Between Two Worlds

On the anniversary of Baruch Spinoza's excommunication in Amsterdam 350 years, Albert Mohler summarizes Matthew Stewart's new book, The Courtier and the Heretic.

Dana Olson, of Prayer First, provides a helpful acronymn and a needed exhortation for us to serve people through prayer. I've taken the liberty of reproducing much of his post below, and encourage you to check out his blog for regular encouragement in this practice.


My point with this post is to remind you of the significant power of simply praying for people. By 'power' I don't mean power in the signs and wonders sense (though neither am I discounting that he is able to do amazing things). I mean it in the sense of the incredible impact and joy when we pray with people in need. This kind of prayer is often neglected: all too often we think of it as a clergyman's duty. Ridiculous! God has given to believers the privilege of coming to his throne of grace. All believers, not just pastors. And when we bring people in need before that throne, there is mercy and grace for their need, and there is delight in the love unleashed in doing so. Praying for folks who are hurting is a very practical means of showing the love of Christ. It is in the very doing a testimony of our faith in Christ and confidence in God's grace and help. Here is a very simple acronym I have often used to train Christians to pray for someone in need. I call it H*A*B*I*T prayer, as in "make it a habit to pray for others around you."

H -- Honor God. Begin with a simple sentence or two of praise and adortation to God for His glory. Thank him for saving you through the cross of Jesus Christ, and giving you the amazing privilege of entering his throne room to pray.

A -- Ask specifically. Bring the person's need to the throne of grace. It is critical that you listen carefully to what the person has said, so that you can pray for them specifically rather than generally. It is disappointing to pour your heart out to someone, then have them pray as if they didn't hear a single word you said.

B -- Bless. Ask God to bless them in ways other than just the specific item prayed earlier. If the person is not a Christian, pray for their spiritual life and awakening to God's grace through Jesus Christ. If you know them well and other aspects of their life, ask God's blessing. "Lord, I ask your blessing on Ted's wife and children as well. Give him wisdom in his business...etc." If you do not know them, simply ask God to pour his blessing into every aspect of life, especially their spiritual life in Jesus Christ.

I -- In Jesus' name. We come to God in prayer only because of Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us, and opened the way for us into the Holy of holies.

T -- Touch as appropriate. If it is appropriate, take the person's hand when you pray for them, or put a hand on their shoulder, whatever seems appropriate to the situation. Take care with this. We should be neither inappropriately "touchy feely" nor cold and "hands off" as if we might catch something.

More could be said on each of these. But that can be at another time. My point today is to ask you, "Do you seize on the opportunities God gives you to pray for those in need who surround you every day?" If you don't, you are missing out on a golden opportunity to communicate with God and communicate to others the love of God.

Bernard Lews, professor emeritus at Princeton and one of the West's foremost authorities on Islam, writes about Iran's apocalyptic vision for the world, and specifically August 22:

Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as "by the end of August," but Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

Read the whole thing.

(HT: Dana Olson)

Update: I'm reproducing here a comment left by Peter. This appears to be legitimate, not a joke:

"Check out Ahmadinejad's own new blog. There is an English version - click the second flag from the left. . . . See also the BBC's report about it."

The PC celebrated its 25th anniversary this weekend, as this London Times article points out. Al Mohler has some thoughts on the implications of this technological revolution.

This article offers a helpful overview of the ways in which the US and British intelligence systems differ with regard to the war on terror. The authors examine the areas of (1) criminal investigations; (2) profiling; (3) privacy; (4) secrecy; (5) international intelligence cooperation; (6) experience.

Roger and Amy at the A-Team blog are blogging their way through Wayne Grudem's Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth. Here are their summations of chapter 1 and chapter 2.

Quentin Schultze on the abuse of technology in worship:

Young people witness some of the cheesy video and computer "art" in worship and they see it for what it is: kitsch. Stock clip art. Old-fashioned, 19th-century background images under song text: the sun shining on the Cross, running streams, baby faces -- all of the stereotypical images that say, "Christians are crummy artists and naive sentimentalists." To them, such kitsch is like handing out illustrated kids' Bibles to high school students and telling them that these images represent the depth of insight and excellence of the Christian faith.

Gene Veith writes about P.D. James' book, The Children of Men, which is being made into a movie:

"In addition to her mysteries, she has written a science fiction dystopia entitled "The Children of Men." In it, the human race becomes infertile. No more children can be conceived or born. The world is just waiting to die out. The novel, which also takes on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, is a pro-life classic. And now it is being made into a movie, by a top-flight director and with a top-flight cast, to be released September 29. Click here to see the trailer."

Sam Logan asks: "Why exactly do we preach the gospel? Why do we participate in programs such as Evangelism Explosion? Why precisely do some of us go to distant cultures as missionaries? Why do others of us provide financial support?"

He then offers a biblical answer.

WSJ:

British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs.

Thabiti has started a new series where he'll be sharing "a few ideas for speaking of Jesus with our muslim neighbors and friends." Thus far:

When Witnessing to Muslims... Know the Gospel
When Witnessing to Muslims... Renounce Fear

Thabiti has also blogged recently about what he learned about evangelism at CHBC and why he was all night thinking about evangelism.

If you weren't aware of this already, ubberblogger Tim Challies is liveblogging the Worship God Conference held by Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Here is a wedding prayer as adapted by Dr. Ric Cannada, Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary :

O God of love, you have established marriage for the welfare and happiness of mankind. Yours was the plan, and only with you can we work it out with joy. You have said, “it is not good for a man to live alone. . . . I will make a helper suitable for him.” Now our joys are doubled, since the happiness of one is the happiness of the other; our burdens are halved, since, when we share them, we divide the load.

Bless this husband. Bless him as provider for the needs of those he loves. Sustain him in all his struggles in the contest of life. May his strength be her protection, his character be her joy and assurance. May he so live that she may find in him the haven for which the heart of a woman truly longs.

Bless this loving wife. Give her a tenderness that makes her great . . . a deep sense of understanding and a great faith in You. Give her that inner beauty of soul that never fades, eternal youth that is found in holding fast to the things that never age. May she so live that he may be pleased always to reverence and adore her.

May they never make the mistake of merely living for each other. Teach them that marriage is not living for each other. It is two uniting and joining hands to serve You, the living God. Give them a great spiritual purpose in life. May they seek first the kingdom that is yours, and its righteousness, so that all other things may be added unto them. Loving you best, they shall love each other all the more. And faithful unto You, faithful unto each other they will remain.

May they not expect that perfection of each other that belongs alone to You. May they minimize each other’s weaknesses, be swift to praise and magnify each other’s strengths and beauty, and see each other through a lover’s kind and patient eyes. Give them a little something to forgive each day, that they may grow in the grace of long-suffering and love. And may they be forbearing with each other’s omissions and commissions as You are with theirs. Make such assignments to them according to Your will as will bless them and develop their character as they walk together. Give them enough tears to keep them tender, enough hurts to keep them humane, enough of failure to keep their hands clenched tightly in Yours, and enough success to make them sure they belong to You. May they never take each other’s love for granted, but always experience that breathless wonder that exclaims: “Out of all this world, you have chosen me!” Then when life is done, and the sun is setting, may they be found, then as now, still hand in hand, still so proud, thanking you so very much for each other. May they serve You happily, faithfully, together, until at least one shall lay the other in Your arms. This we ask through Jesus Christ, great lover of souls. Amen.

Jacob Wiesering writing in the left-of-center e-zine, Slate:

"Political analysts tend to overinterpret the results of isolated elections. But you can hardly read too much into Ned Lamont's defeat of Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Aug. 8 primary. This is a signal event that will have a huge and lasting negative impact on the Democratic Party. The result suggests that instead of capitalizing on the massive failures of the Bush administration, Democrats are poised to re-enact a version of the Vietnam-era drama that helped them lose five out six presidential elections between 1968 and the end of the Cold War."

BTW, here's a blogger who thinks that the red security alert following the foiling of the terrorist plot in the UK was designed by the Republicans to make the Democrats look weak on national security following Lamont's victory!

"And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror. And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty."

An interesting strategy here: defend the change that you're weak on national security by doubting a major national security breakthrough!

Mark Tooley writes in the Weekly Standard about Greg Boyd and his new book on the myth of America as a Christian nation. Here's the conclusion:

"Will evangelicals hearken to the separatist, neo-Anabaptist mindset that Boyd espouses, as transmitted through Yoder and Hauerwas? It seems unlikely, but Yoder and Hauerwas are popular in many evangelical seminaries. For evangelicals uninspired by the traditional Religious Right, the Yoder-Hauerwas model seems to offer an alternative, without succumbing to theological liberalism. Expect to hear more from such disciples as Rev. Boyd."

Here's a word I need to hear from John Piper.

Doug Wilson has a very thoughtful review of James K.A. Smith's Whose Afraid of Postmodernism?

(My subject line is not a typo--you'll have to read the review to find out why.)

The manuscript (and the audio) of John Piper's sermon on justification, delivered this past Sunday upon his return from Cambridge, is now available online. An excerpt:

"Do you see why I would spend weeks of my sabbatical laboring to understand why so many teachers in the church today are replacing the righteousness that Christ has in himself with the righteousness that Christ creates in us as the basis for our justification? People who trust in the righteousness that God has worked in them for the basis of their acceptance and acquittal and justification do not go down to their house justified. People who really believe that the righteousness that God helps them do in this life is a sufficient basis for their justification, Jesus says, will not be justified. Bethlehem, this is serious. We are not justified by the righteousness that Christ works in us, but by the righteousness that Christ is for us."

This September Yale University Press will publish Jonathan Edwards's The Blank Bible. Here's a description:

"In 1730, Jonathan Edwards acquired a book-like, leather-bound manuscript containing an interleaved printed edition of the King James Version of the Bible. Over the next three decades, Edwards proceeded to write in the manuscript more than five thousand notes and entries relating to biblical texts (though paradoxically he called the manuscript his 'Blank Bible'). Only a fraction of the entries has ever been published. This volume presents a complete edition of the 'Blank Bible' accompanied by an informative introduction, multiple appendices, and an extensive index."

It's $200. While I admit I'm not yet ready to fork over that amount of cash for this volume, the question should be asked: How much money would you pay if someone offered you an unlimited pass which allowed you to peer over Jonathan Edwards's shoulder as he made notes in his Bible?

Tom Schreiner has a helpful article on Preaching and Biblical Theology in the latest Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.

Here is his conclusion, which is a good summary of his article:

"Our task as preachers is to proclaim the whole counsel of God. We will not fulfill our calling if as preachers we fail to do biblical theology. We may get many compliments from our people for our moral lessons and our illustrations, but we are not faithfully serving our congregations if they do not understand how the whole of scripture points to Christ, and if they do not gain a better understanding from us of the storyline of the Bible. May God help us to be faithful teachers and preachers, so that every person under our charge will be presented perfect in Christ."

And here's a summary of the way in which Schreiner calls upon preachers to take up the task of preaching that is informed by "antecedent theology" and "canonical theology":

"The first task of every interpreter is to read the OT in its own right, discerning the meaning of the biblical author when it was written. Further, as we argued above, each OT book must be read in light of its antecedent theology, so that the storyline of scripture is grasped. But we also must read all of scripture canonically, so that the OT is read in light of the whole story—the fulfi llment that has come in Jesus Christ. We always consider the perspective of the whole, of the divine author in doing biblical theology and in the preaching of God’s word. We read the scriptures both from front to back and back to front. We always consider the developing story as well as the end of the story."

Read the whole thing.

(HT: Jim Hamilton)

Mars Hill, the audio journal run by Ken Myers containing thoughtful worldview interviews, is now available on podcast.

(HT: Russell Moore)

Spencer Burke (of the Emergent The Ooze website) is a heretic, a universalist, a panentheist, denies the Trinity, and gives no evidence in his recent book of believing in the gospel as the NT defines "gospel."

Those aren't the conclusions of a fightin' fundie critic of All Things Emergent. They are the careful, sober conclusions of Professor Scot McKnight, who is very sympathetic to the movement and has done much to promote it. Here is the relevant extract from Scot's latest post:

I’d really like to know what you think of these ideas, and at one time I was going to end this series with your evaluations of Spencer’s ideas. But, I have a responsibility before God to be faithful to the gospel, so I have to say the following — and I don’t do so with anything but sadness.

The emerging movement is proud of creating a safe environment for people to think and to express their doubts. Partly because of what I do for a living (teach college students), I am sympathetic to the need for such safe environments. But, having said that, the emerging movement has also been criticized over and over for not having any boundaries. Frankly, some of the criticism is justified. I want to express my dismay today over what I think is crossing the boundaries. I will have to be frank; but I have to be fair. Here’s how I see this book’s theology as a Christian theologian. The more I ponder what Spencer does in this book, the more direct I have become — be glad I don’t have any more posts about this book.

Is Spencer a “heretic”? He says he is, and I see no reason to think he believes in the Trinity from reading this book. That’s what heresy means to me. Denial of God’s personhood flies in the face of everything orthodox. To say that you believe in the creedal view of God as Father, Son, and Spirit and deny “person” is to deny the Trinitarian concept of God.

Is Spencer a “Christian”? He says he is. What is a Christian? Is it not one who finds redemption through faith in Christ, the one who died and who was raised? If so, I see nothing in this book that makes me think that God’s grace comes to us through the death and resurrection of Christ. Grace seems to be what each person is “born into” in Spencer’s theses in this book. That means that I see no reason in this book to think Spencer believes in the gospel as the NT defines gospel (grace as the gift of God through Christ by faith).

I must say this: Spencer told me on the phone that he thinks all are included in God’s grace from the start solely because of Jesus’ death and resurrection; why not write that in this book?

Spencer, you’re a good guy. But I have to say this to you: Go back to church. Go back to the gospel of Jesus — crucified and raised. Let the whole Bible shape all of your theology. Listen to your critics. Integrate a robust Christology, a robust death-and-resurrection gospel, and a full Trinitarian theology back into your guide to eternity.

It will be interesting to see if there are similiar reactions from other prominent Emergent proponents. When I had lunch last year with a couple of high-profile leaders within the movement, this very issue--Burke's questioning the personhood of God--came up in an offhand way. It was just cited as one of the things people in the emerging "conversation" are wrestling with. So the question must be asked of the Emergent Village leaders: what would someone have to deny in order to make them outside the bounds of legitimate conversation? Are there any boundaries at all?

Jonathan Dodsen, writing on Accountability Groups in the latest Journal for Biblical Counseling, observes that many evangelicals practice a distorted, hollow, legalistic approach to accountability: "First, we short-circuit our relationship with the Trinity; we don’t trust our Father; we sell out the Son’s sacrifice, and we slight the Spirit. Second, in addition to trivializing the Trinity, we settle for the fleeting pleasure of peer approval or cheap peace when we could have 'pleasures forevermore' in our relationship with God (Ps. 16.11). Third, we displace Christ from our Christianity by either relying on our rituals or the fear of man to motivate holiness. By sidestepping Jesus, we dishonor God and demean His gracious provision."

To "avoid the confessional booth mentality and legalistic accountability," Dodsen suggests two essential remedies: first, taking the Scriptural warnings seriously (Heb. 12:14); and second, remembering and heeding the powerful and precious promises of God (2 Pet. 1:4).

Drawing upon the writings of John Owen (esp. Mortification and Temptation), Dodsen then delineates three principles for accountability groups:

1. Identification: Know thy Sin.
2. Mortification: Be killing sin lest it be killing you.
3. Sanctification: Set thy faith on His promises.

He then shares the ways in which his own accountability group has sought to apply these principles in their interaction together:

• We aim to diligently identify sinful patterns in our lives and share them with one another.
• We pray for one another about these weaknesses and ask one another each week if we are
• struggling well.
• We suggest promises to one another that are related to a particular battle.
• We plead with God for earnestness in our pursuit of personal holiness, which is fostered
• by a shared commitment to the mortification of sin.
• In all of this we strive to be governed and guided by grace.

Read the whole thing.

Mark Driscoll blogs about the upcoming Desiring God National Conference.

I'm honored to be leading the two speaker panels this year. The first session will be with Piper, Keller, and Driscoll. The other second will consist of Piper, Wells, Baucham, and Carson.

Feel free to submit questions that you'd like me to consider asking.

From a prayer by Herman Witsius (1636-1708), included at the end of his address on "On the Character of a True Theologian":

“O God, who art the teacher and giver of all wisdom, be Thou present, by Thy Spirit, with us as we engage, yea, that we may engage together in these [seminary] studies. Open Thou our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. May Thy Holy Scriptures be our pure delight; may we neither be deceived in reading them, nor handle them deceitfully. Sanctify us through Thy truth; Thy word is truth. Preserve, defend, enlarge this seminary, consecrated to Thy glory. Let envy, strifes, divisions, heresies be forever at a distance. May orthodoxy prevail, may piety flourish, let mercy and truth meet together, let righteousness and peace kiss each other. Our beloved country, rescued by Thy wonder-working right hand from so many evils, do Thou preserve in safety and peace. . . .
And after our days in this life have been spent in prolonged felicity, do Thou at last transfer us, with all thine elect, to heaven itself. This is the sum of our prayers, this is the sum of our hope. Hear and accept us, O Triune Jehovah! Amen.”

And here is a prayer for seminaries by John Piper. He prays . . .


Have you prayed for the seminaries today?