The Gospel Coalition

New study shows that Americans have mixed impressions of Southern Baptists’ identity:

The majority of Americans have a favorable impression of Southern Baptists, according to a recent LifeWay Research study. However, 40 percent of respondents have an unfavorable view of the denomination, more than a third strongly assume an SBC church is not for them, and the negativity is higher among the unchurched.

Why Cynicism Might Kill a Generation:

I have to admit as a twenty-something myself that cynicism is pretty seductive. When you’re cynical you don’t get hurt easily because you assume that everything is hopeless to begin with. Cynicism is a shield protecting us from disappointment. We don’t want our dreams thrown out like New Coke or NASA’s Space Shuttle Program so we just don’t have dreams anymore.

Among many others, there are two problems with cynicism according to Scripture…

Obscure and Underrated Disney Films:

We felt inspired to take a look at some of the studio’s underdog projects — those films that may have been overlooked while the empire changed direction, along with a few obscure movies you may have missed along the way. Click through to see which of Disney’s woefully underrated, or fascinatingly strange projects made the list.

On the impracticality of a cheeseburger:

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

In June, the Food and Drug Administration announced that, beginning next year, cigarette packs will have graphic pictures plastered on them.

Rotting teeth and gums, people hooked up to breathing machines, a corpse, blackened lungs – these grisly images are the newest attempt by the government to curb smoking. Federal Law will require the warning labels to take up half of the pack, on both sides, by the end of 2012.

Are tobacco companies worried? Not really. Even though the FDA estimates that 213,000 people will stop smoking in 2013, the tobacco companies estimate that their loss of revenue will be less than one percent.

Who is right? The tobacco companies or the FDA?

I’m afraid the tobacco companies are right. Their leaders recognize something about human nature that the FDA does not: Unhealthy behavior cannot be eradicated by merely pointing to the consequences.

The problem of addiction goes much deeper than a warning label. And though the FDA is commendably seeking to put an end to a destructive habit that leads to the premature deaths of thousands of people each year, it is naive to think that grisly images will deter a large number of smokers.

The Church and the “Grisly Label” Approach

Too many times in our churches, when we talk about sin, we share the assumption of the FDA: that people, when given enough information, will make rational, healthy decisions.

Not so.

Sin is irrational. It doesn’t make sense. That’s the whole nature of sinfulness – it goes against the reality of the world we live in. It goes against the grain of our intended submission to the One who has created us.

We might be able to appeal to a person’s willpower to stop engaging in destructive habits. And through common grace, some people may indeed get up the nerve to stop a bad habit.

But we are foolish to think that most people are destroying themselves because they don’t know better. The truth is, we often do know better, and yet we continue on the road to destruction.

Though we know that sin is deep-rooted and irrational, we often act as if sin’s consequences will be the big deterrent to bad behavior. So in youth groups across America, we pass out nasty pictures showing the effects of STDs and tell kids, This is what will happen if you have sex. In marriage seminars, we tell the sad stories of men who lost their families because of a porn addiction, a sexual exploit, or a burst of anger.

We Are Silly Sinners

Now don’t get me wrong. I think we should remind people of sin’s consequences. It is crouching at the door. It has the desire to master us. Be sure your sin will find you out. And of course, we tell a little child to obey or else face punishment (a swift hand to the backside, a time-out, grounding, etc.). One of the ways we learn good behavior from bad behavior is by recognizing that our choices have consequences.

But we are foolish if we think that life change will be rooted in rationality. It’s simply not so. We are silly sinners, engaging in activities we know are destructive to our bodies and souls. Yet somehow we are deceived into thinking we are special, that we will escape judgment. And no matter how many friends die of lung cancer or how many friends contract sexually-transmitted diseases… no matter how many marriages break up because of porn or how many relationships end because of anger, we continue to sin, willfully and (worse) knowingly.

Scared by the Law; Changed by the Gospel

Speaking of the consequences of sinful behavior is good. It’s what the law of God does. It can scare us into temporary obedience. But even as it reveals sinful behavior, it can’t remove and replace a sinful heart.

Grisly images may warn us against the consequences of a bad habit, but they won’t change the heart of a smoker. Only the gospel can change a heart.

What the FDA doesn’t realize (and what many evangelicals forget too) is that sin is a worship-issue. Our destructive behaviors are not just behaviors. They are a symptom of a deeper problem, a root cause – idolatry. Our affections are elsewhere. Our behavior follows our affections. And only the gospel can change the affections to the point that behavior follows.

The Atlantic - The Case for Banning Email at Work:

Let’s think through this. If we agree that the role of work email is to keep workers connected to their work, then there are two arguments against it. The first is that email does its job poorly: it’s not the best way to keep people connected and productive. The second is that it does its job too well: it keeps people so connected that it winds up hurting productivity.

Christianity Today cover story - Why We Need Jesus:

In other words, our hearts create spiritualities, therapies, and programs that arise out of our natural knowledge of the law, which we distort. Outside our hearts, and at the core of special revelation, is the surprising God, known uniquely in his Son.

The Mission of the Church: An Ecclesiological Question

I think the differences might seem at least somewhat wider than is really the case. But if we are to work toward any sort of consensus—and avoid factionalism—then we need to understand why different folks land where they do on this issue. I’m convinced ecclesiology has been under-discussed in reviews and other discussions of the key books on the topic. Perhaps as we ask what the church’s mission is, we would do well to be clear what we mean by the word church.

6 lessons from a year of family devotions:

Maybe some of these things might be help to you, from one dad who is still growing into a spiritual leader in the home, and making plenty of mistakes along the way.

Next week, I’m taking the Miller Analogies Test (MAT), a test that many universities, colleges, and seminaries require for students seeking to do a doctorate. Studying for the MAT has been interesting, to say the least. The key to doing well seems to be a broad but superficial knowledge of a great number of subjects and the ability to easily spot associations between those subjects.

Part of my study has focused on the meaning of foreign language expressions common in English academic writing. In my own writing, I try to keep from using these, since many people don’t know exactly what they mean. But since they do show up in plenty of books and articles, I thought it might be helpful to provide some common “foreign language expressions” and their definitions. In case you’ve scratched your head before, wondering what a phrase means, well… next time you’ll know!

• a posteriori - based on inductive reasoning
• a priori - based on deductive reasoning
• ad hoc - for a specific purpose
• bona fide - in good faith; genuine
• carpe diem - seize the day
• carte blanche - unrestricted power; literally, “blank document”
• caveat emptor – let the buyer beware
• de facto - actual
• de jure - by right; technically true
• deus ex machina - contrived device to resolve a situation; literally, “god from a machine”
• ex post facto - after the fact; retroactively
• fait accompli - an accomplished fact; a done deed
• faux pas - social blunder; literally, a “false step”
• ipso facto - by the fact itself; as an inevitable result
• mea culpa - I am to blame
• modus operandi - method of operating
• mot juste - the appropriate word
• non sequitur - something that does not logically follow
• nota bene - note well
• persona non grata - unwelcome person
• prima facie - on the face of it
• quid pro quo - an equal exchange; literally, “this for that”
• schadenfreude - enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others; literally, “harm joy”
• sine qua non - something indispensible; literally, “without which not”
• sui generis - one of a kind
• tabula rasa - a blank slate
• weltanschauung - a comprehensive apprehension of the world; literally, “world view”

- taken from the Kaplan MAT Study Guide

At 2:00 CST this afternoon, I will be joining Ed Stetzer on his monthly web broadcast “The Exchange.” We will be discussing The Gospel Project curriculum that I am helping develop, along with a number of issues related to the gospel-centered movement. If you enter the chat room, you can submit questions and additional topics of discussion.

Watch it live here.

Here’s a good word from Collin Hansen – “Mission Critical”:

Your church cannot do everything that everyone wants it to do. Some requests are simply impossible to fulfill; others would be inappropriate. Church leaders turn to God’s Word as our guide in prioritizing how we spend limited time, treasure, and talent.

And Ed Stetzer follows up with some good thoughts:

Gospel-loving and biblically-driven Christians can and do come to different conclusions, but are really not that far apart. For example, I share the concern that Collin blogs and DeYoung and Gilbert write about in their book What is the Mission of the Church? Simply put, doing deeds cannot replace or supplant proclaiming Christ– and there is plenty of reason to think this is occurring and needs to be addressed.

Here’s another book giveaway. This one focuses on John Piper’s books.

Can Colleges Demand Students Affirm Homosexuality? Court to Decide:

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments in a religious liberty case that could determine whether a college has the right to require students to profess certain beliefs about homosexuality in order to get a degree.

Challenging the Powers of Death with the Gospel of Life:

We need you, preachers and teachers. We need theologically rigorous instruction about the sufficiency of the gospel to cleanse away the bloodguilt of abortion and to reconcile us to God. Abortion needs to be called out by name, confessed with tears, and brought under a gospel that atones, justifies, propitiates, expiates, and brings us peace. And we need to remind our people to hold on to this gospel with all their might when the accuser comes at night.

As I recently read through Crossway’s collection of the Letters of Francis Schaeffer, I was struck by how applicable Schaeffer’s insights are today, particularly in regard to evangelical movements, leaders, and doctrine. His counsel deserves to be heeded by those of us in the “gospel-centered” stream of evangelicalism.

With this in mind, I have selected some favorite excerpts from these letters and woven them together creatively. Using Schaeffer’s own words, I am imagining out loud what counsel he might give us today.

What Francis Schaeffer Might Say to the Gospel-Centered Movement Today

1. Make sure your loyalty to Christ supersedes any loyalty you have for the “movement.”

[Brothers and sisters,] I see the need for Christians across the face of the earth who are indeed brothers in Christ, standing on the fundamentals of the faith and separated from unbelief, to come into personal fellowship one with the other to the praise of our Lord. And yet how quickly such a thing can grow into that which is merely cold, formal, and dead. The cry of my heart is that God may have mercy on us.

I increasingly see the dangers involved in organization, and I do think that most of us get the cart before the horse. That is, we organize first and then go forward, rather than growing close to one another through spiritual and personal contacts and then letting whatever organization grow naturally out of that-as the tree puts forth the leaf and then the bud and then the flower as the Lord leads.

I don’t think [that the deeper spiritual walk is] in antithesis to an organization. And yet, I must say that it does seem to me that so often organization becomes a means to an end in itself. So often it takes so much energy to turn over all the machinery that the work never gets finished. And so often we put the machinery in the place of the Holy Spirit, feeling that if we can just get organized enough then the thing is sure to go on and be successful.

Of course, this is all very wrong, and not only wrong but wicked. We must realize that it is only the Holy Spirit who can give the power, and we must realize that the only motivation which pleases our dear Lord is our love for Him. Merely keeping machinery turning, and getting all mixed up in the self-aggrandizement that so often goes with a large organization, completely casts aside this primary motive of love to the Lord and a dependence then on the one source of true Christian power-the Holy Spirit.

The problem is not one of loyalty or lack of loyalty to a “cause” or “movement.” [The problem is that] loyalty to organizations and movements have always tended over time to take the place of loyalty to the person of Christ… We must urge each other not even to give final authority to principles about Christ, but only to the person of Christ.

2. Don’t let your orthodox doctrine be disconnected from a living relationship with the living Christ.

Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting-point to go on into a living relationship – and not as ends in themselves.

[Take the Reformation, for example.] The Roman Catholic Church had come to teach the wrong doctrines. And I feel that most of the Reformation then let the pendulum swing and thought if only the right doctrines were taught that all would be automatically well. Thus, to a large extent, the Reformation concentrated almost exclusively on the “teaching ministry of the Church.”

In other words almost all the emphasis was placed on teaching the right doctrines. In this I feel the fatal error had already been made. It is not for a moment that we can begin to get anywhere until the right doctrines are taught. But the right doctrines mentally assented to are not an end in themselves, but should only be the vestibule to a personal and loving communion with God.

The danger of orthodoxy, even true orthodoxy, is in falling off the other side of the knife blade: that is, in stating the intellectual position and then placing a period. What we must ask the Lord for is a work of the Spirit . . . to stand on a very thin line: in other words, to state intellectually (as well as understand, though not completely) the intellectual reality of that which God is and what God has revealed in the objectively inspired Bible; and then to live moment by moment in the reality of a restored relationship with the God who is there, and to act in faith upon what we believe in our daily lives.

3. Live in a way that demonstrates the holiness and love of God.

We must exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. Anything else than this simultaneous exhibition presents a caricature of our God to the world rather than showing him forth.

We are in a day when evangelicals tend to let down the absolutes in the Word of God in doctrine and in life, and we must be careful not to contribute to this. On the other hand, we are in a day when other evangelicals are becoming more and more heartless, and we must be careful not to contribute to this as well.

The problem is in being those who insist upon the absolutes of God and yet show forth beauty to the world, which is strangling for the need of both absolutes and beauty. These things are beyond us in our own strength, but not in His strength as we allow Him to bring forth His fruits through us in this sinful and ugly world and generation.

May the Lord lead you that you not deny His existence through lack of faith, nor deny His character in either His holiness or His love.

4. Rely on the Spirit as you grow in your love for God.

[Remember that] the decisions of a growing work demand that the One who directs be constantly at hand.

It brings me increasingly to my knees – to ask that the Holy Spirit may have His way in my life; that I may not think just of justification and then the glories of Heaven (with merely a battle for separation between). [But that I may also think of] all the wonders of the present aspect of my salvation, and that they may be real to me in my life and ministry.

What a wonderful Lord we have, and how glorious it is to indeed have God as our Father, and to be united with Christ, and to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Oh, would to God that our ministry could be under His full direction, and in His power without reservation.

God really is there. He really does exist, and He made us for Himself. Knowing that He is there, and therefore that we do not live in a silent universe, changes everything. To know that we can speak and that there is Someone who will answer fills the vacuum of life that would otherwise be present. And then, when we realize His love for us as individuals – that Christ really did die for us as individuals, for us personally – life is entirely different.

You need not be afraid to enjoy God. The beautiful thing is that He uses us, but never in the way a soldier would use a gun only to throw it down and take another. He uses us, but He always fulfills us at the same time.

Here’s a site doing a massive giveaway of books all Advent long. Today, Counterfeit Gospels is the giveaway. There’s a great line-up of books already.

Classic Christmas films through the lens of Creation / Fall / Redemption / Restoration:

There are plenty of “Top Ten Christmas Movies of All Time” sites out there within your command of Siri. What I am offering in this little article is a personal reflection on how the Story of God with us, the Advent of Jesus Christ—the hope of redemption in the tripart story of the ages—is brought out in a few of the great films.

How Jonathan Edwards processed theology:

Edwards leaves us a pattern that I find helpful. As those who research Scripture and theology we need (1) a place to record our developing thoughts, (2) time to see how themes of Scripture relate to one another, and (3) deeply-rooted convictions about major themes.

Tom Schreiner at ETS – Living Like Jesus is the Only Way:

This year evangelicals have discussed and debated the exclusivity of Christ more intensely than in recent years, incited by books, personalities, and conferences. The Evangelical Theological Society recently held their annual meeting in San Francisco on the issue as well. For scholars, pastors, and engaged Christians, belief that Jesus is the only way changes the way we live and interact with others. It may be helpful to reflect on a few ways the belief in the exclusivity of Christ affects our lives.

5 Inaccurate “Historical” Stories that Made the History Books: (HT)

From George Washington and his cherry tree to Sir Walter Raleigh’s chivalry towards Queen Elizabeth, we have all heard our share of historical myths that do more to illustrate the person in question’s personality than to shine a light on their actual life story. Here are a few historical myths created by inventive writers that still made their way in to history books and elementary schools everywhere.

Father in heaven,
our hearts desire the warmth of your love
and our minds are searching for the light of your Word.

Increase our longing for Christ our Savior
and give us the strength to grow in love,
that the dawn of his coming
may find us rejoicing in his presence
and welcoming the light of his truth.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

An interesting description of a conversation between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates about the different approaches of Microsoft and Apple:

Mossberg wanted the evening joint appearance to be a cordial discussion, not a debate, but that seemed less likely when Jobs unleashed a swipe at Microsoft during a solo interview earlier that day. Asked about the fact that Apple’s iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.” So when it was time for Gates and Jobs to meet in the green room before their joint session that evening, Mossberg was worried.

Gates got there first, with his aide Larry Cohen, who had briefed him about Jobs’s remark earlier that day. When Jobs ambled in a few minutes later, he grabbed a bottle of water from the ice bucket and sat down. After a moment or two of silence, Gates said, “So I guess I’m the representative from hell.” He wasn’t smiling. Jobs paused, gave him one of his impish grins, and handed him the ice water. Gates relaxed, and the tension dissipated.

The result was a fascinating duet, in which each wunderkind of the digital age spoke warily, and then warmly, about the other. Most memorably they gave candid answers when the technology strategist Lise Buyer, who was in the audience, asked what each had learned from observing the other.

“Well, I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste,” Gates answered. There was a bit of nervous laughter; Jobs had famously said, ten years earlier, that his problem with Microsoft was that it had absolutely no taste. But Gates insisted he was serious. Jobs was a “natural in terms of intuitive taste.” He recalled how he and Jobs used to sit together reviewing the software that Microsoft was making for the Macintosh. “I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that, you know, is hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different and I think it’s magical. And in that case, wow.” Jobs stared at the floor. Later he told me that he was blown away by how honest and gracious Gates had just been.

Jobs was equally honest, though not quite as gracious, when his turn came. He described the great divide between the Apple theology of building end-to-end integrated products and Microsoft’s openness to licensing its software to competing hardware makers. In the music market, the integrated approach, as manifested in his iTunes-iPod package, was proving to be the better, he noted, but Microsoft’s decoupled approach was faring better in the personal computer market.

One question he raised in an offhand way was: Which approach might work better for mobile phones? Then he went on to make an insightful point: This difference in design philosophy, he said, led him and Apple to be less good at collaborating with other companies. “Because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people,” he said. “And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well.”

from Walter Isaacson’s biography - Steve Jobs