I recently read James K. A. Smith’s book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (a book I would recommend), and he has a powerful description of some of the areas of religious expression in our culture. Doug Wilson brought this to my mind with this helpful collection of quotes:
He calls the mall “one of the most important religious sites in our metropolitan area” (p. 19). The site is “throbbing with pilgrims” (p. 19). As we enter, we are “ushered into a narthex of sorts” (p. 20). “The layout of this temple has architectural echoes that hark back to medieval cathedrals — mammoth religious spaces that can absorb all kinds of different religious activities all at one time” (p. 21). He points to the product posters, exemplifying the “catholicity of this iconography” (p. 21). When we have found our holy object, that which we have been seeking, lo, these many days, “we proceed to the altar” (p. 22). Afterwards we are released “by the priest with a benediction” (p. 22). I don’t know about Smith, but in my neck of the woods, that benediction is usually “have a nice day!” delivered by a cute coed priestess. And if you think that Smith is simply being clever with some similarities, he pushes back against the charge. “But I want to adamantly contend that describing the mall as a religious site is not merely a metaphor or an analogy” (p. 23).
Wilson goes on to point out that Smith forgot about the Sunday School classes: the 8-theater cineplex that you find in every religious site. People cram into these instruction halls, cry together, eat together, and learn the narrative of this culture together. This reminded me of two quotes that showed up recently on Evangel. No explanation needed:
I meet people occasionally who think motion pictures, the product Hollywood makes, is merely entertainment, has nothing to do with education. That’s one of the darndest fool fantasies that is current . . . . Anything that brings you to tears by way of drama does something to the deepest roots of our personality. All movies, good or bad, are educational and Hollywood is the foremost educational institution on earth. What, Hollywood more important Harvard? The answer is not as clean as Harvard, but nevertheless farther reaching.
–Carl Sandburg, poet laureate
I believe cinema is now the most powerful secular religion and people gather in cinemas to experience things collectively the way they once did in church. The cinema storytellers have become the new priests. They’re doing a lot of the work of our religious institutions, which have so concretized the metaphors in their stories, taken so much of the poetry, mystery and mysticism out of religious belief, that people look for other places to question their spirituality.
After posting the link to “The Gospel in Life” website yesterday, they have revised the website and added new resources: the study guide, a DVD, and campaign material for the discipleship program. You will also find more information about the particular sessions. Here is a video of Tim Keller explaining the study:
Timothy Witmer’s new book, The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church (published by P&R) is an excellent resource for elders. You can go to the link for a review of sample pages, and at Ref21, Jeremy Smith provided suggested an interview with Witmer by Derek Thomas. You can listen to it here.
That is the title of a new intensive survey course that Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NY developed to explore how the gospel changes us. Here is the explanation from the Gospel in Life website:
Gospel in Life is an intensive survey course exploring how the gospel changes our hearts, brings us into community, and is lived out in the world.
This eight-session small group course includes a DVD of Timothy Keller’s teaching for each session as well as a detailed study guide which features Bible studies, discussion questions, quotations from literary sources, and home study work. It is designed for both lay people and ministers.
The material can also be adapted to a shorter or longer time period, from a single-day workshop to a 24 week study.
Gospel in Life will be available in March 2010.
Table of Contents
Week 1: City – The World That Is
Week 2: Heart – Three Ways to Live
Week 3: Idolatry – The Sin Beneath The Sin
Week 4: Community – The Clue To Change
Week 5: Witness – An Alternate City
Week 6: Work – Cultivating The Garden
Week 7: Justice – A People For Others
Week 8: Eternity – The World That Is To Come
Tim Keller says, “The concept behind the ‘Gospel in Life’ course is that Christ-likeness happens when we bring the gospel to bear on the roots of a person’s heart. We want to help people work out what it means to believe the gospel more deeply and rejoice in Jesus’ salvation more fully in a community. So we’re working these things into people’s lives, we’re doing it in community and that is the basic concept behind the ‘Gospel in Life’ discipleship curriculum.”
Especially in a Baptist church…seems like some people in West Tennessee are trying to circulate this plan. Here are some ways to smoke out a Calvinistic Pastor:
Does he use the ESV?
Does he quote Piper, Sproul, Edwards?
Is he moving the church to become elder rule?
And several other items to check off the list. Tom Ascol has the document here. You might want to check it out if you are worried about your pastor.
Several years ago while preaching through Ephesians, I came upon chapter 4, verses 1-16, and discovered a whole history of interpretation connected to verses 11-13. The question involves evangelistic responsibility and “every member ministry” concepts. The questions concerns whether the shepherds/teachers are to do the three areas of work (equip the saints, the work of the ministry, build up the body of Christ, as the old KJV translates it), or if they equip the saints so the saints do the work of the ministry and that sequence of events builds up the body of Christ.
Andrew Lincoln’s volume on Ephesians opened the door to these different views, but then I discovered others sounding the same concern. Someone emailed me a paper by the late Charles Dennison, who was at the time a pastor in the OPC. Last summer, the Ordained Servant published Dennison’s article, “Evangelism and the Church,” as well as another article by T. David Gordon titled, “Evangelistic Responsibility.”
Both Dennison and Gordon argue for a nuanced view of evangelism does not place the command of evangelism on every member of the church. Gordon explains:
The dominant view of evangelistic responsibility in our day may be called the “universal” view of evangelistic responsibility, because it teaches that evangelism is a responsibility incumbent upon every believer. To evaluate this view that believers are universally responsible to evangelize, we must first examine what the Bible does in fact teach about this important topic, identifying any inadequacy or error involved in the view. Finally, we must consider the practical ramifications of this issue.
The recent edition of Ordained Servant involves an exchange between R. Fowler White and T. David Gordon over this topic. White’s article provides a critique of Gordon’s thesis and an alternative to not only Gordon’s view but the dominant “universal” view of evangelism. Gordon responds to White here.
One of the most important books I read in college was Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book. I would highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to grow in their reading and learning skills. Kim Riddlebarger, pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, CA, pointed out on his blog that they posted the audio links to a recent series of lectures by Ken Sample titled, “Learning Skills 101: Learning How To Learn.” These lectures are based on Alder’s book. I have provided the links below, but you can check out other lectures here.
One of the ministries we support at our church is Uganda Bible Institute. I met Amos Magezi, one of the founders of UBI, back in 2006. Over the course of the next few years, I became involved in the work of UBI and was asked to serve on the board in 2008. Last summer I was able to travel to Uganda and participate in the first graduation service for UBI. During that trip, I met the other co-founder of UBI, Johnson Twinomujuni.
It was a great joy to met Johnson last summer, and over the past week Johnson and his wife Joy have been in Memphis, TN, visiting with churches in the area. Tomorrow they will travel to Jackson, MS, to visit with other board members. It has been a great joy to spend time with them, and hear updates about Uganda and the work of UBI. Please pray for them and other Christians in Uganda and east Africa. They are facing some horrible situations involving child sacrifice and evil teaching. This is precisely why we are investing so much time and energy into an institution like UBI.
Peter O’Brien’s new commentary in the Pillar Series on Hebrews is out, and Westminster Bookstore is selling it for 45% off the list price of $50. But they are also having a sale on all the Pillar Series. If you buy two or more commentaries in that series, you get an extra 10% off the list price. You can see all the volumes in the Pillar Series here, but I have also listed them individually:
Eugene Peterson will be the guest speaker for the annual Kistemaker Academic Lecture Series at RTS-Orlando on March 17-18. Peterson will speak on “Prayer and the Practice of Resurrection.” Peterson is the author of the recently released, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ, which is the final volume of his spiritual theology. The schedule is as follows:
March 17: 11:00 a.m. – Lecture 1: “Praying the Resurrection”
1:00 p.m. – Lecture 2: “Prayer & All the Saints”
March 18:
11:00 a.m. – Lecture 3: “Prayer & All the Fullness”
12:00 p.m. – Community Lunch
1:00 p.m. – Lecture 4: “Prayer & the Wiles of the Devil”
The Fifth Main Point of Doctrine
Article 14: God’s Use of Means in Perseverance
And, just as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in us by the proclamation of the gospel, so he preserves, continues, and completes his work by the hearing and reading of the gospel, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and promises, and also by the use of the sacraments.
“We plan to use The Shepherd Leader as a primary resource for…our shepherds and shepherds-in-training.” – Phil Ryken
The Shepherd Leader is a new book by Tim Wittmer, Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. As you can see from Ryken’s quote above, this is going to be a valuable resource for pastors and elders. Sinclair Ferguson, who wrote the foreward, says,
“The Shepherd Leader is just the kind of book that those who know Tim Witmer and his work have been hoping he would write—an intelligent, biblical, balanced, pastoral, sensitive and realistic exposition of the nature of true leadership in the Christian church. And there is a double bonus: this book is as readable as it is interesting.”
WTS Books is having a 48 hour sale on the book, so you can get it for only $5. Go here to buy the book and to see some sample pages. Here is a video of Wittmer explaining the book.
Ralph Martin, in his book Worship in the Early Church (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1964), 135-136, explains: how 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 might provide us a picture of worship in Thessalonica:
“When the passage is set down in lines, it reads as though it contained the ‘headings’ of a Church service. The note of glad adoration is struck at the opening: ‘Rejoice always’ (verse 16). Prayer and thanksgiving are coupled—a trait which comes into the Church from the synagogue assembly. Christians are counseled to give the Spirit full rein, especially as He opens the mouths of the prophets (verses 19, 20); but cautioned (verse 21) that they must test the spirits (cf. 1 John iv, 1). Above all, nothing unseemly must enter the assembly (verse 22), but all should be done ‘decently and in order’ (1 Corinthians xiv, 40). And the closing part of this ‘Church order’—if this description is correct—contains a comprehensive prayer for the entire fellowship (verse 23), expressed in the confidence that God will hear and bless (verse 24).
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The new Google Buzz has created some problems for me in my inbox and Google Reader. I noticed that the problem is enough for Alan Jacobs to leave Google altogether. He writes:
My response: after five years and 25,000 email messages, I have abandoned Gmail and Google Calendar. I have deleted all my Google Reader subscriptions, and deleted all my contacts. My principle is a simple one: Google will not determine and range and nature of my social connections, I will.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF] has a plan for your child — and for every young person on earth. The influential group is calling for compulsory comprehensive sexuality education for every child and young person ages 10 to 24 on the planet.
The report, recently released by the IPPF, gets right to the point: “Young people today have the right to be fully informed about sexuality and to have access to contraceptives and other services.” That statement, offered by Bert Koenders, Minister for Development Cooperation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is indicative of the “rights speech” the pervades the document. Citing international agreements and documents, the IPPF calls for children and teenagers, along with young adults, to be recognized as having a basic right to engage in sexual activity in virtually any form.
Here is the Tim Tebow Super Bowl commercial that made all kinds of news before it came out:
If you visit the Focus on the Family site, you can get more of the Tebow story. After the ad, there were still complaints. At Weekly Standard, John McCormack explained:
The LA Times reports that the president of the National Organization for Women is still outrageously outraged over the incredibly tame Focus on the Family/Tebow ad last night:
NOW president Terry O’Neill said [the Tebow ad] glorified violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said. “That’s what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don’t find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.“
The “violence against women” O’Neill refers to occurs when Tim Tebow tackles his mom Pam in an attempt at slapstick.
Justin Taylor wisely observed: “No word yet on whether or not NOW is equally outraged by the hyper-sexualized objectification of women in many of the other Super Bowl ads. Or whether or not they are bothered by the actual violence that is done to women who are just being born.”
While looking for resources on God’s sovereignty over Satan this week, I discovered John Piper’s message from the 2005 Desiring God National Conference on “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God.” The title of his message is “Ten Aspects of God’s Sovereignty Over Suffering and Satan’s Hand in It.” Piper encourages us “to celebrate that God is sovereign over Satan’s”:
delegated world rule.
angels (demons, evil spirits).
hand in persecution.
life-taking power.
hand in natural disasters.
sickness-causing power.
use of animals and plants.
temptations to sin.
mind-blinding power.
spiritual bondage.
Read the whole message, or watch it and listen to it here.
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