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Who Feels ___________

Steve McCoy — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:01:58 +0000

Sorry it's a blurry camera phone shot. It was hanging from the ceiling and moving. Elijah's (9) class all had poems where they filled in certain blanks (I suppose) and it makes up a sort-of poem. It's something only a kid would say, and I love it.

Free Stuff Fridays

Tim — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:01:06 +0000

I’ve got a new sponsor to introduce you to this morning—Kress Biblical Resources. Kress publishes books by quite a few different authors, many of whom are in one way or another connected to John MacArthur and The Master’s Seminary. “Kress Biblical Resources is setting a new standard in timely, clear, and doctrinally sound books and resources for pastors and Bible students. Our authors are approved workmen, not celebrities. Our books are designed to stand the test of exegesis, not chase after every new wind of doctrine.”

They are offering a total of ten prizes and each of the winners will be able to decide which prize package they would prefer. These packages come in two flavors:

Pastor & Teacher

The first prize package includes three books that are geared toward pastors and teachers. This includes:

The Pastoral Epistles for Pastors is a unique blend of exegesis and exposition. Its 624 pages include study of the Greek, and English text, application tools, expositional outlines, and annotated bibliography on the pastoral epistles.
In The Discipline of Mercy, pastors and counselors Eric Kress and Paul Tautges take us deep into the book of Lamentations where we are exhorted to place our hope fully in the faithful mercy and loyal love of a gracious God—no matter the extent of our suffering
God in Everyday Life combines a few of the varied elements and styles of different types of study aids into one resource, in order to facilitate the biblical exposition and application of the book of Ruth. This is an expositional commentary, along with tools to help apply the biblical text.

General Readers

The second prize package is geared toward general readers and includes three books targeted at the rest of us (and written by Greg Harris). This includes:

The Cup and the Glory takes the reader on a profound study through the Scriptures, uncovering biblical truths on how to respond to, and embrace suffering to the glory of God.
The Darkness and the Glory examines the cross from Christs perspective and provides a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the profound spiritual and theological realities of Calvaryrealities that transcend the physical, as the wrath of man was surpassed by both the wrath of Satan and ultimately the wrath of God.
In The Stone and the Glory, Greg Harris takes his readers on a profound journey through the Scriptures as they explore the glorious realities of the stone prophecies

Here is a video of John MacArthur discussing these books and their author:

Again, there will be a total of ten winners. Each winner will be given the option of choosing the General Reader package or the Pastor & Teacher package.

Giveaway Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Sponsor:

A La Carte (9/10)

Tim — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:10:15 +0000

Football season began yesterday. This is really the only time of the year that I miss having cable television. I know that I’m far better off not having it, but still, there’s something about football in the fall that calls to me. The only time I catch a game these days is when I happen to be traveling and can watch for an hour at the airport. And that’s just kind of sad.

What You Want in an Athlete - This is an interesting article. It discusses Tim Tebow who, though the third-string quarterback for the Broncos, is their most admired player. “There has really never been a player like this in the NFL. One whose every move appears to be so pure and without pretense that he is beloved by millions, many of whom wouldn’t call themselves sports fans. Yes, much of it is based on his Christian faith and his proud admission that as a star athlete he is still a virgin and also about the television commercial he filmed with his mother explaining why she did not abort him when it appeared that complications were life-threatening.”

Teen Texting Reaches Critical Mass - “It won’t come as a surprise to parents of teenagers, but a recent survey conducted by the free mobile text messaging app textPlus shows that teens not only are habitually text messaging with parents and friends in class, but most of them don’t even feel guilty about it.”

Have We Shared Too Much? - This infographic looks at the kind of information we give to many of the big companies like Google and Facebook.

Don’t Give Up on the Church - Randy Alcorn speaks to Christians who can’t stand the church.

If God be God, then no insoluble problem exists. And if God be my God, then no problem of mine is without its appropriate solution. —Maurice Roberts

Sponsor:

In Praise of the Generalist II: The Possibility and the Imperative (Carl Trueman)

Reformation21 Blog — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:58:32 +0000

In thinking about the importance of being a generalist, the first thing to understand is that it is, indeed, a possibility. This might seem to be something of a stretch in the current climate of hyper-specialisation and oceans of information that no man can possibly navigate, but I do believe that it is indeed possible to be a generalist.

First, I am of course talking about generalism in a fairly narrow sense, i.e., that which is useful in the minister, the elder, and anyone in any kind of position of responsibility in the church. Thus, despite certain claims to the effect that it is important for Christians to, say, be able to offer a Christian perspective on the movies of Martin Scorsese, the paintings of Miro, or the musical contribution of Miley Cyrus, I am not thinking of this kind of generalism, even though I would concede it is important for pastors and elders to have some knowledge of contemporary culture in order to anticipate the kind of questions which might arise in certain contexts (evolution being an obvious flavour of the month). Rather, my focus is on what we might call the catechetical aspects of the Faith or perhaps less pompously: the basics of Christianity.   In my experience, questions that touch on, say, how to understand the Bible relative to guidance, suffering etc. are always more common than questions on Scorsese. That narrows the field of appropriate generalism considerably; and, indeed, obtaining a simple catechism (the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Heidelberg, either of Luther's) will give you a good guide to the kind of things of which I am thinking. Considered in these terms, the possibility of being a generalist does not seem quite so far-fetched.

Second, I am assuming the truth of a number of basic confessional points. a. The Bible is perspicuous or clear, so that, while it may contain many obscure passages, and is also profound in a way that no finite mind can ever full comprehend its content, its basic message, the Gospel, is not rocket science and can be grasped by a small child; b. the Bible, for all of its diversity of genres, emphases, manners of expression, and human authorial viewpoints, ultimately has a single divine author who gives its overall message unity and coherence; c. reasonably accurate translation is possible, such that one who reads a good English Bible can get the guts of what is being said therein. I know that all three of these are highly contested in the wider world, but I am assuming at this point that I am not talking to the wider world but to those in the church who have accepted their basic validity. That the Bible's message is clear, coherent, and accessible even to those who do not have facility in Hebrew and Greek opens the possibility for being a generalist in the way I wish to commend.   Reject any of these three, and the power of specialist scholarly guilds becomes, in effect, unchallengeable.

If these two points (the narrowness of focus and the nature of God's revelation) make generalism a possibility, I believe the New Testament also makes it an imperative. Titus 1:8, for example, says that an elder should `hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.'   it is important to note, of course, that this is only one quality noted by Paul at this point: the others are all moral qualities, something of which we should not lose sight and which, if you like, indicate that the elder is to be that greatest of generalists in the broadest sense -- `an all round good bloke,' as the English would say.

This single doctrinal qualification, however, carries within it the demands for intellectual, theological breadth: the elder needs to know the word he has been taught. That implies a good knowledge of the biblical text and the tradition of interpretation of the text -- in turn implying a knowledge of history and how that word has come down to us. Then, the reference to sound doctrine implies a knowledge of the same and, one assumes, the ability to relate textual exegesis with doctrinal synthesis to contemporary application. A radical separation of the three, or exclusive specialisation in only one of them is not what is envisaged here. Rather it is a matter of a healthy generalism, a knowledge of the truth in its broadest sense, from biblical text to current pastoral context.

Such competence might be intimidating to the average elder. It should certainly be a challenge and something to be taken with the utmost seriousness, as with every other one of the qualities required in an elder; but as in such qualities, it is not beyond the realm of possibility.   What is being demanded is not absolute perfection of knowledge, any more than the requirement not to be greedy for gain implies that the elder must be sinless or immediately resign if he is ever tempted think a covetous thought; what is required is a credible, public competence in this area.   How one might go about developing such will be the subject of the third, and final, post in this series.

Audio talk: the risen Christ and Christian scholarship

Ben Myers — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:27:19 +0000

One of my recent conference papers is available in audio (27 minutes). The paper is titled "Discerning Christ in Contemporary Thought: The Christological Basis of Christian Scholarship". It was a conference on the Uniting Church's founding confession, the Basis of Union. I talked about the way Christ's resurrection shapes the way we think about the church, and about the scholarly vocation (and I tried to criticise both liberal and conservative approaches to theological scholarship). Here's an excerpt:

Scholarship is an exercise of obedience to Jesus Christ. It helps prepare the church for fresh words and deeds. Of course, we need not imagine that scholarship will always have an immediate impact on the church’s confession. But scholarship is nevertheless vital for the continuing life of the church. It is one of the places where the church exercises its muscle of discernment – a muscle that otherwise has an alarming tendency to atrophy. Or to change metaphors: when the church grows drowsy, scholarship diffuses its caffeinating influence, helping to keep us ready, watchful and alert. So when Christian scholars engage with contemporary thought, it’s not because the church needs protecting from the world, but because Christ is already in the world and he calls us to meet him there.

This is the second paper I've written this year on the Basis of Union (which I would really encourage you to read: it's a remarkable confessional text, deeply shaped by Barth, Bonhoeffer, and the Barmen Declaration). It really surprises me how much I've enjoyed these first excursions into "official" denominational theology, even though I'm always anxious to avoid this sort of thing in my classroom teaching. I'm already planning to do another couple of papers on the Basis of Union, hopefully one on scripture and another on church law.

Bruce Cockburn: “Burden of the Angel/Beast”

Robin Parry — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:30:00 +0000

Pascal on the Paradox of Humanity

Robin Parry — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:24:00 +0000

What sort of freak then is man! How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sink of doubt and error, the glory and refuse of the universe!

Blaise Pascal, Pensées. Trans. A. J. Krailsheimer. New York: Penguin, 1995, 34

If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray? (pt. 3)

R.C. Sproul — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Continued from If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray? (Part 2)

God’s “Natural” Laws

Others have questioned the efficacy of prayer from a more naturalistic consideration. They put forward the idea that we live in a world that operates according to fixed natural laws. It has been fashionable, in the past century or two, to think of God as merely the Architect and Creator of the universe, who set the universe in motion and decreed how it should operate, then stepped back and let it run without His direct involvement. This idea is almost like the Deist view that God made the world, just as a watchmaker makes a watch, then wound it up, so that it is now running by its own mechanism. He Himself makes no interruption, no interference, no intrusion into the plane of history.

That is not the God of Scripture. The sovereign God is the Lord of providence, who provides daily for His people and responds to their cries. The laws of the universe are not fixed, immutable, abstract, regulatory principles of inert nature. What we call laws simply refer to the ordinary and normal operations by which the sovereign God runs this planet. And that sovereign God is never at the mercy of His own creation. He is the sovereign God.

The fact that there are intricate mechanisms working in this world does not mean that God has to do an immediate miracle every time we pray for something. God is standing above the world and is orchestrating every molecule in that world, all of the so-called natural, normal, regulating causes. Therefore, God is able to answer prayer without in any way disrupting or interrupting the natural mechanism of the planet.

In fact, when we look at the miracles in the Bible, we see that some of them are wrought immediately—that is, without means, directly—while other miracles are wrought mediately—that is, by virtue of intermediary means. Think of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt through the Red Sea. What was miraculous about the parting of the waters of the Red Sea? It’s not miraculous for a great wind to blow; that happens all the time. It is certainly extraordinary, but not necessarily miraculous, for the wind to blow with such intensity that it creates a backwash of water in the sea. That has been known to happen without any sense of a miracle taking place. Yes, it was extraordinary, but it wasn’t necessarily miraculous.

What was miraculous about the parting of the Red Sea was that it happened on command. Moses held out his staff and the wind rose. The wind blows every day, but it doesn’t blow on my command. I can go to the seashore and command the wind to blow, and nothing will happen. Likewise, I can command the wind to cease on a blustery day, and again my words will have no impact whatsoever, but when the wind rose on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus said, “Peace, be still,” and the wind stopped (Mark 4:39). That was a miracle. But in the exodus we have means. We have water and we have wind. We have nature operating, but it is operating under the power of supernature, under the command of God in a crisis moment in the personal history of human beings. That’s what we mean by the special providential intervention of God to deliver His people. They prayed and God acted without breaking a law of nature. He can break the laws of nature if He needs to, but He doesn’t have to do so in order to answer our prayers.

To be continued...

*****

Excerpted from The Prayer of the Lord by R.C. Sproul.

Mission and Metropolis: The Church and the City

Albert Mohler — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:26:40 +0000

The human future is an urban future. In one of the greatest social shifts of all human history, over half of all living humans now inhabit cities. Driven by population shifts, immigration, and human reproduction, massive new cities are springing up all over the globe. Will the church rise to this challenge?

The answer to that question will largely determine the future of Christian missions. At the same time, this is not the first time that the Christian church has found itself faced with the challenge of the city. A quick look at the New Testament will reveal that first-century Christianity was, by and large, concentrated in the cities of the Roman Empire. These earliest churches were established in cities like Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, and, of course, both Jerusalem and Rome. The churches established in these strategic cities became the launching pads for missions and church planting.

Similarly, the Reformation of the church in the sixteenth century was an urban movement, emerging in the cities of Switzerland and Germany. The cities were host to the emerging universities of the Middle Ages and to the flowering culture of the Renaissance. The cities were where the Industrial Revolution happened and where churches pioneered new forms of ministry in the great nineteenth-century cities of London, Birmingham, Chicago, and New York.

But now, a new burst of metropolitan growth is transforming the global reality. The current issue of Foreign Policy, one of the most influential journals of global news and opinion, features a must-read collection of articles and research that documents this transformation. The Christian church had better pay close attention to this new and exploding global reality. Keep Reading

Preview a Great Selection of Resources Today for $5 Friday

Karisa Schlehr — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:45:00 +0000

Today's selection of resources for $5 Friday cover topics including Islam, election, Jonathan Edwards, God's will, suffering, and worldviews. Sale begins today at 8 a.m. and ends tomorrow at 8 a.m.

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