The Gospel Coalition

The Principles of Evangelicalism
What does evangelical mean on evangelical lips? It is an umbrella word, covering and connecting belief, spirituality, purpose, and action, both personal and corporate. The quadrilateral account of evangelicalism as biblicist, cross-centered, conversionist, and evangelistic has gained wide acceptance in recent years. I myself profile evangelicalism in terms of six belief-and-behavior principles, thus:

1. Enthroning Holy Scripture, the written word of God, as the supreme authority and decisive guide on all matters of faith and practice;
2. Focusing on the glory, majesty, kingdom, and love of Jesus Christ, the God-man who died as a sacrifice for our sins and who rose, reigns, and will return to judge mankind, perfect the church, and renew the cosmos;
3. Acknowledging the lordship of the Holy Spirit in the entire life of grace, which is the life of salvation expressed in worship, work, and witness;
4. Insisting on the necessity of conversion (not of a particular conversion experience, but of a discernibly converted condition, regenerate, repentant, and rejoicing);
5. Prioritizing evangelism and church extension as a life-project at all times and under all circumstances; and
6. Cultivating Christian fellowship, on the basis that the church of God is essentially a living community of believers who must help each other to grow in Christ.

“The City of God is a place where the inhabitants love people and walk on gold; the city of man is a place where the inhabitants love gold and walk on people.”

St. Augustine

In response to my post a few days ago, A Small List of Good Books , some have asked me to provide a smaller list of books geared more specifically toward helping a young Christian grow in their understanding and application of the Christian faith. Here are 12 that come to mind immediately:

Christian Basics by John Stott

Do I Know God? by (I’m almost ashamed to say it but here it goes) Tullian Tchividjian

The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges

The Contemporary Christian by John Stott

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Designed for Dignity by Richard Pratt

Living the Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney

Engaging God’s World by Cornelius Plantinga

Creation Regained by Albert M. Wolters

Desiring God by John Piper

Some of these are a bit more challenging than others, but I would strongly recommend that any new believer who is serious about growing in the Christian faith take two years to read each and every one of these books carefully. If you do, you’ll be glad. And when you’re done with these, come back and I’ll give you more. May God richly bless you as you read.

Here is an excellent article by my friend Mike Glodo from RTS Orlando. This article originally appeared in Modern Reformation magazine but is here reprinted in Reformed Perspectives online magazine.

Mike rightly notes that “apart from the church, there is no salvation.” Read the article to see what he means. This is the article that God used to propel me toward pastoral ministry as I had my heart set on becoming a seminary professor.  Thanks Mike!

In response to my post on the need to read good books, I was asked by one new believer if I could recommend some good books to begin reading. Below is a list of some books (categorized) that really helped me out as a young Christian. My hope and prayer is that God would use some of these to help you the way he used them to help me. 

Spiritual Disciplines
E.M. Bounds, “Power Through Prayer”
John Piper, “A Hunger for God”
Donald Whitney, “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life”
T.M. Moore, “The Disciplines of Grace”
Matthew Henry, “A Method for Prayer”

Devotional
J.I. Packer, “Knowing and Doing the Will of God”
Arthur Bennett, “The Valley of Vision”
Charles Spurgeon, “Morning and Evening”
John Piper, “A Godward Life” (Book 1 and Book 2)
J.C. Ryle, “Expository Thoughts on the Gospels” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)

Church History
Earle E. Cairns, “Christianity Through the Centuries”
S.M. Houghton, “Sketches From Church History”
Bruce L. Shelley, “Church History in Plain Language”
James Eckman, “Exploring Church History”
Kenneth Scott Latourette, “A History of Christianity” (Vol. 1 and 2)
Justo L. Gonzalez, “The Story of Christianity”

Introduction to Theology
J.I. Packer, “Concise Theology”
J.I. Packer, “Knowing God”
Thomas Watson, “A Body of Divinity”
Bruce Milne, “Know the Truth”
Sinclair Ferguson, “Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction”
R.C. Sproul, “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith”
R.C. Sproul, “Chosen by God”
James Montgomery Boice, “Foundations of the Christian Faith”
Michael Scott Horton, “Putting Amazing Back Into Grace”
John Piper, “The Pleasures of God”
D. James Kennedy, “Truths that Transform”

Christian Living
J.C. Ryle, “Practical Religion”
J.C. Ryle, “Holiness”
John Piper, “Desiring God”
J.I. Packer, “God’s Plans for You”
J.I. Packer, “Rediscovering Holiness”
Jerry Bridges, “The Pursuit of Holiness”
Jerry Bridges, “Discipline of Grace”
Jerry Bridges, “The Gospel for Real Life”
C.J. Mahaney, “Living The Cross Centered Life”
Joshua Harris, “Stop Dating the Church”

Basic Bible Study Helps
Tremper Longman, “Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind”
Tremper Longman, “Making Sense of the Old Testament”
Alec Motyer, “The Story of the Old Testament”
John Stott, “The Story of the New Testament”
R.C. Sproul, “Knowing Scripture”
Philip Comfort, Ed., “The Origin of the Bible”

Evangelism and Missions
J.I. Packer, “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God”
John Piper, “Let the Nations Be Glad”
Will Metzger, “Tell the Truth”
John Stott, “Christian Mission in the Modern World”
Joseph Alleine, “An Alarm to the Unconverted”

Other authors I would highly recommend as you get started would be C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Os Guinness, Nancy Pearcey, Charles Colson, John Frame, and Ravi Zacharias. Also, read the footnotes and endnotes in these books for further direction on who and what to read.  Enjoy…

Tonight before dinner I asked my wife, “If you had to define the Gospel in one sentence, what would you say?” She’s still thinking about it. It’s not an easy question to answer. In fact, when you take into consideration both the individual and cosmic reaches of the Gospel, it even makes it more difficult. I said to a friend recently, “The Gospel is not summed up in the words ‘God saves sinners.’ Rather, the Gospel is summed up in the words ‘God redeems the cosmos’, of which individual sinners are a part.” But even given this difficulty, I think we should be able to summarize the essence of the Gospel in a sentence. So I’m interested in hearing how you would do it. How would you define the essence of the Gospel in one sentence? Here is my most recent attempt: “The Gospel is the good news that, in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God makes all things new. ” What do you think? I want to hear yours…

When it comes to many things, no one says it better than G.K. Chesterton. His book Orthodoxy has been on my all-time favorite list of books for many years now. In thinking about both the challenges and opportunities facing the church in the modern world, I read some Chesterton today and behold, look what I found:  

“The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.”

Profound! Chew on that one for a while and be changed!

I was sad to find out just a few minutes ago that Dr. D. James Kennedy, founding pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church right here in Ft. Lauderdale, passed away peacefully in his sleep this morning. It was only 10 days ago that he officially retired from his post as pastor at the age of 76. Last December he had a cardiac arrest and has been experiencing complications ever since. Today those complications ended. 

Growing up in South Florida, we knew the Kennedy’s for many years and I can say with absolute certainty that because of his evangelistic ministry there are more Christians in this area now than there were 25 years ago. He was an amazing man. When I moved down here to start New City he met with me on a few occasions to encourage me and to tell me how happy he was that I had “come home” to preach. I liked having him around. Knowing that I could go to him with questions and counsel was a comfort to me. I’m going to miss him. I’ll see you on the other side Jim.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last 10 years or so about the Christian fascination with “fitting in.” As I said in a recent interview with Justin Taylor, many Christians have concluded that the best way to reach the world is to become just like the world. The truth is, that Christians make a difference in the world by being different from the world; they don’t make a difference by being the same. It’s this conviction that has me working on a new book tentatively titled Unfashionable. My reading for this book has me going back to the one who, for the last 10 years, has helped me the most in my thinking about the church and it’s role in modern society, David Wells. In a post a couple days ago I gave you a passage from his book God in the Wasteland. Here is another passage from God in the Wasteland that I read again tonight:

“The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’e resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.” 

Or, as Os Guinness once wrote, “The ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society is the church’s engagement with God.” Amen! Christians should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter cultural, most distinctively different from the world. We younger evangelicals can do something about this if we radically commit ourselves to the beauty of being unfashionable. C’mon!