Goodbye Till Monday
I will be leaving town tonight for the thanksgiving holiday and will not return until Monday. So I will not write anything new until Monday. Here are some helpful insights on thanksgiving that will help you not waste it. See you Monday!
Albert Mohler’s theological thanksgiving.
John Piper’s advice on who to invite for thanksgiving dinner.
“Is God More Than What His Word Says?”
“Is God more than what His Word says?”
This may not seem like a common question to some of you, but it is for many. On of the first things you hear in a theologically liberal seminary is this question. The professor hears some answers and then says the answer to the question is yes. But, he (or she) then adds that because this is true, how can we trust the Bible to tell us what God is like? You see why this question matters so much now? It undercuts the authority of the Bible.
I don’t have issue that the answer to this question may be yes. God may indeed be more than what His Word says. Many people have said that the Bible is God’s “baby talk” to us, because we could not understand any more than what is in it. But I do take issue when we answer yes to this question, and don’t keep moving further into the question. We cannot answer yes to that question and simply stop there. If we answer yes, we’re saying the Bible does not have a monopoly on the information about God in it. Some people will therefore go to another source to try and find more information about God. I don’t recommend that, it will fail every time.
I do recommend answering yes to this question, followed by the belief that the Bible is fully inspired, authoritative, inerrant, and infallible. This means that everything in the Bible was inspired by God, has authority, cannot be wrong, and will never fail. Then comes the crucial next step: God can be more than His Word says, only in the sense that His “more-ness” will never contradict what His Word says. God may indeed be more, but the fullness of His character will never contradict what is written! We may have it all in the Bible, and not fully get it. We may not, God could be more, but what is more will not contradict what is written in the Bible. This is honoring to God, and makes much of Him indeed.
The Manhattan Declaration
A group of Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians have joined together to create The Manhattan Declaration. The main points in the declaration are:
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
You can sign the declaration here.
You can see who has signed here.
Read why Albert Mohler signed here.
Read why John MacArthur didn’t sign here.
I signed, will you?
What Does John 15:11 Have To Do With John 15:9-10?
I know I have written a lot recently about the German Philosopher Immanuel Kant and his categorical Imperative (post 1, post 2), but I saw something this morning that stunned me from John 15:11 and I must tell you about it.
For those of you just coming into this discussion, Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative is this: an action can only be moral and virtuous, if the person doing the action gains nothing from it. So, to the degree that you gain anything, from doing any action, to that degree, it is an immoral action. If Kant had his way, he would have us all be disinterested in the things we do. This is not Biblical, but I am writing about this again because I think so many of you believe this! Now to John 15:11.
John 15:11 says, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” This statement gives the purpose for the previous 10 verses. That means 15:1-10 were spoken by Jesus for our joy. Think about how the purpose statement in 15:11 applies to 15:9-10. Jesus says, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Jesus clearly teaches that keeping His commandments is the way to remain in His love; this is describing obedience.
TOO OFTEN, Christians think of obedience to God in a KANTian manner. We say, we think, we believe, and act upon this thought: “If I am to obey God, I must put pleasure and delight aside. If I am to have pleasure and delight, I cannot obey God.” Does Jesus believe this? NO! John 15:11 teaches us that this idea about putting pleasure aside to obey God is a lie. Rather, Jesus told us that obedience to His commandments (15:9-10) for the purpose of making our joy full (15:11). What does that mean? Jesus told us to obey Him so that we could have the fullness of joy! This means that obedience to Jesus is the fullness of joy, not the absence of it. Kant’s imperative is again….wrong. Pursue your joy in Jesus with all the might you can muster, by obeying His commandments.
Gerald Bray: Three Questions To Ask Every Passage
(This was originally posted by Justin Taylor on his blog Between Two Worlds. You’ll find this very useful!)
Gerald Bray is Research Professor at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, and director of research for the Latimer Trust. This fall he is Scholar in Residence at Union University. He has taught theology for 30 years, is the author of numerous books, and is the editor of IVP’s Contours of Christian Theology series, penning its inaugural volume on The Doctrine of God. He is also the author of a large volume introducing the history of Biblical Interpretation. (Just to give you a sense of his learning and global interests, he is fluent in French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Russian.)
He’s graciously answered a few questions for us on the basic questions to ask when interpreting Scripture.
What are the questions we should ask when approaching a passage of Scripture?
The first question we must ask of every biblical text is simply this—what does it tell us about God? What does it say about who he is and about what he does? The second question is: what does this text say about us human beings? What are we meant to be and what has gone wrong? The third and final question is: what has God done about this and what does he expect of us in the light of what he has done? Asking these questions and seeking answers to them will help us interpret the Spirit’s message to Christ’s people and to each of us as individuals.
What about sections of Scripture that seem hard to apply? I’m thinking, for example, of the genealogies of 1 Chronicles.
These genealogies bring us a message from God even if they appear on the surface to be barren and unprofitable. All we have to do in order to understand them is to ask the right questions about them and their meaning will be quickly opened up to us.
Let me ask you, then, to answer the three questions you posed above. What do they teach us about God?
They tell us that he is a faithful God, who keeps his covenant from one generation to another. Whoever we are and however far we may be from the source of our human life in Adam, we are part of his plan. Over the centuries we may have developed in different ways, lost contact with one another and even turned on each other in hostility, but in spite of all that we are still related to one another and interconnected in ways that may go beyond our immediate understanding or experience.
What do they tell us about ourselves?
They say that most of us are nobodies from the world’s point of view. We live and die in a long chain of humanity but there is not much that anyone will remember of us as individuals. At the same time, without us, future generations will not be born and the legacy of the past will not be preserved. We are part of a great cloud of witnesses, a long chain of faithful people who have lived for God in the place where he put them. Even if we know little about them we owe them a great debt of gratitude for their loyalty and perseverance when they had little or nothing to gain from it or to show for it.
What do they tell us about God’s dealings with us?
They tell us that we too are called to be obedient and to keep the faith we have inherited, passing it on undiminished to the next generation. They tell us that there is a purpose in our calling that goes beyond ourselves. Even if we are not glorified and leave little for posterity to remember us by, we shall nevertheless have made an indispensable contribution to the purposes of God in human history.
Peace: Objective & Subjective
Peace is an interesting word used in many ways today. People work hard for peace around the world through the Peace Corps, through humanitarian aid projects, through being kind to one another, through helping the needy, all in an effort to spread this idea of peace. But what is peace? When most people (or Wikipedia) think of peace they think two things: a) Things that labor to remove insecurity, social injustice, economic inequality, political and religious radicalism, and acute racism and nationalism. b) A long-haired, bandanna headed, man or woman, holding up two fingers with a large smile. The Bible on the other hand defines peace in a very different way.
The word for peace means more than “peace” in the Bible. In the Old Testament it is “shalom” and in the New Testament it is “eriene”. Both of these words mean “fullness”, “wholeness”, or “complete-ness”. Peace is more than the absence of conflict, it is a rest and wholeness that can only come from God through Christ. The Bible also makes an interesting distinction about peace; you must come into the objective (outside yourself, factual) peace with God before you can experience the subjective (inside yourself) peace of God.
The objective peace with God is found in Romans 5:1, “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” A person only has peace with God when they come to faith in Christ, because Christ on the cross absorbed the wrath of God, fully satisfying it on our behalf. Apart from faith in Christ, no one has peace with God because of sin and all remain under the curse and wrath of God.
The subjective peace of God is found in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Paul instructs us to pray, rather then being anxious, letting our concerns be made known to God. When we do that, we experience a peace that words cannot, ever, describe.
The world has it wrong. They are after subjective peace and will go to great lengths to try to find it. In fact, many people have claimed that they have found true peace on their own. But the Bible makes it clear, you cannot have the subjective peace OF God without first having the objective peace WITH God. If the objective peace is not there, you will never enter into the rest and wholeness that comes from having the subjective peace of God.
Desiring God Christmas Sale
Desiring God is offering many specials on all of John Piper’s books right now. There is even a deal where you get 4 books for $10! Click on the picture to see the details.
If I cannot lose my salvation, why does God warn me about falling away?
If I cannot lose my salvation, why does God warn me about falling away? This is a puzzling question isn’t it? Many have tackled this question and completely missed the point. Most people have gone one of two ways with this. The first group believes that the presence of a warning in the Bible means that it is possible to fall away and therefore abandon the doctrine of eternal security as false. Others believe so firmly in the doctrine of eternal security that they twist and finesse the Scriptures to make it look like it is only warning those who are not Christians. Both of these sides are wrong. What? Let me explain.
The Bible says that we cannot lose our salvation (Phil. 1:6, Rom. 8:28-39, 2 Pet. 1:3, John 10, Deut. 10:14-15, etc.) that is clear. The Bible also warns people from falling away from God (Heb. 3:12-13, 6:4-6, John 15:6, Matt. 24:13, etc.) that is also clear. How do these two doctrines mesh? Rather than taking one over the other, like the previous groups do, we should affirm them both, as the Bible does. How do we do that? By believing that one of the ways God causes His people to persevere in faith (Matt. 24:13) and be saved, is by warning us that we could fall from faith and be tossed into the fire (John 15:6). God is honored this way, because His power in keeping His people (Jude 24) is held up and believed, while God’s warning is seen as it is, a warning. We should always aim to never soften anything to make us feel more comfortable with what God says.
Letter From An Atheist
Read if you find yourself lacking evangelistic desire:
“You are really convinced that you’ve got all the answers. You’ve really got yourself tricked into believing that you’re 100% right. Well, let me tell you just one thing. Do you consider yourself to be compassionate of other humans? If you’re right, as you say you are, and you believe that, then how can you sleep at night? When you speak with me, you are speaking with someone who you believe is walking directly into eternal damnation, into an endless onslaught of horrendous pain which your ‘loving’ god created, yet you stand by and do nothing. If you believed one bit that thousands every day were falling into an eternal and unchangeable fate, you should be running the streets mad with rage at their blindness. That’s equivalent to standing on a street corner and watching every person that passes you walk blindly directly into the path of a bus and die, yet you stand idly by and do nothing. You’re just twiddling your thumbs, happy in the knowledge that one day that ‘walk’ signal will shine your way across the road. Think about it. Imagine the horrors Hell must have in store if the Bible is true. You’re just going to allow that to happen and not care about saving anyone but yourself? If you’re right then you’re an uncaring, unemotional and purely selfish (expletive) that has no right to talk about subjects such as love and caring.”
“Is It Biblical To Have a Church Bookstore?”
Is it Biblical to have a church bookstore? Isn’t that what Jesus was angry about in the temple that day?
Jesus was very angry in the temple that day, here is the account:
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER’; but you are making it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” (Matthew 21:12-13)
The temple sacrifices were a once a year thing. If you did not have a goat, lamb, or dove, to sacrifice, it just so happened that you could buy one in the temple that day for an escalated price. Thus, the priests were using the established yearly sacrifices to make a profit by jacking up the prices on animals that day. This is what made Jesus so angry. This is how they turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves. Not only was it mandatory to bring an animal, the priests were using a God-instituted regulation for worship to make financial profit. Is this the same with church bookstores today?
No, well, I hope not. Whereas the priests took advantage of God’s established order of worship to make money, churches today with bookstores hopefully don’t do the same thing, because it is not mandatory to go into them and buy something in order to come into worship. Also, those bookstores are there for edification, to build the people of God up, giving them resources to further grow in Jesus. If churches made it mandatory to buy something, or even pushed people a bit to go in there so they might buy something, then it would turn into a den of thieves and be very wrong. So, no it is not wrong for churches to have bookstores in them, if buying stuff in them is optional.
Christ Our Kinsman Redeemer
The book of Ruth is, in short, awesome. The story is intense, suspenseful, thrilling, a bit risqué, and mightily redemption focused. By the end of chapter 1 there is nothing but bitterness and covenant curse present for leaving the land of promise. Elimelech and his two sons Chilion and Mahlon are dead. Orpah turns back for Moab while Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem empty and hopeless. This is as bleak as it can be for two women in a society like this one. Who will take care of them? Where will they get food? How will they survive?
Then throughout the rest of chapters 2-4 we meet Boaz and see the wonderful story of redemption unfold before our eyes. You see, Naomi and Ruth were full of bitterness, having no hope any longer in this present life. We are like Naomi and Ruth, bitter, having no hope in this life, empty, with no reason for living day-to-day. But then comes Boaz, who takes Ruth and Naomi under his wing as their kinsman redeemer. Just as Boaz redeemed Ruth and therefore Naomi also, Christ has redeemed us. Christ is the greater Boaz who redeems us, His people, from bitterness and the covenant curse of Adam. But what is astonishing is that Christ did not redeem us according to the levirate marriage laws of Deut. 25 like Boaz redeemed Ruth. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the covenant by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). In this way, we see that Boaz is a type of Christ. He points forward to the greater Redeemer who will one day come. Ruth exists to point us to Christ.
When You Don’t Feel Like It, Take Heart
(Thanks to Jon Bloom who originally posted this on the Desiring God Blog)
Did you wake up not feeling like reading your Bible and praying? How many times today have you had to battle not feeling like doing things you know would be good for you? While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin that we must repent of and fight against, there’s more going on. Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:
Good food requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food tends to be the most tasty, addictive, and convenient.
Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.
You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing theological book while watching a movie can feel so inviting.
You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping, reading the sports, and checking Facebook seems effortless.
To play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
To excel in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.
It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain opportunities possible.
This goes on and on. The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this? Because, in great mercy, God is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly things, that there is a great reward for those who struggle through (Hebrews 10:32-35). He is reminding us repeatedly each day to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Each struggle is an invitation by God to follow in the footsteps of his Son, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these things. But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven hope (faith in future grace) right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20-21). Each struggle is a pointer saying, “Look! Look to the real Joy set before you!” So when you don’t feel like doing what you know is best for you, take heart and don’t give in. Your Father is pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13).
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)
Use Your Desktop For Evangelism w/ DWYL Wallpapers
The Don’t Waste Your Life website now has free wallpapers for your desktop. If you bring your laptops to class for note taking, I highly recommend you put one of these up. It is a great conversation starter and therefore an evangelistic tool. Go here to get them. Here are a few samples:
Sovereignty & Responsibility: Which One Is It?
The doctrines of divine sovereignty and human responsibility have been debated for centuries. Many who hold a strong view of divine sovereignty have abandoned human responsibility, and many who hold a strong view of human responsibility have abandoned divine sovereignty. On one side the question is: if God is absolutely sovereign, in what sense can we truthfully speak of human choice and freedom? On the other side its: if man is free and able to make choices, in what sense can we truthfully speak of God being sovereign? D.A. Carson gives great advice for this tension. He says, “Rather than choosing between the two, we ought to see this tension as a framework to be explored than a problem to be solved.” The Bible holds both divine sovereignty and human responsibility up as gloriously true and says “YES!” Let me explain:
In Acts 2:22-23 Peter said, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”
Notice how Peter holds up both God’s predetermining plan and the people’s guilt at the same time? The text will not allow the people to escape their guilt, and at the same time the text will not allow us to think God was surprised at Jesus’ death, because it was according to His plan. In 1 Kings 8:57-60 Solomon asks God to incline their hearts so that they would walk in His ways. Then in 8:61 Solomon charges the people to be wholly devoted to the Lord and keep all His commands. Is this a contradtiction? No, it is another example of the Bible holding these two doctrines in tension. (For more texts like these see: Genesis 50:19-20, Isaiah 10:5, Jeremiah 29:10-14, 52:3, Joel 2:32, Haggai 1:12-14, 2 Chronicles 30:6-12, Philippians 2:12-13, John 3:27, 11:49-52, 19:10, 13:18-30)
Behind all the willing response of leaders and people, is the Lord moving in His people to give them a heart to obey all that He has commanded. Men are commanded to do things, to believe, to obey, to not sin and rebel, to repent, to turn from their wicked ways, to be wholly devoted to God. God is called Creator, Possessor, Ruler of all things, Elector, and the ultimate cause of all things. Even Jesus Himself, the predetermined coming King, freely and willingly came to His own, only to be rejected (Phil. 2:6-11). So what are we to do with this tension? Move to one side by rejecting the other? No. We’re to embrace the tension as the Bible does and stop there. The Bible holds these two doctrines in tension, and at the same time having no problems doing so! We should do the same. God is sovereign, man is responsible, amen!
Shepherding God’s Flock – My Thoughts
Shepherding God’s Flock by Jay Adams is a combination of three books together in one volume: Pastoral Life, Pastoral Counseling, and Pastoral Leadership. After reading through some of the sections in this book I am encouraged primarily for one reason, its practicality. Because of this, I am bound to use it in many ways throughout the rest of my years here on earth.
In seminary you learn a great deal of information and a great deal of theology. While these things are great and beneficial to clergy in countless ways, one of the things seminary lacks is the practical side of ministry. Now I am not saying that theology is not practical, it is! Theology is enormously practical, because by it, you know God more and come to treasure the gospel in ways you never dreamed of., and as a consequence of that you can show your people the God in whom all your joy and delight is found! When I say that seminary is lacking the practical side of ministry, I mean that in seminary you will not learn what to do upon entering a house for visitation. When should you sit down? Where should you sit down? Should you even sit down? How do you lead a wedding? A funeral? A baptism? What is the right way to go about candidating for a ministry job? How do you deal with parents of children? How do you lead a staff meeting? How do you lead the elders? The deacons? In what ways should you delegate work between staff, elders, deacons, and volunteers? How do you set up a church program? Should you make a church library? What do you do with church finances? Should you even be involved in church finances? How do you lead a congregational meeting? How long should you stay in a hospital room with a sick member? What do you do if their dying, or die while your present in the room? How do you begin a building campaign?
As you can see, there are many practical issues seminary never deals with. Sure your theology will play a large part in how you go about these things, but there are things never mentioned in theology that you, as a pastor, will have to deal with many times. All the above questions and more are dealt with and answered in Jay Adams book. It is a gold mine of information. I am sure that this book will stay on my closest bookshelf for easy flipping and reading, because when I find myself in a new or foreign situation I’ll be reaching for this book for the know-how to get me through in the proper manner. I recommend this book to all seminarians and all pastors. It will of great benefit to them in their ministries, and they will be glad they have it at their side. Why? Because they hold a handbook of proper pastoral etiquette at their fingertips.
