if He were standing next to Zeus or the Hindu Pantheon.

To list probably two of the greatest similarities that trip people up when evangelizing to Muslims: both Islam and Christianity espouse a personal and absolute God and both also have ‘religious books’ (the Bible and the Koran respectively) which claim to be a revelation from the one true God.

One thing that clearly demarcates Christianity from Islam, however, is the Trinity. Islamic theology is thoroughly Unitarian. We could call Islam a Unitarian Christian counterfeit.

Now, though the problem of the ‘one and the many’ is a bit more on the philosophical side of things, it is a ‘problem’ in which we see the intersection of the doctrine of the Trinity and evangelism quite nicely.

As a Christian we have the right to ask the Muslim how his/her worldview (Islam) can account for both the diversity and the unity in the world if there is only ‘unity’ in Allah and not ‘diversity’. You will recall (view this post if you do not recall!) that this is a big problem for the Muslim because both ‘unity’ and ‘diversity’ would need to be foundational, or ultimate, to reality, at its most basic level.

You could not ‘start with’ unity, so to speak, and then at some later step introduce diversity into reality and vice versa. If there is not diversity in Allah, then how does the Muslim account for the diversity in our experience if Allah is the ‘most basic thing (person) to reality', if he is foundational and responsible for this world in which we live in?

And this consideration can cut both ways. We could just as well ask a polytheist (who could account, in theory, only for the diversity in our experience) how their world view can account for the unity that we find in our experience.

The nice thing about this particular approach is that this consideration applies to every worldview that can account for only one half of the ‘one and the many’ problem but not both unity and diversity as the Christian can via the Trinity.

So this is only one specific (and short!) example, but it is an important one. All of our experience is tied up in this problem. We face it everyday, every which way we turn. And if we are to seize on this particular opportunity to share Christ with adherents of competing worldviews, we need a thoroughly robust Trinitarian approach to evangelism and apologetics.

A Word At Just The Right Time (Encouragement Part 2)

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:48:14 -0400

Words are more powerful and thus more important than we often think. Proverbs 16:4 says, "Pleasant words are sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." On a more somber note, Proverbs 18:21 says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue."

God intends for Christians to use words in such a way as to employ their proper power. We are to use words in a way that is consistent with their intention. We must not overlook the lasting effect of words. When we speak to another, we are to take into consideration the power of the words we use. Words can either build up or tear down. We should choose our words for the purpose intended, and the purpose intended should always be god-likeness.

To be honest, this is an area in my own life where God has revealed sin. I sometimes use words in deceptive ways. I say one thing but mean quite another. One good friend said to me in a moment of well intentioned confrontation, "Nate, I'm afraid you speak with a killing niceness." I was taken back. "A killing niceness." What on earth did he mean? He meant of course that my "niceness" actually kept people at a safe distance. I had perfected a "Mr. Nice Guy" routine had actually kept people from real relationship with me. I was horrified--not because it was false, but because it was true.

When Paul instructed the church at Ephesus, he said to them, "let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word that is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it might give grace to those who hear." (Eph.4:29). Oh yes! This was the way we were to talk--open and with a clear conscience. We are to speak in a way that invites relationship. Such speech gives glory to God.

A word of encouragement has a way of building up another, even the whole body of Christ. A word aptly spoken gives strength. It empowers the broken and weak to keep on keeping on. When you speak, consider who you are speaking for (God!) and who you are speaking to (one made in the image of God). Speak with sincerity for a positive purpose, using your words to "stir one another to love and good deeds." (Heb.10:24)

Peru Mission Trip Movie

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:09:10 -0400

I've shared a great deal about the Peru mission trip that Christy and I took this summer with 34 other members from FPC. It was a tremendous, truly unforgettable experience. God blessed our ministry in some remarkable ways. We feel honored to have been given the opportunity to go.

Since so many of you prayed so faithfully for us while we were there, I want to invite you to view the Peru Movie that Stephen Kruger put together for all of us. It's hard to capture the experience of Peru, but the movie goes a long way in helping you visualize Peru, the people, and the mission. I hope you enjoy it.

Prayer Concerning Annoyance

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:39:32 -0400

My former pastor, Scotty Smith, penned this prayer recently, and I wanted to share it with you.

“A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult." Proverbs 12:16

Jesus, of all the prayer-worthy things I can think of, “annoyance” has never made it onto my supplication list… until now. Though the pastoral pestering of your Spirit, I see and grieve that I’m too easily annoyed. Have mercy on me, Prince of Peace. Free my foolish fretful fitful heart. How can I possibly build bridges for sharing the gospel when I have an annoyed spirit?

I’m annoyed by the guy that races me when two lanes are becoming one. I’m annoyed by slow bar-code reading automated check-out machines. I’m annoyed when the gas pump trickles way too slowly. I’m annoyed by waiters that fish for a bigger tip. I’m annoyed by humidity when I want to jog.

I’m annoyed by low talkers and loud talkers. I’m annoyed at people easily annoyed. I’m annoyed when there’s not enough milk for a late night bowl of cereal. I’m annoyed when I have to repeat myself. I’m annoyed at whiners, so much that I start whining. I’m annoyed at people preening in front of mirrors at the YMCA, as though I never peak.

I’m annoyed at ever having to wait in line for anything. I’m annoyed by the color “orange.” I’m annoyed at any box that has the words written on it, “requires some assembly.” Oh, Jesus, if only those were the only things that annoyed me…

My prayer? Gentle my heart with your kindness and grace. Grant me much quicker repentances. Help me to slow… way… down. Help me to live in the moment and not simply live to get somewhere on time or get something done. Let me see people with your eyes and respond to them with your heart. There are no ordinary people around me. Everybody matters. Everybody has stories of heartache, foolishness, fear, and longing, just like me. Jesus, thank you that you died for all of my sins, including my annoyability. I love being loved by you. I have no greater hope than knowing one day I will love like you love. Amen”

The Trinity and Everyday Life: Part Three

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:10:45 -0400

Last week we looked at a few of the areas in which a recovery of the doctrine of the Trinity is imperative for the Church in our generation. This week we are going to pinpoint one more area: Relationships

Unless you are a budding theologian you might think that perichoresis is a disease which affects the liver. Actually, the term has been used ever since the early Church Fathers to refer to the mutual inter-penetration and indwelling within the three fold nature of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

To translate that for those not fluent in ‘Christianeeze’, the term simply attempts to draw attention to and describe the intimate relationship between the 3 Persons of the Godhead.

The term is important for us to think about because it is this relationship that is the very foundation for all of our human relationships. That is, the perichoresis presses upon all of us the need and the mutual benefit of seeking intentional relationships with one another. In this series of posts I hope to tease out the implications of this term in a variety of different ways.

There never was a time when the three Persons of the Godhead were not in relationship to one another. God has had ‘community’, so to speak, within Himself for all eternity. Thus, being in relationship with our fellow human beings is foundational to what it means to be made in the image of the Triune God.

Humans were never meant to be ‘lone rangers’, but to be in meaningful, fulfilling relationships. We will visit this topic again specifically with regards to it’s implications regarding ‘body life’ within the local church in a future post, for now lets think a bit about the broader implications of recovering the doctrine of the Trinity in this area.

It is not only the fact that we are to be in relationship with one another that the Trinity provides the basis for, but also the kind of treatment that we are to exhibit toward others in those relationships.

That is, the Christian finds in the Trinity not only the basis for and justification of altruistic behavior but also an obligation to it.

Humans in general and Christian’s in particular are not to be selfish people. This may seem like something we learned from our mother’s at a very early age, but experience (and scripture) show that humans have a proclivity to the exact opposite behavior.

Just think for a minute about the highly competitive, cut-throat air that we breathe in our 9-5’s on a daily basis. Looking out for others in the place where we spend most of our waking hours is not normally what is going to get you that promotion. Looking out for ‘number one’ is one of the most deeply held social mores of our generation.

And the evolutionary worldview that still underpins so much of the thought of our society buttresses this attitude even more. A few years back Richard Dawkins wrote a book entitled, “the Selfish Gene”. Dawkins believes in a ‘gene centered’ view of evolution. Gene’s drive the train of evolution, so to speak, and more specifically the process of natural selection.

In describing genes as being "selfish", Dawkins doesn’t mean to imply that they are driven by any motives or will—merely that their effects can be accurately described as if they do.

The contention is that the genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own implicit interests (to continue being replicated), not necessarily those of the organism, much les ats any larger level.

The payoff is that this view explains altruism at the individual level in nature, especially in kin relationships: when an individual sacrifices its own life to protect the lives of kin, it is acting in the interest of its own genes.

Translation: the basis for ‘other interest’ (on evolutionary assumptions) is ‘self interest’. Whereas the Christian has at the very base and foundational level of reality, “unselfish relationship” (the Triune God), the evolutionary view, at its very base and foundational level has “selfish relationship”(selfish genes). How could it be otherwise on evolutionary assumptions about the world?

And it seems that this ‘selfishness’ is the best that the evolutionist can do at any level, if he is to be consistent. Humans may appear as if they are acting in the interest of another solely for the sake of the other, but they are really doing it out of self interest.

Now, I realize that this post has not argued for the claim that “it is better to be selfless rather than to be selfish”, but has rather assumed this to be common knowledge. One reason is that this is not the specific aim of this post. Another reason is that it is my contention that the intrinsic ‘rightness’ of this kind of behavior is written deeply within the fabric of our beings.

Aside from any extensive argumentation, being a human myself, I would argue that the Christian kind of altruistic behavior is deeply engrained in the conscience and heart of man. It is sin rather than our genes that lead us to do things out of selfish motives rather than selfless motives. The latter is what man knows to be true ‘in his heart’.

The Christian, as opposed to the evolutionist, finds in the Trinity, the very model for other mindedness. The Father unselfishly advances His kingdom by means of His Son, the Son glorifies the Father by His work, and the Spirit bears witness not to Himself but to the Son.

Christians, therefore, can not only explain altruistic behavior in a way that comports with what his conscience confirms, but are obligated to it. It is not merely a façade. It is real, meaningful, deep relationship.

In a future post we will apply this model of ‘other mindednesses to the life of the local congregation.

The Gospel and Social Action

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:46:34 -0400

On his blog, Matt Harmon gives some very helpful points for the balancing of the gospel and social engagement. This is a discussion that deserves more attention in our time. You can visit Matt's site here.

Matthew Henry's Method for Prayer

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:06:38 -0400

Some of you might have seen Ligon's write up in the First Epistle, introducing us to the brand new website devoted to promoting Matthew Henry's Method for Prayer. If you're not familiar with this classic work, then you now have the opportunity to peruse it online and even receive daily e-mail updates that will stir your heart to pray Biblically. This is a great resource!

WCF Series: The Value of Creeds and Confessions

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:03:04 -0400

Before looking at the Westminster Confession of Faith specifically, it might be helpful to understand why we place such a high importance upon creeds and confessions. The answer to question three of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (written by the same authors of the WCF) states, "the Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man." That being the case, what is the need for creeds and confessions? Should we simply focus on reading and understanding Scripture? Would that not make more sense?

It is important to recognize that the Westminster Assembly placed all authority upon Scripture. In his commentary on the WCF, A.A. Hodge clarifies, "This Divine Word, therefore, is the only standard of doctrine which has intrinsic authority binding the conscience of men. And all other standards are of value or authority only in proportion as they teach what the Scriptures teach."[i] The question then, is not whether the confession has authority, but whether the interpretation of Scripture found in the WCF is accurate. Do they "teach what the Scriptures teach"?

It is also important that we consider the alternative to having creeds and confessions (if that were possible). The one who rejects creeds and confessions must interpret Scripture by himself. He rejects the assistance of previous generations of the body of Christ. Again Hodge helps when he says, "The real question is not, as often pretended, between the Word of God and the creed of man, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God's people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the repudiator of creeds."[ii] Should we trust in the collective interpretation of Scripture by godly men from the past? Or should we trust in our own individualistic interpretation?

No one should trust his ability to interpret Scripture by himself. I have never met someone who truly thought it was possible to do so. Everyone, it seems to me, is aware of the possible deception they can experience in their own mind. Additionally, all of us have been influenced by someone we've heard or read. None of us are capable of coming to the text of Scripture completely impartial. Our mind is not a tabula rasa. We all bring presuppositions to the text which influence the way we read it.

The Westminster AssemblyThe only question is whether we will trust the influence of the few people we've interacted with and our own understanding, or those men of previous generations who shared their own understanding of Scripture in the form of creeds and confessions. As Robert Shaw writes, "Thus a Confession of Faith is not the very voice of divine truth, but the echo of that voice from souls that have heard its utterance, felt its power, and are answering to its call."[iii] To deny the value of a Confession of Faith is akin to denying the value of preaching, teaching, and discipleship in the church. Anything that requires the explanation of Scripture becomes questionable.

Anytime someone reads or hears God's Word they are required to interpret the text. Interpretations will vary from individual to individual. Some may even interpret the truth incorrectly. While the Holy Spirit provides clarity where there is confusion, it is plainly evident that two honest and committed believers will – at times – interpret the same text differently. Whose side is the Holy Spirit on?

People on both sides of the issue agree that God's Word is the only authoritative voice to teach us about God and the duty of man. However the question remains, "What do you understand the Bible to teach? It would be no answer to this question merely to repeat a series of texts; for this would give no information in what sense these texts were understood."[iv] The confusion arises not out of a defect within the text, but because of the vacillating human mind. God's Word never changes but our ability to accurately comprehend the truth of God changes.

It is inevitable that a time will come in the life of the pastor who has rejected creeds to give an account of what he believes and why he believes it. This may come in the form of an attack upon his teaching from someone outside his church, or it might come from a simple inquiry by someone within the church. Whether he provides a verbal or written response he is giving a confession of faith. He is explaining why he believes what he does.

However, imagine that you are the one asking that pastor a question. Would you feel confident in his response if he were telling you his own personal confession of faith? Wouldn't your level of confidence rise if he were able to justify his reasoning with Scripture and historical proofs? That is essentially what the Westminster Confession of Faith does. It provides a reasoned response to some of the most important questions of faith, and it grounds those responses solely upon the guidance of Scripture. That is why we place such a high value upon creeds and confessions.

[i] A.A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith, (London: Banner of Truth, 1964), p.1.

[ii] Hodge, The Confession of Faith, p.2.

[iii] Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith, (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p.14.

[iv] Shaw, Westminster Confession of Faith, p.13.

The Trinity and Everyday Life: Part Two

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:30:31 -0400

I think it might be helpful to do a ‘fly by’, so to speak, of a few of the areas where a recovery of the doctrine of the Trinity is essential in our generation. A ‘birds eye view’ might help illuminate the importance of the matter.

We will look at 2 areas in this post in order to get an idea of the importance of recovering this doctrine in the contemporary church: Worship and Creation.

1. Worship- Much of what passes for ‘worship’ in our day and age is probably better characterized as entertainment, to put it nicely. A huge reason for this is that the doctrine of God is pervasively under attack in the church in general and in our worship in particular.

Worship chorus’s repeat vague generalities about ‘God’ or ‘the Lord’ without really defining who this ‘God’ is. Even worse is the alarming amount of evangelicals in the church who believe that there is virtually no difference between the Mormon concept of God (which is actually polytheistic) and the Christian concept of God.

Our idea of who God is directly effects our worship of God. Who the God is that comes to our minds in worship, or whenever we think of God for that matter, is one of the most important things about us (to loosely paraphrase Tozer).

We have seen from our study of Ephesians the kinds of concrete ideas that came to Paul’s mind when he worshipped and praised God. In his spontaneous eulogy alone, which stretches the first 14 verses of chapter 1, we saw that it is the Father who planned our salvation from all eternity (v. 4), the Son who objectively accomplished the Father’s plan by the shedding of His blood (v. 7), and the Spirit who subjectively ‘applies’ the His work to individual believers (v. 13).

Thus, if the God whom we worship is Trinitarian through and through then let us take this view of God to our worship of God. Getting ‘who God is’ right is at the very foundation of recovering the worship of God in our time.

As John Owen remarked, “God would not allow the will of the creature to be the measure of His honor”. No matter whom or what we ‘think’ or ‘feel’ that God should be like when we worship God, He is only truly worshipped and glorified by the way that He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, and He has revealed Himself as a Trinity.

And while none of us admittedly carries around a perfect view of God with them to worship, something as basic and foundational to Christianity as the Triune nature of God is one thing that we as Christians cannot afford to ‘get wrong’.

We will come back to this area again in more detail in future posts.

2. Creation/ The Universe- Perhaps the central question in the history of philosophy is the question of ‘the one and the many’ or the relation between the unity and the diversity in the world. But this is not just an ‘ivory tower’ problem. This ‘problem’ is something so basic to our thinking that we don’t really stop to think about it.

Every day each one of us encounters both individual things and the concepts that ‘bind’ these individual things together. The concepts help us make sense of the individual things.

For example, there are all of the separate items that we write down on a piece of paper, but also the idea or concept of ‘the grocery list’ that helps us to give context to all of the separate items. There are the multitudes of human beings and then there is the concept of 'humanity', etc.

Immanuel Kant once remarked, “Concepts without precepts are empty; precepts without concepts are blind”. Think of a bunch of marbles that are in a bag. The bag corresponds to the ‘concepts’ (unity) and the marbles correspond to the ‘precepts’ (diversity). If you were to take the bag away (concepts-unity) there would be nothing to ‘hold together’ the marbles and they would spill all over the floor. But if you just had the bag without any marbles then there would be no content to the bag.

And so it is with our experience. If reality consisted simply of a bunch of particular ‘facts’('marbles') and no general principles to ‘hold together’('the bag') or unify our experience of the facts then we could not make sense of them. On the other hand if we just had the general principles but no individual facts to ‘fill up’ the principles with, then there would be nothing to make sense of!

The point is that we need both the ‘bag’ ("the one") and the ‘marbles’ ("the many") to make sense out of our experience, for our experience of reality to ‘hold together’.

And both ‘unity’ and ‘diversity’ would need to be foundational, or ultimate, to reality, at its most basic level, so to speak. You could not ‘start with’ unity, so to speak, and then at some later step introduce diversity into reality and vice versa. The reason for this is that unity and diversity are complete opposites.

Did you ever stop and think why it should be the case that immaterial, invariant laws or concepts should be able to make sense of tangible, changeable, particular things? How can these 2 totally different things ‘walk down the street together’, so to speak, or work so well with each other?

We assume this to be the case because we couldn’t even think or reason without presupposing it to be true. Few of us, however, ever stop to think about it. In fact, the ones that do (ie-philosophers) often get made fun of for doing so!

In the almost overwhelming market place for ideas in which we live, move, and have our being, it is only the doctrine of the Trinity that can make sense out of our day to day experience of the world.

The Christian espouses at the very foundational level of reality, an ultimate unity and diversity (the Trinity) to make sense of the proximate unity diversity (our experience). That is, the Christian can justify and make sense out of the unity and the diversity that we experience in our every day life.

Every other view of the world must ‘start with’, so to speak either ‘unity’ or ‘diversity’. They cannot start with both because, simply put, the do not have the doctrine of the Trinity as the foundation of reality. What this means is that every other worldview will be caught in Kant’s conundrum, being unable to explain how we have both unity and diversity in our everyday experience and how they comport with each other.

As one Christian apologist used to say, “both unity and diversity must be equally ultimate” if we are to make sense out of the world in which we live.

So the bottom line is, the Christian can make sense of reality at one of it’s most basic and fundamental levels. And this is only possible by the doctrine of the Trinity.

In future posts I will attempt to flesh out the idea of ‘the one and the many’ at a very practical level and in many areas that are common to all men in their daily experience of the world.

So these are the first two crucial areas in which we see that the recovery of the doctrine of the Trinity is essential in our day and age.

Next week we will look at a few more. Stay tuned!

Finding Freedom in Slavery

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:27:28 -0400

There's a new book by the singer and song writer Michael Card coming out next year entitled, A Better Freedom: Finding Life as Slaves of Christ. I had the privilege of knowing Michael when living in Franklin, TN, and I heard him speak on the subject on several occassions. I expect the book to be fascinating in its reflection on how being owned by Christ establishes real freedom in Christ. This is probably a title to add to your short list.

“A better freedom can’t be found by those unwilling to be bound. A better freedom is not known by those whose hearts will not be owned. But those who follow find A better freedom.”—Lyrics from “A Better Freedom” by Michael Card

"Jesus, A Friend for Sinners" (A Recent Sermon at Redeemer Church)

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:29:41 -0400

Some of you expressed interest in listening to a recent sermon I preached at Redeemer Church, Jackson, MS. I've posted it here for your convenience.

The Cult of Options

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:34:49 -0400

There's a helpful new article by Carl Trueman on the "cult of options" and the resident temptations of a culture that celebrates choice as a virtue. This article is a spiritual gut check for consumeristic Americans who specialize in avoiding commitment and keeping all options open.

You can find the article here.

The Trinity and Everyday Life

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:50:56 -0400

Robert Letham is sadly correct when he says, " For the vast majority of Christians, including most ministers and theological students, the Trinity is still a mathematical conundrum, full of imposing philosophical jargon, relegated to an obscure alcove, remote from daily life".

Think about something for a second, and be honest. When you hear the word "God", which 'Person' of the Trinity comes to your mind? Or better yet (or is it worse?) , when you say the word "God", which Person of the Trinity came to your mind before you uttered the word? Or, possibly more humbling, when was the last time you prayed to the Holy Spirit?

The truth is, most Christians in the western world are what we could call 'practical modalists' (F.Y.I- this is not a good thing!). A modalist is someone who places more emphasis on the unity of the Godhead than on the the diversity or the Godhead, the 'Oneness' rather than the 'Threeness'. If you are looking for an analogy, think of the modalist's view of God as a single actor who wears 3 different masks.

In this view the "Threeness" of the Trinity is compromised because it is only a facade. The masks, so to speak are simply different revelations of the same Person, rather than 3 distinct Persons. Now, that this is the prevailing view of God in the West is evidenced by the way that we speak of God on a popular level.

Most people (I am as guilty as the next guy (or girl) !) refer to the Triune God simply as "God" or "Lord" or, even more relevant to my particular point, "Father". Now, please do not misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with referring to the Christian God in any of these ways. He is all of these things. But this is not the whole truth. As J.I Packer once remarked, "a half truth masquerading around as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth".

Just about every religion that embraces some kind of 'god' can refer to their choice deity by each of these names. What is unique about the Christian God as opposed to all other so called 'gods', however, is His Triune nature. And it is this Triune nature that is sadly neglected by so many of us in our present day.

Ponder these words of Augustine: "in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable."(emphasis mine). I emphasized the last part of this quote because I think it is a good place to start in recovering the doctrine of the Trinity in our minds. It sometimes helps us to see 'the payoff", so to speak, of a particular endeavor or labor in order to spur us on to investigate or undertake that endeavor, whatever it may be.

I say this because of the first 2 parts of Augustine's quote. Study of the Trinity can be both 'dangerous' and 'laborious'. And anyone who has ever been brave enough to wade through the muddled waters of early church debates on the subject can shout a hearty 'amen!' to Augustine's statement.

One writer likens studying the Trinity to walking along a steep mountain ridge on which there are stomach wrenching drops off of each side of the ridge. Ascending the mountain ridge is daunting enough of a task let alone not falling off of either side once (and if) you reach the top!

But just as the climber sets out with a goal (perhaps to behold the majestic and awe inspiring view at the top) and then carefully and laboriously maneuver's his way up the dangerous peak, so we too mu st be convinced of the truly rich fruit that will be harvested by the 'dangerous' and 'laborious' study of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The practical, everyday implications of the doctrine of the Trinity are not only multitudinous but of immense importance for the living out of the Christian life on a day to day basis, especially in the area of church fellowship. This probably comes as a surprise to most people. If we were to do another little 'thought experiment' like the one above except this time using the word "Trinity", i doubt that 'practical' would be the first word that came to many of your minds!

In this next series of blog posts entitled, "The Trinity and Everyday Life", i hope to convince you of the above proposed practicality of this doctrine. My aim and goal is to demonstrate just how foundational this doctrine if for all of life and reality, focusing specifically on the Church.

Join me as we humbly set out to uncover and apply the rich implications of this great and profound doctrine for everyday living.

The Spiritual Practice of Encouragement

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:49:05 -0400

Some of you have wondered where I've been this summer. Well, I'm around--haven't gone anywhere--just teaching in another young adult/couples class on the other side of the church building. I've certainly missed our weekly fellowship together, and I'm always looking for good excuses to come by and visit. Thanks to all of you who have written and called me just to check in. It means a lot. Lord willing, I'll make most of our gatherings together this fall, and I'm always good for a lunch or coffee. I cherish the time I get to spend with each of you, but that's even more true now since I'm not able to see you on a weekly basis.

While I've been away from you, I've been teaching a Sunday school series on the 5 questions of church membership. These questions are a wonderful way of reminding ourselves of who we are and what we are called to be as the Church. The last two Sunday mornings we've camped out on question 3, honing in especially on the phrase, "humble follower of Christ." We have said that a follower is a disciple, and a disciple is one who disciplines himself for the purpose of godliness (I Tim.4:7). There are many ways we discipline ourselves for godliness, but one important but often neglected discipline is encouragement. We are told in Hebrews 10:24-25 that the church is to be constantly considering "...how to stir up one another to love and good works...encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near." The church is a people devoted to thinking about one another, considering how to promote love and good deeds among one another...encouraging one another.

A ruling elder at FPC recently approached me after worship to encourage me. He had walked into worship with a hard heart that day. He had come with no joy and little expectation that worship would do any good for his soul. Yet it seemed that in the course of the morning prayer, God took his heart of stone and melted it into a heart of flesh. He came face to face with God's love for him in Christ and his wickedness toward God. As he continued to speak, he recounted the exact words in the prayer that the Spirit used to restore his relationship with God. I was amazed. "Praise the Lord," I said--and meant it. As I walked away from the conversation, I felt something different than pride, which is my regular spiritual battle during such conversations. I felt grateful to be used. I felt honored. I felt humbled... I was a "humble follower of Christ."

It is a wonder to me that God used encouragement as the very means to propel me forward in the Christian life that day. I saw in the words of that dear saint God at work in the life of all his people and in my life. I was also made aware of how deep we hurt and how entangled we are in sin, even (and sometimes especially!) in worship. I thought to myself, "How desperately we need the encouragement of the saints!"

Solomon tells us in Proverbs that, "A soothing tongue is a tree of life." (15:4). He is right. After that word of encouragement to me, I felt the life of the Spirit pulsating through my soul. There was a closeness to the Spirit that I experienced in the moments following that conversation that left a deep spiritual impression on my soul. And all of it came through a true, well timed word of encouragement.

In the weeks to come, we will explore this important topic in greater detail. My hope is that we would learn together how to speak sincerely for the promotion of a new culture of encouragement at FPC. I pray you'll take this journey with me. We all need it.

Introduction to a Series on the Westminster Confession of Faith

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:04:42 -0400

"I recall, with great gratitude, a period in my later teens when I first became acquainted with the Westminster Confession, and began to study it with the aid of a commentary. Looking back, I think of that as one of the most valuable investments of time and thought I ever made."[i] Sinclair Ferguson

John CalvinHave you noticed that there is a growing interest in reformed theology? It appears to be a trend that is catching the attention of many. In September of 2006, Collin Hansen wrote an article for Christianity Today titled, "Young, Restless, Reformed." Hansen's thesis in the article is that "Calvinism is making a comeback - and shaking up the church." Time Magazine, earlier this year, ranked Calvinism as #3 on a list of 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now. One might call it a revival of reformed theology.

At the same time however, it seems most people are stopping at Calvinism. They understand the five points of Calvinism, but they know virtually nothing about the rest of the reformed faith. While I rejoice in the renewed interest in the Sovereignty of God, I would like to see a revival that encompasses more than Calvinism.

With that in mind, I thought a series of articles regarding the Westminster Confession of Faith might be helpful for all of us. I am continually reminded by pastors, professors, and friends of the wealth of knowledge presented in this very theological and practical body of work. As Sinclair Ferguson testifies above, few people study the Confession without finding a deep appreciation for it.

Unfortunately, most Christians are unaware of the contents of the Confession. Maybe they have a negative impression of either the doctrine contained within the Confession or the perceived overemphasis upon its importance. Other Christians may be aware of the Confession, they may have read it once or twice when they were younger, but it has lost its value simply due to a lack of use. Whether you relate to the former Christian or the latter, you will benefit from studying the Confession.

R.C. Sproul argues that "the Westminster Standards are the most precise and accurate summaries of the content of biblical Christianity ever set forth in a creedal form."[ii] The consistency with which its authors employed the English language will be plain to even the most ardent opponent. Doctrines are communicated in a clear and concise manner with no attempt to mince words or confuse the reader with undefined terminology. Beyond precise language, the Confession is accurate. The Scriptural proofs provided with each chapter and section reveal how compatible the Confession is with the Word of God.

The Westminster Confession of Faith also models for the Church an exemplary method of clarifying truth and correcting errors. The WCF does well to address previous heresies which threatened the church by affirming the truth. "Each error is condemned," says Robert Shaw, "not by direct statement and refutation of it, but by a clear, definite and strong statement of the converse truth."[iii] The authors generally sought to ensure that doctrine was set forth in a positive fashion.

Most importantly, the Confession's comprehensive and perspicuous nature commends itself to anyone desiring to understand the most essential teachings of the Christian faith. The wide range of topics covered by the Confession will almost certainly cause you to consider something you have never thought about before. You will also find the Confession useful in evangelism as it addresses many of the concerns unbelievers raise. Anyone with a thorough understanding of the Confession and its accompanying Scripture proofs will surely have a good foundation for comprehending the whole council of God.

[i] From the forward of, Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith, (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p.8.

[ii] R.C. Sproul,Truths We Confess, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2006), p.vii.

[iii] Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith, (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p.18.

Pathway Newsletter

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:40:20 -0400

Stay up to date with the latest information regarding the Pathway Class. The Pathway Newsletter will provide information regarding upcoming events, recent blog posts, and anything relevant to the class. Just add your email below in order to be added to the list.

You may also be interested in one of the following avenues of communication:
Join Our Facebook Group | Follow Us on Twitter

Update From Peru

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:35:44 -0400

Nate sent us an email this morning updating us on their Peru mission trip.

Good morning! I hope all is well at FPC. This is the first time I've had internet access, so I thought I'd check in on all of you.

Things are going very well here in Cajamarca, Peru. The Lord is blessing our time with these precious people. The reformed churches here are small but strong. We've enjoyed worshipping with them and serving alongside them.

The medical clinic remains very busy, over 300 patients seen so far! Another full day ahead of us today, as publicity is spreading throughout the city. I helped fill 4 tooth fillings yesterday, with the help of Dr. Story. I'm up for my first extraction today! I may get at dental diploma before it's all over! We've also taught VBS at the local public schools each day in the morning and ran sport camps at the local stadium in the afternoon. The team is well and there has been very little sickness. Thanks for your prayers. Keep them coming.

Praying for the Peru Team

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:51:34 -0400

Most of you in the Pathway class are probably aware that Nate and Christy Shurden along with a team of 34 additional members are currently serving in Peru on a mission trip. The team left last Saturday and will return this Sunday, July 5th. They are running a medical and dental clinic, a vacation Bible school, a sports camp, and providing various levels of support to local Peruvian churches, pastors, and missionaries.

The team asks that you specifically pray for them in the following ways:

Travel mercies (praise God that they arrive there safely)
The health and stamina of team members
Effective ministry
Spiritual growth
Changed lives

We'll be sure to get an update posted from Nate when they return.

Three Spiritual Paradigm Shifting Paragraphs

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:54:08 -0400

John Piper often speaks of Jonathan Edwards and C.S. Lewis as his greatest influences. These men have had a great impact upon the church in many different ways, but both of them had a way of combining both God's glory and human joy into one experience. This quality is something immensely apparent in Piper's own sermons and books. "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." That is the underlying theme in everything Piper preaches and writes. It is a truth that had a paradigm shifting effect upon the way he viewed God. It has had that same effect upon me. And it will almost certainly have that same effect upon you if you find yourself believing that God's glory and your joy are fundamentally at odds with one another.

"God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1. By appearing...to Himself in His own perfect idea [of Himself], or in His Son, who is the brightness of His glory. 2. By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite love and delight toward Himself, or in His Holy Spirit... So God glorifies Himself toward the creatures in two ways: 1. By appearing to their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their heart, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestation which He makes of Himself... God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and the heart. God made the world that he might communicate, and the creature receive his glory; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and the heart. He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it."

~ Jonathan Edwards, End for Which God Created the World.

"If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "

~ C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

"My shortest summary of Christian Hedonism is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. We all make a god out of what we take the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him. By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God."

~ John Piper, We Want You to be a Christian Hedonist!

Writing Christianly - Leland Ryken on Shakespeare

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:47:14 -0400

Leland Ryken is a scholar of the first rate. He is Professor of Literature at Wheaton College and has written broadly and frequently on the relationship between Christianity and the humanities. His work has done much to spark the current interest in classical literature, language, and imagination among Christians.

To that end, a handful of you might find Ryken's recently released article on Shakespeare of interest. Though I'm well aware that my enjoyment is not often a good guage as to whether others will enjoy it, I felt it worth the risk with this particular article. I do hope you will read it and benefit from it. You can find the article here.

Predestination and Pathways: Part 2

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:52:28 -0400

John CalvinYesterday in Pathways we took a brief look at the doctrine of predestination as taught by Paul in Ephesians 1:3-6. I addressed a few of the many important questions/ objections that I have heard or even had myself regarding this teaching.

I thought I would post a few more of those objections that i didnt get a chance to address due to time restraints.

First, we briefly looked at the relationship between predestination and evangelism but here I wanted to look at one passage that I think is extremely helpful on the relationship betweent the free offer of the gospel and the doctrine of predestination.

Take a look at Matthew 11:20-29. Jesus had just got done renouncing cites because they had refused to repent of their sins and believe in him for salvation (v. 20). Then he suprisingly traces their failure to believe to God's "gracious will" (v. 26). Jesus says that reason that these cities did not believe was that God "hides" knowledge of him from some and "reveals" it to others" (v. 25).

It is worth noting that these cities are still held accountable for their actions (v. 22). At base level however, in the secret will of God, "noone knows the the Father (in a saving way)... except anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (v.27). That is, God is sovereign and discriminatory regarding those whom he elects to life and those whom he does not.

But then look what follows. Everyone knows the verses, but we often overlook the fact that the appear in the above mentioned context. Directly after all of this, after Jesus had attributed their unbelief to the will of God, that God did not choose to reveal Himself to them, Jesus utters these words: "Come to me, all who labor an are heavy laden...and you will find rest for your souls (vv. 28-30).

Jesus juxtaposes God's sovereign election of some next to the free offer of the gospel. In the same breath Jesus himself utters a free offer of the gospel and mentions God's election! According to Jesus, these 2 things are not contradictory but rather complimentary. The free offer works in tandom with God's election. The gospel is the means by which God calls His elect to himself (1Cor. 1:24, Rom. 1:16-17).

Secondly, look quickly with me at Revelation 19. Another common objection to predestination is that it limits the scope and widenss of the love of God. If we embrace election, it is argued, then we are left with a small, elite, group of people in heaven. This is not consitent with the teaching that "God is love", it is said.

We have already seen yesterday that the doctrine of unconditional election is clearly taught in Scripture (Eph. 1, Rom. 9). But What does the bible tell us about the number of the elect? Is it a "small elite group". Well, in Revelation 19, John's vision of the marriage supper of the lamb, we read that there are "a great multitude" praising God and it sounded like "the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder" (v. 6).

That does not sound like an "small, elite group" to me! It does not necessarily follow that becuase God elects, God elects a small group. We see that there will be a great multitude dining with Christ at the great marriage supper of the lamb!

I want to close this post with some words of John Calvin. It is common to think that this doctrine does more harm than good, and even if it was taught in scripture, it is thought, it is not very practical. That is not what John Calvin thought. Listen to what Calvin has to say about the practicality of this doctrine:

"We shall never be clearly convinced as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the fountain of God's free mercy, till we are acquainted with his eternal election...Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the Divine glory, and diminishes real humility...They who shut the gates to prevent any one from presuming to approach and taste this doctrine, do no less injury to man than to God; for nothing else will be sufficient to produce in us suitable humility or to impress us with a due sense of our great obligations to God. Nor is there any other basis for solid confidence, even according to the authority of Christ, who, to deliver us from all fear, and render us invincible amidst so many dangers, snares, and deadly conflicts, promises to preserve in safety all whom the Father has commited to his care".( Institues, Book 3 section 21)

If there are any specific questions/objections that you would like to read a post about, please feel free to comment on this post and note the specfic question that you have. We will do our best to provide a biblically based response.

Predestination and Pathways

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:27:09 -0400

This summer at FPC Tom Elkin (minster of Marriage and Family Life) is teaching a series entitled, "The Natural Man's Struggle with Reformed Theology". The idea behind his series is that "every major teaching of Christianity as stated in Reformed Theology is either angrily attacked or ridiculed today" (take for example the picture on the left). It is hard to argue with that premise.

This Sunday in Pathways we are going to be looking at arguably the most attacked and ridiculed teaching of Reformed Theology: Predestination. Many people cringe at the very sound of that word. Cringe or not, we are forced to deal with the topic for the simple reason that the bible speaks about it, and the bible's teaching on the doctrine is clearer than most people think.

In fact, in our text on Sunday both of the Greek words from which we get our English words 'predestination' and 'election' occur within the span of 2 verses. So, every Christian must believe in the doctrine of Predestination. The real question, therefore is not if we believe in it but rather what we believe about it.

Our second lesson in a series of 12, we are going to be thinking about Ephesians 1:3-6 together. These 3 short verses answer many of deepest questions that we have about this tough teaching. We will be thinking together about questions such as, Why does God predestine some and not others? How could a loving God predestine some and not others? Why should we engage in evangelism if God predestines only some for salvation? How do I know if Im predestined? Doesnt this teaching place the blame on God for sending some to hell?

We will look to God's word to see what we can know (and not know! ) about such questions and many others related to these. We hope to see you there as we attempt to unpack the biblical teaching on this touchy subject as we dive deeper into Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The Reliability of the New Testament (Mark 16:9-20)

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:09:04 -0400

Since I wasn't able to finish my lesson on Mark 16:9-20 last Sunday I wanted to post the (unedited) manuscript for anyone interested in reading the rest. I concluded on Sunday after giving three options for explaining an abrupt ending to Mark (I have added a page break where I stopped for quick reference). Here is a link to the audio if you were not there on Sunday and would like to listen to the lesson.

Text: Mark 16:9-20 (Luke 24:8-49; Matt. 28:18-20)

Title: From Failure to Fulfillment

Introduction: The Difficulty with Mark 16:9-20

The Reliability of the NT Manuscripts (Most of this information comes from the article "The Reliability of the New Testament Manuscripts" in the ESV Study Bible written by Daniel B. Wallace.)

WCF I:5 “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”

I think it is important to begin here because apart from the work of the Holy Spirit this research we are about to review would be foolishness. The Holy Spirit must accompany our reading of the Scripture if it is to be understood, trusted, and obeyed.

Here’s what we know:

We do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament.
What we have are copies of the originals. These copies are anywhere from 1 – 15 centuries older than the original.
In addition, no two copies are identical. There are roughly 400,000 variants between the manuscripts. There are about 138,000 words in the New Testament. This means that we have about 3 variants for every word contained in the New Testament. Even the two oldest and best manuscripts which are the most similar in wording contain an average of 6 differences per chapter.

Bart Ehrman would want to emphasize all of this and conclude that reconstructing the original text is impossible. He wants to assume that scribes were diliberately changing the text to suit their own fancy.
In truth, the 400,000 variants can be broken down into four categories:

Spelling/Nonsense Errors – “a” instead of “an”, or missing one letter which creates a new word.
Minor Changes – missing articles.
Meaningful Changes that are not viable – where the textual variant is significant but very unlikely. All manuscripts read “the gospel of God” yet one later manuscript reads “the gospel of Christ”.
Meaningful Changes that are viable – Make up less than 1% of the total number of variants. Even here, it is important to note that NO doctrine is in jeopardy when a meaningful and viable change is an option. It’s not as if the doctrine of the trinity, or Jesus’ resurrection, or the virgin birth are based on passages containing variants in this category. Most of these variants are listed in the footnotes of modern translations.

The more manuscripts we have the more variants we will have. Therefore, the fact that we have so many variants is, in the end, a positive thing because it shows that we have an overabundance of textual evidence to work with in order to reconstruct the original text.

Plus,

In comparison with other books of antiquity the NT has no peer with regard to the number of manscripts available.
There are over 5,000 Greek NT manuscripts from early 2nd C – 16th C. The earliest manuscripts are fragments but they cover a substantial amount of Scripture.
We also possess copies of the NT translated into other languages.
In total we possess anywhere from 20,000-25,000 handwritten copies of the New Testament.
We also have quotes, sermons, tracts, and commentaries of the early church fathers.
The average classical author has less than 20 copies of his work.
The document second to the New Testament is Homer’s Iliad of which we have 643 copies. If you could visualize the comparison it would be like comparing the size of a hotel and a storage unit.
In addition to the number of copies, the dates of the copies are much older for the New Testament than other classical authors.

The first complete text of Homer’s Iliad is the 13th century.
The first complete text of the New Testament is the 4th century.

With that, we are looking at a text this morning that falls under serious scrutiny as to its authenticity. In fact, this text is one of only two passages in the entire New Testament that covers such a large portion of Scripture.

Arguments for/against Mark 16:9-20 being apart of the original text.

For:

The ending appears too abrupt.
Only four (out of about 5,700) Greek witnesses account for an abrubt ending.
Several early church fathers testify to the authenticity of the longer ending. Irenaeus and possibly Justin Martyr (his disciple copies it in his work). This would indicate that the longer ending existed by the first half of the 2nd century.

Against:

This passage is missing in the best and earliest mss.
This is confirmed by the early church fathers Eusebius and Jerome, both of whom suggest that “almost all” of the manuscripts they were aware of did not have anything beyond v.8. Clement and Origen appear to have no knowledge of any ending beyond v.8.
Many of the manuscripts that include these verses add notes that the passage is under question or even notate that the passage is spurious. One particular scribe left blank space in his copy for an ending, but did not include it. This would indicate the uncertainty of the shorter conclusion.
The transition from v.8 is awkward going directly into the long ending. The subject in v.8 is the women and in v.9 it is Jesus. This occurs without actually mentioning Jesus as the subject.
The language and style is not Marcan for either the short ending or the long ending.
There is no mention of Jesus’ appearances fulfilling His promise in v.7 that they would occur in Galilee.
It appears to be a summary of the other gospel accounts.
Mary is reintroduced as if she wasn’t mentioned in v.1 and the other women are ignored.
vv.17-18 sound apocryphal and v.18 has no confirming account. Some point to Acts 28:1-6 where Paul picks up some sticks and a viper latches onto his hand. But this account is not the same as v.18 states, “they will pick up serpents with their hands.”

How do we explain v.8 as the ending?

Mark was unable to finish.
The actual ending was damaged and unrecoverable. If it were a scroll the ending may have been torn off. If it were a codex the last page might have been damaged.
Mark intended to finish at v.8. The artistic effect is considered by many to be intentional. “The ancient stylist Demetrius advises leaving gaps in narratives: ‘Some things seem to be more significant when not expressed,’ and those ommissions ‘will make an expression more forcible’” (Garland 618). In some ways it is similar to the way the book begins – abruptly.

(Where I concluded in class)

What is implied in Mark is confirmed in the other gospels. Vs.9-20 are not critical to the post-resurrection narrative. Each piece is confirmed in the other accounts.

Big Idea: Jesus uses His followers despite their many weaknesses

Main Points w/ Sub-points:

1. How did the women react to the resurrection? (Mark 16:8; John 20:2-15 confirms Mary Magdalene’s unbelief)

Assuming vv.9-20 are spurious, how are we to understand Mark concluding with the silence and fear of the women? Matthew says that the women ran to the other disciples and told them. Is this a contradiction?

Ultimately, they certainly did make it to the disciples. But Mark’s ending shows that it was not due to their strong faith. In their weakness of faith God still used these women to give the message to the other disciples who also respond in disbelief – initially.

Application: Discipleship is something that can only occur by the mercy of God. Every disciple of Jesus faltered during the events surrounding the crucifixion. And now we see even the women falter. You and I will falter as well but Jesus will remain faithful even when we are faithless.

Failure is turned to triumph. We see this in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And now we see it in the post-resurrection accounts.

2. How did the apostles react to the resurrection? (Luke 24:10-11; 13-26; 36-38; Matt. 28:17 “And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.”; Doubting Thomas in John 20:24-25)

The disciples continued on as if Jesus was a failed Messiah.

Application: This should both convict us and comfort us. We often respond to the gospel just like the apostles. We hear the gospel each Sunday morning and then we go on with our life unaffected. Yet, we know that in spite of the unbelief of the apostles, Jesus continued to use them. He not only gave them a charge, but He empowered them to fulfill that charge. We should receive comfort that He will do the same in us. We should be on our knees that He will do that in us even this morning!

This leads us to my third point…

3. How should we react to the resurrection? (Matt. 28:18-20)

Jesus Christ has been given all authority.

He has promised to be with us always. And these are the foundational truths undergirding Jesus’ last command.

“Go and make disciples"

Go – Should not be emphasized to the point that it replaces the main verb.

Make disciples of all nations – “make disciples” is the main verb, but it cannot be separated from “go” to the point that missions is devalued. Evangelism is not simply getting a person to pray a prayer. Jesus commands more out of His followers. Discipleship involves baptism and teaching.

The ultimate purpose of the author here is to encourage Christians to multiply themselves. Whether that means where they are currently located, or going overseas is not so much the focus. However, neither aspect should be ignored. All Christians should be involved in missions on some level (financial, prayer support).

Conclusion: The conclusion of the gospel is not the end of the ministry of Jesus. In Acts 1:1 Luke writes, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.” What He began to do in the gospels He continues to do through His followers.

You and I have every confidence to move forward in fulfillment of the great commission because Christ has proven to be faithfully working throughout history. His work is not completed and we have been assigned a task that we will fail to fulfill time and time again. But as we saw Christ overcome the weakness of faith in the women and the weakness of faith in the disciples, He will also overcome your weaknesses. His mission will not fail!

A Guy's Guide to Marrying Well (Girl's Guide Coming Soon)

Tue, 26 May 2009 15:04:21 -0400

The people over at Boundless have put together a great resource that may interest some of you guys...

They currently have a 59-page digital book titled A Guy's Guide to Marrying Well. The contributors are top notch and the book is designed very well. Here's the introduction from Steve Watters:

Most men hope to marry some day, but there's no guarantee they will. Increasingly, young men are — as one writer put it — "stumbling on to the altar as if by accident."
Too many guys make their way into their 20s and 30s without the marriage modeling and insights that were once easy to find from dads, coaches, teachers, mentors and Christian leaders. When they do find advice about relationships, it's often spectacularly bad.
The simple purpose of the information here is to present a path that is as biblical as possible in order to help you marry well. But not just so that you can experience all the happiness, health and wealth that guys who marry well enjoy, but so that your marriage can point to God's glory and His greater purposes.
This guide is based on a few timeless concepts — intentionality, purity, Christian compatibility and community — that we rarely encounter in popular culture but are a proven path to marrying well.
May God bless the time you spend with this information and help you apply His design in your life.

They are also working on A Girl's Guide to Marrying Well which you can sign-up to receive a notification email as soon as it's available.

Where Doctrine and Practice Meet

Tue, 19 May 2009 14:45:06 -0400

This past Sunday one thing we briefly looked at was the glorious truth that Jesus earned permission for us to access God directly via the propitiatory nature of his sacrifice. The first Adam was denied access to the garden, driven out by God on account of his disobedience. The second Adam (Jesus) gained our access back in, so to speak. Not only did he live a life of perfect obedience to his Father, but he also absorbed the full measure of God's wrath in his soul, not only his body, so that sinners like you and I do not have to. What a glorious truth that is.

There were a few places where the 'theological rubber' meets the road that I did not have time to think with you about on Sunday. I want to look at one place in the present post and one later in the week. Let's think together about a few more practical ways that the doctrine of substitution should impact our daily lives.

The first thing I want us to think about is that Mark 15 should ignite in our inner most being a passion for God's justice.

It hardly needs to be said that we live in an unjust world. There are so many injustices that we read about, see on TV, experience in our own lives, that it can be easy to be overwhelmed with the injustice surrounding us.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I was driving through the Fondren area and noticed protestors outside of the abortion clinic. Where is the justice for the millions of young persons murdered every year?

Im sure that everyone reading this can call to mind a particular injustice committed against you or someone close to you that makes you burn red hot to even think about it. You long to see that particular wrong made right. Where is the justice in this world?

This is where the theology of substitution meets practice. First, it gives us a reason why we should care about justice in the first place.

Some reading that statement are probably thinking,"Well, duh, we should care about it because it is wrong Steve. Everybody knows that." But if you stop and think about it, does everybody really know that? Is the belief (viz. that we should care about injustice) really part of everybody's core set of beliefs?

I guess Hitler and other mass murderers didnt get the memo. The truth is, without some standard or foundation to stand on that gives us a reason to be concerned about injustice, the belief is simply arbitrary. It is not enough to simply have a belief about something. We need to have reasons for our beliefs. It is one thing to believe that the moon is made of green cheese. It is an entirely different thing to have sufficient reasons justifying why I hold to that belief. Without a sufficient standard, it makes just as much sense to not care about injustice as it does to be concerned about it.

But as Christians we do not have to be arbitrary. We have a firm foundation to be angry with and to seek to alleviate the injustice in the world.

This doctrine assures us that God will ‘right all wrongs’. No sin or injustice goes unnoticed or unpunished. It is a false (and potentially eternally harmful) deduction to conclude that God is not concerned about justice because he may not immedietly punish a particular injustice. God does not 'look the other way' when he forgives us or find some loophole in His law to save us. Every single one of our sins receives its just punishment, either in Christ or in us.

So, as Christians, we see that doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement provides a sure foundation for justice both in this world and the next.

But the practical implication of the cross in this regard goes even deeper. Not only does Mark 15 provide a basis for justice in a general philosophical sense, it also places an obligation on us as Christians not to 'look the other way' or simply be disinterested in all of the injustice surrounding us. That is a leisure that the Christian simply cannot have. We are called to be passionate about justice because God himself is passionate about justice.

The instincts and desires that we have to make right the wrongs of the this world are right because they are in line with God's desires. And God has manifested these desires for all to see in the substitutionary life and death of His son Jesus Christ.

And it is this doctrine, the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement that provides to the Christian a cogent foundation for being concerned about and working justice in our unjust world.

Returning to the Faith: A.N. Wilson

Tue, 12 May 2009 16:28:36 -0400

In college I remember, quite distinctly, reading A.N. Wilson's gargantuan cultural history, The Victorians, and wondering how such great genius can be combined with such radical religious unbelief. A one time ministerial candidate for the Church of England, Wilson left the Faith long ago and has sought ever since to shed his life of any remaining vestiage of the faith... until very recently.

Catching up on some reading today, I ran across an article from several weeks ago in the "New Statesmen" on how the crusty, convinced atheist A.N. Wilson has made his way back home, as it were, to the Faith he left so many years ago.

You can read the interesting article here.

Meriting Grace

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:27:07 -0400

Does the idea of meriting grace sound oxymoronic to you? If I told you that grace is based upon merit would you hesitate to agree or immediately object? The ground of grace is merit.

Let me break this down for you. What I mean by grace is "undeserved pity." A synonym for merit might be "earn". Putting this together I am saying that the idea of "earning undeserved pity" is a reality.

I agree wholeheartedly that you and I can in no way earn grace. Grace must be freely given and freely received. Here's the problem. If that is all we know, grace is unjust. The Grace Giver would be unjustified in giving it if He freely bestows it unconditionally. Unconditional grace is unjustifiable, in and of itself.

In a world of grace, I may break the law over and over again without any consequences. If I were always shown grace, I would never fear anyone. I could murder and not face the death penalty. For that matter, I wouldn't have to face any angry family members of the victim either. Grace would be a ticket to anarchy.

But I'm painting an impossible picture. It is a world that doesn't exist. There are consequences for our actions and whenever grace is shown it is accompanied with an assumption of justice. In other words, a judge does not allow a guilty person off the hook unless he feels justice has been served in some way. Justice might be defined differently from one judge to the next, but justice is always served. That is the very job description of a judge - to ensure justice.

Granted, we live in an imperfect world. Justice is never applied perfectly. This is why some people feel the need to inact vengeance upon someone whom the court has set free. They decide to take things into their own hands because they feel that guilt has gone unpunished, or at least insufficiently punished.

We were not created with the capacity to allow complete anarchy. We have been created in the image of God and that implies certain characteristics. No matter how clouded our judgment may be, we still maintain a knowledge of right and wrong. No matter how inconsistently we apply our ethics, we are never void of them altogether.

If that is true that we will always have a concept of right and wrong, and we will always have a concept of ethics, can we assume that our Creator will too? Since we are created in his image we can assume that we are imperfect reflections of his character. Therefore, God has a perfect concept of right and wrong as well as a perfect application of ethics.

This explains why sinning against an infinitely perfect and holy God demands infinite punishment. You may disagree with the logic but ask yourself why that is. Could it be because your only concept of justice is based upon a finite world?

But what does this mean for grace?

The reason why meriting grace is not contradictory is because I have two parties in view. The One who merits God's favor does so on behalf of the one who receives that favor.

Christ's merit is based upon His active and passive obedience. That means, both His perfect obedience to the law earned salvation for us, and His death upon the cross paid the debt of our sin. You and I are able to experience God's grace because Jesus earned it on our behalf.

God is justified in showing His grace to us, because justice has already been served - on the cross.

"This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross."
The Power of the Cross

Christ merits our grace by accomplishing what we were never capable of doing - by living a perfect life and dying an innocent death.

Making All Things New

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:55:09 -0400

Holy week is a wonderful time to turn one's attention to the heart of every believer's hope and victory, the resurrection of Christ. As you prepare for worship on Sunday, as you gather with the saints to remember, relive, and reenact the gospel, consider the cosmic dimensions of Christ's work. He has come to make you, and all things, new.

Christus Victor

Resurrection hope hastens hence
on bud, breeze, and blossom
grieving rynds banished in lilac scents.

Hark, the Easter Hymn rings haste
from its loveliest biding-place.

A lavish breach of winter's curt hard sword
an ardent repudiation of death's dark pall
the out-veining sun of the Christus Lord.

At the refectory of your loving-care
the transfiguration clarion sounds a call
that didicae could ne're convey nor spare.

Thus, Gospel comes ensconced in Word and Deed
and the evidence is your shimmering touch:
Christus Victor, shown in a life's sown seed.

Hark, the Easter hymn rings haste

From its loveliest biding-place--Tristan Gylberd

My shortest, most important post

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:17:05 -0400

Stop what you're doing and pray for someone who is not a Christian. Pray that God would give you a love for this individual. Pray that God would put this person on your mind regularly. Pray that God would give you opportunities to build your friendship. Just stop and pray.

"The End of Christian America"

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:40:35 -0400

I just finished reading an article in the April edition of Newsweek entitled "The End of Christian America" and thought some of you might be interested. If you have a few minutes, read it and post a comment. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Does Satan Exist?

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:49:33 -0400

I'm not sure if any of you have tuned in or were even aware of a series of debates that ABC news has been broadasting over the past few years entitled 'The Face Off'. The goal of this series is to tackle 'sensitive' and 'controversial questions'.

Two years ago the series kicked off by asking the question "Does God Exist?" (scroll to the bottom of the page for the video). Christian and famous actor Kirk Cameron (Growing pains, The Left Behind Series, The Way of the Master)and his partner Ray Comfort ( The Way of the Master) squared off against members of the Rational Response Squad ( representing the Atheist worldview) to make for some entertaining television.

Last week ABC aired the second installment of the series, this time asking the question "Does Satan Exist?". The entertainment level increased significantly because of the participants involved which included a former prostitute, a liberal bishop, a well known philosopher, and a Reformed/ Calvinistic Pastor.

If you have not watched either of these programs I highly encourage you to do so. For one, they are very entertaining! Secondly, the questions and objections raised towards the faith are questions that your 'average' person raises against the faith.

How would you respond if these questions were asked to you? Take a few minutes to test yourself!

Discussion Night - "Loving Our Neighbors" (part 1)

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:09:10 -0400

I wanted to provide everyone with a review of our first discussion night on "Loving Our Neighbors." Several of us gathered at Sneaky Beans in Fondren to take some time thinking through how we could cultivate a heart for Jackson.

We started the discussion with a review of the five key points from Brian Habig's talk "A Heart for Jackson - Called to the City." We wanted to take some time to apply each of these five points first to the gospel and secondly, to our own lives. Nate began the discussion by stating that the primary purpose of these discussions is to develop holistic change in the area of love towards our neighbor. All too often we associate loving our neighbors with a program or event. Scripture does not have such a narrow view. Loving our neighbors involves our lifestyle.

"Neighbors" are everywhere we go. Whether we are at school, work, or home, we are walking by, sitting with, and talking to neighbors. But oftentimes we are ignoring our neighbors. He gave the example that most of us walked into Sneaky Beans and immediately looked for people we knew. We walked by many people that God has providentially placed in our path without really giving it a second thought. Nate mentioned that we are able to choose are friends and even our enemies, but God chooses our neighbors. The goal of thinking through these things and talking is to change the way we interact with the people we see everyday in coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. We want to live in such a way that we think of others first and we are concerned about the welfare of others above our own.

Learn the story of your city/neighborhood

We talked about the racial and demographic separations within society here in Jackson.
There is much we can learn by talking to those in older generations who have lived in Jackson for a long time.
We spent a lot of time talking about how our understanding of the story can greatly effect our love and respect for the city. As we learn more, we can sympathize more with the struggles in Jackson.
We talked about how we can attend events and visit places in the city. If we want to love Jacksonians, we need to do things Jacksonians do.
We can also read books about Jackson or by local authors (Willie Morris, Walker Pearcy).
One caution was to build our knowledge without judging. We can often begin our study with such skeptical and cynical attitudes that really distract from our goal.

Pray for the city/neighborhood

We should pray for the city in very specific and direct ways (neighborhoods, other churches, events, etc.).
We read a portion of Jeremiah 29 focusing on verse 7, "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

Meet your neighbors

Brian gave the challenge during his talk to get to know the closest neighbor that you don't know (which is oftentimes our next door neighbor).
If God has sovereignly placed us in the neighborhood where we live, do we trust that He has a purpose to use us there?
We need to make the effort to get to know people even if the early attempts are awkward. Just walk over and begin asking questions without any strings attached. We should have no other motive than to get to know them.
It is hard to plan a way to serve someone if you do not know them.
Love is doing what's in the best interest of others.

Spend your money locally when possible

We cautioned not to be legalistic about this. Sometimes we need to be focused on good stewardship in times of financial difficulties.
However, spending locally can help to provide opportunities to get to know people.
When you support local stores you are investing in the community.
Part of loving our neighbors is supporting them. We want to promote their well-being.
This also promotes mutual dependence. We aren't coming into the relationship without any need.

Consider moving back to the city if you've moved away

The key here was desiring to be useful where you are.
We should strategically think about where we live, not just thinking about the most financially beneficial place.

All in all we had a great time. I've talked to several people who have said that they were really challenged by the discussion. Please consider coming to part two of our discussion. You can do three things to prepare for it:

Begin praying for your neighbors
Begin paying attention to your neighbors
Be ready to discuss your progress (any opportunities you had to get to know someone). Nate encouraged everyone to be thinking of the people who visit the Pathway Class on Sunday mornings. How many people do we need to get to know in the class?

We are looking forward to the next discussion night. We will let you know the details soon. In the meantime, be sure to join us for lunch this Sunday at Malcolm Saxson's home (details).

Men's Old Testament Bible Study Materials

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:32:02 -0400

Some of you have mentioned the desire to receive my handouts and outlines for the Tues. Morning Men's Old Testament Bible Study. Well, your wish is my command! I've uploaded the outlines and handouts to the website for your access. I hope you find them helpful.

Chic Calvinism

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:24:01 -0400

The most recent edition of Time Magazine pinpoints 10 ideas that are changing the world. The list is insightful from another of cultural angles, but it was particularly insightful to find out that the "New Calvinism" is 3rd on the list!

Check out the article here.

The Purpose of Our "Loving Neighbors" Discussion Night

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:51:09 -0400

Next Tuesday night from 7-9pm at Sneaky Beans in Fondren we will gather for an evening of good discussion around the theme of "loving neighbor as self." This is a continuation of the conversation that Brian Habig started for us just over two weeks ago.

In preparation for Tuesday night, I asked Steve Smith to give some thought to the importance of considering as a community what it means to love our neighbor as our self. Steve penned a very helpful piece on the purpose and priority of Christian neighboring, and I thought I'd share his thoughts with you.

"Our goal with these discussion nights is simple. We want to think together about what it means to love our neighbors and why loving neighbors is the very center of gospel practice. More specifically, our desire is that these discussions would begin to cultivate in us the heart of our Savior, so that we to think, feel, prioritize and live out the gospel. This means we’re not merely concerned in “doing something good for the community” every once in a while, like volunteering at a local mission or building houses for Habitat for Humanity, but we are also loving and serving the co-worker one cubicle over.

Such an attitude or mindset is demonstrated beautifully by the parable of the Good Samaritan. The compassion which this man had led him to meet a whole host of needs: friendship, emergency medical treatment, transportation, financial help, and even a follow-up visit. What is often overlooked is that this parable, told by Jesus, is a response to the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Responding in this way, Jesus’ message is clear: a loving-neighbor-as-self mindset is part of the very essence of what it means to be a Christian.

So please join us for these very important discussions. We encourage you to come with questions already prepared that are tailored specifically to the environment in which you live, work, play, etc. We can think creatively together as to how each of us can specifically be ministers of love and mercy in our everyday lives."

Feasting Without Fasting

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:54:42 -0400

When was the last time you fasted? Have you ever fasted? Was it for the right reasons? Fasting is a concept that is often missing from the Christian life today. Many have mistaken notions of what fasting is. But probably, many more simply don't think much about it.

We clearly see the concept of fasting in the Old Testament. It was practiced on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:32), during special holy days (Judg. 20:26), praying for safety (Ezra 8:21), praying for forgiveness (Ezra 9:5-9; Neh. 9:1; Dan. 9:3-19), praying for healing (2 Sam. 12:22; Ps. 35:13), during mourning (Neh. 1:4; Esth. 4:3), and on and on we could go. But is fasting merely a shadow of Christ from the Old Testament? Has the coming of Christ fulfilled it's practice?

First we know that Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights while he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2). Jesus provided instructions on fasting in Matthew 6:16-18. Fasting is not something to do in order for others to see your piety. Rather, we should ensure that when we fast we don't look like we're fasting. Our reward is from God, not men. Jesus assumes that his followers will fast.

A few chapters later, in Matthew 9:14-17, Jesus is asked why his disciples do not fast. His reply is that they are not fasting because He is with them. "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?" (v.15). Once he is gone, then they will fast.

We see examples of the apostles fasting in Acts (13:1-2; 14:23). We also know that the Early Church made a common practice of it. So what happened? Harvey Albert Smit has an excellent article at Reformed Worship explaining more about the history of fasting in the church and provides encouragement to continue the practice. And Peter Leithart, more recently, wrote an article for the First Things journal titled, "Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast," [HT: Justin Taylor] both articles are worth your time.

I hope you begin to fast in order that you might more fully appreciate the feast!

Seeking a heart for Jackson

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:39:44 -0500

Last night was a great time of fellowship and teaching with Brian Habig. I want to apologize up front for pulling a little bait and switch with the class. Actually, that's only what I'm being accused of doing. I never said that Brian Habig would be joining us for dinner at Sal & Mookie's, but that was the impression that many of you had.

I apologize if my flyer misled you. I'm looking at it right now and after announcing the event it reads, "Everyone in the Pathway Sunday School Class is invited to join us for dinner at Sal & Mookie's at 5:15pm." I guess one could read "us" as including Brian Habig. And considering this sentence is placed parallel with a picture of Brian, it does appear to imply that he would be there. I'll try to be more careful next time.

Now that we have that clear. I wanted to give you a rundown of the highlights from Brian's message:

Brian grew up in Jackson and he was always fascinated by the downtown area.
When he was called to Greenville he had to learn to love a city that was unfamiliar to him.
Brian considers himself to be an introvert, but he is called to an extroverts job. There's hope for us introverts!
Brian shared 3 stories of the people he and his church are building relationships with: 1. A cool artist who lives in a cool condo and dates a movie star. 2. An "omnipresent" man who is very hostile to Christianity. 3. An African American family that relocated to Greenville after Katrina.
Brian closed with 5 exhortations: 1. Learn the story of Jackson. 2. Pray for Jackson. Pray for the city itself and all churches in the city - not just FPC. 3. Meet your neighbors with no strings attached. Don't have a conversation with them and then mumble, "service begins at 8:30..." 4. Learn something from Jeremiah 29 and spend your money in Jackson. 5. Pray about moving into the city if you live in the suburbs.

Brian gave us a lot to think about as we gear up for our first mercy ministry discussion night (details to follow). Please pray for Jackson, pray for our discussion nights, and plan on joining us in a few weeks. Lord willing, we will meet twice and follow it up with a project.

Oh yeah, President Barack Obama is going to be addressing the nation tomorrow night from the steps of our very own church. Please join us for dinner beforehand at the Pizza Shack!

Trading 1000 for 1

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:14:50 -0500

God has called us to love Him to such a degree that our love for others is considered hatred in comparison (Luke 14:26). He has called us to love him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). How is that even possible? And why are we asked to do something that feels so contrary to our nature?

We see a shadow of this kind of love in the example of Abraham. He was willing to offer his own son as a sacrifice (Gen. 22). He trusted that God could raise him from the dead (Heb. 11:18) and God rewarded his faith by sparing Isaac. But why did God test him? Why are we tested?

What causes men to joyfully accept suffering and persecution and the plundering of their possessions (Heb. 10:32-34)? The author to Hebrews answers that they knew “a better possession and an abiding one.”

Who would sell everything to buy a field? Only the one who had found a treasure worth far more buried in the field. Likewise, what pearl merchant would sell everything he owns? Only the one receiving a pearl of surpassing value in exchange (Matt. 13:44-46).

Paul used a similar logic to explain how he went from zealously persecuting others to joyfully becoming the victim of persecution (Phil. 3:2-11). The surpassing value of knowing Christ made everything he lost pale in comparison.

You see, none of this makes since if Christ is not our treasure. We will never part with our joys in this earthly kingdom if the kingdom of God is not a pearl of infinite value to us. None of this is worth it, if we haven’t already received grace upon grace (John 1:16) and if God hasn’t promised us an eternity with him where one day will be better than a thousand elsewhere:

“How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise!
For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.”
Psalm 84:1-2, 4, 10a

I pray that you might recognize all that has been offered to us in Jesus Christ. And in light of that, you might joyfully endure any hardship with anticipation of future glory (Rom. 8:18).

Minor Prophets Wrap-up

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:38:09 -0500

Well, last Sunday's lesson on the book of Malachi wrapped up our series on the Minor Prophets. Thanks to all who attended these lessons, we hope you feel a bit more acquainted with this often neglected part of the bible. I know Brad and I enjoyed digging into these books in our preparations and we hope that you all benefited from the lessons as well. I thought a few words to wrap up the series might be in order.

From the outset of the series our main objective was to point out where we encounter Christ in the Minor Prophets. While it is fundamental to any book that we study to understand the general contents, date, occasion, etc (all of which we hope that we stressed), if this is all that we are learning then we may be missing the point. Ultimately the prophets point to the One True Prophet: Jesus.

One of the best examples of "missing the point" of the Old Testament comes in an encounter which Jesus had with the Pharisees in John 5. After some harsh (but justified) words towards the Pharisees, Jesus says to them," You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

Do you see what he is charging the 'bible scholars' of his day with? Not knowing their bibles! Though they, in one sense, knew their bibles inside and out (and could quote large portions from memory), at the same time they were ignorant of the bible's true message. Jesus tells them that because they failed to understand that their bibles pointed to him (evidenced here by their refusal to come to him to have life), they had searched the scriptures in vain.

Another great example (or not so great if you are one of these disciples!) is Luke 24. In this passage we meet 2 disciples who were on the road to Emmaus after all of the events regarding Jesus's death took place. The disciples were grieved deeply because they "had hoped that he (Jesus) was the one to redeem Israel". The redemption they were looking for was political delieverance for the nation. When they did not see the anticipated political overthrow of the Roman Empire with Jesus' coming they lost heart and were now 'getting out of Dodge'.

As Jesus catches up with them incognito, they tell him why they are distraught. His response to them is this: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! " Then Luke tells us, "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (see also vss. 44-45). The disciples were discouraged because they did not read their bibles properly, and Jesus makes sure to tell them!

As we close this series I think it is crucial to reflect on and meditate on passages like these ones. The point is that we too can read the scriptures in vain if we do not see that the scriptures, every part of them, point to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We need to be asking ourselves how the particular book that we are reading points to Christ, while at the same time being cautious that we do not read into the text what is actually not there and do not neglect other important issues.

Over the last 12 weeks we hope that you have come not only to know more about Jesus from our study, but that you yourself have come to know him more intimately.

John Piper on Prayer...and Legalism

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:44:59 -0500

LD posted a snippit of a recent post by John Piper on prayer... and legalism. Excellent. Check it out.

How Economic Downturns Expose Sin

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:49:18 -0500

“Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity, than a rich man who is crooked in all his ways.”—Proverbs 28:6

The book of Proverbs is a powerfully affecting book for a multitude of good reasons, not least of which is the obvious fact that God wrote it and persists in using it to transform our hearts in the living of the Faith. But what has stood out to me most during my current re-reading of Proverbs is its blistering honesty. Over and over I have found the instruction of Proverbs cut through my soul like a knife through butter. The Lord has used its sharper-than-a-razor instruction to expose the sin in my own heart and in the world. In fact, it happened again this morning.

We have all watched the headlines and news programs over the last few days as another substantial brokerage firm collapses under the weight of deception, fraud, and greed. Such corporate sins have a way of inciting anger and breaking hearts all at the same time. We witness the large scale, life-destroying injustices brought about by all-consuming greed, and we can't help but feel indignation for the perpetrator and deep sorrow for unwitting brokers and investors. This most recent collapse, coupled with my reading of Proverbs, led me to consider the nature and consequences of sin and the only cure for unrighteousness. Here's four brief points of reflection.

The first is this: sin causes pain. No two ways about it. Sin is the source of our pain in this world. Consider Genesis 3 -- the immediate effect of Adam and Eve’s willful disobedience was pain in their respective callings (childbirth, thorns and thistles) and in their relationships (Husband and wife, children, and God). The ultimate consequence was death! In failing to resist the wiles of Satan, Adam and Eve spread the cancer of pain, division, and death into every nook and cranny of life.

This leads me to a second point. No one sins in isolation. Like the ripples from a stone thrown into the middle of a pond, so is the effect of our actions on those around us. Sometimes the effect is seen in this life and sometimes it is not. Nevertheless, either for good or for bad, our actions are affecting someone whether we see it or not. And if we are in unrepentant sin, we are partners with the pain, division, and death. Eternity will tell all.

Third, over time sin becomes harder and harder to hide. Sin may be easy to hide at first, when it is small and just beginning. But if sin is coddled and regularly indulged in, it will grow and grow. And the more it grows, the harder it will be to hide. This has been especially true during the current economic downturn. It has pleased God to use the recession as a means of exposing corporate sin in America and across the world. He is reminding us of many things but maybe none greater than the simple but haunting biblical truth, “…your sin will find you out” (Num.32:23).

In the fourth place, repent of sin now while there is still time. The Scripture is clear; there will come a time when it is too late to repent. Do not presume that you have tomorrow or even later today to repent. Do not presume that you can engage in sin now and later find your way back into the good graces of God. The only time to repent of sin and turn to Christ is the present. He is patiently inviting sinners to come to him, to acknowledge their sin, to repent, and embrace the message of the cross. But who knows how long he will tarry.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:57:12 -0500

Over at beliefnet.com, there is a fascinating article entitled, "24 Things About to Disappear in America." It's worth a read and some reflection.

Also, have you seen the "Did You Know?" video on youtube? If not, check it out here.

For those of you with an interested in learning more about how technology affects the way we live and experience the world, check out Maggie Jackson's new book, Distratcted: The Errosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

BTW: Just a quick word on technology. Everytime we witness technological advance it means our relationship and experience of the world has been adapted. In many cases, this adaptation leaves former means of relating to our world behind. As you are tempted to imbibe more and more technology, it's imperative that you count the cost of progress. Change is not always good. What's new is not always what's best. How you do something is as important as what you do. Or as Neil Postman has told us repeatedly, "The medium is the message."

What Is Your Cell Phone Preaching?

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:22:35 -0500

More than once you've heard me mention the name of Russell Moore. Dr. Moore is the Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY. He is a writer for Touchston Magazine and the author of the blog, "Moore to the Point." (He will actually be our Mid-South Men's Rally Speaker in 2011!)

In a recent blog post, he gave direction to parents on the use of cell phones among pre-teens and teenagers. It's good instruction for us to hear as well. The title of his post is "Does Your Child's Cell Phone Preach Another Gospel?" Provactive title, isn't it? Follow this link to read more.

Baby Shoes, Meditation, & Memorization

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:35:30 -0500

Words paint pictures. Some writers create masterpieces with very few words. Consider the following six word example by Ernest Hemingway.

"For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn."

My jaw dropped the first time I read that. It's incredibly moving.

There are many verses in Scripture which tell a similarly compelling story. But none are shorter than John 11:35.

"Jesus wept."

It doesn't take a lot of words to generate a story. One brief sentence has the ability to occupy our thoughts for hours. Yet, in today's culture, few of us bother to read. And of those who do read, few meditate.

Before I confuse you, allow me to clarify what I mean by meditation. Google will be of little help to you on this one. I am not speaking of mystical Eastern meditation which encourages people to empty their minds. I am not advocating navel gazing.

In fact, Scripture teaches us to do the opposite. We are to fill our minds rather than empty them (Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:2). Whereas Eastern mediation is intentionally passive and unfocused, Christian meditation is active and focused exclusively upon Scripture. In meditation, we devote our thoughts to God's Word while praying that the Holy Spirit will illuminate the truth of Scripture to our hearts.

In conjunction with Steve's post, allow me to encourage you to memorize Scripture. This is the best way to meditate upon God's Word. I would also challenge you to memorize large portions of Scripture (by chapter or book). It's much easier than you might think and your retention should improve. Dr. Andrew Davis has written an excellent resource that teaches you his approach to memorizing entire books of the Bible.

It would be easy to finish reading this post and do nothing. Some of you might begin a Scripture memorization program but before long your motivation will fade. It has happened to me many times. Scripture memorization can be challenging without the encouragement of others. If you're interested in memorizing Scripture together send me an email at bmills@fpcjackson.org.

New Year's Resolution

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:08:36 -0500

It's not too late to make a new year's resolution! If you have not made one yet, or even if you have, I encourage you to add scripture memorization to your list . At the very least, resolve to watch this sermon by pastor John Piper on the necessity and benefits of scripture memorization for the Christian life. He is much better at motivating people to do things than I am! My wife and I were extremely blessed by this sermon and I know that you will be too.

The Cup

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:38:19 -0500

In light of our sermon series on the Minor Prophets I thought this video clip was particularly relevant. It is a clip from an excellent sermon by CJ Mahaney titled, "The Cup."

Isaiah 51:17, 22

17 Wake yourself, wake yourself,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.

22 Thus says your Lord, the Lord,
your God who pleads the cause of his people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;

No sermon on the wrath of God would be sufficient apart from a reference to Christ's enduring of that wrath.

Matthew 26:39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Matthew 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

I pray that our reflection on the Minor Prophets would magnify the grace of Christ in our hearts.

Praying for Barack Obama

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:05:25 -0500

In case you're not a frequent visitor to the FPC Church blog, let me encourage you to check it out and visit it regularly. It's a great way to stay abreast of all that's going on in the church, and to gain spiritual wisdom and insight from Ligon, Derek, and others on the church staff.

On Tuesday of this week, Ligon offered sage, Biblical advice on how to pray for Barack Obama. You can find his post here.

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:45:21 -0500

In honor of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, Russell Moore penned a thought provoking entry on his blog, "Moore to the Point." The post is entitled "Why I Hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday." A counterintuitive post to be sure, but one that deserves your reflection and consideration.

You can read the post here.

Atheist Bus Campaign!

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:10:44 -0500

Check out one of the latest attempts of atheists in Britian to get their message out! Although quite humorous, I thought it was relevant in light of my past few posts on the evangelistic character of the "new" atheism.

You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:47:34 -0500

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too”, is a familiar saying to us. If you choose to eat the piece of cake on your plate, then you can’t save it for later. Vice versa, if you choose to save your piece of cake for later, then that means you cannot enjoy it now as well. It would be illogical to think that you could eat your fill of cake now and also have the same piece of cake to enjoy at a later time. You must make a choice between one of the two options. There is no middle option, it is excluded.

You may feel stupider for having just read the above. You are probably wondering why I would waste 6 whole sentences of this post to point out this painfully obvious fact. I do it not to insult your intelligence but to present it as a method to analyze the credibility of non-Christian worldviews.

In past posts I pointed out that “giving a defense for the hope that is with us” (1Pet. 3:15) is commanded by Scripture and that, given the highly pluralistic society in which we live, giving a defense for what we believe has become part of our everyday Christian experiences.

Further, we saw that our fulfillment of this command consisted of being able to both give a positive statement of what we believe and to critique worldviews that rival Christianity in the marketplace for ideas. The ultimate end of critiquing other people’s belief systems, of course, is ultimately to lead them away from their false belief system and toward Christ.

If we are going to be effective in doing this, then it is imperative that we not only try to understand the prevailing worldviews in our time, but to be able to critique them as well. It is for this reason that I want to post a series of blogs (here and there) on this very topic. We will take a quick look at various worldviews/religions and critique them from a biblical perspective.

So where does the cake come it to play? It comes in to play as a test for consistency. As Christians we are (hopefully) seeking to be consistent with our most fundamental principles. Everyday, in the process of sanctification we seek to bring the various areas of our lives into line with what we believe. Simply put, we seek to live out our worldview.

And since worldviews are attempts to explain ‘the way things really are’, one of the fundamental criterion for an adequate worldview is that it is able to be ‘lived out’. That is, the theory must be able to be practiced. If a belief system lines up with what is actually the case regarding the world and the things in it, then we would expect our daily experience to match up with the particular set of beliefs.

For example, take the person who puts forth a belief system that denies that there is absolute, over-arching truth that is true for everyone. Truth is relative, they boldly proclaim. Practically speaking, this would lead to the ‘to each his own’ philosophy that so many people embrace in our culture.

Granted this is a rather simple example, but let's apply the ‘ can't have your cake and eat it too’ test to it. In this case, it is quite obvious where the break down of this position occurs. A person cannot consistently say out of one side of their mouth that there is no absolute truth and out of the other side hold their position is true. If there is no absolute truth, then the statement, “there is not absolute truth” is not true either.

While it is easy to say that there is no absolute truth, noone can actually hold to it in practice. The point of this overly simplified example is to show that noone could really live out a worldview like this. Such a person cannot “have their cake and eat it to”. Either there is no absolute truth, and your view is false, or there is absolute truth and you must abandon this view and search for the truth about reality.

To be consistent (and to not be a walking contradiction!) the person would need to choose one or the other.

If biblical Christianity is true, then all false worldviews/ religions must break down somewhere. As convincing as some worldviews/ religions make look on the surface, at some point they are inconsistent with reality.

As Christians, we should lovingly seek to point out these inconsistencies for the sake of the gospel and the sake of the souls of those who embrace them. We need to show them that they are basing their lives on a false set of ideas and that they need to forsake their false belief systems and turn to Christ.

In future posts we will look at some of the prevailing worldviews/ religions in our day and age. More specifically we will be concerned with where they are trying to "have their cake and eat it too". On the other hand, we will also take a look at how the Christian worldview is the only one that actually lines up with "the way things really are".

I pray that as we do this together, God would cultivate a spirit of love, humility, and boldness in each one of us.

Lessons on Biblical Productivity from C.J. Mahaney

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:25:43 -0500

Every day I resume my battle with the Goliath of idleness. Just when I think I have the perfect slingshot with the most aerodynamic rock to fling at the giant, he finds my weakness and points me to a funny video on YouTube. I think YouTube was the thorn in Paul's flesh (everyone has their own opinion, so that is mine).

I don't think I'm alone in this war. In fact, I know I'm not. Books on productivity are hot sellers right now. Who doesn't want to redeem more of their time? We all want more time to read or more time to spend with family and friends. We could use an extra hour to get that devotional in before bed.

Whatever it is we want to do more of, we surmise that the reason why we don't do it is due to a lack of time. If only we didn't have to watch all four hours of American Idol in addition to the first four hours of the latest day in the amazing life of Jack Bauer. And don't get me started on Dunder Mifflin. That place is a riot!

I don't think I could get by without those shows. Seriously! What did people do when their only options for entertainment were Pong or The Partridge Family? I'm not even sure how people could stand to watch TV back in the olden days before HD. Back then you couldn't even count the blemishes on ~~Terry Bradshaw's~~ Howard Cosell's face.

By the way, I do have my limits. I don't watch Lost. If Jack Bauer were on the island he would have solved the mystery in 24 hours.

But let me get to the real point of this post - what the title promised. C.J. Mahaney has written a series of blog posts on Biblical Productivity. If you, like me, are regularly convicted of how you ~~spend~~ waste your time, you should follow the link. Enjoy the series!

I'm off to YouTube...Did you see the latest video about the Revolutionary Mac Laptop that doesn't have a keyboard? (Which link will you click first?)

NY Times Article on Mark Driscoll

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:24:36 -0500

Molly Worthen of the New York Times just published an interesting article on the ministry of Mark Driscoll, Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. Many of you will be familiar with Driscoll, for he has partnered with John Piper, D.A. Carson, Timothy Keller, and others in the broader reformed community for various forums and conferences. He is an orthodox defender of the gospel of grace, but he is unorthodox in almost every other way you can imagine.

You can find the article here.

Doom, Gloom, and Self-Examination

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:01:06 -0500

We might jokingly say that "doom and gloom" has been one of the reoccurring theme's so far in our study of the minor prophets. Despite being an unpopular topic, proclaiming God's wrath and judgement against sin was high on the 'to-do' list of the prophets. Such a task was fundamental to their job description as God's 'covenant lawyers', so to speak. God's people had broken their covenant obligations and the prophets were proclaiming God's lawsuit against them for breach of covenant.

This explains why so many of the same themes keep popping up in our study. Fundamentally, all of the prophets had more or less the same task. They were to go to the place that God would send them and they would speak exactly what God told them to speak (Hence the constant refrain of "Thus says the Lord" in the prophetic books).

But the job description of the prophet is not the subject of this post. I mention their job description only because it helps to explain some of the redundancy in the prophetic books. There is another ingredient, however, that is more fundamental to explaining this redundancy: the people's sin.

The sin of the people is the entire reason that the prophets needed to be sent in the first place. And the fact that the prophets, both Minor and Major (so-called for the length of their books not importance), take up such a large portion of our Old Testament, shows that God thought that what they had to say was important. More specifically, it shows that God takes our sin seriously.

Now, that last sentence probably didn't cause anyone to experience an ephiphany in their understanding of Christianity. "Of course God takes sin seriously, he sent His Son to die for it", you are probably thinking. While I do not doubt that most of us have grasped this conceptually, im not so sure that we have embraced it practically in our lives. Though it may be an unpleasant thought, the way we live our lives often evidences the fact that we do not to take our sin as serious as God does.

Ever since i heard it, Socrates statment that "the unexamined life is not worth living" has been one of my favorite extra-biblical quotes. I think it is particularly relevant here. As we make our way through the 12 minor prophets, I want to challenge all of us (myself included) to be deliberate about examining our lives in light of God's word.

Do i commit the same sins that I am silently condemning Israel for making? Am I still struggling with that same pesky sin that I struggled with last year at this time? Am I even aware of the sin in my life? Do I ask God to make my sin known to me so that I can repent of it, put it to death, and live a life pleasing to Him?

These are only a few of the questions that the study of these books should invoke. I pray that as we study these books together, we would be as deliberate and serious about our sin as God is.

"How Am I to Understand Dating and Marriage, Biblically, in a Postmodern World?"

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:17:17 -0500

Ladies,

Let me encourage you to carve out time on your calendar right now for Saturday, January 31, 9:30–11:30 a.m. at the home of Ashley Hall to hear Sharon Phillips address the topic of "Dating and Marriage from a Biblical Perspective." This breakfast is especially designed for you! Rick and Sharon Phillips have walked with and counseled many on this topic for years. They've even recently put their thoughts into a book, Holding Hands, Holding Hearts. (You might want to pick up a copy before the breakfast with Sharon!) This is an informal time where Sharon will do a bit of presenting and a lot of interacting. Come and enjoy breakfast, bring your questions, and be ready for good conversation!

To register, email Ashley Hall at ashleyh@fpcjackson.org

A Theological Top Ten List

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:27:19 -0500

Collin Hansen has compiled a top ten theological stories list for 2008 at the Christianity today website. You can find it here.

Living By Extremes

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:48:18 -0500

You’ve probably witnessed the tendency in people, communities, cultures, and even time periods to correct one extreme by choosing the equal opposite extreme. The equal opposite, however, is usually not seen or understood as a new extreme but as the only possible solution.

For example, if the culture is eating too much for supper, then the solution proposed is rarely to limit the portion size and resist the temptation for seconds. No, the solution proposed is to cut supper out altogether! Easier it is to rid oneself of the tension entirely, then to daily exercise wisdom, discretion, restraint, and moderation.

Undoubtedly, of course, a generation will rise up at some point far enough in the future to have not understood (or at least not appreciated) why their grandparents decided to remove the tradition of supper eating. This new generation will stare into the famished eyes of their neighbors at 6 o’clock every evening and determine that the decision to cut out supper was an overreaction. They will decide, on solid principle mind you, to overturn the former persuasion and reinstitute—not just supper—but an extravagant feast every night of the week.

You see the problem.

We live in a time when the pendulum swing is making its way back across to the other side. And as is usually the case, we will learn much about the blindness and overreactions of previous generations. With the rise of the Emergent Church and other similar postmodern attempts at reformation, the modern evangelical church has had to own up to some of its latent extremes. One of the extremes regularly bemoaned by postmodern correctors is evangelicalism’s assumption that spiritual growth and maturity are almost exclusively tied to the right information; that a cognitive behavioral assumption sits at the bottom of much modern thinking about spiritual growth and sanctification. This is why, they argue, that evangelicalism is known by word rather than deed. It’s the doctrines believed, the creeds confessed, and the sermons heard that make all the difference in the Christian life. As one emergent type noted in a recent publication, evangelicalism in America is known more for mission conferences than mission work. We’d much rather preach to you about Christ’s love, even write an essay or a book on the topic, then to practice Christ’s love with our next door neighbor.

Before we take a look at the proposed corrective, it’s important that we come to terms with the assessment. Truth be known, these critiques are not entirely without merit. In fact, in some cases (maybe more than we’d like to admit), they are scarily accurate. We have at times forgotten that Christianity consists in more than information accumulation, and when we have paused long enough to doubt our own assumptions, we have consoled ourselves by saying, “No church is perfect. And if I’m going to err on one side or the other, I think I’d rather err on the side of right belief, than blind action.” There’s something in that statement that even strokes my own sensibility. What good is good action if it’s done from the wrong belief? Isn’t that Paul’s point in Ephesians. But cannot the postmodern reformer have an equally valid response. What good is right belief, if it’s not followed up with good action? Isn’t that what the book of James tells us? Point well taken.

This discussion seems to hinge on the “if we’re going to err in one direction or another” point, as if we are to give up on the indivisible relationship between belief and practice and just pick one side over the other. It seems, if we pay attention to the whole counsel of Scripture, that God is not so much interested in aiming for one error against another error but the whole truth.

I appreciate, more than many, the renewed interest in good works and practice among many postmodern theologians and pastors. But I’m deeply concerned when Brian McLaren, one the leading emergent thinkers, suggests that our unity should be “…built less around a list of things that one professes to believe and more around how one pursues truth and puts beliefs into action through practices.” (The Last Word and the Word After That, 197). In McLaren’s mind, the "truth" is in the emphasis of practice over belief not in the holding of belief and practice together. Don't be fooled. An equal opposite is never a corrective only an error in the opposite direction. The corrective will come when we learn to hold belief and practice together, two indispensable, absolutely necessary parts of one pure and indivisible whole.

Becoming Aware of Unbelief

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:14:17 -0500

Unlike many places in the U.S., my home state, Mississippi, has a long history of church attendance. I know this because I've seen it with my own eyes, and passed through it with my own soul. I am, in other words, a product of it. But despite being a product of it and being thankful for how God used the church in my life, I’m not always proud of it, or at least not in every respect.

Growing up in Laurel, MS, a sleepy little town halfway between the coast and the capital, no one ever asked me about my religious convictions or beliefs. Not once. Never! It was, you might say, assumed. I was born of Christian parents in a predominately “Christian” town, attended church weekly, and was for the most part a “good kid.” As the ole saying goes, "I didn't drink, or chew, or go with girls that do" (or at least I never got caught... that's the real key). Anyway, it never occurred to anyone to ask me, “So, Nate, are you a Christian?”

Now, a question I was asked very often growing up was, "Where do you go to church?" Take note, not “Do you go to church?” but “Where do you go to church.” The priority of church attendance and "where" is just more proof that Christianity was sometimes believed but always assumed in my community. It was what you did.

Over time, this has become a deeply unsettling reality for me. For by God's grace, I came to realize as a teenager that going to church and “being good” are not nearly the same thing as being a Christian. “But I know the right answers, and I was raised in church?” Right answers and being raised in the church is not the same as Christianity. Trust me, one does not need to abandon orthodox Christian teaching, or fall into some scandalous sin to be an unbeliever. All you need is a dead soul, and according to the Scripture, that’s how we come into the world.

To be perfectly honest, church attendance and moral behavior in the South can be one of the best ways of avoiding real Christianity altogether. Real Christianity talks about sin, judgment, the need for a Savior, and grace. Real Christianity assumes that you're not good enough and no amount of "righteous living" is going to change that. Christianity is more than more than a social tradition or religious sentiment; it's more than icing on an otherwise good cake. Christianity asserts that the problem of sin is more comprehensive and deadly than we could imagine. In fact, you can't climb out of the hole you're in unless God himself reaches down to pull you out. Despairing of oneself and finding your only hope in life and death in the person and work of Christ -- that is the gospel, the heart of Christianity!

You see, church attendance and morally upright behavior may not have anything to do with true Christianity in the end. One could go a lifetime to church and never embrace the core beliefs of Christianity. Week after week you could be warming a pew, believing oneself to be “good enough” to get into heaven, and be well on your way to hell. If we are to believe Jesus' teaching, we have to conclude that it's a frighteningly common reality.

A few weeks ago I mentioned to a regular church attendee (not someone from FPC) that a young lady had visited the Pathway Sunday School Class on Sunday who was not a Christian. She had come, as she confessed to me, "...to learn more about Christ." The look of disbelief on the person’s face confirmed my thesis. Of course the regular church attendee was encouraged by the prospect of unbelievers visiting the church to learn about Christ, but only after being flabbergasted that someone in our community openly claimed to not be a Christian and attended church as an avowed agnostic.

You see the problem, right? We walk around in the church, but also in the world, just assuming that most everyone (except for really, really bad people) is a Christian. Well, I hate to break it to you this way—it’s not true. You’re related to, working alongside, talking to, meeting with, making friends with, and even going to church with unbelievers every week. The quicker we wake up to this reality as a community the better, and the more forthright we are about the essence of the Faith, the quicker we may realize how pervasive the problem is, and may navigate a path of hope for the future.

The Gospels and the Incarnation

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:38:19 -0500

A good friend, and one time professor, Greg Wilbur, wrote a review of The Gospels and the Incarnation by Phil Ryken, Dan Doriani, and Rick Phillips (our FPC Men's Rally speaker in January 2009).

Check it out.

Rick Warren, Homosexuality, and the Presidential Inaguration

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:12:35 -0500

You would have to be hiding under a rock somewhere in the Sahara to have not heard of Barack Obama's choice of Rick Warren for the invocation at the Presidential Inaguration next month. Needless to say, it has caused quite a stir, largely due to Warren's stated disapproval of homsexual marriage.

But whatever you think about Obama's choice, one thing is almost certain--increasing acceptance of homosexuality as a viable sexual alternative. This means that evangelical Christians, intent on upholding the Bible's instruction on the matter, will need both courage and wisdom to face detractors in the years to come.

To that end, let me encourage you to check out Carl Trueman's recent blog entry at reformation21. With measured sobriety and characteristic wit, Trueman identifies two temptations evangelical Christians will face when approaching this issue, and he offers some direction as to how we ought to proceed.

You can find the article here.

Keeping the Cross at the Center

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:20:58 -0500

In his new book Christless Christianity, Michael Horton tells the story of when the late Donald Grey Barnhouse, then Senior Minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA, once speculated what Philadelphia would look like if Satan took over. Without hesitation, Barnhouse quipped, "...the bars would be closed, pornography banised, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smile at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say 'Yes, sir' and 'No, ma'am,' and the churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached."

This haunting image from Barnhouse should be taken to heart, especially in a day where Christianity is understood to be little more than a tool in one's march to self actualization. For many, of course, Christianity is the biggest, brightest, and best of the tools. They run to it first when they are having trouble or need a boost in life, and it might work fairly well for what is desired. But the fact remains, it's only a tool.

When we consider Christianity as primiarly about us, then it's likely Christianity will become an instrument for improvement, which can trim away the unsightly fat from our character and prod us into someone who is better, fitter, and friendlier. When this happens, we've lost the center of Christianity. We have turned the personal effects of Christianity into the overarching goal of Christianity. We have sidelined Christ.

And when we do this, we cannot honestly say we believe that our chief aim is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Instead, it looks like the chief aim of our life is that Christ would glorify us and make us into who we've always wanted to be.

If we take the Scripture's images of the Faith to heart, we are forced to realize that Christianity is characterized by self-denial, not self-improvement. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. The cross, an image of execution, marked the path and direction of our Savior and Lord, and since a servant is not greater than his master, it is to mark our path and direction too. Anything less is simply not Christian.

Ask this question with me today: What way am I bearing the cross today?

Changing the World One Cookie at a Time

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:15:13 -0500

Thanks for all of you who came out tonight to put together the Christmas Cookie Jars for Neighborhood Christian Center. What a great way for us to serve this incredible ministry! Though we faced significant trials, running out of sugar about half way through, we weathered the crises and finished strong. We are the Pathway class, changing the world one cookie at a time.

I've posted a number of the pictures from tonight's project on the website. I hope you will take the time to check them out. You can find them here.

Minor's Gold - Reflecting on Hosea Pt.2

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:51:34 -0500

Now that we have taken the time to reflect upon the message of judgment in Hosea we can further appreciate the message of mercy. God's marriage has been described as broken due to his bride's unfaithfulness. And then we read something amazing in 2:14-15:

14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achora door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

In the midst of Israel's sleeping around, God calls to her and woos her back to him. While she is selling herself to other gods who aren't even capable of giving her lasting peace, God enters the picture again. He reminds them of how he rescued them out of Egypt before, and now he plans to rescue them again.

Why doesn't he forget about her the way she had forgotten about him? We might wonder where justice is in this. Doesn't justice demand that she be punished? Israel certainly brought this upon herself. God had ample justification to pour out his wrath upon her. She was covetous (2:5), proud (5:5), unstable (6:4), worldly (7:8), corrupt (9:9), continually backsliding (11:7) and idolatrous (13:2). Yet, we read God's response in 2:19-20:

19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

The language of betrothal speaks not only of God's commitment to his bride, but her commitment to him. So let me ask you. Have you kept your wedding vows? Do righteousness and justice describe your character? Have you always been faithful, keeping steadfast love for God? If you're being honest, you'll have to answer "no." But that is the commitment God requires.

Thankfully, someone else kept those wedding vows in our place. True and lasting reconciliation between God and his bride doesn't occur until Jesus Christ bought her redemption at the cost of his life. Just as Hosea humbled himself in order to take a wife of whoredom, Jesus Christ humbled himself in order to rescue a people of whoredom. Hosea redeemed Gomer for some shekels and barley (3:2). Jesus Christ redeemed his bride at the cost of his life!

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:11).

Debate on "The Existence of God"

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:42:33 -0500

I thought some of you might find this interesting in light of the series of blogs that i have been posting. The link below is to a debate between Douglas Wilson (Christian) and Christopher Hitchens (Atheist) on the topic of "The Existence of God". Hitchens, you will remember, is one of the "4 Horseman of the New Atheist Apocalypse" that i discussed in last week's post.

Wilson and Hitchens are currently on a 'debate tour' , traveling to various locations in the U.S. Check it out if you have a few spare minutes. I find that watching debates such as this one help me to know what I believe even better and to be able to defend and articulate those beliefs more clearly. Plus, if you have watched debates before, they are simply entertaining to watch, regardless of the topic. This one is no exception!

Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson Debate On The Existence of God (Video)

Archimedes and his Pou Sto

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:50:05 -0500

Archimedes "thoughtful" by Fetti (1620)Archimedes was the greek mathematician who, when working with the lever, said, "Give me a place where I may stand ("Pou Sto" in greek) and I will move the world. If he could somehow get the fulcrum of this simple machine outside of the cosmos, then he would be able to move it. While Archimedes's extracosmic "place to stand' was merely hypothetical, the Christian needs a real and actual extracosmic 'place to stand',so to speak, if he is going to be an effective witness in the culture in which he finds himself. Let me explain.

There are many factors in our post-Christian, postmodern (or is it post-postmodern?) society, that make this 'place to stand' elusive prey. In my last post we saw that one of these factors was the "New Atheism". The "New Atheism", however, is unfortunetly only one of the many "isms" that seeks to remove the only foundation that gives real meaning to the universe: The Bibical foundation.

Atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, agnosticism, Mormonism,etc, are only a few of the "isms" which we Christians are confronted with in our culture on a daily basis. There was a time, you will remember, when the religious, moral, and intellectual landscape was not always like this in America. Whether or not you agree that America was ever a 'Christian nation', there no doubt was a time when Christianity shaped its social, political, moral, religious, and Intellectual landscape. Even if people were unwilling to admit it, Christianity especially shaped their views of truth and morals.

Over the last century, however, America has become a melting pot of every kind of 'ism' that you can think of. Obviously, this situation has had and will continue to have a profound effect on people's ideas of what is right and wrong, what is true and what is false, what is possible and what is not, human purpose and destiny, etc.

It is easy to see how, in this climate, Christianity can get lost in the market place of ideas. If each religion/worldview comes nicely packaged with it's own definition of truth, moral standards, views on human purpose and destiny,etc, then who is to say which is right and and which is wrong? After all, it is pretty narrow minded and arrogant to say that only one of the "isms" is right and the rest are wrong in our pluralistic society that worships at the throne of' 'tolerance', political correctness, and individual freedom.

What is the Christian to do with this mess? Should he just throw up his hands and say, "to each his own"? Well, of course not. What the Christian needs is a "place to stand". God's word, as the only foundation that gives true meaning to any and every area of the universe and human life must be our extracosmic "place to stand'. God's word alone is truth (Psalm 119:160, John 17:17) and it is extracosmic truth, truth from outside of the universe. What I mean by this is that God alone made the universe and therefore only He can define what truth is, which moral standards are normative, and what human purpose and destiny mean.

What great news for the Christian! There are so many competing truth claims 'inside' of the universe, and all of these claims have been fashioned by the sinful human mind. For this reason, no single one of these has any more right to define reality than the other. What we need is a word "from outside". We need a God Who is there, and Who is not silent, to use Francis Schaeffer's words. Well, God is there, and He has spoken. He has spoken to us in His revealed Word: The Bible.Archimedes Lever

We have the very truth that a dying and lost world needs. If we are to be effective witnesses to our pluralistic, postmodern culture, then we need to be people of "the Book". God's Word, and His Word alone working by and with His Holy Spirit is the only thing that can change the hearts and minds of those who embrace the false 'isms' of this present darkness. More than that, he promises that His word will always accomplish it's purpose whether we judge it to have done so or not. Let us exhort one another to be bold at sharing the Living Word with the dying world in which we live.

In future posts we we look at some specific ways in which we can do this.

Minor's Gold - Reflecting on Hosea

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:37:02 -0500

I have continued to spend time in Hosea since Sunday's message. The story of Hosea's broken marriage to Gomer provides such an incredible picture of God's marriage with his covenant people. There is both a message of judgment as well as mercy. How Hosea rescues Gomer (3:1-5) points us to the true bridegroom, Christ!

I'd like to encourage us to continue to reflect upon a few things this week. Today, I want to focus upon the message of judgment. I think it's important that we not jump past this too quickly. There are truths for us to learn here in order to magnify our understanding of the mercy that is to follow.

Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.

Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
Hosea 2:9-10

In Hosea 2:5 & 8 we learn that Israel had begun to whore after other gods (see Jer. 2:20-37 for a parallel passage). Their children were conceived in whoredom (2:5). They have taken the gifts that God has given to them and offered them as sacrifices to Baal (2:8).

Could you imagine bringing home food and clothing for your family, only to see your wife take it and run to her lovers in order to share it with them? The pain and confusion this would cause would be unbearable.

Yet, do we not do this every time that we sin? We take what God has given for his glory and we use it to glorify something or someone else. We make God's good gifts into abominations. Calvin says that our hearts are a continual factory of idols. Every time we sin we make an idol out of something other than God. At that moment we declare God to be unsatisfactory.

God responds to Israel's idolary in 2:9-10 by promising to judge his bride by taking his gifts of food and clothing away. His bride is pictured standing before her lovers naked and ashamed. And who comes to rescue her? Who comes to her aid? Who comes to comfort her? No one! Her lovers want nothing to do with her when she can't offer them anything. They were simply using her. And until she sees that God is all satisfying, she will continue to run to her lovers.

It is the same with us and our sin. We will continue to make light of our sin until we see it as a form of spiritual prostitution. We must get to the point where we see that our sinfulness ultimately leads to loneliness and emptiness. Because it is only when we recognize our brokenness that God can begin to restore us. But more on that next time.

“Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
Hosea 6:1

Majoring on the Minors: A Survey of the Minor Prophets

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:12:22 -0500

This winter we'll take a look at each book of the minor prophets. There are twelve books in this section of Scripture covering Hosea to Malachi. Each week we will examine one of these prophets with the hopes of seeing three things.

We want to know something of the context in which the prophet lived and proclaimed his message.
We want to know how each book points to and prepares the way for Jesus Christ.
We plan to show how this relates to the church today.

The minor prophets are often neglected in pulpits today. Unsurprisingly, Christians have very little knowledge about the characters and content of their pages. Our aim in this series is not only for you to become more acquainted with the minor prophets but also to show how they magnify our understanding of the gospel.

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
   Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
   righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
   on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
Zechariah 9:9 (ESV)

I would encourage you to read through the minor prophets along with us each week. The minor prophets are the last twelve books of the Old Testament. We'll begin in the book of Hosea this Sunday. Let me suggest a few things to keep in mind as you read.

These books have been called the minor prophets because of their length, not their importance. Supposedly, they were able to fit onto one scroll unlike the major prophets. Hosea happens to be one of the longer minor prophets containing 14 chapters. It is only surpassed in length by Zechariah.
When we think of a prophet, our initial thought is of one who foretells the future. While this is true in part, a majority of the content found in prophetic literature speaks of the past and present context of the authors. The message of the prophet was immediately relevant to his hearers.
Each prophet usually proclaimed two types of oracles; one of judgment and one of salvation. Notice the reasons provided for each. Judgment is announced because of the sin of the nation. On the other hand, future salvation is based upon the the steadfast love of the Lord (not owing to any good the people had done).

May we join with the puritan who prayed,

O Lord, I am astonished at the difference
between my receivings and my deservings,
between the state I am now in and my past gracelessness,
between the heaven I am bound for and the hell I merit.
Who made me to differ, but thee?
for I was no more ready to receive Christ than were others;
I could not have begun to love thee hadst thou not first loved me,
or been willing unless thou hadst first made me so.
(Valley of Vision, pg.12-13)

The Men of the Covenant Luncheon

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:23:10 -0500

Join us Thursday, December 5, for the Men of the Covenant lunch. The speaker this week is Dr. A Joseph Wheat.

Dr. Wheat came to Highlands in July, 2005. Prior to this he was the senior pastor of Village Seven Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is the founding pastor of Trinity Presbyterian in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Dr. Wheat began his ordained pastoral career at First Presbyterian of Augusta, Georgia, as an assistant pastor. He is a 1984 graduate of Auburn University, where he received a BS in Economics and graduated in 1987 from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson with a Master of Divinity Degree. Dr. Wheat also received a Doctor of Divinity (honorary) from New Geneva Theological Seminary in 2006. Dr. Wheat and his wife, Gina, have two daughters.

The time is 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. The cost of lunch is $5.00. Reservations are not required. If you have further questions, please contact Shannon Craft in the Discipleship Dept. at 601-326-9243 or ShannonC@fpcjackson.org

The Four Horseman Ride

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:50:55 -0500

Sam Harris - Evangelistic AtheistHave you ever met an evangelistic atheist? One who is as passionate to spread the 'gospel' of atheism as Christians are to spread the gospel of Christ? I most certaintly would not characterize the majority of self professed atheists that I have encountered in this way. Most do not have a very well thought out worldview but would probably default to a more or less nihilistic outlook on life. In more recent days, however, atheism has jumped on the postmodern band-wagon and has re-invented itself. Thanks to the so-called ' Four horseman of the New Atheist apocalypse', atheism is becoming a whole new monster.

If you have not heard of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, or Daniel Dennet then you need to get to know them...and fast. Due to their high profile academic, media, and social positions and their highly popular (even best-selling) books, this new brand of Atheism is being made available to the masses at a more rapid pace than ever. As Christians this should especially concern us. Every generation faces its own challanges in applying the gospel to its particular social and cultural context. It is not enough to simply know the gospel, but we must understand the particular ideas that have captivated the minds of our generation so that we will be able to "...destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God..." ( 2Cor.10:5).

I am by no means saying the gospel is not enough and that something must be added to in order for it to be effective. But I am saying is that if we are to be most effective in our witness to the unbelieving world, we need to understand the worldview's embraced by the unbelieving world that we are witnessing in. With that said, I think it will be helpful to take a quick look at a few things that make the 'New Atheism' new. I am endebted to Al Mohler's book, Atheism Remix, for these observations.

First of all, it is evangelistic and bold. Advocates of the New Atheism unashamedly and unabashedly take the offensive against Christianity. In older forms of atheism you could sense a feeling remorse, that by 'losing God' they were losing something important and dear to life. With the new atheism, however, this is far from the case. One can even sense a feeling of excitment that the God of the bible is not needed make sense of the universe.

Secondly, the New Atheism is very specific on its rejection of the God of the Bible. They are not merley interested in rejecting the idea of "god in general' or some abstract philosophical concept. They passionately believe that if any god does infact exist, it cannot be the God of the bible. It is just as likely that the 'flying spaghetti monster exists', to use one of Dawkins favorite sayings.

Thirdly, there is a specific rejection of Jesus Christ. There have obviously been many who have rejected Christ before, but the intensity with which the New Atheism rejects Christ is striking. Hitchens, for example, goes so far to say that "when it comes to violence, Jesus makes the God of the Old Testament look like an amateur". Dawkins also chastens Jesus for not having a more 'inclusivistic message'.

Fourthly, the New Atheism is grounded specifically in scientific argument. Three out of the four men listed above are scientists by training. They believe that, at the end of the day, science must be the explanation for everything that is capable of being explained. The "god hypothesis" was simply the ignorant and naive answer we used to explain the cosmos before being enlightened by the more rational explanations of modern science. Their predisposition to a naturalistic and materialist worldview is not something that they are willing to negotiate. All religion is restrictive, biased and harmful. Conversly, Science is liberating, neutral, and the path to enlightenment.

These factors and others put a twist on atheism that is unique to the New Atheism. In a very real way, I think it is more evangelistic and irate than ever. The highly popular and public nature of the men listed above combined with the the 'newness' of the New Atheism makes for a deadly combination. Back to my original question. Have you ever encountered an evangelist atheist? If you have not yet encountered one, you may not have to wait long until you do. While we can be confident that God's purpose will always prevail in the face of unbelieving thought, let us not forget our Christian duty to always be prepared to make a defense for the hope that is within us (1Pet. 3:15).

O Generosity, Where Art Thou?

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:03:36 -0500

In The Decline and Fall of Charity, Clint Rainey provides a helpful analysis of contemporary generosity. Christians are giving more than other groups but significantly less than they gave during The Great Depression. Isn't it interesting that we have more, but give less? In one of the more startling statistics, Rainey states:

Taking a cross-section of church contributions nationwide right now, you’d see they nosedive as you move down the age spectrum. We can only hope that’ll change as today’s youth get older and wealthier, but it isn’t unreasonable to wonder about the cultural implications of sixty-year-olds who are 10 percent more likely to give to the church than are still not-so-youthful churchgoers in their forties and fifties, who, in turn, are 30 percent more likely to give than are those in their thirties, who are then 30 percent more likely to give than are twentysomethings, fewer than a third of whom give anything at all.

It would be more accurate to compare the giving of today's twentysomethings with the twentysomethings of forty years ago rather than current levels of giving. But the article does indicate a drastic overall decline in giving. More than likely, this decline has occurred among all age groups.

Nonetheless, the question remains. How do we become more generous?

We begin by recognizing that our sufficiency is found in God alone. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for us a pearl worth more than a lifetime of wages (Matt.13:45-46). Do you believe that? There is a direct correlation between the value of the gospel for us and our generosity.

The answer to our lack of generosity is not an increase in opportunity to serve. Opportunities abound everywhere. Just ask your neighbor. The answer is in dealing with our mistrust in an all-sufficient Christ. When we recognize our tendancy to horde, we must call upon the mercy of God, and once again seek his forgiveness.

Secondly, we must realize that whatever offering we bring, is given from a heart that is grateful for that which Christ has done for us. "Freely ye have received, freely give." Our generosity is a picture of the generosity of the cross.

It's easy to become paralyzed by the overwhelming need in this fallen world. We can become convinced that the need is far greater than any meager effort we might manage to offer. I know this helpless feeling all too well. As Christians, we don't have the option of claiming ignorance. All of us know what it was like to have been hungy, thirsty, and naked. But the struggle is to daily remind ourselves of how abundantly we have been filled and clothed by Christ.

Letting the Gospel become meh

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:27:48 -0500

Have you heard the exciting news that "meh" is going to be added to Collins English Dictionary? Actually, "exciting" might not be the most appropriate description considering the definition of "meh" is, "an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring."

I doubt anyone in America would be surprised to discover how the word was vaulted to dictionary status.

The origins of "meh" are murky, but the term grew in popularity after being used in a 2001 episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer suggests a day trip to his children Bart and Lisa.

"They both just reply 'meh' and keep watching TV," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries. (FoxNews)

It's certainly a term that could define a generation that has been raised in front of the television. Few things excite us anymore.

Unfortunately, for many of us, "meh" could describe our spiritual life as well. Of course we would never say that out loud. But how often has the television supplanted our Bible reading? How often have we decided to spend an hour on Facebook rather than getting our faces into The Book? The same questions could be asked regarding our time in prayer.

"Did you get a chance to commune with your Heavenly Father today?"
"Meh."

How we spend our time reveals a great deal about where our priorities lie. But no one needs to be convinced of that. Rather, we need to be convinced of the glorious truth and beauty of the Gospel.

It is all too easy to gloss over the subject. Some of us feel like we've heard the Gospel all of our lives. We might think it's too simplistic. We tell ourselves we're ready for something deeper.

Mark Dever writes,

I remember taking a walk with Don Carson once, and Don remarking something to the effect that the first generation has the Gospel, the second generation assumes the Gospel, the third generation loses the Gospel. (T4G)

The temptation to assume the Gospel is a daily struggle. So many other activities demand our attention. Yet we are mistaken when we think that the Gospel is confined to a particular activity (i.e.; reading the Bible or praying). The Gospel is more than historical facts, doctrinal truths, or cognitive furniture for us to fall asleep upon. It must effect everything we think, say, and do. The Gospel must penetrate beyond our minds and into our hearts.

When that happens, the Gospel is anything but meh.

Book of the Month: "Home" by Marilynne Robinson

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:45:22 -0500

Marilynne Robinson won the pulitzer prize for fiction in 2005 for her novel, Gilead. Some of you have heard me voice high praise for Gilead, both for the beauty of its prose and the truth-ful-ness of the story. For me, there is hardly another modern author, writing to a mainstream audience with a secular publisher, that accomplishes so much for the "things hoped for...the things unseen" (Heb.11:1).

Now having read Gilead twice and Home once, I can honestly say I've rarely been more impressed with the balance of truth and imagination displayed in these two novels. Robinson doesn't bypass the mind on the way to the imagination, or neglect the imagination to "preach" the truth; but instead she moves through the mind (what C.S. Lewis calls, "the natural organ of truth") on her way to the imagination to cast a vision that neither contradicts or blurs the truth but drives it deeper into the consciousness where meaning can be experienced. I can only speak personally to the impact her works have had on me. But each time I read her I'm left with something like a glow on my heart. I liken it to a kind-of illumination, where ordinary grace and heavenly wonder converge.

Her new book, Home, was released roughly two months ago, and it is already receiving wide acclaim (which it most certainly deserves). Let me encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself. I commend it to you for both its truth and beauty.

BTW: For those of you who subscribe to the New York Review of Books, there is a high quality review of the book in the most recent edition. Don't miss it. The London Review of Books also recently reviewed it if you have access to that publication. Available to all, The Washington Post recently sat down with Marilynne Robinson for an interview where her deep, Reformed convictions were made plain. (She's an avid reader, and lover of John Calvin!) The link to the interview/article is below.

At 'Home' With the Past (Washington Post)

The Work of Faith

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:35:18 -0500

We reflected on I Thess. 1:1-3 last night at prayer meeting. It's a passage where Paul expresses deep thanksgiving for what He sees God doing in the community at Thesslonica. Three phrases stood out to me in Paul's prayerful remembrance: the work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope (1:3).

What's interesting about these three descriptions is how closely tied they are to both heart and life. Paul's encouragement stems not from their faith alone, but their work of faith. His thanksgiving is not for their love alone, but their labor of love. His rejoicing is not for their hope alone, but for their steadfastness of hope. In other words, Paul finds comfort and peace in the spiritual health of the church at Thesslonica not because many profess faith, love, and hope in Christ but because he sees the fruit of faith, love, and hope in their lives as a community.

Jesus reminds us just how close the heart and life are to be in John 14:15. He says, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." Obedience is the natural extension of a heart that is embracing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; it is the inclination and trajectory for a heart open to God and full of His mercy and grace. This does not mean, however, that obedience will always feel natural for the Christian. If our heart was always in the right place spiritually, if we were always set upon the foundation of Christ and him crucified, then yes, obedience would be natural. But, as you and I both know, Christians struggle to believe the gospel. We struggle to keep our hearts consciously embracing the truth of the gospel. We forget it, doubt it, neglect it, or distort it. In the flesh we are given to living by sight rather than by faith (Hab.2:4; Heb.10:38-39), and so when we are controlled by the flesh, we are controlled by sight, which means we will not naturally feel an inclination toward obedience, and we most certainly will not take delight in it. To quote the Apostle Paul, "For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things that you want to do." (Gal.5:17)

When the flesh gets the better of you, what do you do? Let me encourage you to do what the church at Ephesus was called to do in the letters to the churches in Revelation. We have to return again to our first love (Rev.2:1-7). We have to return to the Word to form and fill our minds with the truth of the gospel, we have to meditate upon it until our heart apprehends the meaning of the gospel once again, and with this renewed mind and heart we step out and choose with delight to follow the Lord whereever he calls. Try what you will, my friends, there is no other way.

It is the work of faith from which Paul derives comfort and encouragement. And the same comfort and encouragement would be true today of our church should God witness in us the work of faith. God takes joy when he sees the perfect work and righteousness of his Son make deep and lasting inroads into our community. Indeed, He longs to see the work of faith operable in our community to the point that He witnesses the glory of His Son being manifested in our life together. This is a goal for us to pray for, a goal for us to work for... a goal to live for.

Praying for Barack Obama

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:29:37 -0500

Ligon Duncan has posted a very helpful reflection on the Bible's mandate to pray for our elected officials. His words are timely, given the recent election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.

Let me encourage you to check it out at reformation21.

Men of the Covenant Luncheon: Dr. Sam Hensley

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:50:31 -0500

Join us Thursday, November 6, for the Men of the Covenant lunch. The speaker this week is Dr. Samuel Hensley. Dr. Hensley, in addition to practicing medicine, serves as Bioethics Consultant to Mississippi Baptist Medical Center and is an Adjunct Professor at Covenant Theological Seminary and a Fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. He is president of the Board of Directors of Matthew 25:40 Ministries, an outreach to the elderly in Chicago. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the local campus based chapter of the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) and serves on the CMDA National Ethics Commission. In 2000, Dr. Hensley received a Master's Degree in Christian Thought and Ethics from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. He and his wife, Elizabeth, teach an elective in Bioethics for fourth year medical students.

The time is 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. The cost of lunch is $5.00. Reservations are not required. If you have further questions, please contact me at 601-326-9243 or ShannonC@fpcjackson.org

The Grace of "Trying Again"

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:28:00 -0400

The Christian life can be very discouraging. It can seem like the harder you try to be who you're supposed to be, the worse you become. It can often feel like everytime you take one step forward that you follow it up with two steps back. Yes, the Scripture tells us "to run the race that is set before us," but doesn't it often feel like you're running in circles instead?

If you find yourself in that place right now, I ran across a beautiful passage in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity that you might find comforting. It was for me.

"You must ask God for help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the other hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection."

"To Feel Your Need Of Him"

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:37:18 -0400

I spend a lot of time speaking with people about sin. It's a central tenant of what I'm called to do. As you can imagine, this is not always, not even most of the time, a fun task. Most people (including myself) don't relish the opportnity to talk about how their lives are messed up. Instead, they'd prefer to look "on the bright side" of things. Someone recently told me that they were an "optimist." This meant, at least in part, that he'd rather think about the "good things" in his life; you know, the things that were going well. He admitted that all this talk about brokenness and sin was quite discouraging.

Though I can certainly sympathize, these kinds of statements really worry me, for they're usually a smoke screen, a diversion. Being an "optimist" in this case was a way of escaping real, deep problems. It's the old, "Ignore it, and maybe it will go away" tactic. I certainly get that impulse; I have it and put it to good use. Just ask my wife; she'll tell you. I'd rather bury my head in the sand when it comes to my sinfulness. But I have found, time and again, even in my own life, that long term avoidance (often masked as "optimism") is spiritually detrimental. News Flash: Spiritual growth doesn't come from looking at all the things you're "doing right" or all the things you're "not doing" that you could be doing that are wrong. Such "optimism" is usually a mask for self sufficiency--the great enemy of the gospel.

Rather, spiritual growth comes through seeing one's need of Christ. We only ever see our need for Christ when we admit, own, and confess our failings. Remember that line from Come Ye Sinners, "The only fitness He requires is to feel your need of Him." Do you feel that you need Christ; I mean really need him? If not, you're deceived and resting on the sufficiency of something else, probably yourself.

Let me suggest that you pray David's words in Psalm 51 until you mean them, reflecting all the while on those sins that you've sought to avoid. God loves to hear from his children. Will you go to Him?

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin...Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from you presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit." (v.1-2, 10-12)

Promoting Worldliness (Well, Sort Of)

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:11:50 -0400

Okay, so we're back in Mark 4 this Sunday, finishing up the parable of the sower. We only made it through the first part of the parable two weeks ago, and so this Sunday we'll pick up where we left off and talk about the seeds that fell among the thorns and the seed that fell on the good soil. Good stuff.

Revisting this passage, particularly the section where the seed among the thorns, reminded me a brand new book edited by C.J. Mahaney entitled, Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. In this sense, let me promote Worldliness by encouraging you to pick up the book. But if your short on cash, or if your reading list is far too long to add another, just check out Joe Holland's review at reformation21. It's worth your time.

Acceptable Sins: Gossip

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:58:07 -0400

I ran across a number of satirical short films by Tom Rice that I thought you'd find interesting... revealing. One of the most poignant of the films focused on the sin of gossip--that's right, the sin of gossip. For most of us, gossip has become so common--so acceptable--that we hardly bat an eye when it happens. In this short film, you see a beautifully convicting example of how "prayer requests" so easily slip into grave sinfulness.

Check it out.

Book of the Month: Whiter Than Snow

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:33:02 -0400

The New Yorker published a cartoon in 1967 that summarizes my kind of madness. It's a picture of a husband and wife with their realtor visiting a house that just went on the market. The house for sale is unique in that every wall of the house is lined with bookshelves. The wife walks in the door, surprised at the sight, and immediately says to the realtor, "Holy cow! What kind of crazy people used to live here anyway?"

If you've ever visited my office, you might be tempted to say the same thing. And yes, I'm willing to admit it; I do have a problem--just read Bibliomania (1809) by Thomas Frognall Dibdin and you'll have a sense for how bad this can get...

My wife (bless her heart) has not only witnessed but lived with my disorder for seven years now. She has been very patient and flexible, while clearly worried for my psychological health. My children, though they are still quite young, became aware of my disease when they realized our house didn't look like normal people's houses. This was particularly true during pre-office days, when the extent of the problem was harder to mask, for my library was kept at the house and monopolized almost every inch of wall space. The kids would visit other people's homes (sane people, that is) and they noticed shapes of all different types, mostly squares, hanging on the walls of their home. When they returned from one of these visits, I had to explain to them that those "shapes" were decorations, mostly pictures and paintings, and that most people's home could afford such a luxury. Ours, on the other hand, could not. We only had room for books. (This is usually where I'd build the case, a bookcase--wink, wink--that books are the most beautiful decoration of all. Really, what could be more attractive than a wall--or a room, or even a whole house for that matter!--lined with bookshelves and filled with books?)

(Christy: "Please pray for me!")

To give complete liscense to my love for books, I've decided to inflict my passion on you by choosing one book a month (just one!) as a suggestion for you to pick up and read. This month I am suggesting a very new release from Crossway publishing. The book is Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin & Mercy by Paul David Tripp. I finished the book early this morning, and I am going to turn right around and read it again. This book did much to convict me of sin, stir my heart for the gospel, and strengthen my will for obedience.

In this book, Paul David Tripp takes each verse of Psalm 51 line by line and pens 52 short meditations. Different from so many devotional books, this work doesn't seek to do careful exegesis of a passage and then apply the text in certain personal directions. Instead, this work endeavors to introduce the power of the text into the every day frustrations and riffs of our life. Paul David Tripp calls it "devotional jazz," for it seeks to improvise harmonously our lives with the context and teaching of the text. In other words, this is devotional for life. This means it's a devotional for you. Take up and read! Pick it up! I think you'll be glad you did.

Politics & New Evangelicals

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:52:54 -0400

In a recent op-ed piece in USA Today, Stephen Mansfield asserted that the rise of the political right has done much to subvert the long standing, loving heritage that was once the strong reputation of evangelical Christians in America. This loss of the spirit of charity can be, according to Mansfield, indelibly linked to the wedding of Christianity with the right-wing.

This is changing though. The rising generation of evangelicals are increasingly skeptical of the messianic promises advanced by both political parties. They have heard the bloated promises of Republicans and Democrats alike, and they have witnessed expectations rise and fall and fail repeatedly. The new evangelical, according to Mansfield, is more interested in being "biblical than narrowly political." This means, at least in part, that the church must concern itself less with one parties policies and more from God who founded and guides her. For Mansfield, as for Martin Luther King Jr., this includes the church's responsibility to be "the conscience of the state."

Interesting article. Check it out here.

Officer Election and Membership Survey!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:38:20 -0400

This is an important week in the life of FPC, and I want you to be up on all the ways you can be involved and contribute significantly to the life and health of the church.

1. Officer Election: We are nearing the end of our election for the office of elder. The congregation has already elected nine men to the office of elder, and there is only one more slot to be filled. The two candidates in a run off for the officer of elder are W. Harper Keeler and F. Earl Fyke. If you are a member of FPC, let me strongly encourage you to prayerfully consider which of these two men you would like to see serving on the Session of the church. Please make plans this week to vote for one of these two men as we seek to conclude our election for the office of elder.

2. Membership Survey: This past Sunday members and regular attenders of FPC were asked to participate in our strategic planning efforts by taking a brief membership survey. This survey is very important to the overall effort of strategic planning, and one of the most important ways the every member and regular attender of the congregation can play a critical part in the future direction of the church. Let me strongly encourage you to take the time to fill out a survey. This is a tremendous opportunity for you to tell the elders and staff about yourself and your experience of the ministry at FPC. Let me underscore the fact that surveys are STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. The church has made every effort to ensure anoymity. No church officer, minister, or staff person will see any completed surveys. The surveys will be sent to a third party data entry organization, and only the aggregate results will be given to the church.

If you would prefer to take the survey at home instead of the times posted in Lowe Hall and Patterson Hall, then you can print off a survey from our website. Here is the link.

If you have any questions about either of these opportunities to serve the church, feel free to contact me at nshurden@fpcjackson.org I may not know every answer, but I can probably direct you to someone who does.

The Sum of Ministry: Teaching Prayer

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:26:49 -0400

After more than forty years of pastoral ministry, Eugene Peterson believes that the sum of a pastor's work is to "teach his people how to pray."

When I first read that line, I thought to myself, "Yes, a pastor ought to consider it among his chief responsibilities to help his congregation learn how to pray -- but to call prayer 'the sum' or 'chief goal' seems overstated. Aren't we forgetting a few things here? Isn't a pastor supposed to teach his congregation the Bible and doctrine too? Isn't a pastor supposed to train his congregation to love one another? Isn't a pastor to teach his congregation how to share the faith? Isn't a pastor suppossed... " And list went on and on.

However, after reflecting on Peterson's words, I realized I failed to catch the nuance of his statement. He meant something deep and profound by saying that prayer is the sum of a pastor's work. He meant that a pastor's work can be chiefly described as teaching people how to live in the presence of God. For Peterson, prayer was not merely a discipline or exercise, it was communion with God. Prayer wasn't something you did, it was a way of being and living. The sum of the pastor's work was yoked to the sum of the Christian life--living before God's face.

In our prayer times on Sunday night, I've been reminded of how vital it is that prayerfulness (being full of prayer) is not just something we set aside time "to do," but it is a way of living in the presence of God. You've probably had moments or even seasons of prayer where you "get lost in" or "caught up in" God. In such moments, the mechanics of prayer fade as communion with God takes over; all that is within us seems to rest in God's arms, as we bless Him, hallow His name, share our hearts, and experience the kind of comfort this world cannot afford.

Such sweet seasons of communion are soul forming. It is as if the very hands of God are molding us into the creatures we are to be, and we are experiecing afresh the wind of the spirit filling our souls. During such heavenly encounters, we find ourselves willingly submitted to God's designs, and we are moved, often to tears, at who He is and what He has done.

So, the sum of the pastor's work is to teach his congregation how to pray... Tis so, tis so.

Thursday Morning Guy's Group

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:05:15 -0400

Calling all guys!

Every Thursday morning at Primos on Lakeland a small group of guys gather for a short time of study, discussion, encouragement, and prayer. We would love for you to join us!

We begin at 6:45am with breakfast and get started with our study around 7am. This fall we are embarking on a brand new journey through C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. We begin this Thursday, so it's not too late to join us! The books are free, and the fellowship is good. What are you waiting for? There's no better way to begin the day!

If you would like to learn more, e-mail Nate Shurden at nshurden@fpcjackson.org

Review of "Culture Making"

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:01:58 -0400

I've been slowly working through a new book by Andy Crouch entitled, Culture Making. I'm not yet ready to post my thoughts on the book, though I would like to introduce you to some of the aims and then point you to a recent review of the book.

The book catalogs the interest and fascination of a new generation of Christians with culture. In Crouch's mind, this interest is evidence that many Christians are not satisfied with a comfortable divide between faith and life. Younger Christians especially are deeply desirious to understand how all of life, not just "Christian" activies, share in the meaning of the gospel. To do this, Crouch believes that Christians have to learn "a new vocabulary, a new story, and new set of questions" (p.10). If this happens, Christians will be able to move beyond cultural awareness and engagement onto what he calls, "cultural responsiblity."

In the weeks ahead, I'll be talking about some of the themes of this book, since these are themes I regularly see popping up in conversations I have with you. For the time being, let me suggest you read a very recent review of the book. I think you'll find it reasonaably helpful. You can find the review here.

On Worldviews

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:42:58 -0400

A dear friend of mine posted a few quotes on the importance of "worldview" on the way we live, move, and have our being. I thought I'd share the quotes with you for your consideration and reflection.

"The most practical and important thing about a man is his view of the universe. For a landlady to consider a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. For a general to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy . The question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else affects them." G.K. Chesterton

"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." King Solomon

"Worldview is the most important thing that we can know about a man. Ideas have consequences. And those consequences affect everything in the practical realm as well as in the theoretical realm. Discernment of worldview is therefore the most necessary of all the tasks of wisdom." Richard Weaver

A Prayer for Christlikeness

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:58:03 -0400

"Help me to walk as Jesus walked,

my only Savior and Perfect model,

his mind my inward guest,

his meekness my covering guard.

Let my happy place be amongst the poor in spirit,

my delight the gentle ranks of the meek.

Let me always esteem others better than myself,

and find in true humility,

an heirdom to two worlds."

Made in the Image of God

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:39:39 -0400

I've been reading a number of new books on creation and the calling of man that have reminded me of thoughts long forgotten and spurred lots of new fruitful ideas.

One of the things that struck me recently is just how different the God of Scripture is to the popular Near Eastern gods who littered history in the day of Moses. The God of creation is not removed from his creation, governing with an iron fist from afar, thirsty for power and a way to prove Himself. Rather, we find in the Scripture an infinitely great and powerful God, not lacking anything, who was--and is--deeply interested in personally relating to all that He made. Genesis 1-2 describes and depicts an intimate God, a God who takes joy and satisfaction in being interrelated to what He has made.

Secondly, we see that God's personal interest in his creation, particularly in the creation of man and woman, is intended to reflect His person, character, and work. In the same way that our Creator is personal, we are personal. In the same way that our creator is holy and righteous, we are to be holy and righteous. In the same way he is creative, we are to be creative. We are, as Andy Crouch recently said, made to be "creative cultivators." We are to be so deeply connected to creation that we give our lives to living within God's order, in His character, to cultivate and create "good" things.

Ken Myers said somewhere that "Culture is what we make of the world." This may not be all that can be said about culture, but what it says is true. Making something of the world is central to what it means to be human. We take the joys, horrors, and mysteries of our experience of creation and we seek with all our might to make sense of it. We assimilate information about the world, and we consider what it tells us. We understand it, as best we can, and within that understanding we labor to make a positive contribution to the health of the world. This is at least part of what it means to labor for the Kingdom of God in the world, as we've been studying in the Gospel of Mark.

All of this prompts a question: how are you fulfilling your calling to be fruitful and multiply? In what ways are you seeking in God's character to walk in the footsteps of the True Man (Jesus Christ) and care for, tend, and contribute to the health and peace of the world? It's a question worth pondering, and we'll talk about it a lot more in Sunday school in the weeks to come. I hope you will join the discussion.

The Messiah Channel

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:49:07 -0400

In last month's Touchstone magazine, Russell Moore penned a scintillating article on how the purity of the gospel is being distorted as often in so-called "Bible-believing" or "conservative" churches as in liberal churches. The name of the article is "The Messiah Channel." Here's a taste to whet your appetite.

"Where anything other than Christ is preached, there is no truth offered, and thus, there is no freedom proclaimed. There may be shouts of affirmation or silently nodding heads, there may be left-wing politics or right-wing politics, there may be culturally liberal psychotherapy or culturally conservative psychotherapy, there may be almost anything people think they want, but there’s nothing but judgment in the air."

It's definitely worth a look.

Officer Election Begins Tomorrow

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:14:14 -0400

One of the privileges of being a member of FPC is the opportunity to nominate and elect men to serve as officers in the church. Following the Biblical pattern, FPC has two types of officers: elders and deacons. Within the office of elder, there is a distinction between teaching elders (i.e. ministers or preachers) and ruling elders. This Sunday all members of FPC get to exercise the membership privilege of casting votes for the men they believe best qualify to fill 10 available ruling elder slots.

Each man has participated in a rigorous training for the office of ruling elder. They have been examined according to the Biblical qualifications for the office of elder as found in I Tim 3 and Titus 1 and have passed their examinations. Now, this Sunday the Session at FPC will set before you (the congregation) 43 approved candidates. Out of these 43 men only 10 will be elected to the office of ruling elder.

I hope all of you who are members have been perusing the pamphlet of candidates for the office of ruling elders and have chosen the 10 men you plan to vote for during tomorrow morning's election. If you've not yet made a decision, please take time tonight to identify which 10 men you believe would best serve the church as ruling elders--men who would oversee the flock of Christ in the gospel with diligence, wisdom, and love.

Bring School Supplies THIS SUNDAY

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:24:17 -0400

As most of you know, we're partnering with the Agape class to supply Neighborhood Christian Center with all the school supplies they need for their fall tutoring program. This is a great opportunity for us to show that our love for Christ is genuine (see Paul's words in I Cor.8-9) by meeting the needs of our community.

A listing of all the school supplies can be found on the home page (www.fpccareer.org). NCC is expecting an enrollment of 60 kids this fall, so there's no fear of bringing too much. Break the piggy bank, reach between the couch cushions, lift up the mats on the floor board of the car -- find whatever spare money you can and help support this ministry. Please bring all supplies to Sunday school THIS SUNDAY. If you have some extra cash but do not have time to shop before Sunday, please consider making a monetary donation. Any little bit will help!

I look forward to seeing how the Lord will use you to meet this important need!

Men of the Covenant Lunch THIS THURSDAY

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:47:54 -0400

Calling all guys!

Please join us Thursday, September 4, as we kick off our fall Men of the Covenant lunches. The speaker this week is Dr. Jim Baird. Following the Korean War, Jim was called to the ministry. He graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta. He has served as pastor in churches in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and for 12 years as senior pastor at First Presbyterian, Jackson, before retiring in 1996. Jim served as the moderator of the PCA General Assembly in 1983 and 1984 and as chairman of the PCA's MNA and MTW committees.

The time is 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. The cost of lunch is $5.00. Reservations are not required. If you have further questions, please contact Shannon Craft at 601-326-9243 or ShannonC@fpcjackson.org

Dwelling in the Presence of God

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:02:33 -0400

There may be no spiritual practice more countercultural than prayer. It is almost never convenient, efficient, or measurable in impact, which is to say it has little to make it attractive to a world caught in a web of immediate relevances.

Prayer will not be hurried, bullied, or quantified. It refuses to be pigeonholed. But when it is practiced, when our soul is given over to it, we enter into the power of God. We are taken up, as it were, into the realm of heaven where God lives and we commune with him. In a world of exile, prayer deepens us into an awareness that we have a home, a place to dwell. It opens us to the heart of God, and it leads us to say, "I am my Beloved, and my Beloved is mine."

Distinguishing one spiritual discipline as more or less important is like saying water is more important than air (or visa versa). Each of the disciplines are mutually dependent on one another, and they should be understood as a whole and practiced in relationship to one another. But unlike so many of the disciplines, prayer reveals so much about our spiritual lives--more than we usually want to know.

One of the things I've noticed recently is how prayer shows us just how unaccustomed and uncomfortable we are in the presence of God. It's almost like being trapped in a bad conversation at a wedding reception, where you find yourself trying to carry on a conversation with someone you don't know well, and maybe don't have much in common with, and so the nature of communication is superficial, unsatisfying, and short-lived.

Thankfully that awkward feeling in prayer diminishes the more you pray, because the more you pray the more you become accustomed and comfortable being with God. This is why the Puritan pastors used to challenge their people to "pray till you've prayed through." Said another way, pray until you've met God; pray until you feel yourself to be a child relaxing into the arms of a loving Father, telling him your heart--and listening to His. God has given us this deep grace to slow the fast and furious rhythm of our daily lives to the pace of intimacy and love, melting the tyranny of the urgent by the one thing that is needful.

"Do You Pray?"

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:20:57 -0400

“Do you pray?”—J.C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer (p.9)

The question shot though me like a bolt from clear blue sky. Conviction quickly spread through my heart. “I hate questions like this,” I thought silently to myself. But no matter which way I cut it the answer was the same… “No… I don’t pray.”

Of course my answer wasn’t entirely true—I did pray some. I prayed when life got hard, or when I needed something particular from God, or when I thought it might be handy to have God on my side. But I knew deep down that Ryle wasn’t asking the question in that way. He wanted to know if I was a praying man.

Thankfully, God used that question (and Ryle’s little book) to change my life. I know it’s cliché to say so, but it’s true. The change, interestingly, didn’t come through the book directly; it came, rather, through what the book prompted me to do, namely, pray. I really didn’t learn a bunch of new things about prayer in the book, or new techniques by which to jump start my prayer life. Instead, my prayer life changed by praying. Over the course of regular prayer, I learned how deep my need was (and is) for God, and I began to experience, slowly but surely, how satisfying it is to meet with Him. I was gradually but truly transformed from a man who sometimes prayed into a praying man.

God wants you to see Him for who He is, and come face to face with how desperately you need Him. He wants you to be drawn into a life of continued fellowship with Him—not for His sake, but yours. Would you be willing to ask with me and other prayer-struggling young adults the same question the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us how to pray?” (Luke 11:1) I hope you will.

Every Sunday night from 5:00-5:45pm on the first floor of the youth house, we are going to gather together to learn how to pray by praying. Let me be clear: you don’t need to be “good at praying” to come. In fact, if you’re a bonafide prayer professional, this is probably not the prayer group for you. We’re looking for those who know they don’t pray like they should but are willing to take the risk of learning how to pray with others. Is that you?

Come and join us as we meet with God in prayer this Sunday… and every Sunday.

Your fellow prayer-struggling brother,

Nate

Technology & A Life of Emptiness

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:16:44 -0400

There's a really fascinating article in World Magazine that exposes the dangerously idolatrous expectations we hold about the power of technology. The article is written by Vern Poythress who is the Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Westminister Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA. He has been thinking about cultural matters from a Christian perspective for well over 30 years, and he has done some tremendous work in that time.

Check out the article here.

Questions for Meditation

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:10:56 -0400

On Sunday we wrapped up our short two week study on the discipline of Christian meditation. Some of you received the handout I gave in Sunday school which outlined some practical suggestions for meditation. But for those of you who couldn't be with us, I'm posting a few of the meditation questions for your viewing. I hope you find them to be a good resource.

“Meditation reflects on the truth of God in the presence of God.”—Edmund Clowney

“Slowing down and giving one’s undivided attention to God lies at the core of Christian meditation.”—Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Questions To Get You Started

1. Diagnostic: How would you characterize your ability to meditate?

2. Place: Where do you find it easiest to focus your heart?

3. Time: When do you find it easiest to focus your heart?

4. Distractions: What in your life keeps you from focusing on God?

5. Exposing Sin: What is more important to you than meditating?

6. Gospel Assurance: In what way does the gospel give you comfort when you fail in meditating?

7. Gospel Motivation: How does the person and work of Christ motivate you to further meditation?

Martin Luther’s Questions for Meditation

1. How can I praise God for this truth?

2. What I can confess because of this truth?

3. If I believed this truth, how would I really live?

Meditation: Take Two

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:52:58 -0400

There is always more to say than can be said.

We have one more week to talk about the spiritual discipline of meditation, and there is more to be said now than when we first began. But such is the nature of things. But even with our abbreviated study on this important Christian practice, I hope you have been impressed with the priority and purpose of meditation. I hope you have seen the Scripture as the primary text through which meditation finds its foundation, and Jesus Christ, both in his person and work, as the focus of meditation.

One of the things we will not have the chance to cover tomorrow in class is the fact that Christian meditation is the work of taking upon ourselves the yoke of Christ. As Edmund Clowney makes plain in his reflection on Christian meditation, our Christ is simultaneously the Suffering Servant and the Triumphant Lord. When we submit ourselves to Him in meditation, we learn to submit ourselves to both of these aspects of His nature. We learn to identify with Christ in his experience of suffering as the path of Calvary, and we learn to take comfort in his ruling over us and all things as Lord. Knowing this, we can take true "delight," as the Psalmist teaches us in Psalm 1, in the law of God. How? Because in the law, we find Christ's life and ministry, which is our life and ministry. Thus, as believers in Christ, we listen to the law with humility and learn to take His instruction as our food and drink; we learn to say, "Only to do His will; that is my highest aim."

May that be true of you and me...

In the end, this means that gospel wisdom not ecstasy is the ultimate object of Christian meditation. We are not content to contemplate abstract infinity, to empty our minds of all thought or reflection, we desire the "Christ of Scripture, and the Scripture of Christ." (Clowney, 29) We desire that our mind, will, and emotions would be filled and formed by the Bible. We do not attempt to imagine Christ a certain way, but to imagine him in the way of the Bible, and in so doing, to lay down our lives at his feet. To tell him with our whole heart to do with us what He may.

"The Christian Scripture are the primary text for Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is, in its entirety, rooted in and shaped by the scriptural text. We don't form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture. God does not put s in charge of forming our personal spiritualities. We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit."--Eugene Peterson

Prayer Before Evening Service

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:24:14 -0400

Please make plans now to join us for a season of prayer before the evening worship service at FPC. We will begin praying at 5pm in the large meeting room in the first floor of the youth house. If you can't be there at 5pm, come whenever you can. We will wrap up things around 5:45pm just before evening service begins. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at nshurden@fpcjackson.org or 601-668-0730

Hope to see you there!

Dogma as Preserving Mystery

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:15:29 -0400

"Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God. The person outside the Church attaches a different meaning to it than the person in. For me dogma is only a gateway to contemplation and is an instrument of freedom and not of restriction. It preserves mystery for the human mind."--Flannery O'Conner

Two Halves Make a Whole

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:52:27 -0400

One of the ways we fallen human beings go about destroying the good things God has given us is by isolating or separating those good things from other good things. Sometimes the greatest damage is done when we allow what is good to be dislocated from the only context at which that good thing can be truly enjoyed without being destroyed.

This is true with sex, and C.S. Lewis is a faithful guide to us as he speaks about the two halves that make a whole in Mere Christianity.

"The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism--for that is what the words 'one flesh' would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact--just as one is stating a face when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument. The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined. The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasure of taste without swallowing and digusting, by chewing things and spitting them out again."--C.S. Lewis

Remembering Solzhenitsyn

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:38:53 -0400

I was first introduced to the literary output of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn during my second year in college. I remember it quite well. I had just finished one of Leo Tolstoy’s lesser-known works, The Forged Coupon, and I was so intrigued by his unique vision of the Faith that I knew I wasn’t ready to leave Russian literature behind... But what to read next?

In a conversation with one of my roommates (also a literature major), he suggested I pick up Solzhenitsyn. Knowing Solzhenitsyn merely by name and reputation, I took my friends advice and picked up One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The book was as attracting as it was repulsive. I loved and hated every moment of it. I later described the experience in my journal as “an unsettling journey in honesty.” I'm recalling even now a famous line in Tacitus' Histories, where he refers to honesty as “truth that shivers.” If there was ever an apt description of Solzhenitsyn’s prose, it was that phrase.

My eyes were opened in reading that novel. I had been given, through the life and pen of someone who really knew, the history of communist Russia. Previous to that reading my thoughts were slight and impressionistic, but after reading One Day, my heart apprehended the atrocities of the Gulag in a way that left an indelible mark.

Solzhenitsyn’s commitment to Christianity was deep and comprehensive. Indeed, it was from a place of deep Christian conviction that he was able to later in life confront Western liberalism with what he understood to be it’s own ideological totalitarianism. Alas, his audacity would make him plenty of enemies in the U.S. and Europe, but it was his unswerving allegiance to the Faith that gave him the boldness and the prophetic eye to see what it seemed no one else could.

Joseph Pearce sums up the life of Solzhenitsyn accurately when he writes: "Solzhenitsyn is paradox personified: the pessimistic optimist. His pessimism springs from the creeping knowledge that human history may be little more than long defeat in a land of exile. Yet such a defeat, however long, is rooted in time: temporal and therefore temporary. Solzhenitsyn knows that his exile in time, like his exile in the West, must eventually come to an end. Perhaps only then will the fullness of his destiny be revealed. Solzhenitsyn is, for the time being, a temporary pessimist, but he is also, and remains, an eternal optimist."

Solzhenitsyn’s death yesterday, at the age of 89, should be met with both natural grief and supernatural joy. Earth has lost a hero, but heaven has gained a saint.

Feasting on the Word

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:06:44 -0400

This next week or so in Sunday school we'll spend time reflecting on the nature of Scripture (what it is) and the discipline of Bible reading. But before we dive right into the particulars, I think it's important that we talk about the relationship between Scripture and our reading of it.

I realize that the word "discipline" may grate against your sensibilities. Should reading the Scripture really be a discipline? The answer to that is, of course, "Yes and no." I would say, first, that reading the Scripture always takes discipline. The reader must go to the Word, open it, read it, understand it, and receive it. Anyone who has attempted to do just that, knows that it's not easy. It takes time and effort (i.e. discipline). This is why you'll often here pastors talk about the "spiritual disciplines" (Bible, prayer, meditation, fellowship, service, etc.) of the Christian life, because living in communion with God requires planning, intention, and action. And where planning, intention, and action are involved there you will find discipline.

With that said, reading the Scipture is not merely a discipline; it is also an art. The Scriptures are "breathed out" (II Tim.3:16) by God; they are his very words. This means that spiritual words requires that we read them spiritually. This is where Bible reading breaks down for so many. It is not uncommon in my experience to witness Christians approaching the Bible as if it was any other book they'd pull off the shelf. They read it to get out of it what they want, or what they think they need. If over time it doesn't give them this, then they often despair of it. They will at first marginalize its place in their life looking to other things for the answers they seek, and in the end, if the despair continues and grows, they will forsake it altogether. Lot's of Christians in this place.

The first mistake is approaching the Bible like any old book. It is qualintatively different from every other book in this way: God wrote it. That point alone changes everything. As the reader, this changes the way you approach Scripture; it demands that we not approach it as if we are masters of it, looking to get out of what we want; but that we approach it in a spirit of submitting to it's power and direction with hope that it will master us. In the weeks to come, we'll talk more about how this plays itself out in your Bible reading.

I began reflecting this morning on a concert of passages on Scripture, which I would invite you to consider with me. These would be great passages to turn over in your mind this week as we prepare to meet together next Sunday.

"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account."--Hebrews 4:12-13

"Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, 'Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.' So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, 'Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.' And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angels and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. And I was told, 'You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings."--Revelation 10:8-11

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousnsess, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."--II Tim. 3:16-17

Responding to the Gospel

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:07:53 -0400

This week we continue our series entitled "Practicing the Faith: Working Out What God Is Working In." This series has focused on sanctification (growth in grace) and spirituality (intimacy with God). Throughout the last few weeks, we've discovered a number of things that are essential to growth and intimacy with God. To summarize, here's two brief points:

To receive the grace of the gospel requires that we believe we need the grace of the gospel.
To believe we need the grace of the gospel requires that we cultivate a state of the heart that believes and remembers the gospel.

On Sunday, we'll go a step further to discuss how believing in the gospel and seeing our need for the grace of the gospel cultivates in the heart of a Christian a proper response to the gospel. To help you in preparing for Sunday, I'm posting a few quotes below that might be worthy of your reflection.

"The practices of faith are not ultimately our own practices but rather the habitations of the Spirit, in the midst of which we are invited to participate in the practices of God."--Craig Dykstra

"Gratitude for life in Christ draws out of the believer a desire for holiness, even as it creates in the believer a healthy hatred of the sin that mars our life and disfigures us."--Robert Norris

"The problem of the soul, in other words, is not at its essence a lack of knowledge--though knowledge is, after all, important and helpful--but the human will which has been corrupted and enslaved...Put another way, how does one will to change one's will?"--Kenneth Collins

"The spiritual life, however, is prior to the moral life, for we can love the neighbor as God loves us only if first we have experienced that love affair with God. More important, we cannot love God except in response to God's love for us. This love affair with God is the one and only end of human life."--John Westerhoff

Thomas Chalmers on Putting Sin to Death

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:53:03 -0400

Banner of Truth has recently republished a number of handsome new volumes, including a long overdue republication of Thomas Chalmer's letters. Chalmers was a Scottish Minister born at the end of eighteenth century, but ministering in the nineteenth century in the city of Glasglow. His legacy is widely known in both preaching and outreach, but it was his reflections on the nature and work of parish life that truly changed my life when I first encountered him in college. His very well known sermon, "The Expulsive Light of the New Affection," is as powerful as any sermon I've ever read or heard.

I've been perusing this volume of late, and I ran across this tremendous paragraph which I think you'll find spiritually stimulating and helpful. Chalmers is laboring to convince us that experience of Christ is how believers grow in their hatred of sin and their desire to put sin to death. Stated another way, the more we apprehend who Christ is and what He has done with our whole heart, the more characteristic our lives will be of Christ's hatred of sin and his commitment to its demise.

“I would first, then, say to you, that you are not to wait till you have mourned enough for sin ere you accept the Savior. You complain that you have not such deep views of sin as experienced Christians speak of; but how did they acquire them? They are the fruits of their experience in Christ, and not of their experience out of Christ. They had them not before their union with the Savior. It was on more slender conceptions of the evil of sin than they now have that they went to Christ, that they closed with Him, and that they received from His sanctifying hand a more contrite spirit than before — a more tender conscience than before. Do as they did; wait not till you have gotten their deep sensibilities till you go to the Savior. Go to Him now; go to Him with your present insensibility; bring it before Him as part of your disease, and He, the Physician of souls, will minister to this and all other diseases. But, generally, you complain that you are ignorant of how to go — how to believe. Now, this has long been a stumbling-block to many; their thoughts are how they are to believe, when their thoughts should be what they should believe. They look inwardly for the work of faith, when they should look outwardly for the object of faith. ‘For every one thought,’ says Richard Baxter, ‘that he casts downwardly upon himself, he should cast ten upwardly and outwardly upon Jesus, and upon the glorious truths of the Gospel’” (Thomas Chalmers, Letters, 301)

The Difference Between Religion & Christianity

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:47:19 -0400

I ran across a quote by the long time pastor of Westminister Chapel in London, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, while reading a new book by Iain Murray. I thought the quote captured an important distinction between religiosity and true Christianity, and so I share it with you for your own consideration.

"If I were asked to state the main difference between religion and Christianity, I would say that religion always puts its emphasis on what man does in his attempt to worship and please God... Christianity on the other hand is primarily listening to God. God is speaking! Religion is man searching for God; Christianity is God seeking man, manifesting Himself to him."--Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Conversing With Others About the Gospel

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:03:03 -0400

It's not rare for me to speak with unbelievers about the faith. For one reason or another, I find that I attract the doubts, frustrations, allegations, and seekings of unbelievers. They feel they can express themselves to me, and for that I'm thankful. Sometimes, however, I'm afraid they talk to me because I "look-like" or "talk-like" a church-goer, or maybe it's because I act like a Pharisee (God forbid!).

To be completely honest, I wouldn't be surprised at either allegation. I wish I had a dime for every time I've looked in the mirror and thought, "You're not the man you profess to be." It's true you know. It's a reality I have to face daily about myself, and we as Christians have to face about ourselves if we ever hope to get-on in the Christian life. We have to come to grips with our brokenness, our hypocrisy. And we have to faithful to repent of not only the bad things we do, but of the motivations from which we do our so-called "good things."

Well, this is not really what I want to talk about, so let me get on with it...

I was thumbing an old journal from college yesterday, and I ran across an entry about a conversation I was preparing to have with an unbeliever. As I read it, I thought of some of the questions/concerns many of you have posed to be about "speaking the Faith" with those who inquire. I'm going to post my brief entry here, because I think my own disgruntled spirit comes through, and I'm hopeful it might lead you to realize that you're asking the good questions, and that we all need help on this front.

(BTW: In the fall or early spring, I plan on doing a three or four week series entitled "Talking the Gospel." The goal would be to train you in learning how to talk to unbelievers, and even other Christians, about the good news)

Okay, here's the post:

"I'm at a loss as how to prepare for my conversation I'll have with Sara over lunch today. She has grown up around the church and the trappings of Christianity for so long, and in nothing that she's seen or experienced has made Christ real to her. She's never seen the Christ of Christianity, in other words. This happens too often I think. It's a haunting reality in the South--how dedicated we are to the religion called "Christianity" and yet how far we are from the Savior called "Christ." It's deeply unsettling.

I thank you for the opportunity to share you with her today. In fact, it's encouraging to speak about the gospel with a person who has nothing to uphold, no pretensions to maintain. Neither of us have to pretend! When honest questions are asked in honest ways, the soil of the heart is ready to hear an honest answer. It's the kind of place you are pleased to enter; it's a place where you can be welcomed.

This is why, no doubt, you hated the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and why you hate my hypocrisy. Make me hate it, Lord. You do not delight in the blood of bulls and goats but in a broken and contrite heart! I believe that; help my unbelief. Save me even now from my temptation to fake it, to put up the charade of the culture I live in. I need you Lord. Come and rip away my persona, and reveal your person to me. It's the only way.

Will you make my brokenness useful in the presentation of the gospel today?" (Sept, 2001)

Answered Prayer or "God Speaking to Himself Through Us"

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:40:18 -0400

In a letter to Mary Willis Shelburne, C.S. Lewis rejoices over God's answering of prayer, and he gives us a little peak into the "magic" latent in all of God's answers, namely, that God speaks to himself through us. I thought you'd find this helpful, comforting, and encouraging to your/my "puny faith."

"Oh I am glad, I am glad. And here's a thing worth recording. Of course I have been praying for you daily, as always, but latterly have found myself doing so with much more concern and especially about 2 nights ago, with such a strong feeling how very nice it would be, if God willed, to get a letter from you with good news. And then, as if by magic (indeed the whitest magic in the world) the letter comes to-day. Not (lest I should indulge in folly) that your relief had not in fact occurred before my prayer, but as if, in tenderness for my puny faith, God moved me to pray with especial earnestness just before He was going to give me the thing. How true that our prayers are really His prayers: He speaks to Himself through us

I am also moved at hearing how you were supported through the period of anxiety. For one is sometimes tempted to think that if He wanted us to be as un-anxious as the lilies of the field He really might have given us a constitution more like theirs! But then when the need comes He carries out in us His otherwise impossible instructions. In fact He always has to do all the things--all the prayers, all the virtues. No new doctrine, but newly come home to me." (C.S. Lewis' Letters, November 6, 1953)

"How Can a Christian Vote for Obama?"

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:36:30 -0400

Okay, so the title of this blog was intended to make you click on the post. Did it work? I hope so.

I'm sure many of you are thinking about the upcoming election, and I'm sure more than just a few of you have reflected on this unprecedented moment in our country where an African American is the candidate for a leading political party. It is a fascinating time in which we live. (Think of it this way, when you're old and gray with beautiful grand kids who love to hear about the "good ole days," you'll be able to smile and say, "I remember when...)

Sorry, I got sidetracked there.

Some of you will vote for Obama this election cycle; others of you are die-hard McCain fans, but many of you (I'm conjecturing now!) have no idea what you're going to do.

Well, I'm not sure Eric Redmond's recent blog post on Obama will necessarily help you make a decision, but it is very interesting post that deserves reflection. It's not the first and will not be the last blog post on the complicated polical landscape, and it doesn't say everything that could be said. But with those caveats firmly in place, check it out and consider (and later, let me know what you think!)

Habit Overcomes Habit

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:00:44 -0400

In college, I was introduced for the first time to one of the great Christian books of all time, Imitation of Christ by St. Thomas a Kempis. The first manuscript was written sometime in the early 14th century, while St. Thomas spent a season of life at St. Agnes monastery in Zwolle. It has since become one of the best selling books of all time. According to some estimations, as many as 6,000 editions of the book have been published, and it is now available in over 50 different languages. Needless to say, many Christians throughout the centuries have found great spiritual help and direction within its pages.

From a reformed standpoint, the book has significant merit for its instruction in spiritual practice and wisdom, but it also has significant demerit for its latent Catholic impulse and inclination to works righteousness. It is, in other words, a mixed bag. Not excusing its oversights and errors, it is a book that should be judged with measured compassion and read with caution. When it was written, the church was in shambles, both morally and doctrinally. There was at the time only the faint rumblings of gospel recovery with Jan Hus and John Wycliffe. Even with those champions of orthodoxy laboring for doctrinal reform in their own locals, it would be another 75-100 years before God would be pleased to launch a thoroughgoing reformation of the church at large.

Nevertheless, God was at work in the 14th century. A fire had been lit in the hearts of a small band of church members. They saw the corruption of the church and hated it. They wanted to see things change. They sought in faith and repentance to extend their own personal renewal to the church at large. Of all the instruments promoting this reform, none was as significant as the Imitation of Christ. It led the charge and sparked a revival of moral practice among church members, prompting a significant number of monastic and semi-monastic renewal movements in Europe, all of which helped by God's grace to lay foundations and provide impetus for the later doctrinal reforms in the 16th century.

That history aside, one of the strengths of the book is the short but powerful directives for Christian living and practice, especially the encouragement to live a rigorous spiritual life marked out by habits, routines, and rhythms. One of my favorites short quotes is this one: "Fight bravely, for habit overcomes habit."

I was reminded of that quote again this morning as I reflected on the series we're working through in Sunday school. Our longings, passions, and desires need good and proper manners, ways, and expressions for us to glorify and enjoy God in them. In other words, our desires must take a form. The spiritual disciplines are proper means through which our relationship with the Lord takes form. Content, as one of my professors used to say, always "strains toward form." The same is true with our knowledge of God. So, when we use the spiritual disciplines as the primary means of relating to the Lord, we take up the posture of receiving grace from God. When we receive grace from God, we can then be transformed by God.

God acknowledges our needs, as we learned this last week in Isaiah 55. He knows that we are hungry and thirsty. This is why he invites us to come to him four different times in just the first five verses of the chapter! The spiritual disciplines are his provision; they are his primary ways that we come and drink the water and eat the food of God.

Consitent spiritual discipline in the means of prayer, Bible reading, solitude, fasting, meditation, service, fellowship, etc. are critical to our growth in grace and intimacy with the Lord. These disciplines, if practiced in a spirit of humble reception (i.e. "open hands") have the power to move us from reliance on self to reliance on God, which is the posture or stance through which we can give God our burdens and ourselves and receive from him his light yoke and healing.

In the weeks to come, we will focus on these disciplines and how they relate to sanctification and spirituality. You can already see that some from this post, but we will go much further in Sunday school. I hope you will join us for the discussion.

The Parts of Repentance

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:23:22 -0400

My post on the difference between true brokenness and worldly sorrow has prompted a question from several of you. What is true repentance? You've stated it in a number of different ways, but I think this is the central concern.

For starters, repentance is different than confession. Confession is admitting sin, while repentance is consciously turning from sin. We are, by disposition, more comfortable with confession than repentance. Many of us are willing to say "I have a problem," but few are willing to take the steps necessary to do a 180 degree turn. The former is fairly easy, but the latter is extremely difficult. The former can be accomplished quickly, while the later is a spiritual action that takes time and discipline.

Repentance includes confession, an honest viewing and admittance of past sin, but it moves on into emotional sorrow or grief (recognition of God's holiness) and finally a renewal of the will that includes a conscious turning from sin to righteousness.

These three components: confession, sorrow, and turning from sin is the parts that make up true repentance. Consider these three parts, and then weigh your own soul. When was the last time you repented? Have you been deeply, truly sorrowful for your sin? When was the last time you felt a strong inclination to turn from your sin? Be honest. It's no good acting one way when your heart is feeling something different. Remember, hypocrisy is the opposite of repentance; it is sin! So, spend some time even now weighing the Scripture's teaching.

"God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble" (I Peter 5:5)

Give us grace, Lord.

An Irish Blessing

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:07:54 -0400

I read this on a friend's website. I just had to pass it along. This could be used as a prayer for spiritual direction for those of you needing an answer or guidance from God.

"May you ever have the hindsight to know where you've been,

The foresight to know where you are going,

And the insight to know when you have gone too far."

"To Have & To Hold"

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:36:47 -0400

Christy and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary today. Several people have asked me this morning if it feels like its been seven years, and I can't say that it has. In so many ways, it seems like yesterday. I guess time flies when you're having fun!

One thing is for sure though, a lot has happened in seven years. In fact, if you had told me I would be living in Jackson, MS, be a pastor at FPC Jackson, and have three kids in the first seven years of marriage I would have laughed out loud and recommended you check into a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. But as wild as it may sound (and it does sound wild!), it’s true. It makes me think the old adage is right: life is stranger than fiction.

It is my custom to reflect back on our marriage every time our anniversary roles around. It is, of course, a natural time to do so; it is the day within the year when marital remembrances are welcomed and expected. I’ll save you the details of my personal little walk down memory lane, but I would like to share with you one thing that jumped off the page of my mind in my reflection this year. It is this: when a person unites in marriage, the couple is invited into a life-long adventure of losing themselves and gaining another.

The one-flesh closeness that is to be the essence of married life cannot be experienced without significant cost. Said differently, oneness isn’t free; it is purchased, and the sticker price reads “your whole life.” It is this enormous price that scares any sensible couple half to death when they first realize the inevitable direction of their relationship. This is why weddings could be described as an event filled with joy and hemmed in by fear. No one in their right mind would approach their wedding day without butterflies. The man or the woman who do are either ignorant or foolish.

With that said, the price of oneself is a small price to pay. It is a bargain really, a blue light special. When you're most sane; that is, when you're seeing marriage through the eyes of God who made it, you can easily see that the cost of marriage is not worth comparing to it's preciousness. It would, I suppose, almost be worth giving oneself away for the opportunity to see the other, much less to call one your own!

Yes, this is what sent my head spinning this morning--not what I’ve had to give up in marriage, but what it is I’ve received, not what I've lost but what I've gained. I have, by God's grace, a wife. She is my Christy, “to have and to hold.”

The most precious gift one can receive is the gift of another, for in that gift intimacy is hidden. There is no other experience on this earthly plain that is comparable to it. When the groom or the bride look into each other’s eyes after the exit the rear of the church on their wedding day, they know that this person belongs to me in a way that nothing else belongs to me, and that I am no longer my own. They know, in other words, that their earthly home is to be found in the heart and arms of the other.

It takes a lifetime, I think, to appreciate what one does on their wedding day. And because we are all sinners, we all need daily, even hourly reminders of our vows, when we stood before God and witnesses and said in no uncertain terms, “I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Songs 6:3)

C.S. Lewis On the Value of a "Fixed Form"

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:33:00 -0400

What spiritual help does the Christian receive by worshipping according to set patterns? A friend of mine actually asked me this three of four years ago, and a long, profitiable discussion ensued after he asked it. It's a good question, isn't it? He, as did I, came from a background where worship was more spontaneous or "Spirit led." He, as did I, received tremendous spiritual benefit within such churches, and he sensed his own heart grew immensely under the tutelage of saints who had long concerned themselves with the spiritual movements of God in the soul--saints who where not convinced that worship should be rigorously ordered. At the time, he wasn't sure he wanted to attend a church with a "set pattern" (i.e. liturgy) of worship. But after attending and experiencing a more set patterned worship service for some time, he was finding himself grow in a new way. He was still unsure, and still remains unsure, as to where he stands on the issue, but he was learning in those days to walk in and love the rhythm of liturgy more and more.

Many people I suspect have this same struggle. They want a spirit filled worship service, and they are fearful that a strictly ordered worship service will squelch the spirit; that the Spirit will, in a sense, "be ordered" out of the service. I can sympathize with this concern, and in some cases, it's not only a concern but a reality. With that said, there is good Biblical precendent to ordered services, and there is great spiritual benefit offered to Christians within more liturgical worship services.

I was reminded of this question and that conversation in reading through a series of C.S. Lewis' letters. Lewis had a love-hate relationship with the "free spirit," anti-traditional impulse of late moderns and early postmoderns. Over the course of his life, he became increasingly concerned with it, especially the fact that younger traditions were abandoning the tried and true patterns set by their Christian forefathers. He believed that the loss of of these patterns would bring about a deep-seated spiritual malaise after a short season of spiritual renewal.

In a letter he wrote to Mary Van Deusen (1952), Lewis had this to say about the "fixed form" approach to worship.

"The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming...the rigid form really sets our devotions free. I also find the more rigid a service it is, the easier it is to keep one's thoughts from straying. Also it prevents any service getting too completely eaten up with whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (a war, an election, or what not). The permenent shape of Christianity shows through [in a fixed form]. I don't see how extempore method can help becoming provincial, and I think it has a great tendency to direct attention to the minister rather than to God."

Very insightful reflections I think, and I thought his comments might stir your own heart to reflect about worship, and maybe consider how your own heart has been responding in worship recently.

USA Today: Spirituality Over Dogma

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:40:01 -0400

Speaking of culture shifts, there is an interesting article in the religion section of today's USA Today on how more and more people are opting for "spirituality" over "dogma." We didn't really need a leading American newspaper to tell us this, but it's worthy of note when it does!

Though I suspect the findings will not shock most of you, let me encourage you to check it out and consider what may be the trend of the future.

"Culture Shift" by Al Mohler

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:16:34 -0400

A couple of months ago I read Al Mohler's newest release "Culture Shift," and I've had a number of you ask me what I thought of it. So, I'm posting a little review I wrote below. It's by no means exhaustive, but I trust it will give you some sense of my impression. Enjoy!

If you've been a regular reader of Al Mohler's blog, then you have a good sense of what to expect in Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues With Timeless Truth. The subtitle not only tells you what to expect content wise, but it provides a window into the approach of the book. Present issues in the light of timeless truths.

If I was to sum up this book in a sentence it would be this: truth matters, and absolute truth matters absolutely. That's right, no pulling punches here. The culture meets deep Biblical reflection in this book, and we are challenged over and over to take every thought captive.

Such an approach has the potential of freeing the reader from the nearsightedness endemic of this age, providing a perspective of what current issues look like at 35,000 feet. This truth-view provides hope for honest evaluation, reasonable forecasting, and constructive planning for a more "Biblical" future.

Though much of the book is critique and diagnosis, I was delightfully encouraged by how much Biblically considerate and constructive advice is offered in this book. Not every prescription will suit every Christian's fancy, which is to say that well meaning Christians reading the same Bible with similar convictions will often disagree. Nevertheless, I applaud Al Mohler's boldness for expressing his own conviction and providing food for thought and direction for Christians wrestling through big issues.

As other reviewers have noted, the issues addressed in this book are as wide as the horizon, but in almost every entry he brings to bear multiple disciplines of study, which are delineated but conjoined and presented as a collective witness for Biblical truth. Thus, in every chapter, an Ebeneezer is built--reminding us of what God has said and done.

If you are content to be washed away with the tide of postmodernity, don't read this book--unless of course you're open to having your convictions challenged. But if you're groping for Biblical reflection on burning social issues and are willing to be stretched beyond your comfort zone, welcome home.

Reminder: M-Braves Game TONIGHT

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:41:12 -0400

This is just a quick reminder that a group of us will be gathering tonight at Trustmark Stadium at 6:45pm for the M-Braves game. The plan is that we will buy tickets together at the gate. I'll have a section picked out by then, that way we can all buy tickets in the same section. If you come late, please give me a call, and I'll tell you where we are seated.

Looking forward to it. Go Braves!

The Death of the Grown-Up

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:16:30 -0400

David Jones, RUF Minister at Standford University, has written a tremendous review of Diane West's bestselling book, The Death of the Grown-Up at reformation21.

Warning: This review has the delightful capablity of offending all young adult readers. With that said, I hope you'll risk offense and read the review with benefit.

The Centrality of the Gospel for The Living of the Christian Life

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:33:38 -0400

Each time I speak about the centrality of the gospel for the Christian life (not just for salvation) I'm amazed at how many people respond by saying, "I've never heard that before." I guess I should quit being amazed, since much of my own understanding of the Christian life growing up had little to do with the gospel proper. Unlike many, I was not intentionally nurtured into thinking that the gospel was what saved you and discipleship or "Christian education" was something that would "get you through the rest of the way" after you believed the gospel, but I certainly labored under that assumption for a good portion of my young adulthood.

The gospel, I thought, was the entrance way. It was the ticket you needed to get on the train, and it was the assurance (or insurance!) that the train would make it to its heavenly destination, but the in-between time, the time on the train, was spent focusing on anything but the gospel. Morality, spiritual discipline techniques, good works, doctrinal knowledge, and many other beneficial things were discussed in great detail but rarely the gospel. As James Wilhoit puts it somewhere, the gospel was for the most part "pre-discipleship." The gospel was what you needed to believe to get saved, but there were many "other things" that would be needed for spiritual growth once you were saved. To put it crassly, the gospel was something that you in a sense outgrew. You graduated, as it were, to the bigger, meatier truths on which a mature soul could be sustained.

This quarter (really just eight weeks) I want to dispel this myth over and over again, because I think we need that regular of a reminder. As we re-trace our steps in the gospel, we are learning what it would mean to re-enact the gospel everyday in our walk with the Lord and to experience the abundant, joy-filled life that the gospel promises.

This re-enactment requires us pacing through the steps we took in first coming to Christ, and praying that the Spirit would once again apprehend our heart with the truth of who God is, who we are, our ever-deepening need for Christ, and finally the experiencing afresh of the joy of the faith.

This gospel cycle, as I called it this morning, is essential in our spiritual growth. I'm convinced more than ever that much of our failure in spiritual growth and in intimacy with God stems from our failure to preserve the centrality of the gospel in our daily lives. To work out, what God is working in (Phil. 2:12-13)

Let's ask God to help us keep the gospel central as we live and labor together in the vineyard this week. Take time, as the opportunity comes your way, to reflect on these truths with other brothers and sisters in Christ. "Iron sharpens iron," according to Proverbs 27:17, "so one man sharpens another." May God be pleased to do that grace-sharpening work in our class.

Reflections on God's Sovereignty and My/His Faith

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:19:37 -0400

I take great comfort in God’s complete control over all things, but only because I know Him.

When you meet someone, you begin the process of considering how much you can trust them. It’s a subconscious but universal experience. We weigh certain criteria (again, usually subconsciously) about the person, and we draw conclusions about whether they are trustworthy or not.

I call it a "process" because trust is something that increases or decreases over time. Faith is not a static reality; it doesn’t stay the same. Faith moves up and down, largely because faith is tied to the experience of the relationship. It is dynamic in that way. Since relationships are dynamic, either growing or falling away, so faith is dynamic too—either growing or falling away. The ups and downs in faith can at times be fairly dramatic, depending on the drama of the relationship. The longer the relationship the more steady it usually becomes, that is at least in a good relationships where the persons involved continue to prove worthy of trust. If the relationship passes through a season of distrust, a season where there is reason for one or both parties to be suspicious of one another, then the trust of the relationship will be affected. And depending on the level of distrust, correlating to the severity of the offense or betrayal or depth of hurt, the trust may be lost altogether, which is another way of saying, the relationship dies.

We know this reality personally, because we have all had good and bad relationship experiences in our lives. But we know this is not only true in our lives with people; it is true in our relationship to the Lord. But there is something unique about our relationship with the Lord that we can't say about our relationship with other people...

At conversion, the moment you met Christ, you exercised faith in Him. Faith, the Scripture teaches, is the way you come to Christ (Eph.2:8-9). Faith is, in other words, on the front end of the relationship. We know him through faith. It is the way we enter into a relationship with God, and not unlike other relationships, it is the way the relationship is maintained.

There is a difference though. The quality of faith required in a relationship with God is not something, according to Scripture, that we can do on our own. Jesus says that "No man comes to the Father (i.e. conversion) unless the Father draws him." This means, essentially, that we do not have the spiritual capacity to exercise faith in God apart from God. Even faith in God, if it is going to be exercised by anyone, must come from God.

This, I would submit, is different from any other relationship. The chasm between us and God is too great. It cannot be bridged by fallen, human faith; it can only be crossed by God-faith, a faith that God gives. This means, consequently, that our faith in Christ is exactly the quality of faith which God wants us to have. No other faith will do.

When God gives us this faith, he gives it to be ours—and it is ours. Faith enters into us; it becomes the overarching reality of our lives. The change is so radical, so complete that Paul refers to it as becoming a "new creature." (II Cor.5:17) We are, as it were, remade by this God-faith; we start to love God; we take an interest in God and all that He is and does. It is a faith we want to grow into, tend, and care for.

But we are never working out, tending, or caring for this faith alone. This is the beauty of God's control. For the faith we have, is the faith He gives. It is faith that is yoked to His character; it is, in other words, eternal and unchangeable. God only gives to us that which is rooted in Him. Our faith, which is God-faith, is more sure than the foundations of the earth. It will not end; the relationship will not die. Our faith is as sure as God Himself.

So, I take comfort in God’s complete control over all things. And I can say that, only because I know Him with the faith He gave me—His faith, my faith.

Stranger Than Fiction

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:37:41 -0400

"As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be ok. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick."

Because the ending of every gospel story deserves to be remembered...

Dan "The Man" Chase

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:40:10 -0400

I will be away tomorrow, preaching for a good friend of mine in Greenwood, MS. I'm preaching both services tomorrow, so it's likely that I'll miss you guys all the way around.

While I'm away, Dan "the man" Chase is going to be filling in. Dan, as many of you know, was an intern with RUF at Ole Miss under Les Newsome, is presently studying at Reformed Theological Seminary, and working tirelessly at Seattle Drip on Lakeland ("Drip it like it's hot, yo")

Keep Dan in prayer as he prepares to teach tomorrow. Make plans now to be there. I know you will be encouraged by what He is going to share from God's Word.

On How to Waste Time

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:11:31 -0400

In James Schall’s delightful book, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, there is a chapter entitled “On Wasting the Best Years of Your Life.” It’s a beautiful piece. In the chapter, Schall quotes a memorable line from the book of Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince. The line reads like this: “It is only the time we ‘waste’ with our friends that counts.”

This got me thinking...

Have you noticed that busy people are rarely good friends. The reason, of course, is that busy people are too busy for friends. They know that friendship takes time, but they are too busy doing “important things.” Their day is encumbered with certain aims, objectives, projects, and responsibilities. In other words, they have a life to live; they don’t have time “to waste” on others.

Even when busy people spend time with others, it is only when everything else of "importance" is done. Only the short snatches of time they have between the close of something important and the beginning of something else “important” is the time they can offer to others. The busy person only spends in-between time with others--time that is restricted by what is before and after. This is a safeguard, he thinks; it keeps him “hemmed in on both sides,” so that he will not waste too much time. This is one reason why busy people are always looking at their watch. Time, for them, is never open-ended. It is always structured, delimited, blocked off in neat sections on Microsoft Outlook. They can't be "in the moment," for they might lose track of time.

In a word, busyness is the enemy of relationship. And because of this, I fear for the busy person. Since life is seen as a series of projects and duties, they can only ever use time as a instrument to accomplish these particular ends. They see time, in other words, as their time. They are over-responsible in this way, which is another way of saying they are burdened. They do not get to experience relationship-time without either worry or guilt, and probably both

It is interesting that the Bible never tells us to manage or organize our time. It never tells us because time is not ours to manage or order. In fact, God already did that--a long time ago. The Bible, rather, is more concerned that we redeem time. Redeeming time frees us from the silly yoke of self-imposed ownership, and it makes us stewards. Redeeming time infuses us with the humility of a creature, and it recognizes God as the Creator and Sustainer of time. When we are able to see this, we can begin to appreciate time for what it was designed to be—a gift. We can be receivers not takers of time, which is to say we can receive time as a grace, not as our due. When we are able to receive even our hours and days from the Lord as grace, in the same way we receive our daily bread as a grace, we open the opportunity to “waste time” on and with others—to “waste time” the way God does.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:15:48 -0400

It seems we're years away from great research on the effect the internet is having on our minds, but it is encouraging to see more and more psychologists and sociologists exploring the possibility that the internet, and other such information technologies, can reshape the neural circuits inside our brains. Interested in finding out more? Check out Nicholas Carr's fascinating new article in this month's Atlantic Monthly

Christian Spirituality

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:19:08 -0400

This past Sunday we introduced the subject for this quarter, "Practicing the Christian Life: Working Out What God Is Working In." Thanks to all of you who have already given me good feedback. I especially appreciate the constructive criticism--you telling me where you need more clarity or what specific areas of your walk with the Lord that you would like to see addressed.

The goal of this quarter is to discuss the relationship between truth and life, believing and doing.

It would be far easier to only talk about believing. For instance, if we're talking about truth alone, it would be enough to discuss the creeds, confessions, and doctrinal statements of the church. We need to be doing this of course, and we will; but if this is all we talked about, if we decided that this was all we needed, we would fall short of Christainity lived.

It would also be far easier to only talk about doing. If we we're only talking about what a Christian is suppossed to do, then it would be enough to talk about job descriptions, mission statements, and commands. But if we only talked about doing, we'd miss Christianity believed.

To miss doing or to miss believing is to miss Christianity.

In our quarter together, we want to bring these two essential aspects of Christianity into a seamless whole. We want, in other words, a Christainity that lives. This means, we want a Christianity where believing and doing are fused together, a Christianity where there is unity between the head and the heart.

I don't have to tell you that this is a tall order. In fact, it's an order we're not up to. We will need the Spirit to move in our midst, to help us in following after Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)

For The Ladies...

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:54:16 -0400

This coming Wednesday, June 4^th, the ladies will have a summer Bible study/discipleship group kick-off held at the home of Ashley Hall. We would love for you to make plans to join us for Bible study this summer and to plan to come at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday dinner, followed by time afterwards getting to know one another and introducing/distributing the books.

We will be reading, Living the Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney—it’s short and very accessible, yet convicting book that deals with how the cross impacts our daily living. How does Christ’s death on the cross effect our everyday decisions, priorities, commitments, and relationships? Godly living as young adult women—what does that look like? It’s these questions and more that we will wrestle through together over the course of the summer.

RSVP for the kick-off and the Bible study to Ashley Hall (ashleyh@fpcjackson.org) by Tuesday!

John Piper on G.K. Chesterton

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:19:58 -0400

If you've been around me for any length of time, it's likely I've relayed my love for G.K. Chesterton to you. His classic book Orthodoxy has done much to shape my own outlook and priorities of life. It's a book I re-read every year and with each reading I learn new things and re-discover old truths. I'm struck afresh with fresh insights and provoked by new points of interest. It is a reading adventure that is second to none.

Over the years I have grown in my appreciation for Chesterton's ability to find the romance in that which is most ordinary. Reflecting on his impact on me to a friend, I once said, "It's like he gave me the eyes to see the world and the Faith for what they really are. I had grown old and my eyes were dim. In reading Orthodoxy, I learned how to see again."

Today is Chesterton's birthday. So, as a fitting tribute, John Piper recounts some of the rich paradoxes in Chesterton's Orthodoxy on the Desiring God webiste. Here's a sampling of Chesterton quotes that you'll find in John Piper's post:

“[This book] recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious.” (12)

“It is one thing to describe an interview with a... creature that does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn’t.” (11)

“Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.” (17)

“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health. When you destroy mystery you create morbidity.” (28)

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” (48)

“When we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened the door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door.” (54)

Happy in Jesus

Wed, 28 May 2008 22:26:11 -0400

It's spring cleaning time at the office. You know the drill--the time we find as much junk as we can find and pilfer through it with the intent of throwing away as much as possible. It's a tortuous process for me, filled with the normal mental anguish of internal questioning and second guessing: "Do I need this? I might could use this one day? No, be realistic, Nate. If you haven't used in five years, what's the likelihood that you'll ever use it?"

This time around has been no different than the last time I purged--except for the fact that this time I found an old journal that I thought I had lost. Black leather, gold lined, thin margins... I recognized it immediately. I had no idea what I would find inside of course. It's been over a decade since I laid eyes on it. I was somewhat hesitant to take a peak, for it seems I'm usually disappointed with my no-doubt "genius thoughts" in high school. Like Chesterton, it seems I set out to discover orthodoxy, believing myself to be an academic Lewis and Clark--blazing new trails through wild, unforeseen, and uninhabited territories, only to find out later that what I had found was discovered some 3,000 years earlier, and that I was among the last to stumble upon it. In other words, reading my old journals is a good exercise in humility.

Well, this journal was no different by and large. Random thoughts on readings, the meaning of life, experiences, feelings, and (of course) girls. It's clear from the journal that I was still religiously devoted to baseball, but my academic bent was beginning to break through. I was clearly moved by Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves. Two books, interestingly, I still return to often.

But more than any personal musing, it was a quote from J.C. Ryle's Walking with God that really stopped me in my tracks yesterday. Speaking on the subject of happiness, Ryle sets forth a Christian vision of happiness, a vision indelibly linked to the person and work of Christ. Listen to his wisdom:

"The true Christian has a conscience which is at peace. He knows that Christ has taken away his sins. He alone can think calmly about his soul, for he knows that it is safe in Christ. He alone has sources of happiness which do not depend on this world. However, much his earthly circumstances may change his Friend in heaven remains constant...Without Christ, no man in this world can be truly happy, however great his circumstances. But with Christ, a man can be happy in spite of being poor. He can be happy in spite of being ill. He can be happy in spite of political and social upheavals. His happiness does not depend on his present circumstances. He knows that 'it shall be well with the righteous.'" (Isaiah 3:10)

I wonder: are you happy?

Technology & Your Life

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:02:14 -0400

Serious reflection on how technology affects the way we live is a subject deserving more attention. Thankfully, more and more sociologists and cultural analysts are giving time and energy to studying the psychological, physical, emotional, and spiritual impact of a digitized culture.

One of the publications I trust on this topic is The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society. Several years ago Christine Rosen, a senior editor at the New Atlantis, released a series of articles cataloging the tendencies and temptations inherent in a primarily image based culture. For those of us who may spend the bulk of your life in front of screen, Rosen is worth your time.

You can find the first of her articles ("Playgrounds of the Self") by following this link.

Wed. Nights in June: D-Groups & Prayer Meeting

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:05:34 -0400

You guys always hear me encouraging you to attend the mid-week supper, prayer meeting, and discipleship groups at FPC. Those of you that are coming regularly know what a great time of fellowship it is. We are thankful to those of you who have made this time meaningful and enjoyable. I've heard a good deal of postive feedback regarding our d-group offerings for YA, and I trust that will continue into the summer.

As you probably know, we will have two new d-group topics for summer. Tyler Uzzell is planning to tackle the book of Ephesians in our co-ed group, and Ashley Hall, Women's Director at FPC, will be leading our ladies through C.J. Mahaney's, The Cross-Centered Life. If you are interested in finding out more information or would like to know how to join one of these groups, please don't hesitate to contact Tyler or myself.

In addition to our d-groups, FPC has a regular corporate prayer meeting that meets from 6:30-7:30 in the sanctuary. Any of you that are not involved in d-groups, I would encourage to be a part of prayer meeting. What a tremendous time of corporate prayer, praise, and preaching it is! In the month of June, I will have the privilege to preach during prayer meeting on the topic of assurance. I've written a short blurb for the First Epistle this week just to introduce the topic. I thought I'd share it with you ahead of time.

The Scriptures assures all those who have trusted in Christ that their salvation is eternally secure. Jesus says of his sheep, “I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28) Once we come to know Christ, we shall always be in Christ—no ifs, ands, or buts.

Even with these promises, many true believers experience deep spiritual anxieties and doubts about their spiritual condition and their eternal security. The joy and peace of salvation and the testimony of God’s Word and Spirit are realities that some Christians never seem to fully attain. This is often true of even the holiest of saints! They exclaim with Job, “Where then is my hope?” (Job 17:15)

In the month of June during our normal Wed. night prayer meetings, I'll get the privlege of addressing this important topic in a sermon series entitled, “Where Then Is My Hope? A Study on the Bible’s Teaching on Assurance.” I hope that you will take time this summer to study God’s Word with me, as we plumb the depths of this important subject.

Can't Buy Me Happiness

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:44:20 -0400

American Christians are a conflicted breed. I know this, because I am one.

We will often say we agree with something "in principle," but this usually means we "know its true"(mental assent), but we never intend this "truth" to change what we're doing or how we're doing it. In other words, it a truth that is "out there," but not a truth we have embraced and bound ourselves to. Thus, it's a truth that never transforms the who, what, when, where, and how of our lives.

This is particularly true when it comes to wealth. We say in one turn, "Money can't buy happiness," while at the same time, we spend the bulk of our lives seeking to accumulate as much money as we possibly can--holding on to the possibility that maybe we were wrong about this whole money-can't-buy-happiness thing. Sound familiar?

Of course none of us would be so brazen (or foolish!) to say that money can buy eternal happiness. That's clearly not true for Christians. But we opt, it seems, for an a mediating position that is equally false--a position that believes money can still very much help us experience significant happiness in the short run on earth. We think that more money will be a means to happiness even if it is not the source of happiness. Or, at the very least, it will be a comfort during stress and strain, easing the woes and difficulties of life by providing us means of pleasuring ourselves and escaping from the monotony of the day-to-day. Money in this sense is an economic morphine, dulling the pain of a sin-sick life. But morphine doesn't heal; it masks. It doesn't give life; it hides pain, and that maybe one of the chief reasons Jesus tells us that it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt.19)

We won't debate all the possibilities for good and evil that come along with the accumulation of money right now, but on the whole, it seems we have bestowed money with expectations it was never intended to meet. By consequence, we live economically frustrated lives, waxing between the great hope for happiness every time pay day rolls around with the hangover of depression when the well runs dry. In this sense, we need a devaluing of the dollar.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a short article by David G. Myers entitled, "The Disconnect Between Wealth and Well Being: It's not the Economy, Stupid." It raises some interesting questions, some of which I've touched on in this post, but it seems Myers should reflect more deeply regarding a clear Scriptural path out of this mire. Nevertheless, it's worth a look.

I'd love to know your thoughts if you read it.

"The Mystery of Faith with a Clear Conscience"

Mon, 12 May 2008 19:30:15 -0400

Our regularly scheduled deacon and elder meetings are tonight, and I (along with the other ministers) occasionally get the opportunity to lead them in devotions before the meetings. It was my turn tonight, and so I spoke briefly on I Tim. 3:9 and Paul’s spiritual qualification for the office deacons. I thought I’d post it here in hopes that you too might find benefit from it.

There is an interesting new article by William Murchison in this month’s Touchstone magazine. The article is entitled, “The Way We Weren’t: Churches in the Fifties Were Filled, But Were They Faithful?” In the article, Murchison argues that the middle of the 20th century was a time of rebuilding for America. It was a time where families desired some kind of normalcy following the trauma of WWII. This impulse for “normal” found at least part of its anchorage in the church. This can be seen by the steep rise in membership and attendance in church. According to some estimates upwards to 70% of people in America were members of churches and attending with some regularity. From an accountants vantage point, all seemed well.

But in the article, Murchison argues that full churches are not necessarily a good measuring stick for faithful churches. This was true in the fifties, according to Murchison. Churches were seen more as a building block of society, of establishing the desperate sense of normalcy that people longed for, rather than a worshipping community, set upon doctrinal truths, and the distinctive of Christ and him crucified. According to Murchison, this new “society building role” of the local congregation took precedence and ultimately undermined in part the countercultural mission of the church—turning the church into a civic club that offered the promise of normal life, social respectability, and a family tradition (complete with monthly dues)

For a statement analyzing the church at that time, Murchison quotes from Theodore Wedel’s The Christianity of Main Street (published in 1950)

“Christianity is today, among a majority of educated men and women, including many nominal Protestants, an almost unknown religion. For instead of propounding a distinct message of salvation it is set on ‘Golden rule idealism’ and ‘moralism.’ The Christianity of today is a Christianity without theology, one which doesn’t repudiate the name of God, but which has basically little to do with him.”

It was this unmooring of the church from its primary work of preaching Christ and him crucified, and the reinterpreting of the mission of the church in light of cultural need, that gave birth to the rampant liberalism that developed in the late 20th century, and became (arguably) one of the chief reasons why our denomination, the PCA, was founded—to preserve and preach the truth of the gospel of Christ.

As Paul writes his final instruction to Timothy before he dies, he writes about officers in the church: deacons and elders. And alongside the many ethical and practical instructions he gives, Paul says that deacons “…must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.” Notice two things about this statement:

1. What to Hold: Among the ethical instructions and practical guidelines in I Tim. 3, Paul includes this statement regarding a deacon’s spiritual conviction. “They must hold the mystery of the faith.” In essence, Paul is saying that a deacon is to be known for preserving the distinctive of the gospel message. Holding onto the substance of faith found in Christ's person and work is a major qualification for officers in the church, and it is key to the preserving of a gospel-holding church in our day and in the future.

2. How to Hold it: Paul qualifies the nature the deacons hold on the faith. He is to hold it “with a clear conscience.” This certainly means holding the faith in such a way where we do not by our lives obscure its truth by our sin. Deacons are, in other words, those who are to live in a manner worthy of the gospel. They are to live virtuous lives set on the character that the grace of Christ produces.

But in addition to this point, “with clear conscience” seems to mean with boldness and certainty without doubt. Deacons are not to be men who assent to the faith with hesitancy, but they are to be assured and confident. Does this mean they never doubt? I don’t think so. But I think it does mean that they are not men characterized by doubt, always wringing their hands in fear that what they believe may not be true. Rather, deacons (and certainly elders as well) are to be men marked by solid faith that weathers the winds of doubt and can seize upon the fact that it is not their hold on Christ that saves them, but his hold on them.

[This devotional was for deacons, but it could have been for any Christian. Don’t we all need to hear this message? On a side note, this summer on Wed. nights in June I have the privilege of preaching on the topic of perseverance and assurance. I hope many of you will carve out time to come and study the Word of God with me, as we look at this always pertinent, ever relevant topic.]

Home Sweet Home

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:01:05 -0400

It's true you know: there really is no place like home. After a week at the beach with the family, it was great to return home and to at least some sense of normalcy. Yes, I'm still a little sunburned, but it's nothing aloe vera can't fix!

Thanks to all of you who sent me e-mails, text messages, or facebook messages wishing us a great vacation. We will have to tell you all about it. It was Knox's first trip to the Big Sea, and from all reports, he loved it. (He slept most of the time, which is his way of saying, "two thumbs way up.")

Not surprisingly, it seems young adult ministry carried on quite well without me. (Some of you hinted at the fact that it seemed to go better than usual. Yes, I know who you are). Of course, you're probably right! I can laugh with praise at this reality, because it proves all the more God's great control over every detail of life. No matter what I do or don't do (or what you do or don't do) we cannot thwart his plan. He is committed to accomplishing his will, growing his church, and bringing all things to their proper end. There is a deeply sublime comfort in this.

Let me publically say "thank you" to Tyler for teaching on Sunday. David Elkin was gone for the weekend, and he needed someone to step in for him, and it is great to have an able teacher like Tyler to fill in the gaps. Please don't forget to express your appreciation to God for how he is using Tyler's obvious gifts in our lives.

Lastly, let me remind you (as if you needed reminding!) that many of our graduate students will be finishing up the school year or graduating in the next week or so. Some already have! This means, sadly, that some of the most familiar faces -- faces we've grown to love despite what they look like (just kidding) -- will not be with us for much of the summer. Please remember each of them as they go off for the summer, or relocate, or find new jobs. To all of you finishing up another school year or graduating, we love you and will miss you terribly. Don't get away without stopping by and seeing me, for I want to be praying for you while I can't be with you. Keep in touch as you can!

While some will be leaving us, many new folk are arriving! The "visitor list" in the Pathway class has been quite full the last few weeks, and so we're thankful to all of you who have come to worship with us the last several weeks. It's been great to see brand new faces the last few weeks in church and to hear how the Lord has brought you back to Jackson or brought you here for the first time. I know there are still many of you I need to meet. I'll be popping into class this week just to check up on everyone. I hope I'll see many of you then!

Those of you who are regular attenders, please be on the look out for new folk as they make there way into our community. This is a great opportunity for us to show Christian love and hospitality.

Okay, I hope to see many of you Wed. night or at the very latest on Sunday. Will post again soon!

At The Beach

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:53:59 -0400

It struck me that I probably didn't get to tell many of you that I am on a much needed family vacation to the beach this week. So, if you have trouble getting hold of me, just picture me stretched out on a chase lounger with the warm spring air blowing through my hair, with the roar of the ocean in the background, and a great book in my hand. This is about as close to heaven as it gets for me this side of the rainbow!

But as good as it is to get away, to enjoy some rest and relaxation, it's so good to come back home. We'll be ready to jump back into routine after this week off, and we can't wait to see all of you.

On a different note, I am happy to announce that I'll be returning to the Pathway class the first Sunday in June for the rest of the year. Though it has been good to teach in two our young married classes for the last two quarters, it has been hard to be away from you for this long. So, it will be a real treat for me to return and teach for a while, and I hope it will be at least bearable for you!

I'm looking forward to addressing a number of important topics in the time we will spend together, and in the next couple of weeks, I will introduce you to the topics we will be looking at together.

Race: T4G Reflection (2)

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:04:20 -0400

Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Grand Cayman, gave the second presentation at T4G 2008. His talk was entitled, "Bearing the Image: Identity, Work of Christ, and the Church."

Thabiti’s talk centered around a misconception about race, namely, that it doesn’t exist. (How's that for an intro!) Race, according to Thabiti, posits an essential biological difference between peoples. Holding to such an explanation would mean that each race (African American, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, etc.) would be fundamentally (biologically) different from every other people group.

Instead of race, Thabiti sets forth the term "ethnicity" as an alternative. The difference is significant. In contrast to biological difference set forth in race theory, ethnicity explains differences among people and groups as cultural and sociological. Ethnicity, then, is a more fluid construct that is permeable and porous; it is something that people can move in and out of, because it has to do with ways, means, patterns, traditions, customs, mores, etc. – not biology.

In a memorable quote from the talk, "Race is a myth; it is a concept as defensible as the existence of unicorns." From Thabiti's vantage point, race as an explanation should be abandoned in favor of the term ethnicity. Christianity, he argues, asserts the overarching unity and oneness among all men biologically, stemming from God’s creation of Adam and Eve in Gen.2. Thus, to argue fundemantal difference biologically would cut against the truth of the Scriptures. Ethnicity, in other words, is a fundamentally Christian interpretation of the differences we see among people groups. Adopting this interpretation will, he believes, help in conceiving a plan for true unity. He encouraged those interested in teasing out the distinctions between race and ethnicity to read Colin Kidd's excellent book, The Forging of Races.

Let me mention just one of the six negative consequences that Thabiti sees flowing out of racial theory. Much more should be said on this, but we have to begin somewhere.

It is a very short walk from race to racism: This is true because race theory is rooted in biology, in essential differences. If difference is rooted in the essence of someone (in their origin and biological make-up), then it is much easier to place them in an entirely separate category. Indeed, at one level, it would be legitimate to do so, if they are actually, qualitatively different. The category of race makes provision for such division and classification between peoples, which provides induement for prejudice and hatred (the essence of racism). It is a very short walk from race to racism.

I think we see this in our culture, and even among ourselves, when we magnify differences rather than fundamental unities. We see and categorize others in terms that keep them separate from us, rather than the common origin, history, and ancestry we share with them as human beings made in the image of God and descending from our father Adam.

This does not mean that we pretend that no differences exist, or that we must smooth out all differences between people. No, true unity is not interested in denial (acting like there are no differences) or sameness (making all people alike). Let's be honest: we are not unified around skin color, language, nation, political party, etc. Rather, we are unified as God’s creatures made in his image, and in Adam our common Father. When we hold to the fundamental, creational unity between all peoples, our differences serve only to highlight our fundamental unity.

This is the vision of Revelation 5; men and women from every sector, from every point in history, from every imaginable background, from every language and dialect, singing the same song of redemption: “Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals; for you were slain, and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”

Notice something very important about this passage. Our unity is heaven will be expressed in our differences. Heaven is not just for English speakers, or American citizens, or white or black people. Heaven doesn't even have it's own language, nationality, or skin color. Heaven is, rather, for the whole world, and in heaven every kindred, tribe, and nation will express their unity in Christ through their respective differences; they will all be singing the ONE song of redemption in MANY different ways, languages, and cultural/national distinctions.

If we make the foundation and motivation for unity among people groups anything other than Christ, we will have built our house on earthly sand, and we should expect to see it fall. But if we build our unity on the cornerstone of creation an Christ, we will have as permenent a foundation as heaven itself.

So, let's practice for heaven. What do you say?

As you walk around today, as you go about your normal day, pray for eyes to see every person – black or white, rich or poor, professional or non-professional, hetrosexual or homosexual, republican or democrat – as fundamentally just like you. Living in this manner is living according to what is true; it would be to put on the eyes of Christ. They are like you: God’s creation, made in his image, descending from Adam; they are sinners who are lost and dying and without hope, save for the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you try to do this consciously today, tell me how it goes. I’d love to hear how it changed (or didn’t change) your interaction, conversation, and treatment of those not like you. And I’ll be praying that all our hearts will be knit together in love for all God's people as we try to live according to the truth today—and always.

The Big Spit Up

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:41:30 -0400

Yesterday, many of you got to see and hold the new addition at the Shurden house, Daniel. Knox. Isn't he great? We're so glad he's with us. What a joy he has been to get to know. He has such a good temperment. We are truly blessed.

However, there is this one little thing that can sometimes be difficult. Knox has a little trouble keeping his milk in his belly. That's right -- he's the king of the spit up! I know, it's a fact of baby life. He can't help it! But Knox, more than our other kids, looses his milk all over us and himself on a regular basis. It's not a pretty sight.

I recently broke out the video camera to catch Knox and Rosalyn playing together on the bed. Well, as soon as I did, Mr. King of the Spit Up struck again.

To see the video, follow this link to our family blog: http://shurdenfam.blogspot.com.

Scroll down to the blog titled "The Big Spit Up (Courtesy of Knox Shurden)" Warning: this video is guaranteed to make you laugh.

Sound Doctrine: T4G Reflection (1)

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:53:44 -0400

We were privileged to have Ligon kick things off at the T4G conference last week with a tremendous message on the importance of sound doctrine for faithful pastoral ministry. The rather puritan like title (which was conveniently cut from the bulletin!) went something like this: "A joyful defense and declaration of the necessity and practicality of systematic theology for the life and ministry of the Church."

I want to share with you just a few points in the message that I think are pertinent for YA at FPC. It will probably take me several posts to cover the important issues raised in his talk, so I hope (expect!) you will revisit the blog in the days ahead to read each reflection.

For today, let's focus on a description that Ligon made of our present culture. He says we live in an "anti-doctrinal and antitheological age." This means, essentially, that the very idea of doctrine (statements of faith) or systematic theology (thinking consistently, Biblically about God) is under great suspicion by many and is regularly despised by others in the evangelical church. Such a spirit has led to a woeful neglect of doctrine and theology in our time, and this is a significant reason why the church is not experiencing true joy and growth. (We may leave this last point to the next post, as it will take a little while to unpack)

One of the ways I see this antidoctrinal, antitheological age show up in people's thinking is in statements they make about certain teaching or writers—statements like, "He was so academic" or "It was just so deep" or "He didn't say anything that was relevant to my life." I would sugguest that such statements reveal certain antitheological or antidoctrinal presuppositions or inclinations.

In fear of being misunderstood, let me pause and say that making a statement like the statements above do not necessarily indicate you are denigrating doctrine or theology, though (as I stated above) I suspect that in some cases it does. So, if you’ve made such statements, I’m not claiming to know your heart, and I do not hold judgments about you in my heart. Rather, I’m asking you to check your heart and consider your assumptions and motivations.

Let me further say by qualification that teachers of the gospel will in fact present the truth in ways that are obtuse and distorted. As a teacher, this is one of my biggest fears, and it grieves me when I sense that I have unnecessarily complicated the truth of the gospel by my word choice, lack of thoughfulness, poor organization, speed of presentation, prayerlessness, etc. If a teacher does this, the academic/abstract critique is not without merit, so in those instances I give you (and myself) the benefit of the doubt. More could be said on this, but I’m fearful of getting to far-a-field. Maybe will pick this up later if you express interest to me on this point.

Qualifications aside, let me pose a question. How do you know if you have an "antitheological" or "antidoctrinal" impulse or inclination in your approach to Christianity? There is no easy answer to this question, but I think there are gut-check questions we can ask to help identify our tolerance level for doctrine and theology. I’m going to pose only two for sake of space. These questions are in no particular order.

Do you believe that understanding Christian truth should always be easy? Sometimes we want Christian truth to be easy to grasp. We want it to come to us effortlessly. This desire is, humanly speaking, quite normal. However, gospel truths can be stated simply, but the truths being stated simply are rarely simple or easy. For instance, the gospel as it was presented to Nicodemus or the women at the well in John 3 and 4 is stated in quite simple and earthy terms, but that simple presentation centers on a deeply complex truth—a truth that Nicodemus and the woman at the well had difficulty wrapping their heads around at first. This same reality is at work in Jesus’ disciples, who are regularly confused at Jesus’ teaching. The same it true in Paul’s letters; he is constantly writing to churches struggling with getting the “simple message” of the gospel right. To turn our desire for truth to be easy into a demand of truth will necessitate the losing of truth. Also, to demand that truth about the eternal, infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present God be simple is to have forgotten the subject of study: God. We should expect that knowing God deeply and intimately will require effort, labor, patience, and discipline.
Do you believe that “doctrine” and “systematic theology” are irrelevant to your life? Most you wouldn’t say this, but if you reviewed your life would you find a subtle dislike of doctrine, because you see doctrine as separate from the things you're going through in life? With the growth of a self-help consciousness in our culture, it has become commonplace for Christians to think the church’s main job is to deal with felt needs of each person, or the felt needs of certain “interest groups” within the church. This means that if a person or group “feels that ________ is important to them,” then the church needs to revamp the way it is doing things, and it should reorient itself around this new burning interest. The problem with this thinking is that it’s partially right. The church is to be about the the felt needs of its members, in the sense that personal struggles, marriage conflict, family divisions, etc. (felt needs) are to be addressed pastorally with the truth of God’s Word (read: doctrine and theology). To say it simply, felt needs are addressed through the preaching of real needs. To center the church on felt needs alone would be to place her at the mercy of men and not God. The church would be wrenched from God and placed at the whims of men. The church exists for God’s glory, as a “pillar and buttress of the truth” (I Tim.4:15); thus, not surprisingly, it is God alone who can give the marching orders. In God’s good providence, when the church doggedly pursues God’s objectives for her, the real needs of the the church will be met. On the flip side, to pursue our felt needs only (which is to pursue our own glory) is to get neither God's glory or our real needs met. This is the reality in so many of our churches today.

Well, I’ve waxed on long enough. I hope this rambling is marginally helpful to you as you seek to pursue doctrinal soundness in your life, which will lead – as Paul reminds us – to true godliness. Maybe will talk about that next.

Home From T4G 2008

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:09:03 -0400

I returned from the Together for the Gospel conference at around 11pm last night. Wearied by travel, I labored up the stairs to my front door to my lovely wife. Her face was beaming. She greeted me with lots of hugs and kisses, and she asked me many questions about the conference. After setting down bags and kicking off my shoes, we began to talk. I gave her a quick overview of the week, everything from the hotel room, to restaurants, to people I met. But the bulk of our conversation centered around the high points of each talk, the panel discussions, and the worship. It was too late to go into great detail, but it was a good start.

Today, as I went about my way, I remembered many key comments, moments of laughter, and personal conversations that I failed to recount to Christy last night. Lord willing, after the kids eat and bathe, and after good night prayers are prayed, I can spend more time sharing with her how the Lord used these men and their addresses to stoke the flame of the gospel in my soul. I thank God for how he is using this in my life.

On that note, let me say "thank you" to all of you who prayed for this years conference. What a tremendous three days of preaching, praise, and fellowship! I'm certainly returning home to Jackson and to all of you at FPC with a cup that overflows with thoughts of Christ and gospel. I look forward in the coming days to speak with you about each of the men and their messages, so that you might share with me in the grace of God, which overflows in faith and love for Christ Jesus who came to save sinners--of which I am the foremost (I Tim.1:12-15)

T4G Bound

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:30:47 -0400

I'm out of the office this week with a host of our interns, Jeremy Smith, our Senior Assistant Minister, and our Senior Minister, Ligon Duncan, for the 2008 Together for the Gospel Conference in Louisville, KY. This is a conference where Reformed Evangelicals from different traditions -- Baptist, Charismatic, Presbyterian, Independent, etc. -- come together to celebrate the unity that is found in the gospel of Christ. It promises to be a wonderful week of preaching from some of today's leading Reformed ministers, and I'm looking forward to a rich time of fellowship with brothers across denominational lines.

There is such a need for this kind of thing in Evangelicalism today. In an age where doctrine is belittled and understood to be a point of division, Together for the Gospel is a conference that promotes unity in doctrine--holding the truth together with a good conscience.

This is a rare thing, so keep this conference in prayer. And pray that God might be pleased to extend his truth in and through the messages that will be delivered.

If you're interested in learning more about the conference, you can visit the Together for the Gospel website at www.t4g.org

More Wisdom From George MacDonald

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:45:27 -0400

Revisiting a section early in The Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, I was struck afresh with the not-so-common sense that MacDonald displays in ministry.

All Christians sense at different times that they should be "doing something for the Lord." We look about our world, into the lives of the people who inhabit our community, or maybe those ostracized from our communities, and we have a strong urge to "change things." We want to bring reform, maybe revolution. We want the very common heartaches and miseries that mark the lives of our family, friends, and even enemies to be removed. We watch the news, hearing reports of murder, rape, prejudice, hate, neglect, wars and rumors of war and think "It's just not right. Something has got to change."

This impulse is something I certainly don't want to squash. It might very well reflect a heart given over to righteous anger, a heart longing to see the world put right, and longing to be a part of the cure. I suspect this is true in many cases.

However, there is a danger lurking in this impulse. For in our zeal to change the world, to set all that's wrong aright, we are often far to confident in our own vision for reform. Things are so clear to us, and the plan of reform so obvious, that we run the risk of running roughshod over people, institutions, programs, etc. that may be more closely aligned with the cure than the problem. When we do this, we almost inevitably cause as much damage as we do help. Justice comes down, but it's coming included a substantial amount of collateral damage.

MacDonald struggled with this impulse in his ministry. He knew that service and labor for change was central to gospel renewal, but he also knew the Kingdom could not be brought in by force. He realized that how one sought for change was as important as the kind of change one sought. Thus, MacDonald knew that deep-rooted reformation comes best when Christ is brought to bear in ordinary life. It's not the spectacles, the "big events," but the "mercies that are new every morning" where the change that God brings is most .

Going on his first Monday of visits after preaching his first Sunday in a new parish church, MacDonald knew that he could not jump right into service of these people by forcing them to deal with all their sin. Such opportunities take time, relationships, love, and trust. So, he set out "...not to force his service [but to] be a neighbor, until such time as the opportunity of being the servant should avail itself." (15) Loving one's neighbor, MacDonald realized, begins by becoming a neighbor. It comes in the small conversations, meals, births, sicknesses, deaths -- in a word, shared history. If we approach such basic rhythms with a heart engaged and intent on making Christ known in them, we will have seen the world change.