Zondervan Fail

From AP:

Kate Gosselin has a new book, "I Just Want You to Know," scheduled for release in April.

Christian book publisher Zondervan said Tuesday the book features excerpts, prayers and memories from Gosselin's journal, offering readers a look at her life during the three years her family went from obscurity to fame on TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus 8."

Zondervan says the book includes eight individual letters, one addressed to each one of her children, covering a variety of topics.

"Jon & Kate Plus 8" filmed the lives of the Gosselins and their eight children — twins and sextuplets — at their home in Wernersville, Pa. Their marriage dissolved, and the show ended last year.

Sunday's Sermon

Last Sunday's message was the first part of two on the subject of biblical peacemaking. You can listen to or download it HERE.

Eden, Avatar, and the Kingdom of Christ

Check out this excellent discussion from Southern Seminary moderated by Al Mohler on how Christians ought to think about and engage pop culture.

Master's Seminary Audio on Sanctification

The Master's Seminary is currently in a series on sanctification in their chapel services. Take time to listen.

Sanctification and Justification: The Relationship - Andrew Snider
Sanctification: The Biblical Basis - Richard Mayhue

Ligon Duncan's Study

Lig Duncan - Study Video from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

Urban Ministry Conference

Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia will be hosting their annual Urban Ministry Conference this March 5-7. The speakers will be Josh Harris and John Freeman.

Kostenberger on John's Theology

Andreas Kostenberger's lastest volume looks like a must read for anyone wanting to undertake a study of John's Gospel and epistles.

From a review by Anthony Selvaggio:

This volume should be in every pastor's library. If you are preaching on John's Gospel, or intend to preach on it in the future, this volume should be on your desk and read alongside Kostenberger's or D.A. Carson's commentary on John. This book will act as a necessary biblical-theological supplement to your exegetical work. The book will also serve as a fine textbook for a course on John's theology in seminary or college. I highly recommend purchasing this volume. Thus far, it is Kostenberger's magnum opus on the topic of John's theology.

Read the entire review HERE.

More on John from Dr. Kostenberger

Encountering John - Pefect for laypersons and Sunday School teachers!

John (BECNT) - Great for preachers and teachers!

A heretic by any other name (2)...

Mike Witmer continues to review and comment on Brian McLaren's latest book "A New Kind of Christianity." The discerning reader will understand that what McLaren is promoting is not a new kind of Christianity but an old kind of heresy.

He does not believe that there was a Fall (or original sin or total depravity or hell) but that what we have traditionally called the Fall is actually “a coming-of age story” which—wait for it—describes “the first stage of ascent as human beings progress from the life of hunter-gatherers to the life of agriculturalists and beyond.” I have quoted him verbatim so you know I am not making this up. I asked my Old Testament colleague where Brian may be getting this from, and he said that this sounds like modern Judaism (which doesn’t believe in a Fall or original sin), except that even it wouldn’t say that Genesis 3 represents a step up.

Brian says a lot of other things in Part 1, but as you can see, he is no longer having a Christian conversation. He prefers the Hebrew God Elohim over the Greco-Roman God Theos, for the former prefers the messiness of story and evolution while the latter is a “perfect—Platonic god” who “loves spirit, state, and being” and is “perfectly furious” with his fallen creation and just wants to smash it all to hell. Theos may be popular with the “fire-breathing preacher” (does anyone know anyone like this?), but he “is an idol, a damnable idol.” Brian writes that he would rather be an atheist than believe in the God that most of us think is found in the Bible.

Four other observations:
1. Brian seems to be offering a modern Jewish rather than Christian perspective on the opening chapters of Genesis. His flat-out denial of a Fall, original sin, and total depravity and his dismissal of Theos raises questions about his view of Paul, who clearly teaches the former in Romans 5, and the New Testament, which refers to God with the Greek term Theos.

2. Brian does not seem to believe that there was a first man and a first sin, but that Genesis 3 is a myth which describes how the entire human race became farmers. This view fits with his acceptance of evolution, as most who embrace evolution find it hard to believe that there was a first man who rebelled in a cataclysmic Fall. I don’t know how the farmer bit fits, but it is funny.

3. The fourth question which Brian will address in this book is “Who is Jesus and why is he important?” Given that Brian doesn’t believe in a Fall, original sin, or hell, that is a very good question. I can’t wait to hear why God would come and die for a world that didn’t need his help.

4. Brian seems incapable of writing a book without taking repeated cheap shots at seminary education. He often reminds us that he missed out on seminary and is better for it, that he would not see what he sees in Scripture if he had gone to seminary. On that we agree.

Read the entire post HERE.

Truth and Controversy

Much of the Bible is polemical in nature because in the Scriptures God is routinely refuting errors. We see this as early as Genesis which operates in part as a polemic against pagan creation myths. The prophets often functioned as polemicists, in some cases even mocking pagans and their gods. This approach to defending the truth is also common in the New Testament exemplified in Jesus and the apostles. This is so because God's truth is not a trifle. What God has said is a reflection of who He is. Indeed, God has revealed His nature, His ways and works, and His redemptive purpose through what He has said in His Word. Therefore, defending the truth is not about winning an argument. Defending the truth is an act of magnifying God's glory.

I am convinced that what is behind the contemporary church's distaste for polemic is the erosion of the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy within the evangelical church. This, combined with a postmodern hermeneutic which holds that truth cannot be known clearly, has left us unable but mostly unwilling to wade into the waves controversy. After all, once we have decided that the Bible cannot be fully relied upon to speak truthfully then why ought we quibble over different opinions? And opinions are all we are left with once we adopt a diminished view of the Scriptures.

Justin Taylor cites some helpful passages from John Stott's book Christ the Controversialist (1970):

The proper activity of professing Christians who disagree with one another is neither to ignore, nor to conceal, nor even to minimize their differences, but to debate them. (p. 22)

We seem in our generation to have moved a long way from this vehement zeal for the truth which Christ and his apostles displayed. But if we loved the glory of God more, and if we cared more for the eternal good of the souls of men, we would not refuse to engage in necessary controversy, when the truth of the gospel is at stake. The apostolic command is clear. We are “to maintain the truth in love,” being neither truthless in our love, nor loveless in our truth, but holding the two in balance. (p. 19)

We need to distinguish between the tolerant mind and the tolerant spirit. Tolerant in spirit a Christian should always be, loving, understanding, forgiving and forbearing others, making allowances for them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, for true love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” [1 Cor. 13:7]. But how can we be tolerant in mind of what God has plainly revealed to be either evil or erroneous? (p. 8)

Evangelicalism, how far you have fallen!

A little Hamlet does the heart good

Actor Brian Cox teaches young Theo some Hamlet...

Another Snow Day

Concerning the Gospel

From a contribution by Andreas Kostenberger in Faith Comes By Hearing:

Five Observations About the Gospel:

1. Divine, not human: The gospel is God’s saving message to a world living in darkness and a humanity lost in its sin. The gospel is not a human message, nor was its conception a function of human initiative, but its origin and its impetus derive solely from God. For this reason our role with regard to the gospel is not that of evaluation, criticism or reformulation, but that of grateful acceptance and obedience. Humans are not equal partners with God as far as the gospel message is concerned; they are rather his commissioned representatives, charged with proclaiming the gospel in the exact form in which they received it (e.g., John 17:20; 20:21; 1 Cor 15:3–4).

2. Required, not optional: Acceptance of the gospel is not optional for salvation but rather required, owing to pervasive human sinfulness. As the Book of Hebrews states, “people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment”; “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time . . . to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb 9:27–28). Apart from believing in Jesus Christ, “God’s wrath remains” on people (Jn 3:36), and they are spiritually dead (Jn 5:24; Eph 2:1). People must be “born of God” (Jn 1:12; 3:3, 5; 1 Jn 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18), that is, be spiritually regenerated (Tit 3:5; 1 Pet 1:3). As Paul writes in his epistle to the Ephesians, “[a]nd you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit . . .” (Eph 1:13). Inclusion in Christ comes only by hearing and believing the gospel.

3. Christological, not merely theological: The gospel is not vaguely theological, as if it were amenable to various ways of salvation depending on a person’s belief in a particular kind of god, or depending on the degree to which people were able to hear the gospel presented in a clear way; it is decidedly and concretely Christological, that is, centered on the salvation provided through the vicarious cross-death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence Paul is able to speak of “the gospel . . . regarding his [God’s] Son . . . Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1:2–4). Significantly, this gospel is not a New Testament novelty but was “promised beforehand through his [God’s] prophets [such as Habakkuk, Rom 1:17 citing Hab 2:4] in the Holy Scriptures” (Rom 1:2). Abraham already had resurrection faith (Romans 4; Galatians 3; Heb 11:8–12).

4. No other gospel: The messianic motif pervading all of Scripture and centering in the Lord Jesus Christ coupled with the risen Jesus’ “Great Commission” for his followers to go and disciple the nations inextricably link an understanding of the gospel as the exclusive message of salvation in Jesus Christ with the church’s mandate to engage in missionary outreach. This is clear especially from the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, John, the book of Acts, and several of Paul’s writings. Conversely, any messages proclaimed in the name of Christ that feature a “different gospel” or a different Christ (such as compromising his simultaneous full humanity and deity, e.g. 1 John 4:2–3) are rejected. The church must engage in missions, because “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). If anyone confesses with his mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead, he will be saved (Rom 10:9; see also vv. 10–13).

5. No other name but Jesus: In light of the clear biblical passages mentioned above and in view of the strong and pervasive trajectory of scriptural references to the gospel there is no proper foundation for arguing for salvation apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ. Scripture makes clear that humanity is universally sinful, and that God’s wrath remains on every individual who has not placed his or her trust in Jesus Christ on the basis of his substitutionary death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. While there may be philosophical or larger theological objections to such a notion (such as the difficulty experienced by some of reconciling this notion with the love of God), while there may be commonsense concerns on the basis of human conceptions or “fairness” or other similar considerations, there can be little doubt that Scripture nowhere teaches, or easily allows the implication, that there is a way to salvation other than through explicit faith in Jesus Christ during a person’s lifetime (e.g., Heb 9:27–28). In fact, this is not an obscure topic; it is the central contention of the biblical message concerning the gospel, that “[s]alvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

A heretic by any other name (1)...

I have had my fill of Brian McLaren. I have read his books up through "Generous Orthodoxy" which is neither orthodox or generous. But I am glad that others are still reading him with a clear eye so that those who have drunk from the bitter stream of error can know that there still is a voice for God's truth alive and well in the church.

Mike Witmer is reading McLaren's newest tome, "A New Kind of Christianity" (get it?). Not content to give us a new kind of Christian, McLaren now wants to reshape, re-imagine, and remake the whole thing. The church has always had hangers on like McLaren - Arius, Pelagius, Servetus, Finney, etc. Nevertheless, McLaren continues to promote the notion that somehow he is new. In reality McLaren and the rest of his emergent cohorts are as old as heresy itself.

I am going to be posting links to Dr. Witmer's series of posts reviewing McLaren's new book because it's important to not ignore the mischief of heretics. Jesus and the apostles had some very ungenerous words for those who spread error and confusion among the people of God.

In commenting on the introduction to "A New Kind of Christianity" Witmer writes:

I read the introductory three chapters of A New Kind of Christianity, and so far it’s an updated version of the Brian we’ve seen before. He claims to be “a mild mannered guy” who is only looking for a new way to be a Christian that will boost the declining numbers in our churches, and he can’t understand why his critics respond with “fear,” “clenched teeth,” and “suspicion and accusation.” Brian’s really good at winning sympathy, and soon I was loathing myself for ever politely disagreeing with such a nice man.

But then I remembered that this debate about the Christian faith—which he and his friends started—is not a personality contest. You can’t dismiss what Christians have always believed and then expect a free pass because you’re likeable. And just below the surface of Brian’s humble, can’t-we-all-just-get-along vibe is an accusatory tone that repeatedly compares his critics to a religious Gestapo whose leaders defend their conservative beliefs because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

That doesn’t sound like me. I am an easy-going guy who just wants to love Jesus. But to love Jesus, I have to know and believe something about him. Jesus is not an elastic symbol for whatever we happen to value (e.g., inclusive love), but is an actual person who can be known, trusted, and loved.

So why doesn’t Brian want me to know and believe the truth about Jesus? He says that his new kind of Christianity is led by Doug Pagitt, who isn’t sure that Jesus is God; Marcus Borg, who argues that Jesus is dead; and Harvey Cox, a Harvard Divinity professor who wants to blow the whole thing up and construct a new view of God that will connect with our secular age.

Read the entire post HERE.

The Moral Insanity of NOW

It has been said, "It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. NOW opens it's mouth and once again removes all doubt.

In a report from the LA Times the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) is offended by the Focus on the Family Super Bowl commercial featuring Tim Tebow and his mother Pam.

NOW president Terry O’Neill said [the Tebow ad] glorified violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said. “That’s what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don’t find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.”

No word from NOW on the violence that goes on against women accross the country in its abortion mills.

Charles Simeon - A man who understood to Whom he answered

From an address by John Piper:

In April, 1831, Charles Simeon was 71 years old. He had been the pastor of Trinity Church, Cambridge, England, for 49 years. He was asked one afternoon by his friend, Joseph Gurney, how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his 49-year ministry. He said to Gurney, "My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory" (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.)...

Simeon had a strong sense of his accountability before God for the souls of his flock, whether they liked him or not. In his first year in the pulpit he preached a sermon on this and said to the people standing in the aisles,

Remember the nature of my office, and the care incumbent on me for the welfare of your immortal souls. . . . Consider whatever may appear in my discourses harsh, earnest or alarming, not as the effects of enthusiasm, but as the rational dictates of a heart impressed with a sense both of the value of the soul and the importance of eternity. . . . By recollecting the awful consequences of my neglect, you will be more inclined to receive favorably any well-meant admonitions. (Moule, 46)

Fifteen years later he preached on the subject again. Years after this sermon, one of his friends told of how its power was still being felt. He said the pastor is like the keeper of a lighthouse. And he painted a vivid picture of a rocky coast strewn with dead and mangled bodies with the wailing of widows and orphans. He pictured the delinquent keeper being brought out and at last the answer given: Asleep. "Asleep!" The way he made this word burst on the ears of the hearers never let at least one of them ever forget what is at stake in the pastoral ministry.

It did not matter that his people were often against him. He was not commissioned by them, but by the Lord. And they were his responsibility. He believed Hebrews 13:17 - that he would one day have to give an account for the souls of his church.

Read and listen to the audio of the entire address HERE.

As one with authority

"Throughout the history of the church the greatest preachers have been those who have recognized that they have no authority in themselves, and have seen their task as being to explain the words of Scripture and apply them clearly to the lives of their hearers. Their preaching has drawn its power not from the proclamation of their own Christian experiences or the experiences of others, nor from their own opinions, creative ideas, or rhetorical skills, but from God's powerful words. Essentially, they stood in the pulpit, pointed to the biblical text, and said in effect to the congregation, "This is what this verse means. Do you see that meaning here as well? Then you must believe it and obey it with all your heart, for God himself, your Creator and your Lord, is saying this to you today!" Only the written words of Scripture can give this kind of authority to preaching."

Wayne Grudem from Bible Doctrine, p. 40

Books Available This Month:

Scandalous by D.A. Carson

Discovering God in the Stories of the Bible by Phil Ryken

Wired for Intimacy by William Struthers

The Masculine Mandate by Richard Phillips

"Bigotry in modern parlance..."

"Now-a-days, if a man is very reverent towards the word of God, and very desirous to obey the Lord's commands in everything, people say, "He is very precise," and they shun him; or, with still more acrimony, they say, "He is very bigoted: he is not a man of liberal spirit;" and so they cast out his name as evil.

"Bigotry, in modern parlance, you know, means giving heed to old truths in preference to novel theories; and a liberal spirit, now-a-days, means being liberal with everything except your own money—liberal with God's law, liberal with God's doctrine, liberal to believe that a lie is a truth, that black is white, and that white may occasionally be black. That is liberal sentiment in religion—the broad church school—from which may God continually deliver us."

- Charles Spurgeon

My Life Story - "An Inconsistent Account"

"As to myself, I would tell you how it is with me if I could: at the best, it would be an inconsistent account…I am a sinner, believing in the name of Jesus. I am a silly sheep, but I have a gracious, watchful Shepherd. I am a dull scholar, but I have a Master who can make the dullest learn. He still bears with me, He still employs me, He still enables me, He still owns me. Oh for a coal of heavenly fire to warm my heart, that I might praise him as I ought!"

- John Newton (August 29, 1774)

The Problem of Evangelical Minimalism

Michael Horton, in an article for Nine Marks Journal, struggles with the question of what exactly is an evangelical.

It feels like a renewed storm, or at least a squall, has been gathering around the term "evangelical" lately. More and more self-described evangelicals are realizing that not everyone believes the same things, even about the core doctrines. In response, some have begun to write manifestos which attempt to re-articulate the characteristics of an evangelical identity. Others are authoring books and holding conferences which aim to re-center the movement as a whole. Still others have decided it's best to pitch the term altogether and call themselves "post-evangelicals."

But the problem is hardly new. It's never been easy to determine who the evangelicals are because evangelicalism has always been a diverse movement. Luther wanted his followers to be called "evangelicals," meaning gospel-people (it was his enemies who nicknamed his followers "Lutheran"). The other branch of the Reformation was also happy to share the evangelical designation (the orthodox Lutherans coined the term "Calvinists" as a way of distinguishing Reformed views of the Lord's Supper from their own). Then, with the advent of the pietism and revivalism, the label "evangelical" went in all sorts of directions. Today, it's such an ambiguous moniker that some historians find the best definition to be George Marsden's: "anybody who likes Billy Graham."

Dr. Horton goes on to describe two prominent "streams" in the history of evangelicalism: the Pietism/Revivalism stream and the Reformation stream. Of the troubling fruit from the Pietism/Revivalism stream Horton writes:

The Second Great Awakening, represented by Finney, created a system of faith and practice tailor made for a self-reliant nation. Evangelicalism—which is to say, late eighteenth-century American Protestantism—was an engine for innovations. In doctrine, it served modernity's preference for faith in human nature and progress. In worship, it transformed Word-and-Sacrament ministry into entertainment and social reform and created the first star system in the culture of celebrity. In public life, it confused the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world and imagined that Christ's reign could be made visible by the moral, social, and political activity of the saints. There was little room for anything weighty to tie the movement down, to discipline its entrepreneurial celebrities, or to question its "revivals" apart from their often short-lived publicity.

Of the Reformation Stream Horton writes:

Churchmen like Warfield and Hodge regarded themselves as evangelicals in the distinctively Reformation sense and struggled to bring American Protestantism into line with this definition. They were also staunchly committed to and personally involved with the vast missionary endeavors of their denomination at home and abroad, bringing them into constant fellowship and cooperation with other evangelicals.

Nevertheless, Warfield was already beginning to see that the tension between competing visions of evangelical identity was making it more difficult to remain an unqualified supporter of the evangelical cause. In 1920, a number of evangelicals put forward a "plan of union for evangelical churches." Warfield evaluated the "creed" of this plan, as it was being studied by Presbyterians, and observed that the new confession being proposed "contains nothing which is not believed by Evangelicals," and yet "…nothing which is not believed …by the adherents of the Church of Rome, for example." He wrote,

There is nothing about justification by faith in this creed. And that means that all the gains obtained in that great religious movement which we call the Reformation are cast out of with window…There is nothing about the atonement in the blood of Christ in this creed. And that means that the whole gain of the long mediaeval search after truth is thrown summarily aside…There is nothing about sin and grace in this creed…We need not confess our sins anymore; we need not recognize the existence of such a thing. We need believe in the Holy Spirit only ‘as guide and comforter'—do not the Rationalists do the same? And this means that all the gain the whole world has reaped from the great Augustinian conflict goes out of the window with the rest…It is just as true that the gains of the still earlier debates which occupied the first age of the Church's life, through which we attained to the understanding of the fundamental truths of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ are discarded by this creed also. There is no Trinity in this creed; no Deity of Christ—or of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, Dr. Horton offers some reflections on the state of evangelicalism today:

Today, some of the ill fruit of pietism and revivalism live on. Many take it for granted that those who are most concerned about doctrine are least interested in reaching the lost (or, as they are now called, the "unchurched"). Evangelicals are frequently challenged to choose between being traditional or missional, two camps which are typically described with nothing more than caricatures. Where the earlier evangelical consensus coalesced simultaneously around getting the gospel right and getting it out, increasingly today the coalition is defined by its style ("contemporary" versus "traditional"), its politics ("compassionate conservatism" or the more recent rediscovery of revivalism's progressivist roots), and its rock star leaders, rather than for its convictions about God, humanity, sin, salvation, the purpose of history, and the last judgment.

I realize that not all such "creeds" today are as minimalistic as the one evaluated by Warfield. Nor has American Christianity been without its own defenders of the faith. In its statement of faith the National Association of Evangelicals affirms the Trinity, the deity of Christ, "the vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood," and the necessity of a supernatural rebirth. However, there is no mention of justification—the article of a standing or falling church—and the only conviction concerning the church is belief in "the spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ." Baptism and the Supper are not even mentioned.

Read the entire article HERE.