The Gospel Coalition

I’ve spent some time looking over the recently revised New International Version of Scripture. The online version has been available for two weeks now.

NIV readers who had philosophical misgivings about the TNIV (primarily because of its rendering of the text in a gender-neutral manner) will be happy to see that some of the more controversial revisions in the TNIV have been modified. Still, the NIV 2011 appears to retain its overall commitment to a gender-neutral translation philosophy.

I don’t want to use this space to get into a debate about the merits of gender-neutral translations. I’ve read through the TNIV on several occasions. I’m a big fan of The Bible Experience as a way of listening to the Bible being read (or better said, “performed”). In seminary, I was required to read books on both sides of the discussion. Good brothers (or should I say, brothers and sisters?) may disagree sharply about translation philosophy. Yet surely we can agree that a person’s conviction on this matter should not cause us to look upon one another with scorn.

The problem I see with the NIV 2011 is that the publisher (Zondervan) seems to be putting churches and church leaders in a position where they are forced to make a choice. A few years ago, upon considering the resistance from some evangelicals toward the TNIV, Zondervan assured Bible-readers that the 1984 NIV would remain available. But no such assurance is given now. In fact, the publisher has expressly indicated the desire for the NIV 2011 to replace both the original NIV and the TNIV.

Though many evangelicals have gravitated toward other translations (such as the English Standard Version or the Holman Christian Standard Bible), most evangelical churches continue to use the 1984 NIV as their common text. NIV Bibles occupy the pews in thousands of churches, giving it the prominence of being a kind of “default” contemporary translation.

But the widespread use of the NIV as a “standard” English translation will probably disappear. Why? Because this most recent revision (one that straddles the fence between dynamic and formal equivalence, between gender-neutral and gender-specific language) seals the translation philosophy for the NIV as it eventually replaces the 1984 version.

Many faithful NIV readers will not overlook the differences between the original NIV and this recent revision. I don’t foresee pastors and churches quickly updating all their literature and switching to the new NIV in the coming decade. Since the old NIV will eventually be out of print, pastors and churches will be forced to make a choice. Either make the move to the NIV 2011 or move to another translation altogether.

We live in a world of constant updates. The programs on my computer require me to update often. A trustworthy program in one decade may require an update installation in order to continue to function properly. But the Bible is not like a computer program. Translation updates are necessary, yes. But they must be done with great care. People read, study, and memorize the Scriptures. To force readers to update to a new version is counterproductive.

I am at a loss as to why the NIV 2011 will force the original NIV out of commission. Why not keep both in circulation? Goodness, we can still read translations like the King James which are hundreds of years old.

It’s ironic that the NIV 2011 revision is scheduled to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the King James Version, the most popular and most influential English translation of all time. Unfortunately, the launch of this new revision will have the opposite effect of the KJV. The King James Version united Bible readers around a common text. I’m afraid the NIV 2011 will speed up the growing fragmentation of evangelicals in regards to Bible translations.

Russ Pulliam’s take on Bush’s Decision Points is similar to my overall impression of the book:

George W. Bush is just normal, judging from his memoir Decision Points. He never aspired to save the planet like Al Gore. He doesn’t have a messiah bent like Barack Obama. He wanted to be president because he thought he could lead well and had a plan to offer.

Doug Wilson on the Third Amendment and the pornographic TSA scanners:

Incremental change follows incremental change.

Then one day you show up at the airport two hours early, in order to allow time for the long security lines, for the TSA porn scanner, and the opportunity to be groped by someone in a bus driver’s uniform. As you are winding your long way through that security line conga dance, opening bags, taking off belts, shucking off shoes, removing computers from their cases, and generally mooing along with the rest of the herd, answer me this.

Why are you doing all this? Why, to preserve your liberties! George Orwell, call your office. But then one day the lights come on in a bunch of minds at the same time, and there is a very edifying commotion at Gate D18.

Ed Stetzer comments on recent research from Barna regarding the little statistical change of pastors identifying as Reformed:

The fact that 7000 Calvinists can meet in Louisville, and many of those same Calvinists show up at many other conferences, does not make as big a dent in the 300,000+ churches in the United States. All that to say, I think there IS a resurgence of Calvinism (particularly within evangelicalism), but since it is younger, and a subset of a very large pool of pastors (for polling purposes), it is not evident via the research.

Notes on two books I’ve read recently:

The Land Between:
Finding God in Difficult Transitions
Jeff Manion (Zondervan)

Jeff Manion is no stranger to difficult transitions. He lost his mother at an early age and since then has walked with many others through painful trials.

In The Land Between, Manion invites readers to enter with him into the biblical narrative of the Israelites in the wilderness, a time of transition in which God used hardship (and their reaction to hardship) to form them into the people who would inherit the Promised Land.

The result is a helpful book that encourages us to trust God, to be honest with him in our prayers, and to refuse to succumb to bitterness and resentment.

The Passionate Intellect:
Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the Mind
Alister McGrath
IVP Books, August 2010

This book comprises lectures about developing the Christian mind as integral to living out the faith. At times McGrath writes autobiographically, recording his journey from bewilderment at human evil and suffering to his eventual embrace of Luther’s “theology of the cross.”

In the latter half, he responds to the New Atheism, putting on display the type of intellectual engagement he encouraged in the first half. Some may think him overly gracious to Darwin, but even so, McGrath’s attempt to show that science is not necessarily a foe to faith is admirable.

- These reviews first appeared in Christianity Today

Here’s a neat idea: using your FaceBook page as a prayer request wall for readers.

Coral Ridge is hosting “The Gospel-Centered Life” conference in January (with Michael Horton, J.D. Greear, and Tullian Tchividjian):

What makes the gospel Good News? Simply this: God has done everything he requires to reconcile sinners to himself. The aim of this conference is to help you see that the gospel is not merely what ignites the Christian life, but that it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going every day. Further, the gospel works concentrically – renewing individuals, churches, and eventually the whole world. Join us January 21-23, 2011 as we examine and explore the gospel for all of life and learn to more fully rest and rejoice in it!

Fast Company has released an infographic put together by Sam Harris, supposedly demonstrating all the places where the Bible contradicts itself. Justin Holcomb provides a helpful response:

The claim that the Bible is full of contradictions ignores the variety of genres of literature in the Bible.  Fundamentalists interpret religious texts in only one way—the literal way—and so does Project Reason. You can make up lots of supposed contradictions by interpreting this way. Not interpreting a text with the awareness of the genre lacks the basic principles of reading and interpretation.

Speaking of Fast Company, here is a lengthy story on the worldwide makeover of McDonald’s coming soon:

“People eat with their eyes first,” says president and COO Don Thompson. “If you have a restaurant that is appealing, contemporary, and relevant both from the street and interior, the food tastes better.” Next year, McDonald’s will launch its first total makeover campaign since the Carter administration, allocating $2.4 billion to redo at least 400 domestic outposts, refurbish 1,600 restaurants abroad, and build another 1,000.

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Sovereign Father, this promise brings me immeasurable peace, humility, and joy. You’re vitally engaged in determining and directing every one of our steps. You’re working all things together after the counsel of your will. You’re working in all things for your glory and for our good. You open doors no man can shut and you shut doors no man can open. Indeed, you’re no mere life coach, you’re the Lord of all things… including me.

Many years I labored under the arrogance and anxiety of assuming that if I prayed hard enough and long enough… that if I was really filled with and “tuned” into the Holy Spirit, I could know the specifics of your will for my life… well in advance of any decision that needed to be made. Of course, my assumption was that if I was in your will, life would be enjoyable, pleasant and hassle-free.

If I bought the right car, it would never break down…If I bought the right house, the roof would never leak… If I married the right person, we would never disagree… If I went to theright college I’d get the right job and life would be all-right... If I sent my kids to the rightschool, they would never act out and would end up on the mission field. If all of this was true, I wouldn’t really need you.

Father, you’re certainly honored when we work hard to make good plans, in keeping with our understanding of the Scriptures. It’s important for us to seek and heed, wise prayerful counsel of good and godly friends. But help us to live with more confidence that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, not a consulting partner… a very present Lord, not an absentee landlord… the reigning King, not an impotent bystander. Because of Jesus, I’m confident your will is being done… on earth as it is in heaven.

Free us to accept that many times your will leads to great suffering and pain. It’s called the cross. But the cross and resurrection go together. Hallelujah! What a most glorious and gracious Father you are. So very Amen, we pray, in Jesus’ exalted and very present name.

- Scotty Smith

A Christian can defeat himself in two ways: one is to forget the holiness of God and the fact that sin is sin. The Bible calls us to an ever deeper commitment in giving ourselves to Christ for him to produce his fruit through us.

The other is to allow himself to be worn out by Christians who turn Christianity into a romanticism. The realism of the Bible is that God does not excuse sin, but neither is he finished with us when he finds sin in us. And for this we should be thankful.

- Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

Links for your weekend reading:

1. Christian couple barred from fostering children because of their views on homosexuality

2. Cal Thomas: The Olbermann Factor

3. Start a revolt at the idol factory!

4. The passing of the Greatest Generation

5. Ancient Roman Toddlers: Doug Wilson on language-learning

6. A three-minute video that tells the history of Veteran’s Day. (I never knew that for a few years in the 70′s, it was held on the fourth Monday in October.)

7. What counts as plagiarism in a sermon?

“What might happen if the common meaning of the word righteousness was entirely misunderstood by a majority of Christians?” asks pastor Chris Seay. “The short answer: the church would have a different gospel and would be a missing a fundamental truth of the gospel according to Jesus.”

In The Gospel According to Jesus: A Faith that Restores All Things (Thomas Nelson, 2010), Seay (a church planter, pastor, and president of Ecclesia Bible Society) seeks to set the record straight, filling out our vision of “righteousness” with something more than simple rule-keeping and religious acts. “Real Christianity is about enjoying the show, which is the declaration of God’s kingdom in ways both large and small.” (12)

What is Christianity all about?

Why did Jesus come and die?

What is the mission of the church?

These are all questions that Seay addresses in The Gospel According to Jesus, although the question of how to understand “righteousness” remains at the forefront. Seay defines the word this way:

“The best simple translation of the word righteousness is ‘restorative justice.’ God is stepping into our brokenness and making things right, taking fragments shattered by sin and restoring them to fullness. The reality is that God is calling us to take part in his glory, which comes from heaven to earth, and to live in his abundance, together. Seeking his righteousness is about being an active agent for his restorative justice in all of creation.” (12)

The rest of this book is the outworking of Seay’s definition of righteousness. I nodded my head in agreement through much of the book, and yet many sections were perplexing and left me more confused than enlightened.

First, let’s look at some of the positive aspects of Seay’s work. Standing apart from some Emerging leaders, Seay makes it clear that a social gospel is not sufficient to save. The book contains several “conversations” with like-minded church leaders (Dan Kimball, Mark Batterson, Alan Hirsch, Shane Claiborne, etc.). In these conversations, mainline Protestantism is faulted for abandoning the centrality of Christ. Seay writes: “We want the kingdom, but we can’t live without the king.”

Seay also makes good qualifications when he espouses key moments in the Christian story. You won’t find any flirting with pantheism or panentheism in regards to creation. Neither does Seay waffle on the exclusivity of Jesus Christ for salvation.

When it comes to defining the gospel, Seay makes much of the importance of understanding the entire Christian story. In the span of several pages, he quotes D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, and Rick McKinley. Then, Seay offers his own definition of the good news:

“The gospel is the good news that God is calling out all people to be redeemed by the power residing in the life, death, and ultimate resurrection of Jesus the Liberating King. These ‘called-out ones’ are rescued from a life of slavery, sin, and failure to become emissaries in a new kingdom set to join the redemption of the entire creation, groaning and longing to be redeemed.” (49)

Though there is much to be commended in Seay’s work, I’m perplexed at a number of points.

The first is admittedly more stylistic than substantive. Seay quotes from The Voice, a recent translation of the New Testament. If you think The Message sounds colloquial, try The Voice sometime. The text sometimes sounds like it came from a group of 1970′s flower people preparing to join a hippie commune. Take Romans 1:11-12 for example:

“I desperately want to see you so that I can share some gift of the Spirit to strengthen you. Plus, I know that when we come together something beautiful will happen as we are encouraged by each other’s faith.”

Something beautiful will happen? Sounds like Paul might break out the guitar and sing “Kumbaya” at any moment! I admit that this is an issue I have with The Voice, not Seay’s book. I digress. Back to the book.

When it comes to the thesis of The Gospel According to Jesus, I am not sure that defining “righteousness” as “restorative justice” makes things any clearer for the average Christian. Over and over again, Seay tells us that righteousness is not about keeping the rules and being religious. But when he gets down to the nitty gritty of “restorative justice,” lots of rules show up, just on a grander scale. Seay says restorative justice is ”what we’re led to do: to repair what’s been broken and interrupt the patterns of injustice.” (84)

So righteousness is not so much about morality, which means that sin is not so much about breaking God’s holy Law. Seay writes:

“Sinning is not about doing bad things or forgetting to do good things; being sinful means that we are warped in a way that fractures all of our relationships.” (91)

This is a good way of getting across the fact that our sin problem is bigger than our individual sins. Indeed, we have a sinful nature. But to make sin merely the fracturing of all our relationships (I’m assuming that our relationship with God is included here) is reductionistic.

Seay rightly emphasizes how sin affects other people. The horizontal implications of our sin are on full display throughout his book. But there’s little here about how sin strikes at the heart of God or how sin is breaking God’s Law. In fact, in the prayer that follows his chapter on sin, Seay leads readers to ask for forgiveness for all the ways we have turned in on ourselves in selfishness (102). Sin is directed against ourselves and others. And though I expect that Seay would affirm that sin is directed personally toward God, he doesn’t give this truth the amount of space or attention it deserves.

Later, Seay directs our attention to Romans and the doctrine of justification by faith. Here is where I got confused. In this chapter, there are good quotes like:

• “A person can be justified by faith alone. There is nothing anyone can do to earn the freedom Jesus gifted.” (129)
• “If we properly understand justification, we could never take our salvation for granted or look down on another ‘wretch like me,’ no matter how ugly his or her sins might be to us.” (132)

Yet Seay brings together Martin Luther and N.T. Wright when expounding upon the meaning of justification, as if these two theologians are allies, when actually, their understandings of justification differ in several important places. Those of us who are familiar with the theologies of Wright and Luther can’t help but feel a certain dissonance when trying to understand Seay’s point. It’s as if he says: “Luther was right to say that the church rises or falls on a correct intepretation of justification by faith. So let’s turn now to N.T. Wright (who disagrees at major points with Luther on that interpretation) and see what justification is.”

Seay does affirm the personal nature of justification by faith. But he quickly moves to cosmic concerns:

“If the righteousness of God is intended to make things right on a cosmic level, then why is the world such a mess? Because the arm of God’s redemptive work is ignorant when it comes to justification and righteousness and thus, in Luther’s words, the church is falling.” (135)

In other words, the world is a messed up place because the church hasn’t properly understood justification. Seay then provides a litany of present world evils as a demonstration of how the church is failing to engage the world properly. He goes further:

“We seem to be attempting to define Christianity in a way that feels manageable – keep the rules, go to church, do the right thing – but the cosmic work of God is so much bigger and more beautiful than that.” (139)

Like, saving the planet? Don’t get me wrong. I think the church should be involved in all sorts of activities that relieve human suffering – both temporal and eternal. But is the mission of the church, specifically, to resolve world hunger? To provide drinking water for villages in Africa? To pull people out of poverty here at home? Seay seems to think so:

“The narrow path will require us to join God in his redemptive work to restore the world and return it to its rightful state: paradise, heaven on earth, the kingdom of God, the reign of King Jesus. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but this path calls the church to be the unified body that manifests the presence of Christ as we redeem, forgive, heal, wash the feet of, die for, and serve the world.” (125)

So the doctrine of justification, which is intended to be liberating, begins to sound like more Law, only the laws are different than the religious rules we grew up with in Sunday School. It’s here that Alan Hirsch (one of the conversation partners in the book) pushes back a bit. He says:

“I do worry that an over-balance form the idea of justification as ‘gift’ to justification as ‘demand,’ because if we simply translate righteousness as justice of God, then is not exactly good news for us, because we all patently fall well short of God’s demands. It becomes another thing that is required from us, and it calls forth another form of the works-based righteousness that Paul and Luther were keen for us to avoid at all costs!” (141)

In conclusion, I can affirm much of what I find in The Gospel According to Jesus. But there are some problems here that cry out for more careful clarification.  The last chapter contains all sorts of application (feasting and fasting, authenticity, community, etc.), but not enough about repentance and faith. The Gospel According to Jesus needs more of Jesus’ kingdom proclamation, which ends in calling individuals to “repent and believe.”

A good word from J.D. Greear: Are you more excited about gospel-centeredness than the God of the gospel?

I get pretty good at identifying non-Gospel-centered preaching and theology, but the point of Gospel-centeredness is not the shrewd ability to critique others. The point is to adore God and worship His grace.

A fascinating proposal for how Mark 13 (the Olivet Discourse) is connected to Mark 14-15 (the Passion Narrative):

• 13:24 foretells that the sun will go dark, and this happens when Jesus is on the cross (15:33).
• 13:2 prophesies that the temple will be destroyed, whereas its veil is torn apart two chapters later (15:38).
• 13:9 foresees that the disciples will be ‘delivered up,’ will appear before Jewish councils, will be beaten, and will stand before governors, all of which happens to Jesus soon enough (14:41, 53-65; 15:1-15).
• 13:35-36 admonishes the disciples to ‘watch … lest the master come and find them sleeping,’ and in Gethsemane, after Jesus tells his disciples to ‘watch,’ he comes and finds them sleeping (14:34-42).

Fred Sanders on how to write well:

I asked Dr. Sanders if he wouldn’t mind sharing with me (and in turn, our readers) some ways to improve my writing skills.  He kindly passed along the following list:

Martin Luther’s Top Ten Works:

Often people ask me, “What are the best things I can read that Martin Luther wrote?” Here’s a great list, courtesy of the Lutheranism 101 blog site. I took the liberty of putting Bondage of the Will last, since it is such a heavily philosophical tome, strong medicine, I would recommend it be read last in this list, rather than at number six.

On my last Sunday at First Baptist of Shelbyville, the church blessed me with a going-away gift: a 32-gig, 3G iPad. What a thoughtful gift!

Before I go any further, I need to come clean. I am not a techie.

• I learned WordPress and html simply because I wanted to blog, and even now, I’m not a pro.
• I love reading books, but I don’t have a Kindle (I’ve admired my dad’s from a distance).
• I recently got a Blackberry to replace my old cell phone, but now that so many friends have switched to the iPhone, I still feel behind the times.
• To prove how technologically-behind I am, my car has a cassette deck and I still record and listen to cassette tapes. (At least I don’t own a record player though, right?!)

I give you all this background to show that I approached the iPad a little differently than my tech-savvy friends with high expectations. I had no idea of what to expect. But now, after a couple weeks of use, I am ready to write down some initial impressions:

1. Better than the Energizer Bunny

I can’t get over how long the battery lasts. Last week, I let music play softly on the iPad for several hours a day. Almost a full week went by before I had to recharge the battery.

2. The Best Undefinable Toy I’ve Ever Had

Is the iPad a glorified iPod? A colorized Kindle? A smaller laptop computer?

I still don’t know. It simply is what it is. But I like it… a lot.

In the two weeks I’ve used the iPad, I have mainly enjoyed it for the music I transferred there from my iTunes. But I’ve also enjoyed uploading pictures of my family. I installed the free ESV application, so I can read Scripture on the device. I downloaded a couple of free books for my kids. I enabled the wireless feature, so I can check email if I want.

In short, the iPad does a lot of things – none of which is the ultimate reason to use the device. It’s cool enough to want, but there’s nothing about it that one needs. And that brings me to the feature that disappointed me…

3. For Looking, not Writing

The iPad is not a writer’s tool. Using a touch screen as a keyboard is difficult. You can’t feel the keys well enough to know what letters you’ve tapped. Your mind slows down, and the writing process becomes awkward. Even emailing is cumbersome. Right now, I don’t foresee the iPad replacing my laptop as my main device for writing.

Still, the size of the iPad gives it a mobility that makes it ideal for travel. If you simply must use the iPad for writing, invest in a wireless keyboard that will sync up.

4. A Terrific Picture Book

Watching the slideshows of my family’s pictures is delightful. The screen quality is outstanding. Lifewise, flipping through books or color magazines is amazing. This feature is where the Kindle suffers and the iPad rises to the top. The Kindle’s desire to be black and white and look like the written page probably attracted certain book lovers. But the iPad is so much flashier because of its superior screen quality.

What about you? Do you have an iPad? If so, what do you think?