Reformation Station

One of my favorite worship leaders, Bob Kauflin, tells the story of a Christian woman serving the Lord in South Africa. On one occasion, she was visiting a health clinic and heard the beautiful and “haunting” harmonies of some Zulu women singing. She asked, with tears in her eyes, if anyone knew what the words of the song were. Her translator and friend said, “Sure. If you boil the water, you won’t get dysentery.”

Music can move us emotionally even if the words of the song are totally inappropriate. That may be one of the worst things the American church has adopted in the way of evaluating good music. Many times we don’t care what the song is saying as long as it makes us feel good. Sadly, we apply this evaluation to some of the best Christian songs and hymns. I’ve heard men and women in the church completely clobber majestic hymns or praise songs just because it doesn’t fit their sensibilities or preference. It can be difficult for us to look into the message of a song if the vehicle carrying that message isn’t up to our tastes.

I’ve never been a part of a church that engaged in the so-called “worship wars” - where church members decide to be divisive over the style of music sung. Part of this is because I personally have a love for any song of the church, old or new, that has a strong doctrinal and theological foundation. Very rarely do I find myself drawn to a song simply because of it’s sound. I’m much more interested in the words. When we hear a song that may not be right down our alley, it is good to ask ourselves, “What am I saying about God or to God in this song?” This is so helpful because it draws our attention to the real purpose of singing in corporate worship. It helps us to get past the fact that we “feel” like the song is too stodgy or too upbeat and focus on the praise and thanksgiving we are giving to God through it.

I can remember the first time I heard a song by Sovereign Grace Ministries called Soli Deo Gloria. I was excited to hear it because I had read the words and my heart agreed with everything in the song. Yet when the song began to play on my car stereo, I was dismayed to hear the echoes of some tacky hair-metal band straight out of the 80’s! The song’s style was completely cheesy and the vocalist didn’t help much by continually screaming his part at the end of the song. I must confess that I didn’t even make it through the entire song the first time. Even now, it isn’t a song that I would regularly listen to, but I have grown to appreciate the deep message of the lyrics and even accept them in the style offered on the CD. And believe me, for me to rock out to some 80’s hair-metal song while singing one of the cornerstone truths of our protestant heritage is really saying something indeed.

Be very concerned about the words you are singing in worship. Engage with your worship leader on every song. Think deeply about what you are saying and be moved deeply in your praise to the God who has given us music. He has commanded us to sing His praises (Psalm 33:1,3; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). So sing them with your brain engaged and your heart on fire!

In the early 1800’s, baptist churches in America had reached a point where it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain doctrinal purity through creeds. Church members were also beginning what we know today as the church hop. Now it wasn’t what you have in mind when you think of church hopping, as a matter of fact, an excommunicated member may have serious trouble finding admission to another church. The “mutual oversight”, as Greg Wills puts it in his excellent book, Democratic Religion, was so stringent that churches had to watch themselves closely to keep from getting other churches in the association all worked up for a council, which would convene to scrutinize the erring congregation.

A member at LaGrange brought a charge against his own church that they were in the practice of “tolerating dancing.” LaGrange themselves requested that three churches send a contingent over in order to help consider the charge. Churches were regularly “disfellowshipped” through loose interchurch discipline, although they refused to call it that in order to maintain autonomy.

They really got worked up over membership though. You’ll enjoy this so I’m going to post it in its entirety. This is from David Shaver, editor of the Christian Index from that time:

They tell us that by virtue of “the time-honored Baptist principles of church independence and the right of private judgment,” our people everywhere “must receive evangelical Baptist churches into associational fellowship, without restrictions on the question of communion.” Read the rest of this entry »

For all of you who care. T4G08 book give aways.

• ESV Trutone Pocket Bible - Men Moved by the Holy Spirit
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism - Mark Dever
• The Faithful Preacher - Thabiti Anyabwile
• Preaching the Cross - Dever, Duncan, Mohler, Mahaney
• The Future of Justification - John Piper
• The Gospel According to Jesus Anniversary Edition - John MacArthur
• Worship Matters - Bob Kauflin
• The Truth of the Cross - R.C. Sproul
• Culture Shift - Ralbert
• If You Could Ask God One Question - Paul Williams and Barry Cooper
• Why We’re Not Emergent - two guys that should be
• In My Place Condemned He Stood - Packer and Dever
• Pierced for Our Transgressions - Jeffery, Ovey, Sach
• The Courage to Be Protestant - David Wells
• Christ and Culture Revisited - D.A. Carson

Stuff I Bought

• The Cross and Christian Ministry - D.A. Carson
• Jesus the Evangelist - Richard Phillips

I was pleased with the conference give-aways. Especially the Carson and Wells books. The guys in my church altered the title of Worship Matters for me so as to help me with my pride (thanks guys). The conference bookstore had a lot of neat things in it, but I wasn’t really into a lot of it and didn’t act fast enough to get the stuff I really wanted (and needed) at a conference price. The book store dried up real fast. I did purchase a couple of books for my wife. They had a lot of good stuff on parenting (thank you Presbyterians for still caring about kids). And for the first time in my life, I’m really excited about R.C. Sproul. He brought the word ladies and gentlemen. Pure and simple. I was moved.

Last Tuesday I bore the burden of our youngest son, Charles, while on a 2.3 mile hike. He was strapped to my back and having a great time while I was huffing and puffing along. The walk was fun and refreshing and energizing - but it was hard. You see, I’m an Associate Pastor and a seminary student all while being a dad to two very energetic young men and a husband to a very hard-working woman. The demands of life have taken their toll on me the past two months and I’m tired. But there is encouragement.

Paul begins a walk in Ephesians chapter 4. It’s a hard walk too, and comes with all the pressures of life. Except the expectation of his walk is not just to make it up the trail and back, but to walk in a manner that fits our calling as Christians.

God has chosen and called each one of us. In love and through His kind intentions, He has freely bestowed on us redemption, forgiveness, and inheritance. According to the riches of His grace, He lavished on us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. There is a surpassing greatness of His power toward us that works in accordance with the strength of His might that is demonstrated in Jesus - who is over all things, being raised from the dead and having all things put under His feet, being the Lord of His church.

Before, we were dead in our sins and children of wrath, but God made us alive together with Christ. And so that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us, he raised us up and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. Now you can be sure you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for God’s own purposes. So we should remember that living with Christ is not a right given to all men, but that at one time we were seperated from Christ. We were strangers and excluded and had no hope. We were truly without God. But because of Jesus’ work, we have been brought near to God. Jesus is our peace - He abolished the enmity of the law by bringing it together in one man on the cross. And He has proclaimed it to us and made us fellow citizens, building us into the framework of His holy temple.

He is now making known this truth through the church. That is, He is extending his saving love through the whole world because that is His eternal purpose. Oh, that we may be strengthened  with power through His Spirit so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. May we be able to understand the deepness and richness of Christ’s love for us. It is for His glory alone!

Now, walk in a way that will prove worthy of all that He has done for you. You former stranger - now at home in the courts of God. You former hater of the Lord - now made in the image of His very beloved. You former lust-filled narcissist - now selfless lover of righteousness. You former corpse - now life-filled, animated companion of Christ. WALK!

Walk in a way that looks different from the others in this world who are still dead and strangers and haters. Imitate God and walk in love. Walk in the light and not in the darkness. Walk with wisdom and be careful in it. The days are short and you must make the most of your walk.

Be encouraged brothers and sisters. God has done great things. Walk in a way that proves He has done great things in you. When you do, no matter the burden you bear, you will walk and not grow weary. You may even run and not faint. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Keep walking.

I’m writing a paper on the extent of the atonement for Systematic Theology II which is due in one week. Here is the bibliography.

• Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ. vol. 3. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
• Boyd, Gregory A., Joel B. Green, Bruce R. Reichenbach, and Thomas R. Schreiner. The Nature of the Atonement. Edited by James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006.
• Boyce, James Petigru. Abstract of Systematic Theology. Hanford: den Dulk Christian Foundation, 1887.
• Bridges, Jerry, and Bob Bevington. The Great Exchange: My Sin for His Righteousness. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007.
• Carson, D.A. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000.
• Dabney, Robert L. Systematic Theology. Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2002.
• Dagg, J.L. Manual of Theology. Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1990.
• Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998.
• Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000.
• Hunt, Dave, and James White. Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views. Sisters: Multnomah Publishers, 2004.
• Morris, Leon. The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance. Liecester and Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1983.
• Mullins, Edgar Young. The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression. Nashville, Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1917.
• Murray, John. Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955.
• Owen, John. The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Edinburgh and Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995.
• Peterson, Sr., Robert A. Calvin and the Atonement: What the renowned pastor and teacher said about the cross of Christ. Ross-shire: Mentor, 1999.
• Smeaton, George. Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement. Edinburgh and Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991.
• Steele, David N., Curtis C. Thomas, S. Lance Quinn. The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented. 2nd ed. Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2004.
• Thomas, Owen. The Atonement Controversy in Welsh Theological Literature & Debate 1707 – 1841. Translated by John Aaron. Edinburgh and Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2002.

“Kroger is hell.”

The woman behind the vendor window could not have known I was listening to her conversation. Her friend was gassing up and there I was, right on the other side of the pump. She was glad her friend’s daughter didn’t take a job at Kroger.

The next day I was returning a shopping cart (two actually) when I was nearly run over by a long string of carts pushed by a woman too small to possibly handle her load. We laughed and exchanged the necessary pleasantries. She told me she was sorry for trying to kill me.

“They’re your carts,” I said, “You can do with them what you want.”

“They’re not my carts!” was her sharp reply. “They can all roll out of the parking lot for all I care.”

I began to wonder what it was about working at Kroger that was so bad. I’ve been in bad jobs before. I know the feeling. Some of them were bad because the circumstances were truly miserable. Some of them were bad because I simply refused to find positive things about it. Some, because I was a terrible employee. But why were these women so bummed about Kroger?

My first thought was, “If I was the manager here….” That’s pretty funny in and of itself. Sometimes I think I couldn’t manage myself out of a wet paper bag. Then I began to think about satisfaction and being satisfied. Read the rest of this entry »

Blogging most probably.

I now have two blogs, a Facebook account, two email addresses, a cell phone, and a work phone. Oh, I forgot to add that I have a physical address too, not that anybody ever writes letters anymore. Maybe I’ll start a renaissance of letter writing. There’s probably an online community for the restoration of letter writing or something. Even with all of these possible venues of communication, I’m pretty archaic when it comes to the world of connectivity. I don’t use my Windows Messenger account or my Instant Messenger account or anything else that will pop right up in the middle of my workday. I don’t use Flickr or Photobucket nor do I have an account at one of these community picture sites, whatever they’re called. I do use Photoshow from time to time, but you probably already knew that if you visit my other blog.

All my friends tell me that I am the worst person ever about calling people back. That is probably true. I can think of five people right now that I have not talked to in such a long time that I will need to apologize to them once I finally call because I have neglected our relationship for so long. But that’s just it. Read the rest of this entry »

Hypocrisy is a disease of which most men seek the remedy at some time in their lives. It is very often so vague in us that only others can see it. Just like the woman who stands before the mirror as an anorexic, so the hypocrite can see nothing but a distorted image when everyone around him can see it plainly. The pretender can sometimes be so immersed in his act that he will actually believe himself a knight in shining armor. Yet he will be Don Quixote fighting windmills of unbelief.

There is not a man living or dead who at one time did not deal with a hypocritical heart. Each of us faces ourselves at times when we would rather not see what is really there. Then we are faced with a radical decision. We must decide whether we will deal with self or let self rule. Our inner selves at times may become much like a despotic king, tyrannically forcing it’s subjects (the mind, will, desire, etc.) to turn in rebellion against God. When we notice this king gaining a strategic position we must unseat him. Self must be brought into subjection. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are my boys. The word “here” is an adverb indicating the position or place of my children. In this case, the sentence is pointing to the picture, yet it gives a sense of proximity or closeness. “Are” functions as the verb and is a form of being. It tells us that my boys exist. The adjective “my” describes the boys. They are mine and belong to me although they are not my property. The subject of the sentence and the word to which every other word points is “boys”. This word describes something about them. It identifies them as male and it is generally used to denote male humanity. It is plural so that you would understand that I have more than one boy.

A simple sentence. Here are my boys. I can write this sentence because it is true. The photograph is a testimony to its validity. This is not fanciful imagination. These boys exist and they are mine. They exist because I married a woman whom I love very much. They are the product of our love as a gift and reward from God. They are alive. They live with Marie and I. We feed them, dress them, teach them, clean them, love them, shelter them, protect them. They are ours and we face a responsibility because they exist. They are growing as any normal boy would. They learn new words, motor skills, patterns of behavior, how to respond to stimuli, interaction - the list could go on and on. They are becoming men. Read the rest of this entry »

Two more good articles on church discipline from Baptist Press here and here.

This is a wonderful story of redemption and what church discipline is all about. I personally know John and he is a wonderful encouragement to our entire congregation. Read and enjoy the article and then stop and pray for John that he would continue to have victory over his sin and that the Lord would work in his life through the circumstances that he has brought upon himself and his family. He is facing some serious consequences and has a loving wife and three wonderful boys awaiting the final word. Use this in your ministries and churches. Church discipline is a no-compromise area of church life. We simply have the choice to obey or be disobedient in this.

Gambling, embezzling & church discipline

by David Roach FRANKFORT, Ky. (BP)–John Fluharty says church discipline saved his life.

Even though Fluharty was a member of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky., he still had major sins in his life. A gambling addiction snowballed until he began embezzling from his employer to fund his habit. But when Buck Run and its pastor, Hershael York, intervened with church discipline, Fluharty repented and began to grow spiritually like never before.
Read the rest of this entry »

I know I’m not the biggest bibliophile out there. My library wouldn’t hold a candle to some of your libraries. However, for the interest of those that did not go to Shepherd’s Conference and always like to know what they were giving away, I am including the list of books that came home with me from California. They are mixing nicely with the other books in my library and are making friends - except for MacArthur’s eschatology books. I have to keep breaking up fights. I may have to set them on a shelf by themselves.

Gift Books

• Acts - James Montgomery Boice
• Assured by God - ed. Burk Parsons
• Because the Time Is Near - John MacArthur
• For the Sake of His Name - David M. Doran
• Foundations of Grace - Steven J. Lawson
• Life in the Body - Curtis C. Thomas
• The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Leather) - John MacArthur
• The Master’s Seminary Journal Vol.17, No. 2 - The Master’s Seminary Faculty
• Meet the Puritans - J.R. Beeke & R.J. Pederson
• A Method for Prayer - Matthew Henry
• The Second Coming - John MacArthur
• What Jesus Demands from the World - John Piper

Stuff I Bought

• The Atonement Controversy in Welsh Theological Literature and Debate - Owen Thomas
• Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement - George Smeaton
• The Dominance of Evangelicalism - David W. Bebbington
• The Expository Genius of John Calvin - Steven J. Lawson
• George Whitefield (2 vols.) - Arnold A. Dallimore
• The Message of the Old Testament - Mark Dever
• The Message of the New Testament - Mark Dever
• The Preachers of Scotland - William G. Blaikie

We also got a nifty Conklin fountain pen - my first. “There’s nothing like the heft of…” oh, well you probably get it.

I love both of these guys. One is more or less my father in the faith. The other a key leader in evangelicalism to which I am indebted through his work in my seminary and in a couple of books he wrote on Open Theism. Listen to the exchange of ideas and see which one sounds more defensible. Long pauses and the word “ahh” do not necessarily make for the best arguments. I would love to hear him defend his position without interacting with anyone so that we could get his real flow of thought. Cryptic, I know.

Go here for the audio.

p.s. Sorry I’ve been gone a while. MacArthur was straightening out my eschatology.

There are probably not too many cinematic moments greater than the courtroom scene in A Few Good Men where Lt. Kaffee grills Col. Nathan Jessep about his involvement in the death of one of his marines. In a gamble as big as taking a job at the University of Alabama, Kaffee presses Jessep for a confession. Appealing to his pride as a marine and his pride in himself he pokes and prodes the senior officer until he snaps at the insolence of this young upstart who’s never held a rifle in combat.

Jessep: “You want answers?”

Kaffee: “I want the truth!!”

Jessep: “You can’t handle the truth!!”

You almost root for Jessep’s prideful defense of his own mistake. You almost root for this man to win, for him to show this boy that the party’s over and daddy’s gonna get up and go home after giving him a swift spanking. It’s just one big testosterone filled moment.

Most of us can identify with the good Colonel though, not because we’ve ever had to stand on a wall and protect the country, but because we all know what it feels like to be pushed. We know what it’s like to harbor some secret that we desperately want to let out but just can’t. Most of the time we don’t tell because of the consequences we know will follow immediately after, whether it’s loss of respect, loss of position, or even a loss of the secret itself. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my pet peeves is praying only for sick people. I know that praying for the sick is important and should be a priority. I know that it is something that can bring great blessing to the church and great glory to God. If I were sick, or my family were sick, I would want you to pray for them. My gripe is that churches can fall into a rut when it comes to prayer. It has been my experience in most every church I have ever attended that the prayer time was actually a list of who was in the hospital, who was down with the flu, or who was about to pass away. It always seemed to me in those moments that we were praying for what we knew would already happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Now just wait a minute. Calm down and take a deep breath. If you just stripped off your shirt and painted your face blue after reading my title then I suggest you should promptly close your internet browser and go pet a kitten or something. Now, have we pulled ourselves together?

Good.

I ran across somebody the other day who holds to a universal atonement. He disagreed with John Owen (kittens, pet the kittens) about the extent of the atonement, arguing that Owen’s view doesn’t solve the problem of justice nor allow for exegetical evidence to the contrary in Scripture. He said plain and simply the bible teaches a universal atonement because Jesus came to die and atone for the sins of the entire universe. He said to limit the atonement to only the elect meant that we were narrowing the scope of the atonement painted for us in scripture. Sin, he asserted, was a much bigger problem than just the ruin of the human race. It was a universal problem which demands a universal solution. Tadaaa! The universal atonement.

This man is a brilliant theologian and certainly no amateur when it comes to theological concepts. He still holds that only the elect are saved and that God alone foreknows or predestinates individuals to salvation. He says that most people would “label” him a modified calvinist.

So, what do you think my blue-faced, shirtless friends? Shall we open up a can of worms on the most worn-out blog topic known to man?

Those of you who know me know that I have had quite a bit of disruption in my personal life caused by theological disagreement. I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty of those stories firstly because I hope they are part of my past and not an ongoing part of my present. Secondly because I want to honor those people who have disagreed with me and keep their reputation as clean as I possibly can. I will say that some of the most miserable times in my life were direct results of the confrontations due to theological difference. These were times that caused extreme anxiety, emotional pain, and agonizing stress. I cannot be too clear on this point that theological disagreement has, in my life at least, brought about some of the most painful moments.

As I was packing the final items into our van for our move to Frankfort last friday, I experienced yet another unprovoked confrontation due to theological disagreement. Read the rest of this entry »

You cannot participate in church discipline if you do not know the people within your fellowship.

To claim that your church practices church discipline presupposes that your church knows one another. Because church discipline is not done primarily on a professional basis (i.e. the members themselves must be actively involved and not just the paid pastoral guys), everyone in the church must know and be concerned with each other. Church discipline cannot work in a vacuum. There are instances I suppose, where discipline would be applied to a brother or sister you did not know, but try to imagine that being the rule and not the exception.

Discipline will build strong relationships. It lets others into your personal world. It opens up your own weaknesses to the fellowship. It allows others to see you in particularly vulnerable and painful moments. When relationships include this sort of intimacy, there is a natural cementing of friendship and brotherhood. Some of the closest friends that I have are men that I have been involved with in a disciplining relationship - both giving and recieving. The world would say that this drives a wedge in between people, and to be sure, it probably has to some in the church. Yet, when Spirit-filled believers lovingly bring the holiness of God to bear on each others attitudes and conduct, there exists a natural and ever-strengthening tide of friendship and familial bond that can only be forged in the fires of hardship.

Church discipline cauterizes the church from drifting apart and practicing “island Christianity”, where one person’s life doesn’t touch another’s. It will either build strong bonds or reveal that the bond never even existed at all. Both are good revelations. Both prove the need for discipline and the reality of community in the fellowship.

If you didn’t know, I started seminary again. I just finished my first class at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. I took The Psalms with Dr. Russell Fuller. He brought out something in Psalm 19 that I had never seen. In verse 13, David asks the Lord to keep him back from presumptuous sins. The word for “presumptuous” carries the idea of being insolent before the Lord; sinning in His face; premeditated sin. Its like me telling Connor not to do something and having him look me in the eye and do it anyway. Yeah, that kind of sin. The word meaning “keep back” carries the idea of withholding or keeping away from.This adds up to God holding us back from sinning in His face.

Dr. Fuller mentioned two things in connection with this idea. The first was that one of the greatest blessings in life was to be kept back from intentional sin. When God spares us from our sin it is one of lifes greatest joys and blessings. “By the way,” he says, “there was no sacrifice in the OT for premeditated sins.” That thought absolutely makes me shudder.

Secondly, he asked us how we knew God was pleased with our life. He put forth to us that we would know God was pleased with us if He kept us back from sin. If God is displeased with us He will give us over to our sin for destruction or discipline so that we might not sin anymore. Again, earth-shattering for me and already effecting my private life.

So brothers, is God pleased with you? Is He keeping you from presumptuous sins or are you barrelling full-bore toward the next episode of in-your-face sin?

Christians sin. I know, I know, stop the presses! Call an executive meeting and kick the dog! I’ve just solved all the pastoral woes for everyone wondering why in the world their people are so miserable. Well, that’s it - Christians sin.

Which one of us hasn’t used the tired old joke, “Boy I would sure love the ministry if it wasn’t for all the people.” Because most of us are reservationists around here I’ll bet all of you have at one point or another. The number one downfall to the church (which is made up of people, both theologically and practically speaking) is people. People consistently let other people down. They run about and generally make a mess of everything. Not even Jesus surrounded himself with perfect people; look at the disciples for goodness sake.

So if the church is people and people are a bunch of sinning fools, then what do we do? We discipline them, that’s what. Read the rest of this entry »