The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today.
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(Yesterday on the blog: I Feel At Home in Your Church)

John Piper has written a powerful and comforting article for older Christians. “Dear older saint, I need to join you in the fight against the fears of aging, and to do so by faith in future grace. There are five fears that we will likely walk through together. God has given us antidotes for each in his word. These antidotes work through faith, and without faith they won’t work. But by faith they will work, and fear will be overcome, and we will go to be with Jesus in due time without walking in fear during our last season. That’s my confidence.”

Reagan Rose explains why he decided to permanently quit social media. And while none of us are obliged to follow his example, we’d all do well to at least consider his reasoning. “In this post, I will explain what led me to this decision, why I didn’t do it sooner, and specifically how I thought about the choice to leave social media as a Christian seeking to steward my life well for the glory of God.”

How holy are you? Stephen Kneale helps you evaluate yourself in light of Scripture.

I really enjoyed reading this sweet tribute to an ordinary/extraordinary man. It gets off to an interesting start: “When I was in 10th grade, the Power Team came to my church.  They were a group of powerlifting Christians who went around from mega-church to mega-church, lifting weights and smashing bricks in order to bring ‘glory to Jesus.’ I was excited to see them “perform/preach,” but I was mostly excited that my friends and I got to work out with the Power Team at Gold’s Gym one day between their nightly sessions.”

Mindy Belz has a moving article about life after the loss of her husband. “For months now finding solid ground has eluded me. The rules of the road feel broken. I wake in a house I’ve lived in for nearly 40 years with my husband and family, but I wake alone. The sun rises to greet me, and the dog waits for breakfast and a ball throw, but I float, suspended in this familiar but strange world—watching as though for the first time normal rhythms I once gave no thought to. They appear part of someone else’s life.”

Few of us have the expertise to be able to assess the significance of newly-discovered manuscripts. Ian N. Mills looks at one titled P.Oxy. 5575 to explain why it’s not as groundbreaking as some people are claiming. “My goal here is neither to minimize the importance of this new piece of early Christian literature nor to exaggerate the evidence for similar works but, rather, to help the reader understand P.Oxy. 5575 by setting it into a larger comparative context.”

Paraphrasing one of her favorite authors she said “It’s okay to be angry with God about this. It’s okay to tell him exactly how you feel about him right now. Let him have it. He doesn’t mind.”

The world will laugh with you when you laugh, and romp with you when you romp, but it will not weep with you when you die.
—De Witt Talmage

NPR recently ran an article about the future of the Christian church. Church attendance is in decline, they said, but some creative leaders are finding ways to keep it relevant in a new cultural context. Pastor Chris Battle has walked away from traditional church because it “was not connecting with people” and now leads a “spiritual community” called BattleField Farm & Gardens. Rector Billy Daniel and Pastor Caroline Vogel of an Episcopal Church in Knoxville use their sanctuary for yoga, breathing exercises, and other alternate forms of spirituality. “Just because you leave organized religion doesn’t mean the hunger to connect with the divine is going to cease,” she says. Bradley Hyde, a Methodist minister, sees churches like his hemorrhaging members and is also turning away from traditional services to focus more on community involvement.

It needs to be said: I care what NPR thinks of the church about as much as I care about what North Korea thinks of democracy or what Jehovah’s Witnesses think of the Trinity. But the article did have some tremendously revealing components to it and ones that are worth considering because they reveal universal human tendencies and temptations.
One of these comes courtesy of a participant in Chris Battle’s church who describes herself as “a refugee from fundamentalist churches.” When asked why she is part of BattleField Farm & Gardens she says, “Generally, I’m here because I want two things out of church … I want time to sit down, like we do on Sundays sometimes or around the fire, and, like, pray and re-center and figure out what we’re about in the world. Because the world is very noisy. And then I want a church to get [expletive] done with your community and for your community.”
The key part of her comment is not the bit about sitting around the fire and re-centering and it’s not the bit about getting [expletive] done within the community. The key part is at the beginning where she says, “I want two things out of church.” The assumption is that her desires are relevant, that what she wants out of a church is even the least bit consequential.
But then she is well-trained because the pastor, when he became convinced church was no longer relevant, said to himself, “maybe we need to begin to do church differently. But what does that look like? And I didn’t know until I got to the garden.” There’s no indication that he looked outside of himself for answers, but only that he looked inside. He asked what he wanted, not what God wanted. He indicates no source of authority beyond his own desires or his own reasoning.
Then Caroline Vogel says that just as we need food, shelter, and clothing “we also have to feed our souls in some way. … And so I think there’s this challenge of, OK, we’ve been doing it like this for so long, and it’s just not working for people in a way that meets them in a holistic way.” What apparently meets them in a holistic way is yoga, breathing exercises, a Celtic service. “Your human breath is infinitely connecting to the divine breath,” she says in one of these yoga services, “so that as you breathe you are being breathed by the Holy.” One of her new parishioners says “she and her husband stopped going to traditional church about six years ago because it wasn’t doing anything for them.” “The breathing linked with feeling the spirit is really important to me. And it stays with me more than just a sermon and some hymns.”
We may roll our eyes at such people and consider ourselves superior to them. But isn’t it possible that we can relate to church in a similar way? Isn’t it possible that we can join and depart churches on the basis of preference more than on the basis of God’s revelation of what a church is and ought to be? Aren’t we all tempted at times to leave a faithful church for an exciting one, a church that does things God’s way for one that does things in a fresh or novel way? Isn’t every leader tempted at times to change the way he does church not because he has come to realize it’s unfaithful to Scripture but because it no longer seems to engage the people around him?
The fact is that we are all prone to create a local church community or a worship service that begins with questions like “What do I want? What feels meaningful to me? What makes me feel fulfilled?” The Church Growth Movement essentially baptized this consumeristic impulse by building churches around the desires of their target demographics. Their constant question to the unchurched and de-churched alike was “What would it take to get you to come?” Rarely if ever did they ask, “What does God say a church should be?” Instead of scouring the Bible, they scoured the minds, desires, and requests of unbelievers.
If indeed it is true that church attendance is in decline, our key task is not to change what we do for the sake of regaining attendees. Our key task is not to survey people to find out what it will take to get them back in and it’s not to inquire what they might find spiritually meaningful. Our key task is to search the Scriptures to see what God tells us a church ought to be and ought to do. We will find that he is not silent. We will find that he prescribes how we are to worship him. We will find that we must remain faithful to him whether the church fills or empties, whether the congregation explodes in growth or stays static (or even diminishes).
Here’s the great irony in this story: The cure that these church leaders propose is actually indistinguishable from the disease. The cure they propose for this illness is to administer more of the illness! They are treating cancer with cancer, infection with infection, radiation poisoning with even greater doses of radiation. The reason their churches are crumbling is ultimately because they lost their confidence in the Word, in its guidance, in its core message. The way home is not to wander even farther, but always to return—to return to doing what God says, to doing what God makes clear.
What we want from church is utterly irrelevant, completely meaningless, entirely inconsequential. All that matters is what God wants. After all, he is the one who created us and the one who created church! Surely then we can trust his purpose and his design. Whether we are tempted to leave one church for another over a matter of mere preference, whether we are tempted to remove an element of our worship service because it no longer resonates with people, whether we are tempted to try something novel and new, we must always turn first to the Word, first to the one who knows exactly what we need. He will lead us, he will guide us, he will help us to worship in the ways that please him and that satisfy our hungry souls.

What comes to mind when you think of R.C. Sproul? What do you remember of his life and ministry? What associations do you make when you hear his name?
He was a gifted teacher, of course—probably the greatest pure teacher many of us have ever encountered. So many Christians first came to marvel at God’s transcendent holiness and God’s glorious sovereignty to the distinct rasp of his voice and, in the background, the distinct squeak of chalk on chalkboard. Few men have been better teachers.
He was a trusted theologian. He had a near-encyclopedic knowledge of Christian doctrine and could converse or debate on a host of subjects. A panel or roundtable could go to nearly any topic and he would have something to say. In some of the church’s most crucial modern-day controversies, he took the side of the Bible and the side of orthodoxy. Time has proven that he was invariably on the side of the right.
He was a brilliant intellectual. He had a quick and exceptional mind and a towering intellect. Few people could catch him off guard and few people could match his wit. No one who ever debated him had an easy time of it or ran him over.
He was a compelling apologist. He loved to defend Christianity against the encroachment of false doctrines and vain philosophies. He also guarded the church against more subtle dangers like Catholicism and pseudo-gospels. Throughout his life, he defended the faith and courageously called people to it.
He was a pastor and professor, a mentor and chancellor, an editor and author. In fact, he bore so many talents and wore so many hats that it’s hard to believe he lived only one life. Truly, he was a gift to us.
And yet if you ever visit St. Andrew’s Chapel in Orlando and make your way to Sproul’s grave, you will find a different accolade on his gravestone—an accolade chosen by his family, by the people who loved him most and knew him best. “He was a kind man,” it says. “He was a kind man redeemed by a kinder Savior.”
Despite all he did and all he was known for, it is the quality of kindness that is engraved for the ages.Share
I have often pondered that epitaph. Despite all he did and all he was known for, it is the quality of kindness that is engraved for the ages. And I find that both challenging and encouraging.
It takes raw talent to teach like Sproul taught. It takes divine gifting to preach like he preached and to lead like he led. It takes advanced education to have his knowledge of philosophy and decades of study to have his grasp of doctrine. In these ways and others most will never be like him.
But kindness is available to all of us. Kindness is not an innate quality that is given to some and not to others. Kindness is not a characteristic that demands special talent or advanced education. Kindness is a decision we make each moment of each day. Kindness is fruit of the Spirit who lives within us—evidence of his presence in our lives and imitation of his divine qualities. Sproul was kind because he lived his life in service to a kind Savior.
And so, one of the men we love and admire, a man who left his mark on so many of us, is not remembered first for his accomplishments, but for his character. His lasting legacy is not what he did, but who he was. His enduring gift to those he loved is not the books he wrote or the organizations he founded, but the qualities of Jesus that were so prominent in his life.
As much as we have benefitted from all of Sproul’s gifts and talents, from all he did and all he founded, his family gave us a gift of their own—a reminder that the greatest accomplishments are accomplishments of character and the greatest legacies are legacies of divine attributes displayed in a redeemed life.