I enjoy the backlit look if it can be done without flaring.
a little artsy soft focus
Backlit portrait with just a bit of flare. desaturated the colors a bit to make it artsy instead of a throwaway.
Resurgence is continuing its series on Pitfalls in church planting. the latest installment reminds folks to not underestimate the importance of a permanent building.
Most churches double in size the weekend they move from being mobile to a more permanent building. People are also less prone to give faithfully to a church that’s mobile. They don’t know if it will be there in two months, so why sacrifice? But with a permanent location, you have much more credibility with attendees and the city you are trying to reach.
when the author above says “more permanent” he means a rented storefront or office space where the church remains “set up” between services. he does not mean a separate and owned church building.
Do you agree with the idea that permanence enhances attendance and giving? why or why not?
Having attended quite a few mobile churches in the last year, I can attest to “lack of credibility” with attendees. One of the churches that we attended actually folded up and went away. Another seems like it will soon because it is on track to receive much less than half the budget this year.
did I mention that Shut Up is never a good argument? Why yes, I did.
I don’t like xenophobia or nativism or know nothingism any better than anybody else, but there are much better arguments to make against it than “shut up.” Welcome to the free exchange of ideas on the modern college campus. I love the look of academic freedom we have now. Gorgeous.
Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shouting profanities and accusations of racism while Tancredo and the student who introduced him tried to speak. Minutes into the speech, a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered, prompting Tancredo to flee and campus police to shut down the event.
….
Two women stretched out another banner, first along one of the aisles and then right in front of Tancredo. Tancredo grabbed the middle of the banner and tried to pull it away from one of the girls. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say because you don’t agree with me,” he said.The sound of breaking glass from behind a window shade interrupted the tug-of-war.
Tancredo was escorted from the room by campus police.About 200 protesters reconvened outside the building. “We shut him down; no racists in our town,” they shouted. “Yes, racists, we will fight, we know where you sleep at night!”
…..
“Fascists are fascists,” Tancredo said. “Their actions were probably the best speech I could ever give. They are what’s wrong with America today. … When all you can do is yell epithets, that means you are intellectually bankrupt.”UNC graduate student Tyler Oakley, who had organized the protest, said he regretted the broken window but not silencing Tancredo. “He was not able to practice his hate speech,” said Oakley. “You have to respect the right of people to assemble and collectively speak.”
Lopez said she had mixed emotions about how the event ended.“We were more interested in an intellectual conversation instead of a shouting match,” she said. “Ironically, the people that are trying to get our voices heard silenced us.”
emphasis added. (parenthetically, what does it mean to “collectively speak”? is that somehow an improvement over the individual speech that they just shut down? huh?)
Isn’t that a neat trick? Free speech was saved by shutting down speech with which they disagreed. Beautifully Orwellian. welcome to our fascist future. If you haven’t done so yet, you really should read the book.
Thom S. Rainer, President and CEO of Lifeway, did an experiment on Twitter regarding what people think of when they hear “southern baptist.” The admittedly unscientific results are not encouraging.
here are the first few responses. Go to the link above to see them all.
Legalism, Controlling
Fights, Legalists
Hellfire and brimstone, Pharisees
Fried chicken, Don’t drink
Women who can’t wear pants, Disney boycott
Cooperative Program, Banjos
Adrian Rogers, Fundamentalism
Passion, Missions
Conservative, Conservative
Strategic, Bickering
Disney boycott, Pharisees
Piano, organ, and robes, Irrelevant
also, Tony Kummer has posted a “wordle” picture of the responses. again, not pretty.
I read This Momentary Marriage by John Piper earlier this year. It was an incredible book. Everybody should read it whether they are married or single.
at the link above you can download the book for free in pdf form. Here is the direct link to the download. It is easy to read and monumentally important to a correct Biblical understanding of marriage, sex, divorce, singleness and parenting.
Here, courtesy of Westminster Bookstore (they sell a hard back version), is John Piper talking about the book.
via challies, here is John MacArthur talking about the importance of a sound doctrinal foundation prior to learning specific applications of scripture.
Of course, practical application is vital. I don’t want to minimize its importance. But if there is a deficiency in preaching today, it is that there’s too much relational, pseudopsychological, and thinly life-related content, and not enough emphasis on sound doctrine.
The distinction between doctrinal and practical truth is artificial; doctrine is practical! In fact, nothing is more practical than sound doctrine.
…
Practical insights, gimmicks, and illustrations mean little if they’re not attached to divine principle. There’s no basis for godly behavior apart from the truth of God’s Word. Before the preacher asks anyone to perform a certain duty, he must first deal with doctrine. He must develop his message around theological themes and draw out the principles of the texts. Then the truth can be applied.
why use such a strong word when judges make up law and choose to favor one group over another rather than allow democratic processes to work?
Keith Pavlischek at First Things quotes Nathan Diament who calls this struggle over competing legal rights between gay rights and people of faith “the mega-cultural issue of the decade.”
Pavlischek points to this Washington Post article recognizing the tension as well as the fact that people of faith are losing.
Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.
….
— A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney’s costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony.— A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship.
— Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment.
— A Christian student group was not recognized at a University of California law school because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of traditional marriage.
Tyranny doesn’t seem like too strong a word for this sort of thing. Now what is the proper christian response? To fight like crazy? to become another aggrieved interest group marching on Washington and/or various state capitols?
Or is it to recognize that Jesus sent us out as sheep amongst wolves and to therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves? Is it perhaps to love our neighbors as ourselves? What does such love look like in the face of the tyranny described above? how do we continue to be marked by love instead of judgment while remaining true to God’s word regarding sin?
these are very difficult questions to answer. I am afraid that very soon we will all have to find answers to them.
R.C. Sproul on the meaning of the resurrection of Christ that we celebrate today.
The resurrection of Jesus is radical in the original sense of the word. It touches the radix, the “root” of the Christian faith. Without it Christianity becomes just another religion designed to titillate our moral senses with platitudes of human wisdom. The apostle Paul spelled out the clear and irrefutable consequences of a “resurrectionless” Christianity. If Christ is not raised, he reasoned, we are left with the following list of conclusions:
1. Our preaching is futile.
2. Our faith is in vain.
3. We have misrepresented God.
4. We are still in our sins.
5. Our loved ones who have died have perished.
6. If all we have is hope, we are of all men most to be pitied.These six consequences sharply reveal the inner connection of the Resurrection to the substance of Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus is the sine qua non of the Christian faith. Take away the Resurrection and you take away Christianity.
Eight everyday ways to be missional by Jonathan Dodson. I really like 3, 4, and 5, but they are all good.
3. Be a Regular. Instead of hopping all over the city for gas, groceries, haircuts, eating out, and coffee, go to the same places. Get to know the staff. Go around the same times. Smile. Ask questions. Be a regular. I have friends at coffeeshops all over the city. I pray for them. They give me free drinks and food. I give them the free gospel of grace. I know a professor that used to wait by his trash can each week for the garbage collector and gave him a drink. Be a Regular.
4. Hobby with Non-Christians. Pick a hobby that you can share with your city, community, town. Get out and rub shoulders doing something you enjoy with others. City League basketball, football, soccer. Local rowing and cycling teams. Teach sewing lessons, piano lessons, violin, guitar, knitting lessons. Be prayerful. Be intentional. Be winsome. Be gracious. Have fun. Be yourself.
5. Talk to Your Co-workers. How hard is that? take your breaks with intentionality. Get a drink with your team after work. Show interest in your co-workers. Pick four and pray for them. Form mom’s groups in your neighborhood, just don’t make them exclusively non-Christian. Schedule play dates with the neighbors’ kids. Be sociable.
“shut up” is never a good argument.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWHgUE9AD4s&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
courtesy of Kevin DeYoung.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqK5IfAKsBE&hl=en&fs=1]
Today is Good Friday which brings up the perennial question of how Jesus could be three days and nights in the grave when he was crucified on Friday and rose again on Sunday.
Here is a decent explanation by Walter Kaiser, Jr., PhD of the conundrum. Go check it out.
hat tip to Challies
more flowers. I am loving this spring.
Vitamin Z is continuing to post quotes from Skye Jethani’s book The Divine Commodity. This one was especially good:
“Given the extent to which American Christianity has adopted the methodology of consumerism by appealing to and rewarding desires, we shouldn’t be surprised at the spiritual immaturity evident in the American church. To believe that employing consumer methods in the church will produce spiritually mature Christians is delusional thinking akin to expecting a dog to hatch from a chicken’s egg.”
from Jesse Phillips
“Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In fact, it seems that no other admonition is repeated more in the New Testament than to love and be loving to one another.
If this is true, why aren’t we known for this? Why do our kids and many adults think it’s “don’t lie”?
It seems like Christians are more known for not smoking, drinking or cussing, and trying to make non-Christians stop sinning, than for loving their neighbors.
No wonder our churches are shrinking, many of us are just like the Pharisees Jesus condemned.
here is Mark Driscoll talking about holding truth tightly while being relevant to the culture.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WuKIxQszJw&hl=en&fs=1]
Bumped up from last July, because it is still relevant.
here is the page where you can download the entire message that the above video was advertising.
here are two data points on the slide we are going down.
first, courtesy of Andy McCarthy, is Matthew Franck’s discussion of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing homosexual marriage in Iowa.
here is the opening, but go read it all.
What happens when judicial arrogance becomes so habitual as to become second nature? This past Friday, April 3, the Supreme Court of Iowa provided an answer: judicial arrogance transforms into smug self-deception. This is not the question the court thought it was answering. It claimed to be addressing the question of whether “exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage”—namely the “class” of “gay and lesbian people” who wish to marry others of the same sex—can be justified by the state. But the opinion for a unanimous court in Varnum v. Brien, written by Justice Mark Cady, actually says very little about matters of such justification. By contrast, it speaks volumes about the extent to which American judicial power, having burst free of all constraints, is now in the grip of a banal routinization of tyranny so complete that the tyrants do not recognize their own character as they blandly overturn many centuries of civilization in a day’s work
the phrase that I bolded says it all. and it leads right into the other data point courtesy of Jonah Goldberg.
Rod Dreher talks about the cultural shift that has occurred which makes possible the “banal routinization of tyranny so complete that the tyrants do not recognize their own character” as tyrants.
an excerpt:
But the Linkers have one great rhetorical advantage: In our culture, the framework for these arguments favors secular liberalism.
As James Kalb explains in his important new book, The Tyranny of Liberalism -which, despite the red-meat title, is an intellectually invigorating read – liberalism “has become an immensely powerful social reality,” one so dominant “that it has become invisible.”
“To oppose it in any basic way is to act incomprehensibly, in a way explicable, it is thought, only by reference to irrationality, ignorance or evil,” Kalb writes. “The whole of the nonliberal past is comprehensively blackened. Traditional ways are presented as the simple negation of unquestionable goods liberalism favors.”
Chief among those goods is the defining idea of modern liberalism, which Kalb calls “equal freedom.” That is, liberalism’s social goal is to maximize both equality and freedom. How does it propose to do that in a world that is to some degree both unequal and unfree? Through social engineering.
Go read both articles above. Then ponder how they are related to the Newsweek story on the Decline of Christian America that I linked to below.
The cultural conversation has shifted in such a way that to say the truths of scripture out loud is to negate the “unquestionable goods that liberalism favors.” Any conversation that begins with “truth” as an absolute value instead of a subjective one is already outside of acceptable discourse. The subjectivity of everything that surrounds us is overwhelming.
Again, just data points. the question remains. what do we do? what do we say? how do we conduct ourselves in the midst of the flood?
here is the conclusion from Matthew Franck that is probably the most depressing part of the article.
All of this escapes the Iowa justices, whose view seems to be that if a moral argument finds support in any religious commitment, then the promulgation of that argument in law is a violation of the principle of religious disestablishment. This is logically fallacious, historically illiterate, and politically brutish. Recall that juxtaposed with this unremitting hostility to religiously-supported morality is an embrace of the morality of desire. Yet in the Iowa court’s view, religion is itself reduced to mere “feeling,” and so the justices wind up incoherently privileging one kind of feeling over another. Those who desire to marry win out over those who desire to “exclude” them from marrying, and that’s that.
Lost from view is the true ground of our common public morality: reasoned judgment about the natures of things and the good of human persons, families, and communities. About such matters, religion can be instructive (to say the least), while a mere desire to “affirm” our “relationships” cannot be. And so, in both its reductive approach to religion and its empty invocations of feelings, the Iowa Supreme Court has done an injustice to religion, to the possibility of lawful public morality, and—yes—to our relationships themselves.
emphasis added.
“and that’s that.” indeed.
Newsweek has a cover story on “the End of Christian America.” here is an optimistic bit from the article:
Let’s be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that “these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.” With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe.
Al Mohler’s somber response is here and concludes:
I appreciate the care, respect, and insight that mark this essay by Jon Meacham. I also appreciated our conversation about an issue that concerns us both. Still, I hope I did not reflect too much gloom in my analysis. This much I know — Jesus Christ is Lord, and His kingdom is forever. Our proper Christian response to this new challenge is not gloom, but concern. And our first concern must be to see that the Gospel is preached as Good News to the perishing — including all those in post-Christian America.
Here is Dan Kimball’s response which includes this:
So I think maybe there is a decline of a certain shape and sub-culture(s) of “Christian America” as the article states. But at the same time, there is a rising and surging of missional church leaders, church planters, and Christians who have already recognized that we are in a “post-Christian” America as the article states. But that recognition has simply fueled creativity, prayer and passion for mission and because God is God, people are coming to a saving faith in Jesus. Churches may die out in geographic places, but the Spirit is alive and powerful and changing lives, even though certain local churches may close their doors or types of churches lose their effectiveness. So it is ironically quite an exciting time period in the midst of this gloomy title and cover. It feels as though some expressions of church and Christianity maybe is fading out. But at the same time there is excitement and energy and hope as churches who have already recognized what this article says about being in a “post-Christian” country – and have made changes to become churches on mission.
courtesy of Vitamin Z
related statistic from page 89 of Skye Jethani’s book The Divine Commodity via Vitamin Z:
Today, half of all churchgoers in the United States attend the largest 10 percent of churches. What often goes unoticed, however, are the fifty smaller churches that close their doors every week.
what is happening around us? what does it mean for the future of our country? what can we do about it, if anything?
Romans 5:8 is well known. “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” But the thought that Paul is expressing actually begins in verse 6. Here is the whole thing:
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
While we were still weak. At just the right time. While we were still sinners. At the very point where we were ungodly and nothing in us was worth dying for.
Do you see? We bring nothing to the table except need. We need forgiveness. We need healing. We need a Saviour. Every single one of us born into this world needs Christ. And just at the right time, He died for us.
These verses are the point of this story from Matt Chandler’s talk at the 2009 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. which I found courtesy of Vitamin Z
This break in me happened during my freshman year of college when I sat next to a 26-year-old single mother trying to get her degree. We began a dialogue about the grace and mercy of Christ in the cross. Some other guys and I would go over and babysit her child and try to talk with her. A friend of mine was in a band playing in the area and we invited her to hear him. She agreed. She thought it would be a concert. I knew better. It was shady and she agreed to come.
The minister got up and said we would talk about sex. He took a red rose, smelled it, and threw it out in the crowd and told them to smell the rose. He then began one of the worst, most horrific handlings of what sex is and isn’t that I ever sat through.
I’m thinking, with Kim beside me, “What are you doing?” As he wrapped up, he asked, “Where’s my rose?” Some kid brought the rose back and it was broken. His point was to hold up the rose and say, “Who wants this rose?” Anger welled up within me and I wanted to say, “Jesus wants the rose!” While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus wants the rose. Jesus wants you and me too. He wanted us enough to die for us and on our behalf. Just as we are. flat on our backs, without anything to offer back to Him. Won’t you let him have you, to love you, protect you, lead you, save you?
about a month ago, I posted on Original Sin. Specifically, one of the leaders of the emerging church had decided that he didn’t believe this doctrine and Kevin DeYoung called him out on it with scripture.
yesterday, I received this comment to moderate:
Bkingr,
There’s a huge difference between “inclined toward evil” that you quoted above and blackened and deader than dead. Maybe not in Calvinism, but Biblically, there’s a huge difference.
Paul in Romans 3 is drawing from Psalm 14, one written by David, which states, “The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
One would think in reading Psalm 14 alone that the words stand alone. No one does good.
Yet four Psalms later, in Psalm 18, David says, “The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him, and have kept myself from sin.”
Same author. Is David confused? Or in both Psalms, is David using black/white imagery (“no one does good” and “”I am not guilty”) to make the rhetorical point that this sinful inclination is powerful yet God calls for our obedience? Viewed in this light, we can read Psalm 14 (and then Romans 3) with fresh eyes, where God is looking down to see if any will have the courage to stand up and be obedient. He laments that humans, by and large, have turned away, but David proclaims in Psalm 18 that God rewards those who pursue righteousness.
Kevin also uses rebellion (not total depravity) language in quoting Jeremiah 17 (deceitful, desperately sick), Titus 3 (hating on another), and Romans 5 (corrupt nature). The Bible uses extreme imagery both ways; to celebrate human righteousness (obedience) and decry human rebellion (depravity). There’s no easy way to clean this up, as much as the system of Calvin would like to do so. Let the Bible speak for itself.
Nathan Myers
you would think from this that Paul’s quote of Romans 3:10 was the main thing that Kevin DeYoung cited. It wasn’t.
Assume for a minute that it was. What is Nathan’s refutation? Paul was relying on David. David said something else somewhere else and therefore Paul didn’t mean it the way it sounds, and that some of the other verses that Kevin cited were simply “extreme imagery” to “decry human rebellion.”
And then Nathan has the nerve/temerity/audacity/hutzpah/guts to tell me that I should let the Bible speak for itself. Just wow.
Ok, I will. Here is the “extreme imagery” supporting the idea that humans are born into sin and bear the sin nature by nature:
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
and here is the “extreme imagery” that says that apart from Christ we are all DEAD in our sins (not some kind of “mostly dead” or “a bit sluggish.”)
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Do you get that? the Bible, speaking for itself, says plainly that we were all dead and caught up in sin by our nature. that we were naturally objects of God’s wrath. That God then made us alive in Him, by His glorious grace. God through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus, made a way for us to be rescued from our sinful nature. That is why Romans 6 is such good news. We have been made alive and are no longer enslaved to our natural sinful nature. We now have a true choice to reject the opportunity to offer our members up as instruments of unrighteousness for the first time. For the first time, we have the opportunity to offer ourselves up as servants to righteousness.
That news wouldn’t be so good if there were no such thing as original sin. That would mean that Pelagius was correct and that any person can decide on their own to pursue God. That concept just won’t fly if you let the words above from the Bible “speak for themselves.” It only works if you explain away what Paul told the Ephesian church in chapter 2:1-10.
John MacArthur nails it with the opening sentence of this post (the second and third sentences are excellent as well) which is an excerpt from the book Ashamed of the Gospel.
No doctrine is more despised by the natural mind than the truth that God is absolutely sovereign. Human pride loathes the suggestion that God orders everything, controls everything, rules over everything. The carnal mind, burning with enmity against God, abhors the biblical teaching that nothing comes to pass except according to His eternal decrees. Most of all, the flesh hates the notion that salvation is entirely God’s work. If God chose who would be saved, and if His choice was settled before the foundation of the world, then believers deserve no credit for their salvation.
…..
Scripture affirms both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We must accept both sides of the truth, though we may not understand how they correspond to one another. People are responsible for what they do with the gospel—or with whatever light they have (Rom. 2:19, 20), so that punishment is just if they reject the light. And those who reject do so voluntarily. Jesus lamented, “You are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life” (John 5:40). He told unbelievers, “Unless you believe that I am [God], you shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). In John chapter 6, our Lord combined both divine sovereignty and human responsibility when He said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (v. 37); “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life” (v. 40); “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (v. 44); “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (v. 47); and, “No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father” (v. 65). How both of those two realities can be true simultaneously cannot be understood by the human mind—only by God.Above all, we must not conclude that God is unjust because He chooses to bestow grace on some but not to everyone. God is never to be measured by what seems fair to human judgment. Are we so foolish as to assume that we who are fallen, sinful creatures have a higher standard of what is right than an unfallen and infinitely, eternally holy God? What kind of pride is that? In Psalm 50:21 God says, “You thought that I was just like you.” But God is not like us, nor can He be held to human standards. “‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa. 55:8, 9).
We step out of bounds when we conclude that anything God does isn’t fair. In Romans 11:33 the apostle writes, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” (Rom. 11:33, 34).
Some of you may recall Mark Driscoll’s talk at last year’s Desiring God national conference. I reviewed it briefly here and linked to it. In the talk, Mark made the point that wolves are false teachers who prey upon the flock of God. Wolves do not need to be loved and understood. They must be dealt with quickly and harshly before they hurt the sheep.
Later in the year, Adrian Warnock provided an excellent example of wolf shooting by calling out a false teacher who denies penal substitutionary atonement.
More recently, James MacDonald has done some wolf shooting in a more light hearted vein. He compared emerging church leader Brian McLaren to Palm Pilots. it was funny and it stung because it was true.
Now James MacDonald is taking on the topic of wolf shooting more directly.
I do not view Brian as an ‘erring weaker brother,’ worthy of sympathy or olive branches, but rather as a dangerous false teacher who repackages mainline liberal theology. (Have the past 50 years not been adequate to see how liberal theology empties churches and damns souls?)
More dangerous still is that McLaren packages his false teaching and denials of Scripture as solutions to some of the excesses currently plaguing evangelicalism—the danger being his winning over of young people who have legitimate complaints about the current church, but who lack the discernment to see that his solutions are often unbiblical even when his critiques are fair.
Bottom line: my article was making the point that all denials of orthodox Christianity end up in a theological dumpster, not bearing fruit or winning souls to Christ. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
What was amazing about some of the comments I received was that they were not put off by the critique, but by the naming of the specific person who promulgates these deceptions. Several comments stated in the strongest of terms that it is unbiblical and unwise, even unloving, to name the names of false teachers and opponents of the biblical gospel. Is that true? Is it wrong to publicly call out those who attack the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? Even when their denials are much more public? Let’s see what Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John have to say about how to deal with false teachers. Do they confront it? Do they, in many instances, actually name the people involved?
go check out the quotes that follow. An excellent reminder that the need to shoot the wolves and protect the sheep is scriptural.
more flowers
a bit abstract
solo
in the sun
Jesus sent his twelve disciples out by two’s in Matthew 10 to proclaim the imminence of the Kingdom of Heaven. As part of his charge to them, Jesus told them in verse 16 that he was sending them out like sheep in the middle of wolves “so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
That phrase has haunted me since I first remember seeing it in a coach’s devotion after football practice in high school. (yes, I went to a christian school.)
Look at it again: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
“I am sending you out” Jesus commissioned the disciples and he has commissioned us.
“as sheep in the midst of wolves” Jesus sent them out to a world that hated him and would therefore hate his followers. (cf 10:24-25) But his disciples were to remain “as sheep.”
“so be wise as serpents” this is the part that just continues to rotate in my mind. Why say it like this? Specifically, why “serpent”? was Jesus saying that we are to know the schemes of that old serpent, Satan as well as the snake himself does? I think maybe that is it. I think perhaps this is Jesus teaching his disciples to be very aware of the particular worldly culture into which they were ministering.
“and innocent as doves” at the same time that his disciples were to be in the world and wise regarding Satan’s schemes therein, they were to remain innocent as doves. They were to keep their character as sheep following their Chief Shepherd. In the world but not of the world. familiar with the culture, but not polluted thereby.
Study it for yourselves and tell me if I am off base. Just meditate on chapter 10 of Matthew for a while.
Anyway, I bring that up because I really like Mark Driscoll.
To me, he exemplifies a man of God sent by Jesus as a sheep in the middle of Seattle Washington’s wolves. He endeavors to be as wise as a serpent, and as innocent as a dove. Obviously, like all of us, he fails in one or both sides of this equation from time to time. But he is trying to thread that needle rather than staying safely on the side of remaining innocent as a dove, because he knows that his obligation is to people in Seattle that desperately need to hear the voice of the Shepherd and will not do so unless the man God uses to call them is wise to the worldly culture in which the people live.
Whenever Mark was taking a beating recently, it seemed to me like his critics were missing the main thing. That is why I wrote this post. And it is why I wrote this post as well.
the main thing is that Mark is trying to thread the needle of being as wise as a serpent while remaining as harmless as a dove so that he can fully obey Jesus command to preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
One of the more vociferous critics of Mark Driscoll has been Steve Camp. I love Steve Camp, but couldn’t understand the unbalanced nature of his attacks on Mark.
I have learned via Timmy Brister that Steve has now apologized.
That is where I had failed in addressing these things concerning Mark and his ministry; this is where the Lord convicted me as I reviewed some of my past articles I had written about him. I was not godly in how I used words to speak of those concerns on this blog. IOW, I came to see that in a very real way we have the same problem… just a different manifestation. I find myself identifying with Isaiah in the temple as “a man of unclean lips” that needed to repent of his sin. Unclean lips doesn’t necessarily mean here a tongue that uses seedy speech, but rather one that represents a heart that is not right before the Lord – unworthy deserving judgment. That was me; and apart from God’s sanctifying grace each day – that is still me. IOW beloved, my heart was not right towards my brother in Christ. I should have been more gracious, charitable and balanced in my words when commenting about his ministry in the Lord. In my zeal to champion reformed biblical theology which I deeply believe, I was blinded to the prideful log in my own eye while blogging about the speck in my brother’s eye. For this, I sincerely ask the readers of this blog and those associated with Mark and Mars Hill Church to please forgive me. I have already asked this of Mark privately and he has been most kind to extend to me a heart of mercy. It is my desire to always speak the truth in love and to not carelessly amputate another in that process.
Steve makes public his apology in the context of a review of Mark Driscoll’s recent debate with Deepak Chopra regarding the existence of Satan.
Steve realizes in watching Mark’s performance during this debate the nature of Mark’s gifting by God.
4. Mark has a rare ability to take complex spiritual truth and say them in a simple and pedestrian way that communicates the core meaning (while staying true to Scripture) to those who don’t speak Christianeeze or have never darkened the door of a church before. This is a gift; and one I wish more pastors had.
Go read the whole post by Steve regarding his apology to Mark and his review of the nightline debate. Very useful and edifying stuff indeed.
