Guest Blogger: Joel is a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary and is preparing for ordination in the Presbyterian Church of America. His ministry focus is the Arabic-speaking world, and he writes about life, the gospel, and the books he’s reading at http://joelws.com.

“Everyone looks for an area into which he can throw himself completely, in which what is unique in his life can come to its own” (Johan Herman Bavinck, The Riddle of Life, 58).

Johan Herman Bavinck was a Dutch missionary to Indonesia who lived from 1895-1964. After his 20-year missionary career, he returned to the Netherlands to teach theology, but throughout both of those aspects of his ministry, he constantly reflected on how it is that people simultaneously are surrounded by God’s revelation and yet rebel against it. What is perhaps surprising is that when we see his diagnosis of the problems of the human heart in his own day—a century ago—we may recognize something of the problems that afflict the human heart in our own times.

He wrote The Riddle of Life to address exactly that issue. In chapters 9-11 he addresses the idols of the human heart. He begins his discussion of that topic with the quote above, which argues that built into the human heart is the desire to serve something, to “throw himself completely” into something. I realized the truth of this when I found myself screaming—sometimes in anger, sometimes in frustration, sometimes with joy—at my television as I watched my team play in the NBA playoffs this year. We want to be “all about” something. But of course, while God made us to serve himself, we twist that desire into service of the things that he has created. He highlights three areas in which we commonly create idols for ourselves: money, honor, and pleasure.

Money

“Money,” Bavinck says, “has a romantic glow about it” (62). Money gives such great possibilities—of a better life, of finer things, of more dazzling places—and great security in the face of a changing world. Even beyond that, though, “money is not merely something that you have, but something that you are” (61). When these things come to characterize our attitude towards money, we have fallen into what Bavinck describes as a “narrow desire” for money—an idolatrous desire—as opposed to a “broad desire” for money—the simple desire to have what is needful to feed one’s family and take care of the responsibilities that god has given us.

Now certainly, we all recognize that money is ultimately nothing that important. A green version of Ben Franklin is basically just paper to which society has given value. But because of the possibilities and security it represents, we tend to make it into something more. We make it into a god, but “it is a false god” and “in its deepest essence it is a liar” (64). It is when we come near to Jesus that we recognize our desire for money to be what is—a desire for God that has been twisted into something of our own making.

Honor

The second idol that Bavinck discusses is that of honor, the desire for praise from men. There’s a sense in which this is quite natural. We are made for relationships, for community, and encouraging words are an integral part of our relationships. Indeed, there are many honorable causes for us to work for in this life, and we want to do well in them. But Bavinck illustrates how easy it is to turn that desire from a desire that is ultimately aimed at the message, the mission, or the cause into a desire for approbation for ourselves.

Certainly, different people succumb to this in different ways. Some people are extremely confident, exuding an air of nonchalance toward the opinions and praise of others. But hidden within that very confidence is the assumption that people will generally love what one has to say. Others are not confident at all, and they are constantly wishing for the praise of others, timidly doing only what will gain them acceptance. But both can recognize the idolatrous desire for honor at one particular moment: when they grow jealous upon hearing someone else do or say something better than themselves in the service of the same cause. That is a dead giveaway that the desire for honor has grown into idolatry.

Pleasure

The final idol that Bavinck mentions is that of pleasure, by which he means the enjoyment that we may receive from any number of activities in life. However, he makes a very perceptive note: in his day (the early to mid-20th century), work and pleasure were increasingly divorced from one another. Whereas at many times the enjoyment one received from work was a real pleasure, more and more pleasure has been conceived of as gratification from something into which we must put no effort (participation in sports being a notable exception to this). The sad result of this is twofold. First, work is viewed as a horrible monotony with no real purpose, and secondly, pleasure, because it is divorced from what God has called us to do, can rarely be increased. “In the world of gratification,” Bavinck says, “1 plus 1 is never 2, but always less than two” (78). Pleasure is always limited and never satisfying, and yet it is a great idol of the human heart.

Fleeing Idols

Having identified the idols, Bavinck offers some encouraging words on how to fight idolatry, and it is with these thoughts that I will conclude:

Struggling one, you can live only if you begin with a quiet trust that you are living in a meaningful universe which was conceived and made by the eternal Father. It is possible only if you repose yourself on the confidence that He has given you your existence, your talents and your abilities, and that you have nothing more to do in the place where He has put you than quietly to shine and to serve. If you thus believe that the Father is behind everything and in everything, then you no longer need these three—money, honor, pleasure. Then you can go on your way like a child. Then you have the only true and high ideal of life that is worth the trouble to live for, namely the purpose which the Father has granted you the capabilities to complete. (81)

Yesterday, I wrote the first of a two-part series that summarizes and explores the essays collected in Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright (IVP, 2011). We’ve looked at the critique of N.T. Wright’s teaching on Jesus. Today, we look at the second half of this book, which deals with Wright’s “new perspective” on Paul.

N.T. Wright and the Apostle Paul

The first essay on N.T. Wright’s “Paul” is written by Edith Humphrey, “Glimpsing the Glory: Paul’s Gospel, Righteousness and the Beautiful Feet of N.T. Wright.” Humphrey’s contribution is unique in that she approaches Wright’s work from the angle of Eastern Orthodoxy. She sees similarities between Wright’s view of righteousness and her own, but she rejects Wright’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21:

Consider the lack of congruity: Christ was made sin – simply so that [hina] the apostles could show forth God’s righteousness! In such a construal the shock of the first part of the sentence (Christ made sin) does not match the functional quality of the second. No, if Christ was made sin it could hardly be for the purpose of the apostolic charism. Instead, Paul indicates a miracle that makes its impact on all in the new creation… It is the God-man who assumes death and sin in order to win life and righteousness for God’s people. It is this one who stands as judge, as advocate and as defendant. (168-9)

Regarding Wright’s view of apocalyptic symbols, Humphrey writes: “I want to affirm what Bishop Tom affirms, without denying what he denies.” (172) This refrain is repeated throughout these essays on Paul, and it sums up much of my own thought regarding Wright in general.

As a side note, there’s a humorous moment when Humphrey chides Wright for his Protestant position on Scripture. Quoting from my interview with Wright in 2008, she says:

At the foundations our friend remains a Protestant. In his own words, “My only agenda is to be as close as I can possibly get to what Paul actually says. And I really don’t care too much what different later Christian traditions say.”

Wright’s response:

“Here we meet once more with the problem of Scripture and tradition. It’s rather fun to be accused, for once, of being a Protestant… Tradition is important, but I will drink to Paul first and to tradition afterward.” (182)

—–

Jeremy Begbie in “The Shape of Things to Come? Wright Amidst Emerging Ecclesiologies” explores the puzzling fact that N.T. Wright’s theology (though delivered from an Anglican bishop in a bureaucratic, top-down hierarchical structure) is so attractive to young, emerging church leaders (who eschew the type of authoritative framework within Wright serves). Begbie’s summary of Wright’s eschatological vision is worth reading, and his critique of emerging church ecclesiology from Wright’s vantage point is also helpful. But I want to give more time to the next two essays, so I will refrain from summing up too much here.

—–

Markus Bockmuehl contributes an essay titled “Did St. Paul Go to Heaven When he Died?“. Bockmuehl critiques Wright’s vision of the afterlife, particularly Wright’s insistence that we think in terms of embodied resurrection and not the intermediate state. Bockhmuehl’s essay fails to persuade because he argues against the soundbite version of Wright’s view of the afterlife, not the expansive vision laid out in Wright’s many books. Wright does not deny that Christians “go to heaven” when they die; he merely insists on placing the intermediate “heaven” within the context of God’s promise of the final resurrected state.

Bockmuehl’s essay rightly leads to this response from Wright:

“I did not fully recognize the presentation of my views in Markus Bockmuehl’s paper… I have never rejected, as Bockmuehl says I do, the traditional Christian believe that the faithful ‘go to heaven’ when they die. I don’t regard that expectation as a ‘corruption of the hope of bodily resurrection.’ I have said repeatedly that ‘going to heaven’ is fine as a description of what happens when the faithful die. The point is that it isn’t the final destination.” (231-2)

(For an explanation of how Wright’s view of “heaven” has changed throughout the years, read this post.)

—–

Kevin Vanhoozer’s paper, “Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and Protestant Soteriology” stirred up quite a bit of conversation after it was first delivered. Vanhoozer enters this debate as an observer from the field of systematic theology. He accurately lays out the issues at stake, particularly the fact that Wright is pressing the formal principle of the Reformation (biblical authority) into service against its material principle (justification by faith). (241) Vanhoozer writes:

“By and the large the perceived problem with Wright’s position is not what he affirms but what he denies. His affirmations are important and exciting… What lands Wright in hot Reformed water are the denials.” (241-2)

What problem Reformed critics have is not so much with the affirmation (“faith is the badge of covenant membership”) but rather the denial (“faith is not the port of entry into the company of the saved”). (246)

Vanhoozer then seeks to bridge the gap by appealing to Calvin’s doctrine of “union with Christ” and in particular, the doctrine of adoption.

“Adoption is an especially rich metaphor that involves both confessing family membership and conferring legal status.” (255)

He then critiques Wright by saying, “He needs to win not more battles, but more allies… The Reformed need to accept the ecclesiological implications of being declared in Christ; Wright needs to retool his understanding of the law court and develop a fuller understanding of our union with Christ.” (259)

—–

The book ends with an essay by Wright entitled “Whence and Whither Pauline Studies in the Life of the Church?” This essay sums up the reasons why, for me, reading Wright is so fruitful and frustrating at the same time. Wright’s exposition of the ecclesiological implications of justification is masterful. He glides through text after text, harking back to Old Testament truth, pulling out ethical implications (including a belief in traditional man-woman marriage!), and spotlighting the beauty of the covenant community united by the cross.

But Wright’s summary of Paul’s theology is almost exclusively horizontal. It’s all about the reconciliation of humanity and very little about how that new humanity is first reconciled to God (or why we need to be reconciled in the first place). Perhaps the intent of this essay was merely to provide a study of Paul’s ecclesiology. Maybe, but I don’t think so. This approach characterizes much of what Wright has said in other contexts.

To be fair, some of Wright’s Reformed critics do indeed marginalize the church in their systematization of theology. But I fear that Wright goes to the other extreme. In pointing out the reductionism of his opponents, Wright engages in reductionism of his own. So, at one level, I am thankful for what Wright affirms, but I am constantly perplexed by what he denies (or simply ignores).

Conclusion

Jesus, Paul and the People of God is a helpful addition to the discussion surrounding N.T. Wright and his theology. May this book aid all who are interested in finding out what Jesus and St. Paul really said!

Whenever I finish a book by James K. A. Smith, I feel encouraged, puzzled, and provoked. Perhaps that’s one reason I continue to read Smith’s books. I like when writers force me to think. Good books shift categories and reframe discussions in ways that shine light on truth from different angles.

Smith’s shortest book to date is Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition (Brazos, 2010), a collection of letters that Jamie writes to a younger version of himself. The book is designed to respond to the Reformed Resurgence among young people in recent years. Jamie wants to help young Calvinists avoid the pitfalls of Reformed theology and instead embrace the promise of the wider Reformed tradition. And just as I expected when reading Jamie’s work, I was encouraged, puzzled, and provoked.

Encouraged

I’ve counseled lots of guys who (1) grew up in typical evangelical churches, (2) went to college where they asked deep questions about their faith, (3) found in Calvinism some clear, seemingly biblical answers, and (4) came home ready to share their nuggets of wisdom with the rest of their congregation. I could probably put together my own collection of emails I’ve sent off to young Calvinists. (I should say younger Calvinists, since I still fancy myself as young!)

Much of Smith’s book overlaps nicely with the counsel I’ve given others. Most helpful is the warning against the sin of pridefulness. Humility should be the primary Calvinist virtue. Jamie writes:

“How strange that discovering the doctrines of grace should translate into haughty self-confidence and a notable lack of charity.” (xi)

“The way you talk in this most recent letter seems more concerned with pointing out what’s wrong with all the other Christians around you – especially our friends at church. I’ll be honest with you: it sometimes sounds like you think you’ve achieved some new secret knowledge, which somehow gives you license to mock those who don’t have it.” (6)

Right on. The last thing we need is a bunch of neo-Gnostic Calvinists impressed by their ability to read between the lines of Scripture until they can rightly discern all the ways of God.

Particularly helpful in Jamie’s warning against pride is his communal focus. He constantly prods his young Calvinist conversation partner toward the local church. Friends matter. The church matters. The church you grew up in, even if it is decidedly not Calvinistic, is the church God used as the instrument in your life to bring you to faith and shape your Christian character. You were loved into the kingdom. Jamie is right to remind us of our need to serve the church. I especially like this line of advice:

“What should you be doing to become a Reformed theologian? That’s easy: teach third-grade Sunday School.” (30)

Another positive aspect of this book is Jamie’s decision to begin his brief exposition of Reformed theology by emphasizing that everything is a gift, including our existence. “To be is to be graced.” (15) By speaking of grace that “goes all the way down,” he effectively reframes Calvinism as more than the doctrines of election and predestination. Instead, one must adopt a God-centered view of the world that widens the lens of Calvinism to all the earth, not just tulips.

Puzzled

As the book progressed, I found myself scratching my head at times, not quite sure regarding the direction Jamie wanted to take us. For example, in his letters about the wide scope of God’s redemptive work, Jamie writes:

“To say that God is concerned with more than the salvation of individual souls is not to say that he’s interested in less than the salvation of individuals.” (65)

He goes on:

“The you of God’s dealings is always an ‘us’. The gospel is always already a social gospel.” (68)

I think I agree with Jamie here, but I question the language he uses. Jamie prefaces his remarks about corporate salvation by insisting that individual salvation cannot and should not be undermined. I say something almost identical in Counterfeit Gospels.

But I don’t think it’s wise to call this a “social gospel.” Even if Jamie’s point is that God’s salvation incorporates us into the covenant community, the term “social gospel” has too many negative connotations for it to be a helpful description. There’s not enough room in this book for Jamie to further explore what he means here, which is why “social gospel” will throw up unnecessary red flags to conservatives on guard against last century’s liberal “social gospel” theology.

Another point that puzzles me is the way Jamie describes the storyline of the Bible. Granted, he traces the plot line in a way that emphasizes the covenant community (which is the subject of the letter this storyline appears in). But I fear this way of reading the Bible’s story is reductionistic:

The basic lineaments of the narrative are simple and unchanging: the Creator of the universe establishes norms and standards for his creatures (“the law”) and requires them to obey. In the face of their original disobedience, he doesn’t suspend those norms or standards; rather, he keeps calling humanity to that standard while at the same time graciously enacting countermeasures. But the call is the same: humanity, created in God’s image, is called to bear his image as Yahweh’s ambassadors, his vice-regents in the territory of creation, by continuing to unfold and unpack all the potential that has been folded into creation. And he calls us to do that well, in ways that accord with his norms and desire for the final flourishing of his creation “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6). The core of the covenant remains the same. Unfortunately, our covenantal infidelity also remains constant – until the climax of the covenant when a Son of Mary lives up to the calling on our behalf, and then makes it possible for us, by grace, to live up to the covenant.” (74)

There’s nothing untrue in this summary of the Bible’s plotline. But the emphasis on the creation mandate appears to overshadow and even eclipse the weight of biblical testimony upon how the cross resolves our sin problem. If this is the major plot line of the Bible’s grand narrative, one wonders why so much of the covenant story deals with bloody sacrifices, the temple as the place of God’s presence, and the exile that is only ended when the Jesus – the true Israelite – lives, dies, and rises on our behalf.

Provoked

And then there is the underlying irony of this book that makes it difficult for me to recommend it to my young Calvinist friends. Despite his advocacy for a wider view of Reformed theology, Jamie takes an adversarial stance toward the young, restless, Reformed from the Westminster tradition.

While his desire to widen our view of Reformed theology is admirable (I too prefer the Heidelberg Catechism over Westminster), Jamie jabs at the Calvinists who want to “get people to toe the party line.” Included in this group are the Baptists (like myself) who lean Reformed in certain aspects, and yet who are unashamedly Baptist in ecclesiology.

Jamie wants people to embrace Reformed theology as a full package, which includes infant baptism and Reformed ecclesiology. That simply won’t do for guys like me, and it’s the Reformed principle of sola Scriptura that keeps me from going there. I am beholden – not to Westminster, Heidelberg, or even the Baptist Faith and Message – but to Scripture above all. Jamie would surely agree with this conviction, but then he targets Westminster:

“The Westminster stream diminishes the catholicity of the Reformed tradition, so the ‘Calvinism’ that it articulates is just the sort of slimmed-down, extracted soteriology that can be basically detached and then inserted across an array of denominations.” (61)

The irony here is that – even as he assumes the role of peacemaker and advocate of big-tent Reformed theology – Jamie is actually narrowing “Reformed” in a way that excludes, rather than includes. He criticizes Westminster for diminishing catholicity, when it appears to me that Westminster-influenced Baptists, at least in this instance, have a greater understanding of the catholicity of the Christian church than he does. For all his talk against the party line and drawing lines about who’s in and who’s out, Jamie’s book is – at least at some level – an attempt to draw lines.

Conclusion

Encouraged, puzzled, and provoked. But overall, I believe Letters to a Young Calvinist contains good, pastoral insight into the pitfalls and promise of Reformed theology, even if I disagree with Smith in some of the particulars.

The furor over Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins, shows no signs of subsiding. The development of the discussion has caused me to reflect on what a fever is and what it represents. Fevers don’t show up without a cause. A high temperature points to a bigger problem. It’s the sign that the immune system has kicked in and is fighting off an infection of some sort.

If we had a thermometer for the evangelical movement, we’d find a raging fever. But some evangelicals are responding to the fever in unhelpful and pastorally-damaging ways.

Response #1: The Fever is the Problem

When bloggers and pastors began responding to the promotional materials for Love Wins, many evangelicals used the occasion to point out their disagreement with the young, restless, and Reformed instead of dealing with the substantive issues Bell’s book brings to the surface. Conservative evangelicals sounded the alarm that Bell’s book was unorthodox, and a number of evangelicals threw stones at the messengers: You’re an alarmist. You’re just a bunch of heresy hunters. You can’t get along with anyone you disagree with.

Imagine being in a crowded building when the fire alarm goes off. Instead of looking for the fire or heading for the exit, everyone stands around the alarm and begins discussing its shortcomings:

“Wow, this alarm sounds so shrill. It hurts my ears. Someone should change the tone!”

“Who pulled this alarm anyway? I don’t smell any smoke. I don’t see a reason for the warning.”

“Well, I can smell smoke, but I’ve got to tell you – these alarms just go looking for smoke. Who do they think they are anyway?”

“Even if you can smell smoke, you shouldn’t sound an alarm until you see the fire for yourself. Silly alarms… so early. I’ll just sit tight and wait until the flames get here.”

A few days ago, I read a blog post in which the author was mourning the fact that we Americans aren’t more like our British brothers when it comes to controversy. Why can’t we keep ourselves from being embroiled in theological controversy? We Americans are the only Christians who feel compelled to join in robust theological debate with the intent to expose heresies.

In other words, fevered discussion of theological truth and error is the problem. The fever is the issue. Why not take a Tylenol and some Dramamine and chill out?

I can immediately think of two reasons to go after the infection. First, the Bible shows us a way of doing theological debate that is anything but sedated. Paul tells the Judaizers to emasculate themselves. John the apostle of love calls everyone who denies Christ’s humanity an antichrist. Jude calls us to defend the faith against those who deny Jesus Christ as our only Master and Lord.

Here’s another reason we shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders and say: “Let’s have a cup of tea and talk it out.” Look where that kind of theological engagement has gotten England. The “everything goes” mentality has robbed the Church of its power and has spawned a radically post-Christian society in which the Church practically has to begin all over again to gain a hearing for the gospel. As one British theologian has joked, “Wherever Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea.”

Response #2: The Body is Okay with Infection

The other response from evangelicals that has me scratching my head goes like this: Rob Bell’s universalistic tendencies are nothing new. In fact, we’ve always had a segment of evangelicals who lean in this direction. So let’s not get too worked up about universalism. After all, the denial or redefinition of hell isn’t that big of a deal in the long run.

To be fair, this kind of evangelical isn’t denying that universalism is heterodox. Returning to the sickness metaphor, I believe this group sees universalism as problematic. But the underlying message is this: This problem isn’t life threatening.

I don’t think so. And I don’t think Rob Bell thinks so either.

At the heart of Bell’s book is the issue of what God is like. The denial that God saves us from Himself and His holy, just, and awesome wrath is a denial that goes to the heart of the gospel. This is not a discussion on the level of complementarianism versus egalitarianism, views of the end times, or Calvinism and Arminianism (or any of the other “isms” that fall between the two).

Rob understands the stakes and he makes them clear in his book. He describes the traditional view as toxic. I disagree with his conclusion, but I admire his candor. Rob recognizes how high the stakes are in this debate. Why shouldn’t we?

So the idea that we can move forward in good Christian fellowship, accepting these kinds of views as just one segment of evangelicalism, is hopelessly naive. It assumes that there is still a unified evangel in evangelicalism, something that is simply not true if this kind of teaching passes as evangelical.

Conclusion

Evangelicalism has always been a big tent. The question before us today is, How big can the tent be before it caves in? How big can the tent be before “evangelical” means nothing more than “a professing Christian who is serious about what he/she believes”?

Where do denominations and confessions of faith fit into this picture?

What is the center of evangelical theology? Are there boundaries? If so, where? Who decides?

The situation created by Rob Bell’s book doesn’t answer any of these pressing questions. But the discussion certainly reveals the sickly state of the movement. For the past few weeks, I’ve been grieved by the unfolding of events and the response. At the same time, I’m confident. In every day and every age, Truth wins.

Today, I’m glad to welcome Jonathan Leeman to the blog, as we enjoy a conversation about how the Word of God should reverberate in our churches. Jonathan’s new book, Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People, encourages us to have full confidence in the power of God’s Word. I wrote this about the book:

I love books from authors who love the Word. Jonathan Leeman is one of those authors. In Reverberation, Jonathan displays his passion for Scripture, his heart for the church, and his love for King Jesus. This book has deepened my affection for and my confidence in the Word that is powerful unto salvation.

So, on with the conversation!

Trevin Wax: Lots of books are out there about the Word of God and its importance in the church. What makes your book different? How does the idea of reverberation tighten our understanding of how the Word does its work?

Jonathan Leeman: Thanks for starting the conversation, Trevin. In a discussion about the role of the Word and preaching in the church, a friend said to me that it’s good to talk about the meat, but did I see a place to talk about the barbecue sauce? He wanted to know if we could talk about the devices that spice up preaching, or spice up a church service, and so forth.

I think that’s a fine question to ask. But my impression is that many church leaders these days too quickly want to talk about the sauce, or write books about the sauce, or offer workshops on the sauce. And, personally, I like some sauce. At Chic-Fil-A, I go for the Polynesian sauce.

But the purpose of my book is to say, “Hey friends, let’s talk about the meat. ‘Cause all the power and protein is in the meat.”

I guess my contention is that, like the gospel or the doctrine of God, we need to apply ourselves continually to deepening our understanding of how God’s Word works. Our faith in its power needs to grow! Otherwise, our faith in its power becomes nominal. When that happens, church leaders begin to build their churches on secondary things, and church members begin to value and go looking for those secondary things.

So how is this different than other books? First, because I try to trace out the process of how the Word builds up the church, moving from person to person and area to area. In so doing, second, I hope it’s a faith-creating meditation on the Word’s power to give life and change.

Trevin Wax: I like sauce too. Honey mustard has always been a favorite. But I’m with you – the Word is where the power is and that’s the foundation of building a church.

What do you say, though, to a pastor who seeks to faithfully preach the Word week in and week out and yet doesn’t see much numerical growth in the church? His people know the Bible, love the Bible, want to hear from the Bible, and yet they are sluggish when it comes to the mission and evangelism. How does the Word challenge the Bible-centered church in this area?

Jonathan Leeman: That’s a great question, Trevin. And I did try to write the book with that pastor in mind–the one trying to preach faithfully, but seeing few results.

At the risk of being slightly cheeky, as our British friends say, let me turn the question around on you, drawing from my last answer. What would you say to the pastor who preaches the gospel week after week, or the doctrine of God week after week, and yet he doesn’t see numerical growth as well as sluggishness in missions and evangelism?

Trevin Wax: Oh boy, the conversational approach turns on me!

Here’s a start. There are two ways that numbers can skew our vision. The first is when we equate numerical growth with God’s blessing. This is a mistake. Churches may grow because of a number of factors. Not every church that grows numerically is biblically faithful.

On the other hand, there’s another way that numbers skew our vision – and that’s when we become suspicious of growing churches and thus take comfort in declining numbers as a sign of faithfulness. “I’m just preaching the gospel no matter what and our decline must mean I’m doing something right.” Neither approach is helpful or healthy.

The key for me would be to go back to what you said in your first response. It’s not the sauce that matters ultimately; it’s the meat. The temptation for a pastor of a declining church is to start analyzing the sauce.

Instead, I’d encourage that pastor who seeks to faithfully preach the Word every week and is discouraged that his people are sluggish in missions and evangelism – I’d encourage him to evaluate his teaching to make sure that he is faithfully preaching the Word. If 300 people are gathering every week to worship Christ and no one is being baptized upon conversion, something isn’t right. Gospel-centered ministry will lead to mission because it’s the story of a God with a missionary heart. This is the God who calls us, saves us, sanctifies us, equips us, and sends us back out.

The way that God accomplishes this is through – to borrow your title – the reverberation of His Word among His people. Our love for one another within the context of the church is the evidence of the gospel’s truth. As we are led deeper into the truths of His Word, we come to know God in a deeper way. And the greater our love for God, the greater should be our desire for others to know Him. When we’re not overflowing with passion for the lost, then we need to go deeper into the meat (not the sauce) until we are strengthened for the task that lies ahead.

Jonathan Leeman: Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think the basic point here is that you shouldn’t go changing your assumptions about the power of God’s Word, the gospel, or God himself just because you don’t see your church growing.

Maybe you’re not called/gifted to preach. Maybe you’re not as faithful or gospel-centered in your exposition of Scripture as you think. Maybe you are being faithful, but God does mean to close that church’s doors (though I agree with your point about being suspicious of growing churches). This is where it’s good to have people capable of giving you honest and informed feedback.

Bottom line: it’s still God’s Word that gives life.

Trevin Wax: Agreed. I’d even say, Only the Word of God gives life.

Let’s turn to the buzzword of “gospel-centered preaching.” When you get into the nitty-gritty of expositional preaching, you write of the need to be gospel-focused. “No matter what part of Scripture you mean to expose, the gospel should eventually come into view.”

I totally agree, and I am thankful that more and more pastors are seeking to Christ-centered and gospel-focused in how we do exposition. Yet, we want to do this in a hermeneutically responsible way, not artificially inserting Jesus in every proverb or psalm or story. Do you think that overreading Christ into the Scriptures is a potential problem? Perhaps we can unintentionally send the signal: “Wow, my preacher sees the Christ-connection everywhere… I’m sure glad I have him to interpret the Bible for me. I would’ve never seen that myself.” And then the preacher becomes more important to the congregation than the Word itself.

What suggestions would you offer the pastor who seeks to be Christ-centered and gospel-focused in a hermeneutically responsible way?

Jonathan Leeman: Study. That’s my ingenious one word answer. So I’ve spent the last decade trying to learn how to do this, and I’m always discovering how much I don’t know. In 2001, I read Graeme Goldsworthy’s Gospel and Kingdom. That’s when the big paradigm shift for me occurred. But ever since then, I’ve been working to build on this new paradigm.

For example, several years later I’m teaching a Sunday school class on the wisdom literature. And I’m digging through everything I can get my hands on in order to help me teach those books as Christian books, but to do so responsibly and without allegorizing, as you’re suggesting. Obviously I’m looking at commentaries. But almost more helpful than those were a number of biblical theologies. Bruce Waltke had a helpful essay on Proverbs. Charles Drew had a good book on the Psalms. Carson helped with Job. That sort of thing.  The Gospel Coalition has begun offering a new resource called Preaching Christ From the Old Testament. That looks like a great resource for exactly this sort of stuff.

Beyond study, look to your church. Invite other church leaders to work through these issues with you. Get feedback. Listen to the teaching of others.

What do you do, Trevin?

Trevin Wax: I’ve dipped into some of the same resources that you mention. Goldsworthy has been especially helpful.

I try to keep the Emmaus principle in mind when I preach from the Old Testament. I don’t want to be guilty of eisegesis, forcing Jesus into every text.

At the same time, Scripture tells us that all of God’s Word is a witness to Christ. So there must be a way of faithfully pointing to Christ from any and every book in the Bible without falling into clever allegorizing. When I first started preaching, I did the allegory thing to the extreme. Then, reading people like Kaiser and others moved me into the “authorial intent” category almost exclusively. Now, I’ve realized the limits of authorial intent if it doesn’t take into consideration the Authorial (capital A) intention that puts the whole Bible together. Talking with others about these issues has been very helpful in working through faithful ways of going to Christ.

Jonathan Leeman: I think you’re striking the balance on the exegesis matter: it’s about recognizing that the Bible is a unique book with both an author and an Author, and therefore you want to get at the authorial intent for each.

Trevin Wax: Before we wrap this up, I want to draw attention to your chapter on singing. If other readers are like me, they may be surprised that you devote an entire chapter in a book on the Bible to the importance of singing. Give us a snapshot of the case you make there. I think you’ve done a good job extending the idea of Word-centeredness to everything we do as a church, not just the preaching.

Jonathan Leeman: On the matter of singing…I’m glad you asked. Singing is the perfect place to think about the reverberations of God’s Word in our hearts. Singing accomplishes a number of purposes, but I focus on three:

1. It’s how we the church own and affirm the truth of God’s Word.
2. It’s how we engage our affections with God’s Word.
3. And it’s how we both demonstrate and build corporate unity.

At one point I write that the reverberations of singing God’s Word should begin to reprogram the very way in which a Christian experiences emotion and affection. We can let our emotions be trained by sports enthusiasm, by television commercials, by movies, by the songs on the radio, by whatever our culture defines as masculine or feminine. Or we can let our emotional lives be formed by the church’s singing of God’s Word, by the Psalms, by centuries of wonderful hymnody, and by the choruses of the saints today.

How powerful the music of the saints is!

Trevin Wax: What does singing the Word teach us about ourselves?

Jonathan Leeman: One way I perceive my own spiritual immaturity as a Christian is in my inability to emotionally engage with the songs on Sunday, whereas it’s relatively easy for me to emotionally engage with any old movie on Friday night. Now, I understand, there are probably a thousand qualifications one should probably make with a statement like that. Still, there’s a real challenge there for me, and perhaps others.

Furthermore, it’s one thing to emotionally engage with a style of music that’s what I naturally listen to on the radio. But here’s a harder question: can I learn to emotionally engage with music that’s not necessarily “my style” for the sake of loving the older member or the younger member? Now we’re talking about building unity, too.

I didn’t say this in the book, but music is a tough topic in the church today because it’s an emotive medium and we live in an emotivistic culture. We idolize our emotional states, which typically tends toward exalting the more extreme emotional states as somehow more real, alive, and desirable. But learning to engage our emotions with God’s Word is not simply about learning to feel, it’s also about learning self-control, knowing what role emotions should play in the whole scheme of things and how to moderate them for the sake of loving and serving others. It requires a more complicated formula than an emotivistic culture recognizes. Rejoicing with those who rejoice, and grieving with those who grieve (1 Corinthians 12) requires  the spirits of the prophets to be subject to the control of the prophets (1 Corinthians 14:32). It’s about learn to feel, but learning to feel in a way that builds up the whole body.

Did you know that, in India, Christianity is known as the singing religion, because we’re the only ones who sing?  What does that tell you?!

Trevin Wax: I’m going to sing louder and more passionately this week because of this conversation, Jonathan. Thanks for stopping by and answering my questions about your new book.

Tim Challies recently reviewed a biography of A.W. Tozer that describes the sad state of Tozer’s family life. Challies writes:

These strange inconsistencies abound. Tozer saw his wife’s gifts for hospitality and encouraged her in them; yet he disliked having visitors in his own home. He preached about the necessity of Christian fellowship within the family of Christ; yet he refused to allow his family or his wife’s family to visit their home. For every laudable area of his life there seemed to exist an equal and opposite error. This study in opposites leaves for a fascinating picture of a man who was used so greatly by God, even while his life had such obvious sin.

Tozer’s example reminded me of Cornelius Plantinga’s description of sin as parasite:

“In general, good and evil grow together, intertwine around each other, and grow out of each other in remarkable and complicated ways.

• Martin Luther: “one of the three or four most prominent Christians after Paul, a doughty champion of the gospel of race and a ghastly anti-Semite who wanted his readers to break down Jewish homes and house their occupants in stables.”
• Martin Luther King, Jr: “one of the noblest and most eminent Americans of the twentieth century adulterated his marriage and plagiarized some of the work that made his reputation.”
• Thomas Jefferson: “held slaves.”
• King David: “a great and godly and wicked man whose name has been blessed by centuries of Jews and Christians.”

Observing character ironies of these kinds, we naturally conclude that human beings are inexpressibly complex creatures in whom great good and great evil often cohabit, sometimes in separate and well-insulated rooms and sometimes in an intimacy so deep and twisted and twined that we never get to see the one moral quality without the other.”

- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be : A Breviary of Sin (79-80).

In a recent Q&A with John Piper and Conrad Mbewe, Piper was asked a question about increasing division in evangelicalism between those who are Reformed and those who are not. Toward the end of his answer, Piper makes a good point about how love for the Bible can be a unifying factor for evangelicals who hold differing theological views:

I love this Book. I love this Book way more than the Institutes… or way more than Jonathan Edwards.

An Arminian who is a lover of this Book – and you can smell humility on that guy, an absolute submission to this Book – man, can I go a long way with that guy! I can talk to him all day long.

But if a Calvinist comes along who never quotes this Book, but just quotes Calvin – I don’t want to spend any time with him. I’m not interested. He’s just always blabbering away. He’s read some latest catechism or some latest book, and he’s on to this doctrine or that doctrine… I want to say: “Would you give me a verse?! Give me a verse. I just want to hear God come out of your mouth!”

In that sense, I hope that I’m a winsome person. If an Arminian says, “Look, I think that everything I say is in this Book.” I say: “Me too! Let’s talk! Let’s go to this Book together. Let’s worship the God we see in this Book.” It’s amazing how far you can go with those people.

Piper’s point about love for the Word being a unifying factor for evangelicals is important to note. It shows that the dividing lines in evangelicalism are not merely about particular doctrines (Arminian vs. Calvinist, charismatic vs. cessationist, Baptist vs. Presbyterian, etc.), but about the centrality of the Word.

Plenty of young Reformed guys thrive in non-Reformed churches as long as those churches clearly uphold and passionately proclaim the Word. The best of the young Reformed movement is not concerned with Calvinizing all evangelicals; they’re too busy proclaiming the gospel to the lost. What the young Reformed movement is reacting against is not Arminianism (or non-Calvinism), but a superficial treatment of Scripture that fails to dig deep and grapple with the big questions the Bible raises.

The cover story of this month’s Christianity Today is a lengthy profile of Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The story is written by Molly Worthen, a writer and journalist finishing her Ph.D. at Yale. The article covers the history of the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention as well as Mohler’s influence in the wider world of evangelicalism. After reading the story a few times, I wanted to weigh in with some thoughts.

First, I deplore the way that many evangelicals (particularly those in the conservative circles I run in) belittle Christianity Today. I’ve heard the jokes: Christianity Astray, Capitulation Today etc. Some dismiss CT as if the magazine never takes strong stands based on solid biblical reflection.

I have critiqued CT articles from time to time, but I don’t join the chorus of constant CT-critics. Generally speaking, the issues I sometimes have with CT’s coverage tend to be issues I have with the prevailing sentiments of evangelicalism. CT provides a snapshot of the para-church big-tent wing of evangelicalism, a tent that encompasses Christians with different views on a number of important issues. If I were to agree with everything I read in CT, I would no longer be reading the type of publication that CT seeks to be: an evangelical magazine that speaks from and to village-green evangelicalism.

Enough with that. Now, on to the cover story.

When I first heard about CT doing this profile, I thought, It’s about time! Albert Mohler is highly influential in a number of circles that are, in turn, highly influential for evangelicals. When you put these different circles together, you realize just how much influence Mohler exerts. Three circles stand out:

• The Southern Baptist Convention. (He is a denominational strategist who played an important role in the the Great Commission Resurgence, not to mention the fact that he casts the vision for the Convention’s mother seminary).
• The Religious Right. (Though he eschews the term “culture warrior” and is more nuanced than the typical voices in conservative politics, his cultural analysis is very popular. He has become a sort of spokesman for this wing of evangelical thought.)
• The Reformed Resurgence. (Through his leadership in Together for the Gospel, the Gospel Coalition, and his well-known Reformed theology, he has carved out a role as a guide to young Reformed types seeking church and cultural renewal.)

Looking at Mohler from the perspective of the Reformed Resurgence, the Religious Right, and the Southern Baptist Convention reiterates his status as a mover and shaker for evangelicals. In many ways, he resembles one of his mentors, Carl F.H. Henry. Speaking of Henry, the most ironic part of CT’s cover story is that it paints Mohler as being outside the mainstream of evangelicalism for his complementarian and inerrantist views when, in fact, it is Mohler (and not CT) who is carrying the mantle of former CT editor Carl Henry on these and other issues.

Worthen’s profile of Mohler is not condemnatory. She carefully presents his views on many issues. The best parts of the article are when Worthen is quoting Mohler or summarizing their conversations. She ably describes the building blocks of Mohler’s vision: for Southern Seminary, for the Southern Baptist Convention, for the conservative political movement, etc. Overall, Worthen’s article is neither a hack job nor a puff piece.

That said, Justin Taylor rightly described the article as “condescending.” The tone is negative at times, and Worthen’s condescension comes out in some of the offhanded remarks she makes in her reporting.

For example, when speaking of Southern Seminary’s current theological outlook, Worthen includes a parenthetical remark:

“As proof of the seminary’s current ‘diversity,’ some faculty protest that they are only four-point Calvinists.”

Her sarcasm aside, Worthen fails to understand the administration’s adherence to the Abstract of Principles, which ensures that all faculty fall in line as at least a moderate Calvinist. Her remark assumes that great theological diversity in a faculty is a virtue, whereas Mohler believes it is more virtuous for the faculty to be faithful to the confessional statement of the seminary founders.

Southern Seminary students aren’t portrayed nicely either. She describes the student visitors to Mohler’s personal library as “goggle-eyed” and gullible.

When it comes to Mohler, Worthen conveys respect for his accomplishments, but she wonders out loud if he is the intellectual everyone thinks he is. She writes of his personal library:

“A self-conscious air pervades the library, in the jumble of cultural artifacts intended to convey worldliness; in the shelves lined with a conspicuous number of Great Books, Harvard Classics, and other pre-packaged sets that seem the fruit of a single-minded mission to conquer a body of knowledge, or at least to give that impression.”

So the library may be part of Mohler’s attempt to come off as smart? As if the man, after all of his academic accomplishments, needs a big library to demonstrate his intellectual fortitude?

Later, she goes further, saying that Mohler is not so much an intellectual or theologian as he is an “articulate controversialist.” She trots out two of Mohler’s controversial positions (though it’s hard to imagine that his creationist views are that controversial for evangelicals, most of whom fall squarely into the Answers in Genesis camp and not Biologos). Because of the space she devotes to controversies, Worthen leaves out Mohler’s more important view of  ”theological triage,” a concept that is very influential for conservative evangelicals seeking to uphold sophisticated theological distinctions and yet engage in partnerships with Christians who hold other views.

Worthen’s most perplexing comment is her charge of elitism. She writes:

“Mohler is just as elitist as the moderates of Old Southern: he is certain he has the truth, and those Baptists who protest simply are not initiated into the systematic splendor of Reformed thought.”

It appears that, for Worthen, elitism equals being certain one has the truth. Is that necessarily so? Cannot agnostics be elitist? What about postmodern theologians who revel in uncertainty and easily dismiss the “ultra-rationalistic” theological viewpoints of earlier evangelicals? What about journalists who are certain that certainty equals elitism? If Mohler comes across as an elitist in this article, a closer reading makes Worthen come across even more so.

In the end, Worthen gets a lot of facts and details right, but she puts them together in a way that makes her portrait of Mohler unflattering. Yes, the article could have been worse. But it could have been better too.

The Southern Baptist Convention is divided on multiple issues, but Calvinism seems to stir up the most passionate debate. Some Southern Baptists would like to see the Convention properly Calvinized. Others would like to run Calvinists off the plantation altogether.

In their most entrenched forms, these two camps appear to vacillate between a martyr complex and a puzzling triumphalism. Non-Calvinists sometimes write as if the Calvinist resurgence is about to sweep away everything precious in recent SBC history, and yet they constantly remind others that the majority of Southern Baptists are decidedly not Calvinistic. On the other side, Calvinists often feel like a beleaguered minority within the Convention, and yet they marshal the Calvinist beliefs of many early Southern Baptists or the rising number of young Calvinists today as proof of their legitimacy.

Historians debate our roots, some pointing us to the Charleston (cerebral Calvinist) stream while others look back to Sandy Creek (emotional revivalism). Some trace our lineage back to the Reformation, particularly the Particular Baptists. Others see a direct line to the Anabaptists.

Being forced to decide which stream I belong to – Charleston or Sandy Creek – is like someone asking me to take sides in Grandpa and Grandma’s divorce. I’m an intellectually-inclined high church guy who loves aspects of Grandpa Charles, but I’ve been nurtured by Grandma Sandy’s distinct version of piety too. I love them both, and I want them to stay married. Keeping them together makes for a stronger Southern Baptist family.

I generally steer clear of the debate about Calvinism in the SBC, not because I don’t have strong opinions on the matter, but because most blog conversations that I have seen tend to produce much more heat than light, and because the tiresome nature of the debate can distract us from our bigger task of fulfilling the Great Commission. But I am making an exception today, in order to review a recent book that makes a contribution to the discussion.

In November 2008, First Baptist Church, Woodstock hosted several notable Southern Baptist leaders for a conference intended to critique Calvinism. I was largely unaware of what took place at the “John 3:16 Conference” because the audio and video were not made public online. (I have written elsewhere about the need for resources to be made public free of charge, so I won’t rehash my thoughts on that here.) Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism (Broadman & Holman, 2010) is the book of essays that resulted from the conference.

What can one say about Whosoever Will? For starters, the tone of the book was more conciliatory than I expected. That’s not to say that the contributors don’t take firm stands and make strong points. To the contrary, they do. But they do so in a way that doesn’t belittle the intentions and the piety of the Calvinists they critique. The book begins with a foreword, a preface, and an introduction – all before you get to Chapter 1. It appears that the editors spent much time up front seeking to set a positive, Christ-like tone.

The book itself is a mix of popular works and scholarly essays. For example, Vines’ sermon on John 3:16 and Paige Patterson’s essay combines interesting anecdotes, exegetical argument, and pastoral reflection.

For time’s sake, I will refrain from commenting on each essay, but I would like to make some comments on a few of them.

Land on Election

Richard Land’s contribution seeks to establish a middle way between unconditional election and conditional election by appealing to God being outside of time. This “congruent election” proposal is fascinating, but I still am not sure how it resolves the biggest point of contention between Calvinists and non-Calvinists – namely, is God’s choice of us the ultimate cause of our salvation or is it our response to God’s choice? The question of predestination and foreknowledge is less about time, and more about purpose.

Allen on the Atonement

Longtime readers of this blog know that I do not adhere to the doctrine of Limited Atonement, so it’s no surprise that I found David Allen’s essay to be helpful, primarily because of the way he uses Calvinist authors to make the case against the infamous “L” in Calvinism’s Tulip. Kevin Kennedy’s follow-up essay on Calvin’s view of the atonement’s extent adds to the preponderance of evidence that Calvin either did not promote the view of Limited Atonement, or that he was at the very least conflicted and unsettled in his view.

Still, I do not grant Allen’s conclusion that Limited Atonement necessarily causes problems in evangelism. Nor do I think it’s a major point of contention for groups like Together for the Gospel. There are plenty of Reformed-leaning guys like me who may not adhere to the whole system, but who are able to get along just fine with those who do.

Keathley on Perseverance

Kenneth Keathley’s chapter on perseverance of the saints makes a case for total assurance, arguing against Puritan introspection that can become pathological. It’s true that the Puritans were prone to introspection that could lead them to be as self-centered as those who never thought about their sins. But false assurance is also very dangerous.

Which is the greater danger we are facing today? I hardly think the evangelical church is suffering from too much introspection, whereas it appears we are drowning in a sea of false assurance and fruitlessness. Keathley’s chapter is helpful in some respects (though I still find the Schreiner/Canaday view of perseverance to be the most exegetically plausible), but it might have been boosted by acknowledging the excesses of those who take total assurance to an unhealthy extreme.

Yarnell on Calvinist Tendencies

Malcolm Yarnell contributes an essay that seeks to warn churches of the tendencies that accompany Calvinism. The first concerns an Augustinian view of the church, which can lead to a de-emphasis on the purity of the local church and an improper focus on the church universal. In my experience, Baptist Calvinists tend to be more preoccupied with church purity than non-Calvinists. Some non-Calvinist Baptists use Augustinian arguments (such as the Wheat and Tares) as an argument against church discipline.

Next, Yarnell warns about the possibility of aristocratic elitism, seen primarily in the presbyterian form of church government. While this polity may indeed be a tendency for some Calvinist Baptists, I’ve been encouraged to see Southern Baptist church planters countering the Acts 29 elder-rule polity by insisting on congregational authority. But Yarnell is correct to see elitism as a potential problem, though I believe it will be more likely in temperament than in polity. Some Calvinists are elitist theologically, acting as though the people who disagree with them simply have less theological expertise.

Finally, Yarnell focuses on the possible antinomian (lawless) tendencies within the resurgence of Calvinism. I believe this warning is perhaps the most relevant to the discussion. As the younger generation reacts strongly against the moralistic excesses of our past, we should indeed be on the look out for a rise in antinomian tendency. This is why it is helpful to listen to those who are not in our theological camp. Others may see warning signs that we are oblivious to.

Streett on the Invitation

R. Alan Streett devotes a chapter to the public invitation. I was disappointed that this chapter didn’t make any distinctions between invitations and altar calls. While I believe whole-heartedly in calling people publicly to faith in Christ, I do not believe that an altar call is the only legitimate form of issuing this invitation. (By the way, this is not merely a Calvinist discussion. Plenty of non-Calvinists in other parts of the world have no experience with the altar call, either because they are unfamiliar with it or uncomfortable with the American excesses they may have witnessed.)

Conclusion

In all, Whosoever Will is a helpful addition to the discussion on Calvinism within the SBC. The book would have been stronger had the contributors engaged in some healthy self-criticism of the pitfalls and tendencies of the non-Calvinist position. But even as it is, it deserves a hearing from Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike. You may disagree with the point of view presented here, and that’s fine. But at least you will have listened to the arguments from others who love the Lord and seek the good of his church.

Take a look at this excerpt from Matthew Paul Turner’s memoir, Hear No Evil: My Story of Innocence, Music, and the Holy Ghost. Turner relates his journey from a fundamentalist Baptist background to (according to his FaceBook page) Christian universalism. For a while, he claimed to be a Calvinist:

Most people thought I was a fully-fledged Calvinist when I began carrying around a book of Puritan prayers and sayings.

But I wasn’t a full-on Calvinist. At the most, I believed three and a half of the five points to be true. The only time I became a five-point Calvinist was when I went home to Chestertown and my father and I felt like arguing about God’s sovereignty. Those arguments brought out the worst in both of us. Dad turned into the stubborn legalist who had no patience for ideas that differed from his, and I turned into the punk know-it-all son with a religious ax to grind.

I liked being Calvinist because it made me feel controversial and edgy to believe something different than what my parents believed. On those trips home, I felt like I was experiencing my own little Protestant Reformation, hammering various disagreements I had with my past into my parents’ faces.

I think that’s why people like Josiah and me sometimes turned into Calvinists. We could be passive-aggressive toward our parents and our past lives without being considered unchristian. Reformed doctrine offered a different way to think about God. And sometimes different, even when it really isn’t that different, is all we need to make us feel alive, creative, and in control of our own destiny.

Turner is on to something here. There is a tendency in us younger evangelicals to desire “edginess.” It’s not always a matter of Calvinism. Sometimes it comes out in our worship style, our innovative church growth practices, or our dismissal of the Christian Right and embrace of social justice and environmentalism.

But a renewal of evangelicalism will not take place if our desire is to be edgy and controversial for controversy’s sake. Believers on fire for God will indeed be “radical,” “edgy,” “subversive” (I like that last word especially!), but lasting change will elude us if our desire for edginess and subversive living becomes an end in itself.

We are most different from the world when we are seeking God with all our hearts. Seeking his kingdom and righteousness is what sets us apart from the world.

Let’s avoid the temptation to adopt certain “edgy” beliefs and practices as a way to set ourselves apart from other Christians. Instead, let’s re-focus on living for God’s glory, which will set us apart from the world in the way that truly makes a difference.