Where Have all the Godly Men Gone?

Where have all the godly men gone? These days I ponder that question with increased frequency and concern. If the lack of godly men were only a matter of personality or ministerial preference, then little would be lost. Such is not the case, though. The church is in great need of awakening and renewal; and, in the spirit of Richard Baxter, its greatest need might well be godly men.

Not that long ago, “man of God” was a common and honored descriptor in the church. The phrase ranked alongside “great preacher,” “brilliant theologian,” or “gifted writer” in frequency and surpassed them in value. Now, it seems as though the designation “man of God” has gone the way of the bus ministry and the youth choir—a largely passé referent to a bygone era of church life.

It is as though someone snuck into the shopping mall of the Kingdom and changed all the price tags, upsetting and inverting God’s value system. We have increased the mundane and ancillary aspects of Christian ministry, all the while cheapening its true virtues and values. In God’s economy, though, character is valued over talent, and holiness over giftedness.  Continue at Jason K. Allen

A Question of Character

One of the great lacunae in many of the current debates surrounding ministry in the contemporary world is the issue of character.  In the world of confessional Presbyterianism, our focus is generally on elaborate theological integrity and intellectual accomplishments, reflecting the ideal of an educated ministry.   We tend on the whole to take character on trust, based on a few written references provided at time of licensure and ordination.   My observations of the YRR world is that intellectual accomplishments are less significant (read: adherence to three or more of the five points of Calvinism is sufficient to qualify) compared to numbers of converts or what one might call 'contextual skills' which I find difficult to describe without sounding as if I am being pejorative.   Yet in both cases, character is arguably a much neglected category.

It was very different for earlier generations.   In the early nineteenth century, Princeton Theological Seminary professor, Samuel Miller, wrote a book entitled Letters on Clerical Manners and Habits: Addressed to a Student in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N.J.  The book is a fascinating, and frequently hilarious, description of behaviour which Miller found to be appropriate in a minister.  Some of the prohibitions now sound simply quaint: ministers should not, for example, spit on floors.  Still unacceptable today, one hopes, but not a major problem in the ministerial circles I mix in.  Nor should they engage in 'loud or boisterous laughter' (according to Miller, 'a mark of ill-breeding'), cough into a handkerchief and inspect the residue, or pare their nails in company.  Continue at Carl Trueman

A Question of Character Part 2

The Biblical Counseling Movement After Jay Adams

Most biblical counselors would dismiss the term schizophrenia as an unhelpful and confusing label. Heath Lambert has demonstrated, however, that the term has validity as a literary genre. The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams is a number of contradictory things. It is a respectful recounting of the contributions of Jay Adams and a collection of harsh and unkind epithets about the man and his followers. It is both a carefully researched Ph. D. thesis and grievous academic malpractice. It identifies important issues within the biblical counseling movement and embraces as authoritative shoddily constructed straw men. Lambert praises concepts he himself finds questionable, and confuses movement with maturity, differences with development, and provocation with progress. Upon a careful reading of this book, biblical counselors who are familiar with the issues reported here will be made both thankful and appalled.

Lambert has a genuine respect and appreciation for Jay Adams. It is evident in his first chapter in which he surveys Adams’ early writings and places them in the context of the times they were written. It is a careful and complete survey and serves as a great introduction to the man and his writings. In his conclusion, Lambert correctly points out that Adams has always welcomed a careful examination of what he has written and invited others to build on what Adams himself admitted was preliminary (although not tentative). Lambert does just that. He seeks to identify specific areas where, in his view, Adams’ work was deficient—even erroneous—and marshals support for his conclusions by quoting as authoritative those who do not share his deep respect for Adams—many of whom have misrepresented Adams, and questioned his integrity, character, and scholarship.

As a credible scholarly work The Biblical Counseling Movement After Adams was doomed from the beginning. It began as a Ph.D. project at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville where Lambert teaches. His purpose was to chronicle what he perceived to be the “development” of the biblical counseling movement in its “second generation” iteration. In Lambert’s mind, it was to be a continuation—a volume two—of a dissertation written by David Powlison in 1996 and later published in book form in 2009. Continue at Institute for Nouthetic Studies

Learning from Herman Cain

Albert Mohler has written a thoughtful challenge for Christian men in light of the news swirling around Herman Cain.

Mohler points out five lessons to be learned:

1. The Christian man must realize that credible accusations of sexual misconduct or immorality are fatal to credibility and ruinous to Christian witness.

2. The Christian man cannot dismiss any charge of sexual immorality as being a private matter of no public concern.

3. The Christian man must plan his life in order to assure moral accountability and protections.

4. The Christian man must depend upon his church, the congregation that is so essential to his Christian vitality and faithfulness, as a bulwark against sin.

5. A Christian man knows that his wife is his best defense against sexual immorality and sexual vulnerability - and his most important witness to character.

Read the entire article HERE.

Hugh Hefner Will Die Alone

Lust is a master deceiver and porn is its masterpiece.  Porn is lust in its most tantalizing form. It leaves nothing to the imagination. As such, porn is the most blatant of all lust’s lies. It’s a hideous beast, which mercilessly pummels its victims. Like lambs to slaughter it turns otherwise strong, smart and successful men into idiots. Men who risk careers, reputation, incomes and family to sneak peeks on company computers that they know have filters and tracking software, or fall headlong into binges of visual excess while on a business trip charging porn to credit cards they know have records.

It’s all a lie. We know it’s not real. We know it will never deliver. We know too well how it destroys people and marriages. Yet we believe what it says. Every time we do it mocks us for our stupidity. No wonder the father in proverbs confronted his son with a similar warning, “For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life.” Or, again in the vernacular, “Hey Moron!  Don’t be stupid!” Read it all HERE