Is Feminine Modesty About Sex?

During the summer, the topic of modesty comes out from hibernation. But with the renewed conversations come many assumptions about modesty, assumptions that are always worth re-thinking.

Here’s the main assumption: Feminine modesty is about sexual provocation. If a woman’s skirt is too short or blouse is too low, it will cause her Christian brother to lust.

Two Important Texts

This assumption raises two challenges. The first one is whether feminine modesty is about sex in the first place. If it is, the two main texts in the New Testament don’t make this point very clear.

1 Peter 3:3–4:

Do not let your adorning be external — the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear — but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

1 Timothy 2:9–10:

. . . women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness — with good works.    Continue at Tony Reinke

This first weekend of 2014 affords many of us an opportunity to hit “pause” on this busy opening week and to reflect, backward and forward, on our own lives. 

 

Essential at the beginning of every new year is to set aside time to reflect on life, according to eighteenth-century slave-ship-captain-turned-pastor John Newton (1725–1807). This practice was embedded into his personal disciplines, and it emerged as a hallmark of his pastoral work. He penned new hymns and sermons and personal letters every year to urge his friends to take time at the unveiling of a new year to stop and reflect on life.

Past, Present, Future Grace

 

Newton’s most famous hymn “Amazing Grace” is the best example of this reflection. The hymn was first unveiled in his church on New Year’s Day (1773), and it’s a reflection on the new year: a look back on his past deliverances, a look around on his present deliverances, and a look forward to his future deliverances in Christ. Continue at Tony Reinke

Are You Chasing Happiness or Holiness?

Such a question actually reveals a common mistake of pitting holiness and happiness against each other. “God is more interested in you being holy than happy,” so the line goes.

One of my favorite theologians falls prey to this subtle dichotomy in a book to be released next year. Overall it’s a great book (with plenty of strengths to commend later), but here I want to make a friendly amendment to these few paragraphs from it:

In this psychological world, the God of love is a God of love precisely and only because he offers us inward balm. Empty, distracted, meandering, and dissatisfied, we come to him for help. Fill us, we ask, with a sense of completeness! Fill our emptiness! Give us a sense of direction amid the mass of competing ways and voices in the modern world! Fill the aching emptiness within!

This is how many in the church today, especially in the evangelical church, are thinking. It is how they are praying. They are yearning for something more real within themselves than what they currently have. This is true of adults and of teenagers as well. Yes, we say earnestly, hopefully, maybe even a little wistfully, be to us the God of love!

Those who live in this psychological world think differently from those who inhabit a moral world. In a psychological world, we want therapy; in a moral world, a world of right and wrong and good and evil, we want redemption. In a psychological world, we want to be happy. In a moral world, we want to be holy. In the one, we want to feel good but in the other we want to be good.   Continue at Tony Reinke

Porn, Pride, and Praise

According to a study by Covenant Eyes, roughly half of all professing Christian men and one-fifth of all professing Christian women admit to being porn addicts. Other reports indicate the problem could be even more extensive.

Whatever the exact numbers, porn is a problem, a growing problem, and an increasingly accessible problem. 

“The Internet is the crack cocaine of pornography,” says Heath Lambert, author of the forthcoming book, Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace. Lambert is assistant professor of biblical counseling at Boyce College and teaches at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. We asked him about the growing epidemic of pornography in the lives of Christians, and about the roots behind the sin.

The Deep Root of Porn

 

The sin of pornography is directly linked to the sin of pride, he says. 

“At the root of viewing pornography is an arrogant heart that says: ‘I will have whatever I want. And if I want pictures of naked women, I am going to have it. And I don’t care if God doesn’t want it, and I don’t care if my wife doesn’t like it, and I don’t care if I might lose my ministry over it — I am going to look at it.’ And in the moment of temptation, in the moment of the sin, when you dive in, that’s the statement of your heart.   Continue at Tony Reinke

Spurgeon’s First Five Years in Ministry

The celebrated preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) was converted at age 15. He preached his first sermon just after his 16th birthday. By age 18, he took his first pastorate in the country. And before turning 20, Spurgeon was pastoring in London.

Spurgeon’s entire life and ministry are fascinating, but those first five years of his Christian life, between 1850–54, are years that especially interest me, and in this episode of Authors on the Line we go on the line with two Spurgeon scholars to learn more.

First, we talk with Tom Nettles, the Professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s also the author of a forthcoming book, Living By Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Christian Focus, September). He provides us with a historical overview of these first five years of Spurgeon’s Christian life.

Second, we talk with theologian and author Christian George, the Jewell and Joe L. Huitt Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Oklahoma Baptist University. While studying in London, George stumbled onto eleven handwritten journals kept by Spurgeon over these same early years. The journals have never been published. George is now transcribing them for publication, and he joins us to share what's in the 1,400 pages.    Continue at Tony Reinke

The Bible as One Story

How does the Bible hold together into a single, cohesive story?

It’s an important (and intimidating) question reserved for the discipline of biblical theology, an angle of scholarship that focuses on sections of Scripture, sometimes the whole of the Bible, to show how the texts fits together within the unfolding drama of redemption and consummation in Jesus Christ.

Edmund Clowney, the noteworthy theologian and preacher who passed away in 2005, said the lessons most easily transferable from seminary life to pulpit ministry was what he learned in biblical theology. There seems to be a direct line between advances in careful biblical theology and robust preaching and discipleship.

One new book release this summer has the potential to play an important role in how local churches put the whole Bible together. It's titled The King In His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Baker), written by Thomas Schreiner, the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. Dr. Schreiner joins us on this episode of Authors on the Line to talk about his book, about whole-Bible biblical theology, and why biblical theology matters for local churches and discipleship.    Continue at Tony Reinke

Lust Battles, Facebook Fasts, Twitter Goals, and “Humble Brags”

Over the last two weeks on the Ask Pastor John podcast we talked a lot about social media, about goals for Twitter and fasting from Facebook. Pastor John also addressed creativity in communication, and the meaning and importance of Easter. We talked about the value of Bible commentaries written by women, a practical suggestion for battling lust, and how our works exceed the works of Jesus.

What follows is a list of episodes, along with quotes pulled from each recording. Click on the titles to listen.

How Jesus’s Glory Drives Creative Communication (Episode 54):

Jesus really is striking. Jesus really is amazing. Jesus really is worthy of the most wonderful — or the most surprising — ways of describing him truly. And the Holy Spirit regularly honors that effort by opening the eyes of the blind to see a truly-described Jesus.

How Do I Know If I Love the Gifts More Than the Giver? (Episode 55):

We are sinners, which means we are spring-loaded to turn gifts into alternatives to God. And so what does God do? In this age between our fall and our perfection at the second coming, he uses pleasure and pain to provide us with revelations of his goodness and to protect us from loving substitutes.

Do You Use Bible Commentaries Written by Women? (Episode 56):

The reason for saying, “I don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over men” (1 Timothy 2:12), is not because she’s incompetent. It is not because she can’t have thoughts. In fact, the women in our church, and the woman you are married to, have many thoughts that you would do well to note and learn and learn from. And so the issue there is not she doesn’t have thoughts, the issue is how manhood and womanhood works.    Continue at Tony Reinke

From Radical Lesbian to Redeemed Christian

In 1999, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield was a tenured English professor at Syracuse University, a skeptic of all things Christianity, and in a committed lesbian relationship. Her academic specialty was Queer Theory, a postmodern form of gay and lesbian studies.

Today Butterfield is a mother of four, a homemaker, and wife of a Presbyterian pastor named Kent. They live in Durham, North Carolina.

She is an unlikely convert. And in this episode of the Authors on the Line podcast, Butterfield shares the story of her conversion from a radical lesbian to a redeemed Christian. It's a story involving a pastor, a pretty ordinary local church, and a Bible.

“I tried to toss the Bible and all of its teachings in the trash — I really tried,” she says. 

“But I kept reading it, reading it not just for pleasure, but reading it because I was engaged in a research program trying to refute the religious right from a lesbian feminist perspective. . . . After my second or third, maybe fourth, pass through the entire Bible something started to happen. The Bible got to be bigger inside me than I. And it absolutely overflowed into my world. I really fought against it. And then one Sunday morning, no different from any other Sunday morning, I rose from the bed of my lesbian lover, and an hour later I sat in a church pew. I went there very conspicuous of the fact that I didn’t fit in. But I really had to confront this God.”

And she did.     Continue at Tony Reinke

We Become What We Worship

Greg Beale titled his landmark book We Become What We Worship. His thesis is simple: “What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or for restoration.” He traces the theme throughout Scripture to show that we are worshippers, and that our worship exposes us and changes us. We either revere the world and are conformed to the sinful patterns of the world, or we revere God and are progressively conformed into his likeness. 

Take the book of Romans. Beale points out that the Greek word for representation or image (εἰκόνος) occurs in two places (Romans 1:23, 8:29).

In the first reference, Paul begins with the objects and effects of pagan worship. The pagan worship of an image is an act of God-replacement. Idols are twisted versions of reality. Whenever we worship a created object or person or animal, we are acting unnaturally towards the Creator. And through this unnatural worship of a created thing, the life of the worshipper takes on increasingly unnatural characteristics as well — and that unnatural character is reflected in the unnatural sexual sins that Paul later describes.

The second reference to image is found in Romans 8:29, where Paul speaks of those who revere God. Those who “love God” will be conformed to the image of Christ. This is becoming true right now and will ultimately be fully revealed in glorification.

What Beale sees in Romans is that we are being molded into one of two images: either into the distortion of creation (an idol) or into the image of the Creator.  Continue at Tony Reinke

A Pastor's Monday

Mondays are notoriously difficult for pastors. If you are not a pastor, pray for your pastor today as you read through this post. If you are a pastor, listen to the words of pastor Jared Wilson as he describes the structure of his Mondays, along with the personal challenges he faces as another week begins. Here’s what he writes:

The fatigue begins for me as soon as the sermon is done. More often than not, I have “left it all out on the field.” But the gathering is not over. There are people to greet, visitors to meet, often times theological questions to answer and short counseling sessions to conduct. Many times there are impromptu meetings or executive decisions to be made.

At Middletown Springs Community Church, we enjoy Soup Sunday in the fellowship hall from the weekend after Thanksgiving until Easter every year. I am an introverted personality, which does not mean I don’t enjoy being with people or that I’m not good at interacting with people, only that it is work to do so. Extroverts tend to fill up in social settings; introverts tend to empty. . .

Many pastors take Mondays off because of the Sunday hangover. I do not. It is my worst day, so I refuse to give it to my family. Instead I work through it. It is a slog. Monday morning is when the email inbox and telephone mailbox are thickest. Monday morning is when people still have questions or concerns or criticisms about Sunday. (They are starting their week full, remember? They came to church for the pick-me-up, and most of them got it.) Like everybody else on Monday mornings, pastors are taking stock of what all must be accomplished in the week ahead. But Sunday was not a day of filling up for pastors, but pouring out.

On Monday mornings I enter my office and find that, like Sisyphus, the stone I spent the week previous pushing up the hill lay at the bottom again, ready for another go. Monday morning I must pastor. But what kind of must?   Continue at Tony Reinke

20 Quotes from Killing Calvinism

What follows is a collection of 20 quotes that caught my attention as I read Greg Dutcher’s new book Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside (Cruciform Press, June, 2012):

“I am concerned that many Calvinists today do little more than celebrate how wonderfully clear their theological windshield is. But like a windshield, Reformed theology is not an end in itself. It is simply a window to the awe-inspiring universe of God’s truth, filled with glory, beauty, and grace. Do we need something like a metaphorical windshield of clear, biblical truth to look through as we hope to marvel at God’s glory? Absolutely. But we must make sure that we know the difference between staring at a windshield and staring through one.” (14)

[Quoting Kevin DeYoung:] “Here are the two most important things you need to know about the rise of the New Calvinism: it’s not new and it’s not about Calvin. Of course, some of the conferences are new. The John Piper–packed iPods are new. The neo-reformed blog blitz is new. The ideas, however, are not. ‘Please God, don’t let the young, restless, and reformed movement be another historically ignorant, self-absorbed, cooler-than-thou fad.’” (16)

“‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Romans 11:33). When Paul reflected on the doctrines that make up what we call Calvinism, he was moved to rejoice in God. This is the key to not killing off today’s Calvinist upsurge. When we read our books, attend our conferences, and ‘Piperup’ our iPods, the primary goal must not be to gain a better understanding of 16th- and 17th-century doctrine. It must be to be blown out of the water by the God who has chosen us in infinite mercy and wisdom.” (18)

“The best Calvinists that history has given to us were using Reformed theology to get a clearer hold on the majesty of God, the wonder of the gospel, and the exhilaration of Christian living. By God’s grace — yes, his sovereign grace — may we do the same.” (20)   

What follows is a collection of 20 quotes that caught my attention as I read Greg Dutcher’s new book Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside (Cruciform Press, June, 2012):

“I am concerned that many Calvinists today do little more than celebrate how wonderfully clear their theological windshield is. But like a windshield, Reformed theology is not an end in itself. It is simply a window to the awe-inspiring universe of God’s truth, filled with glory, beauty, and grace. Do we need something like a metaphorical windshield of clear, biblical truth to look through as we hope to marvel at God’s glory? Absolutely. But we must make sure that we know the difference between staring at a windshield and staring through one.” (14)

[Quoting Kevin DeYoung:] “Here are the two most important things you need to know about the rise of the New Calvinism: it’s not new and it’s not about Calvin. Of course, some of the conferences are new. The John Piper–packed iPods are new. The neo-reformed blog blitz is new. The ideas, however, are not. ‘Please God, don’t let the young, restless, and reformed movement be another historically ignorant, self-absorbed, cooler-than-thou fad.’” (16)

“‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Romans 11:33). When Paul reflected on the doctrines that make up what we call Calvinism, he was moved to rejoice in God. This is the key to not killing off today’s Calvinist upsurge. When we read our books, attend our conferences, and ‘Piperup’ our iPods, the primary goal must not be to gain a better understanding of 16th- and 17th-century doctrine. It must be to be blown out of the water by the God who has chosen us in infinite mercy and wisdom.” (18)

“The best Calvinists that history has given to us were using Reformed theology to get a clearer hold on the majesty of God, the wonder of the gospel, and the exhilaration of Christian living. By God’s grace — yes, his sovereign grace — may we do the same.” (20)   Continue at Tony Reinke

Homosexuality and Happiness

Tony Reinke, a young evangelical thinker who I know and deeply appreciate, has written what I think is an excellent piece on homosexuality, idolatry and happiness. (I’ve written an endorsement for his delightful book Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books.)

Let me introduce Tony’s article by saying this. When true happiness is rightly seen as God’s desire for human beings, it undercuts the assumptions so often brought to the table by both unbelievers and believers in the “holiness versus happiness” debate. The world is seen to argue for the rightness of whatever makes people happy. Christians then counter with arguments of right and wrong, saying that people should do what is moral, not what makes them happy. The underlying message is that what is moral does not make people happy, and what is immoral does make people happy but should be opposed on moral grounds. But the Bible’s ultimate argument is different. True, it says that we sometimes should sacrifice short-term pleasures for long-term good, but that long-term good is inseparable from human happiness. And what is immoral and unholy will NOT ultimately make us happy—rather, it will make us decidedly unhappy. Hence, what is morally wrong, including homosexual behavior, is not only wrong, but it is also foolish. For it does not result in happiness, but ultimate unhappiness.

Thanks, Tony, for saying this so well:

What’s At Stake in the Homosexuality Debate

 

By Tony Reinke    Read it HERE

What’s At Stake in the Homosexuality Debate

The stakes could not be higher in the homosexuality debate, because — to put it rather bluntly — homosexual activity is a sin that parallels idolatry. The Apostle Paul seems to draw this connection in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, and he certainly does in Romans 1:18–27.

Robert Gagnon, a leading scholar on sexuality in Scripture, says these themes are closely related for Paul because both idolatry and same-sex intercourse equally oppose the designs of the Creator. He sees several strong connections that link Romans 1 to the creation account in Genesis 1–2. In his acclaimed book The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Gagnon writes, "Idolatry and homosexual behavior are in some measure parallel (not just successive) phenomena since both are presented as willful suppression of the obvious truth about God and God's design in the natural world."¹

Pagan idolatry is twisted because it is the act of rejecting the Creator and replacing worship of him with the worship of what he has made. Similarly, homosexual acts are twisted because they reject God's natural design for human sexuality.² Thus, homosexuality and idolatry are related. Both are evidence of a twisted distortion of God's design for men and women, both dehumanize men and women, both are rooted in a rejection of the Creator. That is to say, the distortions of idolatry and same-sex intercourse are foremost rooted in a worship disorder (Romans 1:21, 24–25).   Continue at Tony Reinke

Why Rooting Joy in Ministry Success Is Disastrous

Is there a greater thrill than to know someone's life has been permanently transformed because you reached out to them?

It is sweet to know your sister was saved through your series of conversations, or that you helped to disciple a struggling couple whose marriage was headed toward an inevitable divorce, or that you preached a sermon that God was kind enough to use in someone's spiritual awakening.

Each of those things are treasured experiences — but none of them are intended to sustain our joy.

Jesus’ chose 72 of his followers and sent them out in his name. And they found incredible success in healing the sick and in watching demonically sabotaged lives get radically and immediately repaired. The experience must have been intoxicatingly fun.

But ministry success wasn't the most stunning thing, and Jesus warned his followers of that when they returned. He told them to look beyond the fruit and see an eternal foundation: "do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20).

Written in heaven. That’s what he wanted them to see and us to see. Our highest joy is to know that our names are written in heaven. Knowing we are heirs to the bliss of God's eternal presence is the foundation for our greatest joys.   Continue at Tony Reinke

Spiritual Depression: An Interview with John Newton

John Newton wrote a number of valuable letters on the high marks and the low points of the Christian life. One of those letters was originally to a pastor. But as you will soon see, it has application for every Christian, especially on the topic of spiritual depression (see Psalm 42:1–11).

For this entry in the series I’ve chosen to reformat one letter into an interview. We’ll see how it goes.

Rev. Newton, thanks for your time today. Let’s begin discussing the topic of how spiritual depression affects pastors. You have many years of pastoral experience yourself. Does God preserve pastors from undergoing spiritual valleys? Do pastors get a special divine favor and higher proportion of comforts in life to better serve their local churches?

Give me leave to ask pastors: What would you do if you did not find yourself occasionally poor, insufficient, and stupid?

Are you aware of what might be the possible, the probable, the almost certain consequences, if you always found your spirit enlarged, and your frames lively and comfortable? Keep Reading...

When Humility Is Pride

Rev. Joshua Symonds (1739–1788) was the pastor of a church in Bedford, England who suffered from frequent afflictions, temptations, and what we might call depression—“family cares and severe bodily affliction sometimes cast a gloom over his spirit and led him to take desponding views of himself” [1]. Symonds’s despondency and sense of personal worthlessness engrossed his life, which is made clear in the letters he exchanged with his friend John Newton.

Symonds was aware of his own depravity and spiritual barrenness. But the bigger problem in Symonds’s life was not in thinking too lowly of himself, but in thinking too lowly of the Savior. He was sliding into legalism. He was aware of his own sinfulness, but unable to appreciate the all-sufficiency of the Savior. Continue Reading>>>

Preach Christ or Go Home—And Other Spurgeon Quotes on Christless Preaching

New Book: Proclaiming a Cross-Centered Theology

Chapter 1: Sound Doctrine: Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry (Ligon Duncan)

Chapter 2: Bearing the Image (Thabiti Anyabwile).

Chapter 3: The Sinner Neither Willing nor Able (John MacArthur).

Chapter 4: Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbiblical Theology (or) Questioning Five Common Deceits (Mark Dever).

Chapter 5: The Curse Motif of the Atonement (R. C. Sproul).

Chapter 6: Why They Hate It So: The Denial of Substitutionary Atonement in Recent Theology (Al Mohler).

Chapter 7: How Does the Supremacy of Christ Create Radical Christian Sacrifice? A Meditation on the Book of Hebrews (John Piper).

Chapter 8: Sustaining the Pastor's Soul (C. J. Mahaney).