The Mercy-Ministry Mandate: Stopping Short of Real Mercy

The current mercy ministry ideology was summarized in an article recently:

“Seeking holistic thriving helps us keep the created dignity of those we serve at the heart of our efforts—.” 

There it is! The preservation of the ‘created dignity’ of sinful man is not only deemed possible without calling men to repentance and faith, but is viewed as “the heart” of the church’s mission to the culture.  Instead of gospel-proclamation, the holistic thriving of society is advanced by scores of people who apparently no longer believe that man’s primary need is reconciliation with God.  Helping our communities achieve sociological and psychological wholeness seems the new definition of Christian compassion.   Continue at Jerry Wragg

Of Straw Men and Shameful Speech, Part 3

Today we’re going to wrap up this mini-series which responds to arguments that advocate for pastors to engage in sexually explicit dialogue with Christian married couples. We’ve already taken a look at the mistaken notion that the current age is uniquely porn-saturated compared to past years. Then we examined the claim that explicit sexual dialogue is necessary for Christians with an immoral past need to deal helpfully with those past issues.

Finally, we come to address two further arguments.

(3) Most pastors—especially those over 45 and “bound up” in the conservative sexual practices of past, less informed generations—are clueless about the sexual “hang-ups” young couples face today, or they are simply afraid to offer the frank dialogue essential for building a healthy sexual life in marriage.

This is probably the most blatant straw man being peddled today as justification for explicit sex-counsel.  Honestly, I’m stunned at how quickly some pastors have embraced this assumption.  The challenges of a sin-cursed intimate life are, at their core, the same in every generation.  Why?  Because we’re all sin-cursed!  Victorian inhibitions of the past—though they restrained sexuality in the public square—were no power against private fleshly lusts of the heart.  The sinner’s battle with lust is universal no matter what cultural norms are deemed appropriate for public consumption.  The lack of moral restraint in public doesn’t create lust in the heart, but gives opportunity to what’s already there (Mark 7:18-23).   Continue at Jerry Wragg

Of Straw Men and Shameful Speech

Here are the main arguments I continue to hear played over and over for why the church ought to regularly engage in sexually explicit dialogue with Christian married couples:

1. Young couples today are coming out of a uniquely porn-saturated culture, and are terribly confused about what is sexually appropriate in a Christian marriage.
2. New Christians with an immoral past are prone to swing the pendulum too drastically, becoming sexually inhibited in marriage despite our God-given freedom.  Explicit sexual honesty between married couples “breaks down” the legalistic barriers and false shame threatening so many marriages today.
3. Most pastors—especially those over 45 and “bound up” in the conservative sexual practices of past, less informed generations—are clueless about the sexual “hang-ups” young couples face today, or they are simply afraid to offer the frank dialogue essential for building a healthy sexual life in marriage.
4. If the church remains silent, unwilling to provide raw, graphic answers to today’s average sex questions, she will lose all her influence with the confused, porn-ified couples coming into the body of Christ. 

Keep Reading at Jerry Wragg

Evangelicalism’s Got Talent, Part Two

In my last post, I mentioned that there are two issues that that cause me to think that evangelicalism is being duped when it comes to how we evaluate effective ministries and preaching. I discussed the first of those two in my most recent post: we make wrong assumptions about what it means to be a “gifted” preacher. 

In this post, I want to address how those faulty assumptions about giftedness lead to an errant view of expository preaching. 

Assumptions about Bible “Exposition”

This may step on a few toes, but I might as well say it plainly right up front: I just don’t think a number of the most widely-known preachers today are truly doing Bible exposition, even though they define their preaching by those terms.  Referring again to the panel discussion video I watched, all the men on the panel are considered expositors, yet only a few of them, in my view, are both surrendered to the text and preach its full intent and implications.

For a sermon to be classified as “expository,” it must derive its central message exclusively from the biblical author’s intended message.  The sermon’s principles, therefore, must rise naturally from the structure and force of the text in light of the surrounding context.  D.A. Carson’s explanation is important:  Keep Reading >>>

The Devil is in the White Spaces

It is always shocking to me when people tollerate, follow, and even adore teachers who clearly flaunt biblical standards for conduct, and then act surprised when false teachers and outright heresy are entertained in the church. “Naïve” doesn’t even begin to describe this kind of complicit partnership with false teaching. Because the Scripture warns that “Satan comes as an angel of light,” we simply cannot marvel when his deceptions have somehow “crept in unawares.”

Second Timothy 4:3 predicts that, “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.” Too often people assume these opening words to mean that one day, as evangelical ministry marches on with expansive gospel-momentum, a blatant, rather foul stench straight from hell will mount an offensive against sound doctrine so sudden and obvious that all who love Christ will cry out in unison, “Damn the heresy!” If only that was the way it worked.

Instead of opposing the truth with blatant lies, Satan does a far greater work in the white spaces between Paul’s words. When the Apostle warns that “a time is coming,” we shouldn’t imagine a sudden plunge from the heights of doctrinal precision, but rather a slow, imperceptible decline via subtle spiritual optical illusions. The enemy knows that discerning shepherds would never allow their sheep to suddenly deny truth and turn aside to doctrines of demons. His tactics have to be implemented over long periods of time, introducing slight, unnoticeable deviations to the truth. So just exactly how was the enemy able to bring us to the place where we no longer endure sound, in-depth preaching and teaching, and yet celebrate casual conversations with false teachers?    Keep Reading...