The Gospel Coalition

Christianity Today’s Book Awards for 2007

Scot McKnight lists his top ten books on teaching.

Paula Abdul breaks her nose in dog mishap. Need I say anything else to get you to click on this story?

My preaching professor, Hershael York, breaks a long blog-silence and throws some punches at other bloggers.

Timmy Brister asks: A New Emphasis for a New Breed of Evangelicals?

Two children’s storybooks that ground Bible stories in theology.

The attitude is all too common in Christian circles: “Just because I love him doesn’t mean I have to like him.” Usually, we use the phrase to justify our present relationships when confronted with Jesus’ unapologetic command to love even our enemies. We’re instructed to bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us, do good to those who hurt us.

Loving our enemies is a message just as hard to swallow today as it was 2000 years ago – and that’s why we try desperately to soften it.To accomplish this aim, we employ the “I don’t have to like him” argument as a cop-out, desperately seeking to evade Jesus’ hard teaching on selfless love. Most of the time, those who use the phrase don’t really even love the person in question. “Oh no!” we protest. “I do love my cousin, but I can’t come to like him, because his actions are intolerable.” Oh really? Maybe we haven’t learned the true meaning of “love,” or even “like” for that matter.

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My dialogue with Brian, a Roman Catholic, continues. Check out previous posts in this series.

Conversations with a Catholic 1: The Church
Conversations with a Catholic 2: Tradition
Conversations with a Catholic 3: Glasses

Brian’s Letter

…picking up where we left off… Of course I can learn from the Baptist tradition. You’ve got to understand that Montgomery is a piddly 4% Catholic and is waaaaaaaaay predominantly Baptist. Many of my best friends are Baptist, and I can only but hope to approximate the piety with which they live their lives. They are powerful witnesses. And yes, obviously I read scriptures through RCC glasses, and I can say, like a convert friend of mine says… “they are the original pair… 2000 years old.”

So, continuing the “glasses” discussion, I never said patristic writings are on the same level of scripture. I merely state that those writings as historic documents tell us what the Church was like immediately following the death of the last apostle and for the next few centuries after that.

The challenge is for the Protestant to produce one writing from the first thousand years, or even the first 1500 years, of Christendom which states the Jesus spoke only symbolically about communion in John 6, or that Baptism is only symbolic, or that statues were a forbidden as idolatrous.
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I have long been a John Grisham fan. My personal favorite is his first book, A Time to Kill, later adapted into a successful film. Some of Grisham’s books are heavily influenced by Christianity. The Testament and The Last Juror come to mind. The Chamber is John Grisham’s best-selling book – ever. And for good reason. From beginning to end, it is an engrossing read. The reader flies through the 600+ pages, as Grisham paints a picture of a family wrecked by the sinful racism of the father.

The Chamber tells about a fictional character named Sam Cayhall, condemned to the gas chamber because of a crime he committed in the late 1960′s against a Jewish lawyer. Cayhall was an accomplice in setting a bomb that destroyed the lawyer’s office and unintentionally killed the lawyer’s two twin boys. With just a month before his execution date, Cayhall’s grandson, a fresh, young lawyer named Adam Hall, arrives on the scene to save the day.

The Chamber forces the reader to wrestle with the idea of the death penalty. Thankfully, Grisham does not make Cayhall out to be a victim. The crimes are described in horrific detail, and we later discover that Cayhall was guilty of even more egregious sins than the one for which the government wants to execute him.

As the characters remember past events, the picture of sin and its consequences becomes more and more disturbing. Cayhall’s son commits suicide. The Jewish lawyer whose sons were killed in the bombing is paralyzed and later kills himself. Cayhall’s daughter becomes an alcoholic and spends significant time in rehab. While the father shows no remorse for his actions, the children suffer under unbearable guilt and shame. I have never read a book that so clearly demonstrates how God visits the iniquity of the fathers to the next generations.

But there is redemption here, too. As the book progresses, Cayhall’s defenses begin to fall. He becomes repentant. He looks forward to his visits with a young minister. He affirms the Apostle’s Creed and places his faith in God. By the end, he is ready to face death and to meet his Maker.

I heartily recommend The Chamber for its picture of sin and the destructive force it leaves in its wake, but also for the redemption that can come to even the most hardened criminal.

If you skip the book and decide to rent the movie, be aware. The movie isn’t half as good as the book. (I know everyone always says this, but trust me on this one.) The redemption scenes are absent from the movie, as well as the minister’s role. The consequences of sin are minimized. The directors added action to the movie that is not found in the book, and this makes the movie much less compelling.

written by Trevin Wax. © 2007 Kingdom People Blog

“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

God is jealous. He demands loyalty. He is the only one worthy of our attention and worship.

 We were made to worship. If we’re not worshipping the one true God, we’re worshipping a god made in our image. It might be something we love, like sports or recreation or entertainment. It might be our own name and fame. It might be Sex or Money. It might be success in our career. There are plenty of “gods” competing for our attention.

We need to realize that we become like what we worship.
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“And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.”
- Jesus, to the messengers sent by John the Baptist (Matthew 11:6)

In prison, John the Baptist began to have certain questions about Jesus’ claim to be Messiah. Although he had earlier proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God, he now began to wonder if Jesus truly was the One all Israel had been waiting for. After all, Jesus’ way of life differed greatly from John’s aesthetic existence in the desert. Jesus told John’s disciples to report back to Him all the signs that were backing up His claims.

Sometimes, when followers of Jesus discover His teaching to be too difficult, they either refuse to keep following Him or they remodel His teaching to fit their own lifestyles. They either throw a blanket over the portrait of Jesus in the Scriptures, or they reshape it until they see their own reflection – a Jesus made in their own image.
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Compassionate Lord,
   I praise you continually for permission to approach your throne of grace,
   and to spread my needs and desires before you.
I am not worthy of your blessings and mercies for I am unrighteous.
My depraved nature reveals itself in disobedience and rebellion;
   my early days discovered in me discontent, pride, envy, revenge.
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“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

- D.A. Carson

I have been corresponding with a Roman Catholic regarding the differences between our theological traditions. See previous posts here and here. 

Brian’s Letter

Trevin,

You don’t see liturgy, hierarchy, and sacraments in the NT because you read the NT through Baptist glasses. Plus, folks seeking to “find the church of the upper room” are looking for the infant church, rather than the church which has matured in understanding through the centuries. The early creeds, doctrine of the Trinity, canon of scriptures are examples of a matured understanding which occurred centuries after the upper room and which aren’t explicitly explained in scriptures. These truths are as true today as they were in the centuries in which they were formalized as well as in the time of the upper room. Yet, it took some time to hash them out.
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Cal Thomas on Jerry Falwell’s legacy and the tension between the two kingdoms.

Gregg Allison, my Systematic Theology professor at Southern, writes about Beckwith’s return to Rome, and what this means for evangelicals who believe Scripture is our sole authority.

Tony Kummer on setting some good boundaries for blogging.

Four mistakes John Piper hopes you don’t make.

A brief, interesting history of Tim Challies’ popular blog.

Whoever said atheists don’t believe in the rapture? Here’s one who has set up a post-rapture postal service.

Top Post this week at Kingdom People: Are We Still Bound by the Ten Commandments?