The Counterintuitive Calvin

So what did I do last summer vacation? I continued to do something that I started January 1 of this year. Late last fall I came upon a plan for reading through all of John Calvin's Institutes---his four-volume, 1,500-or-so-page systematic exposition of the teachings of the Christian faith---in one year. Calvin and Martin Luther together were the two leading lights of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Today, however, Calvin has a dismal reputation as a pinched, narrow-minded, cold, and cerebral dogmatician.

I knew much of this image was caricature, and, while over the years I had read a good deal of the Institutes, I treated the books like an encyclopedia or dictionary that one dipped into to learn about specific topics. I had never read it straight through, consecutively, until this year when I began the program, which allots an average of six pages a night, five nights a week, for an entire year. Almost immediately I was amazed by several things.

True Work of Literature 

First, it is not just a textbook, but also a true work of literature. It was written in Latin and French and is a landmark in the history of the French language. Calvin was a lawyer and seems at time to relish debate too much (a flaw he confesses in his letters). But despite such passages, even in English translation it is obvious that this is no mere textbook, but a masterpiece of literary art, sometimes astonishing in its power and eloquence.

Second, it is nothing if not biblical. Even if you don't agree with what Calvin is saying, you will always have to deal with one or two dozen texts of Scripture, carefully interpreted and organized as he presents his case to you. To describe these volumes as "theology" or "doctrine" is almost misleading---it is mainly a Bible Digest, a distilled readers' guide to the main teachings of the Scripture and how they fit together.   Continue at Tim Keller

The Kidnapping of Our Children and How to Get Them Back

Childhood is a divinely protected season of life. That is what Jesus declared when He said,

“…But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mark 9:42, ESV; see also Matthew 18:6 and Luke 17:2).

The Evil One will be thrown into the lake of fire, drowned in the depth of the sea of eternal flames, because of his direct attack on children. Satan masquerades in our culture as one who would help children, but we must be careful. There is not a devil under every bush, but there is a devil behind every attempt to kidnap childhood.

I used to require all of my assistant pastors to read Neil Postman‘s The Disappearance of Childhood.[1][2] The late professor of communications at the University of New York used common grace, for he was not a believer,[3] to see that childhood was, in essence, created by Jesus Christ with these very words, reclaimed, I would say, from the Fall, and subjected to re-entry into darkness when a man or woman or a community rejects the light they were given in God’s Word. Thus, Postman felt that while the Reformation, with its emphasis upon the Word, reclaimed childhood, postmodernity and the new “image based” society seeks to steal it. The picture of the little cover photograph of a little girl, she looks to be eleven or so, with twenty-year-old make up, is a shocking image in itself pointing to the professor’s thesis. These words do not do the book justice. Read it for yourself. Yet it is enough to say that our society, by rejecting God and His Word, by rejecting the commandment of God to have no other images, for images provoke the idol factory of the mind and the idols must be then be fed. The image gods are fed with immodesty at the first and then, finally, by utter moral failure and corruption until finally the child is consumed.   Continue at Reformed Theological Seminary

Assurance: Every Believer's Birthright

was listening to a sermon by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones not long ago in which he pointed out that assurance is one of the most prominent subjects in the New Testament. Virtually every New Testament epistle was written to address some doubt, answer some question, settle some uncertainty—all of them aimed at stimulating or reinforcing the assurance of believers. Scripture encourages us to have assurance. It is not inherently brash or presumptuous to be confident in your faith.

Shortly after reading that comment by Lloyd-Jones, while doing some research on a totally different theme, I had occasion to review The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent. Trent was the Roman Catholic Council that was convened in the mid-1500s in order to hammer out an official response from the Roman Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation.

And let's be candid: the Protestant Reformation had embarrassed the whole Roman Catholic hierarchy in a major way, because in addition to the many doctrinal errors and patently unbiblical and extrabiblical teachings the Reformers challenged, they also shone the bright light of biblical truth on centuries of exploitation of Papal power, gross corruption of the priesthood, spiritual abuse for material profit (including the sale of indulgences and the sale of church offices and political favors for money). Underneath all of this was the most shocking kind of moral rot that went right to the top in the Papal hierarchy. The Roman Catholic Church was totally corrupt.  Continue at Phil Johnson

The Centrality of Preaching

Preaching has fallen on hard times. The great Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, wrote: “At the present day there are many who are well-nigh sickened by the very name of preaching, because there are so many stupid, ignorant men who blurt out their worthless brain waves from the pulpit.” That was 450 years ago! Today not only has preaching been decentralized, but the greater part of what is called “preaching” no longer deserves to be at the center. This has created a vacuum and few have raised a voice while a Pandora’s Box of replacements has rushed in to fill the void.”

A.W. Tozer said of the danger: “One of the most popular current errors, and the one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering religious activity in evangelical circles, is the notion that as times change the church must change with them…That mentality which mistakes Hollywood for the Holy City is too gravely astray to be explained otherwise than as a judicial madness visited upon professing Christians for affronts committed against the Spirit of God.”

And John MacArthur aptly described it: “Worship services in many churches today are like a merry-go-round. You drop a token in the collection box; it is a good ride. There’s music and lots of motion up and down. The ride is carefully timed and seldom varies in length. Lots of good feelings are generated, and it is the one ride you can be sure will never be the least bit threatening or challenging. But though you spend the whole time feeling as if you’re moving forward, you get off exactly where you got on.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PREACHING

The 16th century Reformation, 17th century Puritanism, and the 18th century “Great Awakening” were all revivals of preaching! Whatever else they were, they brought preaching back to the center. Similarly, periods of decline were marked by a corresponding decline in preaching. The 19th century languished under the influence of Charles Finney’s “new measures.” Preaching was reduced to “moral suasion.” This is reflected in modern “crusade evangelism” in which the sermon has become a mere prelude to the “invitation.” The 20th century dawned with the pulpit histrionics of Billy Sunday. Preaching had become “pulpiteerism.” A more sophisticated retreat was found in the “quiet talks” of inspirational liberalism. “Sharing” rather than preaching marked the advent of a “kinder, gentler” Christianity.”

“The miserable phrase, sharing Christ, which so sickens those of us who believe that the work of preaching not that of sharing an experience but of proclaiming a message.” (J. Gresham Machen)  Continue at Tom Lyon

The Ordinary Means of Growth

We are living in a confused and confusing time for confessional Christians (Christians who are anchored by a public and corporate theological commitment to be faithful to the Bible’s teaching on faith and practice as expounded by the great confessions of the Protestant Reformation). We are witnessing the final demise of theological liberalism, the rise of Pentecostalism, the beginnings of the so-called emerging church movement, the breakdown of evangelicalism, and an utter discombobulation about how the church is to conduct its life and ministry in an increasing “post-Christian” culture. All around us, in the name of reaching the culture with the Gospel, we see evangelical churches compromising (usually without intending to) in both message and methods.

It is not uncommon today to hear certain buzz-words and catch phrases that are meant to capture and articulate new (and presumably more culturally-attuned) approaches to ministry: “Purpose-driven,” “missional,” “contextualization,” “word and deed,” “ancient-future,” “emerging/emergent,” “peace and justice.” Now, to be sure, there are points, diagnoses, and emphases entailed in each of these terms and concepts that are helpful, true, and timely. Sadly, however, the philosophies of ministry often associated with this glossary are also often self-contrasted with the historic Christian view of how the church lives and ministers. That view is often called “the ordinary means of grace” view of ministry.

The fundamental assumption underlying these new approaches is that “everything has changed,” and so our methods must change. I would want to dispute both parts of that equation. Whatever the entailments of our present cultural moment, constituent human nature has not changed.  And thus the fundamental human problem has not changed. Neither has the Gospel solution to it. Nor have the effectiveness of God’s Gospel means. Furthermore, one of the things that has always marked faithful and effective Christian ministry in every era and area of the world is a confidence in God’s Word, both in the Gospel message and in Gospel means. Faith still comes by hearing.

In sum, there are basically three views of Gospel ministry. There are those who think that effective cultural engagement requires an updating of the message. There are those who think that effective ministry requires an updating of our methods. And there are those who think that effective ministry begins with a pre-commitment to God’s message and methods, set forth in His Word.  Keep Reading >>>