Satan Cast Out

I have said it before: If there is any area in the Christian world that is dominated by superstition and speculation, it is spiritual warfare and the existence and activity of Satan and his demons. Far too many books on these topics are subjective and speculative rather than grounded in the firm truths of Scripture.

Frederick Leahy’s Satan Cast Out began as a project, an assignment. Back in the 1970s the Foreign Mission Board of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland asked Leahy to make a special study of demonology. They did this in response to phenomena that missionaries had been observing on the mission field. To that point very little had been written on the subject and it was discussed in only a passing way in seminaries. Leahy realized, “There is a crying need for an examination of this whole subject in the light of the Scripture alone, bearing in mind that the Scriptures are our only rule of faith and practice.” While his study is now nearly 40 years old, it remains in print and remains a powerful read.   Continue at Tim Challies

God, the Gospel, and the Gay Challenge

Evangelical Christians in the United States now face an inevitable moment of decision. While Christians in other movements and in other nations face similar questions, the question of homosexuality now presents evangelicals in the United States with a decision that cannot be avoided. Within a very short time, we will know where everyone stands on this question. There will be no place to hide, and there will be no way to remain silent. To be silent will answer the question.

The question is whether evangelicals will remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the unbroken teaching of the Christian church for over two thousand years on the morality of same-sex acts and the institution of marriage.

The world is pressing this question upon us, but so are a number of voices from within the larger evangelical circle — voices that are calling for a radical revision of the church’s understanding of the Bible, sexual morality, and the meaning of marriage. We are living in the midst of a massive revolution in morality, and sexual morality is at the center of this revolution. But the question of same-sex relationships and sexuality is at the very center of the debate over sexual morality, and our answer to this question will both determine or reveal what we understand about everything the Bible reveals and everything the church teaches — even the gospel itself.   Continue at Al Mohler

True Beauty

Over the past few years I have found myself thinking often about beauty. I suppose my interest in the subject may relate to the fact that I am the father of two girls. Though they are still young, they are already being exposed to so many messages about the importance of beauty and the kind of beauty society expects from them. They already know they will be judged on the basis of it. For this reason I want to equip them with a knowledge of what the Bible says about beauty. But what does it say? What should I be teaching them?   Continue at Tim Challies

Did Jesus Die to Save Everyone?

The doctrine of definite atonement is nothing if not controversial. That Jesus died to rescue his bride is a precious truth, one all Christians embrace. But the suggestion he didn't die to rescue everyone—well, that doesn't prompt so many hugs. TULIP's middle petal has a particular tendency to provoke muted embarrassment or yawning indifference, if not visceral rejection. Some say it's more logical than biblical. Others say it's too esoteric to be important, or too unloving to be true.

But what if, when properly understood, this difficult doctrine turns out to be not a source of embarrassment but a resource for joy? From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective (Crossway) [Website | Twitter] is a towering new tome making the case that definite atonement is not only historically reputable and biblically faithful, but also practically and pastorally glorious. With contributions (and endorsements) from a sterling array of pastors and scholars, this is a volume that deserves serious engagement—regardless of where you lean or land.

I talked with editors David and Jonathan Gibson about "4-pointers," evangelism, whether they oversell their case, and more. Also, be on the lookout for reviews from Jason Duesing (tomorrow) and Robert Yarbrough (Monday).    Continue at Matt Smethurst

A Call to Resurgence by Mark Driscoll

Christendom is dead. Now let’s set aside our differences and get to work telling people about Jesus.

If you wanted to sum up Mark Driscoll’s new book, A Call to Resurgence, in a sentence, that’d be the way to do it. And make no mistake, pronouncing Christendom, the age of cultural Christianity, dead is no overstatement, even if declaring the American church dead is. A quick survey of the cultural landscape in America (and the West in general) shows how much has changed, and it’s definitely not in favor of Christianity. So what are Christians to do? Are we to retreat and wait for Jesus to return? Are we to give up our distinguishing characteristics and blend into the culture?

We do not need more retreat, Driscoll says. We need resurgence:

This is not a time for compromise but rather courage. The fields are ripe. And as Jesus says, “the laborers are few”—in part because the prophets of doom are many.… This is no time to trade in boots for flip-flops. The days are darker, which means our resolve must be stronger and our convictions clearer.   Continue at Aaron Armstrong

Is Deception Calling? A review of Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Just the other day I posted that Christians should be wary of God “experiences.” Although there are many prominent promoters of practices that claim to be ways to hear directly from God (other than by reading the Bible), it is my fear that these are really paths toward self-deception or worse.

As a follow up I’d like to share my thoughts about a book whose author purports to have received messages from God (which she turned into a bestselling book).

A couple months ago I was given a devotional book called Jesus Calling, and although I never read devotionals I began to examine the book. What I found shocked me. The author, Sarah Young, claims to have received revelations from Jesus through dialogue journaling (something she learned from two “listeners” who wrote another book called God Calling. I’ll get to that in a minute). Her book is even written as if Jesus is speaking those messages directly to the reader, which I personally think borders (or crosses into) blasphemy.

Alarm bells began to clang in my head. 

Young writes that a year after reading that book, God Calling, “I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God. I had been writing in prayer journals for years, but that was one-way communication: I did all the talking. I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more…”   Continue at Julia

A Call to Resurgence

Mark Driscoll. A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future? Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2013. 336 pp. $19.99.

Mark Driscoll’s new book, A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future?, is sometimes insightful, sometimes amusing, sometimes stirring, and sometimes exasperating. In places, particularly at the beginning and the end of the book, it represents the best of Driscoll: an uncompromising assessment of the scale of the mission, a robust call to courage and obedience, and an impassioned plea for sound doctrine, spiritual power, and sacrificial mission. At the book’s heart, however, is an internal tension so significant that large parts of it are likely to be ineffective, or even counterproductive, in persuading those who do not already share Driscoll’s view. Consequently—and I say this as a broadly Reformed, complementarian, charismatic, missional pastor—A Call to Resurgence is somewhat frustrating to read.

The book is clearly laid out, and its contents can be easily summarized. American society is in a terrible mess: Christendom is over, and the results aren’t pretty (chapter one). The American church is also in a terrible mess, with weird spiritualities, sexual sin, fluffy pluralism, immature masculinity, and financial stinginess creeping into her through the surrounding culture (chapter two). Not only that, but the church is also divided into tribes that may barely know each other: Reformed and Arminian, complementarian and egalitarian, continuationist and cessationist, fundamentalist and missional (chapter three).   Continue at Andrew Wilson

Mark Driscoll's Call to Resurgence

You may love him, you may hate him, but you’ve definitely heard of him and A Call to Resurgence poses this question: Will Christianity have a funeral or a future? This is a book about the past, the present and the future of the Christian faith, particularly in the United States of America.

you’ve undoubtedly got an opinion about him. Mark Driscoll is pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, co-founder of the Acts 29 Network, and the author of several bestselling books. The newest of these books may well prove the most controversial.

The fact is, Christendom is dead. The Christian faith that once existed in the background of American life and culture has diminished to such an extent that America is now a post-Christian nation. “Christians are ostracized. Gay marriage is celebrated. Abortion is literally destroying an entire generation. The bandwagon has stopped carrying us and has started running over us.” This is happening all around us, yet many Christians remain oblivious. “The church is dying, and no one is noticing because we’re wasting time criticizing rather than evangelizing.”    Continue at Tim Challies

Spiritual Warfare: A Biblical and Balanced Perspective

In the subtitle of their book on spiritual warfare, authors Brian Borgman and Rob Ventura promise to provide a perspective that is both biblical and balanced. The prospect of a balanced approach is immediately appealing, given widespread excesses in various branches of modern Christianity on the subject; and I thought it a successful endeavor in that regard. But what I found more striking, when I dived in, was the “biblical” part of the equation. I say this by way of confession: spiritual warfare is not among my list of favorite theological topics to think about. In fact, whether it’s because of the very common imbalanced perspectives a modern reader is apt to encounter, or whether it’s simply because I have no military experience, and so the analogy of warfare is a little foreign to my own history, I have to admit a little distaste for the subject. However, by the time I finished the introduction alone, I had to acknowledge that this is no small theme in the New Testament, and that it has roots reaching clear back to Eden. Which means that it allows for a biblical treatment, because it is, in fact, a pervasive biblical motif. And this, further, means that such a study as this book undertakes really is necessary if we are to have a thoroughly biblical perspective on the Christian life at all.    Continue at Reformed Baptist Fellowship

The Miracle-Working Second Adam

If you put together all the maladies  of those whom Jesus miraculously healed during His earthly ministry (i.e. those having to do with eyes, ears, tongues, arms, hands, legs, skin and blood) you would have a perfectly deformed man or woman–both internally and externally. Isaiah used the figure of a person entirely deformed from head to toe to describe our spiritual condition of depravity by nature (Isaiah 1: 5-6). The apostle Paul likened our spiritual condition by nature to that of a physically dead man (Ephesians 2:1-5). This should come as no surprise to us if we understand that the healing miracles–historical though they were–are really spiritual parables for us. They are parables that carry our minds back to Eden and the awful effects of Adam’s sin; and, they are parables that carry our minds forward to see the glory of Jesus, the second Adam, and the King of God’s Kingdom who came to heal the souls and bodies of His people. This is most fully symbolized in the resurrection miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. Here are five observations, drawn from Herman Ridderbos’ outstanding book The Coming of the Kingdom, about what the healing miracles of Jesus teach us:   Continue at Nicholas T. Batzig

New Look at the Prince of Preachers

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) is a towering figure in church history, in most widely read preacher outside of Scripture. So voluminous, in fact, was Spurgeon's output that more written material exists from him than from any other Christian author, living or dead.

A 15-year project in the making, Tom Nettles's new book, Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Christian Focus), distills in 700 pages Spurgeon's life, ministry, and theology. According to one decent preacher, this biography will be the "standard for a long time."

I corresponded with Nettles, professor of historical theology at Southern Seminary and one of America's foremost Baptist historians, about whether the "Prince of Preachers" was a lousy theologian and inadequate expositor, what Spurgeon would say to evangelicals today, and more.

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You write that Spurgeon's soul was "spilled out into his letters." What do these letters uniquely reveal about his life and thought?   Continue at
Matt Smethurst

Family Worship - A Neglected Grace

Family worship. For some it evokes a sense of dread, memories of long, boring, tiring times sitting around a table while listening to dad drone on and on. For some it evokes a sense of guilt, false starts and failures and giving up. For a few it evokes joy, sweet times of family fellowship and memories of seeking the Lord together.

Almost every book begins by describing a problem and then goes on to propose a solution. This is, after all, one very good reason to read: to find solutions to our problems. My books are no exception; I have addressed the problems of the neglect of spiritual discernment, addiction to pornography, and thoughtless dedication to digital technologies. In the opening pages of A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home, Jason Helopoulos says he must address the problem of family worship because it has very nearly disappeared. "If it were an animal, it would be on the endangered species list. We have not only stopped doing it, but we have stopped talking about it."   Continue at Tim Challies

Imitating God in Christ: Recapturing a Biblical Pattern

Jason B. Hood, Imitating God in Christ: Recapturing a Biblical Pattern. InterVarsity Press, 2013. 232 pages. $22.00

“What Would Jesus Do?” is a slogan young Reformed types love to hate. But what if it’s a question more of us should be asking?

Gospel-centered-everything is quickly becoming a dominant refrain among younger and not-so-younger evangelicals. In part this is a reaction to the perceived moralism of the previous generation, whether a hardline fundamentalist variety or its squishier evangelical cousin. Two prominent threads in this fabric are gospel-centered holiness and gospel-centered preaching, the latter fueling the former.

Of course, with any reaction comes the peril of overreaction. As C.S. Lewis quipped, “For my own part I hate and distrust reactions not only in religion but in everything. Luther surely spoke very good sense when he compared humanity to a drunkard who, after falling off his horse on the right, falls off it next time on the left” (Fern-seed and Elephants, 66).

In Imitating God in Christ: Recapturing a Biblical Pattern, Jason Hood identifies the concept of imitation as a significant casualty in the gospel-centered counteroffensive against moralism. Should preachers exhort us to imitate biblical examples? Only if we want more “Dare to Be a Daniel” garbage. Should we talk about imitating Jesus? Only if we want to reduce the gospel to moralism or trendy activism. Should we play up the role of godly examples in the church? Only if we care more about copying behaviors than transforming hearts.    Continue at Bobby Jamieson

Rid of My Disgrace

I wish this book had not been written, or more properly, I wish there was no need for this book to be written. I wish there was no such monstrosity in the world as sexual assault. Yet the ugly truth is that sexual assault not only exists, but is all too common. The statistics are shocking, alarming. And therefore, because sexual assault exists and because of its prevalence, I am grateful that Justin and Lindsey Holcomb wrote Rid of My Disgrace. He is a pastor at Mars Hill Church and adjunct professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary while she is a deacon who counsels victims of sexual assault; together they are compassionate and theologically-sound, able to provide hope and healing for those who have been victimized.

I do not understand the consequences of sexual assault upon its victims. There were times as a child I came perilously close to being victimized—that school janitor, that older boy. But each time someone or something intervened. I am grateful for my ignorance here. I do not understand how and why this kind of assault impacts its victims at such a deep level and how those consequences can extend through an entire lifetime. But I want to understand as much as I am able. I know so many people who have fallen prey to predators, so many who bear the marks on their bodies and souls. And I want to be able to love them well, to walk with them through their healing. And this is why I read Rid of My Disgrace. This is a book meant to equip all Christians, those who have been hurt and those who know people who have been hurt.   Continue at Tim Challies

Crucifying Morality

No one could possibly claim that the Beatitudes (see Matthew 5:1-12) are overlooked or underappreciated. They have been the subject of countless books and sermon series. But this is not to say that the Beatitudes have been widely understood and properly taught. As often as not they have suffered from moralization, reduced to the level of the fortune cookie and with all the spiritual power of a fortune cookie.

In Crucifying Morality, R.W. Glenn takes a new look at the Beatitudes saying, Maybe you “were taught that the Beatitudes were the highest form of morality that anyone could live by, and you know now how impossible they are. Or maybe you experienced the flannelgraph version of the Beatitudes.” If that is the case, “maybe it is time to get unfamiliar. Maybe you need to read these verses with fresh eyes for the first time. Whatever your exposure to the Beatitudes has been, you probably think of them as less powerful and captivating and helpful than they are. Take a step back to see how breathtakingly radical their real message is.”

The fact is that:   Continue at Tim Challies

Review of Jesus Calling

As far back as you can recall, you’ve started or ended the day with a time of personal meditation on God’s Word and prayer. Only this time, you try something different. You want to hear Jesus speak to you personally. So you take out pen and paper and record the results. As she tells us in her introduction, this is what happened when Sarah Young sought a deeper sense of the presence of Jesus. The result is the daily devotional, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Thomas Nelson, 2004). The book has taken off since it was first published. It now includes a variety of supplements and has even been turned into a NKJV study Bible.

The author states up front that, unlike Scripture, the words she reports from Jesus are not inerrant. Nevertheless, she presents them as first-person speech from Jesus himself. “I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible,” she says, “but I yearned for more.” “Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day.” That “more” was “the Presence of Jesus,” something beyond the ordinary means of grace. “So I was ready to begin a new spiritual quest,” beginning with Andrew Murray’s The Secret of the Abiding Presence. After reading God Calling, she relates, “I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God.” 

Preparing for an interview today on the topic, I read through Jesus Calling. A few reflections: first touching on the method and then on the message.    Continue at Michael Horton

What’s the Point of Marriage? Three Books and Some Thoughts

There’s nothing like a bunch of marriage books to make your head spin. Mostly I avoid them—too many guilt-producing suggestions about the ‘must-dos’ of a relationship—but I’ve been writing a seminar on the topic, so it was time to hit the books.

What I found intrigued me. There’s little agreement amongst respected theologians about the why of marriage. They agree on the what—marriage is a life-long covenant between a man and a woman—and if you’re interested in the how, just head for the groaning shelf of your nearest Christian bookshop. But the how is just an empty handful of rules and tips without the why to give it shape and meaning.

So why did God make marriage? Traditionally, marriage was seen as having three purposes. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer says,

First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord…
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication…
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other…¹

Children, sexual purity, and mutual help. These are biblical goals, and a helpful corrective to our romance-saturated view of marriage—but you can sense they all point to a greater goal. Christopher Ash says, “We need one unifying purpose of God to hold our thinking together.² What, ultimately, is marriage for?    Continue at Matthias Media

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Toxic Charity

There is some of the missionary in every Christian. As the Lord extends to us the ability to trust in him and as he begins that work of transforming us from the inside out, he gives us the desire to share our faith with others and to extend his love to them. Since the church’s earliest day this desire has motivated Christians to leave behind all they know and to travel to the earth’s farthest reaches. A relative newcomer on the scene is the short-term missions trip and other similar means through which Christians can participate on a part-time basis as “vacationaries.” Such ministry is the subject of Robert Lupton’s Toxic Charity.

Toxic Charity is a book about doing missions right. The subtitle pretty much lays it out: “How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It).” Lupton honors the mindset that compels Christians toward foreign short-term missions and inner-city projects at home, but believes that the church has failed to ask simple questions like these: Who is really benefiting? Who are we really seeking to serve? Is it the poor and those in need, or are we primarily serving ourselves? He contends that “what Americans avoid facing is that while we are very generous in charitable giving, much of that money is either wasted or actually harms the people it is targeted to help. …The compassion industry is almost universally accepted as a virtuous and constructive enterprise. But what is so surprising is that its outcomes are almost entirely unexamined.”   Continue at Tim Challies

The Intolerance of Tolerance and A Queer Thing Happened to America

Eye-openers. Startling, even shocking eye-openers. Both books reviewed in this article proved to be that for me, as they demonstrated where the culture I live in has been, where it is now, and where it seems to be going. The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D. A. Carson, discusses postmodern ideas on truth claims, demonstrating, with many real-life examples, that the one thing absolutely not tolerated any longer is the stance that a particular belief might be wrong. Carson’s book is larger in scope than Brown’s. The Intolerance of Tolerance surveys the West in general, examining many different areas where the new tolerance is required. As the title suggests, A Queer Thing Happened in America, by Michael L. Brown, looks only at American culture and deals exclusively with issues of homosexuality and gender preference. While I would differ with Brown theologically on a number of issues, those issues were not the subject of this book. In this book, I was struck by the calm, rational, even compassionate tone he consistently takes on what is often a highly inflammatory subject.

D. A. Carson begins The Intolerance of Tolerance with definitions. Citing multiple dictionary examples, he demonstrates that “tolerate” has traditionally meant “to recognize other people’s right to have different beliefs or practices without an attempt to suppress them.” Later, Carson elaborates on how this kind of tolerance is right and good. It is right for the law to permit and protect an individual’s freedom to believe as he chooses, and it is right for a person to be able to live and interact with others with no abuse or slur for beliefs he holds.    Continue at Starr Meade

Misunderstanding Israel and America - A Critique of The Harbinger and Dispensational Theology

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to American Family Radio’s Bryan Fischer as he said, “Only two nations in history have ever had a direct covenant relationship with God, Israel and America.”  

He claimed that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were America’s covenant documents with God. He was making this claim in the context of promoting Jonathan Cahn’s book, The Harbinger. As soon as I heard him say those words, I thought to myself, “That’s the AFA heresy right there. That’s the whole problem with their theology!”

 In the list of top-selling Christian books, right along with Todd Burpo and Sarah Young (books I have reviewed and critiqued elsewhere in this blog – here and here), stands The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn. This book takes readers to Isaiah 9:10 as a prophecy of the judgment of God against America on 9/11/2001. Cahn point out that “The One-Year Bible” published in 1985, puts Isaiah 9:10 on Sept. 11th: 

“The bricks have fallen,
but we will build with dressed stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
but we will put cedars in their place.
But the Lord raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,
and stirs up his enemies.” – Isaiah 9:10-11, ESV

First of all, before I go any further, any time an author starts playing “numbers games” or hidden-code tricks with the Bible (“secret prophecies”/ citing page numbers from “The One-Year Bible”), run the other way! This is not a responsible way of handling the Bible.

The basic “prophecy” behind the book rests on Cahn’s ability to string together random events and coincidences and read them into the text of Isaiah 9:10. This is called “eisogesis,” when you read into a text a meaning which is not there. 

FACT: No responsible Bible scholar would assert that Isaiah 9:10 anything to do with America whatsoever. 

The Harbinger has been heavily promoted on American Family Radio (AFR). I listen to AFR regularly, as they sometimes have some good things to say. However, when they start talking about The Harbinger or the theology of Israel & America which underlies both this book and much of AFR’s message, I get pretty irritated.   Continue at Jason A. Van Bemmel