The Gospel Coalition

O Father, make known to us the glory of your Son!
O Spirit, shine the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ Jesus into our hearts!
Blind us to all but him.
Captivate us with his splendor,
that we, like Moses, might say not to the passing pleasures of sin.
Help us to rest in Christ alone
as the treasure greater than all earthly rewards.

- Sam Storms, The Hope of Glory: 100 Daily Meditations on Colossians

Worth repeating…

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly.

“Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship.

“Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.

“Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

- Soren Kierkegaard

The Advance09 conference “Resurgence of the Local Church” is coming this summer. Looks like a great line-up!

Tony Kummer is at it again. This time, he has created a blog aggregator for Christian devotions. Check it out.

Zach Nielsen interviews Scott Klusendorf, author of The Case for Life.

Pharisees with fauxhawks

A word to bloggers: what if God read your posts?

Congratulations to my friend, Tullian Tchividjian, the new pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (which will be merging with New City Church). Here Tullian writes about the church’s continual need for the gospel. I look forward to seeing how God uses this union of two churches under the leadership of Tullian in the coming years.

John Piper says to never let the gospel get smaller in your heart!

Scot McKnight is blogging through a recent book on ancient heresies.

Al Mohler responds to Time‘s list of 10 ideas changing the world in 2009.

David Gushee challenges President Obama to give centrist evangelicals more than lip service.

Top Post this Week at Kingdom People: How to be a reader when you can’t afford books…

Mark Driscoll thinks the cross is the answer to your problem. That’s right. Whatever your problem, the cross provides the answer.

In Death by Love: Letters from the Cross (Crossway, 2008), Driscoll describes the cross as a multi-faceted jewel that needs to be appreciated in all its biblical glory. He refuses to pit one theory of the atonement against another, instead insisting that the proper view of the cross will lead to proper pastoral application of each theory.

“Most poor teaching about the cross results from someone’s denying one of these facets, ignoring one of these facets, or overemphasizing one of these facets at the expense of others, often due to an overreaction to someone else’s overreaction. Such narrow and reactionary theology has tragically caused the beauty of the cross to become obscured by the various warring teams that have risen up to argue for their systematic theology rather than bowing down in humble worship of the crucified Jesus.” (10)

Driscoll may be committed to letting all of the atonement theories have their place, but he remains staunchly committed to the traditional substituationary view. He takes on the recent critics of the substitutionary view:

“Such critics are also commonly known to be the most vocal of hypocrites, simultaneously demanding justice on the earth for the poor, oppressed, and abused, while denying God the same kind of justice that is due him by those people that he created to glorify him with sinless obedience.” (22)

One might say that Driscoll sees substitution as the central theory, around which all the other theories find their ultimate meaning and strongest application.

Strengths

Death by Love contains powerful imagery. You cannot read the accounts of sin and its consequences without feeling a sense of holy rage and holy sadness. Driscoll does not tone down his talk about evil. He describes it in gut-wrenching detail.

Another strength of Death by Love is the nature of Driscoll’s pastoral insights. He is able to apply the atonement practically without neglecting the powerful theological content necessary to do the job. Who would have thought that a book on the cross for a popular level audience would include a chapter on Driscoll’s view of “unlimited limited atonement”? Even more, who would have expected a chapter like this to be so practical (and convicting)?

I was glad to see that Driscoll did not argue for merely one atonement theory at the expense of the others. The different motifs are weaved into most of the letters. The chapter on reconciliation, for example, overlaps with the Christus Victor theme. The reason for such overlap comes from Driscoll’s commitment to explaining the atonement biblically instead of forcing artificial distinctions upon the atonement theories.

This commitment to the beauty of each aspect of the atonement gives Death by Love a depth sadly missing from many evangelical books on the cross. For example, when Driscoll tells someone to forgive his dad who beat him mercilessly, he is able to ground the appeal to forgiveness in the cross itself. This makes his instruction much richer and deeper than just telling the man to “forgive.”

Weaknesses

At times, Driscoll describes Jesus’ crucifixion in gruesome detail that rivals Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. This kind of detail can be useful in preaching, especially due to our tendency to sanitize what happened at Calvary. Still, I cannot help but ask why (if such detail is necessary) the Gospels avoid such gruesome depictions. Breshears rightly points out that “fascination with blood itself has no resonance with the Bible,” (85) which makes me wonder why Driscoll describes the bloody cross in so much detail in many of his letters.

Readers may grow weary at times of the repetition in these letters. Since each chapter is a letter from Driscoll to a specific individual, the chapters tend to repeat previous themes again and again. The letter-format explains why this is the case, but the average reader might grow weary of the repetition.

The other weakness of the book is the absence of the Church. Of course, it could be said that the book contains Driscoll’s letters to individuals. True. But where is the biblical emphasis on Jesus dying to create a church, breaking down barriers between Jew and Gentile in order to form a worldwide community of believers from every tribe and tongue and nation? I expected this theme to come up in the chapter on reconciliation, but it did not.

Perhaps a chapter called “Jesus is my Church Membership” could have been written to the scores of young people today who see the believing community as an optional aspect of the Christian faith instead of one of the central reasons why Christ died.

Overall, Death by Love: Letters from the Cross  is a solid book that ably demonstrates the power of Jesus’ Passion for everyday life. Pastors and laypeople alike will benefit from the cross-centered counseling that fills these “letters.”

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

In 2001, with my first year of Romanian mission work behind me, I returned home for the summer to discover that my youth group friends had disappeared from the church. Only a small handful of the group was now in the college class. The more I tried to connect with old friends, the more I realized that though many were still in town, most of them were no longer in church anywhere.

Apparently, the problem I noticed in 2001 has only grown. Many churches today are waking up to the fact that a generation of young people is missing from the church. The twenty-something crowd has largely disappeared, and most churches know neither why they have left nor what they can do to get them back.

The statistics show that two-thirds of churchgoing young adults drop out between the ages of 18 and 22.  These numbers serve as an indictment against the methods and training common to most children and youth ministries. The numbers also indicate an abdication of responsibility on the part of parents to raise their children to value the church.

This sad phenomenon is described in detail in Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts(Broadman & Holman, 2008) by Thom and Sam Rainer. In Essential Church, the Rainers (father and son) tell us the reasons young people give for leaving church and what the church must do to win them back.

In the first part of the book, the authors show why young people leave what they call the “nonessential church.” In the second part, they show four qualities present in churches that retain their young people through the college years.

I appreciate the way in which Thom and Sam Rainer can share stastics and give advice without emphasizing formulas over substance. Again and again, they say that theirs is not a formula for “success.” Instead, they are seeking to steer churches back to orthodox practice and teaching.

Here is what they’ve discovered: churches that retain young people tend to have simple structures, deep and challenging biblical teaching, an attitude that expects commitment from young people, and an outward focus that leads to evangelism and missions. In other words, churches that function biblically do better at keeping their members. (Surprise!)

Essential Church will encourage healthy conversation about what it means for the church to be the church. It represents a call for the church to return to Scripture rather than outdated methods and formulas for success. And maybe a book like this can help churches stop the mass exodus of young people from their congregation.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

In recent months, I have come to realize that this blog is frequented by readers who appreciate my book reviews and author-interviews. This recent development of Kingdom People into a forum on books and ideas began back in 2007 when I first set a goal of reading and reviewing 100 books a year. 

I realize that it can be discouraging for some to accept my challenge of reading 100 books a year when book costs can be prohibitive. 

I remember well my days as a full-time student in seminary (also working three part-time jobs and trying to be full-time husband and dad). It was difficult to steal away a few precious moments of time to read.

But even more difficult than finding time to read was finding money to buy books! It took all the spare cash I had to buy the books required for school. Looking at the new books at the seminary’s LifeWay, I sometimes thought to myself: If someone were willing to donate to me all of the books I really want to read, I’d write a 5-page review of each one – just to show them their money didn’t go to waste!

In some ways, that wish has come true. I now receive new books from publishers. The books that come from publishers then turn into lots of book reviews on the blog. I also have a book allowance as part of my salary that allows me to purchase books I might otherwise not think of reading.

But I understand the dilemma that many of my readers have: you want to read more, but you can’t afford the books. I’ve been there. Yes, cost can be very prohibitive.

Here are a few suggestions for how to be a reader when you can’t afford books:

1. Read good book reviews.

There is nothing more frustrating then spending your precious few dollars on a book that winds up being a disappointment. The more book reviews you read, the better you will understand which books are worth picking up.

Book reviews also give you information about the theological conversations taking place in the book world. Check out Discerning Reader. Or the book reviews in the back of Theology Journals. Most of them are now online. Look at the reviews from scholars regarding new releases. Read author-interviews and book excerpts so you can find out “in a nutshell” what different authors are trying to say. When you don’t have the time or money to read a book, find a book review instead.

2. Read your favorite books again.

That’s right. Take the books you already have and give them a second go. Not all of them, of course. But the good ones… the ones you remember well. 

Reading the same book twice is never the same experience. I remember reading a book when it first came out and liking it a lot. Then, I remember reading it again a couple of years later and being horrified at the lack of discernment I’d had the first time. 

Some books that you love the first time will leave you dry the second time. Other books that seemed too deep or uninviting the first time may be just what you need the second time. So be a good steward of the books you already have. Read them again!

3. Beg, steal and borrow. (Actually, just beg and borrow.)

Borrow books from family and friends. I was home for a few days around Thanksgiving and saw that my dad had just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers: The Story of Success. I took it home and read it in a few hours. 

My dad is a history lover too. So he is my resource for biographies and and books about American history. I don’t need to buy a lot of books in that field. Dad always finds really interesting titles and then passes them along to me.

Theology-lovers: ask your pastor what he is reading. See what he recommends. Find friends and family that read and then rely on them to “feed” you books!

The best thing about borrowing? You can ask the person if the book is worth your time and attention. So you not only get to borrow books – you get a screener this way too!

One caveat: make sure you return books you borrow. If you don’t, you won’t be borrowing many more.

Are you a beggar instead of a borrower? Then, I encourage you to keep your Amazon wish list active and up-to-date.

4. Go to the library.

Sounds crazy, I know. But you can find good titles (generally secular) at the library. If you have a seminary in town or a theological institution, get a library card and enjoy the books that are available.

5. Get used books cheap.

If you find some books you would like to buy, try to find them on Ebay or Amazon Marketplace. Used books are just as good as new books (for me anyway). Bestsellers from two or three years ago are often sold at ridiculously low prices online. You might have to spend a little time searching, but you will make up the difference in money. And sometimes you have more time than money!

6. Find classic books online.

GoogleBooks is incredible. There is no excuse for us today to not read the classics of Christian history. More and more books are being scanned and entered into Google’s database. The amount of knowledge available at the click of a mouse is simply breathtaking. Spend some time sorting through the books that have stood the test of time. And then enjoy the insights of those who now form the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on in the race.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

“Man, who made Me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
- Jesus, to a man in the crowd (Luke 12:14)

As Jesus taught the crowds about the kingdom of God, a man called out and asked Jesus to command his brother to divide his family’s inheritance with him.

The man surely thought himself correct regarding the family dispute, and knowing that Jesus held authority in the mind of his brother, he figured he would use Jesus to get his own way. The man wanted to end the estranged relationship he held with his brother by calling for Jesus to issue the final decree of division – proclaiming his point of view and thus winning the battle over the family’s money.

I fear that too often we act just like this man. We take minor and petty disagreements with our brothers and sisters in Christ and begin to see them as major differences. We narrow the definitions of faithfulness until we can congratulate ourselves on being the only ones who are on the right track.

Next comes the appeal to Scripture for going our own way. The double-edged sword intended to cut our own hearts gets turned into a sword we wield against others.

Finally, when we can come to no agreement with our brother or sister, we think it best to end the tumultuous relationship by calling Jesus to issue the final decree of division. Please, Lord! Just show them they’re wrong! Tell him to do what I say! Prove my point so I can separate justifiably from them!

But Christ refuses. In the passage above, instead of judging the man’s situation and family argument, Jesus boldly told him, “You get right! You watch yourself!”

Jesus refused to codify the division and bless the break in this man’s relationship with his brother. I suspect that he would do the same with us in our petty feuds. He does not divide those in his own kingdom, because a kingdom divided will not stand.

The way of Jesus indeed divides people – after all, only a few find the narrow path. But between those in Christ, Jesus brings reconciliation. Jesus wants to restore the relationship between us and our brothers, not provide justification for more division.

So let us confess our temptation to manipulate Jesus or the Scriptures in order to justify our divisions and instead begin living in the light of his marvelous gospel – the truth that reconciles us to God and to one another.

Lord, thicken our skin.
Not that we be less tender, but that we be less easily offended.
Take away our bent to self-pity.
Give us a passion for the truth that is stronger
than our inborn passion for being praised.

Forgive us, Father, for calling words unloving just because they were tough.
Forgive us for attributing malicious motives
to people when we don’t know their motives.
Help us to learn from Jesus
when to be tough and when to be tender.
Guard us from justifying merely human anger with the hard sayings of Jesus.
But don’t let us become so mushy that we can’t speak a firm word in season.

We marvel at the words of our Lord Jesus.
How unpredictable He was!
No one ever spoke like He did.
He is in a class by Himself.
We bow before Him and shut our mouths.
We are eager for Him to speak – and to speak any way He pleases.
We are the silent learners.
He is the sinless teacher.
We put our hands upon our mouths and take our place at His feet.

Do with us as You please, Father.
We are not Your judge, nor the judge of how Your Son speaks.
Have mercy on us – tough or tender – and lead us to Your everlasting joy.

In the name of Your Son, our Lord Jesus,
Amen.

- John Piper, from Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ

A church that understands the kingdom vision of success knows that success is not in our own hands. Our culture tells us that we are the makers of our future. We create our destiny. When this mindset is applied to the church, the Spirit’s role in bringing growth and maturity is minimized. The first subversion of the Caesar of Success is recognizing that only the Spirit’s power brings lasting fruit.

- a quote from my upcoming book, Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals