Live from the Gospel Coalition

Tim Keller's opening session was quite good. His text was Acts 19:23ff. Keller is particularly good at teasing out the contemporary implications of the biblical text. In this particular passage he pays careful attention to Paul's interaction with the idols in Ephesus. From there Keller challenged us to deal with the idols of our time and cultural milieu. Keller maintains that one of the reasons why there is so little difference between the way believers and unbelievers actually live is that we have not properly dealt with our idols so when people are converted they have not been taught to walk away from what they formerly were.

The three points of application were: 1) Discerning Idols, 2) Exposing Idols, 3) Destroying Idols. It was a very helpful message.

The theme for the conference centers on the themes found in 2 Timothy. It is a book that particularly challenging to those engaged actively in ministry.

John Piper preached from 2 Timothy 1:1-12. It's daunting task to preach on a text that could easily be made into four sermons. Anyway Piper was his usual engaging self. His main point was also classic Piper: "Timothy, keep on feeding the white hot flame of God's gift in you namely the unashamed courage to speak openly of the Gospel and suffer for it."

Phil Ryken preached at the 7:00 pm session. His text was 2 Timothy 1:13-2:13. Now, I really would not want to take a text that long and rich and preach one sermon from it. But Dr. Ryken was characteristically brilliant in his dealing with the text. I was simultaneously sobered and encouraged by his message. His closing reflections on Paul's words in 2:11-13 was worth the price of admission.

I did not stay for Mark Driscoll's message. I will watch it later.

You can access the messages HERE.

What did you expect?

Below are some clips from Paul Tripp's teaching series on marriage: "What Did You Expect?" Paul presented this series at Metro East Baptist in Wichita not long before I departed for Philadelphia. It was outstanding.






You can order the DVD's or audio CD's from Westminster Bookstore.

The Gospel Coalition (2)

There will be live streaming video posted HERE of the Gospel Coalition National Conference.

Sunday's Sermon

You can download or listen to this week's sermon, "Identified with Christ" by clicking HERE.

Machen's Apologizing Children

Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary reflects on Time Magazine naming "the new Calvinism" as one of the ten things shaping our culture today:

Some months ago, I wrote a short piece for the e-zine, Reformation 21 , about the tendency of Reformed Christians over the last twenty or so years to be rather embarrassed about their heritage and to be continually fretting about whether they are relevant or not.

Frankly, Machen’s worrier children seem to have spent more time apologizing for, or even trying to hide, their theological and ecclesiastical history than appropriating it and applying it. “I’m Reformed but…..’ is almost a liturgical response in some quarters to questions about personal beliefs. Hard to imagine a credible Catholic or Eastern Orthodox person giving a similar response. In my experience, they understand the warts-and-all of their respective traditions, but they face them honestly and tend not to be embarrassed to be upfront about who and what they are.

Well, if Time magazine is to be believed, the worrier children can stop wringing their hands, shave off their soul patches, put aside their candles and censer bowls, and start reading Calvin, Owen, Edwards, Warfield and Machen once again because, ironically, this kind of seemingly Paleolithic activity puts them on the cutting edge of Christianity in North America.

Indeed, Time has listed neo-Calvinism as number three in its list of ten things that are shaping the world today. Perhaps those who speak of regeneration are actually more in tune with the Christian Zeitgeist than those who talk endlessly about their ‘journeys.’

To those of us who believed all along that – well, traditional Reformed doctrine basically got it right on all the key points, the fact that Christianity is finding new vitality by revisiting the old paths is no surprise. Alternatives have come and gone, but the old biblical gems of divine sovereignty, human depravity, atonement, regeneration, etc. keep coming back, making sense of both the Bible’s testimony and human experience of the world. It is also 'preachable' in a way that the alternatives – even, or perhaps, especially, those alternatives which make such a noise about preaching, kerygma and dynamism – are not.

Read the entire post HERE.

Lecrae - Don't Waste Your Life

I am excited about a number of rappers who are writing some seriously good lyrics. Who would have thought that we would see rap that is grounded in Scripture and influenced by the great Reformers? Good stuff.

Luther on Christ's Substitutionary Atonement

‘This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s: and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he might clothe us with it, and fill us with it: and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them . . . in the same manner as he grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in his righteousness’

‘Learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not”’

‘All the prophets did foresee in spirit, that Christ should become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, blasphemer, etc., that ever was . . . for he being made a sacrifice, for the sins of the whole world, is not now an innocent person and without sins . . . our most merciful Father . . . sent his only Son into the world and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying:

Be thou Peter that denier; Paul that persecutor, blasphemer and cruel oppressor; David that adulterer; that sinner which did eat the apple in Paradise; that thief which hanged upon the cross; and, briefly, be thou the person which hath committed the sins of all men; see therefore that thou pay and satisfy for them. Here now cometh the law and saith: I find him a sinner . . . therefore let him die upon the cross . . .’

- Martin Luther

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

- 2 Corinthians 5:21

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
- Romans 3:21-26

"It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."
- Romans 4:24-25

Getting Substitutionary Atonement Right

"The penal substitution model has been criticized for depicting a kind Son placating a fierce Father in order to make him love man, which he did not do before. The criticism is, however, inept, for penal substitution is a Trinitarian model, for which the motivational unity of Father and Son is axiomatic. The New Testament presents God’s gift of his Son to die as the supreme expression of his love to men. ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son’ (John 3:16). ‘God is love, . . . Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (I John 4:8-10). ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5:8). Similarly, the New Testament presents the Son’s voluntary acceptance of death as the supreme expression of his love to men. ‘He loved me, and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20). ‘Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends . . .’ (John 15:13f.) And the two loves, the love of Father and Son, are one: a point which the penal substitution model, as used, firmly grasps."

- J.I. Packer from his classic article "What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution."

The Gospel Coalition

I'm looking forward to the Gospel Coalition's 2009 National Conference. Check out the details HERE.

Witherington on Ehrman

Ben Witherington has been interacting with Bart Ehrman's latest - Jesus Interrupted.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

"What Did You Expect?"

Paul Tripp's excellent series on marriage, "What Did You Expect?" is now available in DVD and audio CD's. Highly recommended!

Ancient Word, Changing Worlds (3)

I am continuing my reading of Ancient Word, Changing Worlds by Nichols and Brandt.

As chapter one continues there is mention of J. Gresham Machen, a champion of inerrancy and Harry Emerson Fosdick whose views boldly diverged from biblical orthodoxy. Fosdick's famous sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" was widely disseminated. Fosdick was of the opinion that the Bible needed retooling to fit a modern world-view. He believed that instead of beginning with the Bible preachers should begin with the felt needs of their hearers. The sermon, in Fosdick's view, should come to resemble a kind of therapy.

Machen's view was that Fosdick promoted a religion that was fundamentally different from Christianity. The fruit of Machen's interaction with views like those of Fosdick was his classic Christianity and Liberalism. Although written in 1923 Christianity and Liberalism is as relevant now as it was then.

According to Machen, one's view of inspiration and consequently of the text of the Bible itself has to do with one's starting point. If you start with the supposition that God has revealed himself in all of the words of Scripture, then you submit to the teachings of Scripture, however hard they may be for a modern person or however seemingly challenging they are. If you start with the legitimacy of modern sensibilities, then you can conveniently overlook and downplay those difficult elements. Machen did not deny Fosdick the right to his view of Scripture. Machen just had problems with Fosdick claiming that his view was Christian. (p. 36)

Christian Citizenship

It would probably be a good idea to know how the federal government spends our tax dollars. Click HERE to find out more.

When our unity is challenged...

Great stuff on how to treat each other from John Piper:

Six Biblical Guidelines for Loving Each Other Amid Differences
1. Let’s avoid gossiping.

2. Let’s identify evidences of grace in each other and speak them to each other and about each other.

3. Let’s speak criticism directly to each other if we feel the need to speak to others about it.

4. Let’s look for, and assume, the best motive in the other’s viewpoint, especially when we disagree.

5. Think often of the magnificent things we hold in common.

6. Let’s be more amazed that we are forgiven than that we are right. And in that way, let’s shape our relationships by the gospel.

Read the whole thing HERE.

Our Divine Substitute

"And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness."

- Leviticus 16:21-22

"Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed."

- Isaiah 53:4-5

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

- Romans 3:21-26

Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

- Mark 15:34

"As the high priest confessed all the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of the people, and laid them on the head of the scape-goat, which he bare, undergoing the utmost punishment he was capable of, and that punishment which, in the general kind and nature, is the punishment due to sin,--an evil and violent death; so did God lay all the sins, all the punishment due to them, really upon one that was fit, able, and appointed to bear it, which he suffered under to the utmost that the justice of God required on that account."
- John Owen

“They (the liberal preachers) speak with disgust of those who believe 'that the blood of our Lord, shed in substitutionary death, placates an alienated deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner'. Against the doctrine of the cross they use every weapon of caricature and vilification. Thus they pour out their scorn upon a thing so holy and so precious that in the presence of it the Christian heart melts in gratitude too deep for words. It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the Christian doctrine of the cross, they are trampling on human hearts.”
- J. Gresham Machen from Christianity and Liberalism, p.120

The notion which the phrase ‘penal substitution’ expresses is that Jesus Christ our Lord, moved by a love that was determined to do everything necessary to save us, endured and exhausted the destructive divine judgment for which we were otherwise inescapably destined, and so won us forgiveness, adoption and glory. To affirm penal substitution is to say that believers are in debt to Christ specifically for this, and that this is the mainspring of all their joy, peace and praise both now and for eternity.

- J.I. Packer

"God dealt with him as if he had been exceedingly angry with him, and as though he had been the object of his dreadful wrath. This made all the sufferings of Christ the more terrible to him, because they were from the hand of his Father, whom he infinitely loved, and whose infinite love he had had eternal experience of. Besides, it was an effect of God’s wrath that he forsook Christ."

- Jonathan Edwards

Another Good Book on Scripture?

Followers of this blog know that we have been dealing a lot with the Bible's trustworthiness. I am reading Stephen Nichols' excellent book Ancient Word, Changing Worlds. It looks as if another worthy volume is soon to be released: Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God by Timothy Ward.

Here are some impressive endorsements posted by Justin Taylor:

Here is [Kevin] Vanhoozer's take on the book:
"I have been on the lookout for a compelling and contemporary treatment of the nature and authority of Scripture for years. I ask of every promising new title, 'Are you the one who is to come, or shall I look for another?' Ward's book may be the one. Words of Life rightly roots its thinking about Scripture in the doctrine of God, and that means trinitarian theology. His central insight: God's word is something that God does. The Bible is not simply an object to be studied but the principal means by which the Lord engages his people and administers his covenant. Ward is a British pastor-theologian in the best sense of the term. The deft treatment of inerrancy by one from the other side of the pond is an added bonus. Highly recommended!"

And here is [J.I.] Packer's:
"Timothy Ward's exposition of the nature and place of the Bible is well-informed and thoroughly thought through. It is a product of alert contemporary awareness, deep-level theological discernment and mature personal judgment. Rarely has a book on this subject stirred me to such emphatic agreement and admiration."

Paul Helm recently blogged about the book:
Timothy Ward’s Words of Life (IVP) is a beautifully written, clear, calm, reasonable – very English - treatment of the historical evangelical and classical Christian approach to Scripture. Besides being explicitly Reformed – he builds on Calvin, Turretin, Bavinck and Warfield - its orientation is also noteworthy for stressing the Bible’s own witness to itself, in particular to the closeness of God’s words and God’s action. He then proceeds to place this material in an explicitly theological, Trinitarian framework, and to apply it in the restatement of the traditional doctrinal attributes of scripture as necessary, sufficient and clear. Finally, the doctrinal formulation is brought to bear on the to the life and witness of the Christian and the church; doctrine, and then application. Most important of all, perhaps, Timothy Ward puts all this in his own way, not simply mouthing traditional doctrine in traditional ways. And he comes to theological conclusions the proper way, from the scriptural data to scriptural doctrine. To cap it all, he has an eye both to history and to contemporary discussion.

That's One Good Cracker!

Carl Trueman audio

Carl Trueman is Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary. I have very much appreciated his ministry of teaching and preaching. You can access some of Dr. Trueman's audio HERE. Really good stuff!

Carl is also an outstanding writer. He blogs regularly at Reformation 21.

Bible Battles

It's the fight that seems never to end. Every generation of Christians is faced with those who challenge the truthfulness and reliability of the Bible. We expect this from unbelievers and those who are hostile toward Christianity. What is disheartening is when these voices of criticism come from within the church. It is a subject that has prompted some interesting conversations on this blog.

Al Mohler has posted some thoughts on a USA Today article attacking the trustworthiness of the Bible:

The Monday "On Religion" feature in USA Today is consistently interesting, even if often exasperating. That is what should be expected of an opinion column -- strong opinions in both the column and the reaction it prompts. Well, get ready to form your own opinion about today's feature, for it is likely to make a lot of waves.

Tom Krattenmaker, a Portland, Oregon based member of the paper's Board of Contributors, levels a broadside attack on the unity, inspiration, and veracity of the Bible as the Word of God in his column, "Fightin' Words".

Krattenmaker first celebrates what he describes as "a year of retreat and retrench" for conservative Christianity. Now, he says, "here come more challenges to traditionalist views of the Bible and Christian faith from a lineup of big-name, liberal-leaning scholars and theologians."

First up on Krattenmaker's list is Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina. As Krattenmaker explains, Ehrman "mounts evidence against literalist conceptions of the Bible as factual history and a divinely transmitted testament to an afterlife-focused religion called Christianity."

This is an important and timely post. Read the whole thing HERE.

Sunday's Sermon

You can listen to or download Sunday's sermon, "The Meaning of Easter" by clicking HERE.

Michael Horton Audio

Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary California is one of the church's most important theologians. He teaches a Sunday School class at Christ United Reformed Church. Some of the classes are "Introduction to Systematic Theology," "Romans," "Christianity and Culture," and "God and Suffering."

Check out the audio HERE.

It's Official: I'm an Extremist

It's just this sort of thing that could turn me into a conspiracy theorist. Anyway, if you have a pro-life bumper sticker, are concerned about the government's refusal to enforce immigration laws, believe that the federal government ought to respect the rights of states, or have served in the military then you may be a dangerous right-wing extremist. This is according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security under the leadership of Janet Napolitano. Miss Napolitano is also noted for replacing references to terrorist attacks with the curious euphamism "man-made disasters."

An article in the Washington Times reports:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," saying the economic recession, the election of America's first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines "rightwing extremism in the United States" as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

"It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration," the warning says...

The Homeland Security assessment specifically says that "rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat."

Read the entire article HERE.

William Ayers who is active in Chicago politics is a real live domestic terrorist as is his wife. Following the reasoning of Miss Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security should we therefore investigate every politician who comes out of the Chicago political machine as a possible left-wing extremist?

Oz, Oprah, and Stem Cells

Check out this story from Catholic News Agency:

Chicago, Ill., Apr 8, 2009 / 01:08 pm (CNA).- Yesterday, Dr. Mehment Oz
appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to voice his support for adult stem cell research and to argue that “the stem cell debate is dead,” but instead of giving his statement a fair hearing, Oprah’s website buried and edited Oz’s comments.

Actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, was invited on the show to talk about his struggle with Parkinson’s and his foundation’s endorsement of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).

Fox told Oprah that he believes President Obama’s decision lifting President Bush's restrictions on ESCR was a “step in the right direction” and that “we had eight years where there was no forward progress.” The United States has to make up for a lot of lost time, Fox added.

He also empathized with ethical concerns over ESCR, but said, “I just have faith in our scientists and the research community that they’ll do this ethically and to good purpose.”

After a commercial break, Oprah introduced Dr. Oz, who is the vice-chair and professor of surgery at Columbia University, to explain how stem cells could be used to treat or cure the effects of many diseases.

To demonstrate how stem cells could be used, Oz brought out a human brain. Both Oprah and Fox laughed and joked with Oz as he discussed how stem cells would work in the brain. But Dr. Oz became more serious as he spoke about the future of embryonic stem cell research.

“Now, I’m going to say something that’s going to be a bit provocative. I think, Oprah, the stem cell debate is dead, and I’ll tell you why,” said Oz.

“The problem with embryonic stem cells is that embryonic stem cells come from embryos, like all of us were made from embryos. And those cells can become any cell in the body. But it’s very hard to control them, and so they can become cancer.”

Oprah and Fox then became visibly uncomfortable, shifting around in their chairs, as Oz explained that, contrary to Fox’s earlier testimony, incredible medical advances are being made using adult stem cells and not embryonic stem cells. He claimed that, “in the last year, we’ve made a 10 year advancement.”

Read the entire post HERE.

It's Monday Again

Over at Ref21 Stephen Nichols has written a timely post entitled "The Day After Easter."

"Easter is over. The new clothes are hung up, the candy has been eaten, and choir directors and pastors everywhere--not to mention ushers--are enjoying the quiet routines of a Monday. For the diehard Reformed, you know who you are, this Monday is like every other Monday because Easter Sunday is like every other Sunday: Resurrection Sunday comes every seven days for you, not once a year.

"For the rest of us, I have some thoughts. It was after Christ rose from the dead that the work of the church, of beginning and building the church, began in earnest. The euphoria of the Resurrection moment would abate and the grind of routine would set in. The hard work, the daily commitment to love and care for people, the challenge of a hostile world crushing in, all this and more was what the early church, the New Testament church, had to look forward to.

"Weeks, months, years after the resurrection how did they do it?

"Being faithful in the routines, on the Mondays after the Sundays, is important. It is as inversely important as it seems unglamorous.

"We can all be thankful for the Resurrection, even and especially for Resurrection Sunday. It is a reminder that Christ conquered all our enemies, the enemies of sin and death and guilt. He even conquered the enemy of our unfaithfulness, the enemy of our running in fits and spurts, the enemy of our languid efforts at a patient and long obedience, and the enemy of letting Mondays, weeks and months and years of Mondays, simply roll on by, becoming a mass of missed days of worship, service, love, and obedience."

Bart Ehrman on Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Ehrman is a hack who gets his facts wrong. He is a man who, for whatever reason has a grudge against biblical Christianity.

Read Professor Denny Burk's review of Ehrman's last book HERE.

The Difference the Resurrection Makes

The Bible makes it plain and experience confirms that we are all of us, sinners. “For all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Rom 3:23). Elsewhere we are told that Christ “died for the ungodly,” and “while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” In Romans 3 we’re told that no one is righteous and no one does good. Perhaps that sounds strange to you but compared to the righteousness of God it is absolutely true. My best good works are filthy rags compared to the matchless righteousness of God.

In Ephesians 2 we’re told that because of our sin we are under the wrath of God. For people like this the great need is not simply a good moral example or a good teacher. What we need is a Saviour! What we need is one who is able to justify us before the eyes of a holy God. And this is precisely what Jesus accomplished through his perfect obedience, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection. Referring to Jesus, Paul writes “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25).

The greatest dilemma in the universe was how a perfectly holy God could have fellowship with sinful people. We did not simply need help from God. We needed to be reconciled to God. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:10-11).

Three important ideas connected to our being saved are connected directly to the resurrection of Christ.

We have release from guilt.
By Christ’s dying and rising we are released from far more than guilty feelings. In Christ we are released from real, objective guilt. You see apart from Christ we are lost in our sins. We are guilty before the bar of God’s righteous justice. Our problem is that we do not tend to understand ourselves as sinners who must give an answer to God.

Our tendency is to dumb down sin. So instead of calling sin, sin we use euphemisms like “mistakes”. We imagine sin to be something as nebulous and hard to define as “failing to live up to my full potential,” or “letting myself down,” or “not living in accord with my value system.” And while sin is, in one sense, a way that we fail ourselves, first and foremost sin is rebellion against God. Jesus did not come to help the flawed but to justify the guilty. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1).

We have hope for eternity
Eternal hope is really the only thing that can give meaning to present existence. The apostle Paul bears witness to this reality.
“For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:17-19).

Paul’s conclusion is that if Christ has not been raised then we are still in our sins and we have no hope beyond this life. If the sum of our existence is found in this short earthly existence then we are to be pitied. If this is all there is then the Apostle Paul’s prescription is to do anything and everything to medicate the meaninglessness.

The fact is, we live in a kind of Romans eight world.
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:22-25).

In this life we groan just as all creation groans. Things are not as they should be. There is sin and suffering and injustice. So we wait with longing for all that was lost and damaged by sin to be fully restored. The most visible reminder of this groaning that Paul writes about is death. Death is the great and terrible reminder that we live in a fallen world. And Christians do not need to act as if death is not anything other than an enemy. But for those who know the risen Christ death is a defeated enemy. And that makes all the difference in how we face death.

“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
Death, where is your sting?”
(1 Corinthians 15:51-54)

About the year 125 A.D. a Greek by the name of Aristeides was writing to one of his friends about the new religion, Christianity. He was trying to explain the reasons for its extraordinary success. Here is a sentence from one of his letters:
“If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”

John Knox, the great Scottish reformer of the 16th century said while dying, “Live in Christ, live in Christ, and the flesh need not fear dying.” The great Puritan Richard Baxter when he was dying said, “I have pain; but I have peace. I have peace.” The last two thousand years is peppered with examples such as these of men and women who faced the grave in peace through the Lord Jesus.

What a stark is the example of the notorious French atheist and philosopher Voltaire. On his death bed he said, “I am abandoned by God and man. I will give you half of what I am worth, if you will give me six months’ life.” The doctor replied, “Sir, you cannot live six weeks.” Voltaire replied, “Then I shall go to hell, and you will go with me.”

None of us escape our appointment with the grave. Christians are not joyful because we miraculously escape death. So long as we are south of heaven we will, to use Paul’s words, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons.” The difference is that we know this groaning lasts a comparatively short time.

Of his awesome vision of heaven the apostle John writes: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (Rev 21:1-4)

We have comfort for today
The resurrection of Jesus is a down payment on our own resurrection. Because Jesus has risen He will raise us up also. Christ took death and the grave and made a public spectacle of them. As already mentioned, this does not mean we escape death. We still live in a fallen world in fallen bodies. But consider this – what is the true power of death?

The true power of death is the power to hold. And once the power to hold has been stripped of it, death becomes a 90 pound weakling. Paul tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The Lord Jesus promised the repentant thief who hung next to him dying, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” The grave could not hold our Lord and as a result the grave will not hold any of his people. And this not only puts our own death in perspective but it ultimately puts all our suffering in perspective. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).

An Emergent "Atonement"

Here is what Emergent Church leader Tony Jones thinks about Christ's work of atonement:

Some people today may find it compelling that some Great Cosmic Transaction took place on that day 1,980 years ago, that God's wrath burned against his son instead of against me. I find that version of atonement theory neither intellectually compelling, spiritually compelling, nor in keeping with the biblical narrative.

Even though I have come to expect these kinds of statements from Jones, MacLaren, Pagett, etc. I still am stunned by their bold heresy. Nevermind that Christ's death in the place of sinners is inescapably biblical, Tony Jones does not find it intellectually or spiritually "compelling." Can you hear the wanton hubris in those words? That he does not find Christ's atoning work "in keeping with the biblical narrative" only shows his ignorance of the biblical narrative. Of course once one throws away the inerrancy of the Scriptures then we are free to discard those portions of the Bible that we do not find to be "in keeping" with the bits we find "compelling."

Now consider the words of J.I. Packer from the book Knowing God:

Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God [1 John 4:8-10], the taking of human form by the Son [Heb. 2:17], the meaning of the cross [Rom. 3:21-26], Christ's heavenly intercession [1 John 2:1-2], the way of salvation--all are to be explained in terms of it, as the passages quoted show, and any explanation from which the thought of propitiation is missing will be incomplete, and indeed actually misleading, by New Testament standards.

In saying this, we swim against the stream of much modern teaching and condemn at a stroke the views of a great number of distinguished church leaders today, but we cannot help that. Paul wrote, "Even if we or an angel from heaven"--let alone a minister, a bishop, college lecturer, university professor, or noted author--"should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ("accursed" KJV and RSV; "outcast" NEB; "damned" Phillips--Gal. 1:8). And a gospel without propitiation at is heart is another gospel than that which Paul preached. The implications of this must not be evaded.

* Thanks to Justin Taylor

New York

The first picture is of some ugly guy with a beautiful woman. The next shot is of Maundy Thursday Mass at St. Patricks. The last two pictures are of St. Paul's Chapel which is located directly across the street from the World Trade Center.

The Power of the Cross

He Bore our Curse

Tim Keller on MSNBC

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Your Gospel is Too Broad

Over at Church Matters Greg Gilbert posts an important critique of the "gospel" proposed by N.T. Wright and endorsed by Scot McKnight.

Greg writes:

Like many others, Scot has been advocating recently for a "broader" gospel than what I have called "The Gospel of the Cross," and this post, I think, is in the same vein. Scot quotes two different statements of the Christian gospel, one by N.T. Wright and the other by an unnamed, unlinked, "slightly edited" someone. I think it's safe to say that Scot's hope is that we will all choose Wright's version of the gospel, rather than the other one.

My own opinion, written about here, here, and here, is actually that neither of the two options Scot lays out is a sufficient explanation of the biblical gospel. On the one hand, I think it's probably inaccurate to say that the gospel (broadly considered, which it sometimes is in the NT) doesn't include the proclamation of the kingdom, the promise of resurrection, the promise of Christ's return, and many other promises. But on the other hand, I also think that what McKnight quotes here from Wright is also woefully insufficient, and indeed not good news at all. Here's what he quotes from Wright:

My proposal has been that 'the gospel' is not, for Paul, a message about 'how one gets saved', in an individual and ahistorical sense. It is a fourfold announcement about Jesus:
1. In Jesus of Nazareth, specifically in his cross, the decisive victory has been won over all the powers of evil, including sin and death themselves.
2. In Jesus' resurrection the New Age has dawned, inaugurating the long-awaited time when the prophecies would be fulfilled, when Israel's exile would be over, and the whole world would be addressed by the one creator God.
3. The crucified and risen Jesus was, all along, Israel's Messiah, her representative king.
4. Jesus was therefore also the Lord, the true king of the world, the one at whose name every knee would bow.

Click HERE to read Greg's important critique of this definition of the Gospel.

The Leading Edge of Civil Rights

I believe that reform of the public school system, particularly urban public schools is the leading edge of advancing civil rights in our country. African American young people face distinct disadvantages because of fatherlessness and the popularizing of thug-culture. However, those problems, which are monumental, could at least be blunted if young African Americans were able to escape the travesty which is the urban public school. Unfortunately certain politicians actively oppose the mechanism that enables the escape: vouchers. These politicians are baring the door to public schools. But this time, instead of allowing African American students to enter, they are preventing their escape. This is a moral outrage that would be labeled "racist" if politicians from another party were opposing vouchers.

Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas offers an update on the current fight over vouchers in Washington D.C.

The Washington, D.C., voucher program is not dead yet. Congress has set its execution date, slipping a provision into last month’s omnibus spending bill to end the program unless it is re-authorized by Congress next year. With anti-voucher members of Congress in a clear majority, supporters of the program are glum about its political prospects.

The pall has extended to voucher programs around the country. If our legislators can terminate the D.C. program without too much political cost, might they decide to become serial killers, targeting vulnerable programs in Milwaukee, Ohio, and elsewhere?

Oddly, Congress chose to act even as the programs continue to produce solid evidence of academic effectiveness. Just this week, the U.S. Department of Education released the results of its official evaluation of the D.C. voucher program. It found that students selected by lottery to receive vouchers to attend private schools made significantly greater progress in reading than did lottery losers who stayed in D.C. district or charter schools. A student attending a private school with a voucher typically was four months ahead of the average public-school student in reading after three years. What’s more, the earliest participants in the voucher program — presumably, kids from those families most eager to escape D.C. public-school failure — were ahead of their public-school counterparts by the equivalent of 19 months of reading instruction after three years in private schools.

Last week, I released a study [PDF] that is part of the legislatively mandated evaluation of Milwaukee’s voucher program. It found that competition from the voucher program has improved the academic performance of students remaining in Milwaukee’s public schools by about 12 percentage points over the history of the program. That is, vouchers did more than benefit the students who received them; they motivated the entire school system to improve.

President Obama did the right thing by enrolling his daughters in an outstanding private school. I hope he will champion the cause of other African Americans who could never afford private schools without vouchers.

Read Jay Greene's entire article HERE.

Is America a Christian Nation? (1)

Yesterday, addressing students in Istanbul, President Obama declared that "America is not a Christian nation."

That is a pretty bold statement especially considering it was made in a predominantly Muslim nation.

Without any ad hominem attacks on President Obama or each other I would like to know your thoughts. Specifically I would like you to deal with the question, "Is America a Christian nation?"

If your answer is "no" then what is America? If your answer is "yes" then explain. To what extent is America "Christian"?

The Retreat of Christianity in America

Have you seen the cover of Newsweek? Pretty provocative stuff. Al Mohler has an excellent post on Meacham's cover article. Check it out HERE.

Is this good news? Bad news? Why?

What do you think are the implications for the church?

A Gentle Question for Phillies Fans

Are you out of your MIND?!

I know the Phillies did not have the best game yesterday. But...

Just 17 minutes into the season opener the fans in Philadelphia started booing their team. Keep in mind the Phillies are the world champions! It was less than 20 minutes into the game!

Just wondering.

Sunday's Sermon

Click HERE to listen to or download Sunday's sermon - "Behold The Cross"

Confusion or Clarity?

Over at Pyromaniacs Phil Johnson has posted, what I believe, are some spot-on observations about the panel discussion (above) on the Emergent Church at the recent Christian Book Expo. Check it out HERE.

Your Thoughts?

Velvet Jesus?

Check out THIS REVIEW of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis.

The New Syncretism

From Christianity Today:

The shift towards pluralism has been long in coming. In his 1993 book, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, Roof reported that surveys of American baby boomers—Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, liberal or conservative—all showed a trend towards religious consumerism. The values of the new generation were focused on choice, tolerance of different lifestyles, blending faith and psychology—a cafeteria-style religion where you believe in whatever works best for you.

Roof called this individualistic religious consumerism "transformed narcissism," and predicted it would come to dominate American religious life. The results of an August 2008 study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life appear to bear him out: a majority of American Christians (52%) believe that some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life...

In an October 18, 2006, interview broadcast on NPR's "Here and Now," Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori stated, "Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. That is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through human experience—through human experience of the divine."

Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and life for us, Canadian Anglican Bishop
Michael Ingham argued in his 1997 book Mansions of the Spirit, but there are other "diverse paths to God." The Bible stands as an account of "emerging God-consciousness," he argued, but our knowledge of God is not solely confined to Scripture, as there is "a yet wider view of God's self-disclosure" through human mystical experiences...

The former director of Christian Formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, [Ann Holmes] Redding began to study Islam in the wake of 9/11, after hearing Muslim imams speak at interfaith events at the cathedral. A personal crisis spurred her onto a spiritual quest that ended with her publicly reciting the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith.

A public symbol of conversion to Islam, the Shahada does not contradict anything in Christianity, Redding argued, nor did the professions made at a Christian baptism contradict anything in Islam, for the language of either creed was not to be taken in a literal sense.

"We Christians, in struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus and the pattern of life he offers, describe him as the 'only begotten son of God.' That's how wonderful he is to us. But that is not literal," she said.

Read the entire article HERE.

"Don't Waste Your Life"

Abortion and the Idolatry of Money

Bonnie Erbe of US News and World Report suggests that in times of economic recession, choosing abortion is a good thing. I would offer more commentary but is it really needed?

‘Yes, it’s sad that this unwed, pregnant mother of three had no money for bus fare. It’s terrible that her boyfriend lost his job. It is heart-wrenching that she fell to tears in the doctor’s office. But in the long run, can we not agree that an unwed couple’s decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It’s actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.

‘Feeding and raising children is expensive. Tuition may be free at public schools but there are still books, transportation, food, clothes, medical care and activities that add up—way up. One may assume this family of five is struggling just to maintain its basics: housing and food. Add one more child and those costs rise as income drops. It’s no tragedy: it’s a good decision. The decision benefits society in two ways. It allows the couple to focus more time, energy and resources on their three children, giving each child a better life and a better chance of growing up to contribute to society. It also lessens the chance the family will have to rely on scarce public resources (food stamps, TANF) to raise their children.’

Read the entire article HERE.

Naming False Teachers

James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel has posted some thoughts on Brian MacLaren and the responsibility to identify false teachers in the church.

1. Why Brian MacLaren is Like My Palm Pilot

2. The Public Rebuke of False Teachers

"Is The Shack that good?"

I know I have posted several reviews of The Shack but I keep getting asked about the book and it is still a best-seller. If you have read any of the other reviews I have posted then you already know that I am no fan of the book. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure it's not a good idea to monkey around with doctrines like the Trinity, the atonement, God's sovereignty, the Scriptures, etc.

Here's a portion of a review from Ordained Servant:

But is The Shack that good? And is the teaching of The Shack in line with Bunyan and the Bible? Lane Keister, author of the Green Baggins blog on the Web, doesn't think so. He has this to say:

The Shack is the story of a man ["Mack"] whose [youngest] daughter is brutally murdered. The man ... receive[s] a message from God [four years later] to meet him at the shack, the very place where his daughter was murdered. He then meets God....
The upshot of the plot is that God explains to the main character the why's and the wherefore's, and the man is healed. The theological upshot is that God is good, but not all-powerful....
Contrast Job. Job lost much more than the man in the story.... He had much more to complain about than the man in The Shack. He too wanted God to explain.... But when God finally has His say, He tells Job that He does not have to come to the bar of human reason. Humans have to come to the bar of God.
This is where C.S. Lewis comes in. In his brilliant essay entitled "God in the Dock," he makes [a] really important [point].

Here is that important point from Lewis:

Ancient man approached God ... as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the Dock.

The author of The Shack is a typical example of "modern man": From Young's perspective, God is in the dock and God (through the author of The Shack) must present "a reasonable case for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease." Young ignores Lewis's rebuke and—with tongue in cheek—titles chapter 7 of The Shack "God on the Dock," making an allusion to Lewis's essay and his own rejection of it (104-114).

Young's approach is far different from that which we see in John Bunyan and in Job in the Bible, as Keister explains:

Bunyan and Young go in fundamentally different directions. Christian's journey is to the bar of judgment as a defendant whom God will acquit based on the spotless righteousness of Christ imputed to him. The man's journey in The Shack is to the bench, where he magnanimously acquits God of wrong-doing, once it becomes evident that God is really powerless to stop it....

... [O]ne of my friends ... . noted the contrast between the way in which God is portrayed in the Bible as opposed to how God is portrayed in The Shack. The God of The Shack is hardly a God with the least little hint of awe and majesty. He is not the God of the whirlwind, which is how God treated Job. He is not the God before whom all bow their faces to the ground.

In chapter 6 of The Shack, Mack meets God, and we as well are introduced to a very different view of the Triune God from that found in Scripture:

The door flew open, and he was looking directly into the face of a large beaming African American woman ... . Just as she turned to enter the cabin, a small distinctly Asian woman emerged from behind her ... . He [Mack] then glanced past her and noticed that a third person had emerged from the cabin, this one a man. He appeared Middle Eastern and was dressed like a laborer, complete with tool belt and gloves (82-84).

All three are "down to earth," humanized to such an extent that any sense of awe seems to be excluded:

Mack tried again to look at the Asian woman ... . From her attire, Mack assumed that she was a groundskeeper or gardener ... . [T]he large woman put her arm around Mack's shoulders, drew him to her, and said, "Okay, we should probably introduce ourselves to you. I am the housekeeper and cook"... . "And I," interrupted the man who looked to be in his thirties and stood a little shorter than Mack himself, "I try to keep things fixed up around here. I enjoy working with my hands, although, as these two will tell you, I take pleasure in cooking and gardening as much as they do" (85-86).

Read the entire review HERE.

"A Shelter in the Time of Storm"

The new book by Paul Tripp looks excellent. You can get a copy by clicking HERE.

By the way, if you attend Church of the Saviour or live in the Philadelphia area Dr. Tripp is going to be with us for a weekend conference in January. More details to come!

Sunday's Sermon

You can listen to or download last Sunday's sermon, "God Will Provide the Lamb" HERE.

I discovered a new need

The Read-Nest

Repeating Pentecost?

THIS leaves me utterly speachless.

4 Easy Requirements!
Get it all done in one day!
Be a part of history!

Ughhh...

Redemptive Rap

Shai Linne is a rapper that is, (are your ready?), biblical, reformed, and Gospel-driven. What is more, he is based right here in Philly. If you or your kids appreciate rap then introduce them to Shai Linne's work. His lyrics are outstanding.

Check him out here:

Lamp Mode Records

Shai Linne's Blog - Lyrical Theology

Be Re-introduced to Christ

I have posted this in the past but it is too good to not post again.

Satan, You Just Lost One