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Some good advice for the aging over at Jay Adams' blog. He reflects on turning eighty.
Prepare for old age. True, you may never make it; there are former students of mine who have died already. If you don't have some activity that you can engage in for the Lord, you will probably end up a sour and regretful old person.
In light of the trashing of capitalism of late, and the sad, bad, and mad move toward socialism, I suggest you read this speech by the late Christian philosopher, Ronald Nash on "Socialism, Capitalism, and the Bible."
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Jeremy has a must-read post on adoption motives:
It would seem nearly impossible for one to make the act of rescuing an orphan sinful. However, as someone recently thrust into the process, I have become well aware that adopting offers a myriad of opportunities for sinful behavior. I have even seen adopting Christians forget about the person they are rescuing because they are only concerned with how the process is affecting them at a given moment of delay or difficulty. Blinded by the deceitfulness of sin, what should inherently mean good for another is devoted to the altar of self. Feeling the natural tendency of my own heart, I have had to pray constantly, “Lord save me from turning the adoption of two Ethiopian orphans into an act of self-serving wicked idolatry.
This is a superb sentence by Frank Beckwith: "Reducing the number of these discretionary acts of killing simply by trying to pacify and/or accommodate the needs of those who want to procure or encourage abortions only reinforces the idea that the unborn are subhuman creatures whose value depends exclusively on someone else’s wanting them or deciding that they are worthy of being permitted to live." Very well said. Beckwith offers the following illustration:Imagine if someone told you in 19th century America that he was not interested in giving slaves full citizenship, but merely reducing the number of people brought to this country to be slaves. But suppose another person told you that he too wanted to reduce the number of slaves, but proposed to do it by granting them the full citizenship to which they are entitled as a matter of natural justice. Which of the two is really “against slavery” in a full-orbed principled sense? The first wants to reduce the number of slaves, but only while retaining a regime of law that treats an entire class of human beings as subhuman property. The second believes that the juridical infrastructure should reflect the moral truth about enslaved people, namely, that they are in fact human beings made in the image of their Maker who by being held in bondage are denied their fundamental rights.Just as calling for the reduction of the slave population is not the same as believing that slaves are full members of the moral community and are entitled to protection by the state, calling for a reduction in the number of abortions is not the same as calling for the state to reflect in its laws and policies the true inclusiveness of the human family, that it consists of all those who share the same nature regardless of size, level of development, environment or dependency.
Based on actual events, Saints and Soldiers tells the gripping story of a small band of Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines with information that could save thousands of American lives. Outgunned and ill-equipped, they battle a frigid wilderness and roving German troops in order to smuggle the critical intelligence back to Allied territory.You don’t want to miss this movie. Themes of redemption run deep and I am thankful that these remind us of the gospel.
My buddy Chad and I were discussing his recent speaking engagement with the 5-year-olds at his church. I told him that the thought of doing that was scarier to me than standing in front of 5,000 adults.
But I was reminded that the great German theologian, Helmut Thielicke, required all of his PhD students in theology to teach children’s Sunday School.
The reasoning was simple: If you can’t articulate it in a way a child can understand it, you don’t really understand it yourself. All of us who think of ourselves as people who “know God” should be having more conversations with kids.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I jus graduated from seminary and yet I struggle greatly at times to articulate the central truths of our faith with our 6-year-old and our 4-year-old.
"I also find that one of the things we don’t preach well is that ministry that looks fruitless is constantly happening in the Scriptures. We don’t do conferences on that. There aren’t too many books written about how you can toil away all your life and be unbelievably faithful to God and see little fruit this side of heaven." - Matt Chandler
He brings up the examples of:
1. Jeremiah
2. Moses not going into the promised land
3. John the Baptist not seeing the fulfillment of Jesus' work
Will you be faithful to your call, even when it seems fruitless? Are you committed to Jesus and His glory in your ministry, and not towards numbers? God is in charge of the results as long as we are simply obedient.
I recall my good friend and mentor as a college student, Jim Luebe, saying, "I just want to be a faithful laborer over time."
That is my goal as well.
Check out Matt's message here.
I like Reformed theology. I believe it's what the Bible teaches. But I don't like Reformed culture. I don't believe it's what the Bible teaches.
Reformed theology is all about grace deciding to treat people better than they deserve, for the sheer glory of it all. Sometimes Reformed culture doesn't look like that, feel like that, taste like that. It gives people exactly what they deserve, as judged by the Reformed person. But who exalted him as judge in the first place? Our true Judge stepped down to become our Friend. That theology of grace must translate into the sociology of grace as we treat one another better than anyone deserves, for the sheer glory of it all.
"If our theology does not quicken the conscience and soften the heart, it actually hardens both; if it does not encourage the commitment of faith, it reinforces the detachment of unbelief; if it fails to promote humility, it inevitably feeds pride."
J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, page 15.
Mark Driscoll gives a realistic approach to doing family devotions at dinnertime:
Step 1. Eat dinner with your entire family regularly.
Step 2. Mom and Dad sit next to one another to lead the family discussion.
Step 3. Open the meal by asking if there is anyone or anything to pray for.
Step 4. Someone opens in prayer and covers any requests. This task should be rotated among family members so that different people take turns learning to pray aloud.
Step 5. Start eating and discuss how everyone’s day went.
Step 6. Have a Bible in front of the parents in a translation that is age-appropriate for the kids’ reading level. Have someone (parent or child) open the Bible, and assign a portion to read aloud while everyone is eating and listening.
Step 7. Parents should note key words and themes in the passage and explain them to the kids on an age-appropriate level.
Step 8. Ask questions about the passage. You may want to begin with having your children summarize what was read—retelling the story or passage outline. Then, ask the following questions: What does this passage teach us about God? What does it say about us or about how God sees us? What does it teach us about our relationships with others?
Step 9. Let the conversation happen naturally, listen carefully to the kids, let them answer the questions, and fill in whatever they miss or lovingly and gently correct whatever they get wrong so as to help them.
Step 10. If the Scriptures convict you of sin, repent as you need to your family, and share appropriately honest parts of your life story so the kids can see Jesus’ work in your life and your need for him too. This demonstrates gospel humility to them.
Step 11. At the end of dinner, ask the kids if they have any questions for you.
Step 12. If you miss a night, or if conversation gets off track, or if your family occasionally just wants to talk about something else, don’t stress—it’s inevitable.
Adapted from “Family Dinner Bible Studies” by Mark Driscoll in Trial: 8 Witnesses from 1 & 2 Peter, a study guide. (Mars Hill Church, 2009), pages 69-70.
(HT: Life Together)
"...seeking to share Christ with the masses of immensely immoral 20 somethings that inhabit such regions is a worthy goal; but why is that target so popular? Almost everyone it seems wants access to the arts district in Austin Tx., or the uptown area of Atlanta. Who is this about really? When did style statements, and fashionable eye wear, and how I dress and how I act, and my toootally tasteful music preferences become such a key ingredient in reaching ‘the culture?’ Who is all this really about? Is it about lost broken people in these areas dying without Christ and without hope? Or is it about me choosing a place of ministry that advances my personal mission of self expression? I’m just asking . . ."His conclusion:
"I think it’s high time we started challenging the ‘talk about it people’ to get over themselves and dive into the messy business of actually doing it. Cultures don’t come to Christ, people do, one at a time."I could take issue with some thing here and there in this piece, but I think it is helpful to read it and think it over.
Apple have just released a new version of Safari. It brings a whole host of improvements including noticeable speed enhancements, new ways to browse and search sites, and a range of interface changes. A few new features to look out for are:
- Very noticeable speed improvements
- Top Sites - a way to browse your most commonly frequented sites
- Cover Flow implementation throughout the browser
- Tabs are now placed at the top of the window (akin to Google Chrome)
A full list of changes has been posted on the what’s new page. I’m really pleased with the speed improvements, and feel that it’s a worthy Version 4 release. Head over to the download page and let me know what you think!
"Ours is an age of tolerance. Men love to have the best of both worlds and hate to be forced to choose. It is commonly said that it does not matter what people believe so long as they are sincere, and that it is unwise to clarify issues too plainly or to focus them too sharply.- John Stott, Commentary on Galatians, p. 138
But the religion of the New Testament is vastly different from this mental outlook. Christianity will not allow us to sit on the fence or live in a haze; it urges us to be definite and decisive, and in particular to choose between Christ and circumcision. 'Circumcision' stands for a religion of human achievement, of what man can do by his own good works; 'Christ' stand for a religion of divine achievement, of what God has done through the finished work of Christ. 'Circumcision' means law, works and bondage, 'Christ' means grace, faith and freedom. Every man must choose. The one impossibility is what the Galatinans were attempting, namely to add circumcision to Christ and have both. No. 'Circumcision' and 'Christ' are mutually exclusive.
Further, this choice has to be made by both the people and the ministers of the church, by those who practice and those who propagate religion. It is either Christ or circumcision that the people 'receive', and either Christ or circumcision that minsters 'preach'. In principle, there is not a third alternative.
And behind our choice lurks our motive. It is when we are bent on flattering ourselves and others that we choose circumsicion. Before the cross we have to humble ourselves."
Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a Scottish pastor who died at the age of 29 in 1843 spoke of the mercy and generosity of Christians as evidence of the new birth. He loved the poor in his parish, and he feared for those who did not look for ways to show them mercy:
He once said to his congregation:
"I am concerned for the poor but more for you. I know not what Christ will say to you in the great day...I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians, because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money. Oh my friends! Enjoy your money; make the most of it; give none away; enjoy it quickly for I can tell you, you will be beggars throughout eternity!"
“‘If I knew I were one of God’s elect, I would come to Christ; but I fear I am not.’ To you I answer: nobody ever came to Christ because he knew himself to be one of the elect. It is quite true that God has of His mere good pleasure elected some to everlasting life, but they never knew it until they believed in Christ. Christ nowhere commands the elect to come to him. He commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel. The question for you is not, ‘Am I one of the elect?’ but ‘Am I a sinner?’ Christ came to save sinners.”- Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Whenever I tell people that I’m working on a book on adoption, they’ll often say something along the lines of, “Great. So, is the book about the doctrine of adoption or, you know, real adoption?” That’s a hard question to answer, because you can’t talk about the one without talking about the other. Also, it is not as though we master one aspect and then move to the other–from the “vertical” to the “horizontal” or the other way around. That’s not the picture God has embedded in his creation work.
The Bible tells us that human families are reflective of an eternal Fatherhood (Eph 3:15). We know, then, what human fatherhood ought to look like on the basis of how our Father God behaves toward us. But the reverse is also true. We see something of the way our God is fatherly toward us through our relationships with human fathers. And so Jesus tells us in our human father’s provision and discipline we get a glimpse of God’s active love for us (Matt 7:9-11; Heb 12:5-17). The same truth is at work in adoption.
Adoption is, on the one hand, gospel. In this, adoption tells us who we are as children of the Father. Adoption as gospel tells us about our identity, our inheritance, and our mission as sons of God. Adoption is also defined as mission. In this, adoption tells us our purpose in this age as the people of Christ. Missional adoption spurs us to join Christ in advocating for the helpless and the abandoned.
As soon as you peer into the truth of the one aspect, you fall headlong into the truth of the other, and vice-versa. That’s because it’s the way the gospel is. Jesus reconciles us to God–and to each other. As we love God, we love our neighbor; as we love our neighbor, we love our God. We believe Jesus in “heavenly things”–our adoption in Christ–so we follow him in “earthly things”–the adoption of children. Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor.
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
Unless we recognize that behind the altruistic veneer, international adoption has become an industry—one that is often highly lucrative and sometimes corrupt—many more adoption stories will have unhappy endings. Unless adoption agencies are held to account, more young children will be wrongfully taken from their families. And unless those desperate to become parents demand reform, they will continue—wittingly or not—to pay for wrongdoing. “Credulous Westerners eager to believe that they are saving children are easily fooled into accepting laundered children,” writes David Smolin, a law professor and advocate for international adoption reform. “For there is no fool like the one who wants to be fooled."Jason Kovacs with The ABBA Fund (great organization that helps people pay for adoption) has a helpful interaction with this piece at The ABBA Fund blog. Here is a portion from it:
In the end, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, I think this is an important article that sheds light on a great evil that we cannot ignore. But I believe we must have discernment. I fear that many who read this article will dismiss it as more “anti-adoption” literature. Others will take it to heart and dismiss international adoption altogether. Either response, is going to too far, and throws the baby out with the bathwater.
What I think this article should do is lead us to even greater action when it comes to caring for the orphans of the world. No one would deny that there is corruption in the adoption world, the challenge is when it is subtle and hidden as I believe so much of this is. Is it really a bad thing for a father of a child in Ethiopia to relinquish his rights to his baby so that she can have a better life? Is it a bad thing even if he were to receive financial assistance so that he can take care of his other children that remain? Those are hard questions. We want to trust the agencies that are working on the behalf of adoptive families and the children. We want to believe that they would not coerce anyone and that adoption really is the best solution for this child. It is more complex than I would like it to be but again this should not discourage us but lead us to more vigorous work towards pursuing the best solution possible for the orphans of the world.
Read the rest for some helpful actions point for those of us who are planning to adopt or are involved in orphan care at any level.
Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? This is the question faced by the subjects of As We Forgive, a documentary about Rosaria and Chantal—two Rwandan women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. The subjects of As We Forgive speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans in 1994. Overwhelmed by an enormous backlog of court cases, the government has returned over 50,000 thousand genocide perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution: Reconciliation.Click here to watch the trailer.
But can it be done? Can survivors truly forgive the killers who destroyed their families? Can the government expect this from its people? And can the church, which failed at moral leadership during the genocide, fit into the process of reconciliation today? In As We Forgive, director Laura Waters Hinson and narrator Mia Farrow explore these topics through the lives of four neighbors once caught in opposite tides of a genocidal bloodbath, and their extraordinary journey from death to life through forgiveness.
The $787 billion economic stimulus President Obama signed into law this week rightly recognizes that spending stimulates the economy. That measure, however, misses the mark: It is targeted, demand-driven consumer spending is the engine that grows economies, not frivolous government spending for future "needs." We have forgotten what Harvard economist and past president of the American Economic Association, Frank Taussig, told us in his 1911 book, Principles of Economics: "We must accept the consumer as the final judge."Read the rest.As recent history teaches, economic crises arouse an emotional panic that tempts us to believe that centrally planning the economy is the medicine for economic recovery and the best safeguard against future volatility. To make matters worse, spin doctors lead anxiety-laden people to believe the notion that without government oversight we are doomed. This history displays a major moral temptation of economic crises: a prideful belief in our capacity to "save" the economy by controlling the decisions of the millions of human beings who participate in it every day.
"If he had wanted to do so, the Creator God could have built the tabernacle all by himself, without using Bezalel or Oholiab or anyone else to do it. Instead, God called artists to make the tabernacle, and to make sure that they did it well, he equipped them with every kind of artistic talent. By doing this, God was putting the blessing of his divine approval on both the arts and the artist."- Philip Graham Ryken, Art for God's Sake, p. 22
It is very appropriate and timely for Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears to release a book on church ministry. Driscoll has become a bit of a model for young church planters through his Acts 29 network and various conference appearances. Therefore, a consolidated ‘volume’ if you will is welcomed.As with previous books from the authors’ pens Vintage Church is intensely practical. Mars Hill Church in Seattle is the reoccurring lab of reference for church ministry. This is extremely helpful in a book like this seeing that it gives a lot of flesh and bones to the biblical priorities outlined.
If you were critical of some of Driscoll’s previous books due to language or questionable references (as I was with Vintage Jesus) you will have little to complain about here. From my perspective this is the type of product that really quiets and encourages sincere critics who want to see Driscoll’s work used greatly in the church. If you are a Driscoll hater, well, he couldn’t do or say much that would ever satisfy you. The writing style remains engaging, biblical, funny, and real; which are all virtues from Driscoll’s pen.
Could it be that one of God’s purposes in this recession is to reveal whether we are living in true community with one another as Christians?In Acts 4:32-33, the early church is described as having “one heart and one soul” and God’s “grace was upon them all.” They were truly a gospel-centered community. But the evidence of their community is shown in the next verse. Verse 34 says,
"There was not a needy person among them …"
Wow. According to this verse, one way to guage whether we’re living in true community is if anyone is needy in our body. Jesus said that all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Loving one another includes sharing our money with those who are needy, perhaps those who have just lost their job. Contrary to Cain’s response in Gen. 4, we are our brother’s keeper. We all are connected to one another. So, we of all people ought to hold onto our money and resources with an open hand and give to those who need it more than we do.
John Piper sums up the challenge of this recession with a word to the church:
[In these days ahead] God will test to see if we are a church or a club.
- Read Piper’s sermon, “What is the Recession for?"
At first, Johntell Franklin just wanted to watch his friends play basketball.
"I wanted to go and support my team," said Franklin, an 18-year-old senior at Milwaukee Madison High School. "I'm a captain. I set an example."
As it turned out, Franklin wound up teaching everyone in the Madison gymnasium a lesson - about friendship, about the value of sports, about themselves.
(HT: Jill Stanek)
Bill Mounce writes about Eph. 4:29 and how it applies to blogging. He closes with the following suggested guidelines:So what if we accept the following guidelines:Read the whole thing.1. Take every thought captive to Christ. In other words, think before we speak and write, weighing everything we say and write against the teachings of our Lord.
2. Feel free to disagree when it is appropriate to the situation, but always do so as an expression of grace.
3. When wanting to encourage, write it.
4. When wanting to criticize, if possible, do so face to face. If it is not possible, write only what you would say face-to-face.
5. No matter how angry or justified you feel, there is never a place for cruel or vulgar speech.
Maybe then we wouldn’t have to moderate blog comments.
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To me, it is probably the album ‘Zooropa’ was supposed to be, building on the sonic architecture of classic U2 and taking it into the pop stratosphere. But what a place for a band to be, in orbit around their own myth, making music that bounces off the inside of a listeners skull, charged with ideas and emotions, groovy enough to want to dance to, melodic enough to make you sing along, soulful enough to cherish, philosophical enough to inspire, and with so many killer tracks it might as well be a latterday greatest hits. It is, at the very least, an album to speak of in the same breath as their best and what other band of their longevity can boast of that?
