Taking God at His Word

When you get a chance, check out the videos from the Taking God at His Word conference that was hosted by WTSbooks.

The featured speaker was Kevin DeYoung. There were also panel discussions with Drs. Carl Trueman, Greg Beale, Scott Oliphint, David Powlison, and Jeff Jue.


Taking God at His Word: Panel 1 from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

Taking God at His Word: Panel 2 from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

It's a good idea to be Reformed

Over at First Things, our friend Carl has written an excellent apologetic for the Reformed faith. Specifically, Trueman asserts that the Reformed faith is uniquely suited (over general evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism) for exiles, or what the apostle Peter called "strangers and aliens."

It’s not surprising that Reformed Christianity equips us well for exile, because it was itself forged in a time of exile, often by men who were literal exiles. Indeed, the most famous Reformed theologian of them all, John Calvin, was a Frenchman who found fame and influence as a pastor outside his homeland, in the city of Geneva. The Pilgrim fathers of New England knew the realities of exile, and the conditions that it imposed upon the people, only too well. Winthrop’s famous comment about being a city on a hill was not a statement of messianic destiny but a reminder to the colonists of the fact that their lives as exiles were to be lived out in the glare of hostile scrutiny. Exile demanded they have a clear and godly identity.

The Reformed Church has its own baggage, but given the nature of its origins and our own moment, it is the right baggage: light when it needs to be light and heavy with the Gospel when it needs to be heavy. A marginal, minority interest in America for well over a century, she does not face the loss of social influence and political aspirations that now confront Evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. We do not expect to be at the center of worldly affairs. We do not imagine ourselves to be running indispensable institutions. Lack of a major role in the public square will cause no crisis in self-understanding.

This does not arise from indifference or a lack of substance, but instead from clarity and focus. Doctrinally, the Reformed Church affirms the great truths that were defined in the early Church, to which she adds the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone. She cultivates a practical simplicity: Church life centers on the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, prayer, and corporate praise. We do not draw our strength primarily from an institution, but instead from a simple, practical pedagogy of worship: the Bible, expounded week by week in the proclamation of the Word and taught from generation to generation by way of catechisms and devotions around the family dinner table.

It is an outstanding article. Read the whole thing HERE.

The Future of Protestantism

A valuable discussion between Carl Trueman, Peter Leithart, and Fred Sanders.

Carl Trueman on John Owen and normal Christianity

One of my favorite lecturers is Carl Trueman. I hate to put that in print because I don't want to him to get the impression that I think too highly of him.

Anyway, thanks to Justin Taylor for posting the following excellent lectures. If you think church history, puritan theology, or anything related to John Owen is dull then allow Dr. Trueman to disabuse you of that notion.



Be looking for Dr. Trueman's forthcoming book Luther On The Christian Life.

On Preaching and Preachers

Recently Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia hosted their annual preaching conference. The guest speaker was Harry Reeder of Briarwood Presbyterian Church. The following are two of the addresses delivered; one from Dr. Reeder and the other from Carl Trueman.


The Apostolic Foundation for an Effective Pastoral Ministry from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

Why is Good Preaching so Rare? from Westminster Theological Seminary on Vimeo.

Church Discipline And The Means of Grace

From Carl Trueman:

 Apparently, a church in Oregon is suing a former member and her daughter for defamation on a blog. Apart from the difficulty of mounting a successful suit for defamation under the US's admirably lax defamation laws (where not only factual error but deliberate malice must be proved), the whole idea of suing a former member on this kind of thing is most unbiblical and arguably strengthens the woman's case that this is not a church which behaves like a church should.

Going to law is a tricky issue for the church. It is quite possible that a church might need to serve a restraining order on someone who posed a serious physical threat to a congregation, but suing for defamation seems to collide with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 and, indeed, with the entire thrust of a significant strand of New Testament teaching -- that the church should expect to be slandered, libeled and generally trashed in this world and to accept the same in a spirit of humility and joy. The only real response to such slander should be 'Did they spell my name correctly?'

It also speaks eloquently of a failure to understand the nature of biblical discipline, presumably as a result of failing to understand the biblical nature of the church and the means of grace. The church is marked by two things: the word and the sacraments. These are the means of grace. When someone is unrepentantly committed to a pathway of extreme sin, the church's weapons are those whereby that person is excluded from the means of grace. That is all the church can do. By refusing this woman the word and the Lord's Supper, the church has done all she can.

While we are on the subject of church discipline, it seems that this is, as noted above, historically connected to the means of grace. So what happens to church discipline when the means of grace start to be expanded beyond word and sacrament? When we include art, or music or even sports? I have no sympathy whatsoever with such an expansion; but, given the emphasis on these emerging in certain quarters and, indeed, the arrival of arts and sports pastors on the scene, I wonder if those who do in practice seem to see these things as means of grace have really thought through the practical consequences for church discipline. Perhaps we have to stop people looking at pictures (unless it is something by Thomas Kinkade?), listening to anything but 70s disco music, and playing anything but American football? Answers on a postcard.

Taking God into the pulpit...

From Carl Trueman:

This last Friday, I had the privilege of being in Vancouver to give Dr. James I. Packer an honorary doctorate and to interview him for the Westminster website. The interview will be posted on the Westminster site in the next week or two. Suffice it to say that, if I had known what answer he was to give on my question about the damaging effect of upper class English public (for US, read private) schoolboys on Anglican theology, I would have walked from Philadelphia to Vancouver in my bare feet. Nay, on my knees in the rain. I love talking to someone who shares the same basic prejudices that I do.

One other question I did ask was about Dr Lloyd-Jones. 'He took more of God into the pulpit with him than any other preacher I have ever known,' was Dr Packer's reply. One can be nostalgic about the past, but I wonder how many of this generation's archetypal, aspirational model preachers will have that said about them thirty years after their death? They were funny; they had huge churches; they took more stand up comedy into the pulpit -- or onto the stage -- than anybody else; they looked cool; they were branded and puffed by the powerful evangelical patrons as role models for the rest of us; they had great hair-does; they were so hip and young, at least until it became painfully obvious that they had passed forty many years before. I can imagine all these things being said. But that they took so much of God into the pulpit? That seems somehow less likely.

Those of us who preach need to reflect on Dr Packer's comment, repent daily of our pride and pray without ceasing that we take God, not ourselves, or Chris Rock, or our mastery of street talk or postmodernism, into the pulpit with us. A preacher should be remembered not for the numbers he once attracted or for his slick engagement with the wider culture but for whether he spoke the words of God as a man of God.

Carl Trueman on the Trinity

Given some recent goings on among prominent evangelicals it is clear that the doctrine of the Trinity still needs clarity and defending. To lose clarity on the Trinity is to lose clarity on the gospel itself. Recently Carl Trueman gave a series of lectures on this vital tenet of biblical faith. I would encourage you to take time to listen.

AJM11 Carl Trueman Session 1 from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

AJM11 Carl Trueman Session 2 from The Proclamation Trust on Vimeo.

The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Carl Trueman is an excellent ebooklet on the nature of evangelicalism and the necessity of clear confessions of faith. Anyone interested in the state of the church and the importance of doctrinal unity ought to read it.

Beale and Trueman on Biblical Inerrancy

Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting these videos of the Q & A with Drs. Greg Beale and Carl Trueman from the 2011 Clarus Conference:

Carl Trueman weighs in on Trinitarianism, celebrity pastors, and the race card

Dr. Trueman has apparently seen this video.

He responds with a very helpful post on historic Christianity and the cost of defending the truth.

Still, let us go back to the fourth century and see how the `middle aged white guy’ critique measures up. Well, at the Council of Nicea in 325, many of the participants were no doubt middle aged — which Paul in the Pastorals would actually seem to think is quite a good thing in a church leader. But white? I suspect they were ethnically more akin to modern day Turks or south eastern Europeans, not that racial categories really meant anything then. The key category in the fourth century was that of Roman citizenship, not skin colour.

More significantly, of course, had you been there yourself and looked around the council, you would have seen that many of the delegates had body parts missing – an arm here, a leg there, an occasional eye – because they were survivors of the terrible persecutions under Diocletian and Galerius. Indeed, many had probably lost close friends and family members too. Thus, the foundations for the creedal doctrine of the Trinity were laid by men who thought doctrine was something for which it was actually worth suffering and dying.

Read the entire post HERE.

"No frills, no spin, no soul patches"

Great piece by Carl Trueman on learning from reliable men:

Someone asked me recently why I seem so alienated from what appears to be the cutting edge in American conservative evangelicalism.Frankly, I have stopped regarding myself as an evangelical over here, in a way that I do back home. Why? Well, at a time when Christian leaders in the USA are apparently writing explicit sex books, when there are confused signals on the Trinity, when art and cultural transformation and social justice are increasingly the talking points and the kind of themes and priorities I learned from Drs. Packer and Lloyd-Jones are at best assumed, at worst eclipsed by such things - frankly, it is very hard not to feel alienated, and an alien, in such circumstances.

Re-reading Packer and Lloyd-Jones is a delight. Just basic Christian priorities laid out with no frills, no spin, no soul patches, no Barnum and Bailey pyrotechnics. For someone well into his forties, such reading perhaps provokes the occasional Charlie Kane 'Rosebud' moment; but it is a delight nonetheless. Almost thirty years on, I still have an awful lot to learn from these men, and my debt of gratitude can never be repaid.

As you age, starting to sound like your dad is bad enough; sounding like your grandad is even worse, but here goes: I am glad I am not young today. Who knows what I might be told to read?

Read the whole post HERE.

Simply Proclaim

Carl Trueman on the challenge and privilege of preaching (especially at Christmas):

The problem is not just metaphysical, not simply a question of how one can talk about infinite God entering finite human existence (`Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man', to use Wesley's beautiful phrase). In this it is akin to the cross as Paul articulates it in 1 Corinthians: it is foolishness and a stumbling block. Foolishness, because the very idea of the sovereign creator and ruler of the universe being born of a teenage virgin in a stable in a tiny nation of no account at the far end of the Mediterranean is utterly ridiculous. Indeed, one might say that it looks very much like proof that God cannot exist -- at least, that is, God built according to our specifications and requirements. An offence because I do not need salvation, especially salvation brought by a pre-modern peasant's child in some backward place nobody would otherwise ever have heard of.

Yet this is where the glory of preaching and hearing the word of God comes into play. Preaching is proclamation, and proclaim we must, however inadequate we might think our words and our delivery are. Preaching is not a carefully worked-out philosophical defence of what God must be like if the advent of Christ is to be true. Nor is it an attempt to make Christianity look sophisticated or moral as the world understand these things. Least of all is it stand-up comedy designed to entertain those who might otherwise seek their fun elsewhere. Its agenda, especially at Christmas, is not to be determined by unbelief or what the hipsters in the Village will tolerate or what the brain's trust at MIT think is plausible. Preaching at Christmas is akin to Lk. 2:8-12. It is the announcement of what God has done, that he has come in Christ, and that thereby his grace has abounded and overflowed to those who deserve it not.. Our task as preachers is to do simply that: proclaim the advent of the Christ. Can there be a greater privilege, a more awesome responsibility, or a greater delight?

Read the whole thing HERE.

Throw the book at them

2011 is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The impact, both religious and cultural, of this event would be difficult to hyperbolize.

Please take time to listen to Carl Trueman's excellent lecture "Throwing the Book at his Enemies: King James I and his Bible."

On NOT fitting in...

From Carl Trueman:

It seems a bit of a brouhaha is developing over the exclusion of (or, perhaps better, lack of invitation to) evangelical Protestants to participate in the religious ceremonies at the National Cathedral this weekend to commemorate 9/11. The prayer vigil will, according to Fox News, include the dean of the Cathedral, the Bishop of Washington, a rabbi, a Buddhist nun and incarnate lama, a Hindu priest, the president of the Islamic Society of North America and a Muslim musician. But no Southern Baptists, and, presumably, no Missouri Synod Lutherans, PCA pastors, OPC ministers etc. And no musicians from the classic rock fraternity either, for that matter -- unless we are perhaps talking Cat Stevens here. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention is apparently upset at this act of `tragic intolerance towards Protestants.'

I think the Rev. Page has misunderstood the reason for the exclusion: it seems the powers that be in Washington understand the implications of the biblical evangel better than some evangelical leaders (emphasis mine). Rather than lamenting the situation, the Southern Baptists should be delighted that the organizers had the sensitivity and foresight not to place them in the grim position of having to turn down such an invitation in order to avoid compromising their orthodox, Protestant identity. The public relations disaster that would have followed this elementary stand for biblical truth and exclusivity would have been spectacular. After all, how could one maintain that one is taking seriously 1 Timothy 2 while sharing prayer time with a real-life incarnate lama?

The Southern Baptists need to stop feeling disappointed that such a well-intentioned but theologically incoherent gathering does not want their presence and they should instead remember the wisdom of Marx - not Karl, but Groucho: you should never want to join any club that would have you as a member.

Beautiful.

The blessedly passive act of worship...

The latest issue of Themelios carries an excellent reflection by Carl Trueman on one of the key purposes of the church's corporate gatherings. It may well be that with all the emphasis on what we are supposed to be doing in our corporate praise we have neglected that most important reality - what God does.

Trueman writes:

At some point prior to the sermon each Sunday in my church, the minister or elder leading the service will read a passage of Scripture designed to expose the moral failure of fallen humanity before God. Then he will lead the congregation in a corporate prayer of confession. Finally, when he closes the prayer, he will read a short passage (often just a verse or two) which speaks of the forgiveness of sins in Christ. The dramatic theological movement of the service at that point is profound: the congregation goes from being reminded and convicted of their sin, to calling out to God for forgiveness, to being reminded that in Christ God has acted in a startling and decisive way to cast our sin as far away as the east is from the west. We are reminded of the entire gospel, from fall to redemption to consummation, in the space of just a few minutes.

This moment in the church service has come to mean much to me. This is the point where, after a week of failure—of not living up to the standards I set myself, let alone those set for me by my Creator—I am reminded once again that all is well: Christ has dealt with my sin; my failings were placed on his shoulders on the cross; and my heavenly Father has annihilated them there. It is not, of course, that I do not know this Monday to Saturday; it is not that I do not read the gospel every day in my Bible; it is not that I do not confess my sins during the week and look then to Christ. But this is a word from outside, God’s work spoken to me by another human being, which lifts my head once again and assures my conscience that I am clean despite the filth I so often choose to wade in. So often I enter church weighted down with care; when I am once again reminded of God’s rich forgiveness in Christ, the weight is wonderfully lifted from my shoulders.

So often Christians can tend to think of the church worship service as something we do: we sing praise to God; we respond to the gospel; and we rejoice in our Saviour. Further, much discussion in the church focuses on what we need to be doing in order for church to be effective. Yet church is, first and foremost, something which God does. It is primarily and in origin an act of his grace, not an act of human response. He calls us out to be his people; he gathers us through his Spirit; he speaks to us through the reading and the preaching of his word. There is far more passivity in worship than we care to imagine, a passivity that is often belied by our concerns to make sure ‘everybody is involved.’ When the law is read, sins are confessed, and forgiveness declared, we are all involved because we are all included under the words of condemnation and the words of promise and mercy.

Of course, this is not an appeal for some form of mystical quietism. We do need to do things for and in the service, from the most trivial (someone, for example, needs to make sure the church door is unlocked) to the most serious (singing songs of praise in response to the declaration of the gospel). But, to put a new—and, I think, biblical—twist on the current consumer mentality, I think we need to go to church to expect it to do things for us. Not to provide us with a good social network or a context where the kids can have wholesome friends and stay out of trouble or where I can find the best coffee after a sixty minute worship session; but rather to provide us with the oxygen of our spiritual lives—those words of rebuke that cut down our pride and self-sufficiency, those words of brokenness that allow us to call out to God for his mercy, and that word that comes from outside that assures us that all of our sins have been dealt with in Christ and that we are thus liberated to give ourselves in lives of service to our brethren and to our neighbours because our own debt has been paid.

That word which should be spoken in every church service is still what gives me the energy to get out of bed in the morning. Praise God for the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

Read the entire article HERE.

What makes an evangelical?

From Carl Trueman:

[Evangelicalism] seems less sure of its identity than at any point in its history. I never cease to be shocked by how little I have in common with many others in the United Kingdom who now claim the name evangelical. One can deny that God knows the future, one can deny that the Bible is inspired, one can deny that justification is by grace through faith, one can deny that Christ is the only way to salvation - one can do all of these things and still remain a member in good standing of certain high-profile evangelical bodies.

The confusion such a situation represents indicates both the doctrinal and, perhaps more importantly, the moral void that lies at the heart of so much...evangelicalism at this time, when few if any are willing to take the difficult decision to stand firm on the non-negotiable aspects of the faith. We desperately need a deeper grasp of the importance of these issues if we are not to sell our heritage for a pot of stew.

From Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yes, we still must contend for the gospel within the church...

"Although known as gospel people, evangelicals no longer share any consensus on the gospel's meaning."

- Carl Trueman from The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

The Real Scandal...

I highly recommend Carl Trueman's excellent (and brief) ebook The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

If you are a pastor, ministry leader, or elder in a non-denominational church Trueman's book will be especially important for you to read.

Trueman and Beale on the reliability of Scripture

Recently Drs. Carl Trueman and Greg Beale of Westminster Seminary spoke at the annual Clarus Conference in New Mexico. The theme was "Scripture: God Speaks."

G.K. Beale
•“The Effects of Meditating on God’s Word” (Ps. 1)
•“How to Guard the Good Deposit of Scripture” (2 Tim. 1:13)
•“The Centrality of Scripture in Marriage“
•“Receiving and Resounding God’s Word” (1 Thess. 1:6-10)

Carl Trueman
•“The Prophetic Word: What Preaching Is (and Is Not)"
•“Scripture’s Authority: An Ancient Doctrine"
•“A Clear and Present Word: Luther and the Clarity of Scripture"

HT: Justin Taylor