How Not to Be a Deadbeat Son or Daughter

A good article here from Mollie Hemingway on how we can help our parents age and die well.

Here's the opening:

Why is it that we heap scorn on "deadbeat" parents who fail to take care of underage children, but excuse adult children who don't take care of their feeble parents?

Perhaps it's because caring for children—no matter how many diapers and scrapes must be tended to—is a joyful experience, while aging involves untold sadness and indignity.

Maybe it has something to do with our unwillingness to confront death.

Female Deacons

For those interested in the PCA debate over whether or not a church should have deaconessses, byFaith Magazine has articles by Tim Keller, The Case for Commissioning (Not Ordaining) Deaconesses, and Ligon Duncan, The Case for Our Current Policy on Female Deacons.

Nicholas Batzig also has audio of their discussion on the issue at the 2009 PCA General Assembly.

Paradox in Christian Theology

Paul Helm on James Anderson's Paradox in Christian Theology:

Some ships, decked in bunting, set sail with a great fanfare and to the sounds of a brass band. Others, carrying an equally valuable cargo, weigh anchor and make for the open sea unnoticed. James Anderson’s book, Paradox in Christian Theology (Milton Keynes, Paternoster, 2007), has slipped out almost unnoticed. There has certainly been no fanfare, and though it has received several favourable reviews as far as I can tell it has not yet been much appreciated by that sector of the Christian public likely to enjoy and benefit from it.

This is a pity. For what Anderson has written is a book of great importance to those concerned both with the relation of Christian theology to reason, and with the question of the reasonableness of Christian belief. In the first half of the book he raises questions about doctrinal coherence, and in the second half he raises how deep our understanding of the mysteries of the faith can hope to be, and whether it is reasonable to believe what we cannot understand. Anderson has admirable contributions to each of these areas. His treatments of the questions are thorough and clear, with a good theological grasp and a philosophical mind. A rare combination. He writes clearly and carefully, with no inclination to fudge or equivocate over the central questions that he raises. He shows a good knowledge of the primary and secondary sources. His treatment also raises further questions for discussion. My aim here is simply to note some of its main features in the hope that it will whet some appetites.

Read the whole thing.

You can also see the website of Dr. Anderson, who teaches philosophy and theology at RTS-Charlotte.

The Purpose of the Book of Jonah

Mark Futato:

The primary purpose of the book of Jonah is to engage readers in theological reflection on the compassionate character of God, and in self-reflection on the degree to which their own character reflects this compassion, to the end that they become vehicles of this compassion in the world that God has made and so deeply cares about.

Sarah Palin

And the award goes to Jonah Goldberg for the best-timed op-ed of the year (published earlier today)!

As for Presidential prospects, here's my take:

• Will she? Probably.
• Should she? No.
• Can she? Never.

An Interview with Robert P. George on the Marriage Debate

Ryan Anderson interviews Professor George about the state of the marriage debate. A summary: "While supporters of same-sex 'marriage' claim that history is on their side, it turns out that supporters of traditional marriage have more reasons for hope than they may realize.

9Marks e-Journal on Missions

Another issue, which looks helpful as usual. This one is devoted to missions--articles, reviews, roundtable discussion, tools that churches can use, etc.

You can read the articles at the site, or download the whole thing as a single PDF.

C.S. Lewis's Delightful, Childlike Self-Forgetfulness

Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2005), xxii-xxiii:

In most children but in relatively few adults, at least in our time, we may see this willingness to be delighted to the point of self-abandonment. This free and full gift of oneself to a story is what produces the state of enchantment. But why do we lose the desire--or if not the desire, the ability--to give ourselves in this way? Adolescence introduces the fear of being deceived, the fear of being caught believing what others have ceased believing in. To be naive, to be gullible--these are the humilitations of adolescence. Lewis seems never to have been fully possessed by this fear. . . .

One could say, then, that Lewis remained in this particular sense childlike--that is, able always to receive pleasure from the kinds of stories that tend to give pleasure to children. . . . Surely Lewis himself would have said that when we can no longer be "wide open to the glory"--risking whatever immaturity thereby--we have not lost just our childlikeness but something near the core of our humanity. Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss.

Top Commentaries on Every Book of the Bible

Here are Keith Mathison's recommendations: the top 5 commentaries (in his view) on each book of the Bible.

Olasky on Writing Clearly

I've been thinking lately about the need for academics to write clear prose. Instead of giving examples of those who do this poorly (!), I'll mention one who does this well: Doug Moo. I've been reading through his commentary on Philemon as part of my devotions. Virtually every sentence is crisp and clear instead of complicated and cumbersome.

So when I saw this clip by Marvin Olasky--in answer to the question of what we can learn from Calvin--I gave a hearty amen!

New Kids CD: To Be Like Jesus

I just received a copy of the new Sovereign Grace CD for kids, To Be Like Jesus. I'm eager to listen to it as we travel over the Fourth. At their site you can listen to some samples. Here's some more info:

To Be Like Jesus contains twelve worship songs that teach the fruit of the Spirit in a creative and memorable way.Through these songs kids will learn that Jesus is our perfect example of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,and self-control. More than that, they’ll discover that we can’t be like Jesus unless we trust in the power of his cross to forgive us and the power of his Spirit to change us.

Did you know that God says your life is supposed to be like a fruit tree?

He’s talking about something much more important than apples, oranges, or bananas. The fruit God wants in our lives is the kind the Holy Spirit produces in us when we know and follow Jesus. It’s the fruit that comes when we turn from our sins and trust that Christ died in our place so we could be forgiven and become like him.

These songs will help you remember what that fruit looks like and how growing in Jesus is the only way to see more of it in your life!

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

C.S. Lewis's Willingness to Be Enchanted and Openness to Delight

Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 2005), xxi:

. . . Lewis's mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted and . . . it was this openness to enchantment that held together the various strands of his life--his delight in laughter, his willingness to accept a world made by a good and loving God, and (in some ways above all) his willingness to submit to the charms of a wonderful story. . . . What is "secretly present in what he said about anything" is an openness to delight, to the sense that there's more to the world than meets the jaundiced eye, to the possibility that anything could happen to someone who is ready to meet that anything. For someone with eyes to see and the courage to explore, even an old wardrobe full of musty coats could be the doorway into another world.

DeYoung and Kluck on the Church

Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck write as guest columnists today in the Newsweek/Washington Post forum on religion. Here's an excerpt:

Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn't tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too--intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance--a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?

Their book Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion is now available.

Free Audio Download: Francis Chan's Crazy Love

The audiobook, narrated by Chan, is available for free at ChristianAudio.com. Use the code JUL2009.

The book has sold over 200,000 copies in the past year.

Here's a little intro to the book:

Gospel Growth = People Growth // People Growth = Gospel Growth

This conference, October 14-16, 2009, at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, looks excellent.

The speakers are D.A. Carson, Mark Dever, Phillip Jensen, David Helm, Tony Payne, and Marty Sweeney.

You can view the schedule here, and more info at the main site.

Preaching Proverbs

C.J. Mahaney posts an appendix from John Kitchen's commentary on Proverbs that answers the question, What does the book of Proverbs teach us about wisdom and folly?

C.J. also offers some tips for preaching on Proverbs, and reproduces some helpful charts.

Baptism: Three Views

Speaking of the baptism debate, some of you may be interested in this new book being released by IVP in September: Baptism: Three Views, edited by the late David F. Wright.

The contributors are:

• Bruce Ware (Believers' Baptism)
• Sinclair Ferguson (Infant Baptism)
• Anthony Lane (Dual-Practice Baptism)

You likely know the format: each writes an essay defending his view, then the other two respond.

Zondervan also has a debate/dialogue book on baptism in their Counterpoint Series. Understanding Four Views on Baptism, edited by John Armstrong, has the following four contributors:

• Thomas Nettles (Baptist view: baptism of the professing regenerate by immersion)
• Richard Pratt Jr. (Reformed view: infant baptism of covenant children)
• Robert Kolb (Lutheran view: infant baptism of covenant children as a regenerative act)
• John Castelein (Church of Christ view: baptism of the regenerate by immersion as the occasion for justification).

I don't have a copy of either book, so I can't say anything about the quality of the essays, though I assume they are all good!

What's So New About the New Covenant?

One of the key reasons that I am a credobaptist (i.e., only those with a credible profession of faith in Christ should be baptized) is due to the nature of the new covenant.

A key difference between the old covenant and the new is horizontal. In the old covenant, the elect/redeemed/remnant/spiritually circumcised are a subset of the covenant community/physically circumcised. In the new covenant the two are the same--by definition one is a member of the new covenant who is elect/redeemed/spiritually circumcised. Entrance is not based on birth but new birth, marked by baptism representing life from death.

Even after I became convinced of this from Jeremiah 31/Hebrews 8, 10, it was a class on 1-3 John taught by D.A. Carson at RTS-Orlando that helped me to see that the change from old to new covenant was not only horizontal in terms of membership, but also vertical in terms of structure.

In his excellent 1990 essay, "Evangelicals, Ecumenism and the Church," Carson explains:

In the sixth century B.C. the prophet Jeremiah, speaking for the LORD, foresees a time when people will no longer repeat the proverb, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children‘s teeth are set on edge" (Jeremiah 31:30). The history of Israel under the Mosaic covenant has been characterized by the outworking of this proverb. The covenantal structure was profoundly racial and tribal. Designated leaders prophets, priests, king, and occasionally other leaders such as the seventy elders or Bezaleel were endued with the Spirit, and spoke for God to the people and for the people to God (cf. Exodus 20:19). Thus when the leaders sinned, the entire nation was contaminated, and ultimately faced divine wrath. But the time is coming, Jeremiah says, when this proverb will be abandoned. "Instead," God promises, "everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes his own teeth will be set on edge" (Jeremiah 31:30). This could be true only if the entire covenantal structure associated with Moses‘ name is replaced by another. That is precisely what the Lord promises: he will "make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah that will not be like the covenant he made with their forefathers at the time of the Exodus." The nature of the promised new covenant is carefully recorded: God will put his law in the hearts and on the minds of his people. Instead of having a mediated knowledge of God, "they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," and therefore "no longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD‘' (31:31ff.). This does not foresee a time of no teachers; in the context, it foresees a time of no mediators, because the entire covenant community under this new covenant will have a personal knowledge of God, a knowledge characterized by the forgiveness of sin (31:34) and by the law of God written on the heart (31:33). . . .

. . . the nature of the new covenant not be overlooked: as foreseen in the prophecy of Jeremiah, it is the abrogation of an essentially tribalistic covenantal structure in favor of one that focuses on the immediate knowledge of God by all people under the new covenant, a knowledge of God that turns on the forgiveness of sin and the transformation of the heart and mind.

So I'd summarize it like this: in the old covenant, not everyone in the covenant community knew the Lord, and not everyone knew the Lord directly. In the new covenant, both change: everyone in the covenant community knows the Lord immediately and directly.

Update: For those wanting to explore the credo understanding further, I'd recommend Steve Wellum's essay, Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants (PDF). You can also read my interview with him.

Acronyms and a Biblical Model of Confrontation

I was thinking recently of posting on some theological acronyms that are stuck in my head and encouraging people to guess what they stand for. I don't necessarily try to remember things via acronym, but I do have a few:

• CPR (God's providence)
• CAP (God's Lordship attributes)
  
• SCAN (Scripture's attributes)
• IOU'S (what to ask God--this one is from Piper)

So feel free to leave your guesses in the comments below. On his blog Thabiti Anyabwile recently posted an acronym from Paul Tripp's book, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles. It's a model of how to think about confronting others biblically:

Examine your heart. Confrontation always begins with you. Because we all struggle with indwelling sin, we must begin with ourselves. We must be sure that we have dealt with our anger, impatience, self-righteousness, and bitterness. When we start with our own confession, we are in a much better place to lead another to confess.

Note your calling. Remember that confrontation is not based on your opinion of the person. You are there as an ambassador and your job is to faithfully represent the message of the King. In other words, your goal is to help people see and accept God's view of them.

Check your attitude. When you speak, are your words spoken in kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, forbearance, compassion, and love? Failure to do this will hinder God-honoring, change-producing confrontation. We need to examine both our message and our attitude as we speak.

Own your own faults. It is vital to enter moments of confrontation with a humble recognition of who we really are. As we admit our own need for the Lord's forgiveness, we are able to be patient and forgiving with the one to whom God has called us to minister.

Use words wisely. Effective communication demands preparation, particularly of our words. We need to ask God to help us use words that carry his message, not get in the way of it.

Reflect on Scripture. The content of confrontation is always the Bible. It guides what we say and how we say it. We should enter moments of confrontation with a specific understanding of what Scripture says about the issues at hand. This means more than citing proof texts; it means understanding how the themes, principles, perspectives, and commands of Scripture shape the way we think about the issues before us.

Always be prepared to listen. The best, most effective confrontation is interactive. We need to give the person an opportunity to talk, since we cannot look into his heart or read his mind. We need to welcome his questions and look for signs that he is seeing the things he needs to see. We need to listen for true confession and the commitment to specific acts of repentance. As we listen, we will learn where we are in the confrontation process.

Grant time for a response. We must give the Holy Spirit time to work. There is nothing in Scripture that promises that if we do our confrontation work well, the person will confess and repent in one sitting. Rather, the Bible teaches us that change is usually a process. We need to model the same patience God has granted us. This patience does not compromise God's work of change, but flows out of a commitment to it.

Encourage the person with the gospel. It is the awesome grace of God, his boundless love, and his ever-present help that give us a reason to turn from our sin. Scripture says that it is the kindness of God that leads people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). The truths of the gospel--both its challenge and its comfort--must color our confrontation.

The Grace-Filled Circle of Church Discipline and Restoration

Timmy Brister tells about a man who was excommunicated from his church, and 14 years later sought out the pastor (Tom Ascol) in gospel repentance and reconciliation. Read the whole thing.

Michael Spencer offers his own reflections on Ascol's faithful "plodding" gospel ministry.

An Interview with Mark Driscoll on Religion Saves

The latest book from Re:Lit and Crossway is Mark Driscoll's Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions (also available as an audio book read by Driscoll himself).

He was kind enough to respond to a few questions:

For whom did you write this book?

While preaching through 1 Corinthians some time ago, I was struck by the fact that the letter was a series of answers to various questions that the people in the church had asked. My guess was that there were more questions than Paul answered, but that somehow those he did answer were deemed to be of the greatest interest and importance. I thought it might be interesting to do something similar and preach a series answering the big questions and issues in our own day that could subsequently be addressed in an even more thorough fashion as a book.

So we tried an experiment by opening up a section of our church’s website for people to post any question, make comments about posted questions, and vote up to ten times a day for their favorite question. We deleted the votes of those people who violated the rules. And, in the end, 893 questions were asked, 5,524 comments were made, and 343,203 votes were cast. I answered the top nine questions by an entire sermon each.

The book is a greatly expanded version of that preaching series with a lot more content than I was able to include in the sermons.

So I guess I wrote the book for the people in our church, my online friends, and anyone who wants to know more about some of the big controversial issues in our day.

What was the hardest chapter to write?

The birth control chapter was especially difficult because some of the sanctity of life issues are so incredibly complex and unclear. It took a lot of research to arrive at a conclusion on things like the pill, and I felt I packed a ton into the chapter that will really help pastors guide people through the tough decisions around family planning and birth control.

Also difficult was the chapter on the Emerging Church and some people I consider friends but have serious doctrinal differences with. That chapter was painful to write personally and I was careful to include a wide breadth of research that is well footnoted.

Even though you tackle nine different questions, is there one unifying theme of the book? Or maybe another way to ask it: What’s the one thing you hope readers take away from this book?

As the subtitle of this book suggests, many of the questions that made the top nine are highly religious in nature. By this, I mean that religious people are prone to draw firm lines on these issues, thereby making them points of debate, distinction, and even division among Christians.

The issues fall into some curious categories.

Questions 9, 5, and 3 are all related to issues of sex and dating, as sex is the most popular religion in the world.

Questions 8 and 2 deal with missional aspects of the Emerging church and how Christians should relate to mainstream culture and lost people.

Question 7 is the endless debating point between Calvinists and Arminians. Question 4 is the perennial debating point between Catholics and Protestants.

And Question 1 is a point of concern between old school and new school Calvinists.

In the end, I think people will be surprised that the book is actually about the gospel for all of life and will force readers to think deeply about pressing questions.

Everyone, I would guess, will love and hate chapters of the book. I may be the only person on the earth who in fact ends up liking every chapter's conclusions.

What book projects are next for you?

I have a free e-book called Pastor Dad that I wrote for Father’s Day that can be found at www.relit.org.

I also just sent into Crossway a mammoth project called Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. It is a 13-chapter theological book following the storyline of the Bible. My co-author Dr. Gerry Breshears and I worked more on this book than any previous two books we’ve done together combined. It was incredibly exhausting and in the end we whittled it down to 135,000 words and nearly 2,000 footnotes to be published in March of 2010.

I also contributed a chapter to the forthcoming book edited by you and Dr. Piper from the Desiring God conference titled The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, due out this fall.

My wife Grace and I are also getting a lot of offers to do a marriage book of some kind and currently discussing doing that project together. She’s a far better technical writer than I am and has a degree in PR with a minor in technical English from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, where I studied speech. So if it works out I’d love to write with my high school sweetheart. I have humorously given it the working title Your Best Wife Now and told her she should write on how to be an amazing wife and mom to a peculiar guy--as she’s an expert.

How can we be praying for you and Mars Hill Church these days?

Thank you for asking. I am enjoying so much of God’s grace that it is hard to keep up.

Mars Hill keeps growing and is expanding to our ninth campus including our first out-of-state campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our goal is 100 campuses and 50,000 people in ten years.

The Acts 29 Church Planting Network is pushing 300 U.S. planters with 400 candidates in the pipeline and a growing number of plants globally. Our goal there is 1,000 U.S. church plants and 250,000 people in ten years.

I am publishing a book every few months, preaching hundreds of hours a year at Mars Hill and around the world, doing a lot of media interviews, raising five kids, loving my wife, and dealing with an ever-growing line of critics waiting their turn to get their punch in.

I pray James 1:5 a lot, asking God for wisdom, and I appreciate anyone who does the same for my family and me.

White House Debate on How to Package Their Abortion Plan

Dan Gilgoff has some details on the White House considering how best to present their abortion package. Opening paragraph:

As the White House readies its plan for finding "common ground" on reproductive health issues and reducing the need for abortion, a major debate has emerged over how to package the plan's two major components: preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion.

Timothy George: The Heart of Evangelicalism

"At its heart is a theological core shaped by the Trinitarian and Christological consensus of the early church, the formal and material principles of the Reformation, the missionary movement that grew out of the Great Awakening and the new movements of the Spirit that indicate 'surprising works of God' are still happening today."

--Timothy George, in the foreword to The Advent of Evangelicalism. The book is reviewed/summarized by Collin Hansen in CT online.

Readers might also be interested in these lectures by D.A. Carson:

• What Is Evangelicalism?
• What Is an Evangelical? An Assessment of the Evangelical and Roman Catholic Project

President Obama's New Pastor (updated)

Update: The White House is saying that the Time Magazine story is not true and that the Obamas continue to look for a church.

<<<

The Obamas' pastor will be Lieut. Carey Cash, 38 years old, the chaplain who leads the services at Camp David's Evergreen Chapel. Lieut. Cash is a conservative Southern Baptist (a graduate of SWBTS) and the great-nephew of Johnny Cash.

Pray that this man would faithfully preach and minister the Word of God into the life of the Obamas and all of those attending services at Camp David.

Risking the Truth: Interviews with Key Leaders

Martin Downes has edited a new book that will undoubtedly interest many readers of this blog: Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church (Christian Focus, 2009). It is a serious of very interesting and helpful interviews with key leaders in the church today. I've copied the Table of Contents below. By clicking on the links below you can read Sinclair Ferguson's foreword and Carl Trueman's interview for free.

Foreword (Sinclair Ferguson)
Introduction
1. Heresy 101
2. Sin in High Places (Carl Trueman)
3. In My Place Condemned He Stood (Tom Schreiner)
4. The Agony of Deceit (Michael Horton)
5. The Faithful Pastor and the Faithful Church (Mark Dever)
6. Truth, Error and the Minister’s Task (Derek Thomas)
7. The Defense Against the Dark Arts (R. Scott Clark)
8. Heroes and Heretics (Iain D. Campbell)
9. The Good Shepherds (Tom Ascol)
10. A Debtor to Mercy Alone (Guy Waters)
11. Truth, Error and the End Times (Kim Riddlebarger)
12. Fulfill Your Ministry (Ron Gleason)
13. The Fight of Faith (Sean Michael Lucas)
14. Raising the Foundations (Gary L.W. Johnson)
15. Teaching the Whole Counsel of God (Conrad Mbewe)
16. Present Issues from a Long Term Perspective (Geoffrey Thomas)
17. Ministry Among Sheep and Wolves (Joel Beeke)
18. Error and the Church (Michael Ovey)
19. Will the Church Stand or Fall? (Ligon Duncan)
20. The Annihilation of Hell (Robert A. Peterson)
21. The Word of Truth (Greg Beale)
22. Being Against Heresies Is Not Enough
23. Clear and Present Danger