(considering) 8:28

Implications of the Sovereignty of God

recent posts

  • Selling our Birthright for a Soul Patch.

    I’m not exactly the most affirming person when it comes to the state of Christianity here in my native Newfoundland. 

    For some reason, it seems that believers here have either checked their brains at the door of Christianity, or have so radically acclimatized to the more spurious intellectualism that they can no longer be discernible as Christians. Ironically, this often leads to the same kinds of things when they work themselves out (Liberals and emergents seem to agree on a lot).

    One of the reasons I wrote that long review of Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis, was that people I knew here were beginning to appreciatively read the guy. Not that Bell is necessarily a bad guy, but in his writing and more recent speaking, he has often ended up more critical than correct. In his quest to be relevant to the world around us, he doesn’t seem to have done the necessary thinking to understand why people actually believed the things he’s critiquing in the first place. The result is a slightly arrogant critique of things that deserve critique, though without a sufficient grounding in Christ, Scripture, or the community of faith. 

    And it is this kind of spirituality that the young pastors planting Churches here in Newfoundland gravitate to. Seeing the tattoos and the cool hair styles, and even the soul patches on the faces of the emergent leaders, they think that the “coolness” factor means that they are actually connecting Christian faith to the postmodern world (instead of reinventing Christianity to make it look better to a postmodern world).

    Modern young pastors seem to have forgotten that the faith we hold to has enemies, most clearly it has the enemy of our own rationalization. We seriously want to believe that the things God calls us to in Christ are not as extreme as they sound, or that Jesus was only kidding when he implied that many would be offended by him (see Matthew 11).

    The simple fact is that the job of a Christian remains to make disciples of all nations, teaching them as Jesus taught us. It’s an old faith, it was revealed by God. Our model for this task isn’t a dude wearing soul patches or tattoos, but the apostles, like Paul.

    For our boast is this: the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. (2 Cor. 1:12)

    When Paul sought to speak to the people of his time, he modelled for us what good Christian communication looks like. Simple, sincere, and by the grace of God, so that people would be moved not to follow the apostle Paul, but Jesus Christ. 

    We have a great tradition of many people who went before, preaching this way; becoming all things to all people that they might win some, but never changing what the Gospel was. Let us not in this generation sell out their godly efforts for the sake of a soul patch and the applause of a dying world.

  • Scripture, Authority and Function

    All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16)

    I’ve noticed a trend among Churches that wish to express the truth of scripture (or the lack thereof) to focus their comments on whether or not the scriptures are factual (ie. accord to reality itself). While I have a very definite opinion on that particular debate (I believe that the Scriptures are true), I fear that the evangelical church may have missed something very importnat while debating the factuality of scripture, and conflated that with a debate about scriptural authority.

    The common way of expressing trust in the authority of scripture is to say that it is “true” and that all decisions and teaching must accord with it. This is true, and a very necessary part of what Christians must mean when they say that scriptures are authoritative.My problem isn’t with whether or not that statement is a good expression of scriptural authority as far as it goe, but that it effectively does not go far enough.

    When a Christian speaks about Biblical authority, I beleive that we must recognize that the authority of scripture is active. It has a point in the life of the believer and the Church. It fulfills a function. All of this is far more powerful than a passive “fact check” role for scripture. The result is that many in the Church can assert the validity and authority of scripture while never seeing it as important for the individual believer’s life. This is an unbiblical idea.

    As we can see from the above quote, scriptural authority is a functional authority, it is good for teaching and reproof (usually more passive roles for most believers who are recipients of teaching, and receive reproof when they do something wrong), but it is also good for “training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work”.

    This is far more than a claim that the scriptures are factually true, it is a claim that the scriptures fulfill a role of conforming the believer to a Godly image. Scripture alters the very believer personally so that they might effectively be different. It is not just an appeal court, nor just a “life manual”. It is a training manual. We do not simply check it when we have a decision to make, or when we need instructions for some situation we find ourselves in (though it is useful in those roles too), but primarilly the Christian interacts with scripture to interact with the word of God and to be changed by it. It is a training manual as well as a basic instruction book.

    The result is that rather than letting our Bibles be read haphazardly as we feel the need, or as a way of checking the ideas we face, or even of personal inspiration, the Bible should be read by believers as a training regime. We read it not just to be educated, but to be transformed. A believer reads the Bible, not just when they feel the need, but regularly, because to do otherwise is to ignore it’s function.

    So a believer should:

    1) Read the Bible regularly. Yes, even when you don’t feel like it. I don’t always feel like going to the gym every day. While I can often get away with not exercising for a day or two, flab comes back if I ignore it too long. The same is true of our training in Godliness for which the Bible is useful.

    2) Read the Bible systematically. I generally find it easier to focus on training that which I can already do well, but the scripture says that we are to be prepared for every good work, not just the ones that fit our desires for today. I can’t just focus on the red letters in the Gospel, or just the New Testament, or just the letters, as to do so would give me unbalanced training. Balanced training is why the gym has many exercise machines, and it’s why the Bible has many books. Christians should avail themselves of everything God has provided for our development.

    3) Read the Bible reflectively. It won’t be much help if you simply hurry through the scriptures without taking the time to reflect on it, and understand if you’ve got what it’s saying right. At the gym, I can misuse machines so that my training doesn’t help me, or worse, harms me. At the gym that means I check to be sure I’m doing it right, for scripture, I reflect on it.

    Grace to you all, dear readers.

  • Online Reading (July 18, 2008)

    Law: Courts in Pakistan say that two kidnapped Christian girls “converted” to Islam and so cannot be returned to their families.

    Environment: A theological thinking about ecology when we believe the world is going to end.

    Morality: Albert Mohler comments on Rational Choice Theory as a basis of morality.

    Campus Ministry: John Stackhouse provides some reflection on engaging the university.

  • Online Reading (July 15, 2008)

    Culture: A comedian (Guy Earle) is having a benefit in Toronto to pay for his legal costs since the BC Human Rights Tribunal decided it had jurisdiction to censor his stand up show.

    Politics: George Bush promises to keep pressuring China on religious freedom…. but he’s still going to the Olympics.

    Theology: A New Book is coming on the question of inerrancy in evangelical circles. (This poor unemployed pastor-type guy would accept gifts)

    Study Bible: The Introduction to the Psalms is now available for the ESV Study Bible.

  • Online Reading (July 10, 2008)

    Culture: I always thought listening to the Bee Gees was torture, now I have proof.

    Politics: Apparently the Iranians felt the need to photoshop in an extra missile to the photos they sent to foreign media outlets. I guess the extra missile makes it extra menacing.

    Technology: Disgust at Roger’s rates for the new iphone mounts.

    Law: A man sues Zondervan for publishing a Bible that calls homosexuality a sin.

    Law again: Overlawyered again publishes their story about legal issues in “Batman Begins”

    Book Review: Tim Challies in what is perhaps the most negative book review I’ve seen in a long time.

    Online Journal: The Gospel Coalition has begun to publish Themelios again.