Author: Josh King

How To Celebrate Memorial Day

Kevin DeYoung offers some great reflections. Here is the conclusion:

We should pray for service men and women in our congregations. We should pray for the President. We should pray for the just cause to triumph over the evil one. We are not moral relativists. We do not believe just because all people are sinners and all nations are sinful that no person or no nation can be more righteous or more wicked than another. God may be on America’s side in some (not all) her endeavors.

But please think twice before putting on a Star Spangled gala in church this Sunday. I love to hear the national anthem and “God Bless America” and “My Country, Tis of Thee,” but not in church where the nations gather to worship the King of all peoples. I love to see the presentation of colors and salute our veterans, but these would be better at the Memorial Day parade or during a time of remembrance at the cemetery. Earthly worship should reflect the on-going worship in heaven. And while there are many Americans singing glorious songs to Jesus there, they are not singing songs about the glories of America. We must hold to the traditions of the Apostles in our worship, not the traditions of American history. The church should not ask of her people what is not required in Scripture. So how can we ask the Koreans and Chinese and Mexicans and South Africans in our churches to pledge allegiance to a flag that is not theirs? Are we gathered under the banner of Christ or another banner? Is the church of Jesus Christ–our Jewish Lord and Savior–for those draped in the red, white, and blue or for those washed in the blood of the Lamb?

In some parts of the church, every hint of patriotism makes you a jingoistic idolater. You are allowed to love every country except your own. But in other parts of the church, true religion blends too comfortably into civil religion. You are allowed to worship in our services as long as you love America as much as we do. I don’t claim to have arrived at the golden mean, but I imagine many churches could stand to think more carefully about their theology of God and country. Churches should be glad to have their members celebrate Memorial Day with gusto this Monday. We should be less sanguine about celebrating it with pomp and circumstance on Sunday.

Book Length Responses to Love Wins

Some book length responses to Rob Bell’s Love Wins are already being published by good authors such as Michael Wittmer, and Mark Galli. But I am especially excited that Francis Chan is writing one. The humility, earnestness, and compassion he expresses in the video below are part of what generates this excitement. But it is his plea for prayer that especially excites me. This isn’t because of what this communicates about Chan, though that is admirable and to imitated. No, what excites me is how God can answer these prayers. I am praying that Erasing Hell will be Biblically faithful, God-honoring, and outsell Love Wins. I am praying that this book be used by God to turn evil for good, to turn hearts from heresy to truth, and to turn evangelicals and unbelievers to the evangel.

The Sweet Sropper: Deliverance by Death Greater Than From Death

There is a partial deliverance, and a total deliverance. There is a deliverance from this and that trouble, and there is a deliverance from all troubles. God delivers us most when we think he delivers least; for we think how doth he deliver his children when we see them taken away by death, and ofttimes are massacred? That is one way of delivering them. God by death takes them from all miseries. They are out of the reach of their enemies. Death delivers them from all miseries of this life, both inward of sin, and outward of trouble. All are determined in death. Therefore, God when he doth not deliver them from death, he delivers them by death, and takes them to his heavenly kingdom.  – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

The Sweet Dropper: No Care for the Beam When You Have the Sun

What doth a man lose when he trusts in God, though he lose all the world? Hath he not him that made the world at the first, and can make another if he please? If a man lose all, and have God, as he hath that trusts in him, and in his word; for God will not deny his word and truth. He that trusts in God hath him, and if he have him, what if he be stripped of all? He can make another world with a word of his mouth. Other things are but a beam to him; what need a man care for a beam, that hath the sun?  – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Hell… No?

I have nothing new to add to controversy concerning Rob Bell’s newest book, Love Wins. But I do want to make accessible to you many of the resources I have found helpful, insightful, and most importantly, Biblical.

Reviews:

Kevin DeYoung: The most thorough review dealing with the problems found in Love Wins under the following headings: historical, exegetical, eschatological, Christological, and Gospel problems. (21 printed pages)

Albert Mohler: Shows how indeed, as Bell claims, that he is saying nothing new, and that is the tragedy. Here we have the same old heresies rehashed, the heresies especially apparent in Protestant Liberalism. (7 printed pages)

Russell Moore: Deals with Bell making “blood” is nothing more than a cultural metaphor. (3 printed pages)

Denny Burk: A great chapter by chapter review that clearly sums up the errors Bell espouses. (11 printed pages)

Tim Challies: A clear review that deals with the big ideas of Love Wins. (6 printed pages)

Greg Gilbert: Deals well with the meaning of aion as meaning “eternal” in many contexts. (3 printed pages)

Trevin Wax: Writes of what the furor over Bell’s book reveals about Evangelicalism. (2 printed pages)

Michael Horton: A great chapter by chapter review that shows many of Bell’s faulty presuppositions. (16 printed pages)

Carl Trueman: Deals explicitly with Bell’s poor quotation of Luther in his defence. (5 printed pages)

Audio / Video:

The Gospel Coalition Discussion Panel: A discussion moderated by Kevin DeYoung, including D. A. Carson, Tim Keller, Crawford Loritts, and Stephen Um.

Southern Seminary Discussion Panel: Alber Mohler, Russell Moore, Denny Burk, and Justin Taylor discuss the book.

Unbelievable: A British Radio Program host a discussion between Adrian Warnock and Rob Bell.

White Horse Inn: An interview with Kevin DeYoung.

Tolle Lege: Whiter Than Snow

Readability:  1

Length: 154

Author: Paul David Tripp

This is good medicine for the soul. There is bitterness and healing in this medicine, the kind of healing that can only come from bitter medicine. Tripp writes extremely well in these 52 meditations on the 51st Psalm. As the subtitle says, Whiter than Snow is a collection of “Meditations on Sin and Mercy”. The meditations are brief, averaging around two pages, but profound. This would be a great book to read one chapter a week for a year. This might be an exercise and a resource I recommend to new Christians so that the gravity of sin and redemption settles deeply into their soul.

It would also be tempting to think that the greatest victory in David’s life was his victory over the Philistines with their mighty Goliath. Yet this story, and the psalm that goes with it, points us to the fact that the greatest victory in David’s life was not a victory of war but a victory of grace. It is amazing to watch this hardened adulterer and murderer brought to confession and repentance by the power of God’s grace. And it is incredible that he does not lose his throne and, in fact, becomes a man who is known as “a man after God’s own heart”! The greatest victory in David’s life was not a victory of David’s at all, but, rather, God’s victory of grace over the sin that had captivated David’s heart.

The character of life isn’t set in ten big moments. The character of life is set in then thousand little moments of everyday life. It’s the themes of struggles that emerge from those little moments that reveal what’s really going on in our hearts.

The older you get the more you move from being an astronaut to an archaeologist. When you’re young, you’re excitedly launching to worlds unknown. You have all of the major decisions of life before you, and you can spend your time assessing your potential and considering opportunities. It’s a time of exploration and discovery. It’s a time to go where you’ve never been before and to do what you’ve never done. It’s a time to begin to use your training and to gain experience.

But as you get older, you begin to look back at least as much as you look forward. As you look back, you tend to dig through the mound of the civilization that was your past life, looking for pottery shards of thoughts, desires, choices, actions, words, decisions, relationships, and situations. And as you do this, you can’t help but assess how you have done with what you have been given.

My sin is an act where I replace You, with something I love more.

There’s a deeper birth trauma than the physical suffering that both mother and child must endure in order for the child to be born. The deeper, more profound trauma is the devastating reality that you can’t stop yourself from giving birth to a sinner. It happens 100 percent of the time. It’s the natal disease for which there is no inoculation.

[S]isn’t an event; no, it’s a progressive movement of the heart that results in disobedient behavior.

The Sweet Dropper: All Our Comfort In Christ

And the comforts of the Holy Ghost are fetched from Christ, from the death of Christ, or the ascension of Christ, from some argument from Christ. Whatsoever comforteth the soul, the Holy Ghost doth it by fetching some argument from Christ, from his satisfaction, from his worth, from his intercession in heaven. Something in Christ it is. So Christ by his Spirit doth comfort, and the reasons fetched by the Spirit are from Christ. Therefore it is by Christ.

What is the reason that a Christian soul doth not fear God as ‘ a consuming fire,’ Heb. xii. 29, but can look upon him with comfort? It is because God hath received satisfaction by Christ. What is the reason that a Christian soul fears not hell, but thinks of it with comfort? Christ hath conquered hell and Satan. What is the reason that a Christian fears not death? Christ by death hath overcome death, and him that had the power of death, the devil. Christ is mine, saith the Christian soul. Therefore I do not fear it, but think of it with comfort, because a Christian is more than a conqueror over all these. What is the reason that a Christian is not afraid of his corruptions and sins? He knows that God, for Christ’s sake, will pardon them, and that the remainder of his corruptions will work to his humiliation, and to his good.’ All shall work for the best to them that love God,’ Rom. viii. 28. What is the reason that there is not anything in the world but it is comfortable to a Christian? When he thinks of God, he thinks of him as a Father of comfort; when he thinks of the Holy Ghost, he thinks of him as a Spirit of comfort; when he thinks of angels, he thinks of them as his attendants; when he thinks of heaven, he thinks of it as of his inheritance ; he thinks of saints as a communion whereof he is partaker. Whence is all this? By Christ, who hath made God our Father, the Holy Ghost our comforter, who hath made angels ours, saints ours, heaven ours, earth ours, devils ours, death ours, all ours, in issue.  – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Tolle Lege: Marks of the Messenger

Readability:  1

Length: 122

Author: J. Mack Stiles

This is a really rare book on evangelism, it focus is on the evangelist, hence the title, Marks of the Messenger, without obscuring or contradicting the message, that is the gospel. Other books on evangelism that focus on the evangelist tend to emphasize method or technique so as to optimize results, Mack wants to focus on faithfulness. The subtitle says it all, “Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel”. This is not a book to guilt you into evangelism, but one to glory you into evangelism.

Further Mack does not write from an ivory tower. He left the States post 9/11 to minister in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). This also means you can’t accuse Mack of being failing to be transcultural. We can all learn from him.

Finally, this thoroughly Biblical book is loaded with great stories that illustrate precious truths. It is as joyous as it is convicting to read.

[A]s evangelist we want to be people who are more concerned with our faithfulness in presenting Christ clearly that we are with results. We want to be the kind of evangelist who take people more seriously that to manipulate them into a prayer of commitment. And we want to be people who present the gospel with care, knowing spiritual lives are at stake.

There is a tendency to think that our sins are bigger than our sin – maybe because its that rare case when the plural is smaller than the singular. Sins are those individual acts of rebellion, symptoms of the bigger problem. Our sin is the biggest problem: it’s our condition or state which is in hideous rebellion toward a holy and good God. When Christians feel that sins (acts) are bigger than sin (condition), they see evangelism as an effort of moral reform rather than explaining the steps that need to take place to rip our wicked hearts and replace them with new hears – that amazing work of God that Jesus called being born again.

[I]sn’t it true that “a hungry man has no ears”? “Isn’t it ‘the gospel just to take care of their needs?”

When our missionary friend Mike McComb tried to introduce protein into the diets of the largely illiterate Guatemalan farmers, it was a masterful combination of expertise, training and strategy. He started his work toward the end of the murderous civil war. Mike faithfully shared the gospel too. And Mike noticed it was the gospel that allowed for protein to get to the people.

When the gospel was understood and accepted in villages, Mike reported, men stopped getting drunk and beating their wives. As they attended church they started to attend to their crops as well as their children’s education. Tomas, the mayor of Nebaj, told me that it was only when the gospel came to the Ixil lands that real change happened. Mike says that the preaching of the gospel did more to eliminate hunger than fish farms or crop rotation ever did. We must never forget that the gospel brings more long-term social good than any governmental program ever developed.

The Sweet Dropper: Our Worst Day Better

The very sufferings of Christ are better than the most glorious day of the greatest monarch in the world that is not a Christian. It is better to suffer with Christ, than to joy with the world. The very abasement of St Paul was better than the triumph of Nero. Let Moses be judge. He judged it the best end of the balance, Heb. xi. 26. The very sufferings and reproach of Christ, and of religion, is better than the best thing in the world. The worst thing in Christianity, is better than the best thing out of Christ. The best thing out of Christ is the honour of a king, the honour of a prince, to be a king’s son, &c. But the reproach of Christ for a good cause is better than the best thing in the world. I say, let Moses be judge, if we will not believe it ourselves till we feel it. The worst day of a Christian is better than the best day of a carnal man; for he hath the presence of God’s Spirit to support him in some measure.  – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1