Letting People Go with Dignity; Public Rebuke Warranted? Atheism’s Irrational Nature; and much more

Weekend Links

Don’t miss the link comparing Time magazine covers for the USA market and Time covers for the European and Asian markets. It is sad, shocking and depressing to see how shallow the marketing people at Time think the America people are. Maybe more sad is that they may be right. As always, your mileage may vary. I read ‘em and post ‘em but I don’t necessarily agree with all of ‘em.

Defending the Truth

Rick Warren on Why You Can Trust Your Bible (The Christian Post)
Why Atheism is Irrational–Street Apologetics (Terry Ivy)
Bart Ehrman’s Problem with Free Will (Clay Jones)
The Danger of the “International House of Prayer” (CARM)

Leadership

Letting People Go with Dignity (Leadership Freak)
When is Public Rebuke Warranted? Elevation church and Matt Chandler (Here I Blog)
World War II was Fought and Won in Less Time than the Approval Process for the Keystone Pipeline (must hear Audio)
For Every Church Planter (and Pastor and Elder) to Know (Uncommon Life)

Politics, Economy, Culture

Mitt’s Attack on Crony Capitalism is on Target (Larry Kudlow)
The One Percent Blues (Bill O’Reilly)
Everybody but the State Department and Obama Approves the Pipeline from Canada!
How Higher Taxes Hurt the Economy with short video (Daniel Mitchell)
A New a Workable Strategy to End Abortion (John Piper)
Tim Stafford’s Liberal and Conservative Mashup (Tim Stafford)
Stunning Comparison of Time Magazine Covers in US and Europe/Asia (Daily Cos)
Obama’s Green Robber Barrons (Michele Malkin)
The Real State of the Union (John Stossel)
Examining Tax Rates and Claims More Closely (Warren Buffet)

15 Questions the Mainstream Media Would Ask President Obama if He Were a Republican (John Hawkins)

Environment

Scientist Dispute Environmental Hysteria on Fracking (John Ransom)

Christian News and Counsel

Why I Resigned from the Gospel Coalition (James MacDonald)
Should You Marry a Guy with Pornography Struggles (Moore to the Point)
You’ve Never Heard How Great Thou Art Like This! (Praising God for Glory)
Very Cool Report on Prisoners Coming to Faith

 

The One Who Denies Himself Gains Everything

Friday is for Heart Songs

The following is from Kairos Journal and excerpts a sermon by Ligon Duncan. Longer than my usual post and written by Ligon, not me. This is a great excerpt. Plus he references Gandalf and uses one of my all time heroes (C.T. Studd, missionary) as an illustration. Enjoy.

The Kingdom and the School of Self-Denial
Ligon Duncan serves as senior minister of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi.

Ever realize what the “Battle-hymn of the Reformation” (Luther’s A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) concludes with? A stirring call to kingdom-inspired self-denial—“Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.”

Jesus the Messiah once said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matt. 13:44 NAS) The sense of the value, the significance, the importance of the kingdom of God is what produces the readiness to sacrifice displayed by this man who “sells all that he has.” In other words the sense of the prime importance (and blessedness) of God’s kingdom, builds in this man a sense of desire and mission, which is expressed in self-denial (in this case manifested in the selling of all he owns).

As pastors, we live in a generation that knows more about self-indulgence than self-denial. We often minister to privileged congregations, without question the wealthiest Christians in the history of the world, blessed with enormous resources but tempted to use those resources merely for their own pleasure. Consequently, we must as ministers of Christ stress the Christian grace of self-denial—in light of the stupendous value of the kingdom. This should be evident not only in what we say but in how we live.

The irony of the self-denial of Matthew 13:44 is that the self-denier becomes the gainer, because “he gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” What would happen if Christians were using our worldly resources—financial, material, and otherwise—in the service of the mission of the kingdom and with this truth in mind? The very suggestion is mind-boggling. But it will have to begin with self-denial. And oh, this life has become so comfortable.

Pearl of Great Price

What we need is pastors who know they are in a fight—a fight to the death. The signs are all around us. The vestigia of Christendom are falling about our ears, and we in the West are entering into a post-Constantinian era (eerily like the pre-Constantinian era) for the first time in seventeen centuries. And yet, even in this, there is great hope. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,” as Gandalf said. Will we sit on our hands and hope for the return of the Eisenhower years? Or will we engage with principalities and powers, sell all we have and buy the treasure of the kingdom? Not without self-denial we won’t.

For there can be no victory in this fight without expense, no triumph without cost, no real gain without real sacrifice. Such was God’s way with His only begotten Son. Should His adopted heirs expect any different? No, salvation is the free gift that costs you everything, and if we are to tread the head of the serpent under our feet, it will be with self-denial.

“The first lesson in Christ’s school is self-denial,” said Matthew Henry. We need more Christians in that school. That great pastor-theologian, John Calvin, knew why this was so. He once said: “We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7.1).

C. T. Studd, one of the great nineteenth-century English missionaries known as the Cambridge Seven, also grasped the vital need for self-denial. He renounced a privileged social position and a flourishing sporting career to take the gospel to China in 1885, almost dying before returning home a decade later. After a few years encouraging students in the U.K. and the U.S. to consider missionary work, Studd spent six years in India and, despite fifteen years of ill-health, the remainder of his life in tropical Africa. Asthma, recurring malaria, and dysentery did not stop him giving himself totally to the Lord’s work. Yet, God graciously used Studd and, through his sacrificial labors, brought many to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

Surely, our generation of pastors could use a good deal more of that grace and fruit of the Holy Spirit that is kingdom-inspired self-denial.

 

What If We Did Spiritual Formation Like Jesus?

How Did Jesus Make Disciples? I think we can see the outlines of the process in the pages of the gospels. The term I use to describe that process is “intentional withness.” There was a “with me” quality to Jesus’ interaction and training of the disciples. Jesus choose them, then spent no more than 3-4 years with them. During that time not once did he have a seminar on …

To read more see … What If We Did Spiritual Formation Like Jesus?.

 

The Nature and Mission of the Church

When I think of the nature and mission of the Church I think of the position of a herald. The Church is a community of the evangelized sent to evangelize. They have been shaped by the good news and they shape the world by telling and living out the good news. Her primary stance then, is not that of a persuader but that of a herald

For more see: The Nature and Mission of the Church.

 

Praying for What We are Unwilling to Do

Wednesday is for Prayer

I have been doing some research on “the man of peace” (lit. son of peace) in Luke 10:6. Probably have 50 pages so far of journal articles, commentary and exegetical notes on the the phrase and how some missiologists interpret the phrase. But this post isn’t about that. It’s about a side comment by Warren Wiersbe in his Bible Exposition Commentary on Luke 10:2.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

I have written often about Luke 10:2. (here and here and here). But Dr. Wiersbe had some simple and brilliant insight.

Harvesting is hard work, even when there are many people helping you, but these men were sent into a vast field with very few workers to help them reap a great harvest. Instead of praying for an easier job, they were to pray for more laborers to join them, and we today need to pray that same prayer. (Please note that it is laborers, not spectators, who pray for more laborers! Too many Christians are praying for somebody else to do a job they are unwilling to do themselves.) [Bold emphasis added]

Lord of the harvest, would You raise up workers to labor in the fields that are white for harvest? Your Spirit is at work even now in our community. Make us bold to go into the field and harvest the fruit of His work. Give us fruit that remains for Your glory. Make us willing to go; make us bold in our going; keep us humble and make us fruitful so that the nations will know that You are worthy of all honor and praise and majesty. Amen.

 

Two Words for One Biblical Term: How dissection obscures understanding.

The word discipleship doesn’t exist in Scripture. The word evangelism is a more complicated discussion that I don’t want or need to get into now. For years, the church has used both words to explain different aspects of the one task of Making Disciples. Sometimes dissection of processes is revelatory–for example, when a body is dissected we learn much about how the body functions.But sometimes, dissection can obscure.

I want to suggest that in the case of Making Disciples, our long established atomization in the two categories of “Evangelism” and “Discipleship” is one such dissection. Let’s tackle the problem from the more versatile of the two words, discipleship.

See this link for more and a fascinating discussion thread:
Two Words for One Biblical Term: How dissection obscures understanding..

 

Growing Churches by Stealing Sheep or Proclaiming Christ?

Tuesday is for Preaching

Pastor planting a church, I have a question for you. But let me ask it in a couple of different ways.*

Is it your job to “preach the Bible” or “proclaim the gospel”?

Can you preach the Bible and not preach the gospel? Did they train you at seminary or Bible college to make a beeline to the cross, from any text in the Scripture? If they did, are you doing it? If they didn’t and you do, how did you learn to follow the model of Jesus on the Emmaus Road and Philip on the road to Gaza?

Is your ministry focused on an educational task or a heralding task?

Does your preaching incite people to be libraries or liberators? That is, are you making your people into repositories of information about Christ or proclaimers of the sin-liberating message of the gospel?

How you answer these questions, which is really one question, makes all the difference in whether you will grow your church plant by the sheep you steal from other churches or the sheep you win for the glory of the Great Shepherd.

* On second thought, why limit this question to church planters? Why wouldn’t this apply to all pastors charged with the responsibility to open the word of life?

 

A Provacative Quote with which Jesus Would Completely Agree

Follow the link below to the quote. It is from a book by John Piper.

This is the book that simply must be read, if you have been struggling to understand the gospel, if you know someone who is struggling to understand the gospel, if you have ever wondered why some people can “pray a prayer” of salvation and see no evidence of spiritual life, this is the book to read.

 A Provacative Quote with which Jesus Would Completely Agree.

 

Pre-Easter Season Meditation on the Piercing of Christ

The Savior’s side is pierced by a spear.*

Adapted from the accounts of
Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12 and John 19:31-37

Jesus is pierced in fulfillment of Scripture.

[The Passover had been celebrated for over 1,400 years. The fire of its rituals and patterns and associations had been burned into the Jewish soul. Every Jewish family knew that care must be taken to not break the bones of the sacrificial lamb. Passages like the following had been memorized and could be recited by heart.]

It (the Passover lamb) shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.
Exodus 12:46

They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any of its bones;
according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it.
Numbers 9:12

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so thatthe bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for thatSabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate thattheir legs might be broken and thatthey might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows thathe is telling the truth—in order that you also may believe.

For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled:

“Not one of His bones will be broken.”

And again another Scripture says, “They will look on Him whom they have pierced.” (Zechariah 12:10)

The soldiers mutilate the body, and God brings to fulfillment the Scripture (Zechariah 12:10):

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on Me, on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over Him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

Imagine the heartbreak of the disciples and of the courageous women who, along with the apostle John, did not run and hide. The disciples have not only the loss of Jesus and the brutality of His death, but the dashed hopes of their own dreams and the memories of their own cowardice with which to contend.

The women and John have seen up close the tortured body, the agony of both His body and soul, and the piercing of His side that seems to them the final indignity.

Emotions and memory collide from so many different directions that they feel like petrified wood—cold, lifeless and hard.

They are numb in their exhaustion, aimless in their confusion, broken by their sorrow. Where do they go? What can they do?

What is there left to do but weep?

Zechariah’s words perfectly match the cry of their hearts.

they shall mourn for Him,
as one mourns for an only child,
and weep bitterly over Him,
as one weeps over a firstborn.”

Pierced but triumphant Lord, Your body was pierced through for our transgressions. You were crushed for our iniquities. You bore the iniquity of us all and purchased with Your own blood our redemption.  Truly, truly You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Help me never to forget the spectacular and lavish display of Your love. Help me fix my gaze upon the beauty of Your holiness  and never let me  wander from Your commandments. In Your holy name, Amen.

* Excerpted from the book Experience the Passion of Christ (Marty Schoenleber, Sojourning Press, 2005)

 

Please, Please Watch this Francis Chan Video.

If you don’t have time now, okay. But carve out some time and watch this video. We grow and mature in Christ but we often lose a purity in relation to our first-love faith. But God, who loves us,who is faithful when we are not, who covers all our sins with the cleansing blood of Christ, continues to woo us, and call us, and through this video by Francis Chan, he puts a megaphone to our ear and pleads with us to return to our first love. This is my prayer for the whole body of Christ in America starting with myself. What would happen if all of us began to pray such prayers?

See the video here: Please, Please Watch this Video..