A little reminder from Piper on the place of words in seeking doctrinal clarity

Have you been following the recent storm surrounding James MacDonald's decision to invite TD Jakes to the Elephant Room (a symposium for Christian leaders to candidly discuss their differences)? I was reminded today of something John Piper preached in a biographical peice on Athanasius. I think it provides an excellent reminder.

The truth of biblical language must be vigorously protected with non-biblical language. Athanasius’ experience was critically illuminating to something I have come to see over the years, especially in liberally minded baptistic and pietistic traditions, namely, that the slogan, “the Bible is our only creed” is often used as a cloak to conceal the fact that Bible language is used to affirm falsehood. This is what Athanasius encountered so insidiously at the Council of Nicaea. The Arians affirmed biblical sentences. Listen to this description of the proceedings:

The Alexandrians . . . confronted the Arians with the traditional Scriptural phrases which appeared to leave no doubt as to the eternal Godhead of the Son. But to their surprise they were met with perfect acquiescence. Only as each test was propounded, it was observed that the suspected party whispered and gesticulated to one another, evidently hinting that each could be safely accepted, since it admitted of evasion. If their assent was asked to the formula “like to the Father in all things,” it was given with the reservation that man as such is “the image and glory of God.” The “power of God” elicited the whispered explanation that the host of Israel was spoken of as dunamis kuriou, and that even the locust and caterpillar are called the “power of God.” The “eternity” of the Son was countered by the text, “We that live are alway (2 Corinthians 4:11)!” The fathers were baffled, and the test of homoosion, with which the minority had been ready from the first, was being forced (p. 172) upon the majority by the evasions of the Arians.

R. P. C. Hanson explained the process like this: “Theologians of the Christian Church were slowly driven to a realization that the deepest questions which face Christianity cannot be answered in purely biblical language, because the questions are about the meaning of biblical language itself.”39 The Arians railed against the unbiblical language being forced on them. They tried to seize the biblical high ground and claim to be the truly biblical people—the pietists, the simple Bible-believers—because they wanted to stay with biblical language only—and by it smuggle in their non-biblical meanings. But Athanasius saw through this “post-modern,”post-conservative,” “post-propositional” strategy and saved for us not just Bible words, but Bible truth. May God grant us the discernment of Athanasius for our day. Very precious things are at stake.

Having Fun at Fellowship Lunch - Chisso is a Friend of Mine!

In case this makes very little sense to you, you may want to harm your ears by listening to this:

Sunday Preview - Leaders, followers and love

We are getting close to the end of our study of Hebrews and now finish off some of the ethical commands at the end of the letter. It should be no surprise that our author ends where he started - pointing us to Jesus.

Below is the outline of the passage as I propose to preach it Sunday morning.

Did you know we are now hosting the audio of our sermons on our new church website? You can download or stream some excellent audio quality for free, if that kind of thing is helpful to you.  For the sermons on Hebrews go here.

When it comes to these outlines, my suggestion is to read through the passage on Saturday some time with this outline in front of you to get a sense of what it says. The verse references are in brackets beside the points.

So, Follow Jesus!

Hebrews 13:7-19

1.            Follow what you saw of Jesus in your former leaders

A.             Mimic their persevering faith in Jesus (7)

B.            Remember their unchangeable Model (8)

2.             Follow the Gospel of Jesus

A.            Take seriously the warning to not marginalize the Gospel (9)

B.            Work continually to centralize the Gospel in your life (10-12)

3.            Follow the ways of Jesus

A.            Lead a life of not belonging and anticipation (13-14)

B.            Lead a life of public worship and active love (15-16)

4.            Follow the present leaders Jesus has given you

A.            Trust them (17)

B.             Pray for them (18-19)

Keller Touches on Toronto as he considers the splits that can occur between Christians

Blog - Redeemer City to City: "I fear that we are in a period in which many in the Christian church are dividing into extreme positions over the very conduct of polemics. On the one side there are seemingly more people than ever, especially through the Internet, engaging in polemics, and yet it looks to me like there is a large number of younger Christians leaders who are reacting to this as if polemics is a pure evil. We want “conversation”, never argument or apologetics."

'via Blog this'

Russell Moore with a very helpful response to Pat Robertson's ridiculous statement about divorcing your spouse with Alzheimer's Disease

Do you really want to be beautiful, sister?

I got to wondering the other day about all the women in the Bible who are noted for their beauty. (This thought was triggered by a statement Tim made while preaching about Ruth, that the text never tells us anything about her looks and that she might have been quite frumpy.)

My wondering was along the lines of this: is it really a good thing to be a “looker?”  A quick think through my Bible revealed that other than the daughters of Job, and the bride of Song of Solomon, good looks can get you into more trouble than triumph.

Consider these beautiful women. In each case, their beauty is in some way linked to the unfortunate things that happened to them.

Sarah – sent off by her husband to a foreigner’s harem (twice!)

Rebekah – sent off to another harem then lived in a dysfunctional family

Rachel – spent many years barren

Philisitine woman of Timnah married to Samson – 30 men were killed in her town and fields burned outside of it and then she was murdered by her own people

Abigail – her husband dropped dead

Bathsheba – she was lured into adultery, became pregnant, got her husband murdered and lost her illegitmate child

Tamar the daughter of David – raped by her half-brother

Abishag the Shunamite – was chosen to lie in bed with an old and dying King David to keep him warm

Esther – trotted off to a harem and then made queen to something of a crazed despot

All that to say, the Bible does not suggest that beautiful women get an easier life. If being esteemed as gorgeous or desirable or pretty is what you are seeking, you may want to give that goal a second look!

Caveats:

1. Obviously, being ugly or unkempt is not a virtue.

2. Including Abigail in my list is likely the most tenuous.

3. I am not trying to say that being pretty is a sin. I just found it interesting to think through that list of names and see that being attractive in the eyes of the world may lead to more problems than it solves.

4. None of us are truly beautiful when it comes right down to it. Sin is ugly and before the only eyes that matter we are dead and lost. Jesus died for sinners though, and that makes all of us who have repented and believed on Him attractive (male and female) to the Lord. And that is what really matters.

Some ideas on how to prepare to listen to a sermon

Joshua preached last night on Pursuing God through Listening to His Word Preached. I thought his list of ways to prepare for listening was worth repeating here:

·      Read the text that will be preached prior to Sunday.

·      Pray through the text and pray for the preacher of the text.

·      Be inquisitive. Ask questions of the text that you hope will get answered in the preaching.

·      Read all of your Bible as much as you can. Good preaching will almost always be full of Biblical allusions that only get caught and understood as our understanding of the sweep of Scripture continues to grow.

·      Come ready to listen in a way that will enable you to talk about what you heard; then start talking to others afterwards about what encouraged you, etc. Or, learn to explain some part of the sermon to your kids, or somebody else’s kids.

Where have you been Blogger-boy?

Every once in a while I remember I have a blog, then consider burying it in its blog-grave, then think of one more thing I would like “say” before I do!

We had our annual business meeting at Grace Fellowship Church last night and that gave cause to reflect on the last year of our church’s life.

One year ago, I read our folks John 12:24 and suggested this would be the basis to the next year or so as we planned to send off a part of us to plant another church.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

I asked our folks to ponder, “How does it feel to die?”  That was a real question, since we sent out 26 members (plus their kids and some “attenders”) over the last 12 months.  For a church of our size that is a pretty huge hit – basically one third of our membership.  We also went through some other pruning and trials that made this past year one of the most difficult we have yet to experience.

But then I looked through that list of 26 names again and do you know what I saw? Sent out from our little church in one year were 3 pastors, 2 deacons, 2 lead worshipers, 2 missionaries, 1 pastoral assistant and 16 solid members spread out to churches like Grace Fellowship Church East, New City Baptist, Harvest Durham, and a couple of others. What a blessing!

On top of this was the added surprise that the Lord added to our membership 24 new people – just two shy of the number who were sent out. We had hoped to grow again, but did not expect it to come so soon.

So now Grace Fellowship Church is a new church. There is a new core, a new vibe and the same old Gospel.  Toronto continues to grow with people from all over the world and a bunch of our church were here on Saturday to take that glorious Gospel to whomever happened to be waiting at a nearby bus stop.

I love His church.

Some other great words on Father's Day from another friend, Greg Lucas.

I often find myself thinking about what a truly exceptional Christian life looks like and then trying my futile best to match up to it. Is it reaching hundreds or thousands with the gospel? Is it pastoring a mega church? Is it compiling a library of solid theology or writing volumes of books? Perhaps it has something to do with how many followers you have on your blog or Twitter account?

Then I look at the life of my grandfather. He had an 8th grade education, owned two books, drove a truck for 30 years, was married to the same woman for 56 years, raised three children and then three grandchildren, and pastored a church of less than 70 people. He lived humbly, loved hard, laughed often, cared deeply and died well.

He also owned a watch with an 18 wheeler on it and a safety certificate for never having an accident on the road. Pretty good accomplishments for an exceptional life if you ask me.

Great words on Father's Day from my friend John Knight

"I’ve always respected my father – it is hard not to, especially when everyone in our little town seemed to know him, like him and respect him.
But the arrival of my Paul put everything into a different kind of clarity for me on who this man is.
Only days after Paul was born, while he was still hooked up to machines, dad held him and simply said to him, “if the only reason I was put on this earth was to be your grandpa, that’s good enough for me.”
Tears still come to my eyes, nearly 16 years later, at the memory. My father was for me. My father was for my boy. Nothing could change that. Nothing could stop that. He didn’t require Paul to love him back. He has NEVER required Paul to love him back. He didn’t require me to do anything for him. Paul simply was his own, and that’s all dad needed to know.
This is love. This is God’s gift in fulfilling the commandment: By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers (1 John 3:16)."

Read the whole post here.