The Bible is About God

It is not unusual for Christians to be familiar with the stories in the Bible but to miss what is most important in those stories. We hear messages like, "Dare to be a Daniel" and "Slaying the Giants in Your Life". Ironically, what is missed in the telling and preaching of those stories is God Himself. The most important question we can ask about any passage of Scripture is not "What does this mean to me?" but "What does God say about Himself in this passage?" Phil Ryken's book Discovering God in the Stories of the Bible will help you read the Bible through this most essential lens.

Human beings from the beginning of time have tried to figure out what God is. They have worshiped nature and idols and everything in between because they haven’t had a true answer to the vital question “What is God?” But the Bible tells us stories that illustrate just who God really is. It gives us a true answer to that question, an answer that has crucial implications for each of us in our daily lives. The 13 Bible stories explained in this book are full of exciting truths about God, and studying those truths is the key to knowing and loving God more. Each story gives us a a new facet of God’s nature and character.

Slaughter in Nigeria

The mainstream media has been largely silent about the ongoing Muslim massacre of Christians in Nigeria. One notable exception has been an article in the NY Times by Adam Nossiter. Still it would be nice if the media were as outraged by the murder of Christians as they are by the mistreatment of dogs.

The mood in Jos was tense Monday. Troops were deployed in the streets, shops closed early and residents remained indoors.

A few miles south of the city nearly 400 of the victims were buried in a mass grave in Dogon Na Hauwa, the village where the worst violence occurred. Some of the bodies had been mutilated.

There, women cried unconsolably amid crowds of mourners, and the smell of burned and decomposing flesh hung in the air. Officials combed a large area around the village, continuing to find bodies during the day.

Shehu Sani, president of Civil Rights Congress, said in a phone interview on Monday that members of his group counted 492 bodies, mainly in Dogon Na Hauwa. He said that security forces had not been much in evidence in the “vulnerable areas” south of Jos. Mr. Sani said that the attackers were motivated at least in part by a large theft of cattle by members of the same Christian ethnic group as the victims.

“We were at the scene of the violence,” Mr. Sani said, suggesting that the local government figure of 500 was not an exaggeration.

“We have counted as many bodies as that,” he said. “There are not enough functional mortuaries to take them. It’s possibly even more than that because many were buried without documentation.”

Read the entire article HERE.

And though the wrong seems oft so strong

God is the Ruler yet

Biblical Manhood with C.J. Mahaney

In this interview C.J. Mahaney tackles some important questions:

• How can a young man be wise and how should fathers lead their sons?
• How can men mature in leading their wife and children?
• How can men seek fellowship and invite criticism?
  
  

Q&A on Biblical Masculinity from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

No substitute for the Gospel

Spiritual experiences and the disciplines are no substitute for that which is the matter of first importance: the Gospel.

From D.A. Carson:

A litany of devices designed to make us more spiritual or mature or productive or emotionally whole threatens to relegate the gospel to irrelevance, or at least to the realm of the boring and the primitive. The gospel may introduce you to the church, as it were, but from that point on assorted counseling techniques and therapy sessions will change your life and make you happy and fruitful. The gospel may help you make some sort of decision for God, but ‘rebirthing’ techniques—in which in silent meditation you imagine Jesus catching you as you are born from your mother’s womb, imagine him hugging you and holding you—will generate a wonderful cathartic experience that will make you feel whole again, especially if you have been abused in the past. The gospel may enable you to be right with God, but if you really want to pursue spirituality you must find a spiritual director, or practice asceticism, or discipline yourself with journaling, or spend two weeks in silence in a Trappist monastery.

These are not all of a piece. What they have in common, however, is the diminishing of the gospel in order to magnify the current device that is guaranteed to bring you toward wholeness. By contrast, the New Testament passionately insists that everything we need for life and godliness and a walk in the Spirit is secured for us in the gospel. It follows that if someone chooses to adopt some ascetic practice in order the better to focus on the Jesus of the Bible, the attention is still on Jesus.

But if someone so ties asceticism to altered moods or to experiences of ‘spirituality’ that the gospel itself is virtually ignored or is implicitly dismissed as a sort of initial stage now to be improved by ascetic practice, the name of the game is idolatry.

Again, if someone has experienced cathartic relief and emotional integration after an imaginative ‘rebirthing’ session, I am glad that the emotional integration has taken place. But we must insist that a better emotional integration could have been achieved by meditating on, say, the passion narratives, or on Ephesians 3:14–21. For then the emotional catharsis would have been tied to what God himself insists is the clearest and most complete demonstration of his love for us in Christ Jesus. In other words, the emotional integration would have been tied to the gospel instead of to something as ephemeral and diverting as manipulated imagination.

This is a time for Christians to return to the basics, the comprehensive basics, and quietly affirm with Paul, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith”’ (Romans 1:16–17).

HT: P.J. Cockrell

Are we warriors or figure skaters?

Listen at your own risk the following excerpt from Phil Johnson's message at the annual Shepherd's Conference held at Grace Community Church.

Pulpit Highlights - Phil Johnson from Grace Community Church on Vimeo.

"Without the Word"

In the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Modern Reformation Charlie Mallie comments on the necessity of the Scriptures to form not only the doctrine but the practices of the church as well. He reflects on his own coversion to Christ and his struggle to find a place in the church.

As an adult convert I can say that my first hundred or so encounters with Christians or with various churches didn't impress me much. When I had courage enough to darken the doorway of some assembly, often I found the teachings shallow and gimmicky. There was so very little of the Word, if at all. I remember one mega-thon in Southern California where the "youth dude" was standing in for the main pastor one particular Sunday. When it came time to "do the supper," he had us all bow our heads and "in our hearts intensely remember Jesus," and then he looked up and yelled, "Here's to Jesus," as if toasting the skylight with the little plastic cup filled with Welch's. That was the last church I walked out of with five-thousand-plus people watching. So began the years of my church fast--and my struggle to find genuine biblical Christianity, one that was saturated through and through with the Word of God.

It occurred to me back then (now over fifteen years ago) that the very aspect of what pulled me with great velocity out of those churches seems to be what draws so many others to them. The emphasis on marketing rather than teaching, offering choices, rather than calling for commitment, entertainment rather than substance flows like a chapter out of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. If you look at it from 40,000 feet, regardless of the individual manifestations of the malady, the source is always the same: a lack of teaching founded on the whole counsel of God or at the very least an inoculation against such teaching.

Mallie goes on to explain the dangers of a church bereft of the Word of God.

How dangerous is it to have a church that isn't completely shaped by the Holy Word of God in doctrine and in practice? What's the big deal? Can't we just form a group of Christians based on whatever we feel will best serve our needs?...

Maybe not...Somewhere in your background the Word of God came to you. Some pastor preached on a given text and it took root. You read your Bible and the Word was implanted. That living and active Word, the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, was buried in the soil of your heart and it grew...Because of that gift of being taught by the Holy Spirit through his Word, you can look at such silly assertions and say, "I think not."

But that's really the key, ins't it? The Word. It all turns on the Word of God. Not just a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, but the very means that guard our steps as we walk with Christ who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. The Word, the Word, the Word!...

Without the Word, we are sitting ducks for all sorts of trouble. If it is true that the devil roams about like a lion seeking to devour whomever he will and that the only weapon we are given is the Word of God--that double-edged sword of the Spirit that proceeds from the mouth of Christ--then without the Word we are truly vulnerable. Worse than that, we are helpless against whatever wind of doctrine blows through the doors. But I can only know such things from the Word. I will not come to the conclusion of such things by a careful contemplation of the starry sky--sorry, Mr. Kant. Without the transcendent enteral Word dropping down from the lofty realm of the neumena confusion, heresy, even apostasy becomes commonplace and talk of absolutes degrades into discussions of preference. Without a raft of revelation to sail me through this sea of doubt, there is no distilling ought-ness from is-ness.

Science and Faith

Westminster Seminary will be hosting a conference entitled Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? this Friday and Saturday (March 12-13). It promises to be an important event.

Speakers will include:
Discovery Institute Fellows Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design; Dr. Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and The Edge of Evolution; Dr. Jay Richards, co-author of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed For Discovery; Dr. C. John Collins, author of Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?; Dr. John West, author of Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science; and Dr. Bruce Gordon, co-editor of The Nature of Nature.

Dr. Stephen Meyer, author of the outstanding Signature in the Cell will be one of the speakers at Westminster. Ligonier Ministries has posted a five part interview of Dr. Meyer conducted by R.C. Sproul. Check them out below:



Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Keller, Piper, and Carson on caring about the suffering of hell more than poverty

Take time to listen to the following conversation between Tim Keller, John Piper, and Don Carson on the priority of evangelism.

Check it out HERE.

The Gospel and its implications

Social Gospel vs. Proclamation Gospel from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

A little more on free will...

From John Samson:

"...no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
- 1 Corinthians 12:3

"[we were]...born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

- John 1:13

We must bring clarity when we declare that man has no “free will” because many persons confuse coercion with necessity. Some believe that when we say people have no free will we somehow mean that their will is coerced from the outside into acting a certain way. But this could not be further from the truth. Apart from the Holy Spirit no one comes to Christ because people are in bondage to a corruption of nature... so they sin, not due to coercion, but of a necessity of their fallen nature. In his very helpful book, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will John Calvin clarifies:

There are four expressions regarding the will which differ from one another “namely that the will is 1) free, 2) bound, 3) self-determined, or 4) coerced. People generally understand a free will to be one which has in its power to choose good or evil …[But] There can be no such thing as a coerced will, since the two ideas are contradictory. But our responsibility as teachers is to say what it means, so that it may be understood what coercion is. Therefore we describe [as coerced] the will which does not incline this way or that of its own accord or by an internal movement of decision, but is forcibly driven by an external impulse. We say that it is self-determined when of itself it directs itself in the direction in which it is led, when it is not taken by force or dragged unwillingly. A bound will, finally, is one which because of its corruptness is held captive under the authority of its evil desires, so that it can choose nothing but evil, even if it does so of its own accord and gladly, without being driven by any external impulse.

According to these definitions we allow that man has choice and that it is self-determined, so that if he does anything evil, it should be imputed to him and to his own voluntary choosing. We do away with coercion and force, because this contradicts the nature of the will and cannot coexist with it. We deny that choice is free, because through man’s innate wickedness it is of necessity driven to what is evil and cannot seek anything but evil. And from this it is possible to deduce what a great difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined. (John Calvin, BLW pp 69, 70)

The Bondage and Liberation of the Will by John Calvin

On another similar topic, we must remember, since prior to salvation all are "in Adam" and void of the Holy Spirit, so there is no hope for us to be saved if left to ourselves. But God is merciful and He shows His mercy by doing something that is indeed against our fallen will, when He rescues us. To give you an illustration, if a parent saw their 3 year old child run out in the street, true love would not give them the "free will" to chose whether to be hit by a car or not, but would, rather, at the risk of their life, run out and scoop up the child making certain their child was not hit because the parent knows better than the child.

Which would be more loving? 1) for the parent to leave the final choice to be run over to the child's "free will" OR 2) For the parent to make certain that the job gets done, even at the expense of the child's so called "free will"? Similarly, the love God revealed in the Bible is one in which He makes certain his loved ones are delivered from His wrath, in spite of ourselves, for He always knows better than we. Frankly, I don't mind if He voilates my "free will" if it means that He is doing something for my good that I am blinded to in my stubborn, stiff-necked, fallen state. Remember, he does not reward us for faith, but gives us faith that we might be rewarded (John 6:63-65).

This is a bit better...

When bad music meets even worse theology...

God is so great He leaves everything up to us...

Has Science Buried God?

Dr. John Lennox (Professor of Mathmatics at the University of Oxford) delivered the following lectures at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Lennox has publically debated both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He is also the author of the excellent God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

The New Atheism and Morality, Part 1 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

The New Atheism and Morality, Part 2 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

John Piper - Grasping God's Love

Sunday's Sermon

Last Sunday I preached a message dealing with the primary motives for missions entitled "On Mission for the Glory of God". You can listen to or download the message HERE.

Thinking Biblically about Social Justice (2)

Kevin Deyoung continues his series on how we can think biblically about social justice. In his most recent post he addresses Isaiah 58 where God declares that he does not value religious ritual from those who neglect weightier matters of obedience.

God is not impressed with fastidious religious observance when the daily lives of his people are filled with negligence and oppression. God says, in effect, “Your fasting and sackcloth are meaningless to me so long as you continue in rank disobedience to more important commands.”

How were the Israelites sinful? They oppressed their workers, which usually meant defrauding them of agreed upon wages (v. 3; James 5:4). They quarreled and “hit with a wicked fist” (4). They conducted business and sought their own pleasure on the Sabbath (13).

What should God’s people have done? They should have loosed the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free (6). They should have shared bread with the hungry, clothed the naked, and welcomed in the homeless poor (7). God promised “your light [shall] break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily” but only when the Israelites acted righteously and poured themselves out for the hungry and the afflicted (8-10).

Clearly, caring for the poor, the hungry, the afflicted is not a liberal thing to do. It is a biblical thing to do. We must allow this uncomfortable chapter to discomfort us a bit. Those of us in conservative circles can get all sorts of religious ritual right, but it counts for nothing and less than nothing if we do not love our neighbors as ourselves.

DeYoung goes on to explain that the application of these principles is not as easy as some would have us believe.

The implications of Isaiah 58 are straightforward: God’s people should hate oppression and love to help the poor.

Without wanting to mitigate this conclusion, let me offer two other comments.

1. Even though I’ve labeled this series with familiar phrase “social justice,” I don’t think that is best way to describe helping the poor. As I’ve pointed out before, “social justice” in its historical origins suggests a certain view of the world where disparity in wealth is considered de facto injustice. Therefore helping the poor is not a matter of kindness or mercy but a matter of justice. Everyone deserves their “fair share” of the society’s resources. Anything less is oppression.

But we see in Isaiah 58 that letting the oppressed go free is not the same as sharing your bread with the hungry. Granted, it could be. Perhaps the same people oppressing their workers were now being told to help them instead of harm them. But by definition, I would argue that pouring yourself out for the hungry is a matter of compassion for your fellow human being, not necessarily a matter of remedying an injustice.

2. While general principle–help the poor don’t harm them–is abundantly and repeatedly clear in Scripture, the application of this principle is less so. For example, does a passage like Isaiah 58 support state-sponsored redistribution efforts? Christians can and do argue for this, but this text certainly doesn’t require this solution to poverty.

And what should our priorities be in helping the poor? Are Christians responsible for everyone in the world? Everyone in society? I would argue there is an obligation first to our family (1 Tim. 5:8) and then to our brothers in the church (1 John 3:17; Gal. 6:10). Also, we should respond to urgent needs right in front of us when our assistance will be helpful (Luke 10:29-37). Finally, we should do good to everyone as we have opportunity as shaped by our vocation and calling (Gal. 6:10).

Other questions of application might include: What is the best way to help the poor in modern society? What about the poor overseas? To what degree is all of this the mission of the church and to what extent is this work simply the outgrowth of godly living in the world? Isaiah 58 doesn’t answer these and other questions. But it does lay the groundwork for caring about these questions and, more importantly, caring about the real people for whom questions about poverty and justice are not blog fodder but matters of life and death.

Believing is the evidence, not the cause of the new birth

Endangered Species?

Al Mohler comments on a stunning and tragic reality: the disproportionately high number of black babies aborted in America.

Catherine Davis is a woman with a message, and that message is getting harder to ignore. "Black children are an endangered species."

The Director of Minority Outreach for Georgia Right to Life, Davis is taking that message to the public, along with a massive public awareness campaign that has captured national and international attention. Drivers in the metro Atlanta area are seeing billboards that demand attention -- and are changing minds.

Her argument is simple and the statistics are irrefutable. She accuses abortion providers in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular, of targeting blacks for abortion. She told The New York Times, "The impact of abortion has become so great that it has begun to impact our fertility rate."

Consider the chilling facts documented in the data. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 57.4% of the abortions performed in Georgia in 2006 were performed on African-American women, but blacks make up only 30% of Georgia's population. Nationwide, the pattern is similarly stacked against black babies -- black women have approximately 37% of all abortions each year, while blacks make up only 13% of the national population.

You can see why Catherine Davis' message demands attention. She points also to the fact that, in Georgia, every single abortion clinic is located in areas of black concentration. She argues, quite pointedly, that this amounts to an intentional effort to reduce the black population in the United States.

Read the entire article HERE.

Preaching and the church's health

"A preaching ministry is absolutely essential to the health and prosperity of a visible church. The pulpit is the place where the chief victories of the Gospel have always been won, and no Church has ever done much for the advancement of true religion in which the pulpit has been neglected. Would we know whether a minister is a truly apostolical man?

"If he is, he will give the best of his attention to his sermons. He will labor and pray to make his preaching effective, and he will tell his congregation that he looks to preaching for the chief results on souls. The minister who exalts the sacraments, or forms of the Church, above preaching, may be a zealous, earnest, conscientious, and respectable minister; but his zeal is not according to knowledge. He is not a follower of the apostles."

- J.C. Ryle

What did you expect?

Paul Tripp from Crossway on Vimeo.