The Gospel Coalition

Seven links for your weekend reading:

1. “God Will Not Give You More Than You Can Handle?”

2. What is Corporate Worship For?

3. Bruce Ashford interviewed about his book - Theology and Practice of Mission

4. How an Image Becomes an Icon

5. The history behind the popular little booklet My Heart, Christ’s Home

6. How to Have a Church Prayer Meeting

7. Quick Guide to Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

In December of 2009, I received a Masters of Divinity from Southern Seminary. Recently, as I was looking over my class list and the required credit hours for my MDiv years, I thought about the classes that I enjoyed the most. Each of them were so good that I would take them again. Here are my five favorites in no particular order.

Hermeneutics with Robert Plummer

Plummer’s new book, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, gives an overview of what we discussed in this class. I took Hermeneutics my first semester, and I’m glad I did. This class set the course for me to interpret the Bible carefully throughout the rest of my seminary education and during my initial years of preaching and teaching in a local church.

Ministry of Proclamation with Hershael York

Don’t let the fancy name fool you. This was a basic preaching class. Each student was required to preach in class while being evaluated by Dr. York and the other classmates. But what could have been an awkward situation turned out to be a very encouraging exercise. The ethos of the class valued faithfulness, excellence, and the desire to listen to the Lord speak to us through one another. Even more memorable than the preaching segments were the casual conversations with Dr. York that concerned life, family, and pastoral ministry. There’s nothing like taking a class from a professor who has the life and ministry experience to back up his theory.

The Sermon on the Mount with Jonathan Pennington

This was a January class in which we worked our way through the entire Sermon on the Mount in five days. Dr. Pennington began the class with some issues of interpretation. The rest of the time was spent discussing the text itself. The big project turned out to be very practical. We were asked to craft 12 sermon outlines from the Sermon on the Mount. I wound up doing 34 because I was planning to preach through the Sermon on the Mount on Wednesday nights. That teaching series lasted more than a year and culminated in my memorizing the Sermon on the Mount and then delivering it by memory at church.

The Reformation with Shawn Wright

What I remember most about this class was the enormous amount of reading and outlining required. I probably did more work for this one class than two or three other classes combined. The good news was that at the end of the semester, I had worked through all the historical research and come out with a deeper understanding of Reformation theology. Because this was a difficult class, there weren’t as many students willing to take it. The smaller class size fostered an open atmosphere for fascinating discussions. I came to appreciate the different theological emphases of the Reformers and the pastoral motivations behind the cultural movement.

Contemporary Theology with Greg Thornbury

This was a “J term” taught by visiting professor Greg Thornbury from Union University. The reading requirements bogged us down in some very difficult and dense work from postmodern thinkers. But the class conversations were spectacular. The main thing that I remember about Dr. Thornbury was his passion for the subject matter that he taught. That excitement rubs off on students, even when the subject matter is difficult to comprehend at times.

(Favorite visual: Dr. Thornbury – eyes closed tightly, totally engaged in his teaching, gesturing like crazy while kneeling on a swivel chair that continued to slowly turn until he was facing the whiteboard and not the class.)

Grateful

Out of all the classes I took at Southern Seminary, I can’t think of one that wasn’t beneficial and enjoyable. I’m grateful for the educational opportunities God has given me, and I look back on all my seminary classes (but these in particular) with the fondest of memories.

I Am Satisfied:

When the woman at the well came to Jesus, she was looking for a bit of water. Jesus, however, graced her with something far superior. He promised her living water which would never run dry. This was not just some allegorical term for life that would not end. This was a clear picture of the deeply soul satisfying life with Jesus. Everything else will fall short and lead one to emptiness, sadness and humanistic self-advancement. It will not satisfy. Jesus, on the other hand, satisfies, satisfies completely and alone satisfies.

Mutual Submission?

 Ephesians 5:21-33 is good for your soul. It holds up a cross-shaped view of marriage that is profoundly challenging as well as being wonderfully uplifting. But it has increasingly been the subject of what Luke would call ‘no little disturbance’, thanks to its significance for the debate over the roles of men and women… Within evangelicalism, four main lines of interpretation can be discerned.

I enjoyed this conversation with Justin Taylor about sanctity of human life.

David Mathis and I talk for 15 minutes about the theology of being pro-life and some of the implications for life and ministry.

11 Scientists Who Experimented On Themselves: (HT)

Would you inject 50 hookworms under your skin for your job? Or steam in a vomit sauna for a few hours? Hopefully we non-scientists will never have to answer questions like these. But for the 11 brave souls on this list, experimenting on themselves was all in a day’s work.

I found these snippets from John Dyer’s From the Garden to the City to be thought-provoking:

1. “In some sense, all of our technology can be understood as an attempt to overcome the effects of the fall.”

2. “Technology should not dictate our values or our methods. Rather, we must use technology out of our convictions and values.”

3. “Rather than taking our cues about technology from the Scriptures and the outline of God’s plan for humanity, we seem to be locked in a cycle of questioning the really, really new but accepting the just barely old.”

4. “When technology has distracted us to the point that we no longer examine it, it gains the greatest opportunity to enslave us.”

5. ”God is more interested in our theology of worship than in our technology of worship.”

6. “Technology is the means by which we transform the world as it is into the world that we desire. What we often fail to notice is that it is not only the world that gets transformed by technology. We, too, are transformed.”

7. “Digital natives grow up with technology, and the use of technology becomes engrained in the way these individuals think and go about life. But digital immigrants are always learning and playing catch-up, like an adult learning a second language.”

8. “We use our idols fundamentally as a way of meeting our needs apart from God, and this is our greatest temptation with technology—to use it as a substitute for God.”

9. “As Christians, we often say, ‘the means change, but the message stays the same.’ However, while it’s true that the gospel message never changes, the means by which that message is communicated does, in fact, bring with it additional ends. Much of this is due to the fact that like all other things we create, our technology brings with it a set of values.”

10. “We must begin by continually returning to the Scriptures to find our Christian values and identity. From that perspective we can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of technology and determine what values will emerge from the tendencies of use built into its design.”

“At one end of this story is a pristine garden prepared by God for humankind to develop and transform. At the other end is a glorious, heavenly city full of human creations, art, and technology. At the center is our Savior Jesus Christ crucified on a cross, the most horrific of all technological distortions, built by transforming a tree from the natural world into a tool of death. Yet in his resurrection, Christ redeemed even that tool, transforming it into the symbol of our faith that eternally portrays his power over death and sin. In the time between the garden and the city, between Christ’s first and second coming (when he will complete his work of redemption and restoration), we must work diligently to understand how to live faithfully in this technology-saturated world.”

- quotes selected from From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology

I’ve been sharpened and instructed by the conversation about the mission of the church taking place the past few days. Here is a lengthy response from Greg Gilbert and Kevin DeYoung to Ed Stetzer’s review of their book. The dialogue has been honest, helpful, and charitable:

Just to reiterate, our book is not about whether good deeds commend the preaching of the gospel, and whether therefore they are vitally important to the mission.  It’s a question of whether it’s the church’s mission—its Christ-given orders—to improve the world and make it more livable.  That’s what large numbers of evangelicals seem to think these days…

In the end, I think DeYoung and Gilbert’s blog posts are better than their book. I now understand better the kind of missiological thinking they think is wrongheaded, and I get their reason for putting such a strong emphasis on proclamation. I still think they downplay the non-didactic elements of making disciples, but I have a greater understanding for why they do so.

At the end of the day, I wonder if DeYoung and Gilbert’s kids are going to be the ones who push for the view of mission they are critiquing. Could it be that the next generation is going to say, “Dad reduced the mission. Look here in the Scriptures and you can see what we missed!”?

One of the reasons evangelicalism has moved so far in the “everything is mission” direction is because the early evangelicals/fundamentalists narrowed what we are called to do in the world. You don’t fix one extreme by going to the other. You fix both extremes by devoting more attention to the Scriptures and to other believers who love and submit to those same Scriptures.

Here is a helpful excerpt from Michael Horton’s take on the book and the recent reviews:

The confusion of the church as a divine institution with the church as the people of God leads to statements today like, “We can’t go to church, because we are the church!” But this is a false choice—as bad as the nominal “Sunday Christianity” that treats formal membership in the church as fire insurance. The truth is, if we don’t go to church, we can’t be the church. We need to be made Christians or we cannot be Christians. Before we can be active doers of the Word, we have to be grateful receivers.

And here is a convicting word from Ed Stetzer’s review that has challenged me personally:

Those who read and share the book may very well be those who most need a stronger missional focus—the theologically minded who think deeply but engage weakly.

I don’t want to think deeply while engaging weakly. Neither do I want to settle for shallow thinking as I seek to engage deeply. Instead, I hope this discussion pushes us all back to the Scriptures and renews our passion to think deeply and engage deeply as we seek to accomplish the mission God has for us.

The mission of the church is a hot topic these days, and I am glad to see that pastors and church leaders are sharpening each other’s understanding of how to address this topic biblically and how to lead our churches to respond faithfully.

Last week, I posted five nagging questions I had after reading Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert’s book on the mission of the church. Within a few hours I had an inbox full of messages from people saying that they had read the book and had some of the same questions. By the end of the week, Kevin and Greg had offered some helpful clarifications that move the discussion forward. I’m grateful for their friendship and for the tone of this conversation.

Since last week, Ed Stetzer has written an extensive review of What Is the Mission of the Church? for The Gospel Coalition’s journal Themelios. Ed is an evangelical missiologist who has spent significant time studying this issue and encouraging churches to engage their communities biblically with the gospel. In his review, he expresses his appreciation for Kevin and Greg’s interaction with key passages in Scripture, their insistence on keeping the cross and resurrection at the center of the gospel, and the way they differentiate between the mission of God and the mission of the church. And yet, Ed believes that the way they unpack their definition is too narrow. He writes:

With their definition, they underplay the relationship of secondary ministries to those in the community that are not immediately didactic and explicitly gospel revealing. In arguing that God’s mission for the church does not include caring for the poor or intervening on behalf of those who are oppressed (good, God-honoring, and God-commanded), but making disciples through the proclamation, they overlook the role of work and example in discipleship. Rather, they equate “making disciples” with evangelism. Making disciples includes evangelism, but in “teaching everything Jesus commanded,” love and good deeds are also a part of the disciple-making process.

Ed’s concern is very similar to mine, which is why I would like to revisit my five questions in light of Kevin and Greg’s response from last week.

1. “Can we reduce ‘making disciples’ and ‘teaching Christ’s commands’ to the delivery of information?”

I agree with Greg and Kevin that the gospel is never merely “the delivery of mere information.” It is the explosive message of grace that powerfully secures our salvation. I also agree that verbal proclamation is vitally important. Here’s what Kevin and Greg say:

And yet, in the Great Commission texts the disciple making work is described as teaching, testifying, or bearing witness. And in Acts we see the mission of the church described not as Christians faithfully living out their vocations but as the word being verbally proclaimed. When Jesus sent his disciples into the world, it was to speak.

Agreed. But again, Kevin and Greg are defining words like “teaching,” “testifying,” and “bearing witness” as exclusively verbal events. I agree that these words are primarily about verbal proclamation, and yet there are elements of teaching, testifying, and bearing witness that are caught, not taught. I am not downplaying verbal proclamation but leaving room in our definitions of “teaching all that Christ has commanded us” for modeling and mentoring as well. Mark Horne provides some additional biblical support for the view I’m putting forth.

2. “If we agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the gospel, can we also agree that there is a zoom-lens and wide-lens view of the mission?”

To this, Kevin and Greg respond:

We passionately believe that the church should proclaim the gospel with words and promote the gospel with good works. But this is different from suggesting the mission of the church is to rebuild communities or build the kingdom. We hear Trevin asking, “Aren’t good works necessary to corroborate the message we are proclaiming?” Yes and Amen.

I am not denying that Greg and Kevin have a place in their book about obedience and the necessity of good works. My point is that our promotion of the gospel with good works is part of the mission. In other words, I want to include the corroboration of the gospel as part of how we conceive of mission, whereas Kevin and Greg insist on good works, but don’t want to call those good works “mission” because of their desire to keep the priority on evangelism.

3. “Isn’t there a sense in which worship is expressed through our life in the world, not just our corporate worship services?”

To this, Greg and Kevin respond:

We tried as hard as we could in the book to stress that good works and loving others matter, that they are essential, they are not optional, and they glorify God. The confusion may be that Trevin hears us saying worship is the mission of the church and then wonders why we don’t include all-of-life-worship in our definition. But we are careful to say mission is what we are sent into the world to accomplish. Therefore, we speak of worship as the goal of missions. Christian mission aims at making, sustaining, and establishing worshipers (247).

At the risk of talking past one another, I understand that Kevin and Greg have a robust view of our obedience in the world and our worship as consisting of all of life. And yet, I want to include that obedience within the wide-lens definition of “mission,” whereas Kevin and Greg want to make a sharp distinction between the two. Worship is not merely the goal of missions; it’s also the means. Our worship (whether gathered corporately or lived-out individually) is one way that the gospel is promoted and the mission moves forward.

4. “Even if we recognize that the verbs related to the kingdom are passive (receiving, bearing witness to, etc.), does this necessarily preclude us from speaking of ‘work for the kingdom’?”

I won’t rehash this point because Kevin and Greg agree with the way that I and others use the phrase “work for the kingdom.” We’re on the same page here, although I think we need to be careful to keep our theological discourse from devolving into the tendency to police people’s language. Parsing of words and phrases can be a helpful exercise, but it can also lead to a sort of insider-lingo wherein we recognize who’s “on our team” by the way they use or refrain from certain phrases. I don’t think Kevin and Greg are guilty of this, but some Reformed-types do go overboard in language-policing. (For example, I’ve heard people talk about how misguided the phrase “obey the gospel” or “live the gospel” is, even though Peter and Paul specifically use the first and preachers like Spurgeon were happy to use the second.)

5. “Is our representation of Christ not part of the mission?”

Following up their initial response, Greg and Kevin penned an additional blog post on how good works and the mission relate to one another. Interestingly enough, I agree completely with what they say here, quoting from Eckhard Schnabel:

We like the way Eckhard Schnabel puts it in his massive work Early Christian Mission. Schnabel argues that “expansive proclamation” is “the centrifugal dimension of mission” and “attractive presence” is the “centripetal dimension” (1:11). Our words ring out; our deeds draw people in. So the “elements of mission” include not only the ministry of the word but also “charity” and “ministry of grace.” But this is not the same as saying missions is charity or that a missionary is anyone who serves others in good deeds. According to Schnabel, “missionaries” are “envoys sent by the risen Jesus Christ to proclaim the good news” (1:11-12). Just as important, he clarifies what mission is striving for. “The result of mission is conversion: people accept and adopt the message proclaimed by the missionaries, they are integrated into the new community of faith, and they start to practice a new way of life with new behavioral patterns” (1:12).

I nearly did a double take when reading this paragraph because it struck me as saying exactly what Kevin and Greg do not say in their book: that the mission has two dimensions – “expansive proclamation” and “attractive presence” – both geared toward conversion of the lost. The book narrows “mission” to expansive proclamation only, with good works being a matter of obedience but somewhat disconnected from the mission of the church. I agree with Schnabel that the ultimate goal of mission is conversion, while the means toward that goal can also be included in how we speak of the church’s mission.

Conclusion

Let me end by saying how much I appreciate Kevin and Greg’s critique of what passes for “mission” in many segments of evangelicalism. Simply being a nice person and doing good things in the world are not mission, since there are non-Christians who engage in the same types of work. Verbal proclamation is priority; it’s our ultimate goal and it is vital. When they critique the “social justice” crowd, I “amen” them the whole way.

My big concern is that in their stalwart defense of evangelism as the mission of the church, they have narrowed the idea of “disciple-making” more than Scripture does. Ed Stetzer sums up the basic point of contention here:

Gilbert and DeYoung have a different view than the prevailing approach in evangelical missiology.They believe the missio ecclesia is making disciples (X), with other actions and deeds (Y and Z) remaining distinct from X. Others (including most evangelical missiologists) see the missio ecclesia as YXZ, keeping X at the center but seeing Y and Z as essentially part of the mission. Gilbert and DeYoung, in my estimation, get the center of the mission (X), but have not properly worked out Y and Z’s relationship to the fulfillment of the church’s mission.

D.A. Carson on spiritual disciplines:

What is universally presupposed by the expression “spiritual discipline” is that such disciplines are intended to increase our spirituality. From a Christian perspective, however, it is simply not possible to increase one’s spirituality without possessing the Holy Spirit and submitting to his transforming instruction and power. Techniques are never neutral. They are invariably loaded with theological presuppositions, often unrecognized.

How shall we evaluate this popular approach to the spiritual disciplines? How should we think of spiritual disciplines and their connection with spirituality as defined by Scripture? Some introductory reflections…

Because it’s hard to nail down what people mean by it, I choose not to use “incarnation” language when speaking of the church in the world. However, I do think there are some biblical leanings in that direction. Bob Glenn writes along those lines:

The Apostle John is saything that when we love each other with the love we have received through the gospel, the people we love see God. But instead of seeing Jesus himself who is currently in heaven at the Father’s right hand as our Advocate (1 John 2:1), they see us! Little incarnations of the invisible God. So while it is true that no one has ever seen God, if we love one another, we will!

Tim Keller – 5 Ways to Imitate John Stott:

Tim Keller gave the sermon for the service from Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Keller gave five ways to imitate Stott’s life and faith. This is from the notes that I feverishly took (as best as I could read them).

Consciousness in a Vegetative State:

All the patients had the same terrible diagnosis: brain damage that marooned them in a “vegetative state” — alive but without any sense of awareness of themselves or the world around them.

But then an international team of scientists tried an ambitious experiment: By measuring electrical activity in the patients’ brains with a relatively simple technique, the researchers attempted to discern whether, in fact, they were conscious and able to communicate.

The story that opens Ben Witherington’s book Is There a Doctor in the House?: An Insider’s Story and Advice on Becoming a Bible Scholar clues you in that this isn’t going to be a typical “how-to” book for higher education. In a few paragraphs, Witherington recounts an episode in his life that includes a sweaty run through an airport, an almost-missed plane, a pair of torn trousers, and an embarrassing greeting. The immediate impression is that humility matters. Bible scholarship is different than other forms of higher education, and Witherington makes that point over and over again, not just through the advice he offers those considering this path but also through the humble way in which he offers it.

The purpose of the book is narrow. Witherington isn’t writing for those who want to be serious students of the Bible without becoming teachers. Nor is he writing for teachers of the Bible who have no ambition at becoming published Bible scholars. Instead, his target is a growing number of seminary students who desire “to become a good and even well-published Bible scholar” (20). But even if Witherington’s target audience is narrow, he insists that the learning process must be broad. He writes:

“…to be a serious student, much less a teacher or scholar of the Bible, you must have a love for learning – and not just learning during a particular period of your life, but lifelong learning” (21).

Pushing back against the anti-intellectual climate of some parts of evangelicalism, Witherington lays out the necessity of careful thinking when it comes to the Bible. “Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to the truth of and about God’s word,” he writes. “Indeed, ignorance is the enemy of the truth” (23).

This emphasis on truth-seeking is felt throughout the book. He not only stands against those who embrace ignorance as a virtue (some segments of evangelicalism) but also against those who embrace agnosticism as a virtue (the postmodern turn). “It is important that you do not allow your piety to outrun the evidence or overrule the pursuit of truth in the service of the truth,” he counsels. “Christian Bible scholars above all must be truth seekers” (34).  And truth-seeking means that we are not dealing with ideas, but reality. He goes on to write:

“…in fact the writers of the New Testament are not merely encouraging us to enter a debating club where ideas are thrown around like Frisbees. The New Testament writers believe they are talking about realities – real persons like Jesus, real events like the resurrection, real experiences like the new birth. The moment theological or ethical reflections forget that ideas are ways of talking about such realities is the moment when one has untethered theological or ethical discussion from its historical or real foundation” (69).

There are some wise words of counsel here, particularly in relation to humility and the ability to admit when you are wrong. I love this quote:

“The Bible teacher or scholar doesn’t need someone to invent humility pills; just taking in and taking seriously regular doses of the wisdom of the Bible is enough to humble any normal person” (124).

And then there’s this good word of warning:

“It’s precisely when the text does not cough up the results you were expecting or wanting that you find out what sort of Bible teacher or scholar you actually are” (127).

The best part of Witherington’s work is his insistence that biblical scholarship be done in service to the church. “It is not enough to know the Bible if you want to teach it,” he says. “You need to know the God of the Bible” (77). He goes on: “Research by a Christian is never done just for its own sake, or even just to advance knowledge in a given field. It is done in service to the Lord and to His church” (83). Amen!

I resonated in particular with his desire to see more cross-disciplinary conversations in biblical studies. “Not only do we need more dialogue across disciplines, we need more Bible scholars who actually are committed to be biblical theologians and biblical ethicists, seeking to apply the insights they have gained from the Bible to current and pressing theological and ethical issues” (73). Yes, yes, yes! The church is hungry for scholarship that not only gives insight into the meaning of the text but presses those insights into application for today’s world.

As one who is considering future Ph.D. plans, I benefited greatly from the wisdom of Ben Witherington. Is There a Doctor in the House? is a helpful primer on becoming a biblical scholar with a heart for the church.

Remember Sayed Musa – the Afghan convert to Christianity threatened with execution last year? Here is the first sit-down interview with Sayed and it includes the details of his imprisonment and subsequent release:

Then from the bedroom emerges Musa himself, wearing a pressed shirt over creased khakis, looking thin but nothing like the man many of us came to know a year ago. Then Musa’s home was a prison in downtown Kabul. Our meeting marks the first time the Christian convert, 46, has met with a reporter to tell his story since gaining freedom and finding himself in a new, undisclosed location outside Afghanistan.

In this tongue-in-cheek article, David Brooks shows us what kinds of inequality are acceptable and unacceptable in America:

Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?” This is an excellent question. I will provide you with a guide to the American inequality map to help you avoid embarrassment.

My Parents Were Home-schooling Anarchists:

Tired of the constraints of the 40-hour workweek, my father, in 1972, quit his job in publishing. My parents were in their early 30s, and they had four children under 7. “But we still wanted to explore the world,” my father recalled recently. They bought six one-way tickets to Europe, leaving only a laughable $3,000 to subsist on. Young and idealistic, they thought they could easily educate us along the way. “Life itself would become a portable classroom.”

How Seminarians Can Learn to Preach to Normal People (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

I am a firm believer in seminaries and rigorous academic training for pastors.  However, the very real danger exists that seminary-trained pastors can so breathe academic air that we lose sight of the reason we attended seminary in the first place.  We can come to the point where we can’t imagine any true Christian not being eminently interested in the composition of the Diatessaron or how intrusion ethics should inform our discussions of paedocommunion.  If we’re not careful, before long our preaching can wind up sounding strangely similar to Charlie Brown’s school teacher.

I am entirely dependent upon You for support, counsel, consolation.
Uphold me by Your free Spirit,
and may I not think it enough to be preserved from falling,
but may I always go forward,
always abounding in the work You give me to do.

Strengthen me by Your Spirit in my inner self
for every purpose of my Christian life.

All my jewels I give to the shadow of the safety that is in You
- my name anew in Christ,
my body, soul, talents, character,
my success, wife, children, friends, work,
my present, my future, my end.
Take them, they are Yours, and I am Yours, now and for ever.

- Puritan prayer, adapted