Fear and Trembling

What Is the Gospel Message? My last post on Mark Dever’s book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism expressed the requirement for a clear understanding of the gospel in order for us to be able to communicate it effectively. Dever does not leave us in the dark on his opinion. We have his short summary below. “…Here’s what I understand the good news to be: the good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sin and trust in Christ, we are born agai...

This is a first of several posts on Mark Dever’s new book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism . I found this book to be clearly written, easy to understand, and extremely helpful. He addresses several key issues with respect to evangelism’s how and why. One of the best quotes follows. “None of us ever has a complete understanding of the gospel, but we must have a clear idea of the basics of our message, and we must be clear in our expression of them. If there is a likely misunderstanding, we should address it. We should speak in such a way as to be understood. Contextualization is the big theological word for this.” – Mark Dever in The Gospel and Personal Evangelism , Crossway Books: Wheaton, Illinois, 2007, p. 63. (Emphasis his.) Emergent “Contextualization” is one of those hot-button words these days, and the idea figures greatly in debates over the emergent church conversation . It’s really not as complicated as many think; it’s just common sense. Different people from diff...

“I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That’s what I believe.” – President George W. Bush in an October 4, 2007, interview with Al Arabiya, as quoted in “Modern Reformation,” Volume 17, Number 1, January / February 2008, p. 4. “I have spoken clearly about my belief that -- I pray to the same God as a Muslim prays…” – President George W. Bush, White House News Release My respect for George W. Bush’s intellect just went down several notches. Given the notable differences between Allah and Yahweh , not to mention the difference between Jesus as God or Jesus as an inferior prophet , I cannot see how a comment like that can be intellectually viable .

Book Discussion - “The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South” by Philip Jenkins I’m discussing the book “The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South” by Philip Jenkins with the ACFAR blog (see here ). I find that book to be very encouraging so far. Here’s one of my comments from this post . We’d welcome your discussion. Words in quotes are from the excellent chapter summary and commentary here . “If we see the importance of apologetics in America and the West, then how much more important is it in the rapidly growing South?” I don’t think the America church sees the importance of apologetics. We seem to be too busy trying to council everyone on their psychological issues, give them practical advice on how to live, playing the type of music the people in our area like, and promising people prosperity on the basis of their faith. At least it seems the Southern Hemisphere church is arguing about the right issues. I pray we can have ...

Thanks to Infidels Are Cool for some interesting quotes of the Koran here . Careful at this site though, it’s a political issue with it. The only way, in my opinion to confront Islam is to convert them to Christ and let Him worry about changing their lives.

Thanks to “ Grace and Truth to You ” for a wonderful post on Southern Baptist Missions. Read it here . God bless the faithful. My brother-in=law is one of them. He serves in a “closed country.” Please pray for him.

On Martin Luther King Junior’s birth day, I wanted to say that I share many of his dreams for America. That’s no small thing for someone my age raised in rural Tennessee. In fact, I would consider it a miracle of God’s grace. There is one specific dream of his that I would elevate above all others: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."” – Martin Luther King Jr. Amen!

Keith Mathison in this month’s TableTalk magazine weighs in on the controversy surrounding N. T. Wright’s interpretation of the atonement: “…Wright argues that the church has misunderstood the doctrine of justification for centuries. Justification, he argues, does not deal with how one becomes a Christian. instead it is a declaration that one is already a Christian. Also, according to Wright, justification does not involve the imputation of Christ’s righteousness because such an idea is nonsensical. Furthermore, our future justification is based on our whole life, or as Wright says, on the basis of our “works.” This future verdict, based on works, is received in the present by faith. The reason for the controversy should be evident.” [“When Wright Is Wrong,” Keith A. Mathison, in Tabletalk, Ligonier Ministries, January 2008, p. 74-75.] He goes on to recommend a book by John Piper called The Future of Justification . I am working my way through it now, and I find it helpful. It applies ...

As we face a presidential election I wanted to post a weigh-in on the abortion rights issue. I will never vote for a pro-choice candidate. It seems clear enough to me from common sense and from a passage of Scripture in Exodus 21:22-25: When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. An unborn baby is stated to have “life.” This life is protected by the same penalty imposed on a person who commits murder. That seems clear enough to solve the moral dilemma. I have outlined an argument elsewhere that ethical issues become a matter of interpreting what the Bible says on a given issue. The short version is that Christ established the ...

I took a little time off from posting this past week or so in order to prepare for my upcoming “ mission trip .” I spent some time looking at my own life and left the exercise once again amazed at God’s grace to me in Christ. Reformed theology is good for the soul. I’ll start posting again this week.

“Nothing less than Christ will satisfy, and when you find him, nothing more could be desired.” – Stephen Charnock I have a wonderful opportunity at the first of next month. I am going to Lima, Peru, with Operation Christmas Child to help give shoeboxes to children. Samaritan’s Purse did some relief work here after an 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Getting to go is a real honor. Part of taking the honor seriously is to do some spiritual soul-searching before I leave. Is there anything in my life I desire more than I do Christ? Am I satisfied that my relationship with God depends on Him or am I striving to earn peace with God on my own? Am I really growing in my walk with Christ? Am I sinning less, particularly in those areas where I struggle (anger, worry, lust, etc.)? Am I searching for areas of my sin that have escaped my awareness to this point? What are my motives for this trip? Is it just a vacation in disguise? Am I expecting to “save the world” in my American grandiosity? Will I be...

“Christianity is a rational religion. If it’s not rational, it’s not Christian.” – John Wesley “That knowledge [knowledge of God] is at least rational knowledge.” – Francis Schaefer , commenting on John 17:3 According to one online service , something is rational when it is “consistent with or based on or using reason.” Examples of the word’s use are: "rational behavior"; "a process of rational inference"; "rational thought." Christianity is the most reasonable of religions. In fact, I would call it the only reasonable position to take. We have nothing to fear from the facts. Unbelievers have good questions, but I find that those questions are rarely, if ever, new questions. The answers have been around for a long time. Many of them were answered by the Apostle Paul , and he used answers given him by study and meditation on Old Testament texts. There is another part of this. A part that does not reflect well on American Christianity. Another definition of ...

I was snookered into watching a movie this last week. What I mean is I went to a movie with a ground of friends which was billed as an action adventure movie. It was much more like a horror movie instead. “I Am Legend” with Will Smith was not what I expected. It truly was a horror film. But there is one thing I have always liked about horror films: there is always a bad guy. Not just bad, but evil. Horror movies assume some standard of good or right behavior in order to make the villains look bad. From Jason to Freddie Kruger, we always know who the bad guys are when we watch horror. It was no different in “I Am Legend.” The villains were the “dark ones,” people who had been transformed into rabid, wild beings by a virus. They behaved in terrible ways, showing no regard for those not infected with the virus, the world around them, or even for themselves. Will Smith’s character makes a telling comment into his tape recorder at one point in the movie (pardon me for an inexact qu...