The Pitfalls and Joys of "Trying Harder"

I recently wrote a brief defense of the importance of personal effort (or “trying harder”) in God’s gracious design to transform His saints. My central claim was that we put ourselves at odds with the NT if we understand or teach the dynamic of sanctification in a way that devalues or strongly cautions against hard work.

But that doesn’t mean emphasizing hard work has no attendant hazards.

Bob Hayton wrote of one of these pitfalls in a post last summer: Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Performance-Based Sanctification.

Work hard, feel good; blow it and feel terrible. Where is the

confidence in God’s grace in this model? The secret to living victoriously for Christ is gritting your teeth, doing more, and not doing the things you shouldn’t do. Try, try, try. Harder, harder, harder! Don’t quit. Keep going. We say that salvation is by grace, but growing in Christ is about the will power, the commitment and the determination.

This can lead to despair or a terrible form of pride.

The solution Bob advocates (citing Terry Rayburn and Tim Kellar, in part) is to reject trying harder, and focus exclusively on faith. Several Reformed leaders have emphasized a similar perspective in recent years (with a burst of back and forth on the Web beginning in the summer of 2011, see the table posting tomorrow), Tullian Tchividjian and Sean Lucas among them.

My purpose here is to explore the problem Bob and others have described. Perhaps we can come to more fully understand it.

The “just preach the gospel to yourself” view of sanctification has a legitimate complaint when it describes the despair-pride yo-yo experience many believers go through. I’ve not only met Christians like this but have done my share of bouncing up down as well. Whatever might be lacking in the “just preach to yourself” or “gospel centered” model, it’s advocates are right that a state of alternating inner turmoil and arrogance cannot be what Christ and the apostles had in mind in the New Testament.   Continue at Aaron Blumer

An Open Letter to First Baptist Church of Hammond, IN – from Jack Hyles’ Daughter Linda

Today, Jack Schaap was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for his crime. I wrote about this issue when it happened, and recently the lurid details were unveiled by the prosecuting attorney. 

(More here and here.) 

Linda Murphrey, daughter of Jack Hyles — the former pastor of First Baptist Hammond, at one time the self-proclaimed largest church in the world — has written an open letter to the church at this time, knowing Schaap’s sentencing was scheduled for today. Schaap is her brother-in-law, and Linda grew up on the inside of the ministry, and in the very home of, the most powerful man in fundamentalism in the 1970s and 80s. Her letter includes an apology and an admission of the secret double life that Hyles lived, and Schaap perpetuated. 

For anyone who knows something of the history of First Baptist of Hammond, and Jack Hyles, this letter is quite amazing to read. It is written with such grace and humility, fervor and love, and above all, honesty. I encourage you to read it and pray for the future of First Baptist of Hammond. The current leadership there has a vested interest to deny the truth of Linda’s letter. This wing of fundamentalism cannot admit that Hyles was phony. So much of their very ethos is tied to his persona — at least it would seem. But I pray that many who have been shaken by these events can find grace and help in her first-hand testimony. May her final words come true:    Continue at Bob Hayton

Two Curious IFB reactions to the Schaap Fiasco

I've been waiting to see what some of the IFB reactions would be to the recent Jack Schaap tragedy and two prominent IFB pastors have written their thoughts on the recent events. Both said some things that I took notice of. Bob Gray, the former pastor of Longview Baptist Temple has been a long time loyal disciple of Jack Hyles and Paul Chappell of Lancaster Baptist Church who has over the years kept a distance from Jack Hyles, yet often refers to him in his preaching with terms of endearment. One, Bob Gray who is the most staunchest of Hyles supporters has publically separated himself from his successor's ministry while the other, Paul Chappell, did so very quietly.

Bob Gray said recently on his blog:

 "May I say David Gibbs is also responsible? Why did he not, with his depth of wisdom, pick up the phone and call Jack Schaap and say, "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING?" We out here did! But, then again look what happened to us? We were exiled to the Isle of Patmos!...Why applaud those who did absolutely nothing to stop what Jack Schaap was doing to the church, schools, the college, and independent Baptist churches for these past 11 years...Why not call for the men of the church to come to the altar to start the service with confession and repentance rather than joking about the deacons in attendance as well as the churches attendance? This is no light hearted moment for you! Will there be a "cleaning" of the house or a real "cleansing" of the house. The truth is, it is the responsibility of the membership to ask for an outside man of God to come in and do a thorough "cleansing."

 Bob Gray is partly right, there has been a lot of false teaching that has been allowed to go on and the church needs a total overhaul of all that it has allowed over the years. I think that Gray is totally out to lunch by blaming Schaap's moral failure on his beliefs on the KJV which is totally ridiculous!  Continue at Reforming Baptist

See Also: Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Performance-Based Sanctification

Sin Wants To Be Your Friend

A friend of mine has been leading a class based on my book The Next Story. He emailed me a couple of days ago to say that he was preparing to teach on “Privacy and Visibility,” two areas where the digital world has brought a great transformation to our lives. Right before he went to teach the class, he came across a sad story of yet another pastor who has destroyed his ministry for the sake of following his lust. It was a pointed illustration of new realities in this new world. It was also an illustration of something that transcends the digital world.

Until Tuesday, Jack Schaap was pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, outside Chicago. First Baptist is the largest church in the state with something like 15,000 people attending each Sunday. Schapp’s pastorate came to an abrupt and shameful end on Tuesday.

Jack Schaap had left his cell phone on the pulpit and a deacon had seen it on the pulpit and had picked it up to bring it back to him,” Trisha Kee, who maintains a Facebook group for ex-congregants, told the station. “From what we understand, the deacon then saw a text come through from a teenage girl in the church, and it was a picture of Jack Schaap and this girl making out.

Church officials announced that he had been fired for “a sin that has caused him to forfeit his right to be our pastor.” Schapp has since confessed that he was involved in an affair with a girl of sixteen who had come to him for counseling.  Continue at Tim Challies

See also:

Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Legalism

Fall of the IFB Empire

This morning was a sad moment to find out about the news coming out of First Baptist Church of Hammond, IN, but even sadder to say, it did not take me by surprise. I attended that church when I was attending their college for one year back in the 1990's. Jack Schaap was the most admired man next to Dr. Hyles himself.  I heard him at many youth conferences challenging young people to give their lives to serve Christ in the ministry. Again, the world I grew up in during my adolescence has been resurrected from the past as I witness the demise of the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. The fruit of the IFB movement continually proves to be rotten. For those of my IFB friends that are sure to mourn this terrible news, I am afraid that they will simply chalk it up to an isolated incident that was simply his choice and that he just got tempted in a rare moment of weakness. I will be first to acknowledge, that when I first heard this news, my first reaction was to go to prayer and beg God to protect me from ever sinning in this way and disgracing His name.

 I am the first to fear and tremble when I contemplate this warning in Scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 

What needs to be taken heed as well is what we think we're standing on! The IFB movement is a very ill part of the Body of Christ and those who are committed to it need to wake up and understand that there are deep rooted problems that make stories like this one and the 20/20 piece last year a regular occurrence.  Continue at Reforming Baptist


See Also:

Jack Schaap’s Fall and the Future of the IFB Movement

Dr. John R. Rice and The King James Version