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.
On Sunday I preached part 3 of our current series The Mission. It is entitled "One Lord" is taken from Matthew 28:16-18. You can listen to or download it HERE.
Thanks to Carl Trueman at Ref21 for posting the following words from B.B. Warfield:We see, then, that the Apostle's urgency here [“2 Cor. 6:11 - 7:1”] is against not association with the world, but compromise with the worldly. Compromise! In that one word is expressed a very large part of a Christian's danger in the world. We see it on all sides of us and in every sphere of life. We must be all things to all men, we say, perverting the Apostle's prescription for a working ministry; for there was one thing he would on no account and in no way have us be, even that we may, as we foolishly fancy, win the more; and that is, evil. From evil in all its forms and in all its manifestations he would have us absolutely to separate ourselves; the unclean thing is the thing he would in no circumstances have us handle. Associate with the world, yes! There is no man in it so vile that he has not claims upon us for our association and for our aid. But adopt the standards of the world? No! Not in the least particular. Here our motto must be and that unfailingly: No compromise!
The very thing which the Apostle here presses upon our apprehension is the absolute conflict between the standards of the world and the standards of Christians; and the precise thing which he requires of us is that in our association with the world we shall not take on our necks the alien yoke of an unbeliever's point of view, of an unbeliever's judgment of things, of an unbeliever's estimate of the right and wrong, the proper and improper. In all our association with unbelievers, we, as Christian men, are to furnish the standard; and we are to stand by our Christian standard, in the smallest particular, unswervingly. Any departure from that standard, however small or however desirable it may seem, is treason to our Christianity. We must not, in any case, take the alien yoke of an unbeliever's scheme of life upon our necks.
Last week, I posted a note on Ref21 concerning the importance of guarding the teaching office in the church. As a result of that, I was asked what the implications of such might be for those often called 'ruling elders' in Presbyterianism, men who are called to leadership roles within the church which involve significant doctrinal responsibility but who are not regularly engaged in preaching or the administration of the sacraments.
Such elders are, according to Paul, to be competent to teach (1 Tim. 3:2) and doctrinally sound and trustworthy (Tit. 1:9), in addition to being competent managers of their own lives, above reproach and respected in the wider community outside the church. Needless to say, the vows they take are as serious and as binding as those who preach (incidentally, membership vows are just as solemnly binding; a vow is, after all, a vow). And they do need to take such vows -- accountability is critical for all involved in any way in the public teaching of God's word.
Doctrinal competence is non-negotiable. It is the one major difference between qualifications for being a deacon and being an elder and it speaks clearly to the nature of the office. Elders have responsibility for the doctrinal integrity of the congregations in which they are placed. They are to be sound in life and doctrine and be able to teach. This does not necessarily mean pulpit ministry; but it does mean the ability to instruct others in the faith in some church context, as, for example Sunday school or pastoral visitation or in so
This means that the elders are have a responsibility to make sure that the minister's teaching each week is orthodox. If it is not so, and if they then fail to act, they are as culpable for the propagation of error as the minister himself.
It also means that the elders are to help ensure an environment conducive to the sound teaching of the word. This may take many forms. Most significant, I believe, is the consistent protection of the minister from hypercritical members of the congregation. This is not because the minister is above criticism but because he is always vulnerable to discouragement at the hands of cranks with assorted axes to grind. Elders should function as his bodyguard, weeding out unfair criticism and rebuking crackpots.
Because of the huge responsibility towards the church which elders carry, they are also to continue to study diligently and thus to make sure that their knowledge of theology is constantly being strengthened.
Finally, elders find their place in a structure of accountability which connects
congregation to eldership to presbytery, at least if one is a Presbyterian. The call comes from the congregation. There is no self-appointment to this role any more than there is with ministers. Public accountability to the church is the name of the game. After all, when it comes to the public teaching of the Word and the promotion of that teaching, there are no biblical structures of accountability which are not simultaneously churchly structures of accountability.
With the presidential campaign in full swing, Mitt Romney's candidacy has brought the issue of Mormonism into the public debate. Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. It is not longer the backwoods little cult struggling to survive in northwest Missouri. But while there is more public acceptance of Mormonism than there was in the mid 19th century, it is still as far from Christianity as any other false religion.Mormonism does not claim to be just another denomination of Christianity. To the contrary, the central claim of Mormonism is that Christianity was corrupt and incomplete until the restoration of the faith with the advent of the Latter-Day Saints and their scripture, The Book of Mormon. Thus, it is just a matter of intellectual honesty to take Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, at his word when he claimed that true Christianity did not exist from the time of the Apostles until the reestablishment of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods on May 15, 1829.
From a Christian perspective, Mormonism is a new religion, complete with its own scripture, its own priesthood, its own rituals, and its own teachings. Most importantly, those teachings are a repudiation of historic Christian orthodoxy — and were claimed to be so from the moment of Mormonism’s founding forward. Mormonism rejects orthodox Christianity as the very argument for its own existence, and it clearly identifies historic Christianity as a false faith.
Mormonism starts with an understanding of God that rejects both monotheism and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Mormon concept of God includes many gods, not one. Furthermore, Mormonism teaches that we are now what God once was and are becoming what He now is. This is in direct conflict with historic Christianity.
Mormonism rejects the Bible as the sole and sufficient authority for the faith, and insists that The Book of Mormon and other authoritative Latter-Day Saints writings constitute God’s final revelation. Furthermore, the authority in Mormonism is mediated through a human priesthood, through whom God is claimed to speak directly and authoritatively to the church. Nothing makes the distinction between Mormonism and historic Christianity more clear than the experience of reading The Book of Mormon. The very subtitle of The Book of Mormon — Another Testament of Jesus Christ — makes one of Mormonism’s central claims directly and candidly: That we need another authority to provide what is lacking in the New Testament...
It is neither slander nor condescension to state clearly that Mormonism is not Christianity. Taking Mormonism on its own terms, one finds a comprehensive set of teachings and doctrines that are self-consciously set against historic Christianity. The larger world may be confused about this, but biblical Christians cannot make this error, for we are certain that the consequences are eternal.
It is on this question that Evangelicals must think forcefully, faithfully . . . and fast. We need to recognize that we are asking this question from a privileged historical and political context. For most of our nation’s history, voters have chosen among presidential candidates who were identified, to one degree or another, with some form of Protestant Christianity. To date, for example, America has had only one Roman Catholic president and one Jewish candidate for vice president as a major party nominee.Read on HERE.
It can be argued that our contemporary political context puts greater emphasis on the religious identity of candidates at all levels than has ever been experienced in American history. Both major political parties have sought various elements of the religious electorate and have developed strategies accordingly.
On Sunday I preached a sermon from Matthew 16:13-20 entitled "Christ Builds His Church." You can listen to or download the sermon HERE. 
Indelible Grace Music grew out of ministering to college students, primarily through Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). We saw many touched by the gospel, and gripped by the rich theology and great poetry of the hymns of the Church. As these students began to taste more of the depth of the gospel and the richness of the hymn tradition, many began to join the music of their culture with the words of our forefathers (and mothers!), and a movement was born.
Our goal is not change for change's sake, but to rekindle a love of hymns and to invite many who would never associate rich passion with hymns to actually read the words. We believe that we are impoverished if we cut off our ties with the saints of the past, and that we fail to be faithful to God in our own moment of history if we don't attempt to praise Him in forms that are authentic to who we are.
We believe that the words of a hymn actually have more emotional nuance than one piece of music can adequately capture. Thus singing even familiar hymns with different music can bring out shades of meaning that had remained unnoticed. For instance, while the traditional music for Toplady's "Rock of Ages" conveys the power and strength of the words, James Ward's more recent tune brings out the sweetness and tenderness that is also part of the emotion in the lyric.
Many wonderful hymns have unfortunately fallen out of use and part of our love is searching old hymnals for hymns and hymnwriters that have been forgotten. How many today have heard of Anne Steele? She was the first female hymnwriter, the first to write hymns of lament without happy endings, and the first to meditate on the inadequacy of human language to express our love to God. Her hymns are incredibly relevant to what we often consider very modern issues and yet most hymnals include almost nothing by her. But when students read her words, now set to music that connects to them, they are blown away. They are able to have the incredible experience of communing spiritually with a saint who lived and suffered 300 years ago in a little town in the English countryside. All of the sudden, the kingdom of God grows bigger for them. They see that the Body of Christ is huge! We hope that you too can experience the "mystic sweet communion" with those who have gone before us.
But our true goal is even more ambitious. We want to be a voice calling our generation back to something rich and solid and beyond the fluff and the trendy. We want to remind God's people that thinking and worship are not mutually exclusive, and that not everything worth knowing happened in the last three years. We want to invite the Church to appreciate her heritage without idolizing it. We want to open up a world of passion and truth and make it more that just an archaic curiosity for the religiously sentimental. We believe worship is formative, and that it does matter what we think. So, we hope this site will prove helpful in encouraging and nurturing a growing movement. We want to provide resources such as chord charts, CDs, and useful links. But we also want to share with you the stories behind the authors of the hymns, and in many cases the stories behind the writing of the hymns themselves, as well as theological reflections upon the hymns. We believe that this theological poetry is supremely suited for expressing the seeming paradoxes of the faith that drive us to worship. Our prayer is that Jesus would be made more beautiful and believable, and we have found few things better suited for this than hymns.
"O Love incomprehensible, That made Thee bleed for me The Judge of all hath suffered death, To set His prisoner free!"
Soli Deo Gloria, Rev. Kevin Twit
Campus Minister, Reformed University Fellowship at Belmont University
When I was with another church growth consulting firm, we did a major study of pastors and came up with some astounding statistics. We found that 90% of pastors work more than 50 hours a week. One out of three pastors state that being in the ministry is clearly hazardous for their families. One out of three pastors felt totally burned out within the first five years of ministry. Over 70% of pastors do not have anyone they would consider to be a friend, and hardly any pastors had any close friends. Ninety percent (90%) of pastors feel they were not adequately trained to cope with ministry coordination and the demands of the congregation. Seventy-five percent (75%) of pastors experience a significant crisis that they faced due to stress in the ministry (Fuller Institute, 1989-1992). We at the FASICLD retested that data by various means starting in 1998 and also retested the results in an internet survey form several times over the last eight years. We found it has slightly worsened. Most pastors now work up to and more than 60 hours a week. Hence, why the divorce rate among pastors is rising and pastor’s children rarely stay in the church or keep their faith. In both studies, over 40% of the pastors reported serious conflicts with their parishioners every month. This leaves pastors physically tired, spiritually weary, and even distant from God! Thus, they cannot properly minister or connect with their flock.
Steve Jobs, in pain and too weak to climb stairs a few weeks before his death, wanted his children to understand why he wasn’t always there for them, according to the author of his highly anticipated biography.I was not shocked by Jobs' acknowledgement that his vision for Apple took priority over his children. This does not, after all, seem to be the exception but the rule for many corporate leaders and visionaries. What struck me is that he seems to lack remorse for this reality. Clearly, I do not know what was going through Jobs' mind. I certainly am not his judge. But taking his words at face value it seems that he is justifying the fact that his children do not really know him but that once they read his biography perhaps they will understand why. I wonder what solace that will provide his children?
“I wanted my kids to know me,” Jobs was quoted as saying by Pulitzer Prize nominee Walter Isaacson, when he asked the Apple Inc co-founder why he authorized a tell-all biography after living a private, almost ascetic life.
“I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did,” Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview at Jobs’ home in Palo Alto, California.
Right now you can get Dan Phillips new book, World-Tilting Gospel free for Kindle HERE. Dan Phillips is both easy and edifying to read, and I have been doing so for many years, so I am delighted to commend this book to you. The World-Tilting Gospel is a sound introduction to what it means and what we need to understand to be followers of Jesus Christ. Dan knows that for the Christian life to be lived, personally and congregationally, the way Jesus intends us to live it, we need to know: 'who we really are, what kind of world we are really living in, how the world really operates and where it is really going, who God really is, what His eternal plan really was, why we really needed Him and His plan so desperately, what His terms—the Gospel—really were, and what difference the Gospel will really make on every day of our lives.' Furthermore, I agree with his diagnosis of our present need (see the introduction!), and the meaty biblical prescription of truth and grace that he offers as remedy. This book hits on all cylinders. I will use it in discipleship in my own congregation and recommend it widely.— Ligon Duncan, President of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and Senior Minister at First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi
There are some truths which must be believed; they are essential to salvation, and if not heartily accepted, the soul will be ruined.- Charles Spurgeon
Now, in [the early church], the saints did not say, as the sham saints do now, "We must be largely charitable, and leave this brother to his own opinion; he sees truth from a different standpoint, and has a rather different way of putting it, but his opinions are as good as our own, and we must not say that he is in error."
That is at present the fashionable way of trifling with divine truth, and making things pleasant all round. Thus the gospel is debased, and "another gospel" propagated.
I should like to ask modern broad churchmen whether there is any doctrine of any sort for which it would be worth a man's while to burn or to lie in prison. I do not believe they could give me an answer, for if their latitudinarianism be correct, the martyrs were fools of the first magnitude.
From what I see of their writings and their teachings, it appears to me that the modern thinkers treat the whole compass of revealed truth with entire indifference; and, though perhaps they may feel sorry that wilder spirits should go too far in free thinking, and though they had rather they would be more moderate, yet, upon the whole, so large is their liberality that they are not sure enough of anything to be able to condemn the reverse of it as a deadly error.
To them black and white are terms which may be applied to the same colour, as you view it from different standpoints. Yea and nay are equally true in their esteem. Their theology shifts like the Goodwin Sands, and they regard all firmness as so much bigotry. Errors and truths are equally comprehensible within the circle of their charity.
It was not in this way that the apostles regarded error. They did not prescribe large-hearted charity towards falsehood, or hold up the errorist as a man of deep thought, whose views were "refreshingly original"; far less did they utter some wicked nonsense about the probability of there living more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds. They did not believe in justification by doubting, as our neologians do; they set about the conversion of the erring brother; they treated him as a person who needed conversion; and viewed him as a man who, if he were not converted, would suffer the death of his soul, and be covered with a multitude of sins.
They were not such easygoing people as our cultured friends of the school of "modern thought", who have learned at last that the Deity of Christ may be denied, the work of the Holy Spirit ignored, the inspiration of Scripture rejected, the atonement disbelieved, and regeneration dispensed with, and yet the man who does all this may be as good a Christian as the most devout believer!
O God, deliver us from this deceitful infidelity, which, while it does damage to the erring man, and often prevents his being reclaimed, does yet more mischief to our own hearts by teaching us that truth is unimportant, and falsehood a trifle, and so destroys our allegiance to the God of truth, and makes us traitors instead of loyal subjects to the King of kings!
On Sunday I preached part 2 of our current series The Mission. It is entitled "Going Away and Filling Up." It is an examination of the continuing significance of Jesus' ascension and Pentecost for the mission of the church. You can listen to or download the sermon HERE.
Brandon Levering has written a thoughtful post on how established churches can think like church plants. He offers five ways: 1. Church plants clearly define their mission and keep it before them in everything they do.Read the whole post HERE.
2. Church plants feel an acute sense of urgency to engage in evangelism.
3. Church plants tend to better understand the culture they’re engaging.
4. Church plants use a wider portion of the congregation in service.
5. Church plants are more likely to think strategically about planting more churches.
There has been quite a broo-ha-ha stiring over James MacDonald's invitation of T.D. Jakes to his "Elephant Room" event.In 2007, the Lord granted me the privilege of publishing The Decline of African-American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity (IVP). The book was a labor of sorrow and love–sorrow because of how sharp and deep theological decline has been since the first writing African Americans of the late 1700s and early 1800s, and love because I ache to see my kinsmen according to the flesh brought into the gracious realms of God’s salvation. For me, the book was an attempt to (a) accurately trace the history of African-American theology using available primary source material, and (b) fulfill a pastoral obligation to advance the gospel and refute error (Titus 1:9).Read on HERE.
Because the book “breaks rank” and “the party line,” I expected to be alone against an avalanche of criticism and angry protest. But the Lord has a people who have not bowed the knee to the baals of theological heresy, a people who want to know the truth and who instinctively if not explicitly knew something had gone wrong in the African-American church. Jesus’ sheep hear and know His voice, and they follow Him. Instead of an avalanche of criticism, I’ve pretty much heard a chorus of “Finally” and “It’s about time!”
When theologically conservative, Evangelical or Reformed African Americans call for reform in the African-American church, they feel like midgets facing the titans and juggernauts of a word-faith, charismatic pantheon. The task can seem so daunting and isolating. Internally, there’s the constant fight with unbelief and resignation. There’s wrestling with questions like “Can the African-American church be reformed?” ”Is the church essentially apostate?” Sometimes these questions have more to do with us than they have to do with the church. But the questions illustrate how intense and serious a battle this is.
That’s why it’s difficult to see larger-than-life heretics given a platform in circles of pastors and leaders we respect and we regard as co-laborers in defense and confirmation of the truth. I’m breaking no stories here. The news of T.D. Jakes’ invitation to the Elephant Room is widespread and rightly lamented by many. I’m just adding a perspective that hasn’t yet been stated: This kind of invitation undermines that long, hard battle many of us have been waging in a community often neglected by many of our peers. And because we’ve often been attempting to introduce African-American Christians to the wider Evangelical and Reformed world as an alternative to the heresy and blasphemy so commonplace in some African-American churches and on popular television outlets, the invitation of Jakes to perform in “our circles” simply feels like a swift tug of the rug from beneath our feet and our efforts to bring health to a sick church.
MacDonald and Driscoll can moderate discussions with anyone they wish. But we kid ourselves if we think inviting someone so recalcitrant about fundamental biblical teaching as Jakes can result in anything positive. MacDonald, Driscoll and others will not be the first to privately and publicly exhort, admonish, instruct and challenge Jakes on this vital issue–to no avail thus far. And we kid ourselves if we think the Elephant Room invitation itself isn’t an endorsement of sorts. We can’t downplay the associations by calling for people to suspend judgment and responding ad hominem against “discernment bloggers.” We certainly can’t do that while simultaneously pointing to our association at The Gospel Coalition as a happy certification of orthodoxy and good practice, as Driscoll seems to do here with MacDonald.
