The Gospel Coalition

Here’s the gospel in a phrase. Because Christ died for us, those who trust in him may know that their guilt has been pardoned once and for all. What will we have to say before the bar of God’s judgment? Only one thing. Christ died in my place. That’s the gospel.

- Alistair Begg, from Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” said Dorothy upon her arrival in Oz. The scenery had changed; the landscape was colorful; the air felt different. Dorothy was right. Kansas was gone, and now she found herself in a new world filled with exciting (and scary) possibilities.

Like Dorothy, evangelicals are beginning to realize that we are no longer in familiar territory. We find ourselves in a new world – one often described as “postmodern.”

 But though most evangelicals agree that the scenery has changed and the philosophical landscape has been fundamentally altered, the definition of “postmodernism” remains unsettled. The prescriptions for evangelical engagement are often in direct opposition to one another.

Some would have us embrace the new postmodern world; others call us to resist. Philosopher Carl Raschke’s book, The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity, encourages evangelicals to embrace the new postmodern critique as a way of returning to the fundamental insights of the Protestant Reformation.

Professor David Wells’ book, Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World, challenges evangelicals to stand against the postmodern wave as a way of being faithful to the historic doctrines of the Protestant Reformation. Both men see a return to Reformation principles as necessary for survival in this new world, but they are at odds in their assessment of the good and bad in postmodern thought.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, I will set forth a brief summary of both Raschke and Wells’ books. Then, on Thursday, I will reflect upon the points of agreement and disagreement between the two authors and conclude with some brief suggestions regarding the way forward for ministry in a postmodern context.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

Lord Jesus,
I praise you for being my Shepherd
- the One who seeks me and finds me.

Thank you for bringing me back to the fold,
for causing me to repent,
for restoring my wayward soul.

When I am engulfed in the fast-flowing rivers of stress and temptation,
you are the Shepherd who leads me beside the quiet waters of rest.

Be my comfort during times of grief;
my hope during times of trouble;
my refuge in the dangerous storm.

As you shepherd me,
help me to shepherd others.
May your guiding hand lead me to others who need guildance.
Help me to bear the burdens of others;
Give me the ability to lead with patience and joy.

Your ways are everlasting and your purposes never fail.
Stir up in me a sense of anticipation,
that I may look forward to living in your house forever.
I long for your presence.
Amen.

- Trevin Wax

There are two kinds of Christians.

“Sink Christians” view salvation like they would a sink. The water of salvation flows into the sink so that Christians can soak up all the benefits: eternal life, assurance in the present, strength in times of trial. Those who adopt this mindset concentrate solely on what the Bible says God has done and will do for them.

“Faucet Christians” view salvation differently. They look at the world as the sink and themselves as the faucet. The blessings of salvation flow to them in order to flow through them out to the wider world. They rightly see that the Bible describes salvation as something that God not only does for them, but also through them.

- from Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals

Please read this interview with Sycloria Williams, a woman who went to the doctor for a late-term abortion and then delivered a live baby.

Williams said she stood against the wall, glancing in horror at her newborn baby. “She wasn’t moving much. Twitching, gasping for air. She wasn’t crying though, just hissing. Hissing sounds only.”

The sight of a fully formed baby was a complete surprise to Williams.

Gonzalez, the clinic’s owner, who has no health care licensing, came into the waiting room, cut the umbilical cord, and scooped Shanice’s body into a red biohazard bag, sealed it and tossed it into a trash can.

 … The police found the baby’s decomposing body in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic.

Read the whole interview.

And then read this post from Owen Strachan:

Let me say one more thing here: there is nothing worse than abortion. There are horrible sins in this world: lying, stealing, cheating, greed, systemic and individual acts of racism, and much, much more.

But there is nothing worse than abortion. It is the pinnacle of wickedness. It is the murder of the helpless, those who cannot even lift their head or move their arms to defend themselves. It is the scourge of American society; it is by a great distance the worst institutional sin of our country; it is a reality that demands judgment.

… And shame on people like myself who know of this evil, and others (racism great and small, greed, class injustice, etc), and do nothing, or next to nothing, about it and them. It’s not that we can singlehandedly overturn massive social sins like this one; we may very well not be able to. But we should fight much, much harder than we do, pray much, much longer than we do, and weep much, much more than we do for the least of us: the defenseless unborn.

Abortion is the worst sin we know. It is our scourge. It is not an option for Christians to fight it, as if we can pick from a fast-food menu of sins to fight. The very substance and nature of our faith in Christ, the guardian of the defenseless, demands that we fight abortion, in whatever way we can. I do not believe that this is an option for us as believers; it is by its very nature a mandate, an unavoidable responsibility.

Related Posts:
Can the Pro-Life Movement Succeed?
Being Pro-Life in a Culture of Death: An Interview with Russ Moore
Why We Are Pro-Life

I have been blessed by many readers wishing to take part in my Spring mission to Romania. We only lack $138 at this point. Click here for more information about how you can help.

Rural America is now a mission field.

Is good preaching on television even possible?

Can you have a theological core without being theologically crusty?

The first four episodes of Urban Glory’s podcast feature an extended interview with Johnny Hunt. (Scroll down.)

Nathan Finn on the Generation Gap in the SBC

Tony Kummer thinks Baptists should start praying like Bishops.

Beautiful pictures of Southern Seminary covered in snow

Top Post this week at Kingdom People: What You Need to Know about Success… and Don’t. Next week, we will be summarizing and critiquing two opposing evangelical views on how to deal with postmodernism.

Despite the warnings of some, I do not believe the Southern Baptist Convention (or conservative evangelicalism for that matter) is currently facing the threat of Hyper-Calvinism. When properly defined, Hyper-Calvinism denies the universal intent of God’s love and denies the free offer of the gospel. I have never met a Calvinist who fits this description.

But I do believe that the current Reformed Resurgence taking place among young evangelicals will probably spawn off some cases of Hyper-Calvinism over the next decade or so. This prediction is not made as a slight against my Calvinist brethren. Just as a resurgence of Arminianism may lead to the heresy of Open Theism, a resurgence of Calvinism can lead to its counter-heresy of Hyper-Calvinism as well.

Iain Murray’s Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching(Banner of Truth, 2002) is a short book that describes the great Charles Spurgeon’s battles with the Hyper-Calvinists of his day. While many Calvinists point to Spurgeon as a hero against Arminian theology, it is rare to see him held up as an example of avoiding the Hyper-Calvinist tendencies occasionally manifested among adherents to Calvinist theology. Murray’s book is a good pointer in the right direction. Read this from his introduction:

“While I know of no evidence that Hyper-Calvinism is recovering strength, it would appear that the priority which soul-winning had in Spurgeon’s ministry is not commonly seen to be our priority. The revival of doctrine has scarcely been matched by a revival of evangelism… Doctrine without usefulness is no prize.” (xiv)

Murray wants us to see the other side of Spurgeon. Not only his Calvinist convictions over against Arminianism, but his Calvinist convictions against the heresy of the Hyper-Calvinists of his day. I agree with Murray when he states the reasons why viewing Spurgeon in this light is necessary:

“Hyper-Calvinism only arises whenever and wherever the truth of the sovereignty of God in salvation is firmly believed. The reason why Spurgeon’s first controversy has been so little thought of in these last hundred years is not that the subject is insignificant. It is rather that doctrinal Christianity as a whole has been too largely ignored. At the present time, when evangelical Calvinism is again being recovered in many parts of the earth, the danger of Hyper-Calvinism is once more a possibility and the lessons to be drawn from this old controversy have again become relevant.” (40)

The central thrust of the attack against Spurgeon is his view of “duty-faith.” Spurgeon believed in calling sinners to repentance. The Hyper-Calvinists believed that “saving faith in Christ cannot be the duty of sinners, for if we exhort the dead in trespasses and sins to trust in Christ we are attributing a power to them which they do not have.” (58).

The main source of conflict for Spurgeon’s opponents is doctrinal. However, Murray’s account shows that a fair amount of politics and intrigue were involved as well. Spurgeon’s rising popularity did not endear him to many of the traditionalist churches in town.

Murray does not shy away from the harsh aspects of Hyper-Calvinism. He quotes one preacher as saying:

“I believe that God does hate some of you and that he always will! Do what you will he will hate you, whether you believe or not – whether you pray or not – whether you repent or not – God hates you and will hate you!” (63)

Spurgeon responds to this heretical twisting of Calvinism by turning to the Scriptures. He argues that gospel invitations are universal in their scope, that faith is demanded of all, that man is wholly responsible for his own sin, and that the character of God is love.

I strongly recommend that Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike read Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism. Perhaps it will help us keep the neo-Reformed movement from careening off track. It might even help Calvinists and non-Calvinists find some common ground, as they join hands in rejecting this heresy. Those who are now embracing Spurgeon’s Calvinist theology would do well to embrace his antipathy toward the Hyper-Calvinist error.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

Whenever we visit my parents around the holidays, we are excited to find bowls filled with Christmas candy in almost every room of the house. M&M’s here. Holiday Mints there. As soon as you come upon a stash, you can’t help but grab a handful.

Malcolm Gladwell’s books are like Christmas candy for me. Whenever I see a new one, I grab it and go. I knew Outliers: The Story of Success would be a good book, since I found Malcolm Gladwell’s previous two books: The Tipping Point and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking to be entertaining as well as informative. Gladwell has a knack for challenging conventional thinking by telling fascinating stories.

Outliers follows the same formula. Here, Gladwell challenges the conventional notion that success comes from being “self-made.” He shows how the rise of certain people to success is never a one-person affair. Culture, family, community, and hard work all contribute to one individual’s success.

I highly recommend that pastors, preachers and teachers read Malcolm Gladwell. You might think that a book like Outliers is a waste of time. Not so. The illustrations and stories here make for powerful sermon examples.

For example, consider the first chapter in Outliers - a story about the Roseto community. Gladwell shows how this unusual community had virtually no cases of heart disease among people below the age of 65. The doctors and scientists were stumped. No answer seemed to make sense of the data… until they realized that the community itself was acting as a sort of vaccine against heart attacks.

Now think of the ways a Christian teacher can use this material. What does the power of community teach us about the church? How does an example like the Roseto community help us as church leaders to emphasize the importance of community?

Gladwell also speaks of the ”10,000 hour rule”. Those who succeed are generally those who worked the hardest and longest. It is not talent or innate giftedness, but perseverance that ultimately counts in working up the ladder to success. And he uses the Beatles as proof! (No more details. I don’t want to spoil the story.)

Most fascinating to me was the chapter on plane crashes – particularly the Korean airlines that were deemed unsafe for a time because of the unwritten cultural rules of protocol that prevented first officers from questioning their superiors (the pilots). Gladwell peers into Korean culture, showing how the culture’s indirect speech was responsible for putting passengers in peril.

While I found the chapter on airlines fascinating, I wish Gladwell had countered with another chapter that shows how our American individualism/assertiveness can be just as dangerous in other circumstances. Some readers might jump to the conclusion that indirect-speech cultures are inferior to direct-speech cultures.

I encourage you to pick up Gladwell’s book(s). They are filled with fascinating details and stories. If you aren’t a teacher, pick up the book for enjoyment. If you are a teacher, don’t miss out on the opportunity to fill a file with powerful illustrations.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

UPDATE: As of Feb. 6, our goal of $500 has been reached.

Thanks to all who are joining us in this mission!

Picture this:

You are in the formerly-Communist country of Romania, in what was once an underground Bible college.

You have been invited to teach bright, young theology students preparing for pastoral ministry.

You have one week of intensive courses, in which you can open up the Scriptures and share what God has laid upon your heart.

Lord willing, I will have this opportunity in April of this year. I have been invited to teach at Emanuel University, my alma mater, and to preach in the Romanian churches I ministered in during my five-year stay in Romania.

While in Romania, I hope to present the contents of my forthcoming book, Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals. In order to present this material effectively (and to be able to teach fluently in Romanian), I will need to rely on a professional Christian translator who can translate the book for me before I get there. The cost of translation is $500.

I have never used this blog to ask for any sort of financial assistance before, but I believe the Lord is leading me to give my readers an opportunity to take part in this mission. If only 50 of my readers give $10 each, the cost would be covered.

If you would like to give to this project and help cover the cost of translating this book, you can give with PayPal (Click here). Or if you would like to send a check, please send me an email so I can email you my home address. Any additional funds raised will go to cover my travel expenses and airplane ticket.

It will be a blessing to return to Romania this Spring and know that many of the readers of this blog are taking part in the mission.

Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God,
Grant us the desire to do only what pleases you,
and the strength to do only what you command.
Cleanse our souls,
enlighten our minds,
and inflame our hearts with your Holy Spirit,
that we may follow in the footsteps of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

- Francis of Assisi