Helen and I have always called it “the Blue Book”. Still a must read on biblical male headship in the home and church, even though it’s now brown.
Mark Driscoll recently recommended Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood—or “The Big Blue Book” as some call it—edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper.
Good article from Peter Bolt singing the praises of full-time theological study with many sound pragmatic arguments.
You cannot easily proof-text a reason for this (beware those whose only diet is proof-texts).
The theological reason for full time theological study is NOT found in the Bible. It is a wisdom issue.
My 2c: you need 3-4 years full time study to catch up on what the ascended Lord Jesus Christ has been doing for 2000 years, in light of the Old Testament unfolding vision culminating in His New Testament death and resurrection – in the original languages. It’s as much in the integration as it is in the individual subjects.
Why would you want to change that wonderful inheritance from the Lord that has worked well in the past and is still working well and will certainly keep on working well into the future? You would have to be brain-dead, perhaps? But that is probably a rude thing to say, so I withdraw the remark. Certainly better reasons than I have heard will need to be advanced before I am convinced that full-time theological education needs to be ditched from ministerial training.
via The Sola Panel | Time out to learn and grow, undistracted and exposed to the Word of God.
Since leaving theological college, the number one sermon preparation resource I have most benefitted from is the BDAG lexicon.
It is well worth the expensive price to get the book version.
For Old Testament sermons I use the five volume NIDOTTE, it has proven quite useful also.
Don’t spend any more money on commentaries or theological books until you have these two resources.
I’m really looking forward to this documentary of the book tour and debates between Hitchens and Wilson.
I loved the written debate they had in CT, now available in book form. I have a huge amount of respect and praise to God for Douglas Wilson, his thinking and ministry across a wide range of fields.
This looks like it will be a kind of neutral documentary (I hope) that you could watch with anyone and discuss the issues with.
I was going to try and write some thing on different manuscript models, but I realised I only really know about full text manuscripts. Many people love to bag the full-text sermon notes. There are actually a few ways they can be used:
My other advice for full text is, use a 14 point font size and lots of indentation to mark major and minor sections. White space is important in having a manuscript that is easily readable and usable.
There is also a discipline in reviewing the full text against what you actually said. Sometimes I do this against the mp3 after the event. Sometimes I do this immediately between services, as there was something catchy that just came out that I want to remember to say again in the next service that morning.
Full-texters unite!
There are a few methods weekly preachers use to get away with very little or no preparation:
I don’t actually think these are always bad. For example, there is a valid tradition within evangelicalism of reading other peoples sermons in the pulpit, just as there is a strong tradition of extempore preaching (especially on streets). Some people have unique gifts.
But generally speaking I believe if you rely on these methods you will spiritually starve yourself and your hearers, even if you have sound doctrine. It is very risky and poisonous in the long run.
The preachers I know who give outstand low preparation sermons are those who spend 90% of their time giving extremely well prepared sermons.
Weekly preachers have different ways of getting a message together each week:
I was floored reading Spurgeon’s autobiography 2 years ago when he says he prepared his sermon after early dinner on Saturday night, and the Sunday night message on Sunday afternoon.
I think I have used most of these models. I also have my own preparation process broken down into a checklist so when I am weary I can crank through the steps. I much prefer to be organised and well prepared. It is better for my family too.
I find it helpful to at least use Monday to create the electronic file with a full copy of the text and headings, so I have a document ready to type ideas into throughout the week.
Craig comments on Christian parenting. I disagree with some of the things he says. But I humbly believe Craig is right and Piper is wrong on the following foundational point:
Firstly, I believe a child born to a Christian parent and raised in the church community is a member of the kingdom. This is the reason I really truly do believe in infant baptism. I know some folk (like John Piper) believe your children are born pagans and you have to convert them. I believe they were (effectively) born Christian, and need to be discipled. I think this can make a pretty big difference to how you raise them.
Craig’s view is basically a Reformation view. I will post some more on this topic.
I’ve been thinking about apostasy and heresy.
The latter is a subset of the former.
The people who are warned about in Hebrews 6 are not false teachers, but apostates.
All false teachers are apostates. But not all apostates are false teachers, even if their fall involved believing false teaching.
Apostasy is harder to spot, because a backsliding believer may come back in repentance at some later point. Or they may not. A person may be apostasising whilst espousing orthodox theology.
It is hard to tell which of the four soils someone is. But we need to work hard at warning people, as the New Testament does, against deserting Christ. God will sovereignly use it to keep his chosen saints.
There are two modes of apostasy – passive and active. Some people actively give up the Christian faith. Others passively drift. The difference is the former are conscious of what is happening, the latter are deluded – hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Both types can happen quickly and slowly.
Passive apostasy seems very common, in our time. And yet we talk very little about it.
C. S. Lewis said “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Take a moment and reflect on your own walk with God – are you trusting and clinging to Christ as closely as you always have? Are you tempted to love the world? What excuses are you making up to allow yourself to indulge in worldliness?
Pray Psalm 51.
Three new books have arrived in the mail this week. Lovely.
Another two volume biography of Whitefield. I hope to read Vol 2 of Dallimore this year.
George Whitefield: A Definitive Biography
Dr E. A. Johnston.
2 volumes, 572 600 pp, dark green cloth with d/w.
Foreword by J. I. Packer
Is ‘liteness’ a real word?
I read “The Divine Dramatist” a few years ago, it truly is an awful biography of Whitefield. I missed the gem Piper found, click the link to see it. Whitefield’s journals are the best starting point to get into the man.
In the most cynical, unsympathetic, and misleading biography I have ever read, there is a magnificent paragraph about Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield.
The Deist and the Calvinist were best friends. “Franklin became Whitefield’s best American friend and, reciprocally, Whitefield was Franklin’s only evangelical friend” (The Divine Dramatist, 220).
A few years ago, in ye-good-old student ministry days, Helen and I led a strand group at the AFES National Training Event. I think it was the year 2000.
We were doing a study of Romans 3:21-26 and we wrote this awesome (IMHO) song about it, to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock:
Propitiate propitiate propitiate wrath
God turns his anger away upon the cross
Because we are dodgy, in Jesus we trust,
And see that God is just!
We even had actions that went along with it.
Now I reckon it is still a pretty good summary of:
21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
So sing it to yourself a few times, and as you hear the pagan version you can sing along the gospel.
Sure it doesn’t really work as a kids song, nor a youth group or even adults carol – only University students can handle both the silliness and theological precision required here. And that is what I miss most about Uni ministry.
Was reading a bunch of 90′s EFAC Essentials articles yesterday.
I can’t remember the author, but one of the articles was called: “Reaching the Reebok Generation”.
Not cool.
See also: Coolness
May God be glorified through the death of one of his loved saints.
This afternoon Ben went to be with his Lord. After a short six month battle with NK cell lymphoma Ben has gone to a better place. As he said, he’ll be fine but it’s deeply sad for the rest of us. (Not quite Ben’s words…)
A letter to the Sydney Anglican newspaper:
Underneath this is an important goal – promoting the option of long-term assistant ministers. But the way to do it is not to pretend they don’t exercise a similar kind of spiritual role in the congregation to the rector, and therefore not ordain them as presbyters. Ironically, it could have precisely the opposite effect than the intended one, and make it less likely that people will remain long-term assistant ministers. This would be significant, since one of the reasons we Sydney Anglicans seem incapable of growing genuinely large churches (say, more than 1000 people) is that we struggle to keep long-term senior assistant ministers.
The Rev Andrew Katay
Ashfield, NSW
I personally am really enjoying being an assistant minister – I’m about to enter my 6th full-time year of it. Going into my third year at Holy Trinity, we are getting an MTS full time apprenticeship going, I’m running mission teams, doing lots of training of parents and marriage preparation, supervising and supporting other staff and generally lots of training and bible teaching. I wouldn’t get to do all this if I had the administrative and other acute pressures of being the senior pastor – especially a senior pastor in a small church (who deserve medals).
I also really love working in a great team, under a great senior pastor, and following and supporting him in his vision. It is invigorating to me knowing that I am trusted with key responsibilities and oversight in order to release the senior pastor to travel and work on wider projects.
My wife is happy that I don’t have the pressures some of our great friends have who have taken the gutsy move of being in charge in difficult parishes or places. At some point we will go down that track, but in the meantime we are thankful to God. I can see why some assistants get the itch to hold the reins, and that happens to me sometimes – then I simply remember the benefits of being an assistant and I praise God for this great opportunity.
On holiday we visited two great churches and were deeply encouraged by both.
But they had very different views concerning children of believers.
One church counted children of believers as being Christians themselves. They were part of the whole service and very little was changed for them, except for a kids talk. There was no Sunday school within the service (though there was one beforehand – it wasn’t obvious to us from the church sign whether we could just rock up).
The other church had a separate building and events for the kids – we parted ways even before any services started. From what we saw, the kids-side was essentially an evangelistic meeting with an invitation to “put your hand up if you want to make a decision” prayer at the end. In fact the adult end was a version of this as well.
Theologically I think the first church had the theology right. There is a continuation between the old and new covenant in terms of inclusion of children of believers in salvation. Children of believers are rightly addressed and treated as saints throughout New Testament letters.
But it kind of felt like neither church had the practice right. The second church was much more tailored at the kids level – there was lots of energy and creativity well used. But my kids didn’t need evangelising – they needed to worship/praise God, be taught his Word and get fellowship with other Christians. On the other hand we could have been a pagan family visiting and the second church would have been on the money.
Read the Lewis Space Trilogy on my holiday and loved them all. Especially the much darker and edgier second book.
Being a lover of sci-fi I had long avoided Lewis’ “experiment” into this genre. But actually he does it very well. I’m amazed at how little the books have dated since the 1940s.
I loved how the books communicate a sense of God’s greatness and of living in a world of unseen hierarchies and creatures. It completely blows away secular “what you see is all there is” materialism. The great weakness of modern atheism is that it can’t account for beauty or evil. Lewis shows that the Christian doesn’t have to choose between secular materialism and a kind of ethereal spiritualism, or between mythical wonder and the scientific ordinary. Because of the incarnation and work of Jesus Christ, we can have our cake and eat it. Taste and see!
I also loved how none of the Christian characters have any predictable piety. They are just ordinary people fighting a battle with God and for God. The battle has been in principle won through the incarnation and work of the Son of God, but, as I once heard a preacher say, there is some mopping up to do. Conversion is about choosing sides. Worship is about declaring allegiance.
I live in a world of great beauty and great evil. Behind every human evil lies much darker layers. Behind every glorious part of creation are more hidden glories and agents. And behind them all is a glorious creator who has defeated and is transforming what is fallen, including my household.
