Review of N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope by Professor Thomas Schreiner

See his very helpful 9 Marks review here.

HT: Kerux Noemata

12 Sins We Blame on Others

Desiring God has this insightful post here.

HT: Julian Freeman

Faithful Anglican Protests During Gene Robinson's Sermon

Openly gay US bishop Gene Robinson was forced to halt a sermon at a west London church after being called on to repent. You can watch the video here.

May God give more young people courage like this young man to stand up for truth and for the gospel. I am thankful for this young man: for his faithfulness, his boldness, his love for Christ, his love for the church, and his love for the truth.

HT: Challies

God is Not Dead Yet

William Lane Craig writes an article in Christianity Today on how current philosophers argue for God's existence here.

HT: Justin Taylor

Recommended Reading by William Lane Craig on the Existence of God

Christianity Today posts his list here.

HT: Justin Taylor

Tim Keller on the Importance of Hell

See the article here.

HT: Tullian Tchividjian

Quote of the Day: The Power of God's Word

Martin Luther said:

I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing. And when, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip and my Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a Prince or Emperor inflicted such damage upon it. The Word did it all.

R. Kent Hughes, "Preaching: God's Word to the World Today" in The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody, 1996), 96.

May we live, think, walk, pray, meditate, teach, preach, on this Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17) the rest of our lives. Amen!

Fighting Covetousness by Looking to Others?

In his latest Taste and See, John Piper has a helpful meditation on this topic here.

Recommended Summer Reading by Tim Keller

This excellent list is avaliable here.

Which Jesus?

I am now at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary ready to study Greek for the next two months. I guy just called my new GCTS friend and asked about how to answer people who ask: "how we can trust the gospel accounts of Jesus when there are so many other "gospels" out there?" (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas). Here is an excellent, readable, and comprehensive short article by Dr. Craig Blomberg called "Jesus of Nazareth: How Historians Can Know Him and Why it Matters." It is something that you can give to those who ask, and better yet read it for yourself.

What Preaching Is

David Wells in his new book The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers and Emergents in the Postmodern World says the following concerning preaching:

"Preaching is not a conversation, a chat about some interesting ideas. It is not the moment in which postmoderns hear their own private messages in the biblical words, one unique to each one who hears, and then go their own way. No! This is God speaking! He speaks through the stammering lips of the preacher where that preacher's mind is on the text of Scripture and his heart is in the presence of God. God, as Luther put it, lives in the preacher's mouth.

This is the kind of preaching that issues a summons, which nourishes the soul, which draws the congregation into the very presence of God so that no matter what aspect of his character, his truth, his working in this world is in focus, we leave with awe, gratitude, encouragement, and sometimes a rebuke. We have been in the very presence of God! That is what great preaching always does" (page 230)

HT: Matt Harmon

Ministry Can Be Dangerous to Your Spiritual Health

Tim Keller has an eye opening article on this subject in the Reedeemer Report (March 2007). I especially like his point that one can "mistake the operations of your spiritual gifts for the operation of spiritual grace in your life" (page 1) the danger being that:

we can look to our ministry activity as evidence that God is with us, or as a way to earn God’s favor and prove ourselves. If our heart remembers the gospel, and is rejoicing in our justification and adoption, then our ministry is done as a sacrifice of thanksgiving —and the result will be that our ministry is done in love, humility, patience, and tenderness. But our heart may be continuing to do the same self-justification it has always done—seeking to control God and others by earning and proving our worth—through our ministry performance (page 4).

For more Tim Keller Resources and links to articles such as these go to this site.

Messages from the Dwell Church Planting Conference

Here's the audio from the 2008 Dwell Conference in New York:

Dwelling with Non-Christians (Darrin Patrick)

Dwelling in the Gospel (Tim Keller)

Dwelling thru the Text (Mark Driscoll)

Persuasion (Tim Keller)

Dwelling in the Text (Mark Driscoll)

Dwelling in the Cross (C.J. Mahaney)

Dwelling in the Kingdom (Ed Stetzer)

Dwelling Incarnationally (Eric Mason)

HT: Justin Taylor

How to Read 500 Books a Year

This is how D.A. Carson does it.

HT: Unashamed Workman

Wise Thoughts for Young Pastors by Iain Murray

Here are six points from veteran pastor Iain Murray directed especially at young pastors:

1. It has been the practice for many ministers to be away from the routine and to look closely at our lives in the light of eternity. This is a valuable practice—taking a day per month or a few days per year.
2. Watch your own temperament. If you love being out and about you probably need to be in your study more; if you love to be in your study you may need to be out and about more.
3. Read the best books and only the best and read them with a pencil in your hand or with some other system so you can recall even years later what you’ve learned.
4. Be sure you do not let emails and web sites control your priorities.
5. We need very carefully to avoid losing time on controversies. Sometimes it is necessary but most often it is not.
6. Do not “see” in your churches what you cannot change. In most churches there are things we’d like to see changed but that we can’t change. Sometimes it is good not to see such things—to just ignore them. It is better not to see a disputable matter that can disrupt the whole church.

HT: Unashamed Workman

Update: Tim Challies summarizes the whole message by Iain Murray in which the above is from here.

Should We Make the Gospel Larger?

You may be surprised by Mark Dever's response, but I think that he is right.

Just for Starters

I have just started going through a Matthias Media Bible study called Just for Starters with some young believers at the Drop-in that I run. It is excellent for discipling new believers and for brushing up on the basics. As we were studying Romans 5:8-9:

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God (ESV).

I had never noticed before the difference between salvation and justification. Justification is being declared right with God in the present and salvation is being saved from the wrath of God on the last day.

I highly recommend you do it with a friend (but if you do, also purchase Preparing Just for Starters; they are all available at the Matthias Media store).

The Shack

There has been a lot of discussion and talk of the recent spiritual/theological novel called The Shack by Canadian William Young (no, I have not read it yet). I have heard many different perspectives on the book by people who love God.

Here is a comprehensiveness and thoughtful review by Canadian Tim Challies (you can print it out and give it to people).

Here is a recent news article in USA Today.

HT: Justin Taylor

Keeping Up Your Greek

If you have done a year of Biblical Greek at Bible College, University, or Seminary and have lost it or would like to keep it up, Lee Irons has advice on reading through the Greek New Testament year by year and has also prepared a one year calendar for doing it. He also has put together syntactical notes on the Greek New Testament, which you can get to by scrolling down this page until you see the heading “Greek New Testament.”

Commenting on reading through the Greek New Testament, Jim Hamilton says the following:

He is also putting together syntactical notes on the Greek New Testament, which you can get to by scrolling down this page until you see the heading “Greek New Testament.”

If you decide to read through the Greek New Testament, be careful. The things in that book got most of its authors killed, and when people have taken it seriously in the history of the church, crazy things like the Reformation have happened and some folks even got themselves burned at the stake.

The Greek New Testament is decidedly unsafe. If you embrace it, you will be hated (see John 15:18-20). To paraphrase Lester De Koster: there it is, throbbing on your desk, the living word of God.

HT: Jim Hamilton

How to Waste Your Theological Education

Here are 45 ways to do so. This was very convicting for me. I am gulity of many of these. God, please forgive me. In Jesus name, Amen.

HT: Justin Taylor

Spiritual Health Survey

Tenth Presbyterian Church has a Spiritual Health Survey for its congregants, which looks very helpful. Maybe your church could adapt it and use it.

HT: Justin Taylor

New Attitude Conference Messages

Some good stuff!

• Ripping, Burning, Eating: A Right Response to God's Word Josh Harris • Saturday, May 24
• The Authority of Scripture Mark Dever • Sunday, May 25
• Bible Q&A Al Mohler • Sunday, May 25
• The Troubled Soul: God's Word and Our Feelings C.J. Mahaney • Sunday, May 25
• What's the Point?: Growing in Vision for Diligent Study Eric Simmons • Monday, May 26
• William Tyndale: A Life Transformed By God's Word John Piper • Monday, May 26
• Fighting for Faith with God's Word John Piper • Monday, May 26
• God as Father: Understanding the Doctrine of Adoption in God's Word C.J. Mahaney • Tuesday, May 27

HT: Justin Taylor

The Relationship Between the Gospel and Social Action

Tony Payne has an interesting article here.

Crazy High on a Windsurfing Board!

Mis-studying Scripture

“Apply yourself wholly to the text; apply the text wholly to yourself”

(Seventeenth-century theologian Johann Albrecht Bengel).

It seems to me that today people often do only one of these and the result is a perversion of God's design for us as God's people. If one applies themselves wholly to the text but does not apply the text wholly to themselves then they can become prideful, stunted spiritually, and not impacting people as much as they could. However, if one applies the text wholly to themselves without applying themselves wholly to the text, they often go through life without biblical discernment, not knowing true teaching from false teaching, often misapplying Scripture to their lives and the lives of others, pulling it out of context (both historically, literally, and canonically), and often making the Scripture mean what they want it to mean (not what it actually means) all the while (sadly) not realizing that they are actually doing this. Both are needed. May God give us grace to practice both.

(Quote taken from Dr. Moo's website)

Don't Waste Your Pulpit Video: John Piper

Modesty: Humility Expressed in Dress

C.J. Mahaney has two very insightful posts on modesty taken from the forthcoming book: Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (Crossway Books, September 2008). This is must reading for every woman young and old: Part 1, Part 2.

Sex and the Soul: Inside Higher Education

There is an interesting article about the findings of Donna Freitas in her book Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses (Oxford University Press):

The article begins like this: "On matters sexual and soulful, colleges can be divided into two categories, the “spiritual” and the “evangelical” — the former the domain of hookup culture, the latter of purity culture, according to Donna Freitas, an assistant professor of religion at Boston University..."

Read the whole article here.

Ways You Might be Deceived Into Thinking You Know God When You Don't

Tullian Tchividjian takes these out of his book Do I Know God?:

• I Prayed the Sinner's Prayer - Isn't that Enough?
• I Remember The Time I Made A Decision For Christ–Isn’t That Enough?
• I’m Religious–Isn’t That Enough?
• I’m Spiritual–Isn’t That Enough?
• I’m A Good Person–Isn’t That Enough?
• I Have Faith - Isn't That Enough?
  

Expelled: The Movie

From the website:

In a controversial new satirical documentary, author, former presidential speechwriter, economist, lawyer and actor Ben Stein travels the world, looking to some of the best scientific minds of our generation for the answer to the biggest question facing all Americans today:

Are we still free to disagree about the meaning of life?

Or has the whole issue already been decided…

while most of us weren’t looking?

It looks really interesting. R.C. Sproul interviews Ben Stein here.

New Book By Tim Keller: The Prodigal God

Tullian Tchividjian has the scoop here.

The Emergent Church: Reinventing Liberalism

Dr. Liam Goligher, pastor of Duke Street Church in London, England and author of The Jesus Gospel: Recovering the Lost Message, recently gave a very helpful, well researched, and thoughtful analysis of the Emergent Church at Toronto Baptist Seminary. This is a must for every Western Christian to listen to. Even if you do not consider yourself Emergent, you may be more influenced by it than you realize.

Why Rob Bell Makes This Pastor Mad

[Below is a very helpful review of Velvet Elvis by Pat Abendroth, the Senior Pastor of Omaha Bible Church that I got from Erik Raymond's website].

Time magazine recently called Rob Bell “The Hipper-Than-Thou-Pastor” (Thursday, Dec. 06, 2007). This, along with the fact that his influence seems to only be growing, led me to read his book Velvet Elvis. Since it has been done, there seems to be little need for a comprehensive book review. But as I read Velvet Elvis I became personally motivated to do my part and duty as a pastor and expose some of the dangerous content lurking behind Bell’s hip veneer.

Pleasantries
Based upon what I read in Bell’s book, he is both funny and hip. I say this because he made me laugh and because he does cool things like play in a punk band and surf (even the infamous Trestles!).

Continuing on with the positives, Bell seems sincere and appropriately calls for Christians to love those in need (not just fellow Christians) as is called for in the second greatest commandment. This is a great point and something that needs to be said and re-said before being said once more.

Anger Management
So with a hip rock dude writing a book addressing the need for Christians to act more like Jesus, why the anger on my part? Here are some of the reasons:

Rob Bell makes me mad because he preaches an anti-gospel. He craftily does this by portraying the essence of Christianity as following Jesus and treating people the way Jesus did. While this is important, living the “Jesus life” is not the essence of Christianity and neither is obeying the commands of Jesus (as important as that is). The essence of Christianity centers upon the work of Christ on behalf of sinners (i.e. substitutionary atonement). This is the matter of first importance (1 Corinthians 15:3) that was the prioritized message of Jesus’ apostles (e.g. 1 Corinthians 2:2). Missing this is no small oversight by Bell. It is missing that which is of first importance! Over and over again he talks about living the way of Jesus and being like Jesus, but without the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus’ work! This is scandalous.

Rob Bell makes me mad because he writes off the virgin birth of Jesus as non-essential (pp. 26-27). You heard right, he writes off the virgin birth of Jesus as not essential! To state the obvious, this is entirely out of step with the Bible. Sure, one can redress and then mimic once-trendy quasi arguments by unbelievers about the word used for virgin in Isaiah 7:14 possibly meaning young woman. But the New Testament leaves no wiggle-room on the intent and therefore meaning of the word. We know this because the Isaiah text is quoted and essentially interpreted in the New Testament. In Matthew 1:23-25 the word virgin is used twice and shown by the context to mean virgin in the classic sense of the term. To ignore this is to show gross negligence which seems to depend upon an assumed biblical illiteracy by his readers. Far from being not essential, the biblical reality of Christ’s virgin birth is vital to His unique status as the sinless God-Man. As troubling as this unorthodox teaching by Bell is, he commits a more dangerous foul. Bell continues with arguments against the virgin birth of Jesus followed by an attempt to defuse would-be critics by slipping in a token affirmation. Bell professes to be a Christian. But given his disregard for Christian doctrine, the name “poser” comes to mind (borrowing an old title from the punk rock scene).

Rob Bell makes me mad because he downplays the vital role of conversion. In a horrible overreaction against professing Christians wrongly not being compassionate, Bell says “the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people…” (p. 167). He then proceeds to establish a supporting argument that would surely set well with most anyone who is either ignorant of or ignoring what Jesus says in John 3—unless someone is converted, they will not see the light of day in the kingdom! Bell’s tactic is entirely unacceptable and irresponsible, but dare I say, fits with his mimicking the likes of the quintessential theological liberal Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969). Certainly Christians must love those in need if they are going to truly follow Christ. But such love is to augment the need to proclaim a gospel of repentance which calls for conversion according to Jesus.

Rob Bell makes me mad because he does violence to the clear words of Jesus. On page 21 for example, when he talks about Jesus’ claims of exclusivity in John 14:6, he spins them to mean something other than what they clearly say and have been recognized as saying by Christians throughout the ages. At first I was surprised at how much Bell sounded like a radical theological liberal like Marcus Borg, but then I saw that the very first endnote in the book was an unqualified recommendation of a book by Borg! Bell’s recommended reading on his church’s web site promotes reading by John Dominic Crossan, the former co-director of the Jesus Seminar, so endorsing Borg is not a matter of isolation. Such men have a reputation for shamelessly doing violence to Jesus and His gospel.

Rob Bell makes me mad because he is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. I am not suggesting that churches with “Bible Church” in the name are anything special per se, but historically they have not been places where things like the virgin birth is considered non-essential. In my estimation this is downright deceptive.

A New Dress
Simply put, Rob Bell is a theological liberal resembling the mainline denominations of the early 1900s. The difference is that Bell is sporting a fashionable new dress or in his case, a new pair of geek-chic glasses.

If J. Gresham Machen were alive today, I suspect he would do what he did with Bell’s theological predecessors. Machen would remind him that while he has the freedom to start a new religion, he really should call it something other than Christian given that his religion does not resemble what Christ actually established as recorded in the Christian book, the Bible.

Causes
In my opinion, the reason this book is resonating with so many is because we have seen the evangelical church abandon the Evangel Himself. Yes, much of evangelicalism is empty because the Evangel of our evangelicalism is gone or as David Wells so aptly put it: He has been dislodged from its center. Couple this with a general ignorance of the Bible and church history and you have a book like Velvet Elvis actually seen as publishable by a “Christian” publisher and selling as if it were something novel and good.

Because I love the Evangel of the Bible and therefore historic Christianity, I guess it is off to anger management class for me.

Patrick Abendroth
www.OmahaBibleChurch.org

Recommended Reading in Christology by Dan Wallace

In some blog comments, Dr. Dan Wallace recommends the following books as an introduction to the study of Christology:

Martin Hengel, Issues in Early Christology

Richard Bauckham, God Crucified

Larry Hurtado, One God, One Lord; Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity

C. F. D. Moule, Origin of Christology

Bowman and Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place

Actual Passover Lamb Sacrifice Online Video in Jerusalem

When someone sinned in the Old Covenant, they were to bring a sacrifice. This revealed how serious sin was (and is), that it deserved death.

The site of the video states the following:

"Over 3,000 years ago, God brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. He accomplished this by bringing ten devastating plagues upon the Egyptians, the last and greatest of which was the death of the oldest son in each family. God made a way for the Israelites to escape this death by sacrificing a lamb and putting its blood on the doorposts of their houses. Then the angel would “pass over” the house with the blood so that the firstborn would not die. At that time, God commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Passover every year. Each family would choose a lamb on the 10th day of the month of Nisan and on the 14th day, the lamb would be slain.

Shortly after the time of Christ, the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Since then, the Jewish people have not been able to follow the command to kill a lamb on Passover. But this year, a group of Jewish people carried out a ritual slaughter in Jerusalem not far from where the temple used to be.

Watching this sacrifice shows how, as God said, “the life is in the blood.” This sacrifice brings home the high cost of sin which requires the death of a substitute in the place of man. And it should bring to mind what the writer of Hebrews said, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Just before the animal is slain, the priest pronounced a blessing: "Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of the world, who has sanctified us with his statutes and commanded us concerning the [ritual] slaughtering."

Here are Todd Bolen's thoughts:

"We read about sacrifice in the Bible but we don't really understand what that means. We read passages that talk about the "life being in the blood," but those are just words that we don't really consider. We "know" that the wages of sin are high, but we don't get the life lesson that the ancient Israelites received every year.

The point of sacrifice was simply this: you deserve to die because of your sin. This animal is dying in your place. Watching the priest slice his throat and watching the blood drain out drove the point home much better than reading a chapter of Leviticus.

Today New Testament believers know that the blood of bulls and goats is not enough to take away sin. But I think that we can often just take for granted Jesus' death in our place. We don't think about his innocent blood draining away because we can't conceptualize it. We don't always appropriate the idea of substitute because we've never seen a living object die in our place. But our loss can be this: sin is easy because forgiveness (we think) is cheap."

See here for the video.

HT: Justin Taylor

An Interview with David Wells Concerning His New Book

David Wells, professor of theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has written a new book called The Courage to Be Protestant. The A-Team Blog has a 2 Part Interview with Dr. Wells here: (part 1, part 2).

HT: Justin Taylor

Are You an Emergent Christian? Take this Test

Brandon O'Brien, Leadership's assistant editor, quotes the following from the book Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should B by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck (Moody, 2008) (see the website for more details about the book):

After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be an emergent Christian: if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Frank, Walter Winks, and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem;...

if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naïve, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism—if all or most of this torturously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian.*

So are you an emergent Christian?

HT: Brandon O'Brien