"For thirty years I have warned my congregation and many visitors to TUCC about the dangers of sin, the deceitfulness of sin, and the need for the atoning work of Christ to be applied to each person because of their sin. That atonement is appropriated through repentance and faith in the crucified and risen Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in His crucifixion satisfied God the Father's holy anger against sin. That includes sins of speech, like the words I spoke during those sermons. Those comments were careless, inaccurate, insensitive, divisive... in a word, sinful. Without rationalization or attempts at justification, I do now denounce and disavow these specific comments and phrases....
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Irreverent Wrongs
"For thirty years I have warned my congregation and many visitors to TUCC about the dangers of sin, the deceitfulness of sin, and the need for the atoning work of Christ to be applied to each person because of their sin. That atonement is appropriated through repentance and faith in the crucified and risen Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in His crucifixion satisfied God the Father's holy anger against sin. That includes sins of speech, like the words I spoke during those sermons. Those comments were careless, inaccurate, insensitive, divisive... in a word, sinful. Without rationalization or attempts at justification, I do now denounce and disavow these specific comments and phrases....
Monday, April 21, 2008
Light Blogging
While we're on vacation, blogging will be light to non-existent. As I meditate on last week at T4G, Covenant Life, and a pastor's retreat, I may put up a reflection or two either here or at Church Matters. But we'll see.
In the meanwhile, a brother in the church sent this link to me on muslim conversions. Thought it would be an interesting read.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Noll Lectures at Princeton on Race, Religion and American Politics
Part 1: ``The Bible, Slavery, and the Irrepressible Conflict`
Pt 2 - The Churches, `Redemption,` and Jim Crow'
Pt 3 - `Civil Rights, the Republican Alliance, and the Endurance of Evil in the Land of the Free`
Friday, April 11, 2008
Why I'm Looking Forward to T4G
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Ferguson on the Prayer of Faith
"Truly 'righteous' men and women of faith know the value of their heavenly Father's promises. They go to Him, as children do to a loving human father. They know that if they can say to an earthly father, 'But, father, you promised...,' they can both persist in asking and be confident that he will keep his word. How much more our heavenly Father, who has given His Son for our salvation! We have no other grounds of confidence that He hears our prayers. We need none.
"Such appeal to God's promises constitutes what John Calvin, following Turtullian, calls 'legitimate prayer.'
"Some Christians find this disappointing. It seems to remove the mystique from the prayer of faith. Are we not tying down our faith to ask only for what God already has promised? But such disappointment reveals a spiritual malaise: would we rather devise our own spirituality (preferably spectacular) than God's (frequently modest)?
"The struggles we sometimes experience in prayer, then, are often part of the process by which God gradually brings us to ask for only what He has promised to give. The struggle is not our wrestling to bring Him to give us what we desire, but our wrestling with His Word until we are illuminated and subdued by it, saying, 'Not my will, but Your will be done.' Then, as Calvin again says, we learn 'not to ask for more than God allows.'
"This is why true prayer can never be divorced from real holiness. The prayer of faith can be made only by the 'righteous' man whose life is being more and more aligned with the covenant grace and purposes of God. In the realm of prayer, too (since it is a microcosm of the whole of the Christian life), faith (prayer to the covenant Lord) without works (obedience to the covenant Lord) is dead."
From Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust), pp. 146-147.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
My Favorite Doctrine
Hence it follows, that we can confidenty assure ourselves, that eternal life, of which he himself is the heir, is ours, and that the kingdom of heaven, into which he has entered, can no more be taken from us than from him; on the other hand, that we cannot be condemned for our sins, from the guilt of which he absolves us, seeing he has been pleased that these should be imputed to himself as if they were his own. This is the wondrous exchange made by his boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of Man, he has made us with himself sons of God…. Having received our mortality, he has bestowed on us his immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength. Having submitted to our poverty, he has transferred to us his riches. Having taken upon himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, he has clothed us with his righteousness (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.17.2).
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Carolyn and C.J. on How to Help Your Husband When He Is Criticized
Deacons: Tried and True
My main task, after helping the person find a job, was to provide on-the-job coaching during the probationary employment period. This was generally a "make or break" period. Either the job was a "good fit" or it was quickly evident that things would not work out.
I've had a number of clients either quit or get fired in just a matter of hours or days. It was a time of testing for the employee, the employer and the job coach. Employees could find themselves in situations too complex given their abilities. Employers could be ill-suited for supporting people with disabilities even if they employee was capable otherwise. And the job coach... well, let's just say the job coach has done everything from scoop poop at a kennel (several actually) to wash windows for an airline to data processing at IBM to flipping burgers at your local fast food joint. It was a time of testing for all.
Serving is not only a joy, it is also at times a real test. Serving others tests the depths of our love, the lengths of our patience, the quality of our endurance, and even the permanence of our joy. Serving brings great rewards, and sometimes those rewards are gift-wrapped in trying situations. Those who lovingly serve others often end up feeling like crash dummies designed specifically to discover the heat, force, and pain tolerance of some new product.
It's not surprising then that Paul should instruct Timothy and the church to find table servers, deacons, who "must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons" (1 Tim. 3:10). We call deacons to a number of difficult situations often in response to serious needs and/or serious sins. So, this is no place for a novice. The battle tested are the best applicants.
Deacons are to be examined or put to the test. As one commentator put it, "How this is to be done is not specified. The letter itself makes the requirements public, and 5:22ff indicates that time must be given to appraise a person's life. From this we can conclude that the testing is to be a thoughtful and careful evaluation of a man's life by a congregation aware of these needed qualifications" (Knight, NIGTC on The Pastoral Epistles, p. 170). The testing most likely involves the kinds of spiritual qualifications found throughout 1 Timothy 3.
Some questions to consider:
2. Does the prospective deacon show competence in the area of service? This is not the equivalent of conducting a professional head hunter search for technical competence. But it is wise to look for persons who have already been serving and display some skill in the area they may be asked to lead. Perhaps they have been volunteering in some related capacity. Or, perhaps they have work-related experience and expertise. Phil Ryken puts it this way: "This is a universal principle of Christian ministry: the way to prepare for greater service is to be diligent in some lesser service. Faithful ministry is both rewarded by God and recognized by the church" (1 Timothy, Reformed Expositor's Commentary, p. 128-9).
3. Is there anything that disqualifies the prospective deacon from serving? Whether in character or in competence, does the church's testing reveal serious deficiencies prohibiting a person's service? That's the negative aspect of the testing.
4. Is the congregation supportive of the potential deacon entering the office? This is the positive aspect of the testing. The person who passes the testing labors with the full support and commendation of the church body and leaders. The testing serves to affirm the person's gifting and character and to endorse the person's ministry. It enables confidence in service.
Deacons are indispensable in the Christian church. The Lord has not established the office as an added extra. And the office does not continue to exist as some obsolete appendage. Rather, deacons serve the table of the Lord in such a way as to facilitate the advance of the gospel, the health of the body, and the rejoicing of the saints. With great reason, then, Paul concludes: "Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 3:13). What a noble calling!
Friday, April 04, 2008
Boundless Unplugged
Here's how the folks at Boundless describe the effort:
You can catch the podcast by searching for it in iTunes or by going to www.boundlessline.org/podcast/.The Young Adults team at Focus on the Family recently launched “The Boundless Show,” the audio companion to the already popular Boundless webzine (www.boundless.org) and Boundless Line blog for singles and young adults. The first ten episodes are now available online.
“The Boundless Show” is a magazine-format weekly podcast that releases a new episode each Friday afternoon. Its goal is to build a sense of community among young adults that is engaging and fun while simultaneously tackling important issues such as relationships, culture, worldview and faith. Hosted by Focus on the Family’s Lisa Anderson and featuring the unique perspectives of Boundless staffers Steve and Candice Watters, Motte Brown and Ted Slater plus a wide range of guests, “The Boundless Show” brings a much-needed voice to the interests and concerns of today's twenty- and thirtysomethings.
“We're always looking for ways to leverage new media to extend our outreach to young adults,” said Motte Brown, young adults manager and executive producer of “The Boundless Show.” “Online audio just seemed like a natural fit given Focus on Family's history of excellence in broadcasting. And we think we've landed on a format that is meaningful, entertaining and quite frankly ‘different’ from other Focus programming. So far, the feedback to the show has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Oprah and Jesus on the Importance of Belief
It's a horrifyingly dark set of teachings. During the video, Oprah includes a word of personal testimony including how the idea of a jealous God repulsed her.
"God... in the essence of all consciousness... isn't someting to believe. God is. God is. And God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. And, in fact, if your religion is a believing experience... if God for you is still about a belief, then it's not truly God."
--Oprah Winfrey
So much for her earlier comment in this video, where she defended the idea that there is not one true way to God but that all paths lead there. All paths except belief in a personal, sovereign God who reveals himself in the Word of God and calls all men everywhere to repent and believe.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdice: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
--Jesus Christ (John 3:16-21; emphasis in the original)
Obviously, Oprah's online "school" is unhealthy stuff. It's cross-denying and therefore leads only to death and eternal woe. But I don't want to just beat up on Oprah.
One thing I'm thankful for from this video is that Oprah helps us preachers to think a bit more carefully about our audience. There are no doubt many in the pew who would find teaching about a jealous God repulsive, and yet they've not understood how God's jealousy for His own name is utterly unlike fallen human jealousy or how it is absolutely right that God infinte in every perfection be jealous for His name, that God's own zeal for His name is commendable in light of who God is. I'd love for Oprah to sit down with Piper and work though some of this! And I'd love to preach to my own people in a way that doesn't leave them at 20-something staggering away from the Lord because they're projecting themselves onto God.
Oh that the Lord would make me a preacher!