Interview with Carson on Christ and Culture

Derek Thomas recently chatted with D.A. Carson on the topic.

Here are the last two exchanges, questioning the wisdom of the nomenclature "redeeming the culture" and how young pastors should think about "engaging the culture:

DT: Why don't you like the terminology of "redeeming the culture"?

DC: Redemption terminology in the NT is so bound up with Christ's work for and in the church that to extend it to whatever good we do in the broader world risks a shift in focus. Not for a moment do I want to deny that we are to serve as salt and light, that exiles may be called to do good in the pagan cities where Providence has appointed them to live (Jer 29), that every square foot of this world is under Christ's universal reign (even though that reign is still being contested), that the nations of the world will bring their "goods" into the Jerusalem that comes down from above. But many of those who speak easily and fluently of redeeming the culture soon focus all their energy shaping fiscal and political policies and the like, and merely assume the gospel. A gospel that is merely assumed, that does no more than perk away in the background while the focus of our attention is on the "redemption" of the culture in which we find ourselves, is lost within a generation or two. At the same time, I worry about Christians who focus their attention so narrowly on getting people "saved" that they care little about doing good to all people, even if especially to the household of God. Getting this right is not easy, and inevitably priorities will shift a little in various parts of the world, under various regimes. Part of the complexity of the discussion, I think, is bound up with what the church as church is responsible for, and what Christians as Christians are responsible for: I have argued that failure to make this distinction tends to lead toward sad conclusions.


DT: What are some key things for young pastors to keep in mind when they are urged to "engage the culture"?

DC: Know what the gospel is first, comprehensively, accurately, faithfully. Work out from there. Learn to preach to your own people, not to the aggregates set out in books by Barna and Wuthnow (though much can be learned from such books). Whether the "engagement" is part of how you engage people evangelistically, or part of how Christians in your church do good in your own community, keep thinking through what the Bible itself says -- and then try, like the men of Issachar, to understand your own times.

Flying Over Mars

Here's what it probably looks like.

HT: The Corner

Prince Caspian: Better Movie Than Book?

Yep, say Frederica Mathewes-Green and John Mark Reynolds.

Gospel Translations

Gospel Translations is "a project to make biblical books and articles freely accessible in as many languages as possible."

They are looking for volunteers to translate and to help in other ways.

Here's a video explaining more:

Sing and Learn NT Greek

Matthew Montonini interviews Ken Berding, associate professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology of Biola University, who has recently published (through Zondervan) New Testament Greek with Sing and Learn New Testament Greek: The Easiest Way to Learn Greek Grammar.

Barack Obama on "What Is at Stake in This Election"

Every evangelical should watch the first 10 minutes or so of this speech by Barack Obama, delivered to Planned Parenthood in July 2007. It contains an impassioned defense of partial-birth abortion.

Note carefully:

"This is what is at stake in this election."

"It is time to write a new chapter in American history."

"I have worked on these issues for decades now."

"This election is not just about playing defense, it's about playing offense. It's not just about defending what is, it's about creating what might be in this country."

"On this issue, I will not yield."

A Quick Comment on Gutter Blog Commenting

I hate to sound like the "parent" of this blog (and this doesn't apply of course to 99% of readers), but if your idea of Christian dialogue includes calling someone a "pansy" or "lower than a pig intestine," then please take your interaction elsewhere.

Jonah

Sinclair Ferguson's book on Jonah (Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah), out of print for two decades (!), is now back in print. Here's the book description:

Jonah is not a book about a great fish! It is really a book about God, and how one man came, through painful experience, to discover the true character of the God whom he had already served in the earlier years of his life. He was to find the doctrine about God come alive in his experience. It is this combination of doctrine and experience that makes Jonah such a fascinating, instructive, and practical book.

The teaching of Jonah searches our hearts and consciences in a special way because it is the story of a man who was on the run from God. It traces not only the path of his journey, but unravels the inner workings of his heart—his fears, motivations, and passing moods. Christians today still experience these 'Jonah-syndromes'.

If you've never read anything by Dr. Ferguson, you're in for a treat.

My friend Tullian Tchividjian recently wrapped up a sermon series on the book of Jonah, which would be well worth listening to. The sermons are available here, and the titles are as follows:

• Introduction to Jonah (Jonah 1:1-6)
• Calming The Storm (Jonah 1:11-16)
• Flight from God (Jonah 1:1-6)
• Revealing Power of Storms (Jonah 1:4-10)
• Two Ways to Run (Jonah 1:4-10)
• The Salvation of the Saved (Jonah 1:17-2:1-10)
• The Worship That Frees (Jonah 3:1-2)
• Everything Big (Jonah 3:1-5)
• The Deployment of the Defeated (Jonah 3:1-5)
• The Centrality of Repentance (Jonah 3:5-10)
• Angry at God (Jonah 4:1-4)
• Death Before Deference (Jonah 4:5-11)

For those interested in ESV Study Bible details, Mark Futato did the notes on Jonah.

Moo on Jesus, Paul, and the Law of Moses

Here are a number of articles by Doug Moo (NT professor at Wheaton) on Jesus, Paul, and the Mosaic law.

• “Law,” “Works of the Law” and Legalism in Paul (1983)
• Jesus and the Authority of the Mosaic Law (1984)
• Paul and the Law in the Last Ten Years (1987)
• The Law of Moses and the Law of Christ (1988)
• The Law of Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law of Moses (1993)

I have found each of these articles to be especially helpful on this difficult issue!

HT: Upper Register

Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Leen Ritmeyer has a file simply called "Weird" (!), which is where he has placed the latest archaeological claim about those on the trail of the ark of the covenant.

The Bethlehem Institute

I had the privilege of being in the first class (1998-2000) of The Bethlehem Institute at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis--an intense time of study that decisively shaped my thinking and ministry. So it's a delight to read John Piper's letter about the future plans for T.B.I., which includes moving toward becoming an accredited college and seminary.

1 Corinthians 7

Andy Naselli:

My pastor, Dr. Mike Bullmore, is currently preaching through 1 Corinthians, and this morning he finished a sensitive, insightful, pastorally wise exposition of chapter 7.

1. Marriage in God’s World (April 13, 2008)
2. A Oneness That Glorifies God (1 Cor 7:1–7) (April 20, 2008)
3. Glorifying God in Challenging Marital Situations (1 Cor 7:8–16, 39–40) (April 27, 2008)
4. To Marry or Not to Marry: Singleness and the Glory of God (Part 1) (May 4, 2008)
5. To Marry or Not to Marry (Part 2) (May 18, 2008)

Today’s sermon (#5 above) is particularly outstanding. Its target audience is older teenagers and their parents, but it is especially applicable to singles in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. Bullmore gives two reminders followed by five statements summarizing biblical priorities in preparing for marriage. Highly recommended!

Is Jesus the Only Way to God?

Over at the New Attitude blog I give a few thoughts on responding to a couple of objections on this issue.

Whether or not you read my ruminations, be sure to watch the seven-minute video at the end where R.C. Sproul addresses the issue. It's well worth your time.

An Interview with David Wells

Collin Hansen interviews David Wells about his new book, The Courage to Be Protestant.

Here's the last exchange:

What is your next project?

I am working with a skilled Hollywood director to turn my last book into a film project with DVDs and study guides for the churches. I have been preoccupied for some time with trying to understand what has happened to evangelical faith in the modernized West. This book summarizes the five main themes about which I have been writing: truth, God, self, Christ, and church. I hope that we can now speak creatively and constructively to these issues.

Carson and Horton on Galatians and Justification

Here is the audio from the recent Clarus conference at Desert Springs Church:

• An Apostolic Disputation - and Justification - D.A. Carson
• Panel Discussion A - D.A. Carson and Michael Horton
• Two Mothers, Two Mountains - Michael Horton
• Justification/Righteousness and the Cross of Christ - D.A. Carson
• Panel Discussion B, Pt. 1 - D.A. Carson and Michael Horton
• Panel Discussion B, Pt. 2 - D.A. Carson and Michael Horton
• The Promise-Driven Life - Michael Horton
• Panel Discussion C - Michael Horton
• "The Ironies of the Cross" - D.A. Carson

I've heard that the first talk by Carson is especially powerful.

Interview with D.A. Carson

The following is Adrian Warnock's video interview with Don Carson:





Adrian summarizes: "We spoke about his reasons for coming to the UK, about how he chose to leave the field of chemistry to become a pastor and then left pastoral ministry to train ministers in a seminary, the crucial importance of the local church, and his relationship with his father." "In the second part of my interview with Don Carson we spoke about how to prepare people to serve as leaders and preachers in the Church. We spoke about the place of seminary, and about those who, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, serve without spending time there. We also spoke about conferences, and the importance of recognizing that most of us are just going to be ordinary Christians."

Building Faith in Busy Moms

Last Sunday Josh Harris preached A Mother's Day Message (Psalms 127 + 128), built around three questions:

1. Do you think you can do this?

2. Do you see your kids accurately?

3. What do you fear as a mother?

I've not yet listened to it, but I've heard wonderful things about it.

Red-Letter Bibles

Peter Head (Tyndale House, University of Cambridge) has an interesting post wondering if red-letter Bibles are so bad after all.

Also of interest may be this post by Allan Fisher on the origin of red-letter Bibles.

Update: Link fixed; sorry.

Worldliness and Modesty

Here's a helpful link from C.J.'s blog, where you will find a PDF containing his chapter on modesty for the forthcoming book he edited, entitled Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (foreword by John Piper). The link above also includes a discussion guide on the chapter, as well as a limited-time coupon to pre-order the book for 35% off.

What Is an Evangelical?

That's the latest question in the Washington Post/Newsweek forum On Faith. The question is brought about by the publication of An Evangelical Manifesto. Respondents include N.T. Wright, Cal Thomas, Chuck Colson, and Martin Marty.

Young, Restless, and Reformed

Here's the conclusion to their exchange.

Related to info on the young/restless/Reformed subject:

Doug Sweeney (church history professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) recently discussed the movement with Hansen, which you can listen to here.

Finally, I'd encourage reading (and heeding!) Kirk Wellum's wise posts on the subject. Wellum teaches systematic theology and biblical studies at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

He offers (and explains) five exhortations for this group:

1. Those who are young, restless and reformed must not become too self-conscious.
2. We (and I include myself in all of these things) must avoid a triumphalistic attitude.
3. We must put our hope in God and not in our theological systems.
4. With regard to the way we structure our churches we need to give people some breathing room.
5. We need to work and pray when it comes to evangelism.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Here's the conclusion:

There is much to be thankful for, much good has been done, churches have been established, seminaries put back on the right track, and much, much more. But we must keep our focus, we must not take ourselves too seriously, we must make much of God calling upon him to move in our lives and in the lives of others. If we combine our zeal for the word with a passionate love for God and a lost world then great opportunities lie ahead. But if our zeal turns inward and we start judging and dividing along party lines as if we alone have the truth, God will raise up help from somewhere else, as he has done many times before.

Wellum also has a follow-up post On Being Restless, where he explores how "theological precision [can] be joined to gentle patience that is willing to bring people along step-by-step"--and why this is often not the case.

Carson on Red-Letter Christians

The latest edition of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology looks incredibly helpful (especially Peter Gentry's essay on the covenants):

• Stephen J. Wellum (editorial), "Reflecting on the Kingdom of God"
• Graeme Goldsworthy, "The Kingdom of God as Hermeneutic Grid"
• Peter J. Gentry, "Kingdom Through Covenant: Humanity as the Divine Image"
• Jonathan T. Pennington, "The Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew"
• Brian Vickers, "The Kingdom of God in Paul's Gospel"
• Russell D. Moore and Robert E. Sagers, "The Kingdom of God and the Church: A Baptist Reassessment"
• Todd L. Miles, "A Kingdom without a King? Evaluating the Kingdom Ethic(s) of the Emerging Church"
• The SBJT Forum
• Book Reviews
  

One highlight from SBJT is often D.A. Carson's contribution to their Forum. In this issue he is asked "What are the most common errors that people make when it comes to understanding and proclaiming the kingdom?" He lists several, the final one being the tendency to make "'kingdom' an adjective that blesses whatever I want blessed" (e.g., "kingdom ethics"). In particular, he applies this to the so-called "red letter Christians":

A particularly virulent form of this approach is hidden behind what Tony Campolo now approvingly calls “red letter Christians.” These red letter Christians, he says, hold the same theological commitments as do other evangelicals, but they take the words of Jesus especially seriously (they devote themselves to the “red letters” of some foolishly printed Bibles) and end up being more concerned than are other Christians for the poor, the hungry, and those at war. Oh, rubbish: this is merely one more futile exercise in trying to find a “canon within the canon” to bless my preferred brand of theology. That’s the first of two serious mistakes commonly practiced by these red letter Christians. The other is worse: their actual grasp of what the red letter words of Jesus are actually saying in context far too frequently leaves a great deal to be desired; more particularly, to read the words of Jesus and emphasize them apart from the narrative framework of each of the canonical gospels, in which the plot-line takes the reader to Jesus’ redeeming death and resurrection, not only has the result of down-playing Jesus’ death and resurrection, but regularly fails to see how the red-letter words of Jesus point to and unpack the significance of his impending crosswork. In other words, it is not only Paul who says that Jesus’ cross and resurrection constitute matters “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3), and not only Paul who was resolved to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1–5), but the shape of the narrative in each canonical gospel says the same thing. In each case the narrative rushes toward the cross and resurrection; the cross and resurrection are the climax. So to interpret the narrative, including the red-letter words of Jesus, apart from the climax to which they are rushing, is necessarily a distortion of the canonical gospels themselves.

Some of the gospel passion accounts make this particularly clear. In Matthew, for example, Jesus is repeatedly mocked as “the king of the Jews” (27:27–31, 37, 42). But Matthew knows that his readers have been told from the beginning of his book (even the bits without red letters) that Jesus is the king: the first chapter establishes the point, and tells us that, as the promised Davidic king, he is given the name “YHWH saves” (“Jesus”) because he comes to save his people from their sins. Small wonder for its first three centuries the church meditated often on the irony of Jesus “reigning” from a cross, that barbaric Roman instrument of torture and shame. And it is Matthew who reminds us that, this side of the cross, this side of the resurrection, all authority belongs to Jesus (28:18–20). These constitute parts of the narrative framework without which Jesus’ red-letter words, not least his portrayals of the kingdom, cannot be rightly understood.

Update: You can read Carson's whole response here (HT: Rod Decker).

First Things: Why We're Not Emergent

Kristen Scharold, a Wheaton grad and a NYT employee, writes in First Things about the book Why We're Not Emergent. Here's a quote:

Despite my hipster leanings and stale Christian pedigree, I am not emergent, if emergence is defined by its theology instead of just its ethos. And after reading this book, I am even more grateful that I never jumped onto the emergent bandwagon. I am not the only young Christian who appreciates many aspects of postmodern culture but who also yearns for the absolute conviction that DeYoung and Kluck present.

And here's the conclusion:

In the end, the authors of Why We’re Not Emergent are not making a case for a new kind of Christianity. They are not trying lure emergent Christians into their fold with a hipper take on things. They are simply trying to replace the errors of the emergent church—which is, nonetheless, making important contributions to evangelicalism—with scripturally sound theology.

And it should not be so counterintuitive that young evangelicals such as myself prefer theology rooted in tradition to a spirituality waffling in relativism. We want a story with a climax so profound that it leaves us worshiping God, not reducing him to fit into our cultural paradigm. And if that story comes with a Guinness and some Coldplay, great. If not, no big deal.

A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes

P&R has just published what looks like an outstanding book: A Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis. Here's the book description:

Capturing both the best of elite scholarship, as well as exhibiting a firm understanding of and passion for Calvin's own work, these essays by twenty elite Calvin scholars who appreciate the abiding value of Calvin's Institutes provide definitive and section-by-section commentary on Calvin's magnum opus. Capturing both the best of elite scholarship, as well as exhibiting a firm understanding of and passion for Calvin's own work, these essays provide definitive commentary from Calvin scholars who seek to elucidate his work and display its abiding value. This long-needed work serves as the natural companion to Calvin's The Institutes of the Christian Religion for classes, students, pastors, and others for years to come.

I'd recommend reading Packer's foreword (online) which is instructive in and of itself and a joy to read. Here's a good quote

Great theology, like the Bible in which all great theology is soaked, is essentially transhistorical and transcultural, and interprets us, joltingly sometimes, as we seek to interpret it. The 1559 Institutio is great theology, and it is uncanny how often, as we read and re-read it, we come across passages that seem to speak directly across the centuries to our own hearts and our own present-day theological debates. You never seem to get to the book’s bottom; it keeps opening up as a veritable treasure trove of biblical wisdom on all the main themes of the Christian faith. Do you, I wonder, know what I am talking about? Dig into the Institutio, and you soon will.

If you plan to make a serious study of the Institutes, you also may want to pick up

Ford Lewis Battles's Analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion of John Calvin, which contains a detailed outline of Calvin's entire work.

If you've only heard or read about Calvin but never actually read him, you'll probably be in for a surprise. As Packer writes, "Still today, one simply cannot read it receptively without being searched, humbled, and challenged regarding one’s sincerity and progress (Calvin’s favorite word), or lack of it, in one’s personal Christian life."

Burma Disaster Relief

From Sovereign Grace Ministries:

As disaster-relief efforts continue in Burma, Sovereign Grace Ministries has the opportunity to provide assistance through ministry relationships we have in that country. We are establishing a Burma Disaster Relief fund and are contributing financially toward aid efforts in Burma.

Any who would like to join us in this effort can donate to the Burma Disaster Relief fund via our website.

Most importantly, please join us in praying that amid the destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis, victims of the storm would receive swift and effective help, and that many in Burma would hear and respond to the gospel.