A View from 6000 Feet

Which is the Best Bible Translation?

2011-05-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

For over two hundred years, the King James Version (KJV) reigned supreme as the English Bible. However, there are a number of reasons why it is not the best translation for daily use for most Christians. Among these reasons are: 1) Since the translation of the KJV, many more Greek manuscripts have been discovered that give us a better picture of what was in the original writings of the New Testament letters, 2) Since the translation of the KJV our knowledge the ancient languages and ancient cultures has increased. 3) Since the KJV, our understanding of linguistics has increased. Most importantly, 4) the KJV uses archaic language that is not easily understood (and often misunderstood) by modern readers.

For most people, the discussions about ancient languages and manuscripts seems a bit esoteric. Furthermore, these factors account for little difference in the most popular translations. The real issue is, which is the most accurate translation?

The problem of “literal” translations

While this seems like a straightforward question, is a bit more complicated. The question, “which is the most accurate?” can be taken in two ways? By most accurate, does one mean the translation that is the most literal or does most accurate mean the translation that gives the modern reader the most accurate understanding?

Some might think that the most accurate translation is the one that is the most literal. That is, a translation is accurate by translating word for word from the original language to English. However, there are times that a “word for word” translation leads to an inaccurate, misleading, or unintelligible translation.

For example, if a Spanish speaker wants to say “My nose is cold” in Spanish, she would say, “Tengo frio en la nariz.” However, a literal translation of that sentence into English would be “I have cold in my nose.” In this case, a word for word translation would be misleading. One might think this person is saying that she has a runny or stuffed up nose. So, even though it is a word for word translation, it is inaccurate and misleading.

If you say “Thank you,” to someone and he replies in Spanish, he would probably say, “De nada.” However, a word-for-word translation of de nada would be “of” [de] “nothing” [nada]. Yet, that does not make sense in English. Once again, a word for word translation would be misleading.

Another problem with trying to translate strictly word-for-word from one language to another is that most words have a wide range of meanings. Few words in one language have the exact same range of meaning as a word in a different language. Their meanings overlap, but they are not identical.

For example, consider the English word “capital.” If I said, “I am trying to raise capital to start a business in the Colorado capital of Denver (where the “D” should be a capital letter). I thought that was a capital idea. In Denver, murder is a capital offense.” In the first instance, the word “capital” means money. However, if I translated it consistently that way, then it would make sense. It would read, “I am trying to raise money to start a business in the Colorado money of Denver (where the “D” should be a money letter). I thought that was a money idea. In Denver, murder is a money offense.”

Another problem with a literal, word-for-word translation is that it usually does not sound very natural. The beauty of a phrase or passage can be lost by the literalness of the translation. The beauty and style are part of the meaning. That is, not only the meaning of the words, but how words sound, are part of the meaning of a passage of Scripture.

For example, Shakespeare said, “A rose is a rose by any other name.” A person might “translate” that as, “No matter what name you give to a rose, it is still a rose.” In one sense, the two sentences mean the same thing. In another, they are very different. The reader does not react to the second sentence in the same way he would to the first. In translating the Bible, the meaning is not only conveyed in the particular content of each word, but also in the sound and style of the sentence.

A final problem with literal translations is that there are times when a literal translation simply very difficult to understand in English. At times, the Apostle Paul writes very long sentences in the Greek. Because of the differences between Greek grammar and English grammar, these sentences are intelligible in the Greek, but would be very confusing in English. That is why most, if not all, English translations, break up some of Paul’s long sentences into shorter ones.

Bill Mounce, who was the New Testament Editor for the English Standard Version (ESV) as well as a member of the New International Version (NIV) translation committee writes, “I wonder if a ‘literal’ translation that makes no real sense in English can accurately be called ‘literal,’ or even a translation that makes a biblical writer sound almost illiterate. . .I am simply wondering if a ‘word of word’ translation that makes no real sense can in any way be called ‘accurate.’”[1]

The problem of non-literal translations

All translations require some interpretative work on the part of the translator. However, when one is dealing with the Word of God, the desire is to keep interpretation to a minimum. As Christians who believe in that the Bible is inspired (literally, God-breathed), we believe that the Bible is inerrant as originally given.[2] Because we believe that every word of Scripture, and not just the ideas, are inspired by God, we desire to have translations that reflect this most accurately. The less literal a translation, the more interpretive it is. Since our desire is to read God’s Word, and not merely an interpretation of God’s Word, the more a translation can reflect the original meaning and the original wording, the better.

In an attempt to “smooth” out a translation to make it readable to the English reader, some aspects of the original are lost. For example, in Galatians, the Apostle Paul uses the Greek word for “flesh” 18 different times. Yet, this one word is translated several different ways by modern translations. The chart below shows how both the NIV and the ESV handle this word.

Verse	NIV	ESV
Galatians 1:16	I did not consult any man	I did not immediately consult with anyone
Galatians 2:16	no one will be justified.	no one will be justified.
Galatians 2:20	The life I live in the body	the life I now live in the flesh
Galatians 3:3	are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?	are you now being perfected by the flesh
Galatians 4:13	because of an illness	because of a bodily ailment
Galatians 4:14	Even though my illness was a trial to you	and though my condition was a trial to you
Galatians 4:23	was born in the ordinary way;	born according to the flesh
Galatians 4:29	born in the ordinary way	born according to the flesh
Galatians 5:13	But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature	Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh
Galatians 5:16	the desires of the sinful nature	the desires of the flesh
Galatians 5:17	For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.	For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh
Galatians 5:19	The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:	Now the works of the flesh are evident
Galatians 5:24	Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature	those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
Galatians 6:8	The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction;	For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption
Galatians 6:12	Those who want to make a good impression outwardly	It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh
Galatians 6:13	they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh	they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh

In this instance, the NIV translates the word for flesh nine different ways and the ESV translates it five different ways. Neither translation is woodenly literal. Yet, each can be given to different misunderstandings. If a new Christian were to read the ESV, he might misunderstand what Paul is saying and think that the body itself is evil. He could fall into a dualism that sees the spiritual world as good and the physical world as evil. On the other hand, with both translations, especially the NIV, one misses the thread of “flesh” that Paul has woven throughout the book of Galatians. He will not see the connections that Paul might be making throughout the book, particularly in the way he uses the word “flesh” in chapters 5 and 6.

If the language sounds stilted or wooden, or it sounds like the Bible was written by someone for whom English is not their natural language, then part of the meaning and impact of a text is lost.

Bottom Line – Which is the Best Translation?

I don’t think there is a single answer to this question. Fortunately, there does not need to be a single best translation. I think most Christians are best served by having more than one Bible translation. Here are the translations I recommend for various uses:

English Standard Version – (Literal) Good for everyday use for most Christians. Also good for detailed study of a passage of Scripture. Tends to be more literal.

New International Version – (More Readable) Good for new Christians and for reading larger sections of Scripture. However, I must confess I do not like some of the changes they have made with the 2011 version.

New American Standard Bible – (Very Literal) This is the most literal translation Available. If you want to know what the Greek says, this is the Bible to get. However, it is lacking in beauty and readability.

The Message – (Very Readable) This is very dynamic and does a good job of conveying the sense in modern English. This is good both for those who are very familiar with the Bible and for those who have no familiarity at all. For those who are very familiar, this translation will shed a different light on certain passages. For those who are not familiar at all, this is the most readable translation available. However, it is not very literal and is highly interpretative. For most Christians, I would recommend this as a supplement to their study and not as their “main” Bible.

The Living Bible and The New Living Translation – (Very Readable) The Living Bible is a paraphrase. That is, the “translator” simply took the King James and put it into modern English. This Bible is very nostalgic to me because it was the Bible I used in my early years of high school and helped the Word come alive to me. Both of these are good for new believers and for reading large sections of the Bible.

[1] http://www.koinoniablog.net/2010/09/mounce75.html

[2] For more on this, see either the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy or the Ligonier Statement.

A History of the King James Bible

2011-04-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

May 1 marks the 400th Anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. In honor of the occasion, I will be posting some articles on the Bible, Bible Translation, and the authority of the Bible. This is the first in the series.

The Old Testament has 39 books which were written in primarily in Hebrew, although some portions of Daniel and Ezra were written in Aramaic. By the 3^rd century BC, many Jewish people were no longer living in Israel. As a result, for many of them, Hebrew was not their native tongue. A work was begun to translate the Old Testament into the common language, which at that time was Greek. This Greek translation of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint. We do not know a lot about the history behind this translation. However, we do know that it became very popular. When the New Testament writers quote from the Old Testament, they often use the Septuagint.

All 27 books of the New Testament were written in Greek because Greek was the common language of the day.

The Latin Vulgate

By the 4^th century AD, few people spoke Greek any more. In order to make the Bible accessible to the people, the church authorized Jerome to translate the whole Bible into Latin. There were some Latin versions already available, but none of them were complete and may not have been the most accurate. Jerome was uniquely qualified for this task because he was one of the few Christians who not only could read Greek (the New Testament) but also Hebrew (the Old Testament. His translation of the Bible was called the Vulgate. The word “Vulgate” comes from the same Latin word from which we get the word vulgar. This does not mean the translation is crude. Rather, it means common. The Latin Vulgate was a translation of the Bible into the common tongue.

Just as the Greek language passed away, so did Latin. However, instead of translating the Bible into modern languages, as the church had done with the Vulgate, the church insisted that the Latin Vulgate (itself a translation) was the official version. The church was concerned that, if the Bible was translated into the common language, people would come up with interpretations that were contrary to the official position of the church. So, in order to protect the teaching authority of the church, the church refused to translate the Bible into the common language and even banned modern translations. Even though nobody spoke Latin, church services were still conducted in Latin and the Bible was still read in Latin. Sadly, the Vulgate, which was meant to be a translation to make the Bible accessible to the people, became a tool to keep the Bible from the people.

Back to the Originals

The Renaissance (14^th – 17^th centuries) brought a revival of learning to Europe. With this, there was a renewed interest in studying the classical writings in Greek and Latin. This also created a renewed interest in reading the Bible in its original languages (Hebrew and Greek) rather than in the Latin translation. This was one of the factors that led to the great revival of the church we now call the Protestant Reformation.

One of the scholars who developed a keen interest in reading the New Testament in the original Greek was named Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536). However, Erasmus and other scholars were facing a challenge. As with all ancient documents, the original copies of the New Testament books no longer existed. Instead, there were various ancient copies, or manuscripts, scattered around the world. At this time, no one had a complete New Testament in the original Greek. So, Erasmus decided that he would gather the evidence and put together a New Testament in the Greek based on the best available copies.

At the same time Erasmus was putting together his edition of the Greek text, Cardinal Ximenes in Spain was working on one as well. According to some historians, there was some pressure on Erasmus to get his work to the publisher first. Consequently, he rushed the project, resulting in numerous typographical errors in the original printing. Also, there were some places where Erasmus did not have any copies of Greek manuscripts. In order to complete his Greek New Testament, he translated from the Latin back into the Greek. In the process, he created some Greek words that do not exist anywhere else. Some of these stayed in the Greek text (later called the Textus Receptus) and were used as the foundation for parts of subsequent translations of the Bible, including the King James Version.

Despite its flaws, Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was a tremendous advance in helping the church return to the Bible. Over time, others edited and improved Erasmus’ text. In 1633, the publishers marketed the Greek text by claiming, “you hold the text, now received by all, in which nothing corrupt.” This is how Erasmus Greek New Testament became known as the Textus Receptus, or Received Text. It then served as the basis for Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German and even served as the foundation for the King James Version in English.

Early English Versions

In the 14^th century, John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate into English. While there is some evidence that other parts of the Bible had been translated into English before Wycliffe, he was the first to translate the whole Bible. The English of the 1300’s was very different from the English of today or even the 17^th century when the King James Version was translated. Here is how Wycliffe translated John 3:16: “For God louede so the world, that he gaf his oon bigetun sone, that ech man that bileueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf.”

In 1526, William Tyndale, inspired by what Luther had done in translating the Bible into German, published his translation of the New Testament in English based on Erasmus’ text. Because the Roman Catholic Church was still in control of England, Tyndale’s Bible was not authorized and, like Wycliffe’s Bible before it, was banned. Tyndale was martyred in 1536 for his work in bringing the Bible to the people.

Tyndale never finished translating the Old Testament. One his disciples, Myles Coverdale, together with John Rogers, completed the work. In 1535, the Coverdale Bible, as it became known, was the first complete English version of the Bible ever published. It is safe to say that no man has had more influence on the English Bible and the English language than William Tyndale. His work became the foundation for all future English translations, including the King James Bible.

By 1539, Henry VIII was on the throne. He had broken with the Catholic Church. As a result, the people were now free to read the Bible in their own language. Coverdale was then hired by Thomas Cramner to publish an English Bible for public use. This was the first authorized English version. It became known as The Great Bible, primarily because of its large size—it measured over 15 inches tall.

In 1553, Queen Mary, also known as Bloody Mary, ascended to the throne in England. Under her reign, the Protestants once again suffered great persecution. During this time, John Rogers and Thomas Cramner were both burned at the stake. Myles Coverdale fled to Geneva, the home of the great Reformer, John Calvin. In 1560, they published a new English Bible, known as the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible had notes in the margins, much like today’s modern study Bibles. It also was the first English version to add chapter and verse numbers. The chapter and verse divisions that it used are now the standard for Bibles today. The Geneva Bible retained most of Tyndale’s original translation.

After the death of Queen Mary, the Protestants were able to return to England and the English Bible was allowed to be read openly. However, some of the English clergy did not like the distinctly Calvinistic and anti-establishment notes of the Geneva Bible. So, in 1568, they published a revised version of The Great Bible, which became known as The Bishop’s Bible. However, this Bible never became very popular. It seemed that people preferred the Geneva Bible.

The King James Version

In 1604, the Puritan clergy approached King James about producing a new English translation to replace the authorized Bishop’s Bible. The king accepted their proposal, but rejected their involvement. He did not like the Calvinistic spirit of the Geneva Bible (the very thing the Puritans liked). There is some evidence that his primary concern was that the Geneva Bible was undermining his authority as well as the teachings of the Anglican Church.

Even though this became the official translation of the Church of England, it was not warmly received by the people. There was just as much controversy surrounding it as today’s modern translations. The Puritans, including those who came to America, as well as other non-conformists, continued to use the Geneva Bible. Even when the English stopped printing the Geneva Bible, people continued to smuggle new copies in from Amsterdam. However, in the 18^th century, The King James Bible became the exclusive Bible for most churches in the English speaking world.

Over the years, the King James Bible has undergone revisions. In fact, there were so many revisions by different printers that in 1769, a new Standard Text was released. In fact, even though there are printings of King James Versions that claim to be the 1611 edition most likely are the Standard Text of 1769. While the text of 1769 differs from the 1611 version in about 24,000 places, most of these are changes in spelling.

The King James Bible was, and still is, a masterful translation. It is not as literal as some of our modern versions, like the New American Standard (NASB) or the English Standard Version (ESV), but might be considered more literal than the New International Version (NIV). Yet, it captures the beauty and the original text in ways that no other English translation has done to date. It has shaped our language and our religious practices. For many in the English speaking world, passages like the 23^rd Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer do not sound right unless one uses the form of the King James Version. Just like the Latin Vulgate and other translations that had gone before, some people—even to this day—believed that the King James Bible is the only inspired and proper Bible.

Since the English language has changed a great deal since 1611 (and even 1769), the King James Bible is not the best translation for most modern readers. However, we can all be thankful for the remarkable impact it has had on the church and the English speaking world.

Bibliography

Some of the material in this article comes from notes dating back to my college and seminary days. As a result, I no longer know the original source of the information. However, much of this data can be gathered from the following sources:

Bruce, F. F., History of the Bible in English

The King James Bible Trust, www.kingjamesbibletrust.org

Metzger, Bruce and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament.

Ryken, Leland, The Legacy of the King James Bible

Silva, Moises, Introduction to the New Testament, lectures given at Westminster Theological Seminary, available on ITunesU or www.wts.edu.

Church and Culture (Part 3)

2011-04-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

The following was adapted from a my old blog that I posted on May 24, 2006.

A few years ago, Os Guinness wrote a book on the modern church growth movement entitled, Dining with the Devil. It comes from the expression, “If you are going to dine with the Devil, then you must use a very long spoon.” In our pursuit of relevance, I wonder if our spoon has been long enough.

In a nutshell, here is the problem: in our desire to be culturally relevant and reach lost people, we have worked hard to grab their attention and speak with relevance. Much of the results of this have been good. In many “contemporary” churches, we have seen many people come to church and eventually to Christ that never would have gone to church before. The truth of the Bible has not been veiled behind unintelligible cultural practices. Lives truly have been changed by the gospel.

However, churches have not just grown by attracting non-Christians, but by attracting Christians. People now crave relevance more and more. In reality, they want a church that entertains them and puts on a good show. We have created a church that values entertainment over doctrine. I heard a pastor of one of the largest churches in my denomination (a true megachurch) say, "If we changed our theology, a few people might leave. If we changed our music, half the church would be gone by next Sunday." I know many traditional church pastors who would say the same thing.

I agree that church should not be boring. God isn’t boring. It is the equivalent of a modern miracle how we preachers can talk about our amazing God in such a way that puts people to sleep. However, the danger is, when you build your church on having a good “show,” you now have created an appetite for entertainment that constantly needs to be fed.

While the contemporary church has been far more successful in reaching lost people than the traditional church (look at the PCA’s statistics on those joining by profession of faith and this is apparent), it also has grown by attracting people who are bored with their old church. If people come to your church because yours is more exciting than their old church, then they will leave when they find another church that is more exciting than yours.

This has created a consumer mindset in church members. The members of the church no longer see themselves as owners/ministers, but as consumers. Just as they will leave Safeway to shop at Wal-Mart, they will leave one church for another if it provides a better show or better services for their family. (For more on this, see http://www.faithworks.com/archives/church_hopping.htm)

We are seeing this all over the country. I can cite a number of examples in my own denomination where a church was once “the hot church” in its community, but now is experiencing decline because some other church has come that puts on a better production. The drive for cultural relevance has resulted in consumerism. Consumerism will eventually bite the church. It is a beast that cannot be contained.

Leadership Magazine published an article entitled iChurch: All We Like Sheep that illustrates this growing problem. It is long on diagnosis and short on prescription. However, that in itself may not be a bad thing. The first step in solving any problem is acknowledging that there is one. This article moves us toward that end.

What now?

So, now that we have seen the dangers of cultural relevance, do we return to cultural irrelevance? Of course not. That is unbiblical. We must continue to work to contextualize the gospel without compromising the gospel.

I do not know what the whole answer is, but part of it is that we must call people to radical discipleship. If people are living for the glory of God, living with a sense of mission, then they cannot live as consumers as well. So, we need to challenge people to see that their calling in Christ is not merely to pursue their own comfort, but to pursue the glory of God and the good of others.

Will this solve the problem? It depends on what you see as the problem. It won’t solve the problem of the church having a revolving door. Most people will always be consumers. They are fully enculturated and, until the gospel takes root, they will not be disenculturated. However, it will solve the problem for some because some will get it. If we help people to see that part of the message of the gospel is “Take up your cross and follow me”, the Holy Spirit will empower many to do just that.

I am not optimistic about reversing the consumerism trend. However, I am extremely optimistic that, if we focus as much energy on calling people to radical discipleship as we do on being culturally relevant, that we will see a new generation of disciples who will joyfully answer Christ’s call to live for Christ and His mission. When the traditionalist is willing to give up his tradition and the “contemporary” Christian is willing to give up his craving for personal fulfillment, then the church will once again be a powerful force in our world.

Church and Culture (Part 2)

2011-04-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I reread George G. Hunter’s The Celtic Way of Evangelism (Abingdon Press). This may be the most thought provoking book I have read on how the church can/should minister in the post-modern world. To help us understand how to reach the contemporary world, Hunter takes us back to the days of St. Patrick. [Let me add a disclaimer. Just because I like a book, that does not mean I agree with everything in the book or even all of its conclusions.]

Most people think of Patrick as Irish and, one might argue, that he became Irish. However, he was born a Briton. Patrick was born in Britain in the year 387. When he was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by the wild people of Ireland and forced to live as a slave. However, six years later, he escaped and (eventually) returned to Britain. Upon his return, he entered the priesthood. After a few years, he believed the Lord was calling him to return to Ireland as a missionary. So, he petitioned the church to send him there. However, the church was reluctant to do so because the church at that time did not believe the Irish could ever become Christians. Why? Because the Irish were barbarians. Hunter notes that, “The perspective of the ancient Roman Christian leaders can be baldly stated in two sentences: (1) Roman Christian leaders assumed that a population had to be civilized "enough" already to be Christianized, that is, that some degree of civilization was a prerequisite to Christianization. (2) Once a sufficiently civilized population became Christian, they were expected in time to read and speak Latin, to adopt other Roman customs, and to do church ‘the Roman way.’”

Still, Patrick went and his ministry was hugely successful. He planted 700 churches and ordained 1000 of these wild Irish “barbarians” to the priesthood. Within his lifetime, estimates are that 30-40 of Irelands 150 tribes became substantially Christian. Furthermore, the Irish then sent missionaries back to the barbarian tribes of Europe. Following Patrick’s model of ministry, they too saw huge success where other missionaries had failed.

You would think that the church in Rome would have celebrated Patrick’s success and the success of his followers among the Germanic peoples. Instead, the church powers of the day were highly critical. The reason was that Patrick and the church movement that he birthed did not do church in “the Roman way.” This all came to a head in 664 at the Synod of Whitby. The two major issues were 1) that the Celtic churches celebrated Easter on a different date than Rome prescribed (they used an earlier dating method than Rome) and 2) the Celtic priests and monks wore their hair differently than the Roman priests and monks. The Roman church wanted all churches to do things exactly the way they did it. They wanted cultural uniformity and insisted that the all others adapt to their culture. The church could not be indigenous to its location. The result of the Synod of Whitby was that Christianity could not longer be indigenous, but must be “Roman.” Within two centuries of Whitby, the missionary movement of the church was effectively squashed. It would not be until the Reformation that the church would recapture its missionary vision in any significant way.

The Roman Church insisted that churches be Roman in their practices. Of course, there was no biblical basis for this. The early church in Jerusalem did not dress Roman, it did not speak Latin primarily. It did not look “Roman.” It looked Jewish in its cultural forms. Yet, within 400 years, the early church had gone from insisting on Jewish cultural forms to Roman cultural forms.

The same issue presents itself today. The western church today looks very different from both the Roman church of Patrick’s day and the Jewish church of the Apostle Paul’s day. The Christians of the early church (and Patrick’s church) would have found many of our church practices shocking. Our music--even in the most traditional of our churches--would have been strange to them. The formality of our dress would have been foreign to them. Yet, just like the Romans of Patrick’s day, many Christians, even Christian leaders, insist that the only right cultural form for doing church is that which was established 400 years ago. However, we must recognize that something is terribly wrong when we insist that “the right way” of doing things is a cultural form that would have been completely foreign to both Jesus and the Apostle Paul.

There are some valuable lessons that we can, and should, learn from Patrick. One is, if the gospel is going to take root in a culture and bring real transformation, it must be indigenous. That is why the church in Colorado Springs can and should look different from a church in Haiti. Of course, there are biblical norms that transcend culture. If one studies Scripture (and even church history), one can discern those norms. When it comes to how to “do church,” the church must insist on Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone must be our only rule for faith and practice. We cannot make our own cultural practices normative for all people.

This is a problem in my own denomination. Years ago, I was at General Assembly (the national gathering of the leaders of our denomination) and in the public discussion, a minister stated that the church should be like McDonald’s. That is, you should be able to go to any Presbyterian Church in America any place in the country and it should be exactly like all the others. Not only that, this same minister insisted that we should use only the Psalter in worship. As if that were not bad enough, he insisted that we should sing the Scottish Psalter to the old Scottish tunes. This minister is a highly intelligent, educated man, far more so than I. Yet, where in the Bible does it canonize Scottish music? Must every American become a Scot in order to be a Christian? Sadly, some would say “yes.”

Yet, we must take seriously the Apostle Paul's declaration "I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some." (1 Corinthians 9:22, NASB). Paul never compromised the gospel. He never engaged or advocated sinful practices or bad theology. However, he did adapt in culturally appropriate ways in order to take the gospel to the world. We must do the same.

Hunter begins his book with an obvious statement followed by a rather provocative one. His obvious statement is “The Church, in the Western world, faces populations who are increasingly "secular"-people with no Christian memory, who don't know what we Christians are talking about.” That is, the culture is undergoing a dramatic shift. His provocative statement is “In the face of this changing Western culture, many Western Church leaders are in denial; they plan and do church as though next year will be 1957.”

This raises some important questions: Which is more important to us: our culture and comfort or God’s mission? Are we willing to adapt, in biblically appropriate ways, in order to achieve God’s mission, or are we, like the Roman’s of Patrick’s day, going to insist that our culture adapt to us? Do we view the mission of God as a nuisance or is it central to who we are as the people of God?

The Church and Culture (Part 1)

2011-04-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

One of the great obstacles to the mission of the church is the church. The church can become so busy and preoccupied with herself that she sees her misssion as an "add-on," an appendix to her ministry rather than central to her life and purpose. This is not a modern problem, but has been a struggle since the church's earliest days.

In the book of Acts, Jesus commissioned the church to be His witness in "Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Yet, for the most part, the church stayed in a holy huddle in Jerusalem until God scattered the church through persecution (Acts 8:1-4).

Yet, even after this, in the "glory days" of the early church, there was still resistance to God's mission. We live nearly 20 centuries after the days of the early church. Since we already know the rest of the story, it is hard for us to imagine how precarious the early Christian movement actually was in the book of Acts. Yet, the early church nearly imploded over the issue of mission.

Paul was commissioned by Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the Gentiles. No one was openly opposed to this. In fact, the early Jewish Christians were very open to reaching out to the great unwashed herd, as long as the Gentiles adopted Jewish cultural practices.

Therein lies the rub. Paul saw great success in his ministry to the Gentiles. However, when these Gentile Christians were converted, they remained Gentiles. They did not adopt Jewish cultural practices. They did not observe the Jewish holy days. They did not adopt Jewish dress. They did not observe the Jewish dietary laws and, worst of all, they did not get circumcised. This was scandalous to many back in Jerusalem. It caused such an uproar that Paul was recalled back to Jerusalem and the church had to convene its first council (Acts 15). Tensions were high at the Jerusalem Council. The mission of the church was hanging in the balance. On the one side where those who said that Gentiles could follow Jesus, as long as they became like the Jews. On the other side was Paul, who said that the Gentiles did not need to adopt Jewish customs, only the Christian faith. If, in the providence of God, Peter had not offered such a compelling speech, the mission of the church would have been lost and the early church would have blown apart. Of course, God did not allow that to happen, but the stakes were that high.

No doubt, the presence of Gentiles in the church made many of the Jewish believers uncomfortable. Can you imagine what it was like the first time someone brought pork to a covered dish dinner? How do you think the elderly Jewish man who from childhood had observed the law reacted when he had to sit next to a Gentile at church who did not even observe the Levitical law on cleanliness? It must have been scandalous to these early Christians. These unwashed Gentiles were coming in to THEIR church and doing all sorts of things that a good Jew would never do.

I wonder if they had battles about music. I do not know anything about 1st century music, but I am sure the musical forms of Greek and Roman culture were different from the musical forms of the Middle East. We do know that the Jews of that era (and the centuries before) objected strongly to the hellenization of their culture. Can you imagine how those early Jews felt when their beloved psalms were sung to hellenized music and even sung in Greek? Such a thing never would have happened in the synagogue.

This is a bit speculative. What is not speculative is that the early church struggled greatly with the issue of mission and adapting their ministry to reach a Gentile culture. Even the Apostle Peter, the same man who had a direct vision for God about the inclusion of the Gentiles (Acts 10), and who gave such a stirring speech at the Jerusalem Council, had great difficulty not looking down his nose at the uncouth Gentiles. He wouldn't even sit at the same table as them until Paul rebuked him for his hypocrisy (Galatians 2).

The issue then, as it is now, is this: what is more important to the church--maintaining the cultural purity of the church which is so prized by its members, or the mission of the church? This is not an issue of theological or biblical compromise. The truth of Scripture must shape culture, not be shaped by it. The church must not allow the world to squeeze it into its mold (Romans 12:1-2). Yet, when the church clings to its culture over against its mission, it has become worldly. A neglect of mission is itself theological compromise. When the church insists that her beloved cultural forms, the ones not mandated by Scripture, are more important than the mission given to her by her Lord, then the church has lost her way.

In 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul reminds us of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. He writes, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor so that you through His poverty might become rich." Paul writes these words to inspire the early Christians to sacrifice for the sake of others. The same principle applies to the mission of the church. If Jesus was willing to give up His comfort in order to reach us, shouldn't we be willing to give up our personal preferences and cultural forms for the purpose of reaching others?

Is Science God? A Brief Review of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking

2011-03-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that I am not a scientist. I barely passed science in college due to a lack of both interest and ability. However, my understand is that The Grand Design, much like his previous best-seller, A Brief History of Time, was written with the non-scientist in mind. If that is the case, then I am the best qualified reviewer of this book because no one qualifies more for the title “non-scientist” than I. Since I am not a scientist and since there were a number of concepts in the book that I failed to understand, my concern in the book has less to do with his scientific conclusions and more with his philosophical beliefs and conclusions.

Hawking begins with the assumption that math and science alone are the only reliable guides to truth. He asserts, “…Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”

Hawking states that his goal is to answer three questions: “Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other?” Yet, he never answers these questions, at least not in the sense that most readers would understand them. His answer to the question of “why” is an answer of causation, not purpose. That is, he says that the answer to these questions can be summed up in scientific laws like gravity and M-theory. These theories explain cause, but they do not explain purpose. This difference may seem subtle, but it is very important.

Let me illustrate the difference between cause and purpose this way. Suppose I was at your house and you gave me a drink in your finest crystal. As we are talking, I intentionally let go of the crystal. It falls to the ground, exploding into a thousand pieces. You might look at me and ask, “Why did the crystal break?” I might say, “Because the gravity the earth is so strong that it attracted the crystal with such force that it collided with the floor. Since your tile floor is stronger than the crystal, the crystal shattered on impact.” I just answered the question truthfully. I explained why. However, that was not really what you were asking. You were not asking me to explain the cause of the crystal destruction, but the purpose.

Hawking never answers the purpose question. He never even attempts to answer the real question of why do we exist. He explains it only in terms of natural law, which, for him, is completely impersonal. The only conclusion that he gives to the real “why” question seems to be “because that is how it is.”

Hawking describes his own philosophical position as “scientific determinism.” He defines scientific determinism in this way: “There must be a complete set of laws that, given the state of the universe at a specific time, would specify how the universe would develop from that time forward.” In other words, everything in the universe is predetermined by scientific laws. If that is the case, the even the actions of Stephen Hawking writing his book (or me writing this review) were predetermined by natural law. Both Hawking and I (and you, the reader), are nothing more than complicated robots responding to a set of stimuli ( a comparison he makes later on).

Hawking goes on to say that people do not really make choices. Instead, in comparing us to robots, he writes, “We would therefore have to say that any complex being has free will—not as a fundamental feature, but as an effective theory, an admission of our inability to do the calculations that would enable us to predict its actions.” In other words, it is all predetermined. Any appearance of choice, or any appearance of randomness, is simply an appearance. If it were possible to do all of the calculations of all of the variables, then it would be possible to predict every action of every human being. Of course, there are too many variables. However, that does not change the fact that everything is predetermined. The universe, then, is nothing more than a highly complicated computer program.

Not only does Hawking’s view mean that everything is determined by natural law, it also means that there is no God. He writes, “Given the state of the universe at one time, a complete set of laws fully determines both the future and the past. This would exclude the possibility of miracles or an active role for God. . . A scientific law is not a scientific law if it holds only when some supernatural being decides not to intervene.”

This is nothing more than a naked assertion. He states that a law, by definition is not a law unless it always holds. Therefore, there is no possibility of miracles. However, the definition of a miracle would include, at a minimum, the suspension or abrogation of a law. By asserting that a law can never be broken Hawking does not prove that a law can never be broken. In the same way, he simply asserts that miracles cannot exist. He does not prove this. He rules that out with a wave of his pen.

If one accepts Hawking’s conclusions, then one is left with a meaningless world and a meaningless life. Everything is predetermined by cold, impersonal natural laws. All of our behaviors, our loves, our pleasures, our pains, are simply the out workings of these natural laws. The real why questions, “Why, for what purpose, am I here?” “Why, for what purpose, is this pain in my life?” “Why, for what purpose, should I love my wife, care for my children, or even steward the planet?” are meaningless questions. We are left with a cold, impersonal universe.

One question that the reader is left asking is, why does Hawking (and Dawkins, Harris and others) write with such passion in an attempt to prove that the universe is meaningless? Why is he so adamant that even his own work means nothing in the end? Something is animating him. His own answer would have to be, “I have no choice, but even my passion was scientifically predetermined by the M-Theory.”

The Bible gives another explanation for Hawking’s passion for meaninglessness. Romans 1:18 and following says that natural man suppresses the truth about God in unrighteousness. That is, he knows the truth about God but does not want to acknowledge God. Natural man will go to any lengths, even to the length of denying his own life has purpose, rather than bow down before the Living God.

In contrasts to Hawking’s philosophy of meaningless that has the impersonal laws of math at the center, the Bible offers a philosophy of love. The Bible does not deny natural law, but says that even the laws of nature were created by a loving God. Out of love, this God governs the universe with natural law (and sometimes against them). He does this for His own glory and for the good of the children that He loves. Furthermore, this loving God created people in His own image and intervened into history for the very purpose of having a personal, meaningful relationship with them.

If this is true, if there is a good, loving God governing the universe, then our suffering has meaning. Rather than being the outworking of natural law, which has no purpose, the suffering of God’s people always serves a redemptive purpose. Love, rather than being a chemical response in the brain to certain stimuli, is true passion for another. At the center of the universe, rather than finding nothing, we find a God who works out everything in accordance with his love (Ephesians 1).

In the end, Hawking’s book shows the despair of a world without God. He takes modernism to its logical conclusion. Its logical conclusion is meaninglessness. Life, rather than having any “grand design,” is, in the words of MacBeth, “but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

Thankfully, there is another answer: there is a design because there is a Designer.

Note: I apologize for not including page numbers. I read this on my Kindle before Kindle added the page number feature.

The Church and the Future

2010-06-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Our church (Village Seven Presbyterian Church) has a Christian school called Evangelical Christian Academy (ECA). We do this in partnership with our mother church, Grace Presbyterian Church. In 1985, Grace was comprised of about 350 people. Today, it is less than 70, most of whom are over 70 years of age. The church is no longer capable of maintaining her property or providing for her pastor. Most likely, the church give the property over to ECA, which is an act of incredible generosity and grace.

I have thought about Grace Pres. a lot lately. Their pastor, Rick Fite, is a wonderful man and an excellent pastor. The congregation is full of people who love the Lord deeply and want to see God exalted. They have sacrified to support ECA even though they receive no direct benefit from it. They care about taking the gospel to the nations. For over 50 years, they have been a light in our community. I am so thankful for the tremendous ministry that Grace has had throughout the years. The ministry of Grace Pres. will continue for years to come through ECA, Village Seven, and the many lives touched there by the gospel. In this, we rejoice.

Yet, what is happening at Grace is the natural course for every church and should be a warning to us. We are seeing this all throughout my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. If the church is not intentional in reaching out--particularly in reaching the next generation--it will die. Even more, it is not enough for a church to have ministries to children, like Vacation Bible School or Christian school, it must be a place that is intentionally for the next generation without neglecting those who are present.

Dr. Bryan Chapell, in his wonderful book, Christ-Centered Worship, says, "A church also has no future if leaders only consider how to minister to the present generation. We are mistaken, of course, to let our children determine what our worship should be; we are also mistaken not to consider how their children may need to worship" (p. 131). Dr. Chapell is not advocating the "dumbing down" of worship. Just the opposite. Rather, like the Reformers, he is advocating rich, Reformed worship that is in the language and forms that the worshipper understands.

The church must continually think through all of its ministries to ensure that they are both biblical and effective. Programs that worked in 1970 will not always work today. Communication styles that worked in one era are not always effective in other eras. For example, read John Piper (21st century), Jim Boice (20th century), Charles Spurgeon (19th century), Jonathan Edwards (18th century), John Owens (17th century, and John Calvin (16th century) to see how different these great preachers were. All were biblical. None were shallow, but each fit in his own cultural context. The music and educational formats in each of these eras was different as well.

Our city needs more healthy, biblical churches, not less. Therefore, we must continue to work hard to ensure, not only our present health, but our future ministry at Village Seven. We must continually ensure we are effective in reaching the next generation and start new churches that will share in this vision. If we keep our eye on the Lord and put His mission before our desires, then I trust God will continue to bless us as we seek to be a life giving church to Colorado Springs, the West, and the World.

Immature Men

2010-03-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to refer you to an interesting article. George Will wrote an article at Newsweek on immature men. You can read it here. It seems we have failed to teach men to be men. We are reaping the results. This is a both a great challenge and opportunity for the church.

Christ-Centered Worship

2010-02-25T14:44:00.001-08:00

Starting next week, D.V., we will have a new blog on Village Seven's website. When it is up, I hope to do a weekly post on the topic of worship and related matters. In the meantime, I thought I might do a quick post on Dr. Bryan Chapell's most recent book, Christ-Centered Worship.

Dr. Chapell is president of Covenant Theological Seminary, the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America. He has written numerous books. Two of his most influential books are Christ-Centered Preaching and Holiness by Grace. I imagine this book will make its way onto many pastors' shelves and even some seminaries' curricula.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 - Gospel Worship is the meat of the book. Part 2 - Gospel Worship Resources provides some guidance and some resources on how to implement the different elements of worship.

In Part 1, Dr. Chapell outlines and compares various historic church practices that have influenced worship in the western church. For those who do not have an interest in church history, this may appear to be rather dry. However, what Dr. Chapell does with this survey is very helpful. He shows that, historically, the church's worship has been shaped by the gospel story. Here, Dr. Chapell makes a strong case that the order of a worship service should not be governed by whims, or simply manipulating emotions, but should be shaped by the gospel. He notes, "Church leaders understood that if the message was inconsistent with the means by which it was communicated, then the message could easily get lost" (p.17). So, the very shape of the liturgy, together with its content, tells the gospel.

Not only does the shape of the liturgy tell the gospel, but the gospel drives our decisions about how we do worship. He writes, "Since our worship should have a gospel pattern and purpose, the only biblical way of prioritizing legitimate, but competing, worship concerns is to consider how our worship practices are consistent with our understanding of how we would present the gospel in our context" (p. 122).

Often, you will hear people (usually pastors) say that we do not come to worship to get, but to give God glory. In a chapter entitled, "Re-Presenting" CHrist's Story, Dr. Chapell cuts through this false-dilemna fallacy that pits God's glory against the needs of the people. As he notes, "Making God’s glory the exclusive goal of worship sounds very reverent but actually fails to respect Scriptures own gospel priorities" (p. 119). Instead, "Worship must be offered with concerns for God’s glory and the good of his people. Worship cannot be a reflection of the gospel without both concerns" (p. 121).

In his chapter on The Mission of Christ-Centered Worship, he develops this theme even further. In this chapter, Dr. Chapell gives some clear guidance to churches that have faced the worship wars. Too often, the debate has focused on personal preferences of musical style, with one group seeking to claim biblical superiority to the other. However, as Dr. Chapell points out, "If gospel priorities do not determine worship choices, then people’s preferences will tear the church apart" (p. 130). It is this focus on mission, realizing that the church has been placed by God in a particular context at a particular time, that should shape much of our stylistic decisions in worship.

One of the challenging issues that many churches face is how to blend people together from different generations. Dr. Chapell touches on this issue when he writes, "A church also has no future if leaders only consider how to minister to the present generation. We are mistaken, of course, to let our children determine what our worship should be; we are also mistaken not to consider how their children may need to worship" (p. 131).

Another controversy that faces many churches is, should the church minister to believers or to "seekers?" Chapell again points out that this is a false dilemna. He demonstrates, both from Scripture and church history, that the church has always had three audiences in mind in its worship services: the communicants (adult believers), the catechumens (children and new believers learning the faith), and seekers (those examining whether they will claim the truths of the gospel). He notes, "Being entirely “seeker-oriented” is not really an option for Christ-centered worship. But being “seeker-sensitive” is still an appropriate way to think about worship" (p. 139).

There is more that I can say, and will at a later date, but let me commend this book to you. It will help you think biblically about worship.

Was Jesus Born in a Stable?

2009-12-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

I have been a pastor for over 20 years, which means I have preached on the birth narrative of Jesus in Luke 2 nearly 20 times. It is amazing how one can study and preach the same passage over and over without examining one's assumptions.

Recently, my friend Nabeel Jabbour gave me Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. I can't endorse the whole book, yet, because I have not read it all. However, his first chapter on "The Story of Jesus' Birth" has already challenged some of my assumptions.

The traditional telling of the birth story goes something like this: Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The city is over run with guests. They try to check in to the local inn, but there are no rooms. So, they sleep outside in the stable. Mary and Joseph are all alone as Mary gives birth. There is no one there to help. There only guests are a group of smelly shepherds. The shepherds come, see the homeless people, then leave them there in the stable without any assistance. However, is this an accurate reading of Luke 2?

Bailey brings in some archeological data to challenge this traditional telling. Besides the archeological data, there are problems with this traditional understanding that are right in the verses of Luke 2. The first problem is the translation of the world "inn" in verse 7. The second problem is with the word "all" in verse 18.

The first issue one must confront is the word "inn" in Luke 2:7. Nearly every English translation says something like "there was no room for them in the inn." Most of us, when we think of inn, think of something like a small hotel, or B and B. We think of a commercial lodging. There is a Greek word for this sort of inn, but that is not the word used here. In fact, this word is only used two other places in the New Testament--Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11. In both cases, it is translated as "guest room" and refers to the Upper Room where Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Last Supper. The word is used several times in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament) and no place in the Septuagint does it refer to any thing like an inn, at least not in my reading of those verses.

So, rather than reading "there was no place for them in the inn," Luke 2:7 should read, "there was no place for them in the guest room."

Still, you might ask, "Doesn't it say that Mary wrapped Jesus and put him in a manger? Isn't a manger an animal feeding trough?" Yes, that is all true. However, we must remember that common people did not have large houses and barns in the old days. The people of Bethlehem would have had homes much more akin to those in Third World countries than our 2000-4000 square foot homes in America. Most homes were one room houses. Some would have had a guest room attached, or an "upper room" for guest. In this time, the house would have had a main floor. Then, a few steps below would have been an area where the animals were brought in for the night. Dug out of the floor of the main level, right where the cows could reach it, would have been mangers for the cows. For sheep, there would have been wooden mangers that sat up on the floor. However, these were inside the house, not outside in a separate stable.

For most of us, the idea of bringing your animals into your house for the night sounds rather strange, but this is what they did in the ancient world. Also, it happens still today in some Third World countries. I remember being in Mexico in a rural village. It was not uncommon to be in the bathroom and have a pig wander in. Poorer people did not have the money or land for barns and stables. They kept their animals in their courtyards in the day and in the house at night, just as is the case in rural villages of undeveloped areas today.

The next interesting bit of information directly in the text is found in verse 18. The shepherds come to visit Joseph and Mary. They tell of their encounter with the angelic hosts. When they tell this account, Luke 2:18 says "all who heard it were amazed." The traditional understanding of this verse is this: the shepherds see homeless Joseph, Mary and Jesus. They leave them there, sleeping in the town stable, then go through town telling people about the things that they have seen and, "all" who hear them are amazed. The NIV lends itself to this misunderstanding by saying that the shepherds "spread the word" concerning what had been told to them. "Spread the word" implies that they went all over town telling everyone what happened. That is misleading. The shepherds haven't left the house, yet. When the shepherds speak, all are amazed and Mary Mary is pondering these things. Then, after these things, the shepherds leave. So, I think the ESV gets it better when it says "they made known" rather than the NIV's "spread the word."

The sequences of events as Luke records them is this: 1) The angels appear to the shepherds, 2) the shepherds visit Jesus, 3) the shepherds make known to all what has been told to them, 4) the shepherds return to their fields praising God.

Following the order of events as Luke describe them, that means that the "all" who were amazed at the shepherd's story are those who are gathered around the stable. Luke wouldn't say "all" if he were only talking about Mary and Joseph. It seems that there is a crowd of people gathered there around the manger. That is the plain reading of the verse. Mary and Joseph are not alone, terrified in a barn. They are surrounded by people who are showing them real hospitality.

If this is the case, then it seems that this is what happened: Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem. Someone invites them to their house (probably a relative). The guest room is already full of people. So, the relatives offer Mary and Joseph the lower level connected to the main room of the house. Mary gives birth to Jesus. They clean out the manger and put down fresh straw and put Jesus in it. Later that night, the shepherds arrive. They enter the house and find Mary, Joseph and "all" gathered around. The whole house is up--the owner and family, the guests who are in the guests room--all are their celebrating the birth of Mary's baby. The shepherds arrive. They tell everyone gathered in the house about their encounter with the angels. All are amazed at what they say. Mary, however, ponders these things. Then, the shepherds leave praising God.

I'm not saying we need to get rid of our creche's with the cute little stables, but that may not be an accurate picture of the birth of Jesus. Still, if you have a manger scene in your house, at least put the wise men across the room.... but that is the subject of a different (and shorter) post.

Funeral for an American Hero

2009-11-10T07:18:00.000-08:00

I only do a few funerals a year. The amazing Carl Nelson does most of them at Village Seven. Yesterday, I had the privilege of doing the funeral for the father of a member of Village Seven. The man is General David W. Winn. I never met General Winn, but all remember him as a man who loved Christ, his family, and his country. You can read his biography on the link attached to his name. He fought in World War II as well as Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was shot down and spent nearly 5 years as a POW. His cellmate was James Stockdale. In that "prison" (hell hole really is a more appropriate description), he was tortured and suffered greatly. Yet, there in the darkness, he knew God was with him.

In situations like that, men must come to one of two conclusions: 1) There is no God. Therefore, all of my suffering and dedication is meaningliess, or 2) There is a God. Therefore, even in this pit, He is working out His glorious purposes. One must choose either despair or life. One doesn't have the luxury of merely seeking or inquiring. God was gracious to General Winn and opened his eyes to the truth, that God is real and he is at work, even in suffering.

The service was in the Air Force Academy Chapel. This is one of the great architectural structures in the West. Absolutely spectacular. After the service, there was a "fly by" with some F15 fighter jets. The planes came in so low that you could count the bolts on the wings. It felt like an earthquake as they streaked by, setting off all of the car alarms in the parking lot. It was spectacular.

I am thankful for the men and women who have gone before us, and are still fighting now, so that we can enjoy a life of freedom. Many have made amazing sacrifices and endured unspeakable horrors so that we can live in peace.

I am also thankful that, for those who trust in Christ, our suffering is not in vain. God has a purpose even for our pain. Life is not meaningless, but is a glorious story being told by God moving to a marvelous "happily ever after."

At the same time, events like this, as well as the recent events in Fort Hood, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remind us that we live in a world that is broken. As long as there is evil present, there will be a need for warriors like General Winn. Yet, even more, these events should cause us to long for the day when Isaiah 9: 5 comes true - "Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire." We long for the day when "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4). That day will come. It is certain because God has decreed it. May it come soon.

Halloween

2009-10-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to write my own stuff lately. However, here is an excellent article by Sean Lucas on Halloween. Sean is now the Sr. Pastor of First Presbyterian in Hattiesburg, MS. Prior to that, Sean was a church history professor and academic dean at Covenant theological seminary.

Dwelling in Possibilities

2009-09-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that I am becoming a curmudgeon. For example, most people have great music on their Ipods. I have sermons and lectures (not my own). Is that an stodgy old man thing to do or what?

The other night as I was out for my evening run, I was listening to a sermon by Tim Keller. He quoted an from an article by Mark Edmundson entitled "Dwelling in Possibilities." After hearing Keller quote it, I had to read the whole thing. The fact that I loved the article is further proof that I am, indeed, a curmudgeon because Dr. Edmundson clearly is one. He also is an English professor at the University of Virginia. He writes with great wit and insight. His major thesis is that young people today are so caught up in the possibilities that they never fully engage in the present. Here are a few quotes:

Ask an American college student what he's doing on Friday night. Ask him at 5:30 Friday afternoon. "I don't know" will likely be the first response. But then will come a list of possibilities to make the average Chinese menu look sullenly costive: the concert, the play, the movie, the party, the stay-at-home, chilling (or chillaxing), the monitoring of SportsCenter, the reading (fast, fast) of an assignment or two. University students now are virtual Hamlets of the virtual world, pondering possibility, faces pressed up against the sweet-shop window of their all-purpose desiring machines. To ticket or not to ticket, buy or not to, party or no: Or perhaps to simply stay in and to multiply options in numberless numbers, never to be closed down.

And once you do get somewhere, wherever it might be, you'll find that, as Gertrude Stein has it, there's "no there there." At a student party, about a fourth of the people have their cellphones locked to their ears. What are they doing? "They're talking to their friends." About? "About another party they might conceivably go to." And naturally the simulation party is better than the one that they're now at (and not at), though of course there will be people at that party on their cellphones, talking about other simulacrum gatherings, spiraling on into M.C. Escher infinity.

Here is another:

The idea is to keep moving, never to stop. It's now become so commonplace as to be beneath notice, but there was a time that every city block contiguous to a university did not contain a shop dispensing a speed-you-up drug and inviting people to sit down and enjoy it along with wireless computer access. Laptops seem to go with coffee and other stimulants, in much the way that blood-and-gold sunsets went with LSD and Oreo cookies with weed. (It's possible, I sometimes think, that fully half of the urban Starbucks in America are located in rental properties that, in an earlier incarnation, were head shops.) Nor were there always energy drinks: vile-tasting concoctions coming in cans costumed like superheroes, designed to make you run as fast and steady as your computer, your car, and — this is Darwinian capitalism after all — your colleagues. You've got to keep going. Almost all of my students have one book — an old book — that they've read and treasured, and read again. It's the American epic of free movement, On the Road, a half-century old last year, but to them one of the few things in the culture of my generation that's still youthful.

I would suggest that all young people read the whole thing. However, it may be too long to sustain their attention span. (Spoken like a true curmudgeon).

More on Understanding the Old Testament

2009-08-31T07:16:00.000-07:00

Introduction

The article by Tim Keller in the previous post is a description of what is known as the Redemptive-Historical approach to interpreting the Bible. It answers the question how does one interpret the Bible and apply it to life? In the Redemptive-Historical approach, one reads every story of the Bible in light of the larger story—the story of redemption.

In order to understand this better, let’s contrast it with some other approaches to reading the Bible by examining the story of David and Goliath. In the story (1 Samuel 17), the nation of Israel is at war with the Philistines. Rather than having the whole armies engage, the Philistines send out their champion, Goliath, to fight for them against Israel’s champion. Goliath, however, is 9 feet tall. He is a giant of a man. No one from Israel wants to fight him.

David is too young to be in the army. Yet, his father sends him to the battlefield to take food and provisions to his older brothers. When he hears the taunts of Goliath, he volunteers to fight. Rather than clothing himself in armor, he takes five stones from a stream and kills Goliath with his slingshot.

How can we apply the story of David and Goliath to modern people? There are four basic approaches.

The Moralistic Approach

In the moralistic approach, one reads the stories of the Bible in the same way one would read Aesop’s Fables or William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues. In this case, you read the story for the moral and the moral becomes the application. So, the moral of this story is that David is brave in facing his challenges. Therefore, we should be brave like David.

There are some good things in the moralistic approach. In this case, David is a good example for us. We should be brave like David, or courageous like Daniel. We should not be greedy like Judas, or immoral like David with Bathsheba. However, the moralistic approach will not always work. There are times when biblical characters engage in morally ambiguous behavior and the Bible offers us no immediate commentary on whether it was right or wrong. For example, was it sinful for Isaac to marry Rachel (which violates later Old Testament laws)? Should he have just settled for Leah, even though Laban deceived him? Was Noah in sin when he got drunk or did he not understand fermentation? If you simply approach these stories as morals, you will miss some very significant parts of their meaning.

The Allegorical Approach

In the allegorical approach, one usually says that Goliath represents all of the big problems and challenges we face. These problems might be money, health issues, relationship problems, etc… We should be like David and “face the giants”. We simply need to go up against our problems in faith, trusting God to take care of us.

There are some good things about this approach. After all, the issue of faith and trust in God is clearly a part of the story. David’s brothers and the other soldiers are afraid of Goliath. They do not trust God to help them. However, David exemplifies faith. David gives this wonderful expression of faith in 1 Samuel 17:34-37a: "But David said to Saul, 'Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.'"

Clearly, part of the emphasis of this story is a call to trust God in difficult circumstances.

However, there are some great problems with the allegorical approach. First, you can take a story out of the Bible and make it say just about anything. There is no way to know if you are reading the Bible as it was meant to be read because your meaning is governed only by your creativity.

Secondly, and more importantly, there is nothing distinctly Christian about such an interpretation. The same is true of the moralistic approach. One can teach the story of David in this way in a Jewish synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, or a public school, just as easily as in a Christian church. Yet, Jesus said that all of the Scriptures speak of Him (Luke 24:25-29).

Thirdly, if one approaches the stories of the Bible as merely allegory or as morals, then the Bible will be crushing. We are not brave like David. We are much more like the cowardly army of Israel. Is the Bible merely telling us to “buck up”? If that is all it is saying, then we are without hope.

The Typological Approach

The typological approach looks for a type of Christ in the story. In this case, the typological approach would say that David is a type (a symbol or model) of Christ. Just as David rescued Israel from Goliath, Jesus rescues us from our giants.

In this particular instance, the typological approach is superior to the other two. David often is a type of Christ. In many ways, David shows us what Christ is like. He points us to our Rescuer.

However, the typological approach has severe problems when applied to other stories. If one tries to use the typological approach, he begins to look for Jesus under every rock. Furthermore, as is the case with the allegorical approach, some in using this approach try to find symbolism in every aspect of the story. As a result, many of the same problems that are in the allegorical approach are also in the typological approach.

Furthermore, just as with the moralistic approach, there are many stories that seem to be ambiguous. What does one do with these stories?

The Redemptive-Historical Approach

The Redemptive-Historical approach seeks to understand the story in the context of the history of redemption. As one reads a story, he determines where it fits in the history of redemption. Since the history of redemption culminates in Christ, he then connects the story to Christ. After connecting the story to Christ in the history of redemption, he then seeks to understand its significance for the people of today.

The chart below illustrates this approach. [Note: This chart came from a D. Min. course I took at RTS with Dr. Edmund Clowney and Dr. Timothy Keller] The red lines show the other approaches while the black lines show the redemptive-historical approach.

In the redemptive-historical approach, one understands that David is the future-king of Israel. Furthermore, one understands that Jesus is the rightful heir to David’s throne and will reign forever and ever. That is, Jesus is an even greater king than David. In the story of David and Goliath, we do not identify ourselves with David (as in the allegorical or moralistic approaches). Rather, we are the fearful people of Israel in need of a savior. Yet, where David risks his life to save his people, Jesus gave His life to rescue us. The central message is not to be brave like David. Rather, the main idea is to see that you are weak and that you need a Savior.

The Promised Redeemer

2009-08-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

The Bible, while it contains many different stories that transcend thousands of years, is a book about a single story. All of the great stories of the Bible—Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, Daniel and the Lions’ Den—are merely subplots in the Great Story. They are all part of the unfolding drama of redemption.

Like all great stories, the Bible begins with a crisis, moves to a climax, and concludes with resolution. The crisis happens quite early in the story, shortly after creation. Here we find Adam and Eve living in a world that God has proclaimed “very good.” They enjoy perfect intimacy with God and with one another. They also enjoy a world that God has made for them filled with delights. Nothing could be better.

Then, in Genesis 3, the Serpent slithers into Eden. In a single act of cosmic rebellion, Adam and Eve reject God’s blessings, turn their noses up at His provision, and make a grab for divine power by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

That could have been the end of the story. Yet, God is a merciful and gracious God. Rather than immediately giving Adam and Eve the punishment they deserved, He gives them a promise of hope. In Genesis 3:15, God pronounces His judgment on the Serpent, Eve, and Adam for their rebellion. In His curse to the Serpent, He gives hope to humanity. God said to the Serpent:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:15).

In this curse, God promises that one day, the Offspring of the woman will rise up and crush the head of the Serpent. The Serpent, of course, is no ordinary snake, but is Satan disguised. So, by crushing the Serpent’s head, the Offspring of the woman will put an end to the tyranny of evil and restore the world to its proper order. The rest of the Bible is the unfolding of this oracle. It is the story of conflict between the Serpent and his offspring and the offspring of the woman. It is also the story of hope and expectation as the faithful look to the day when the Offspring of the woman will come who will crush the Serpent’s head.

So, the conflict that has been raging since the fall is between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of Satan. It is not the story of physical conflict, but of the great spiritual war of which all other wars and conflicts are but faint echoes.

When God speaks of the offspring of the woman and the offspring of Satan, He is distinguishing between the godly descendents of Adam and Eve, who will be influenced by God, and the ungodly descendents, who will be influenced by Satan. This idea is reinforce throughout the rest of Genesis, particularly chapters 4 and 5. In chapter 4, Adam and Eve have two sons—Cain and Abel. Abel follows God. Cain does not. Cain murders Abel. There we see the conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman illustrated.

Then Adam and Eve have another son named Seth. In chapter 4, we read the story of Cain’s ungodly line. In chapter 5, we see the account of Adam’s line as it goes through Seth. In these chapters, the writer is contrasting for us the godly line with the ungodly line, the descendents of the serpent through Cain with the descendents of the woman through Seth. In those chapters, you will see that each line creates its own cities and its own cultures.

The book of Revelation explains this further. In Revelation, we have the same image of the Serpent-Dragon and the Woman. In Revelation 12:17, we read, “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

Later in the book of Revelation, we are told explicitly that the dragon is that great serpent of old, which is Satan (Revelation 20:2). So, it is Satan the Serpent who is making war against the offspring of the woman. The offspring of the woman are those who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Here we see the theme of the Bible from Beginning to end. In the first three chapters of the Bible (Genesis 1-3), we read about: A) Creation, B) Life in Paradise, and C) The Fall, and D) The prophecy of hope. In the last chapters of the Bible (Revelation 20-22), we read: D) the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled, C) the effects of the fall are undone, B) Paradise is restored, and A) the New Creation.

In between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20, the Bible tells the story of this conflict and the One who will finally put an end to it by crushing the serpent’s head. So, throughout the story, the hero is the Offspring of the Woman. Essentially, it is His story—the story of Jesus. While it may seem that Jesus does not show up in the story until the New Testament, the truth is that He is the central character on every page.

The rest of this post is an article written by Tim Keller on how to read the Bible. I wanted to post a link to it on the web instead of reproducing it here, but I couldn't find it anywhere else.

How to Read the Bible by Tim Keller

Jesus Teaches Us How to Read the Bible

There are two key places where Jesus teaches us how to interpret the Bible. When Jesus met the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he discovered that they were in despair because their Messiah had been crucified. He responds, “‘how slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!’...and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-29) Later he appears to his disciples in the upper room. And we are told “He said to them, ‘this is what I told you while I was still with you; everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:44-45). What do we learn? Jesus blames the confusion of the disciples on their inability to see that all the Old Testament is about him and his salvation. He shows them that “all the Scriptures” point to him and that each part--the Law, the Prophets, and the Wisdom literature--are all about him.

Another major place where Jesus teaches this is John 5:31-47. There Jesus says that there are several parties that “testify” to him. The first testimony is from John the Baptist (v.33) who said that he did not come to be the light, but to point beyond himself to the one who is the light (John 1:7-8). Then Jesus says, second, that the Father has given us another testimony to him in the Scriptures (v.39). But he confronts his hearers with how they do not understand the Scriptures as bearing testimony by pointing (as John the Baptist did) beyond themselves to him. He says, for example, they think they follow Moses, but “Moses wrote about me” (v.46). The Law of Moses can only be understood when you see it as pointing beyond itself to Christ.

The Story in the Stories

"There are great stories in the Bible...but it is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss the Bible story...The Bible has a story line. It traces an unfolding drama. The story follows the history of Israel, but it does not begin there, nor does it contain what you would expect in a national history.... If we forget the story line...we cut the heart out of the Bible. Sunday school stories are then told as tamer versions of the Sunday comics, where Samson substitutes for Superman. David...becomes a Hebrew version of Jack the Giant Killer. No, David is not a brave little boy who isn’t afraid of the big bad giant. He is the Lord’s anointed...God chose David as a king after his own heart in order to prepare the way for David’s great Son, our Deliverer and Champion..."
- E. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery

The Interpretive Principle

The principle is that every part of the Scripture is not understood unless it is seen as pointing beyond itself to Christ. No history, no set of laws, no prophecies, no wisdom literature is ever an end in itself. Like John the Baptist it points beyond itself to Christ.

For example, the moral law testifies to Christ. As we see Paul saying in Galatians 3 and 4 the law does demand that we be perfectly holy. But we are not really listening to the law if we think we can obey it! The law is saying, “you can never fulfill me—you need a savior!” Only if we know we are saved by faith do we have the strength to actually hear how extensive and searching and deep the demands of the law are. If we don’t see them as pointing to our need for salvation-by-grace, we will be in denial and try to whittle down the demands of the law into external behavioral demands that are do-able.

But that is not all. Every part of the Bible points to Christ.

A Schematic View of the Bible through Christ

Jesus fulfills the writings of the prophets (I Peter 1:11).
The Redeemer will be human (Gen.3:15 -the seed of the woman).
The Redeemer will be God (Isaiah 9:6- the Mighty God).
The Redeemer will suffer and be killed (Isaiah 53:6--our iniquity on him).
The Redeemer will rise again (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:31).
The Redeemer will be a Jew (Gen.49:10) yet bring in the Gentiles (Gen.12).

Jesus fulfills all the ceremonial law and writings
Jesus is the sacrifice all the sacrifices point to (Hebrews 10).
Jesus is the bread on the altar in the temple (John 6), the light stand in the Holy Place (John8), and the temple itself (John 2), for he is the presence of God with us.
Jesus fulfills all the ceremonial clean laws about foods and ritual purification (Acts 10 and 11).
Jesus fulfills circumcision--it represents how he was cut off from God. Now we are clean in him. (Col.2:10-11).
Jesus is the Passover lamb (I Cor.5:7).

Jesus fulfills all the moral law
Jesus is the one who “fulfilled all righteousness” (Matt.3:15).
Jesus is the one who embodies the law. The law shows us who Jesus is.

Jesus fulfills all the characters of history
Jesus is the better Adam, the one whose obedience is imputed to us (I Cor.15).
Jesus is the better Moses, who mediates a new covenant (Heb.3).
Jesus is a better David, who delivers his people (II Sam.7).
Jesus is a better Job, who truly suffers in innocence and then intercedes for us (Job 42).

Jesus is the better hero than Samson, whose death accomplishes so much good (Judges 16:31). He is the fulfillment of the history of the judges who show that God can save not only by many, or by few, but by one.

Jesus is the judge all the judges point to (since he really administers justice), the prophet all the prophets point to (since he really shows us the truth), the priests all the priests point to (since he really brings us to God), and the King of kings.

All the failures and successes of the great characters, in one way or other point us to Christ. Jesus is the true “Teacher” (Ecclesiastes) who may lead us through despair to help us find God. He is the true “Isaac” who is the son of the laughter of grace who was offered up for us all. He is the true Jacob, who wrestled with God and took the blow of justice we deserved so we like Jacob only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up. He is the true Joshua who is the general of the Lord’s army. He is the true Job--the only innocent sufferer. He is the true Joseph, who at the right hand of the king forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them. He is the true Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert. He is the true Jonah who went into the belly of the earth and died so his people could be saved.

Jesus fulfills the history of Israel
Jesus is the one through whom all things are created. (John 1)
Jesus is the true Moses who leads a true exodus for his people through his death (Luke 9:31). Jesus goes through 40 days in the wilderness as Israel goes through 40 years in the wilderness.
Jesus is very literally the true Israel, the Seed (Gal.3:16-17). He is the only one who is faithful to the covenant. He is a remnant of one. He fulfills all the obligations of the covenant, and earns the blessings of the covenant for all who believe. When Hosea talks about the exodus of Israel from Egypt, he says, “Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Hos.11:1). Hosea calls all of Israel “my son”. But Matthew quotes this verse referring to Jesus (Matt.2:15) because Jesus is the true Israel. As we have seen above, just as Israel was in bondage in Egypt but was saved by the mighty redemptive actions of God in history, so Jesus leads the new people of God out of bondage to sin through the mighty redemptive actions of God in history (his death and resurrection).

In the Old Testament we are continually told that our good works are not enough, that God has made a provision. This provision is pointed to at every place in the Old Testament. We see it in the clothes God makes Adam and Eve in Genesis, to the promises made to Abraham and the patriarchs, to the Tabernacle and the whole sacrificial system, to the innumerable references to a Messiah, a suffering servant, and so on. Therefore, to say that the Bible is about Christ is to say that the main theme of the Bible is the gospel--Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9).

The Personal Principle

Not only must we read the Bible Christocentrically to understand its meaning, we must read it Christocentrically in order to grow from it personally. There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basically about me or basically about Jesus? In other words, is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done? Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never be able to fight giants in life. Unless I see that Jesus makes the big sacrifices for me, I will never be able to make the normal sacrifices of life. Unless I can see him forgiving me on the cross, I won’t be able to forgive others. Unless I see him as forgiving me for falling asleep on him (Matt.27:45) I won’t be able to stay awake for him. As a model, Jesus and the rest of the Bible is a crushing, terrible burden. So reading “Christocentrically” is not just a trick of interpretation, but the key to new life.

Summary

Every part of the Bible about the historical unfolding revelation and accomplishment of the gospel salvation through Jesus Christ. The Bible is not a collection of “Aesop’s Fables”; it is not a book of virtues. Paul shows in Galatians 3 that there is a complete unity in the Bible. There is a story within all the Bible stories. God is redeeming a people for himself by grace in the face of human rebellion and human desire for a religion of good works.

This section was taken from a D. Min. course at RTS Orlando, taught by Dr. Timothy Keller and Dr. Edmund Clowney.

The Story of the Bible

2009-08-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Why Study the Old Testament?

2009-08-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my last post that I am preaching through Genesis. I have been going for about a year and have another 9 months to go. As some commenters mentioned, Bruce Waltke has an excellent commentary on Genesis. It is one that I refer to frequently. Dr. Waltke is one of the greatest living scholars of the Old Testament. The joke is that he helped Moses write the Pentateuch. He isn't THAT old. Still, his commentary is remarkably fresh.

Even though I majored in Greek (the language of the New Testament), and have forgotten most of my Hebrew (the language of most of the Old Testament), I love preaching through the Old Testament. One reason is, I love to show people how the gospel story is woven throughout the Bible. After all, Jesus said that the whole Old Testament is about him (Luke 24:27).

For many Christians, the Old Testament is a collection of interesting stories, enigmatic proverbs, and bewildering prophecies that have little application to daily life. Parts may be inspirational, but as a whole, the Old Testament remains a closed book of hidden mysteries and confounding tales. Yet, this clearly is not God’s intent. In writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said,
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

The Old Testament, therefore, is useful for the believer. It is not merely a collection of archaic tales and mysterious prophecies, but an essential tool in equipping believers to fulfill their mission of glorifying God.

While there are many stories in the Bible, it is essentially one story—the story of Jesus. Jesus said that all the Scriptures are about Him (Luke 24:27). The Old Testament is not just an archaic precursor to the New Testament. Rather, together with the New Testament, it tells the story of God’s grace. In the words of Alec Motyer, the Old and New Testament form a two-act play. “If we only had Act Two, we would have to ask, ‘But where has it come from? Who are these people?’ . . . And if we only had Act One, we would say, “Yes, but where is it going? How will it develop? Will the hinted climax come and in what form? Without the New Testament, the Old is going nowhere, it is only a might-have-been, an unsubstantiated longing. And without the Old, the New lacks explanation. Its very words require Old Testament definition, and its central event, the cross, is inexplicable.”[1]

Therefore, to understand the Old Testament, one cannot read it in isolation from the New (nor can one read the New Testament in isolation from the Old). Together, the two testaments tell one story.

There are several themes that one can observe throughout the Bible that illustrates this story line. Three of these are the Promised Redeemer,the covenants, and the kingdom of God. These are not two separate themes, but different ways of looking at the same theme because the Promised Redeemer is a King who has made a Covenant with His people. I will post about these and other themes later on.

[1] Motyer, Alec, The Story of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), p. 10.

How to Apply Genesis

2009-08-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

I am preaching through Genesis. I wrote the following as part of my introduction to this series. Much of this was adapted from He Gave Us Stories by Richard Pratt.

The Bible is one of the means of grace that God gives to His people so that they can grow in their knowledge and love of the Lord. It is not simply a book of information. Rather, it is the Book for life transformation. Since the Bible is thousands of years old, applying it to your life in the 21st century requires some understanding.

To understand how a passage of the Bible applies to your life, you must begin with the original meaning, then see how the rest of the Bible elaborates on it in biblical elaborations, and from there draw legitimate applications.

The original meaning is what the passage meant in the setting of its original writer and audience. The original meaning defines and guides the process of understanding and applying a passage of Scripture. It does not tell us everything about the passage, but it is the starting point.
To understand the original meaning of a book of the Bible, one must study the text itself (document), understand something of the writer, and know something of the original readers (audience). Without understanding of the writer, the document, and the audience, it is difficult to understand the true meaning of any text.

For example, let’s say you found the following note:

Bill,
Our evening together last night was simply wonderful--our most memorable ever. Moreover, you were terrific. I hope we can sneak away again for another evening like that one.
Sam

If Sam and Bill are tennis partners who won their match last night, the note takes on one meaning. If they lost their match, then it may be sarcasm. If Sam is short for Samantha, and they are married, it takes on another.

If you are to know the meaning of the note, then you must know something of the writer, the document, and the audience. You must also see how these three are related and interact.

The Document
Genesis is one portion of a larger book called The Pentateuch. The Pentateuch contains the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Together, these five form a single unit called the Pentateuch. Often times, Jews (including Jesus) referred to the Pentateuch as the Torah, the Law, or even the Book of Moses.

The Writer
No where in the Pentateuch does the author give his name. In that sense, it (including Genesis) is an anonymous book. However, from the outset, the ancient Jews regarded Moses as the author. There is no reason to doubt their testimony. Moses was a prophet of God, having been used by God to utter the infallible word. Historically, Christians have regarded Moses as the author as well. Jesus Himself, as well as the gospel writers, cite Moses as the author, which leaves no doubt that it was Moses who indeed wrote it (see Matthew 8:4; 19:7-8; 22:24; Mark 10:5; 12:19, 26; Luke 16:29; Luke 20:28; 24:27, 44, John 1:45; 7:19; 8:5).

Still, there are signs that a final editor other than Moses was involved in the final edition of Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch. For example, Deuteronomy 34:10-12 records the death of Moses. Other signs of a post-Moses editor are a) Genesis 12:6, where it says that the Canaanites were in the land then (the Canaanites were still in the land at the time of Moses), b) the mention of Dan in Genesis 14:14 (Dan was not established until after the Exodus), and c) the reference to the kings of Israel in Genesis 36:31. Yet, even the final editing of the book was done under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which means that the text itself is fully inspired by God, and therefore both infallible and inerrant (without errors) as originally given.

Moses wrote these books during the time between the Exodus and the nation of Israel’s entrance into the Promise Land under Joshua.[1] That places the date of the writing of the Pentateuch during the 15th Century BC.

The Original Readers of Genesis
Moses wrote Genesis (and the rest of the Pentateuch), while Israel was wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt and before entering the Promise Land. That means the original audience of Genesis were the people preparing to enter conquer the land of Canaan.

These people had been slaves in the land of Egypt. They were preparing to go into a land that they had never seen and fight off enemies they had never met. They had never been to war. They had never encountered some of the challenges that were ahead of them.

This is important because Genesis must be read from their eyes first, before you can apply it to your own situation. Any history book has to be selective.[2] No book can record all of the events that occurred during a specific time period. Therefore the author selects what events he will include and how he will tell of these events based on what he believes is significant for his audience.

As you read Genesis, ask yourself, “How would this help the Israelites in the wilderness? What was God’s purpose in telling them this? How would this strengthen their faith?” Moses purpose in writing to them was to inspire faith in God as they faced the challenges of the exodus and the conquest.

Moses did not write Genesis in response to Charles Darwin. However, he may have written parts in response to Marduk, the Baals, and the Asherahs (pagan deities of his day).

Richard Pratt says the following about Genesis: “Moses wrote the book of Genesis to teach his readers that leaving Egypt and possessing Canaan was God’s design for Israel. The primeval acts of bringing creation from chaos to sabbath rest, recreating the fallen world through waters of judgment, choosing Shem’s descendants to dispossess Canaan, and defeating the city of Babel explained what God was doing or Israel in the exodus from Egypt. The lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob anticipated Israel’s interest in their numerical expansion, possession of the Promised Land, and relationships with surrounding nations. The interaction among the tribal patriarchs in the Joseph story establish proper inter-tribal relations in Moses day and assured Israel of her destiny in Canaan.”[3]

More than that, the Pentateuch establishes God’s plan for redeeming the world by establishing His covenant relationship with Israel. All of this ultimately points to the Christ of the New Testament.

The Relevance of Genesis
If the original readers were so different from us, then how can Genesis have any relevance to us? This is the issue most people struggle with when reading the Bible, particularly Old Testament history.

While the specifics of your situation may be vastly different from that of God’s people in the wilderness, the real issues have not changed, and neither has God. The Israelites wondered how order could be brought to their world of chaos. They wondered why the world seemed so messed up. They wondered if life was out of control. We wonder the same things, and Genesis answers all these questions and more.

Notes
[1] Deuteronomy 34:10-12 records Moses’ death. So there obviously was another editor involved in the final edition. Still, for the most part it was written during the Exodus and prior to the conquest.
[2] “World War II is a matter of fact; telling the story of World War II is a matter of selection; understanding World War II – why it happened, who “won” it – is a matter of interpretation. Whenever anyone undertakes to write narrative history these three things are involved” (Alec Motyer, The Story of the Old Testament, p. 43.
[3] Pratt, p. 281.

The Importance of Confessionalism

2009-08-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

One criticism that many people, especially those from non-denonimational backgrounds, levy against Presbyterians is that Presbyterians are confessional. That is, we have a doctrinal statement to which our ministers and other church officers must subscribe. Some charge that we have elevated a human document to the level of divine authority, putting it alongside Scripture, or even above Scripture. However, I would argue that doctrinal statements are not merely useful, but almost necessary in our pluralistic age. Dr. John Frame has written on this far more persuasively than I can. So, let me refer the reader to his paper, Introduction to the Reformed Faith.

Dr. Frame makes two arguments that are particularly helpful. First, he notes that, to say that one is a Christian or that one believes the Bible does not really say anything. "All sorts of people today claim to be Christians, and even Bible-believers, who are actually far from the kingdom of Christ. [Theological] Liberals, cultists, and new-age syncretists abound. When you visit a neighbor, inviting him to church, he has a right to know what you believe. If you tell him you are a Christian and believe the Bible, he has a right to ask the further question, "what do you (and your church) think the Bible teaches?" That is the question which creeds and confessions are designed to answer. A creed is simply a summary of an individual's or church's beliefs as to the teachings of Scripture. And there can be no objection, surely, to placing such a summary in writing for the convenience of members and inquirers."

His second argument, which is near the end of the paper is, in my opinion, equally compelling. Dr. Frame points out that a confession gives one the some helpful theological guard rails for engaging the culture from a biblical perspective. Dr. Frame notes, "Because the Reformed faith has, at its best, been critical of human traditions even within its own circles, the Reformed faith has the resources for effective contextualization. Contextualization is the attempt to present scriptural truth in terms understandable to cultures different from our own and different from the culture in which the Scriptures were written. Reformed preaching has been remarkably successful through history in the work of contextualization. Calvinism has profoundly affected cultures very different from the Swiss culture in which it began: Dutch, German, British, Hungarian, Korean. Calvinism had large followings in France and Italy until it was largely snuffed out there by force. It is, therefore, entirely Reformed, to say as I do in Doctrine of the Knowledge of God that theology is the application of scriptural truth to human situations. Progress in theology is the continual application of Scripture to new situations and contexts as they arise. It is not the mere repetition of doctrinal formulations worked out in past generations, as some "traditionalists" might suppose. Rather, the work of theology engages our creativity, without compromising the authority and sufficiency of Scripture." Here, Dr. Frame is talking about the Reformed faith in general, but I am fairly certain that he would apply this to confessionalism.

I realize that many confessional churches have fallen into dead orthodoxy. A confession alone cannot keep a church spiritually vital. However, safeguarding against false doctrine is critical to maintaining spiritual vitality. In this way, a confession can function as a guard rail to help keep the denomination on track.

I also realize that many confessional churches have drifted into liberalism. Yet, this could not happen without the confession being ignored, contradicted, or men being dishonest about their subscription to the confession. One of the ways that our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, is seeking to guard against this is by requiring men in church leadership to subscribe to the system of doctrine contained in our confessional standards. A man does not have to agree with every word (very few do), but he must agree with the system contained in them. So that all are honest in what they profess, each church officer is required to state every place he differs with the standards--even if he thinks it is a small difference. Then, the governing body (either the local session or the presbytery) determines if that difference is acceptable or not.

Having a confession helps as we seek to engage our culture with the gospel. There are many writers and thinkers who recognize the need to engage our post-modern culture. They recognize that this requires some changes on how the church engages the world around us. However, because they do not have a confessional anchor, they seem to throw out the baby with the bath water. One example of this is Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. He seems to have a good analysis of the culture. However, as he moves to prescription in his book, he runs adrift, proposing that theological heresies like the openness of God, might be acceptable. Even Gordon McDonald, a man who has written a number of very helpful books, seems to run adrift in this cultural shift. In his book, Who Stole My Church?, he gives a good analysis of the cultural/generational shift facing many churches. Yet, as he opens the door for changes that may be legitimate, he leaves it open for changes that are unbiblical, like women in pastoral ministry. A confessional grid can help in matters like these by keeping the guard rails up so that the boundaries always stay visible.

A confession will not keep a church orthodox, it will not prevent it from falling into dead-orthodoxy. It is not a panecea. However, it is a very helpful tool and safeguard for the church when it is honored by those who are honest in their subscription to it.

Living Out the Gospel

2009-08-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that my desire is that our church be marked by three distinctives: Gospel Community, Authentic Community, and Missional Community. We have seen some of the problems with the word “missional,” and I will revisit this later. However, for the moment, I want to focus on what it means to be a gospel community. Before I get to that, I thought it might be helpful to explain why I believe this should be stated as a distinctive. To explain this, let me backtrack to our previous discussion.

In my last post, I mentioned that missional is a call to return to biblical, holistic ministry of both word and deed. I will admit that I am no church historian, but from what I have read, it seems that ever since the fundamentalist/modernist split, the evangelical church has neglected biblical deed ministry. Of course, there have been some marvelous exceptions to this. I would also argue that even during this time period, conservative, evangelical Christians did a tremendous amount of good for the poor around the world. For example, Christians were helping the starving people of Africa long before the celebrity culture got engaged. Yet, overall, the conservative church neglected deed ministry while the liberal church engaged in the social gospel.

D. A. Carson warns us against making statements like “The previous generation came down either on the social-transformation side or on the gospel-fidelity side, and we want to put together both.” Certainly, such a statement can be arrogant. At the same time, as the church is always reforming (semper reformanda), we should always be looking to correct what we are doing in light of Scripture.

Besides the neglect of ministry in deed (acts of justice, mercy, and compassion), something else seems to have been lost, or at least obscured, in the wake of the modernist controversy. That is the preaching of the gospel to believers (I will explain this later).

In a recent discussion, noted Christian author, Jerry Bridges, said, that if you trace Christian preaching and teaching all the way back to John Own, then through the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries stopping with B.B. Warfield, you will see that the preaching constantly emphasized the necessity of the gospel for Christians. Bridges goes on to note that at some point around Warfield (which is during the height of the modernist controversy in America in the early 20th century), this sort of preaching was clearly lost. He says that it does not begin to appear again until Richard Lovelace’s wonderful book, Dynamics of the Spiritual Life. (By the way, I found that Mr. Bridges made this same statement in a recent interview that you can read here.)

I will post more later on what it means to be a gospel community. However, there are already some wonderful articles on this on the net. Let me point you to two that I find very helpful:

Gospel Driven Sanctification by Jerry Bridges

The Centrality of the Gospel by Tim Keller

Here are a few books on the theme:

The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges
Holiness by Grace by Bryan Chapell
Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges
TruFaced by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John S Lynch
The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification by Walter Marshall (get the “modernized” version edited by Bruce McRae)
Dynamics of the Spiritual Life by Richard Lovelace
The Reign of Grace by Scotty Smith

The Importance of Missional

2009-08-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned before, I am not about to die for a term. Certainly, the term missional has its problems. One of the most significant problems with the term is that it is trendy. Things that are trendy tend to be both trivial and temporary. Someone, I am not sure who, once said of fashion, that young people are obsessed with it and old people are bored with it. The same probably could be said with theological and church terms like “missional.” That is why Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, adopted the term "missionary-minded." By that, he means that every Christian should have a missionary mindset as he lives out his life in his community.

Still, I believe the term missional communicates several things that are important to us in the evangelical and Reformed world. Whatever term one chooses to use, these are some of the important thoughts that need to be expressed:

1. It is a reminder that the church as a body, and Christians as individual members of this body, are on a mission. We are the “sent out” people of God. The Greek word for church, ecclesia, means called out. The idea is that we have been called out of the world as God’s beloved, chosen people. Yet, as the whole thrust of Scripture shows, God never calls you in unless He also sends you out. Jesus said, “So send I you.” We tend to live in our Christian ghetto, forgetting that we are to carry out the mission of Christ.

2. It is a wake up call to the reality that we are in a post-Christian culture. Christendom is over in the west. I don’t think the majority of Christians realize this. We need to view our own culture as the mission field. Certainly, the rest of the Christian world does. So, if you were going to send missionaries to America, to your state, and your city, what would you expect those missionaries to do? How would those missionaries seek to embody the gospel in such a way as to reach the people of your community for Christ and enfold them into the Church? Well, God has sent you and has sent your church. You and your church should be doing what missionaries do. Failure to take this seriously is to be unfaithful to the God who redeemed you.

3. Missional is a call to return to biblical, holistic ministry of both word and deed. The fundamentalist/modernist split resulted in two significant errors for us as conservative believers: 1) It resulted in moralistic/self-righteous preaching in the church. 2) It resulted in the loss of biblical deed ministry. The liberals engaged in the “social gospel.” Certainly, some in the missional movement seem more concern for feeding the poor than the salvation of souls. However, the proper response to this is not to go in the other ditch. If one traces the history of the church and the history of missions up until the 20th century, it seems obvious that the church has always been engaged in both word and deed ministry. Missional seeks a recovery of this.

The Slippery-Ness of Missional

2009-07-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

Terms and labels are slippery things. Don Carson, in his lecture, “What is Evangelicalism?” says of the term “Evangelical,” “There is a sense in which the topic really isn’t all that important. Labels come and labels go. And I am not quite ready to be crucified for a label.” I would say the same thing about the label “missional.” I am not about to die for a term. However, there are some important aspects of the concept of being missional that I believe are important for the church.

As I noted in my last post, the term “missional” is being used by a variety of people in a variety of ways. This has caused some to wonder if the term should be used at all. As I mentioned, Tullian Tchividjian, the new pastor at Coral Ride Presbyterian Church, has been heavily influenced by Tim Keller’s thoughts on the missional church. Yet, because of the variety of ways the term has been used, he has chosen to use the term “missionary minded” instead. My friend, Dr. Dominic Aquila, who is the President of our local seminary, New Geneva Theological Seminary, has written a rather severe critique of the term. Dr. Aquila’s primary concern stems from how the term has roots in the Gospel and Our Culture Network and how it has been used by liberal and neo-orthodox theologians. Certainly, with our history as Presbyterians, we should be concerned about Trojan horses bearing neo-orthodoxy.

However, not everyone who uses the term "missional" is liberal, neo-orthodox, or emergent. Many terms that are dear to us are slippery. Most people associate Presbyterianism with liberalism. Certainly, the overwhelming majority of Presbyterian churches in the United States are part of denominations that have a strong liberal and neo-orthodox bent. The large Presbyterian body is often in the newspaper for discussions about women as elders, ordaining homosexuals, even redefinitions of the Trinity. When I identify myself as a Presbyterian, I have to qualify the term in a way that is very different from the term’s meaning in popular usage. So, while many people believe that Presbyterian equals liberal. That is not the case. The same is true of missional.

We can say the same thing about the the term “evangelical.” In his lecture on the term, Dr. Carson demonstrates that the term means different things to different people and different things in different parts of the world. He mentions being in Columbia. There, the term refers to people who go door-to-door like Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He goes on to say, “If I lived in New York City with my dear friend, Tim Keller, I would never call myself an Evangelical, unless I were in a very friendly group because, by and large, in Manhattan evangelical means the Christianized version of the Taliban. It roughly means right-wing, stupid, ignorant, bomb-throwing people, and I don’t think of myself that way. So, I wouldn’t call myself an Evangelical there unless I had a lot of time to explain my position. . . . This is true of almost all labels. There are many, many contexts I would never call myself Reformed. In many parts of the deep South, Reformed basically means you don’t like evangelism. And I don’t think of myself like that, either.” Interestingly, Dr. Carson teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is known as a Reformed scholar.

There are many who wear the term "Evangelical" today that I would not call evangelical. There are even some who write for the leading evangelical magazine that I would hesitate to call evangelical. It seems that evangelical doesn't always mean evangelical any more. It also is apparent that evangelical means different things to different people.

So, all terms have baggage. One must be careful in using such labels that he defines the term and understands how they are being used in a particular context. Still, it is impossible to talk without labels. Labels provide a short-hand for explaining larger ideas. If I could not use the terms “reformed,” “Presbyterian,” or “evangelical,” then I would have hand them the Westminster Confession of faith, the PCA's Book of Church Order, and then add the following statement: "I believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture, that Scripture is infallible, inerrant, and our only infallible rule for what we are to believe and how we are to live. Furthermore, I believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Etc..." Frankly, it is much easier just to say that I am Evangelical, Reformed, and Presbyterian, even though all of those labels have problems.

So, do we need the label "missional?" That will be the subject of my next post.

History of the Term Missional

2009-07-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

There is some debate over the history of the term “missional.” I first heard the concept, although not the term, when I went through the Inquirer’s Class at Perimeter Church (PCA) in 1983. In the class, Randy Pope makes the point that the church is supposed to be both a home to her people and a mission to her community. That is, the purpose of the church can be divided into two parts: 1) A home – this includes worship, nurture, edification, training, etc.. and 2) a mission – the church exists to announce the gospel to its community.

The first time I heard the term "missional" was in listening to and reading information on ministry from Tim Keller. I loved both its corrective to some of the problems I saw in the seeker-church movement as well as its emphasis on reaching the lost with the gospel.

According to an article in Christianity Today, the term “Missional Church” was first used in the book Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending Church in North America, edited by Darrell Gruder in 1998. However, D. A. Carson claims that Tim Keller coined the term “missional” in 1989 (he makes this claim in his lecture Keeping Up the Conversation).

However, it appears both are wrong, Ed Stetzer, who is a missiologist in residence at LifeWay (the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Church. You can read his blog here) says that the first use of the word (at least in the way it is used today) occurred in a 1983 book by Francis Dubose called God Who Sends. Dubose was a professor at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, a Southern Baptist Seminary which, according to Al Mohler, "trains clergy in the most conservative branch of a conservative church." Stetzer probably has done more research on the historical use of the term than anyone. He recently spoke at Dallas Theological Seminary’s conference on “Beyond the Church Doors: Developing a Missional Culture in Your Congregation.”

From Stetzer’s sketch of the history, the term was first used at a Southern Baptist Seminary, popularized further by The Gospel and Culture Network, and even further by Tim Keller, and has been used widely by such diverse groups as the Southern Baptist, a keynote address by Randy Pope at the PCA’s General Assembly, Dallas Theological Seminary, the emergent church, and Mark Driscoll and his Acts 29 Network. Furthermore, I as noted above, I have seen the term used positively by such conservative stalwarts as D. A. Carson, John Piper, and Tullian Tchividjian (the successor to James Kennedy at Coral Ridge Presbyterian, PCA, although Tullian prefers the term "missionary minded").

So, if the term is being used so widely by a variety of people in such varying contexts, some question if it is a helpful term. I will address that in a later post.

The Meaning of Missional

2009-07-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

As some have pointed out, the term “missional” has been used by various people in different ways. The question is, at Village Seven, what do we mean by the term missional? Since I have been heavily influenced on this by Dr. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA), let me start by giving his five characteristics of a missional church:

1. Discourse in the vernacular. That is, we want to speak in common language, not in Christian jargon (more on this in a future post). Furthermore, it seeks to avoid “we-them” language that speaks disdainfully of unbelievers and those who differ from us.

2. Enter and retell the culture’s stories with the gospel. This means understanding the hopes, dreams, fears, and concerns of the people in our culture and then addressing these issues with Scripture and the gospel.

3. Theologically train lay people for public life and vocation. In our grand Calvinistic/Kuyperian tradition, we want to train people approach all of life from a biblical worldview and to engage the culture from this biblical worldview.

4. Create a Christian community that is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. Because the gospel turns the world’s values-system on its head, we want a Christian community that demonstrates this. This shows itself in our love for neighbor, our concern for holiness, and our compassion for those who are hurting.

5. Practice Christian unity as much as possible on the local level. The church should display the unity for which Christ prays. That does not mean we obliterate theological distinctions. Rather, we maintain our distinctions but unite with other brothers and sisters over the cause of the gospel.

I heard one person say that the missional church where the Christians understand their calling to “go and be” rather than “come and see.” It is a church that understands that part of its calling is to be a mission to the community in which God has placed it.

The Missional Church is Different from a Seeker Church

It is important to note that a missional church and a seeker church are vastly different. In fact, many of those who call themselves “missional” are reacting to some of the trends they saw in the seeker-church movement. A seeker church attempts to attract non-Christians by putting on great programs. Usually, this involves having separate services for believers and unbelievers. According to Bill Hybels, these seeker services are modeled on programs like a Billy Graham Crusade. They seek to put on a great show with an evangelistic message.

In missional churches (at least those who use the term in the PCA), non-Christians are invited to come to worship services where the focus is truly worship. That is, it is not a presentation or show about Christianity, it is not an evangelistic meeting. Rather, it is an invitation to come and experience the Christian community and Christian worship from the inside. So, while missional churches work hard at making their services intelligible to non-Christians, they also work hard to keep the focus and liturgy set on the worship of God and not a presentation for unbelievers. Tim Keller addresses this issue further in this video from Desiring God.

The Missional Church is Different from the Emergent Church

For an excellent critique of the Emergent Church movement, listen to D. A. Carson’s lectures on The Gospel Coalition’s website. You can find it here. In this audio, you will notice that Dr. Carson quotes Keller’s use of the word “missional” favorably, but is critical of how emergents use the term. This is helpful because it shows an important distinction that missional, rightly defined, is good. However, like many other terms (e.g. Reformed and Evangelical), it can be used in ways that no evangelical (another slippery term) would want.

What is a Missional Church?

2009-07-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

Over the next several weeks, I will be blogging on the three distinctives (beyond our theology, polity, and values) that we want to characterize our church. The three distinctives are 1) A gospel community, 2) An authentic community, and 3) a missional community. I will not be taking these ideas in order, but will bounce between them but will start with what it means to be a missional community. However, before I give my thoughts on what each of these mean, let me direct you to some excellent resources on the topic.

While there are varying definitions of what it means to be missional, around Village Seven, we are using the word in the way it is defined in this paper by Dr. Tim Keller. Also, Desiring God Ministries (the ministry of John Piper) has posted this interview with Dr. Keller on what it means to be a missional church.

The following articles and MP3s do not all use the word "missional" but they touch on some of the themes of what it means to be missional. However, one should read the paper above by Tim Keller first before moving to these other articles.

Living a Magnetic Faith in a Post-Christian World by Denis Haack
Advancing the Gospel into the 21st Century by Tim Keller
The Gospel and the Poor by Tim Keller
Let the Nations be Glad by John Piper - In this MP3, Piper shows that a missional church must be concerned about missions.
What in the World is Missional Church? by Jonathan Leeman on the 9Marks site (Mark Dever's ministry) is a helpful critique of the missional movement.

The Church: A Gospel, Authentic, and Missional Community

2009-07-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

The leadership of Village Seven is working on its strategic plan. While there are many practical steps that need to be determined in order to formulate this plan, there are some more foundational characteristics of the church that must always be kept in view.

First, the church must know and understand its mission. At Village Seven, our mission is to be a life giving church to Colorado Springs, the West, and the World. Beyond our mission, we have four core values—worship, teaching, nurture, reaching. Furthermore, in terms of theology, we are Reformed. In regard to church government, we are Presbyterian. Our mission, values, theology and polity all are components in making us who we are as a church.

Besides these, there are other important distinctives of who we desire to be as a church. These distinctives are 1) Gospel-based community, 2) an authentic community, and 3) a missional community. There is much overlap between these three. As people understand the gospel, they will become more authentic in their relationships, and more missional in their living. At the same time, as people live in community and live with a sense of mission, it will drive them back to the gospel. Therefore, in order to achieve one, we must aim at all three.

Gospel Community
We desire to be a community of God’s people that are living in line with the gospel. This means that we want to live based on the understanding that we are fully loved and accepted by God based on the finished work of Jesus Christ (Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone). We always want to grow in our understanding of the gospel that reminds us that we are more sinful than we ever dared to imagine and in Christ, we are more loved than we ever dared to hope.

As a result of this understanding, we are completely secure because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We can be honest about our sin in full repentance because we know God’s love for us is not based on our performance. We can embrace fellow sinners because we know that we, too, are broken and sinful. This understanding of the gospel enables us to be bold, yet humble, secure, yet vulnerable; repenting, yet joyful.

Authentic Community
Being a gospel-based community frees us up to be an authentic community. Instead of maintaining a façade of righteousness, we are free to be honest about our sin because our security is found in Christ’s righteousness, not our own. As an authentic community, we are learning to let down our masks. We want to be passionate in our pursuit of holiness, but honest about our sin. We want to be a community that lets other people in our lives, to see the dirt, hurt, and ugliness of sin so that we can minister to one other out of the gospel. So, we desire to be transparent with one another, to love one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to forgive one another—all because that is what Christ has done for us.

Missional Community
As a gospel-based community, we are passionate about continuing Jesus’ ministry of redemption. Therefore, we want to love our city and our world even as God so loved the world. Just as Christ gave Himself up for us, we desire to give ourselves up for the world, to join in His suffering to take his ministry of reconciliation to those in need. Therefore, we want to follow Christ’s pattern of ministering to the world in both word and deed. As the body of Christ, we desire to bring healing where sin has brought hurting. In the words of a great hymn, we want to join with Christ in making his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

Happy Birthday John Calvin

2009-07-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 10, is John Calvin’s 500th birthday. Mentioning Calvin’s names draws mixed responses. People seem to either love him or hate him. Yet, any student of history and/or theology would agree that Calvin has had a profound impact on western civilization and the development of the church.

While it seems that most people have a strong opinion about Calvin, few know much about him. Some of this is due to the fact that he is not as dramatic a character as some of the other Reformers. Some good movies have been made about Martin Luther, particularly the relatively recent Luther, staring Joseph Fiennes and Peter Ustinov. John Knox’s life would make a good movie as well. However, a movie about Calvin would have little success selling tickets at the box office (or even a church). He was a pastor and a scholar, which is not the stuff of which movies are made.

Still, since Calvin played such an important role in the church and culture, learning about his life and influence would be worthwhile for most Christians. Recently, I read Robert Godfrey’s John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor. I found it very helpful and enjoyable. Also, it is relatively brief.
If you prefer listening to reading, Dr. Frank James has a good 4-part lecture called “The Calvin I Never Knew.” It is available from Reformed Theological Seminary on I-Tunes and is free.

While Calvin is probably most famous for his Institutes of the Christian Religion, which is a treasure trove of theology, what I have appreciated about Calvin over the years are his commentaries. His commentaries are still helpful and very relevant today. That is because he interacts seriously with the text in a pastoral way. While I love Luther’s commentary on Galatians, exegetically, Luther’s commentaries can’t touch Calvin’s. If a person is wrestling with the meaning of a biblical passage, Calvin is always a good source of help and clarity.

While I am sure Calvin would prefer that we not honor him (just as I am sure he would not like the term “Calvinist”), it is good for us to honor those who have gone before us, who have enriched our lives with their teaching and their sacrifice. John Calvin certainly has enriched mine.

Sunday Leftovers - More Thoughts on Genesis 4

2009-03-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

For every Sunday’s sermon, I usually have about twice as much material as I have time to use. So, a lot of it ends up on the cutting room floor. Obviously, the stuff I delete are things that I do not believe are essential to the point of my sermon. My main point is that Abel was living by faith while Cain was living by works. Grace leads to joy. Works leads to bitterness. Joyless, self-righteous, angry, religious people show by their emotions a lack of confidence in the gospel. To understand why I believe this is what Genesis 4 is teaching, you can listen to the sermon here. Still, there are usually some interesting tidbits that I don’t have time to mention. Below are some quick hits on the leftovers.

Notice the parallels between Genesis 3 and Genesis 4. You have the sin, God’s inquiry, and then the pronouncement of judgment. One of the great differences is in how Cain responds to God’s inquiry. Adam shifts the blame. Cain is still downright defiant—even being sarcastic with God—“Am I the shepherd’s shepherd?” Sin has become harder and more brazen.
The curses of Genesis 3 become worse in Genesis 4. Since Cain rejected family by killing his brother, he will live in alienation from family. Since he spilled his brother’s blood onto the ground, he will live in alienation from the ground. The earth will no longer yield to his strength. Since he chose to alienate himself from God by killing one made in God’s image, he will be driven from the presence of God. Notice the food theme going on as well. Adam eats of the fruit. Then, in pronouncing the effects of the fall to Adam in Genesis 3, eating is mentioned five times. Adam sinned by eating. Now eating is going to require pain and toil. Then, in Genesis 4, Cain works the ground. Now, the ground will not produce food for him. Man is getting more and more alienated from the earth. Man was supposed to rule the earth, but now the earth will not yield to man’s strength.
In judgment, God gives you what you want. Here is part of the deceptiveness of sin. It lures you in, promises you freedom. As judgment, God lets you have it. Cain despises his family, so God drives him out from his family. Cain rejects God’s Word and promise. So, Cain is driven from God’s presence.
We see the shocking degradation of sin in Cain’s response. Even after God had confronted him, even after God has pronounced his judgment, Cain shows no repentance and no remorse. Instead of falling on his knees, pleading with God for mercy, he still clings to his self-righteousness by claiming God is unjust. He says, 13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. He is complaining that God is treating him unjustly and still seems clueless as to how he treated his brother unjustly. It is all about Cain. His blindness is astounding, as it is with our sin.
Because Cain has rebelled against God, he is driven to restlessness. There is a whole sermon in this point. If I had time, I would love to explore the theme of Sabbath rest on the seventh day of creation and man’s restlessness apart from God.
This restlessness is rooted in our separation from God. As Augustine said, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” Calvin said, ““There is no peace for men, unless they acquiesce in the providence of God, and are persuaded that their lives are the objects of his care… they can only quietly enjoy any of God’s benefits so long as they regard themselves as placed in the world, on this condition, that they pas their lives under his government.”
God shows remarkable mercy on fallen mankind. Genesis 4 is not just a story of sin and saving grace, but also a story of sin and common grace. Cain and his posterity go on to build cities, develop marvelous technology, create art, and other cultural developments. Even the line of Cain makes beautiful culture. As Christians, we can celebrate this with our fellow man. We enjoy the technological developments of fallen mankind. As Steve Brown often says, he doesn’t care if the pilot is a Christian or not. All he wants to know is, can he fly this airplane? This is also why we can enjoy the beautiful creations of people who were not necessarily Christians. Both Beethoven and the Beatles produced great music. Neither Beethoven or any of the Beatles had what we would call an orthodox faith. Yet, we can celebrate the beauty of their work.
God also showed his mercy in the mark of Cain. The mark of Cain was not a sign of judgment, but of protection.

A Brave New World Meets 1984

2009-03-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

On March 9, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order that allows for federal funding to be used in embryonic stem cell research. In doing so, President Obama and most of the media proclaimed this as a victory, not just for stem cell research advocates, but for science. Alice Park of Time magazine wrote, “The President's decision does much more than expand funding for stem-cell research. It heralds a shift in the government's view of science, ushering in an era that promises to defend science — and the pursuit of potentially useful treatments — against ideology” (Researchers Cheer Obama's Vote for Stem-Cell Science). The president himself said, “It is about ensuring that scientific data [are] never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

President Obama’s words are truly Orwellian. He has rephrased the vocabulary of the discussion over stem cell research so that the debate is not over the sanctity of human life, but over science. Many people (including many scientists) have long objected to embryonic stem cell research because they believe that a human embryo is in fact a human being. As a human being, it has human rights. One should not be able to dispose of a human being simply for the purpose of scientific experimentation. Most Americans are horrified by the evils of human experimentation, such as the Tuskegee Experiment, and do not wish to see that sort of thing continue, no matter how great the scientific gain.

However, with his remarks, President Obama has redefined the debate. According to the president, the debate is not over the sanctity of human life, but over science. So, if you oppose embryonic stem cell research, you are placing ideology over science, or, as he said, you are making decisions based on ideology and not facts. The not so subtle implication is that if you believe in the sanctity of human life, you are an anti-scientific, backwoods, Luddite rube.

In 1984, George Orwell dramatically demonstrates that, if one can control the language and define the vocabulary, one can always win the debate. Language is a powerful tool. If President Obama is successful in redefining the debate over human life in this way, then there will be no debate. No thinking American wants to be anti-science and anti-knowledge. No compassionate person wants to allow an ideology to interfere with scientific discovery if that scientific discovery can improve the lives of thousands, if not millions of people. Most people do not want medical advancements to be hindered by political ideologies. If the debate is framed in those terms, then there is no debate.

However, the President’s remarks—as well as those who support them—reveal a very clear, distinct political ideology. His remarks assume that the belief that a human embryo has human rights is an ideological position rooted in theology and that his belief that unborn babies are not humans is not an ideological position. That is, those who agree with him are non-ideological and those who disagree with him are trying to impose their ideology on scientific discovery.
As Christians, we must remember that nothing in this world is neutral—including science. When it comes to science, all human beings would agree that there are certain types of experimentation that are immoral no matter how much promise they hold. Testing on unwilling live human subjects or killing people for the purpose of scientific discovery is beyond the pale. Therefore, we must remain clear that we are not anti-science, but we are pro-life.

As a side note, in 1984, in the Foreward to his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that we as Americans have escaped Orwell’s horrors of Big Brother. Instead, Huxley’s A Brave New World has come about in our midst. Postman writes, “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. . . . Orwell feared that truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we ould become a trivial culture. . . . In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.”

My question to Postman is this: What if both Orwell and Huxley were right?

Sunday Leftovers Part 2 - Did Adam and Eve Die in the Garden?

2009-02-17T10:27:00.000-08:00

One of the questions that often is asked is, why didn’t Adam and Eve fall over dead instantly after eating the fruit? After all, God said that, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). The Serpent said that they would not die. Yet, we read in Genesis 3 that they eat the forbidden fruit and live to tell about it. In fact, they lived for quite a long time. What gives?

Adam and Eve did die at the very moment they ate of the tree. First, they immediately began the physical process of death. If I were to put poison in your food, or if you were exposed to deadly levels of radiation, you would die, but it might not happen immediately. You can eat something fatal and yet the fatality might take time to occur. The process of death has begun, even though it is not yet complete.

Also, they are exiled from the Tree of Life. We read this at the end of the chapter in verses 22-24. Being cast out of the Garden and away from the tree of life was a death sentence. [A side point—through Christ, we are invited back to eat of the tree of life, cf. Revelation 2:7, 22:2]

Secondly, while they began the process of physical death, their spiritual death was instantaneous. Immediately, they are filled with guilt and shame. They begin to cover up. Immediately, they are alienated from God, who is their life, trying to hide from him in the Garden. Immediately, they reveal the corrupt nature of their now dead hearts as they try to blame others for their own sin. They are put in a position where they are not completely unable to make things right with God. They are now completely hopeless.

Just as Ephesians says that those without Christ are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-5), Adam and Eve were now spiritually dead, even though they were still walking in the Garden.
As soon as they eat of the tree, the Serpent is exposed as a liar. He said the tree would give them freedom. He said that they would not die. Yet, by eating of the tree, they lost their freedom. They fell into bondage to sin, guilt, shame, and death. They lost their lives as they were exiled from the Garden. Instead of making their lives better, as the Serpent implied, sin has now brought them chaos, death, and cursing.

Whenever we follow Adam and Eve’s pattern of excuse-making and blame-shifting for our sin, we show that we, too, have been held captive by sin and death.

One final thought that I was unable to include in Sunday’s sermon. Another point that Genesis 3 should make clear to all of us is this: even at our best, we cannot fulfill the law’s demands. We desperately need a Savior. The Fall of Adam and Eve shows us that even if you had no sinful nature, even if you had never tasted evil, even if nothing bad had happened to you your entire life, even if you lived in an ideal environment, even if you had the ideal spouse, even if you had no needs at all, you still wouldn’t be able to keep the law’s demands. You would still need a Savior. If Adam couldn’t do it, then you can’t either. Therefore, we cannot save ourselves by our moral performance. We must abandon all efforts at self-justification and all attempts to prove ourselves worthy and throw ourselves completely on the mercy of Christ.

Sunday Leftovers Part 1 - Talking Animals

2009-02-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

In every sermon I preach, I start off writing a manuscript that is about twice as long as I have time to preach. I then spend an hour or two editing it down to a more reasonable time frame (some might argue that I could spend a little more time editing). It is always a painful process leaving half of my sermon on the editing room floor. This has been particularly difficult in my current series. I am preaching through the book of Genesis. Even though I am planning on spending four weeks on Genesis 3, I still find that I do not have time to cover all that I want to say on this very important chapter.

Much could be (and has been) written on the historicity of the first three chapters of Genesis. I have already discussed the creation account in my earlier sermons. However, Genesis 3 strikes some as particularly problematic because it involves a talking animal. To some, the very presence of a talking serpent is a strong indication that this is a myth and not actual history. After all, every other story about a talking animal (with Balaam’s Ass being a notable exception) is myth or fiction. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Eve does not seem at all surprised that this wild animal is talking to her. This certainly does not seem to be a normal reaction. After all, if you were in your backyard and a snake (or even a squirrel, or any other animal, for that matter), started talking to you, you probably would not continue on with a normal conversation. You would be startled.

Yet, the author of Genesis represents it as a true story. We have parables in other parts of the Bible. Parables are fictitious stories that are told to make a point. However, this story has all the literary markers of an historical account. It has none of the markers of a parable or myth. Furthermore, the New Testament refers to it as an historical story in both 2 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2. If this story is myth and not history, then Paul's arguments become baseless. So, the Bible clearly represents the story as a true account. That means you are left with the choice of accepting this story as history or rejecting the Bible as fully authoritative.

You might say, “This has to be fiction. It is contrary to reason an ordinary human experience for animals to talk. Yet, here you have a woman talking to a snake and she doesn’t seem to think anything of it.” While it is true that it is contrary to normal human experience, that does not necessarily mean that it is contrary to reason. There are a few possible, reasonable explanations.

First of all, C. S. Lewis, Randy Alcorn, and others argue that, while animals don’t talk today, they might have before the world fell into sin and might again in the new earth. The world we live in today is significantly different from the world of Adam and Eve. Right now, we see the world in its broken state. All of creation has been subjected to futility as a result of the Fall (Romans 8:18-24). Living in Colorado, we see the beauty of creation on a daily basis. Stepping out your front door and seeing the sun shine on Pikes Peak is a breathtaking experience. Yet, as glorious as creation is right now, we are only seeing a fallen, broken world. The world before the fall (and the world after the consummation of all things) is far more glorious. It is quite reasonable to believe that things in the created order will be significantly different than they are right now.

I will admit that I am not sure I buy the idea that animals could talk before the fall , or that animals on the New Earth will have the power of speech, but it is at least theoretically possible. Just because animals don’t talk now that does not mean that has always been the case.

Another more probable explanation is that the serpent is able to speak due to Satanic influence. Revelation 20 indicates that this is no ordinary Serpent. Either this animal is Satan posing as a Serpent or is a Serpent under Satanic influence. The fact that Satan, who has supernatural (but limited) powers could give a beast the power of speech is not inconsistent with the testimony of the Bible.

The reason Eve is not shocked by a talking serpent is because she is naïve. After all, she had not yet eaten of the tree of knowledge and, it is quite possible that he had not been around for all that long to know how the world worked. She did not have sufficient knowledge to know if this was normal.

What should have seemed inconsistent to Adam and Eve was not that this Serpent was talking, but that He was speaking against the Word of God. But, that is one of the points of this story. The abnormality that should have alarmed Adam and Eve is not a talking Serpent, but a creature who calls God a liar. Adam and Eve had enough revelation to know that this was not normal. They knew what God had said and they knew that this animal was speaking contrary to God's revelation. At this point, Adam should have pulled out his garden hoe and chopped the beast’s head off. However, Adam failed in his priestly duty—and here we are.

Sovereign Grace Music Sale

2009-01-28T15:00:00.001-08:00

On Sunday, we sang a song from The Valley of Vision, a CD produced by Sovereign Grace Music. The song is called "O Great God." A number of people commented on how much they liked it. Well, being the lucky Calvinists that we are, Sovereign Grace is having a sale. Just click here for details. So, you can purchase the CD for your own listening pleasure. I trust you will find it a great aid in your personal worship.

Marriage Resources

2009-01-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday (January 14, 2009), Bryan Counts preached on Genesis 2:18-25, the creation of Eve and the first marriage. I will be preaching on this same passage for the next two weeks. My prayer is that this will provoke many to think about their marriage from a gospel perspective. There are many good books on this topic, but here are just a few that I would recommend:

The Marriage Prayer by Pat Morley and David Delk. The idea behind this little book is that you pray this prayer for fourteen days and see how God begins to work. It is not a mantra or magical incantation. Rather, it is a challenge to pray biblically about your marriage. The book is full of real life stories and practical ideas. I know both of the authors, their wives, and kids. I also know many of the people in the book. You will find it helpful.

Your Marriage Masterpiece by Al Janssen. Al and Jo are members of Village Seven and serve as leaders in the Kingdom Builders Community. We are very excited that they will be leading a marriage seminar at Village Seven later this spring.

Each for the Other by Bryan and Kathy Chapell. Just as you would expect from Bryan Chapell, he takes the gospel and applies it to marriage. The book is both theologically sound and very helpful.

The Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb. This is a classic that helps you dig deep and address some of the key issues in building a better marriage.

The Peasant Princess sermon series by Marc Driscoll. This is a sermon series on The Song of Solomon. Because of some of the subject matter in this series, I would give this a PG-13 rating, but that is part of what makes it helpful for married couples.

One Resolution Every Christian Can Keep (Part 2)

2008-12-31T17:38:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I gave a quick overview of how a Christian can grow more in godliness. It can be summarized in this: You must feed your faith and then live by faith. It all begins with growing more in your understanding of God’s love and care for you.

At this point, you may be tempted to say, “I already know God loves me,” and stop there. If that is what you are thinking, let me say this as kindly and gently as I can—you are clueless. You may have tasted a thimble of God’s grace, but there is an ocean to plummet. You do not have any idea just how deep it is. That is the “work” of sanctification. It is plunging into the depths of
God’s grace, swimming in it, and then living your life on the basis that it is real.

So, how do we go about this “work” of sanctification? We make good use of the means of grace that God has given to us. In order to make this practical, let me suggest there are two things that every Christian can do to grow. The first looks the same for all. The second is different for every person.

1. Resolve to participate in worship with the people of God every week, unless providentially hindered.

There is something profound, even mystical, about gathering with God’s people on the Lord’s Day. Even if the music doesn’t “move you” or you don’t learn anything from the sermon, there is something powerful about the corporate worship of the church that you cannot get anyplace else. The Spirit moves when the Word is preached, God is praised, when you hear the struggling saints around you singing and professing their faith, when you partake of the sacrament—God works through all of this in ways that we see and in ways that we do not notice. There is no substitute for this.

2. Resolve to meditate on God’s grace everyday.

This is where many Christians will say, “Oh, have a quiet time. I have tried that and failed so many times I don’t feel like trying again.” Let me suggest that there may be more than one way to skin a cat. Here are some suggestions for ways to incorporate a diet of grace in your life that can suit any lifestyle or level of discipline. By the way, when you fail at this (not if, but when), take a mulligan and start over. Failure is not fatal. Quitting can be.

Read a Daily Devotional
There are some wonderful devotional guides out these days. If you miss a day (or two, or week), don’t quit. Start back. Here are some that I recommend:

Holiness Day by Day, by Jerry Bridges

A Godward Life (vol. 1-3), by John Piper

For the Love of God (vo. 1-2), by D. A. Carson

Morning and Evening, by Charles H. Spurgeon

The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers, edited by Arthur Bennett

Knowing God’s Purpose for Your Life, by J. I. Packer

Read through the Bible in a Year

Follow this link to several Bible reading plans: www.esv.org/biblereadingplans

Read a Psalm a day

Take one hour a week to study a book of the Bible in depth

Listen to good MP3’s in your car, while working out at the gym, biking, hiking, etc.

This works great for me. I need to exercise and I need to grow in grace. So, I listen to good MP3s while exercising. Buffet your body and your soul at the same time. Here are some good resources. Most are free.

Tim Keller’s sermons
Marc Driscoll’s sermons
Scotty Smith’s sermons
Alister Begg’s sermons
John Piper’s sermons
The Gospel Coalition – a treasure trove of sermons by all of the men above, plus many others
Living Christ 360
Also, check out Covenant Seminary classroom, Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and www.thirdmill.org

Read a good book on grace and holiness

If you are not a regular reader, commit to reading just two books this year. If you read regularly, why not read a book a month or every two months that will feed your soul? Here are some that I recommend:

Holiness by Grace, by Bryan Chapell
Transforming Grace, by Jerry Bridges
Rediscovering Holiness, by J. I. Packer
Desiring God, by John Piper
When You Don’t Desire God, by John Piper
The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller (short)
Dynamics of the Spiritual Life, by Richard Lovelace (long)
The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, by Walter Marshall (a bit challenging)
The Holiness of God, by R. C. Sproul
Holiness, by J. C. Ryle

Read a good book on prayer and spiritual disciplines

Praying Backwards, by Bryan Chapell
Pray with Your Eyes Open, by Richard Pratt
The Discipline of Grace, by Jerry Bridges
The Christian Life, by Sinclair Ferguson
The Fight, by Jerry White
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, by Donald Whitney
A Hunger for God, by John Piper
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, by Marva Dawn

Take a day or half-day off for prayer or spiritual refreshment

Plan to attend a spiritually nourishing conference this year

Attend a Spiritual retreat

Plan a personal retreat where you go away with your Bible, a good book, and a journal
A retreat with your church group
A retreat with a small group of friends

Listen to music that feeds your soul

Take an occasional break from your classic rock or favorite country station and pop one of these CD’s in. Here are some sources of good, worship music:

Sovereign Grace Music
Indelible Grace
The Odes Project
Andrew Peterson
Jonathan Noël
Michael Card
If you like choral music, check out John Rutter and The Cambridge Singers. Always good stuff.

Get together with someone else for encouragement

Join or form a small group
Pick one night a week to share with your wife (or husband) what you are learning and to hear what she (he) is learning
Call a friend once a week and ask them what they are learning. Share with them what you are learning.
Pick one night at dinner to talk with your family about a spiritual topic.
Read through a book of the Bible with your family and discuss it over dinner (just a couple of questions to start)
Form or join an email discussion group

Final Practical Advice

What ever you plan to do, take active steps to implement your plan. If you don’t actually make a plan, then you are planning to fail. If it is important to you, you will plan for it. If it is not on your calendar, you are not planning. You are merely wishing, and wishing won’t do.

Put your chosen activity on your calendar. Make it an appointment. If you wait for free time to do it, you will never do it. This may be the single most important step.
If you are using a devotional guide, podcast, CD’s, book, etc… order whatever it is today. Do not wait until later. Go online at the first opportunity and get the materials you need.
If you are planning on attending a conference, or taking a spiritual retreat, schedule the time off right away. Register for the conference today. Take active steps right now to succeed.

One Resolution Every Christian Can Keep (Part 1)

2008-12-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

“I wish that I was half the man I wish that I could be.” That is a memorable line from Andrew Peterson’s song, Mountains. I love that line because it expresses my heart so well. While none of us will achieve the perfect state in this life, every Christian can die more and more to sin and live more and more to righteousness. So, why don’t we resolve together to do just that? Let’s resolve in 2009 to become more conformed to the image of Christ.

You say that you have tried that and failed. Me, too. If your goal is to be perfect in 2009, you will fail again. However, while you will not attain total Christ-likeness this next year, you can become more Christ-like. You can become a lot more like Jesus. If you are a Christian, I can assure you with full confidence that you are not the exception to the rule. You can grow in godliness.
In pursuing holiness, we must be careful to avoid two equally destructive errors. The first error is simply sitting back and hoping that God changes you. After 40+ years of walking with Jesus, including 20+ years of pastoral ministry, I can assure you, that will not work. No one drifts into godliness.

The other error is what Bryan Chapell calls “Sola Bootstrapsus.” That is when you to try to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps through will power and self-discipline. Many Christians have tried or are trying this and it is corrosive to the soul. It will either cause you to feel crushed by your own sin or, even worse, turn you into a self-righteous religious jerk. Heaven knows we don’t need any more of those.

For those who think they can sanctify themselves, I remind them of the words of the old Puritan, Walter Marshall: “Men show themselves strangely forgetful, or hypocritical, in professing original sin in their prayers, catechisms, and confessions of faith; and yet urging on themselves and others the practice of the law, without the consideration of nay strengthening, enlivening means; as if there were no want of ability, but only of activity.”

To put it into contemporary language, Marshall is saying, "you are terribly deceived if you think that your problem in sanctification is that you aren’t trying hard enough. You not only lack the activity. You also lack the ability."

There is a third way: sanctification by grace through faith. Like the passive person who wants God to change him, this method of sanctification means depending solely on the work of the Holy Spirit. Like the bootstraps Christian, this, too, takes discipline. Yet, here it is an active discipline of dependence on Christ. That means you are making active use of the means of grace, not as a work by which you reform yourself, but as a means to grow in your understanding of grace and the majestic beauty of Christ.

To put it simply, you must discipline yourself daily to meditate on the grace and beauty of Christ, to understand that you are fully loved and accepted by Him, that you are not under condemnation, but under the reign of grace, that God has a future for you that is far greater and far more pleasurable than anything sin or this world offer you, indeed, have the Holy Spirit living in you, transforming you into the image of Christ. Because you have the Holy Spirit, and that you do indeed have the power to say “no” to sin and “yes” to godliness.

Therefore, you can grow in godliness by growing in grace. To do this, you must feed your faith and then live by faith.

Let me close with another quote from Walter Marshall: “Slavish fear may extort some slavish hypocritical performances from us, but the duty of love cannot be extorted and forced by fear, but it must be won, and sweetly allured by an apprehension of God’s love and goodness towards us.” Therefore, let us resolve to grow more in are understanding and wonder of God’s love and goodness towards us.

More on the Rick Warren Controversy

2008-12-20T19:00:00.001-08:00

A lot of conservative theologians have chimed in on the controversy over Rick Warren giving the Invocation at President-Elect Barrack Obama's inauguration. Some have been rather snarky, taking unnecessary pot shots at Pastor Warren, which is both unhelpful and unfortunate.

One blog post that I did find helpful was Carl Trueman's Goodbye Larry King, Hello Jerry Springer. Professor Trueman demonstrates how Christians will always be outsiders in the world. At the same time, we do not have to be the hatemongers the world says we are. It is a short post. Hope you find it helpful.

Christianity in America

2008-12-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

As Ameican Christians, we have an awkward relationship with the culture around us. We are citizens, but we are also aliens and strangers. Ultimately, our citizenship is in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, we are also called to live as good citizens here. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God told the Jews to seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon (Jeremiah 29:7). We, too, should seek the peace and prosperity of the cities in which we live.

However, in seeking to bless our city and our country, we are caught up in a dynamic tension that is deeply embedded in our culture and history as Americans. On the one hand, there is the notion that America was founded as a "Christian" country. As a result, there are some who believe we should fight to recover our Christian heritage, grab the levers of power, and make sure that all the non-Christians here live by our rules. After all, if God is God, then the rules of biblical morality are not our rules--they are not mere social constructs--but are laws invested with divine authority.

On the other hand, we clearly live in a pluralistic society. Demanding that non-Christians embrace Christian values and behaviors when they have not embraced Christ seems wrong-headed and counterproductive. It distracts us from our God-given mission.

For example, take the issue of public prayer (prayer in public schools, high school football games, Baccalaureate services, etc.). Do we really want to insist that a Muslim/Hindu/Atheist/Cult member teacher lead our kids in prayer at any of these events? Do you want a Muslim/Hindu/Atheist/Cult member to lead your child in prayer at any of these events? Some seek to avoid these religious distinctions by praying "generic" prayers that are simply addressed to a generic god. Yet, this is the worst of all possible solutions. It implies that the god of all religions is the same god, that we can have real fellowship with people who hold to a different religion. This sort of civil religion is syncretism of the worst sort. Of course, we could insist that all public prayers be Christian prayers, but I don't think that will fly, nor do we want to force non-Christians to join in our worship when their hearts are not in it.

Another example is the on-going Christmas wars. Do we really want to insist that non-Christians wish us a Merry Christmas, and then punish them through boycotts when they do not? As Christians, we have a much higher calling than insisting on our "right" to be wished a merry Christmas. Instead, we should have the passion of Jesus to see these people come to know the Christ of Christmas. In our culture warrior mentality, we seem to have lost sight of our mission. Our mission is not to insist on our rights. Our mission is to proclaim the good news of Christ to a lost and dying world. Rather than getting angry over our loss of "rights", we should weep over the world's lostness in sin.

Still, the issue is more complicated than what I have written so far. While we live in a pluralistic culture, the dominant powers of this culture believe that biblical Christianity is a cancer that needs to be removed. For example, recently Senator Obama announced that Rick Warren would give the invocation at his presidential inauguration. The outcry is deafening. Why? Because Pastor Warren is pro-life and believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Because he holds these biblical views, he has been called anti-women's rights, homophobic, and a hater of gays and lesbians. According to some of his opponents, Mr. Warren and his ilk (that includes all Bible-believing Christians) are what is wrong with America.

Another example is the recent Newsweek article that claims that the Bible supports gay marriage. I don't expect Newsweek to endorse biblical values, but this was nothing more than a hatchet job on the Bible. There are a number of excellent critiques of it here, here, and here.

All of this leads us to a very practical questions: How do we live as Christians in a pluralistic society without compromise and without engaging our culture with worldly tactics? Instead of making the post longer, let me link you to a few articles that articulate a biblical way of engaging our world. I highly recommend all of these.

Living a Magnetic Faith in a Post-Modern World by Denis Haack

Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence by John Piper

Evangelical Manners by Richard Mouw

No Need to be Nasty by Joel Belz

Recommended for Christmas

2008-12-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

Books are always a great Christmas gift. Not only can you show your appreciation for someone, but you also can help them grow in knowledge and grace. Here are a few books that you might consider buying for a friend, family member, or even yourself this Christmas season:

1. Holiness Day by Day, by Jerry Bridges. This is a wonderful book for the person in your life who doesn’t read whole books. It is also a great selection for those who want a daily devotional. I was a Jerry Bridges fan long before coming to Village Seven. Getting to know him has only increased my admiration. Holiness Day by Day takes selections from a number of Jerry’s previous books and puts them in a daily devotional. Preaching the gospel to yourself everyday is essential to spiritual growth. This book will help its reader do just that.

2. The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller. Keller’s sermon on the parable of the two sons (normally called the parable of the prodigal son) is his most famous sermon. In The Prodigal God, he expands on it a bit. This is a celebration of grace that will be helpful to both the legalistic “older brothers” and the libertarian “younger brothers” in your life.

3. Reason for God, by Tim Keller. Next to his sermon on the two sons, Keller is known for his sound apologetic sermons that speak to post-modern people. This takes some of those great themes and puts them all in one book. The book has had phenomenal success and would be an excellent gift for those who have questions about the Christian faith or those who simply need their faith strengthened.

4. The ESV Study Bible, published by Crossway Books. Calling this a study Bible is sort of like saying Everest is a tall mountain. This is a study Bible on steroids. It is very well done, has loads of articles and information. Even more, if you buy it, then you also get access to it all online. That way, if you have the internet, you have the ESV Study Bible. As a side note, when the ESV first came out, I greeted it with a yawn. While more literal than the NIV, it did not seem as readable. My first impression was that it was not much an improvement on the New American Standard (NAS), which is what I have always used in my personal study. However, two years ago, I switched from using the NAS in my study to using the ESV. More and more, I have grown to love it. I believe this will be the translation that all serious Bible students will use for the next generation.

Religion and Politics: What's a Christian To Do?

2008-10-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

Below is a sermon I preached this summer on this issue. Since the election is upon us, I thought I might post it here. Since I wrote this out for preaching, it is full of typos and has some incomplete thoughts, especially near the conclusion.

Proverbs 31:1-9

The sayings of King Lemuel—an oracle his mother taught him: “O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel—not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what the law decrees, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights. Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

1. You have a responsibility to be diligent

These instructions come to us from King Lemuel and were given to him by his mother. No one knows who Lemuel was, but most scholars believe that he was not an Israelite. Yet, here we have in Holy Scripture some advice he received from his mom. At first glance, it is just some simple homespun wisdom from a mother to a son about what it means to be king, about what it means to have power.

The reason we are reading these verses is because, in a democracy or a republic, “We, the people” have power. In our governmental structure, we have been given a great measure of power. So, the instructions to the kings of old would have direct application to those of us who live in a democracy. The question is, how are we going to use the power that has been given to us?

What we see in Lemuel’s mother’s instructions is a contrast between the worldly use of power and the redemptive use of power. In verse 4, she tells her son not to drink wine and crave beer. Now, this is not a prohibition against drinking. If you were to read it as that, then you would have to read verse 6 as an encouragement for the poor and oppressed to drown their sorrows in drunkenness. Certainly, the Bible does not encourage that. Instead, what these verses say is that rather than using your power to create your own life of luxury, to be concerned about your own comfort, your own personal peace and affluence, you are to use your power redemptively. God has given you power and with this power comes a grave responsibility. So, take your responsibility to govern seriously. Think soberly about your responsibility. You need to be diligent in dispensing justice.

Specifically, you need to work hard to see that rights are protected and you cannot be passive about this. You need to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Well, what does this mean for us? This is a democracy. That means that “We the people” sit in the place of the king. God has given you power in the governing process. With that power, comes responsibility.

Millions of people will be impacted by how you engage or fail to engage in the political process. What you do or don’t do will determine who will make decisions about healthcare, social security, the economy, the war on terror, energy, the Supreme Court, and on and on. That means your involvement in the political process will indirectly affect who lives, who dies, who gets financial help, who does not. It is a big deal and you must accept it as a big deal.

Well, you might say, “I don’t care for any of the candidates. So, I don’t want to vote for someone who does not share all of my views. John Piper says this:

There is no escape from responsibility by pointing out the imperfections of leaders. That is the only kind of leaders there will ever be. Our calling in this world is not to wait for the arrival of the perfect, but to pick our way through the thicket of flaws. We would be arrogant to put ourselves above this fray and say, "A curse on both your houses."

If you have the right to vote, then you cannot lay aside the responsibility because you don’t like the options. That would be a neglect of your power and dereliction of duty.

2. You have a responsibility to act justly

We live in a pluralistic society. That is, in our country, there no longer is a shared consensus of morals, ethics, and values. So, the question is, is it proper for Christians to bring their biblical teaching to bear on public life? Does religion have any place in the public square?

One of the areas that came up a few years ago was the topic of embryonic stem cell research. Regarding stem cell research, President Bush said the following:

…scientists believe further research using stem cells offers great promise that could help improve the lives of those who suffer from many terrible diseases -- from juvenile diabetes to Alzheimer's, from Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries. And while scientists admit they are not yet certain, they believe stem cells derived from embryos have unique potential.

He goes on to say that while stem cells can be derived from sources other than embryos, “most scientists, at least today, believe that research on embryonic stem cells offer the most promise because these cells have the potential to develop in all of the tissues in the body.”[i]

Yet, even though embryonic stem cell research holds such great promise, President Bush is opposed to it. Why? He opposes it, not on scientific grounds, but on moral grounds. In order to harvest stem cells from embryos, you must kill the embryo. If you believe that an embryo is a human being, then to destroy that human life, even for something as noble as finding a cure for terrible diseases, is still morally wrong. We do not kill any human beings for the purpose of scientific research.

The President’s policy sparked a firestorm. At the center of this firestorm was Christopher Reeve. You will remember that Christopher Reeve. He is the actor most famous for playing Superman, who died due to complications from a spinal injury. Reeve, along with many others, had hoped that embryonic stem cell research might hold the cure to his injury. In commenting on the President’s policy, Reeve said: "It is my belief that when matters of public policy are being debated, no religion should have a seat at the table,"[ii]

However, it is impossible to separate one’s religious beliefs from one’s beliefs about public policy because all of us have values and those values must come from someplace. Everyone believes that we should have values and be governed by those values. But the question is, how do we arrive at values?

For example, without referring to God, why should we find a cure for spinal injuries or Parkinson’s disease as Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox suggest? Well, we would all say because human life is valuable. But, how do you know it is valuable? Science does not tell you that human life is valuable. If you want to go with a pure Darwinian view of life, then it is survival of the fittest. There is no place in such a worldview for compassion and mercy and caring for the weak.

If there is no God, how do you determine values? How do you know what is good and what is evil? Most people take the Jiminy Cricket view of ethics. That is, they say, “Let your conscience be your guide.” But whose conscience? Hitler’s or Mother Teresa’s?

Some ethicists today say that society agrees upon its values. That raises the question, whose society? When societies disagree about values, who is to say which is right? Was the North right to impose its values on the South during the Civil War? In some cultures, it is acceptable to have Aunt Betty over for dinner in other cultures it is acceptable to have Aunt Betty for dinner. Are those two cultures equal? In Afghanistan, the Taliban refused to educate women, forced them to wear Burka’s that covered them from head to toe and denied them the basic rights that every man had. Who are we to say that culture was wrong?

If you take God out of the equation, then values are merely social constructs, which means, values are the means by which one group imposes its will on another. Values and morals then become nothing more than power plays. If you think I am carrying this to the extreme, I assure you that I am not. This is the view of most contemporary philosophers and ethicists who deny God. They believe and are teaching our children that morals are social constructs that those in power impose on those who are without power as a means of oppression.

Ultimately, that means that no one can say that one person’s values are better than anyone else’s. There is no basis for making any important decisions because there is no compass. Was invading Iraq right or wrong? That is a values statement. Is protecting the environment important or unimportant? Should rich people be obligated to pay for poor people’s healthcare? You can go through every issue of this election and it comes down to values. But, the question is, where do those values come from? What is their foundation?

Everyone—without exception—brings their values into the voting booth. No one derives his values from neutral, scientific observation. The difference is, the Christian seeks to anchor his values—not in his own personal preference—but in the character of God the Creator.

However, even here, we must be careful as Christians. We must use our political influence for the sake of justice, but we should not be confused into thinking that we can bring about revival through political power. We do not live in a Christian culture. Rather, we are living in a post-Christian culture. There no longer is a shared consensus. In this, we are living in an age that is very similar to the Jews who lived in exile in Babylon and the Christians living in the pagan Roman Empire of the early church.

I do not see any model in the New Testament where Christians were called to reform the moral character of the Roman Empire by grabbing the levers of power. Christians did not march in protest against the Emperor Cult or the temple prostitutes of Corinth. Instead, they lived moral lives and engaged in acts of mercy and compassion.

Leslie Newbigin, a missionary to India summed it up this way. In answering the question of how the kingdom of this world is displace with the kingdom of God, he writes, “How is the throne itself to be shaken? Only by the power of the gospel itself--announced in word, embodied in deed [and in the Christian community] ... The victory of the Church over the demonic Power of the Roman imperial system did not begin when Christians seized the levers of power: it was won when the victims knelt down in the Coliseum and prayed in the name of Jesus for the Emperor. The martyrs did not displace the emperor with swords, but rather through them the entire mystique of the Empire, its spiritual power, was unmasked, disarmed, made powerless.”
Jesus ushers in His kingdom, not on a warrior’s horse, but on an executioner’s cross. The reason is, it is only through His suffering, only through His death, that He can bring about the kingdom of God.

As a church, our mission is not to promote any political agenda. Our mission is to make disciples. In making disciples, we want to encourage our people to live out their faith in every area of life including the home, work, leisure, school, money, and politics. A biblical world and life view is all-encompassing. At the same time, the Session, which is the governing body of the church, has made it very clear, that it will not permit the distribution of campaign literature. Only in very rare cases, will the church endorse any particular legislation.

In fact, as Presbyterians, our Confession of Faith, which all of our elders and deacons have taken a vow to uphold, states very clearly that the church is not to “intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or, by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.” [Westminster Confession of Faith, 31-4].

So, there is a difference between what Christians as responsible citizens should do and what the church as an institution should do.

3. You have a responsibility to care for the weak

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

It is natural for those who have power to see it as a means to increase their own comfort, to use it for their own personal gain. Because of that, it would be easy to go into an election and think, what will I get out this? Which candidate would be better for me and for my family? Who will give me the best tax cut or the most government benefits?

But, those are not the right questions. Here, in the climax of her instructions to her son, the queen mother reminds Lemuel that he is to use his power to give justice to the poor.
God’s Word is clear that those who are in positions of power must use their power to defend the powerless. We are to be the defenders of those who cannot speak for themselves. Certainly, this would include the unborn. They literally have no voice. They are completely powerless. If we do not stand up for them, who will? It is our royal duty to protect the weak and powerless. A failure to come to the aid of these—the most powerless people in our culture—is clearly negligence.

Yet, the unborn are not the only ones. Minorities—simply because they are in the minority—do not have the same access to power as those in the majority. If we are only looking out for our personal interests, then democracy devolves into a tyranny of the majority.

The group that God mentions explicitly in this passage are the poor and needy. This is not an exception. We see this same emphasis in the giving of the law in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, as well as in the Old Testament prophets. This should not be a side issue for Christians, but should be front and center. The reason is, it is front and center with God. Here, God commands the king specifically to defend the poor and needy, which is a clear sign that this is a critical role of government.

One of the things that has upset younger evangelicals is the way we who are older have cherry-picked the issues of social justice that concern us. We preach with great passion against the sins of our culture, but give very little priority in our thinking to this issue. Yet, there are far more commands and instructions in Scripture in regard to justice for the poor than there are on issues of sexual morality.

God is concerned about the poor and the powerless. Here, the king is commanded to ensure he provides justice for them. Because God is concerned about this issue, it should be front and center for us as well.

Proverbs 29:7 - The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

In Ezekiel, we read why God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it isn’t what you think. He says:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

Now, we might reasonably differ on what is the best way to defend the rights of the poor and to see that they are cared for. You can have two people who care about the poor and yet have radically different views on which program cares for them best. Government handouts and socialized medicine are not always the best thing in caring for the poor and oppressed. Just look at Communism. It did not work very well. On the other hand, a totally free market economy doesn’t have the best track record, either. To see that, all one has to do is look at the oppression of the worker during the Industrial Revolution or visit some of the emerging economies around the globe today.

Yet, even though we might reasonably differ on how we should approach this issue, we should agree that this is a priority for the Christian. It is not a secondary issue.

The point is, we must see our power as voters, not merely as a means to make our own lives better, or even to improve the lot of people like us. Rather, we need to vote to promote a just and equitable society, with particular concern for those who have no voice or power themselves.

Many of you have heard of William Wilberforce. He was the subject of a movie a couple of years ago called “Amazing Grace.” Wilberforce was a member of Parliament. He spent forty years in Parliament fighting against both the slave trade and slavery in England. In 1833, three days before he died, England passed the Slavery Abolition Act. In order to get the bill passed, the English people were willing to compensate the slave owners for their financial loss. So, the people of England agreed to pay 20 million sterling, which was an astronomical amount in those days. 20 million sterling in 1833 is the equivalent of $42 billion dollars today. That would have been the equivalent of $3000 for every man, woman and child in England and Wales. The citizens of England were willing to sacrifice to end the horror of slavery. They were more concerned about human dignity than they were about their own pocketbooks.

So, as you step into the voting booth, the Christian should not be thinking about which candidate or amendment will simply give you lower taxes or greater government benefits. Rather, which candidate or policy will promote justice? If you are speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves, what should you say? What should you do?

No king in Israel ever lived up to the instructions we find here in Proverbs 31. David abused his power to commit adultery with Bathsheba. Solomon taxed the people heavily so that he could live in luxury. His son was even worse. He taxed the people so much that it caused a civil war. Almost every king saw power as a means to increase his own comfort.

However, hundreds of years later, a King was born who would sit upon David’s throne. Isaiah prophesied of his birth saying,

... and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. (Isaiah 11:3-5)

Isaiah, of course, is writing about Jesus. Jesus did not use His power and position for his own comfort. Rather, He sacrificed His comfort for us. As Paul writes in Philippians,

...Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8)

Then, in 2 Corinthians, we read:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

Jesus did not do this just for the deserving poor. Rather,

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Throughout history, kings have called upon their people to die for them. Jesus is different. Jesus is the King who died for His people. It is through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we have forgiveness of sins—including the sin of abusing our power and failing to care for the weak. It is also through Jesus death that we have been redeemed out of our former way of life—a life of selfishness—and brought into the kingdom of His light.

So, as we prepare to come to the Lord’s Table, may we remember the grace that we have received and so extend it to others.

[i] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html, Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research , The Bush Ranch, Crawford, Texas, August, 2001. it is important to note that President Bush is not against all stem cell research, but only embryonic stem cell research.

[ii] http://www.yale.edu/opa/v31.n25/story7.html, Yale Bulletin & Calendar, April 11, 2003.

Plants Have Feelings, Too

2008-10-22T10:50:00.001-07:00

I am not making this up.

I just started preaching through Genesis. Last Sunday, one of my points was that the doctrine of creation matters, especially the doctrine of the creation of humans in the image of God. A member of the church sent me this article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Switzerland's Green Power Revolution: Ethicists Ponder Plants Rights." Yes, plants have rights in Switzerland. According to the article, bioligists in Switzerland have to prove that they are not harming a plant's dignity by modifying it genetically. Switzerland's constitution gives plants rights. As a result vegetation has an inherent value and that it is immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by, say, "decapitation of wildflowers at teh roadside without rational reason."

The man who gave me the article remarked, "After reading it, I became convicted by what happens to coffee beans at our house. We put them in the freezer, then pulverize them in a grinder, then douse them with boiling water, adn tehn we toss them down teh garbage disposal." Cruel indeed.

I don't know if it is funny or sad when radicals make Reductio ad absurdum arguments for you.

This shows both the logic and the irrationality of denying the Creator. If there is no God, then there is no basis for ethics. All living things are of equal value. However, what they cannot prove is that any living thing has any value at all.

Abortion and the Presidency

2008-10-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have just a few blogs that pop up on my blog reader. Even then, I don't get to read them all. However, one that always has interesting posts is Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds. I encourage you to read his most recent post on why Senator Obama is not just Pro-Choice but is actually Pro-Abortion. I think any Christian should consider these issues long and hard before voting for Senator Obama.

On the Road

2008-09-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

My job (and passion) is local. I am the local pastor of a local church. So, I don't travel much. However, last night, I returned from a trip to Belize. I hope to write more on that later after I formulate my thoughts. However, let me say that I loved meeting the Americans and the Belizeans there who are serving Christ. It is a difficult work. Yet, there are people there committed to serving Christ and His church.
Tomorrow morning, I will be traveling to Montana. One of the adjustments to being in the West is that our presbytery ( the "local" grouping of our PCA churches) encompasses three states. So, I will be flying to a presbytery meeting. That is much different than what I have been accustom to for the past 20 years.
On my trip, I finished Gordon McDonald's Who Stole My Church and Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks. Both were interesting reads. McDonald does a good job of demonstrating the church's need to change, but not excluding the older members. He makes a wonderful case for older and younger generations working together. In facing change, one of the things that I appreciate about being a Presbyterian is that our Confession allows us to change without losing our anchor or our rootedness. I appreciate both our confessional nature and our tradition--not because they keep us from changing, but because they allow us to change without losing what is important. Frankly, I am fearful for churches do are not confessional in nature as they go through cultural shifts. Without the confessional grid, I am not sure how they are going to distinguish the baby from the bath water. Of course, confessionalism in and of itself is not a perfect safeguard (look at our mainline churches), but it is helpful.

Speaking of managing change, I saw this blog post on trends by D. A. Carson. I found point #4, "There is a trend in our churches to be consumed by social concern" to be particularly helpful. I believe he strikes the right balance for the church on this issue.

Ecclesiastes and Football

2008-09-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

I preached on Ecclesiastes 3 this morning. In that chapter, made famous in a song by the Byrds, The Teacher laments that life seems out of control (or, at least out of our control). I saw this funny video on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes would have loved it.

Bagging a Fourteener

2008-09-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

In my quest to become a true Coloradoan, I have been fly fishing, snow skiing, and, as of yesterday, I climbed a fourteener. For those of you not from around these parts, a fourteener is a mountain over 14,000 feet tall. There are 51-54 (depending on who you ask) fourteeners in Colorado, including our own Pikes Peak.
Yesterday, a group of men from the church began our ascent on Barr Trail before the sun came up. Barr Trail is 12.6 miles long, but it is not the distance that gets you. It is the elevation gain. It begins in Manitou at 6,600 feet and goes all the way to the top of Pikes Peak, which is 14,110 feet—that is a 7510 foot gain in elevation. When you get to 12,000 feet, you are breathing 40% less oxygen that you breath at sea level. By 14,000 feet, you are getting just over half the amount of oxygen as at sea level. For those who are in good shape, that isn’t too much of a problem. Unfortunately, I am not in good shape.
I was feeling pretty good until the last three miles, but the part that really got me was the last mile. During that last stretch, where the oxygen is at its lowest and the climb is at its steepest, I started counting my steps. I would take 150 steps. Stop. Take another 150 steps. Stop. . . Snails can travel a mile faster than I did that day. While I was despising life, Page Clark and Bryan Counts were running to the top. The whole time, Page was saying, “This is brutal,” which is Page’s way of saying “I love it!”
Just ahead of me was Kevin Allen, Kevin had the look of death on his face and his hands had swollen so much they looked like his hero’s, Mickey Mouse. It must have been because he downed enough generic “Sport Drink” and Powerbars to fuel Michael Phelps for a week. Alan Bruns, who is a physician, looked at Kevin and told him that his best bet was get to the top as quickly as possible. Whenever a doctor looks at you and says, “Your best bet is…”, it is pretty motivating. So, Alan escorted Kevin to the top as quickly as Kevin could go. Once he got Kevin near the top, he ran (yes, ran) back down to encourage me the rest of the way.
A bit behind me, Thomas Ufer and Randy Thompson were making sure Richard Hunt made it up. These men are great encouragers and did a wonderful job of taking care of those of us who were struggling. I think Page, Thomas, Randy, Alan, and Bryan could have climbed another peak that day and still had energy left over for a jog. Richard, Kevin and I were simply thankful to be alive. In fact, Alan had so much energy left that, instead of riding down with the rest of us in the church van, ran back down on his own.
The beauty of the hike was spectacular. We saw deer, marmots, and pikas. However, most impressive were the views and the rock formations. My pictures do not do them justice.

Am I glad I did it? You bet. Would I do it again? Only if I were in better shape.
There were a number of things that impressed me. First, I was impressed with the way the men cared for and encouraged one another. It is obvious why these men are respected leaders in the church. They all have shepherds' hearts. Secondly, I was impressed with the sheer size, diversity, and beauty of the hike. It truly is something to behold. If this is what fallen creation looks like, I can't wait to see the renewed world.

More On Deaconnesses

2008-09-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

Dr. Phil Ryken, pastor of the historic Tenth Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Philadelphia has this article on Tenth's website that interacts a bit with the articles by Tim Keller and Ligon Duncan. It clarifies Tenth's position a bit.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2008-09-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

In my various teaching setttings, I am having the students read a variety of articles that I have found helpful, as well as listen to a number of MP3s. It got me thinking about some of my favorite resources that I use. Most of my favorite articles and MP3s, I can't post because of copyright issues. However, there are a number that I can direct you to through links in the web. So, here are some good articles and MP3s that I have found helpful. If I can find a legal way to put other stuff up here, I will do that later.

Good MP3s
There are a number of good sources for sermons on the web. I typically listen to sermons by Tim Keller, John Piper, and some by Mark Driscoll, Scotty Smith and Ray Cortese. A great new source for many of these is The Gospel Coalition. Besides sermons, here are some lectures that I have found helpful. Two other great resources are Covenant Theological Seminary and Third Millenium Ministries. You can get the equivalent of a seminary education through these sites without paying a dime. For those of us who have been out of seminary for a while, this is a great way to get in some continuing education while driving, hiking, or running. Praise God for the IPod!

Heaven is not Your Home Message by Richard Pratt on The Kingdom of God (Also see Pratt's full series on The Kingdom of God)

The Heart of a Christ Centered Message Dr. Bryan Chapell's 1st Lecture on Communicating Christ - This Series is a MUST for all who teach and preach.
The Hands of a Christ Centered Message Dr. Bryan Chapell's second message on Communicating Christ
The Hope of a Christ Centered Message Dr. Bryan Chapell's third lecture on "Communicating Christ."

The New Perspective on Paul, lectures 1, 2, and 3 by D. A. Carson (Note: I listened to the lectures he gave at RTS-Orlando. I assume that these are the same). I realize that my friends who are more sympathetic to N. T. Wright find Carson "unfair". However, while I am no expert on Wright (and have benefited much from his writings), I found this critique to be spot on.

Keeping Up with the Conversation: Undestanding the Emergent Movement and the Emerging Church by D. A. Carson

The Gospel and Post-Modern Minds by D. A. Carson

Good Articles
Preaching in a Post-Modern City by Tim Keller
Preaching in a Post-Modern City II by Tim Keller
Hope Management by John Ortberg
Ministering to Post Everythings by Tim Keller
Leadership and Church Size Dynamics by Tim Keller
Living a Magnetic Faith in a Post-Modern World by Denis Haack
The Missional Church by Tim Keller
ADVANCING THE GOSPEL INTO THE 21ST CENTURY by Tim Keller
Christian Charity by Jonthan Edwards
Evangelical Manners by Richard Mouw
The Burden of Change by John Frame
The Good Shepherd by Leslie Newbigin
Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence by John Piper
The Covenant of Grace by Calvin Knox Cummings
How to Teach and Preach Calvinism by John Piper
Worship as Evangelism by Sally Morgenthaler
I would also add the the articles on deaconnesses in my previous post.

Deaconesses

2008-08-28T06:46:00.001-07:00

I just saw where Ligon Duncan and Tim Keller both have articles in By Faith magazine (a publication of the Presbyterian Church in America) on the issue of deaconesses. This is a significant debate in the PCA. Keller's paper does a good job of clarifying his position on non-ordained deaconnesses and its historical roots, showing that it is not cowering to feminism or an abandonment of complementarianism (as some have claimed). I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding of his position. Duncan's paper does a good job of outlining why the PCA's position on this issue should remain the same.

While we are on the topic, Phil Ryken also has a paper on the issue. It is included in his paper on Qualifications for Deacons. I don't think anyone would accuse Ryken (or his predecessor, Jim Boice) of being a feminist and I am pretty sure the feminist would not claim him. The church I pastor, Village Seven Presbyterian Church, used to have deaconesses in the early days and I am certain none of the founders of Village Seven were feminists. Somewhere along the line, Village Seven renamed their deaconesses to Sisters in Serving.

I am not pushing for deaconesses. The papers above are the only things I have read on the topic. So, I remain undecided, which leaves me with my default position of remaining the same. However, I am pushing for a reasonable debate on the issue. At the last General Assembly of the PCA, I was bothered by three things:

1) The debate by some on both sides seemed to focus on the role of women in our society rather than on the real issue, which is, what does the Bible say. We should not follow the culture either on the left or the right. Rather, we should always seek to be in submission to Scripture.

2) There are some who seem to be looking for ways to circumvent the PCA or their presbytery's stance on this issue. In doing this, they are showing a complete disregard for the authority of their presbyteries and the denomination, and thereby abandoning their vow of submission to the brethren in the Lord. All PCA ministers and elders have taken vows to submit to one another. If we only submit when we agree, then we aren't really submitting. It makes our vows meaningless.

3) On the other side, there are those who refuse even to debate the issue, claiming that, even to debate it, is to give in to feminism. Even though they know the issue is divisive, even though they know there are godly men who hold a different position, they are refusing even to discuss the biblical merits of the topic. I think this is injurious to the peace and purity of the church.

All this to say, I am thankful to have these thoughtful articles by Dr. Keller and Dr. Duncan. In my mind, this is the type of debate that we should be having. I only wish it had official status at the General Assembly level.

Summer is Over - What I Actually Read

2008-08-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

The calendar may say that it is still summer, but school starts here tomorrow. So, in reality, summer is over. The kids are not the only ones going back to school. I will be joining them. Only this time, I will be a teacher. Because I had nothing else to do, I volunteered to teach the Senior Bible class at our school, Evangelical Christian Academy. I will teach them hermeneutics, beginning with the Redemptive Historical Approach to Scripture. I also will cover some of my other favorite themes like sanctification, biblical world and life view, and presuppositional apologetics. Should be fun (at least for me).

At the beginning of the summer, I posted what I intended to read during the summer. However, I must confess that I got a bit derailed in my reading. Here is what I actually read:

The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross: Insights from an Arab Christian by Nabeel Jabbour (NavPress). Very informative and helpful. I have had the added blessing of meeting with Nabeel regularly to discuss this book. I knew very little about Islam when I started, but feel much better equipped to discuss my faith with a Muslim now.
A Quest for More by Paul Tripp. Here is a sample quote: "I may be grateful for the gospel, but what really excites me is the hope that my relationship with God will give me what I really want.." Ouch!
The Ascent of a Leader, by Thrall, McNicol, and McElrath. Good, not great, but good.
Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll. The main reason I read this was because I have heard a lot about the author but never read him or listened to his sermons. Very orthodox and very relevant.
Communion with the Triune God by John Owen. However, I must confess that I did skip some parts and I need to go back and reread this one. Like a lot of John Owen, great stuff to say, but not the easiest reading for me.
I also listened to a few MP3 lectures on my IPod (I love my IPod), including: David Calhoun of Covenant Theological Seminary on the Early Church Fathers, several lectures by Mark Dalbey on worship, D. A. Carson's 3-part series on the New Perspective on Paul, D. A. Carson's series on the Emergent Church and postmodernism, Marc Driscoll on Creation, and, of course, a few sermons by Tim Keller. BTW, you can download lectures for free from Covenant. Also, through ITunes, you can get a number of free lectures from Reformed Theological Seminary. Great resources.

Besides the above, I did a little reading on Ecclesiastes and Genesis for my upcoming sermon series. I hope to post a little study guide for each of these books on the Village Seven website fairly soon. I also rewrote my Leadership Training (Officer Training) course.

I had planned to read Going Public with Your Faith by Peel and Larrimore and The Insiders by Petersen and Shamy. However, once I decided to teach at ECA, my reading fell by the wayside.

What's next on my reading list? Well, I still want to get to the two books above. However, a few books have moved ahead of them, including:

Samson and the Pirate Monks by Nate Larkin. Word on the street is that this is a good book for men serious about growth.
Minority Report by Carl Trueman. I have a lot about Dr. Trueman and his teaching at Westminster, but have never read him. Looking forward to it.
In Christ Alone by Sinclair Ferguson. I alway enjoy Ferguson. His clarity reminds me of Packer.
Who Stole My Church? by Gordon McDonald
Reason for God and The Prodigal God by Tim Keller.

Some Great Quotes

2008-08-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

A friend turned me on to a blog by Justin Taylor called Between Two Worlds. He posted part of an interview with J. I. Packer on worship. I thought it was very insightful.

"We have separated the ages, very much to the loss of each age. In the New Testament, the Christian church is an all-age community, and in real life the experience of the family to look no further should convince us that the interaction of the ages is enriching. The principle is that generations should be mixed up in the church for the glory of God. That doesn't mean we shouldn't disciple groups of people of the same age or the same sex separately from time to time. That's a good thing to do. But for the most part, the right thing is the mixed community in which everybody is making the effort to understand and empathize with all the other people in the other age groups. Make the effort is the key phrase here. Older people tend not to make the effort to understand younger people, and younger people are actually encouraged not to make the effort to understand older people. That's a loss of a crucial Christian value in my judgment. If worship styles are so fixed that what's being offered fits the expectations, the hopes, even the prejudices, of any one of these groups as opposed to the others, I don't believe the worship style glorifies God, and some change, some reformation, some adjustment, and some enlargement of spiritual vision is really called for."

I read another great quote on preaching from the quotable Howard Hendricks . He says:

"It is not too difficult to be biblical if you don't care about being relevant; it is not difficult to be relevant if you don't care about being biblical. But if you want to be both biblical and relevant in your teaching, it is a very difficult task indeed."

Food and Sports

2008-07-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

A few random thoughts on food and sports.

While visiting friends in Orlando, I learned that the Krispy Kreme near our church closed. There are some that claim that my leaving Orlando was the cause of the closing. However, I don't think I ate that many doughnuts.

I returned to Colorado Springs and discovered that Panera raised the price on a Cinnamon Crunch bagel from 99 cents to $1.25. For those slow at math, that is a whopping 25% increase. For me, this is significant because every day I don't have a breakfast appointment, I go to Panera at about 7 or 7:30 am for coffee and a Cinnamon Crunch bagel.

Also, when I left for vacation, we had two sports radio stations. When I returned, I discovered both had gone out of business.

A couple of years ago on my old blog, I wrote that Roger Federer (tennis) and Tiger Woods (golf) were probably the best athletes of our generation. Both seemed virtually untouchable. Well, it appears that these Supermen have found their Kriptonite. Tiger is out for the season (after winning the US Open with a torn ACL and a broken leg!) and Federer has lost the last to majors to Nadal.

I played golf a couple of weeks ago for the first time since moving here. I discovered that the high altitude does nothing to improve one's game.

Worship Series

2008-07-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

I am beginning a mini-series on worship this Sunday. Because the series is short and there is so much to say, I hope to post several thoughts and links on the topic here.

Using Hymns in a Postmodern World

Few, if any people in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) have put as much thought into worship, at least worship music, as Kevin Twit. Here are a number of articles by Kevin and others.

To hear some hymns recasts with modern tunes, go to http://www.igracemusic.com/ and click on any of the five album covers.

By the way, some people don't like it when we "change" the tunes to old hymns. While there is something comforting about the familiar, there are good reasons for this. First of all, if you look through the hymnal, you will notice that most of the tunes were not written at the same time as the text. So, in most cases, there is no "original" tune. Secondly, if you go the back of the hymnal, you will notice that there is a Metrical Index. That index is there so that you will know which tunes can be sung to which texts. There is a long standing tradition of NOT singing hymns hymns to the "traditional" tune. Thirdly, sometimes the tunes we think of as being the "original" just don't fit. I realize that there are some people who love the Scottish Psalter, but it seems that the Scots had a knack for taking glorious psalms and putting them to depressing, unsingable tunes. Fourthly, musical tunes are cultural expressions. Even a cursory glance of music history (and even church music history) will show that the musical style of the church has always been changing. After all, even in the most traditional churches Protestant churches, we sing with the use of hymnals, organs, and pianos, which were not even invented at the time of the early church. The early church didn't even use harmonies. Fifthly, some great hymns with great texts are being lost because they are attached to unsingable tunes or tunes that don't connect with modern and post-modern people. Sixthly, a new tune can make you see familiar words in a new light.

More to come later.

Inviting all Florida Friends

2008-06-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

Florida friends, we will be in Orlando this weekend. Our dear friends, the Wheatleys, have secured their clubhouse for a little informal get together. So, we will be at the Cypress Springs Clubhouse from 2-5 PM on Sunday. Hope to see many of you there. Of course, we will be at UPC for worship that morning, which will feel really, really strange, but we are looking forward to it.

Summer Reading

2008-06-03T11:08:00.001-07:00

Because of moving and starting a new job, I have done very little reading this past year, other than sermon preparation. However, I plan to get caught up this summer. Here are some of the books I am reading, or plan to read.

The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross: Insights from an Arab Christian by Nabeel Jabbour (NavPress). I am about two-thirds of the way through this book. It is very insightful and challenging. In addition, Nabeel is a member of V7PC. He graciously comes by my office about once a month to explain to me the Muslim worldview. The book will challenge your thinking about Muslims. Even more, I hope it will provoke us to view Muslims through love and the cross rather than merely through fear and the news media.

Communion with the Triune God, by John Owen, edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway). I am nearing the halfway point of this book. I must confess that I really struggle to read Owen. Most of the time, I would rather read someone who has read Owen than read him myself. However, Kapic and Taylor have done a wonderful job of making this book more accessible. Kapic's introduction and Taylor's outline help keep you on track. I am reading this one very slowly, but there are many gems in it as Owen helps the reader to contemplate the beauty and majesty of the Trinity.

Also, I plan to read a couple of books recommended to me by friends on the topic of evangelism; Going Public with Your Faith by Peel and Larrimore and The Insiders by Petersen and Shamy.

Others in my book bag for the summer are A Quest for More by Paul Tripp, The Ascent of a Leader, by Thrall, McNicol, and McElrath, and, hopefully some sort of non-fiction book for fun that captures my eye at Barnes and Noble.

Preaching at Village Seven

2008-06-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I concluded my series on 1 Peter. It had been 17 years since I last studied that book. None of my study from back then carried over. I truly enjoyed studying it again. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken longer to go through it.

Now that we are finished with 1 Peter, many have asked, "What's Next?" During the summer, I will be preaching on a few different topics before I start our next book series in the fall. Here are some of the topics we will cover:

June 15 - Work Hard, Rest Easy - a look at God's gift of the Sabbath in Exodus 16:13-30.

June 22 - Religion and Politics: What's a Christian To Do? (Proverbs 31:1-9). I was going to preach this right before the General Election. However, after talking with some others, that might be too late to be relevant. So, I moved it up to June.

July 13 - August 10 - Encountering God in Worship - This will be a mini-series on worship. In this series, we will look at several different Scriptures, including Psalm 63, John 12, John 4, and Isaiah 6.

During the summer, I spend much of my time studying in preparation for my sermon series for the fall through spring. I plan to do a short series (4-6 weeks) on Ecclesiastes. Despite being nearly 3000 years old, Ecclesiates speaks directly to contemporary people. It is challenging to non-Christians who live as if this world is all there is. It is also challenging to Christians because we have bought into our culture's worldview on so many levels.

After Ecclesiastes, I will begin a series on the book of Genesis.

Some Quick Hits

2008-04-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my friend and colleague, Mike Osborne, on being called as Senior Pastor to UPC. I am excited for Mike and the church. Mike and I served together at UPC and he was always a faithful colaborer and is an excellent preacher. Congratulations to UPC. As you already know, you are getting a fine man.
The other night, we are having dinner and Ashley says, "Dear." I said, "What?" "Dear", she repeated. It turns out she wasn't talking to me. There was a deer in our backyard, followed by 12 of his friends. Actually, most of them were in the yard behind our house, but one hopped the fence into our yard. A little bunny and a robin were there as well. Some of you may think we live out in the country. Actually, our house is pretty close to the center of town, but it is right by the amazing Palmer Park. Two weeks ago, I saw a fox trotting down our street. The same day, I saw a bunch of gazelle running in a field by the airport. Welcome to the wild west.
To our friends at UPC -- thanks for the gift certificate. I got in 14 days of skiing. My girls are on blues now. We thoroughly enjoyed it all season.
To our Florida friends -- today, it is about 80 (but no humidity). Tomorrow, it might snow. Ahh! Springtime in the Rockies! Every place I have lived, people have said, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a while and it will change." This is the one place where that is true.
It's Tax Day and I, along with thousands of other procrastinators, will be going to the Post Office this evening. While I don't get a lot of pleasure out of paying taxes, I am thankful for the freedoms I enjoy and the incredible benefits we all get to enjoy simply because, in the providence of God, we were born in America. We might complain that the government wastes money or that it spends it on things we find objectionable. However, I am pretty sure Jesus and the Apostle Paul could have said the same thing about the Roman Empire. Considering all the people who have died and continue to put themselves in harm's way so that we can enjoy this liberty, taxes are a small price to pay.

Union with Christ

2008-04-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

The doctrine of our union with Christ (sometimes called the mystical union--not to be confused with the hypostatic union, which some also call the mystical union) is a powerful doctrine of Scripture that is difficult to teach. Essentially, it means that the Christian is truly united to Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This union is so real that the Christian actually shares in the body of Christ so that His body becomes our own. Christ also shares in our bodies so that our bodies are actually His own. This is how our sin became His sin and how His death and resurrection became our death and resurrection. This doctrine has rich implications, especially in regard to the sacraments. Even more, it has rich implications on how we live.

A few summers ago, I waded through Walter Marshall's The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. I say "waded through" even though the book is small, because, like many Puritan classics, it was not easy reading for me. To make matters worse, the edition I read had terrible printing. The typeface was horrible and there were no margins. Just when I finished it, Bruce McRae released a new edition in modern English (with modern typeface). I haven't read the new edition, yet, but plan to this summer.

If I ever write a book (which I doubt I have the discipline to do), I would like to write a book loosely based on The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, with stories and illustrations to connect with a modern audience.

Marshall's book could be called a celebration of our union with Christ. Here are some quotes from it. Unfortunately, these quotes are in the original English.

Men show themselves strangely forgetful, or hypocritical, in professing original sin in their prayers, catechisms, and confessions of faith; and yet urging on themselves and others the practice of the law, without the consideration of nay strengthening, enlivening means; as if there were no want of ability, but only of activity.

_______________

In order to be able to practice the law, we must have first want to do it, which means we must first be convinced that we are reconciled to God, and be convinced of our future enjoyment, and be convinced of sufficient strength to will and to do all our duties acceptably until we enjoy that future blessed state.

_______________

God has abundantly discovered to us, in His word, that His method in bringing men from sin to holiness of life, is, first to make them know that He loves them, and that their sins are blotted out.

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In order to practice holiness, we must be persuaded of our future enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly happiness.

_______________

Though Christ is in heaven, and we on earth; yet He can join our souls and bodies to His at such a distance without any substantial change of either, by the same infinite Spirit dwelling in Him and us; and so our flesh will become His, when it is quickened by His Spirit;; and His flesh ours, as truly as if we ate His flesh and drank His blood.

_______________

The corrupt natural estate, which is called in scripture the old man, was crucified together with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed. And it is destroyed in us, not by any wounds that we ourselves can give it, but by our partaking of that freedom from it, and death to it, that is already wrought out for us by the death of Christ.

_______________

We are naturally so prone to ground our salvation on works, that if we cannot make them procuring conditions and causes of our salvation by Christ, yet, we shall endeavor at least to make them necessary preparatives, to fit us for receiving Christ and His salvation by faith.

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Beggars will make most of their nasty rags, till they are furnished with better clothes; and cripples will not case away their crutches, until they have a better support to lean on.

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Many have fallen into great sin because they do not account the grace of Christ sufficient for their pardon and salvation.

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If Christians knew their own strength better, they would enterprise greater things for the glory of God.

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There are many more. However, let me encourage you to read the book.

Jesus Family Tomb

2008-03-31T07:46:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I mentioned that I would post an article debunking The Discovery Channel's progam in 2007 claiming that they had found the tomb and the bones of Jesus. Actually, The Discovery Channel debunked it pretty well itself with a program by Ted Koppel critiquing it. However, I don't have access to it any more.

Here is a link to some of my sermons. If you scroll down to the bottom, there is a sermon called JesusFamilyTomb. It has the information I mentioned, including footnotes. Below it, is the PowerPoint presentation that I used when I preached the sermon. It includes some images that might be helpful.

By the way, I often will preach "apologetic" type sermons, as I did on Sunday. Some may think that I am doing this for evangelistic reasons. That certainly is part of it, but only part. Richard Pratt, in teaching on 1 Peter 3:15, notes that apologetics are for 1) the glory of God, 2) strengthening the faith of believers, and c) answering unbelievers. In doing apologetic style sermons, one of my purposes is always to strengthen the faith of Christians, particularly younger people who are constantly finding their faith under attack.

Easter, Village Seven, and UPC

2008-03-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Did Bing Crosby sing "I'm dreaming of a white Easter"? Yes, we had a white Easter in Colorado. It started snowing Saturday afternoon and kept it up all night. It wasn't terribly cold. So, the roads weren't bad. But having a white Easter was a new experience for me. Of course, having a white Thanksgiving, a white Christmas, a white New Years, a white Valentines, a white Palm Sunday, and a white St. Patrick's Day were all new experiences for me as well.

The truth is, we have had lots of snowing days, but we haven't had any really bad storms. Even though it snowed Easter Sunday, today (Monday) it was in the mid-60's--downright Spring-like.

This also was my first Easter at Village Seven. Richard Hunt, our Worship Director, did a wonderful job of putting the service together. The orchestra rocked (can I say that? I just did). It was a beautiful service.

Easter made us think about our friends at UPC. Both Village Seven and UPC's Easter services are wonderful, but they are very different. UPC's Easter service is usually creative and energetic. Jonathan Noel pulls out all the stops. At Village Seven, the service is more majestic--a full choir and orchestra. Each are gloriously worshipful, but very different. I love that about the body of Christ. Both Richard Hunt at Village Seven and Jonathan Noel at UPC both are passionate about God's glory first and foremost. Music and the "performance" (bad word) aspects of music are a distant second to the goal of music -- worship. Yet, both do their jobs with excellence.

Speaking of UPC, I very excited that the Pastoral Search Committee is recommending Mike Osborne to be the next senior pastor. Mike was my Associate for a number of years. He was always very loyal, encouraging, and a faithful friend. Mike is a gifted preacher. Even more importantly, he understands the DNA and vision of UPC. UPC is a unique church that is well-suited to serve its community. Mike gets the mission and Mike can lead the church in being faithful to her mission.

My hope and prayer is that the people of UPC will love, support, and care for Mike just as they did for me for so many years. They were always patient with me, forgiving, and allowed me to grow. I trust that they will give Mike the same support and care.

Footnotes

2008-03-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

I never know how to footnote in a sermon. I have footnotes in my manuscript, but no one else ever sees my manuscript. Sometimes I mention my sources. However, often that seems cumbersome. Generally speaking, if you hear me say something really profound, you can bet it is not original with me. Ask me, and I will tell you where I got it.

This brings up my sermon on Palm Sunday. I received a number of compliments on it and want to make sure I am giving proper credit. The background information that I shared could be found in a number of sources. So, I don't think anything I said was too unique to one particular source. However, one source that helped me tremendously and that I relied on heavily was N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus. He put the ideas all together for me and it influenced my message a great deal. I found the book to be very helpful and easy to read.

I hesitate to share this, not because I don't want to give him proper credit, but because I don't want to endorse a lot of what Rev. Wright has written. Particularly, his views on justification are very troubling. For all of the Wright supporters who want to tell me how I have misunderstood Wright, I will admit that I am no expert on the him or the others in the New Perspective movement. However, I have read enough from him, his fans and his detractors to be concerned and don't plan to spend a lot more time researching him.

However, even thought I disagree with Rev. Wright on Justification (which is a pretty big issue!), I still find much of his material helpful (as does one of his most ardent critics, D. A. Carson). He is a remarkable scholar and has a great ability to communicate clearly. He has been a staunch defender of the orthodox view of the historicity of Jesus and the reality of the resurrection. He also has done quite a bit of research on the period of time in which Jesus lived. So, we can learn much from him. However, I am hesitant to recommend him to a broad audience that might not be as discerning about matters of justification.

This brings up a challenge that I have as a pastor. There are a number of people whom I read--both Christian and non-Christian--with whom I differ on some very significant issues. However, I have learned from them and benefited greatly from them. I believe that my years of education, personal study, dialogue with other pastors, being part of a Confessional church, and a solid diet of Scripture and books with good theology has enabled me to be discerning so that I can read material (and benefit from it) even though I might not recommend it. I believe that I have a responsibility and privilege to read people from a variety of traditions, not just those who are Reformed. In fact, I think pastors and leaders who only read people in their own tradition are missing out on what God is teaching in other parts of the body of Christ. The sort of parochialism that keeps one from only reading people within his own tradition is both impoverishing and rooted in fear and insecurity. Yet, at the same time, I would not want less mature or less theologically grounded church members to read the same material.

All this to say, just because I quote a source or an author, that does not necessarily mean I am in agreement with all that author has said or even that I think that author is completely orthodox. In the case of N. T. Wright, I think he is making some very valuable contributions to Christianity. However, I find his views on justification (at least my understanding of his views) disturbing.

The Need for a Great Awakening

2008-03-11T13:42:00.001-07:00

Several people have asked for the statistics about the decline of Christianity in America. I thought it might be helpful to post the information here.

Today, the Christian Church is experiencing its greatest expansion in history. More people are becoming Christians everyday than at any other time in history. Because of the success of the world missions movement, today there are more Christians in Asia, Africa, and Latin America than there are in North America and Europe. Furthermore, the growth of the church in those regions is continuing at a staggering pace.

However, while the church throughout the world is growing, the picture is not as rosy at home. In fact, we are facing a looming crisis. If current trends continue, the evangelical church in the United States is in danger of becoming culturally irrelevant in fifty years. We will be like the Amish—together in our own little enclaves virtually ignored by the world around us.

Why do I say that? How can I make such an outlandish claim that the church in America is headed for irrelevancy? Because we are losing our young people and have so for the past few decades.

In my lifetime, the United States has moved from being a nation that was predominantly Christian, or at least a nation where the majority had a Christian worldview, to becoming a post-Christian nation. This is not just my opinion. Here are the facts:

There are 195 million unchurched Americans
For every one church being started, 3 are closing
In 1958, 50% of all people Americans attended church regularly. In 1996, that number had dropped to 37%.

When you break down the numbers by generation, the picture becomes even more disturbing.

Who Attends Church in America Each Weekend

Generation Birth Years % Attending Church
Builders (Born before 1946) 51%
Boomers (1946-1964) 41%
Busters (1965-1976) 34%
Bridgers (1977-1994) 29%

Over 70% of people between the ages of 11 and 28 do not attend church. Now, when we consider that 85-90% of people who become Christians do so before the age of 18, then it seems apparent that we have already lost, not one, but two generations of people.

Wait. It gets worse. Anywhere from 88%-95% of Christian young people abandon the faith during the college years.

We live in a post-Christian nation. Unless God sends a revival that surpasses that of the Great Awakening and the Protestant Reformation, things will get worse before they get better. Those of you who are older may not sense it as much because the majority of your peers are either Christian or share a Christian worldview. However, that is not how it is for our young people. They feel this everyday. They live in a world where Christianity is viewed, not only with skepticism, but with cynicism and deep suspicion.

Despite its reputation as a religious city, Colorado Springs is not immune to these national trends. Even though Colorado Springs is known for its religious institutions, it is more unchurched than either California or New York. The Colorado Springs Business Journal states “according to The Quality of Life indicators published recently by the Pikes Peak United Way, El Paso County has a lower rate of membership in religious congregations than does Denver County, Pueblo County, Colorado and the United States. Additionally, while other areas show an increase in membership from 1990 to 2000, only El Paso County residents’ and the U.S average membership decreased. That decrease, from 38.9 percent in 1990 to 37.1 percent in 2000, was much different than Denver County’s increase, 39.3 percent to 50.2 percent of members of religious congregations.”

Because the world has changed so radically from the 1950’s—or even the 70’s and 80’s—how we as Christians engage the world must look different as well.

Denis Haack, in his article, “Living a Magnetic Faith in a Post-Christian world” compares two cities.[1] One is Jerusalem. “Dominating the city was the Temple where priests offered sacrifices for the sins of the people. Jerusalem was home to the covenant people of God who defined its life and shaped its society. The calendar was marked by a series of feasts that celebrated God’s grace in the history of His people. The legal system was rooted in God’s revelation in the Scriptures, the law, and the prophets. Though non-believers lived there, every aspect of Jerusalem’s life and culture was centered on God and his Word.”

The other city was Babylon. “The greatest military and economic force of its day, it was a pluralistic society. Races and religions from every corner of the world could be found there. And, while God’s people were in the mix, they were given no advantage. They could achieve positions of influence, as long as they were careful not to offend the ruling elite. The art and literature of the Babylonians was pagan, colored by their belief in sorcery and magic. It was very different from Jerusalem, especially in the ways that matter most.”

He goes on to conclude that we live in Babylon. “Our postmodern world is profoundly pluralistic—far more so than ancient Babylon. The religions we used to hear about only when missionaries visited are now next-door, and growing. The public square is a cacophony of competing truth claims. Increasingly our closest neighbors and co-workers do not share our deepest values and convictions.” He goes on to say, living like we are in Jerusalem while we are living in Babylon will not work. Getting angry at the culture, judging the culture, or dreaming about the old days of our culture will not transform the culture.

Furthermore, the change in the American religious landscape means that we cannot continue on with business as usual. We must be more aggressive in reaching out with the gospel, engaging with people, and planting new churches. These have to be priorities for the church if we are going to be faithful to the mission that Christ has given us.

Notes

Some of these stats are slightly different from what I used on Sunday. I have seen different numbers from different sources--all very similar--these seem to be more reliable.

On Sunday, I said that no county in America has a higher percentage of Christians than it did a decade ago. I heard that at a church planting conference but have not been able to verify it. According to one source cited above, the percentage of people attending church in Denver has increased.

[1] Actually, he compares three. The third one being Samaria, but, in order to keep the illustration simple, I only am mentioning two.

Respectable Sins

2008-02-22T08:54:00.000-08:00

Village Seven is blessed with a number of well-established authors. One of whom is Jerry Bridges. I just finished his book Respectable Sins and I am trying to find the right word to describe it. I think convicting sums it up best.

I used to have a very shallow view of my own sinfulness. I would confess sins such as lust or driving too fast or other obvious things and never see the real sins of my heart. It was my experience with Sonship and my readings of men like Bridges, Chappell, and Keller that began to expose the depth of my sin more and more. I find it rather ironic that many people think Sonship (a discipleship program by World Harvest Mission) is antinomian. My experience was just the opposite.

In Respectable Sins, Mr. Bridges takes the reader on a guided tour of the sinful recesses of the human heart. He shows us all the places we tolerate sin. It is a painful tour. Throughout the book, Mr. Bridges uses God's grace as both the agent to expose sin and as the cure for sin. The book is thoroughly gospel-centered from beginning to end.

I would recommend reading the book slowly. He exposes so many different sins of the heart that it can be truly overwhelming to look at them all at once. Also, is a good book for group study--if you are in a group that can be honest with one another.

For me, the most convicting chapter was the one on the first sin he exposes - ungodliness. We usually define ungodliness as vile activity or atheism. However, Mr. Bridges defines it as "living one's everyday life withlittle or no thought of God, or of God's will, or of God's glory, or of one's dependence on God." This sin of ungodliness is subtle and results in all sorts of other sins. Think of how much of your day you spend not thinking about God at all? That is ungodliness. How our lives (my life) would be transformed if I did all my work/family/leisure to the glory of God.

I recommend this book whole-heartedly--not as a good, informative read--but as a good MRI of the heart.

Random Thoughts

2008-02-04T13:59:00.000-08:00

* That was a great Super Bowl. I didn't really care who won, but I was glad to see Eli do so well after all the grief he has taken.
* I think I would rather have played on the Dolphins (1-15) this year than the Patriots (18-1). Being that close to perfection and losing it in the final game will hurt far worse than not having played in the Super Bowl at all.
* My favorite commercial was the Bridgestone commercial with the squirrell. Second favorite was the E-Trade commercial with the baby talking about spending his extra coin to hire a clown. I agree with the kid--clowns are creepy.
* We are expecting a snow storm tonight. Two days ago, they said that there would be a 10% chance of snow today. I would hate to be a meteorologist in Colorado. It seems they are never right. In Florida, you can see a hurricane brewing off the coast of Africa. Here, you can't see a snow storm coming over the mountains.
* Ever since my move to Colorado, my reading has been extremely limited. That is about to change (Lord willing and the creek don't rise).
*Village Seven is full of gifted authors and teachers. A few of them have given me their books and I am excited about reading them (really). One that I got today is Nabeel Jabbour's The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross. The subtitle is "Insights from an Arab Christian." Timely. Nabeel has taken some time to explain the Muslim worldview to me already (and promises to share more in the future). I am sure this book will be a worthwhile read. I will try to post something here when I finish it.
* Tomorrow night, I will go to my first caucus. I have always lived in a state that holds primaries rather than caucuses. Colorado does both. This should be interesting.

The Story of the Bible

2008-01-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

I taught the women's Bible study this morning at Village Seven. I tried to give an overview of the Bible in less than 30 minutes. I am not sure how successful I was. So, I thought I might post some of the ideas from it here. Since my teaching notes are too disorganized to post here, I will simply post some related articles that I have written on the subject. Unfortunately, these articles do not contain the creation-fall-redemption-consummation outline I used. Still, they communicate the main idea that the Bible is a single story with many sub-stories.

Why Read the Old Testament?

For many Christians, the Old Testament is a collection of interesting stories, enigmatic proverbs, and bewildering prophecies that have little application to daily life. Parts may be inspirational, but as a whole, the Old Testament remains a closed book of hidden mysteries and confounding tales. Yet, this clearly is not God’s intent. In writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said,

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

The Old Testament, therefore, is useful for the believer. It is not merely a collection of archaic tales and mysterious prophecies, but an essential tool in equipping believers to fulfill their mission of glorifying God.

While there are many stories in the Bible, it is essentially one story—the story of Jesus. Jesus said that all the Scriptures are about Him (Luke 24:27). The Old Testament is not just an archaic precursor to the New Testament. Rather, together with the New Testament, it tells the story of God’s grace. In the words of one writer, the Old and New Testament form a two-act play. “If we only had Act Two, we would have to ask, ‘But where has it come from? Who are these people?’ . . . And if we only had Act One, we would say, “Yes, but where is it going? How will it develop? Will the hinted climax come and in what form? Without the New Testament, the Old is going nowhere, it is only a might-have-been, an unsubstantiated longing. And without the Old, the New lacks explanation. Its very words require Old Testament definition, and its central event, the cross, is inexplicable.”(Motyer, Alec, The Story of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), p. 10)

Therefore, to understand the Old Testament, one cannot read it in isolation from the New (nor can one read the New Testament in isolation from the Old). Together, the two testaments tell one story.

There are several themes that one can observe throughout the Bible that illustrates this story line. Two of these are the Promised Redeemer and the Covenants. These are not two separate themes, but two different threads woven in the tapestry Scripture. A third theme is the theme of Kingdom, but I will not cover that one here.

The Promised Redeemer

The Bible, while it contains many different stories that transcend thousands of years, is a book about a single story. All of the great stories of the Bible—Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, Daniel and the Lions’ Den—are merely subplots in the Great Story. They are all part of the unfolding drama of redemption.

Like all great stories, the Bible begins with a crisis, moves to a climax, and concludes with resolution. The crisis happens quite early in the story, shortly after creation. Here we find Adam and Eve living in a world that God has proclaimed “very good.” They enjoy perfect intimacy with God and with one another. They also enjoy a world that God has made for them filled with delights. Nothing could be better.

Then, in Genesis 3, the Serpent slithers into Eden. In a single act of cosmic rebellion, Adam and Eve reject God’s blessings, turn their noses up at His provision, and make a grab for divine power by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

That could have been the end of the story. Yet, God is a merciful and gracious God. Rather than immediately giving Adam and Eve the punishment they deserved, He gives them a promise of hope. In Genesis 3:15, God pronounces His judgment on the Serpent, Eve, and Adam for their rebellion. In His curse to the Serpent, He gives hope to humanity. God said to the Serpent:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

In this curse, God promises that one day, the Offspring of the woman will rise up and crush the head of the Serpent. The Serpent, of course, is no ordinary snake, but is Satan disguised. So, by crushing the Serpent’s head, the Offspring of the woman will put an end to the tyranny of evil and restore the world to its proper order. The rest of the Bible is the unfolding of this oracle. It is the story of conflict between the Serpent and his offspring and the offspring of the woman. It is also the story of hope and expectation as the faithful look to the day when the Offspring of the woman will come who will crush the Serpent’s head.

So, the conflict that has been raging since the fall is between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of Satan. It is not the story of physical conflict, but of the great spiritual war of which all other wars and conflicts are but faint echoes.

When God speaks of the offspring of the woman and the offspring of Satan, He is distinguishing between the godly descendents of Adam and Eve, who will be influenced by God, and the ungodly descendents, who will be influenced by Satan. This idea is reinforce throughout the rest of Genesis, particularly chapters 4 and 5. In chapter 4, Adam and Eve have two sons—Cain and Abel. Abel follows God. Cain does not. Cain murders Abel. There we see the conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman illustrated.

Then Adam and Eve have another son named Seth. In chapter 4, we read the story of Cain’s ungodly line. In chapter 5, we see the account of Adam’s line as it goes through Seth. In these chapters, the writer is contrasting for us the godly line with the ungodly line, the descendents of the serpent through Cain with the descendents of the woman through Seth. In those chapters, you will see that each line creates its own cities and its own cultures.

The book of Revelation explains this further. In Revelation, we have the same image of the Serpent-Dragon and the Woman. In Revelation 12:17, we read, “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

Later in the book of Revelation, we are told explicitly that the dragon is that great serpent of old, which is Satan (Revelation 20:2). So, it is Satan the Serpent who is making war against the offspring of the woman. The offspring of the woman are those who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Here we see the theme of the Bible from Beginning to end. In the first three chapters of the Bible (Genesis 1-3), we read about: A) Creation, B) Life in Paradise, and C) The Fall, and D) The prophecy of hope. In the last chapters of the Bible (Revelation 20-22), we read: D) the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled, C) the effects of the fall are undone, B) Paradise is restored, and A) the New Creation.

In between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20, the Bible tells the story of this conflict and the One who will finally put an end to it by crushing the serpent’s head. So, throughout the story, the hero is the Offspring of the Woman. Essentially, it is His story—the story of Jesus. While it may seem that Jesus does not show up in the story until the New Testament, the truth is that He is the central character on every page.

The Covenants

The Bible is a collection of sixty-six books written over a period of nearly 2000 years by 35 different human authors in three different languages. As a result, it is a marvelously diverse book. Yet, in spite of its remarkable diversity, the Bible is still a single book with a single theme woven throughout. While the Bible contains many stories, essentially it is about one story—the story of Jesus Christ redeeming the world from sin. One of the threads woven throughout the Bible that points to this central storyline is the covenants.

A covenant is like a contract in that it stipulates what happens if the contract is kept (blessings) and it stipulates what happens if the contract is broken (curses). We learn about covenants at a very early age. When a child says, “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she is making a covenant and is saying that she would rather die than fail to keep her promise or the terms of the covenant.

As we grow older, we enter into many covenants that are binding to us. There is the marriage covenant, business covenants, and neighborhood covenants. In all of these covenants, promises are made. For example, when you enter into a neighborhood covenant, you promise to follow the rules of the neighborhood association. If you follow the rules, you receive the blessing of living in a nice neighborhood. If you disobey the rules, the covenant contains penalties (or curses) that may include things such as putting a lien on your house.

Biblical covenants are the same in that they too contain blessings and curses. Just as in modern covenants, all parties have certain obligations.

The Covenant of Works

The Bible begins (Genesis 1-2) with God’s creation of the world, and all very good. At creation, God made a covenant with humanity. God gave humanity complete reign over the Garden of Eden and all the earth. The only stipulation that God gave to Adam and Eve was that they were not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate of this tree, they would break the covenant with God and bring upon themselves the curse of the covenant, which was death. We often refer to this covenant as the Covenant of Works.

As you know, Adam and Eve broke the covenant (Genesis 3, Hosea 6:7). As a result, they fell under its curse. Since Adam was representative of all humanity, all who are born to Adam are born into the curse of this covenant (Romans 5:12-19). Not only did the Fall of Adam affect humanity, but all creation suffered. Everything in this world is suffering because of sin. It is all under the curse (Genesis 3:14-19, Romans 8:18-21).

This is how the Bible begins. In doing so, it sets up the story of God restoring a fallen world. Even in the curse, one can detect a hint of a new covenant. This New Covenant, rather than being based on the work of Adam’s obedience, is based on God’s grace.

Adam and the Covenant of Grace

In Genesis 3:15, in pronouncing the curse upon the Serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to sin, God says,

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Here, God promises that one day a man would come who would be struck by the Serpent, but would also destroy the Serpent. God, of course, is not talking about snakes. He is not explaining why people and snakes don’t get along. The Serpent is not just any old snake. He is the Devil himself. The promise is that a Son one day would be wounded by Satan, but would also destroy Satan and His reign of evil.

The Bible, which begins with this prophesy about the Offspring of the woman and the Serpent, ends with the fulfillment of the prophesy. In Revelation 20, we read that Jesus takes “that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan” and destroys him, just as was promised in Genesis 3:15.

The whole Bible, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is this story. It is the story of one born of a woman, Jesus Christ Himself, who comes and destroys Satan and the tyranny of evil.

Abraham and the Covenant of Grace

As the Bible progresses, we find that this covenant of grace and God’s plan to save His people through the work of Jesus becomes more and more clear. In Genesis 15, God establishes a covenant with Abraham.

In Genesis 15, God has Abraham cut several animals in half. What usually would follow is that the partakers of the covenant would then pass through the animals. This would symbolically say, “May I be cut in half if I do not fulfill the terms of the covenant.” What is interesting, though, in Genesis 15, Abraham does not walk through the animal carcasses—only God does. Here, God assumes the obligations of the contract both for Himself and for Abraham. He assumes the curse.

We find the fulfillment of this covenant in Jesus Christ. While He kept the covenant complete and was always faithful to His people, we have sinned against Him. We have broken the covenant. As a result, His body has been broken for us. He endured the penalty of the covenant on our behalf, just as God had promised Abraham in Genesis 15.

God’s covenant with Abraham was not a covenant for everyone. The only ones who receive the blessings of the covenant are Abraham and his descendants. Later, the Apostle Paul would point out that the true descendants of Abraham and the true heirs of the covenant are not the physical offspring of Abraham, but those who have the faith of Abraham—those who turn to Jesus in faith (Romans 4:16 and Romans 9:8).

In Galatians 3:16, Paul points out that God’s covenant with Abraham was not with all the physical descendants of Abraham, but with one, namely Jesus. That means to receive the blessings of the covenant, we must be found “in Christ”, that is, united to Him by faith.

Moses and the Covenant of Grace

The Covenant of Grace unfolds a bit more under Moses. Under Moses, God gave the Law, including the Ten Commandments, which were the words of the Mosaic Covenant (Exodus 34:28). The purpose of the Law was not to show people how they could be good enough to deserve God’s favor. Rather, the purpose of the law was to show people that they could not be good enough to deserve God’s favor. It was not supposed to be a means of self-salvation but was supposed to drive us to God in faith. In Galatians 3:24, we find that the law had as its primary purpose to drive us to Christ. It shows God’s people that they need a Savior.
Even the Covenant of the Law, which was given under Moses, is part of the Covenant of Grace. That is because even the Covenant of the Law points us to Jesus. Jesus fulfills all of the demands of the law, keeping it at every point. Then, He takes the curses of the Law upon Himself. Where we broke the law, He endures the curse through our faith in Him. As a result, we are saved by grace.

David and the Covenant of Grace

Another place where we find the Covenant of Grace being expressed is to King David. In 2 Samuel 7, God promises David that His kingdom will endure forever and that one of his Offspring would sit upon the throne forever.

God has not forgotten this promise. Rather, He has fulfilled it in Jesus Christ. Both Matthew and Luke go to great lengths to prove that Jesus is the royal descendant from King David, that He is the true King David who will reign forever (Matthew 1:1-17, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9-16, 22:41-45, Luke 1:69, 3:23-38, 18:38-39, 20:41-44, Acts 2:22-26, 13:34-37).

The Prophets and the Covenant of Grace

All of these covenants, from Adam through David, point to Jesus Christ. They are not all separate covenants but find their fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The prophets continue this forward look. The prophetic vision is for the New Covenant. This New Covenant is alluded to throughout the prophets but is summarized in Jeremiah 31.

31“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Once again, this covenant points to Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10, quoting this text, points to its fulfillment through Jesus Christ because it is through Jesus Christ that we have the law of God on our hearts. It is through Jesus Christ that we have the Holy Spirit, and it is through Jesus Christ that we have forgiveness of sins.

Conclusion: Christ and the Covenant of Grace

What we have seen in all the covenants is that Christ is the covenant of grace. All point to Him and He fulfills them all. Therefore, the New Testament is not separated from the Old Testament, but is the fulfillment of it. All of the Bible, not just the New Testament, points us to faith in Christ.

Furthermore, since all of the Old Testament covenants are part of the larger Covenant of Grace, that means that the church is not a completely separate entity from Israel. Therefore, God did not have one plan for Israel and another for the church. Rather, the church and Israel are the same. The people of God in the Old Testament were the Israelites, because they had faith in God. In the New Testament, the ethnic boundaries between Jews and Gentiles are taken down so that Gentiles are now included among the people of God. So, in the New Testament, God’s people are called the church rather than the ethnically distinctive name of Israel.

Minus Seven

2008-01-17T11:56:00.000-08:00

I was driving in to work today and my thermometer read -7 degrees. When we were considering moving here, we asked about the weather, one of our friends said, "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." I don't think they make appropriate clothing for minus 7 degrees (at least not for a person who spent the past 20 years in Florida).

Evangelism in Post-Modern America

2007-12-06T08:41:00.001-08:00

Note: The term "Post-modern" is overused, but I can't think of a better one to describe our contemporary era. So, I will continue to use it.

A friend of mine was a missionary in Paris in the late ‘80s and early ‘90’s. He found evangelism there to be very difficult. If you asked the typical Frenchman, "Where would you go if you were to die tonight?" He would look at you and say, "Who cares?" These people have given up on finding answers to life's most important questions. In the 90’s, I read a study by The Navigators of European youth that found that today’s teenagers regard questions like "did Jesus live?" or "Was he the Son of God?" as irrelevant and unimportant.

America today is no different. We live in an age of "make your own religion". In our day, all religious beliefs are seen as equally valid. There is no standard for separating truth from falsehood because the notion of truth and falsehood no longer apply to religious beliefs.

We now live in a post-Christian culture. It used to be that the vast majority of Americans believe that the Bible is literally true. Today, only 32% believe that it is true. That affects how we proclaim the gospel to this post-modern world.

Chuck Colson tells this story from World War II. After Hitler blitzkrieg-ed his way across France, demanding the unconditional surrender of the Allied forces in the European theater, thousands of British and French troops dug in along the coast of northern France in a last-ditch effort to hold off the German forces. Trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, they knew they would soon be obliterated by the Nazis.

During that agonizing period, the British soldiers broadcast a terse message across the English Channel. Just three words: "And if not."

"And if not"? Was it code? No. It was a reference to the Old Testament episode when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before King Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. "Our God is able to save us, and He will save us," the young men had said, "and if not, we will remain faithful to Him anyway."

As astonishing as it seems today, the oblique message was immediately understood by the British people. In the days that followed, a ragtag flotilla of fishing boats, pleasure cruisers, yachts, and rowboats set out from the shores of England, managing to rescue 338,000 Allied troops. If the same message were sent in America today, it would be greeted with raised eyebrows and blank stares—even from many Christians. The tie that binds us is no longer common religious belief or heritage.

Practically, what this means that most of the evangelism methods that we use today have a very limited effectiveness because they do not communicate with the modern mind. The people of the world no longer share basic presuppositions with us that are necessary for our gospel presentations to be intelligible. We can no longer simply proclaim that "Jesus is the answer" because most people don't even know what the question is.

Our "modern" tools for evangelism are designed for people who are already ripe for the gospel. They are used for reaping for those already prepared to hear the gospel. Unfortunately, the percentage of people who are already prepared is decreasing. That means churches and parachurch organizations are constantly scrambling to reach a small harvest among the prepared while the majority of unprepared are neglected in our evangelistic outreach.

According to a leader in Billy Graham's ministry, in the early years of Billy Graham's ministry most of those responding to the gospel came from liberal churches where they were not hearing the gospel. By the 1990’s, more than 90% come from what he calls "our evangelical churches." When asked why the change, he said, "the tree has been shaken."

So, what do we do? How do we communicate the gospel to a generation with whom we have nothing in common? We need a three-pronged strategy. I will develop these thoughts later (Lord willing), but let me introduce it here.

1. Prayer

This is obvious, but it needs stating. One man said, “"...Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons -- but they are helpless against our prayers." We must remember this. Nothing happens without prayer.

2. Challenge the Prevailing World View

I am a big proponent of presuppositional apologetics. In this form of “defending the faith”, the Christian does two things. First, we expose the weaknesses of our culture’s world view. That is, we need to help our non-Christian friends see that their worldview doesn’t hold water. The predominant worldview cannot answer questions of purpose or meaning. They can’t even explain such basic concepts as love or beauty. While they say that evil is a problem for Christians, it is an even bigger problem for those who are non-theist. Christians often are defensive about their faith. I think we should be more lovingly aggressive in asking our non-believing friends to defend their faith. Frankly, this is an easier task than most Christians realize.

We must work from our world-view to show them the deficiency of their world-view. We must, from the point of a biblical philosophy of life show them the inadequacy of their own philosophy of life. Whether the natural man realizes it or not, the Bible tells us certain things are true about him. He is guilty of sin and his own conscience convicts him. A woman may delude herself into thinking that her feelings of guilt are only false echoes of a Victorian ethic, but she cannot extinguish them. The feeling of guilt is there, and, even though it might be buried, it never goes away. Because all humans are created in the image of God, there is worth, value, and significance to human life. However, nothing in their world-view can support this notion.

The second task in presuppositional apologetics is showing the foundation for the Christian worldview. We explain to them why we believe in Jesus. Here, we can show that our own faith is internal consistent, which is more than they can claim about their non-theistic faith.

For more information on this, there are a number of excellent sources. The easiest to read is Richard Pratt’s Every Thought Captive (the video series of this has much better content, but the production values are lacking). John Frame has a great book, but it is more challenging to read for most people. Bill Edgar’s books are terrific and examples of this (Reasons of the Heart, The Face of Truth). They are very readable. Del Tackett’s “The Truth Project” (produced by Focus on the Family), does a great job of presenting a Christian worldview and deconstructing a secularist worldview. It can be very helpful in informing Christians with the truth they need to talk with others. This is especially true if they learn Del's respectful tone.

3. Deeds of Justice and Compassion

Besides being biblical (as if that were not enough of a reason), the church should be engaged in deeds of justice and compassion because it gives credibility to our message. Compassion ministry for the poor is part of the way we announce the coming of Christ’s kingdom. Tim Keller says that mercy ministry is the apologetic of the post-modern era. I agree. Unless the church engages in ministries of mercy, we will not have credibility in our message with many of our contemporaries, especially younger people. The Evangelical church foolishly (and sinfully) has seperated the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom in words from the proclamation in deeds. The two must be brought back together.

The Church as a Mission

2007-11-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

The church is both a home and a mission.[1] It is a home to its people and a mission to its community. As a home, the church provides care for its people, nurtures them, and equips them to live out the Great Commandment and Great Commission in their daily lives. As a mission, the church is an embassy of the Kingdom of God, announcing the arrival of King Jesus, calling people to allegiance to Him, seeking to bring everything under His reign, and seeking to bring the blessings of His kingdom to a world in need.

In this role of the church as a mission, we are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities in our day. If the church is going to overcome these challenges and seize the opportunities before it, then some of our models of ministry must change.

Much has been written over the past thirty years on the spiritual and social changes in American culture. While most Christian leaders are very familiar with these changes, I am not convinced we have taken them seriously enough. The church continues to minister as if it were the 1950’s, except in some cases we have replaced the organ with guitars and hymnals with PowerPoint. While there is nothing wrong with these changes, these changes are, for the most part, cosmetic and do not address the real challenges ahead.

In his book, Living Proof, Jim Peterson outlines the problem well. While churches and Christian ministries may say that they are trying to reach the whole population, they really are simply competing for an ever shrinking piece of the pie. Most churches are only capable of reaching people who have a particular background. Truly secular people have worldviews and assumptions that are so radically different from Christians that the average church member (and leader) is no more equipped to reach out to them than they are to the tribal people of New Guinea. They no longer speak the same language. The gap is widening.

In the 1950’s, most non-Christians in America at least had a Christian heritage. They were not truly secular. For the most part, they accepted the authority of the Bible, they believed in God. They believed in the concept of sin. Furthermore, the cultural gap between those inside the church and outside the church was not that great. Most Americans shared certain core values that were essentially Judeo-Christian.

That is not the case today. America has become increasingly secular. The church and most evangelism techniques still work well with the segment of the population that conforms to the old values. However, neither the church nor most evangelism programs have any idea of how to reach those who are further away. Yet, the church continues to minister as if we live in the world of Ozzie and Harriett. Ozzie and Harriett are still out there, but their numbers are shrinking greatly. We are ministering as if we are in a Christian society instead of ministering as if we are in a secular society. The result is, we are relevant to ever decreasing percentage of the population and are quickly moving (if we are not already there) to being a ghetto of mainstream society.

In The Celtic Way of Evangelism, George Hunter notes that “The Church, in the Western World, faces populations who are increasingly “secular”—people with no Christian memory, who don’t know what we Christians are talking about. These populations are increasingly “urban”—and out touch with God’s “natural revelation.” These populations are increasingly “postmodern”: they have graduated from Enlightenment ideology and are more peer driven, feeling driven, and “right-brained” than their forebearers. These populations are increasingly “neo-barbarian”; they lack “refinement” or “class,” and their lives are often out of control. These populations are increasingly receptive—exploring worldview options from Astrology to Zen—and are often looking “in all the wrong places” to make sense of their lives and find their soul’s true home. ”

Hunter goes on to tell the story of St. Patrick. Patrick was born in Britain in the year 387. When he was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by the wild people of Ireland and forced to live as a slave. However, six years later, he escaped and returned to Britain. Upon his return, he entered the priesthood. However, after a few years, he petitioned the church to be sent back to Ireland as a missionary. However, the church was reluctant to do so because the church at that time did not believe the Irish could ever become Christians. Why? Because the Irish were barbarians. The assumption was that a population had to be civilized in order to be Christianized. Secondly, if they ever were Christianized, they were expected to adopt the “Roman way” of doing things”. Since the Irish clearly were not civilized, they could not be Christianized.

That mentality (either intentionally or unintentionally) is pervasive in the church. For example, if you see one kid wearing all black, who has black eyeliner all around the eyes, and a series of tattoos, and you see another kid in khakis and wearing a polo type shirt, which one is most likely to become a Christian? Who is most likely to become a Christian, the president of the PTA or the president of Hell’s Angels?

In the way we talk, the way we do ministry, our churches are designed to minister to “civilized” people. If a person is conservative, moral, and preferably Republican, our church is a warm environment. However, one who does not fit our standards of civilization is often excluded based on his behavior and cultural values before we even have the opportunity to talk about Jesus.
We think you have to behave then believe, and once you do those two things, you belong. However, Jesus reverses all of this. By eating with sinners, Jesus does not condone sinful lifestyles but attests that these persons and their lifestyles can be transformed.

The problem is, as Christians, we see the moral failure of our culture and we want to address this. So, we take a strong stand for moral behavior. We accept those who behave properly and reject those who do not because we do not ever want to send the message that we condone immorality. However, in doing this, we reverse the biblical order.

The gap between the Church and the culture, though, extends far beyond behavior. Our worldviews are so different that we do not know how to talk to one another. Living in our own communities has become so cross-cultural that there is a natural tendency for Christians to gather together with people who think like we do. The problem is, we are gathering together, maintaining our culture, but becoming a ghetto of the dominant culture. We are quickly becoming the Amish, only we are more fashionably dressed.

A while back, I attended a wedding in a Greek Orthodox Church. It was beautiful. I had never been to anything like it. However, it was also completely foreign to me. I did not understand the rituals. It seemed to me to be extremely culturally bound. It was as if when I got out of my car and entered the church, I was transported to a different country. I was a foreigner there. That experience caused me to wonder if that is how secular people feel when they attend our church.

The answer is not to compromise. That is what the liberal church has done. We are not called to blend into the culture, but to transform it with the gospel. The answer then, is neither to compromise or retreat to our ghetto, but to be missionaries. We are to live and act as resident aliens in our culture. Instead of trying to maintain our culture and protect it, our calling is to engage the culture, incarnate the gospel in the culture, in order to transform the culture.

Even in seeking to be missionaries to our culture, we must be careful that we do not merely focus on doing that which is attractive to the culture rather than that which is transformational. For those of us who value cultural relevance, we have been driven by a desire to reach lost people. As a result, we have worked hard to grab their attention and speak with relevance. Much of the results of this have been good. We have seen many people come to church and eventually to Christ that never would have gone to church before. The truth of the Bible has not been veiled behind unintelligible liturgies. Lives truly have been changed by the gospel.

However, churches have not just grown by attracting non-Christians, but by attracting Christians. People now crave relevance more and more. In reality, they want a church that entertains them and puts on a good show. We have created a church that values entertainment over doctrine. I heard a pastor of one of the largest churches in my denomination say, "If we changed our theology, a few people might leave. If we changed our music, half the church would be gone by next Sunday".

I agree that church should not be boring. God isn’t boring. It is the equivalent of a modern miracle how we preachers can talk about our amazing God in such a way that puts people to sleep. However, the danger is, when you build your church on having a good “show”, you now have created an appetite for entertainment that constantly needs to be fed.

While the contemporary church has been far more successful in reaching lost people than the traditional church (look at the PCA’s statistics on those joining by profession of faith and this is obvious), it also has grown by attracting people who are bored with their old church. If people come to you because you are more exciting than their old church, then they will leave when they find another church that is more exciting than yours.

This has created a consumer mindset in church members. The members of the church no longer see themselves as owners/ministers, but as consumers. Just as they will leave their old grocery store to shop at Wal Mart, they will leave one church for another if it provides a better show or better services for their family.

We are seeing this all over the country. I can cite a number of examples in my own denomination where a church was once the hot church in its community, but now is experiencing decline because some other church has come that puts on a better production. The drive for cultural relevance has resulted in consumerism. Consumerism will eventually bite the church. It is a beast that cannot be contained.

So, the church must recognize that it is ministering in a secular society. It also must approach ministry with a missionary mindset—seeking to reach the people of its culture in a way that makes sense to them. At the same time, the church must guard against compromise and consumerism. Instead, it must function as a missionary society that loves the people of its community and desires to see them transformed by God’s grace.

[1] I “borrowed” this simple model from Randy Pope at Perimeter Church. I like its simplicity.

Better than Panera

2007-11-01T15:29:00.001-07:00

For years, Panera has been my second office. The combination of comfortable seats, light classical music, free wi-fi, cinnamon crunch bagels, and an endless supply of coffee have kept me coming back for years. Today, I found something better--the East Library on Union. The library sits on top of a hill (6600 feet). The west side of the library is a curved wall of windows, giving you a panoramic view of Pikes Peak and the Front Range. It is spectacular. It even has a coffee bar and free wireless. While they don't give free refills and there are no cinnamon crunch bagels, the view makes up for it. If I can get a decent picture, I will post it here.

Another Colorado experience -- A few weeks ago, I went hiking in Waldo Canyon with some friends. It was seven miles of beautiful scenery and great conversation. I thought I was doing pretty good to make the hike when this girl went running past. She was running the trail I was hiking. What is worse, when we neared the end of the hike, she was running back for lap two. Embarrassing.

Last week, I had several great Colorado experiences. A couple of days, Tricia and I got up early and went on hikes in Palmer Park before the girls went to school. Then, some guys in the church took me fly fishing. I had never done it before. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical. The idea of standing in ice cold glacier water while the air temperature is cold enough to kill an Orange grove, and throwing some bug on a string into the water didn't sound all that great. So, I took a vacation day on Wednesday and we headed up to "The Dream Stream", just above the 11 Mile Resevoir. Despite my initial hesitation, I soon discovered it was a blast. I didn't catch anything, but standing there in a stream on a sunny day, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains was a real treat. The fellowship was great as well. As far as being cold goes, even though it was in the high teens when we started, I never got cold. As a friend on the Search Committee told me before we moved, "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." That really is true. If you are properly dressed and the sun is shining, it is a beautiful day.

Then, on Friday, my regular day off, Tricia was busy all day. So, I drove up to Copper Mountain just to check things out for our family trip in December. I spent the morning skiing. Even though they haven't had much snow and only had a couple of Blue runs open, it was wonderful. The drive up there was worth the trip.

What I Learned Today

2007-10-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Now that I am a Coloradoan, I decided I better start living like one. So, I have done a little hiking, I am getting ready for ski season, and today, I decided to go mountain biking in Palmer Park. The park is great because they mark trails well. They even tell you if they are green (beginner), blue (intermediate), or black (advanced), just like ski runs. I have been mountain biking before, but I am not sure the trails out at Chuluota, Florida really qualify. It is kind of hard to go mountain biking if there are no mountains. So, I decided to do a green trail. Next time, I will be looking for the bunny slope. It was an educational experience. Here is what I learned:

1. The fool says in his heart that there is no God and that bike helmets are for dorks.

2. Middle age + out of shape + high altitude = lots of heavy breathing.

3. If you are from Florida but now live in Colorado, there is no such thing as a small hill.

4. A corollary to the above: just because it doesn't look like a hill doesn't mean it is not a hill.

5. Little boulders can be big problems.

6. Going downhill is more fun than going uphill.

7. If you are going fast down a hill and you are on a dirt trail, just because you have good tires, that does not mean you can turn.

8. My back hurts.

By the way, the Colorado Springs Gazette now has a great website with a guide and map for all sorts of hiking and biking trails in the region. I put it in my links to the left. The site is Colorado Springs Outdoors. Check it out.

We Aren't In Florida Anymore

2007-09-14T16:06:00.001-07:00

I will get to serious issues at some point, but for now, it is all about life in Colorado. I woke up this morning and it was in the high 40's. So, Tricia and I decided to go for a walk in Palmer Park. I was wearing shorts, sandals, and a sweatshirt. I was comfortable. Really. However, when we came back down from the park, I stood outside talking to our real estate agent (who is also our friend) and engineer in our yard about our drainage problem (long story). After standing there for a while, I started to get a little chilled. I don't think I have ever been cold in September (except for the AC at the UPC office). Yep, we aren't in Florida anymore!

All of these pictures are from Palmer Park (yep, our backyard). Our house in the neighborhood in the background of the picture.

Welcome

2007-09-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. I recently moved from Orlando, Florida where I was the pastor of University Presbyterian Church to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where I am now pastor of Village Seven Presbyterian Church. It is a dramatic change, to say the least. While the two churches are part of the same denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, they are different in size, style, and age. Yet, they share the same rich theology and heritage, as well as a passion to see God's grace proclaimed to their cities and the world.

I titled my blog "A View from 6000 Feet" because a) I am bad at thinking of titles, and b)my home in Orlando sits at a stunning 75 feet above sea level. Our new home is at 6316 feet, which is nearly has high as Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. The picture at the top of my blog was taken from Palmer Park, which is at the end of our cul-de-sac (then up about 200 feet). It shows downtown Colorado Springs with Pikes Peak (14,110 feet) in the background.

Living at high altitude offers a different perspective. On the one hand, you can see a long way. You are up above it all and can see things that those down at low altitude cannot. On the other hand, the air is thinner. So, some of my comments may reflect oxygen deprivation.

Colorado Springs is a beautiful place to live. Every morning, I see the sun shining on Pikes Peak and am held captive by its beauty. I have only been here for three weeks, but I can't imagine ever getting tired of it. We can walk out our door and go for a hike in Palmer Park (pictured above). In 10 minutes, we can be in the Garden of the Gods. In less than 20 minutes, we can be up in Cheyenne Cañon. When the snow falls, the ski slopes are only 2 hours away. It is an amazing place.

A View from 6000 Feet

Which is the Best Bible Translation?

The problem of “literal” translations

The problem of non-literal translations

Bottom Line – Which is the Best Translation?

A History of the King James Bible

The Latin Vulgate

Back to the Originals

Early English Versions

The King James Version

Bibliography

Church and Culture (Part 3)

Church and Culture (Part 2)

The Church and Culture (Part 1)

Is Science God? A Brief Review of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking

The Church and the Future

Recommended Summer Reading

Immature Men

Christ-Centered Worship

Was Jesus Born in a Stable?

Funeral for an American Hero

Halloween

Dwelling in Possibilities

More on Understanding the Old Testament

The Promised Redeemer

The Story of the Bible

Why Study the Old Testament?

How to Apply Genesis

The Importance of Confessionalism

Living Out the Gospel

The Importance of Missional

The Slippery-Ness of Missional

History of the Term Missional

The Meaning of Missional

What is a Missional Church?

The Church: A Gospel, Authentic, and Missional Community

Happy Birthday John Calvin

Sunday Leftovers - More Thoughts on Genesis 4

A Brave New World Meets 1984

Sunday Leftovers Part 2 - Did Adam and Eve Die in the Garden?

Sunday Leftovers Part 1 - Talking Animals

Sovereign Grace Music Sale

Marriage Resources

One Resolution Every Christian Can Keep (Part 2)

One Resolution Every Christian Can Keep (Part 1)

More on the Rick Warren Controversy

Christianity in America

Recommended for Christmas

Religion and Politics: What's a Christian To Do?

Plants Have Feelings, Too

Abortion and the Presidency

On the Road

Ecclesiastes and Football

Bagging a Fourteener

More On Deaconnesses

A Few of My Favorite Things

Deaconesses

Summer is Over - What I Actually Read

Some Great Quotes

Food and Sports

Worship Series

Inviting all Florida Friends

Summer Reading

Preaching at Village Seven

Some Quick Hits

Union with Christ

Jesus Family Tomb

Easter, Village Seven, and UPC

Footnotes

The Need for a Great Awakening

Respectable Sins

Random Thoughts

The Story of the Bible

Minus Seven

Evangelism in Post-Modern America

The Church as a Mission

Better than Panera

What I Learned Today

We Aren't In Florida Anymore

Welcome