Prayer in the life of Jesus

The journalist Ambrose Bierce once defined praying as asking “that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy”.

Whatever you make of that, according to one poll, Americans as a whole today have more faith in prayer than that definition would indicate Bierce had. We are a prayerful people—well, that is, about three quarters of us believe that prayer has the power to actually help heal an injury or illness (even if most people who say that to pollsters don’t really spend much time praying themselves).

People who were least likely to affirm that this is the case, the poll reported, were men, Democrats, white, under 35, making more than $50 000 a year, and those with college degrees. Lest you be encouraged by the faith of the nation, I should tell you that most Americans also believe that it doesn’t matter who you pray to.  Continue at Mark Dever

How Mark Dever Passes Out Authority

Over the years Mark Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., has seen plenty of opportunities to accrue authority, some of which he keeps, many of which he passes out. And the way he passes out authority has shaped the culture of our church in countless ways.

Here are 20 ways he distributes authority, followed by 10 ways this shapes our church culture. Some apply just to lead pastors; many apply to all of us.

1. Build the church on the gospel. No matter who's teaching, the gospel must be front and center. Mark has established this pattern. When relationships and power structures are grounded in the gospel, people use their authority not to lord it over one another, but to serve one another (Matt. 20:25-28).

2. Establish a plurality of staff and non-staff elders. On an elder board composed exclusively of staff elders, each man may possess one vote, but the staffing structure imposes a hierarchy. Adding non-staff elders to the board disrupts and flattens that hierarchy.

3. Limit the percentage of main-slot preaching. Mark, with the elders' agreement, limits himself to preaching 50 percent to 65 percent of Sunday mornings. That way, other voices have the chance to grow and gain authority. And the congregation depends more on the Word than on one man.   Continue at Jonathan Leeman

The Decline of Church Discipline

Mark Dever on the history of church discipline, and the cause and effect of it’s decline: 

Historical data on the life of the church immediately after the New Testament period is only intermittent and partial. The church was, after all, a small and sometimes illegal group. Written sources multiply greatly after the Christian church was legalized throughout the empire under Constantine. For the 1200 years between Constantine and the Protestant Reformation, church discipline, whether by individual excommunication or interdict (withholding the sacraments from the population of a political entity), was often used more to protect the church’s corporate interests against the claims of the state than to reclaim Christians from sin and protect the gospel’s witness. 

When the leaders of the Reformation began to recover a more biblical understanding of preaching and administrating the sacraments as the two marks of a true church, the recovery of church discipline as a consequent mark followed. Implied in the right administration of the sacraments was the correct practice of church discipline. After all, if marking out the church from the world is one function of the sacraments, then discipline becomes the mechanism for enforcing that mandate. The right discipline of the church became so significant that it began to be presented as a third mark of a true church. 

The twenty-ninth article of the Belgic Confession (1561) stated:   Continue at Thirsty Theologian

How to Survive a Cultural Crisis

Public opinion appears to be changing about same-sex marriage, as are the nation's laws. Of course this change is just one in a larger constellation. America's views on family, love, sexuality generally, tolerance, God, and so much more seems to be pushing in directions that put Bible-believing Christians on the defensive.

It's easy to feel like we've become the new "moral outlaws," to use Al Mohler's phrase. Standing up for historic Christian principles will increasingly get you in trouble socially and maybe economically, perhaps one day also criminally. It's ironic that Christians are told not to impose their views on others, even as the threat of job loss or other penalties loom over Christians for not toeing the new party line.

In all this, Christians are tempted to become panicked or to speak as alarmists. But to the extent we do, to that same extent we show we've embraced an unbiblical and nominal Christianity.

Here, then, are seven principles for surviving the very real cultural shifts we're presently enduring.

1. Remember that churches exist to work for supernatural change.

 

The whole Christian faith is based on the idea that God takes people who are spiritually dead and gives them new life. Whenever we evangelize, we are evangelizing the cemetery.

There's never been a time or a culture when it was natural to repent of your sins. That culture doesn't exist, it hasn't existed, it never will exist. Christians, churches, and pastors especially must know deep in their bones that we've always been about a work that's supernatural.     Continue at Mark Dever

Deconstructing Puritanism

My friend Tullian picks up on a post by Trevin Wax, “Beware the Puritan Paralysis” in which the latter cautions us about a tendency to introspection. He makes a very important point:

Too many times, we dress up our introspection with flowery terms like “accountability” and “mortification” and “gospel-centered change.” Even if all these terms and concepts are good and needed, if our gaze is constantly inward-focused, then we are as self-centered as the Christian who is consumed with seeking personal pleasure apart from God.

To this we should all say “Amen!” Where we should dissent, however, is the broad brush with which British Reformed theology of the 16th and 17th centuries is painted.

The first problem is terminological. It was one thing for British Reformed writers to speak of themselves as “Puritans” and another for us to do it. Consider how difficult it is for us to define the noun “evangelical.” In Deconstructing Evangelicalism Darryl Hart has argued that there isn’t any such thing as “evangelicalism,” that there isn’t a sufficient number of commonalities to add up to a unified thing “evangelicalism.” If one wants to start an argument at the Evangelical Theological Society just give a paper reading popular “evangelicals” out of “the evangelical movement.” It was controversial to say that Clark Pinnock (who taught, among other things, that the future is genuinely open to God) is not an “evangelical.”   Continue at R. Scott Clark

Preach: Theology Meets Practice

Two preachers talk shop:

Mark Dever and Greg Gilbert. Preach: Theology Meets Practice. 9Marks. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2012. 212 pp. 27-page sample PDF.

Excerpts:

What expositional preach is and is not (pp. 36–38):

Expositional preaching is preaching in which the main point of the biblical text being considered becomes the main point of the sermon being preached. . . .

1. We’re not saying expositional preaching has to go verse by verse through a book of the Bible. . . .
2. We’re not saying expositional preaching rules out topical preaching as a legitimate practice. . . .
3. We’re not saying expositional preaching is just a series of lectures, the main goal of which is information transfer. . . .
4. We’re not saying expositional preaching is marked by any particular style. . . .
5. We’re not saying expositional preaching is not evangelistic preaching.

On using the original languages (p. 83):

One of the preacher’s greatest enemies is familiarity: He thinks he understands a particular text because he has known its meaning all his life, and because of that he winds up missing its point when he preaches it. Looking at a text in the original languages helps minimize that kind of mistake.  Continue at Andy Naselli

The Church: The Gospel Made Visible

What Does the Bible Say?

The Nature of the Church

The church is the body of people called by God’s grace through faith in Christ to glorify him together by serving him in his world.

The People of God in the Old Testament: Israel
In order to understand the church in the full richness of God’s revealed truth, we must examine both the Old and New Testaments. Christians may sometimes use the phrase “a New Testament church,” but the shape of the visible church today bears a clear continuity—though not identity—with the visible people of God in the Old Testament.

God’s eternal plan has always been to display his glory not just through individuals but through a corporate body. In creation God created not one person but two, and two who have the ability to reproduce more. In the flood God saved not one person but several families. In Genesis 12 God called Abram and promised that Abram’s descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. In Exodus God dealt not only with Moses but with the nation of Israel—12 tribes comprised of hundreds of thousands of people yet bearing one corporate identity (see Exod 15:13–16). He gave laws and ceremonies that should be worked out not only in the lives of individuals but also in the life of the whole people.

In the Old Testament, Israel is called God’s son (Exod 4:22), his spouse (Ezek 16:6–14), the apple of his eye (Deut 32:10), his vine (Isa 5:1–7; Nah 2:2), and his flock (Ezek 34:4). Through these names God foreshadowed the work he would eventually do through Christ and his church.   Continue at B&H Blog

Mohler Warns of Same Sex Marriage Impact on Churches

Two prominent Southern Baptists discussed the consequences of same-sex "marriage" at a biennial conference, warning that Christians will face increasing difficulties as the culture changes. 

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was interviewed by Washington, D.C. pastor Mark Dever about the cultural impact of same-sex "marriage." They were at the “Together for the Gospel” Conference in Louisville on April 11.  The event attracted 8,000 people.  Mohler’s seminary is one of the largest in the world.  Dever’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church is a prominent congregation in the nation’s capital. The 16 million member Southern Baptist convention is America’s largest Protestant communion.

Six states currently recognize gay "marriage," and two more have passed laws that are being challenged by citizens and could be overturned. The laws in those two other states, Maryland and Washington, have yet to go into effect.

The definition of marriage, Mohler said, is simple: “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman before the Creator in an exclusive and permanent relationship that models his own character and covenantal love.”

Historically, Western civilization was built on the understanding of marriage as both a biblical and legal institution, Mohler said. The trend in recent times, however, has been to sever marriage away from its biblical understanding and more towards a legal understanding. This poses a problem for Christians as their views conflict with the state’s definition.

“Christians have essentially agreed with the civil aspects of marriage, but have believed beyond the legal understanding -- that marriage fits into a Gospel structure," Mohler said. "We now find ourselves in a position of saying that we believe in contrast as to the state’s definition of marriage.”

With shifting attitudes toward homosexuality, Mohler noted the consequences for Christians who insist on holding to biblical marriage: “What we now have in an increasingly short period of time is the condemnation of anyone who will not approve of homosexuality.”

Apart from a supernatural act, Mohler said he does not expect the culture to reverse its opinion on homosexuality.  The implications for pastors are many, Mohler said. “You can count on this being an enduring, permanent challenge set to impact every single local church.”   Continue at Andrew Walker

False Conversions 'Suicide' for Churches - Mark Dever

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) – Thousands, if not millions, of church members sitting in America’s pews aren’t really born-again Christians, a Washington, D.C., pastor said April 10 to a pastors’ conference in Louisville, Ky. 

Mark Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in the nation’s capital, warned on the opening day of the 2012 Together for the Gospel Conference that “false conversions” are “the suicide of the local church.” 

Dever was one of four religious leaders – with Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; C.J. Mahaney, president Sovereign Grace Ministries in Gaithersburg, Md.; and Ligon Duncan, senior minister at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss. – to convene the first Together for the Gospel event in 2006 to combat what they viewed as false teaching in many churches today. A statement of unifying doctrines includes male headship in the church and home and the need for church discipline of wayward members in local congregations. 

This year’s conference, the fourth, was expected to draw 8,000 pastors and ministers April 10-12 to The Kentucky International Convention Center and KFC Yum! Center, with messages uploaded daily on the website t4g.org. 

Dever described “members of the church who live worldly, carnal lives” as a “serious problem” in American Christianity. 

“The problem I am pointing to is not just that of the occasional hypocrite lost in their own unrepentant sin,” Dever said. “I’m talking about systems which seem to produce false converts so much that it’s not just one man … but whole congregations that like Israel of old are typified and characterized not by holiness but by worldliness.” 

Dever said that is a problem for church members who are “deceived about their own state before the Lord.”  Continue at Bob Allen

The Elephant in the Room

This past week a firestorm erupted over the recent “Elephant Room 2.”  The controversy centers around the decision to invite Bishop T.D. Jakes to participate in the event.  The central questions in the debate are 1) whether or not Bishop Jakes holds to the historic, orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, 2) whether it was appropriate to invite (and feature) him without first having clarified his position on this cardinal doctrine, and 3) whether he cleared up the matter. 

I was scheduled to speak at Harvest Bible Chapel on the weekend following ER2 which raised significant questions about my stance on the matter.  While I do not consider it my responsibility to comment on every controversy, I do recognize my duty to clarify matters with which I am involved directly, and/or those that impact the congregation I am called to shepherd.  Hence, my explanation now.

My Invitation to ER2

In October of 2011, I was invited to participate in The Elephant Room 2.  The invitation followed Mark Dever’s decision to pull out.  James MacDonald called me and asked me to take his place.  He also informed me of the controversy at that time surrounding the invitation to Jakes and Dever’s decision to pull out, and that Crawford Loritts had agreed to fill in.  I knew James MacDonald only indirectly, and I had only recently heard of the Elephant Room. 

Initially, it sounded like a very good idea to “pin Jakes down” on the Trinity.  My area of emphasis in my theological training is Evangelism/Apologetics.  Moreover, I addressed Jakes’s modalism in my first book in 2004, so I am well aware of the issues in question, and believed I could make a contribution.  Also,  to my delight, James indicated that Jakes had abandoned Oneness Pentecostalism, rejected Modalism, and, he believed, Jakes would make that clear at ER2. Continue at Voddie Baucham

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 See Also: Book Review: T.D. Jakes: Various Works

 

AND -  A Mega-Friday DL on TD Jakes and Elephants in the Room

The Sin of Counting

I’ll admit to being weary, to the point of irritation, whenever I hear ministers of the gospel reporting their statistics as external evidences of success. And I know I’m not the only one. (The first minute-and-a-half of this video makes the point.)

Enough already.

I’m not saying I’m less tempted than the next guy to hope for big numbers and stats, the apparent signs of God’s blessing on my ministry. I am. But I’ve seen the focus on numbers as a temptation to be resisted, not something to be embraced. And when preachers find a way to mention the numbers in public, and often, it comes across as bragging; it’s worldly and unbecoming of Christians who are to be characterized by humility and meekness.

One of the worst plagues to hit Israel came about when David numbered his troops, taking pride in his military might. For all the external, visible signs of success David could see and count on a human level, only God could knew the true condition of Israel. Widespread spiritual decay would soon divide David’s kingdom and eventually expel the people of Israel and Judah from the land of promise.

Counting isn’t always pride, right? God commanded Moses to take a census of the people (Num. 1, 26), and for very practical reasons (e.g., to register the fighting men, to determine per-tribe ransom for servicing the temple). Here at Grace to You, we have to keep track of certain numbers to make sure we’re good stewards of the resources God entrusts to us.    Keep Reading>>>

Christianity – The Greatest Force of Good in the World!

Have you ever heard people say that Christianity is evil? I have. People who say that have to have a very poor sense of history and all the amazing advances the world now enjoys because of the spread of Christianity.


It is safe to say that the vast majority of the great scientists in history were Bible believing Christians. They believed that to study nature and science was merely to “think God’s thoughts after Him.” Whether they looked through the microscope or the telescope; whether the field was human biology, astronomy, physics, oceanography or zoology, these men believed they were merely discovering more about the world and universe God had made.

The first hospitals were built by Christians because they believed that each individual mattered (each person is made in the image of God) and because Jesus taught us to love our neighbor and He defined our neighbor as the one we find in need (remember the story of the Good Samaritan?). There’s actually a hospital here in Phoenix called “Good Samaritan Hospital.”

The first schools were built by Christians because they believed God had given us His word in the Bible and every child should have an education in order to read it and understand it. In society today the question is asked, “should the Bible be taught in schools?” Yet when school education was first introduced, the Bible was the only reason for the school’s existence. On and on we could go…Continue Reading>>>

Fellowship Redefined: David Cloud, Mark Dever and the Fundamentalist Notion of “Partnership”

David Cloud has out done himself. As king of the fundamentalist “dirt alert” squad, Cloud recently declared that the original fundamentalists were all wrong. They cared about the fundamentals of the faith, as something to rally around and unite over. They actually stood by the age-old maxim: “In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.” Imagine that! Boy were they duped. There is no such thing as a non-essential, don’t you know. Rom. 14 and Matt. 23:23 not withstanding.

Cloud has an article entitled “In Essentials Unity”, where he quotes disapprovingly many wise comments from other fundamentalists, like Charles Keen and Clayton Reed, who are waking up to the fact that standing with a brother for the gospel doesn’t imply a wholesale endorsement of every single doctrinal position he may espouse. In fact we can appreciate the contributions of those who differ with us on less important points. Cloud however disagrees, saying, “I challenge anyone to show me where the Scripture encourages the believer to treat some doctrine as ‘non-essential’ or to ‘stand for the cardinal truths and downplay the peripherals’.” Read it all HERE

The Story of the Bible

9Marks at Southeastern - Biblical Theology: Session 1 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

HT: Reformation Theology

Pay Your Taxes But Trust in Christ

While Dever may serve a church on Capitol Hill, he does not commonly address issues of Christianity and government so directly. But as an expository preacher working his way through the Gospel of Mark, Dever obligated himself to address Jesus’ teaching in Mark 12:13-17. In these days of overheated rhetoric and protest rallies, I pray that evangelicals will set aside 70 minutes to listen to Dever’s sermon. Much of the wisdom expressed here echoes the forthcoming book City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, written by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, with a foreword by Tim Keller. We need to hear from the best evangelical thinkers about a faithful, biblical approach to politics. Perhaps I can help the cause by summarizing four pages of notes I scribbled from Dever’s sermon. Read it all HERE

Hell: Remembering the Awful Reality

• Pastoral Perspectives on Hell

• Pastoral Fearmongering, Manipulation, and Hell

  By Mark Dever Our culture sneers at fear, as if there really is nothing to fear but fear itself. Yet Jesus told people to fear hell, and pastors today should do the same. Read more >
  

• There’s Something Worse than Death

  By Kevin DeYoung The doctrine of hell is ballast for our ministries, which will help us sail straight toward our most urgent task: proclaiming the gospel. Read more >
  

• What Then Shall We Preach on Hell?

  By Sinclair Ferguson Hell is an awful and overwhelming reality. Yet where Scripture speaks, pastors must not be silent. Here’s some practical help for this demanding calling. Read more >
  

• Hell in Biblical and Theological Perspective

• Why Hell Is Integral to the Gospel

  By Greg Gilbert Some think that by minimizing or ignoring hell, they are making God more glorious and more loving. Far from it! The horror of what we have been saved from only intensifies the glory and wonder of our salvation. Read more >
  

• Hellfire and Brimstone: Interpreting the New Testament’s Descriptions of Hell

  By Andrew David Naselli The New Testament graphically and horrifically describes hell, which raises a thorny question: how should we interpret those dreadful images? Read more >
  

• How Does Hell Glorify God?

  By James M. Hamilton Jr. Hell glorifies God by vindicating his holiness and faithfulness to his word, demonstrating his infinite worth, and magnifying his mercy and love toward the redeemed. Read more >
  

• An Annotated Bibliography on Hell

  By Gavin Ortlund This article contains brief reviews of seven key books on hell. Read more >
  
  See also:
  
  The Biblical Doctrine of Hell Examined By: Brian Schwertley

   
  

Inerrancy of the Bible: An Annotated Bibliography

Old Atheism

Mark Dever: The Pastor and the Community

Unity and the End Times

Unity and End Times
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Unity across Eschatological Positions