Same-Sex Marriage and the American Church

On Wednesday, five members of the Supreme Court struck down a 1996 decision by the people’s representatives that had limited marriage to one man and one woman.

We have included for you a number of insightful posts addressing this issue below, but let me offer 4 brief thoughts of my own by way of introduction.

1. As one of the articles below says, we as believers must get used to being a “missional minority” rather than a “Christian majority” in our culture. 

This is not altogether a bad thing—the church does best in environments like these. The end result of our culture’s departure from Christianity will probably not be less actual Christians (i.e. true disciples of Jesus), but simply the elimination of more cultural Christians. What is sad is that when any people depart from God’s righteousness, their society deteriorates. As Proverbs says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” God uses his church as salt and light in their community (Matt 5:13–16), praying for the peace (shalom) of our city (Jer 29:7), and pleading with the civil magistrates to preserve our freedom to be disciples of Jesus in our culture (1 Tim 2:1–4).   Continue at J. D. Greear

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Is Your Church Ready for the Marriage Revolution?

The Supreme Court of the United States is set to hand down a set of decisions this summer that could advance a cultural and political shift in the way marriage is defined in this country. Is your church ready for this?

By that, I don’t mean whether your church has a position on the definition of marriage, or whether your people are ready to express their opinions or vent their outrage on social media or talk radio. All that’s easy. The question is whether our churches are ready to create marriage cultures that matter, regardless of the cultural moment.

In a few weeks, my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, will gather in Houston for our annual meeting. If you’re coming, you’re invited to a special conversation about reclaiming a marriage culture in troubled times, sponsored by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

I’ll be joined by my friends, pastors David Platt and J.D. Greear, women’s ministry leader Susie Hawkins, and Paige Patterson, the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We’ll talk about how you can get your congregation ready to think through the next fifty years of discipleship on marriage.   Continue at Russell D. Moore

What Makes Work “Christian”?

When someone thinks about their work being “Christian,” all kinds of disturbing images come to mind:  

• Opening a beauty salon called “A Cut Above” or a coffee shop called “He Brews.” 
• Working awkward evangelism moments into sales calls.
• Defiantly saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays” in the checkout line or sneaking a “Have a blessed day” into a salutation.
• Putting up posters about Bible study options at lunch or sending out group emails about sightings of the Virgin Mary in Ecuador.

Perhaps you remember the 2004 incident of an American Airlines pilot who, in his pre-flight announcements, asked all the Christians on board the plane to raise their hands. He then suggested that during the flight the other passengers talk to those people about their faith. He also told passengers he’d also be happy to talk to anyone who had questions. Understandably, it freaked a lot of people out: the pilot of your airplane talking to you about whether or not you’re ready to meet Jesus?[1] While they might admire the guy’s zeal, many Christian businesspeople think, “I just don’t think I could do that and keep my job.”

Many Christians think that you just can’t serve the kingdom of God at work, and that kingdom work happens “after hours”—volunteering at the church nursery, attending small group, going on a mission trip, serving at the soup kitchen. Our work is a necessity that must be endured to put bread on the table. God’s interest in the fruit of our labors is primarily that we tithe off of it.

The Bible offers quite a different perspective. Scripture teaches us how to serve God through our work, not just after work. The Bible speaks clear and radical words to people in the workplace, showing us that even the most menial of jobs has an essential role in the mission of God.

In fact, it is surely not coincidental that most of the parables that Jesus told had a workplace context, and that of the forty miracles recorded in the book of Acts, thirty-nine of them occurred outside of a church setting. The God of the Bible seems as concerned with displaying his power outside the walls of the church as he does within it.   Continue at J. D. Greear

Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart

If there were a Guinness Book of World Records record for “amount of times having asked Jesus into your heart,” J.D. Greear is pretty sure he would hold it. Like so many church kids he asked Jesus into his heart when he was very young, and then again when he was slightly older, and then again every time he wondered if he really loved Jesus, and then again whenever he felt the guilt of sin. For years he wrestled with assurance and fought for an answer to this question: How can anyone know, beyond all doubt, that they are saved?

It is a question most Christians ask at one time or another; it is a question every pastor faces on a regular basis. Greear’s new book Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart tackles this question head-on and does so very effectively. Greear sets out to accomplish two things: to help the Christian find assurance that he has been saved, and to help the unbeliever resting on a false assurance see his danger and to turn to Christ. “My prayer is that by the time we’re done, you’ll know exactly where you stand with God. I hope to show you how to base your assurance on a promise God gave once for all in Christ and not on the fleeting memory of a prayer you once prayed.” What Greear teaches is consistent with what the best theologians have been drawing from Scripture for so long, that “what saves the sinner is a posture of repentance and faith toward Christ, that and that alone. Any ‘sinner’s prayer’ is only good insofar as it expresses that posture.”   Continue at Tim Challies