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Free Stuff Fridays (RHB Publications)

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by RHB Publications. Everyone who enters the prize draw will have the opportunity to be one of three people picked to receive a copy of all the following new titles from RHB:

The Puritan Path:
From the Reformation to the Modern Era: A Pictorial Witness by Joel R. Beeke & Stephen McCaskell
A pictorial history across two continents about the origins, growth, and influence of the Puritans. Includes additional essays on the Puritans and the filming of the documentary, Puritan.
The God and Me series
Joel and Mary Beeke
I Need to Trust in God
I Need to Hope in God
I Need to Love God
I Need to Love Other People
(For ages 4-7.) Based on scriptural verses on faith, hope, and love to God and neighbor, essential concepts are expressed in simple forms in conversation, prayer, actions, and thoughts.
Transformed:
How God Renews Your Mind to Make You More Like Jesus by Esther Engelsma
Are you being transformed into the image of Christ, or are you just frustrated? Transformed shows how the Holy Spirit helps us think in obedience so more Christlike behavior follows.
God with Us (2nd ed.):
Knowing the Mystery of Who Jesus Is by Danny Hyde
In God with Us, Daniel R. Hyde explores the historic, orthodox understanding of the person called Emmanuel—God with us. A clear and practical introduction to classical Christology.
A Practical Theology of Family Worship:
Richard Baxter’s Timeless Encouragement for Today’s Home by Jonathan Williams
Baxter’s belief in the importance of family worship meant every family in some Kidderminster streets upheld the practice. Williams examines Baxter’s methods and shows how they can work in churches today.
Bible Doctrine for Younger Children (2nd ed.)
James Beeke
Using over 150 stories and illustrations, educator James Beeke teaches children aged nine years and up how to live out the Christian faith. Suitable for homeschooling, church, or family use.
God’s Grace Shining through the Law
Joel R. Beeke (ed.)
Christians struggle to understand the relationship between God’s law and grace: neglecting law resulting in antinomianism or grace resulting in legalism. Instead, here’s how you can live in joyful obedience.
Rejuvenated Classics from RHB
Disease, Scarcity, and Famine:
A Reformation Perspective on God and Plagues by Ludwig Lavater (translated by Michael Hunter)
Outbreaks of disease and famine are nothing new. Ludwig Lavater, a leading pastor in sixteenth-century Zurich, explains the ultimate source of plagues and God’s purposes and promises during them.
The Shorter Writings of George Gillespie, volume 1
The first of a three-volume set that presents all Gillespie’s known shorter works, carefully edited from the most accurate texts – includes newly transcribed writings not included in 19th-century editions of his works.
The Pearl of Christian Comfort
Petrus Dathenus (Translated by Arie W. Blok)
Using a dialogue between a mature believer and a young Christian, Dathenus explains the relationship between faith and works in an experimental manner, typical of the early Dutch Further Reformation.
3 people will get a free set of all these books
Enter Here
Again, there are three sets to win. And all you need to do to enter the draw is to drop your name and email address in the form below.
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. When you enter, you opt-in to receive marketing emails from RHB. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on Thursday 30th September 2021 at midnight.

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Love Beyond Telling: The Surprising History of a Favorite Hymn

By Marshall Segal — 3 years ago

You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. (Psalm 40:5)

As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Frederick Lehman (1868–1953), who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of swelling the waves of worship.

Perhaps the most memorable lines in the hymn, however, were not Lehman’s, but words someone had found scribbled on the walls of an insane asylum a couple hundred years earlier, words that had been passed along to Lehman and held profound meaning for him.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,And were the skies of parchment made;Were every tree on earth a quill,And every man a scribe by trade;To write the love of God aboveWould drain the ocean dry,Nor could the scroll contain the whole,Though stretched from sky to sky.

The lyrics, it turns out, were a translation of an old Aramaic poem (now almost a thousand years old). And while no one knows the name of the insane asylum patient, the circumstances of his suffering, or how he came across the poem, the lines sparkle with surprising clarity, hope, and, well, sanity. A kind of spiritual sanity that often eludes us.

More Than Can Be Told

That Lehman treasured the lyrics is hardly surprising. Living just a handful of miles from the Pacific Ocean, he would have known, with acute awareness, the roaring vastness of the sea, the tall and swaying elegance of palm trees, and the bursts and hues of California sunsets. Day by day, he held the brilliant orangeness of its oranges and smelled the lively tartness of its lemons. The ocean, the trees, the sky, the earth were enormous and familiar friends of his — and yet each so small next to the love he had come to know in Christ.

When Lehman looked at the sky, he saw a hint of something wider still. He sang, like David, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3–4). The sky above him awed him, and then humbled him. If God could stretch out heavens like these with his hands, why would he pierce those hands in love for me?

When Lehman looked out over the ocean, he heard a hint of something deeper still. “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). The ocean taught him of forgiveness, of a dark, far-off, forgotten place where God submerged our canceled sins. How could God possibly forget what we had said, and thought, and done? Well, he could bury them beneath the sea. And so he does.

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!” the psalmist sings. “In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great” (Psalm 104:24–25). The ocean is big, and crowded, and wild, and yet you, O Lord, are bigger still, and your love, wilder still. And while the ocean sang its choruses, the sand beneath his feet would occasionally interrupt: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand” (Psalm 139:17–18).

“If God could stretch out heavens like these with his hands, why would he pierce those hands in love for me?”

When Lehman stared at the towering trees above him, he tasted a hint of something higher still. He surely could not count the trees that surrounded him, and their numberlessness reminded him of the unsearchable greatness of God. He may have read of math like this in the Psalms: “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told” (Psalm 40:5). More than can be told. Is there any better summary of the love of God?

Every Man a Scribe

Were we to fill that ocean with ink and stretch out scrolls to cover those skies, and were every tree, of every kind, a pen, and every one of us a scribe, we still could capture only hints and whispers of the boundless love of God. We would drain the ocean dry. And then still have so much more to say.

Let that never keep us from saying as much as we can. We ought to thank God for those, like Frederick Lehman, who help us taste and see and feel realities we will never fully grasp. We ought to thank God for the poor soul clinging to faith in that asylum. If he had not scrawled those words on that wall, from his embattled memory, would we have ever heard them? We ought to thank God for the pen that crafted those original lines, in Aramaic, so many years earlier. Who could have imagined just how far his words would float, like a letter in a bottle, and how many hearts they would brighten and strengthen over centuries?

And we ought to ask God for fresh words that might open worlds like these for others. How might we help others feel the love beyond expressing? If words fail us, we could start by writing the beloved lines where someone might someday see them.

Desiring God partnered with Shane & Shane’s The Worship Initiative to write short meditations for more than three hundred popular worship songs and hymns.

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My Boyfriend Is Spiritually Lethargic — Should I Still Marry Him?

By John Piper — 3 years ago

Audio Transcript

We address a lot of dating questions on the podcast. Those can be found in the podcast archive. Today we add another to the list. The question is from a listener named Crystal, a not-yet-married woman with a question about her current boyfriend and what it means to be unequally yoked. Here’s Crystal’s email: “Dear Pastor John, thank you for your episodes. I look forward to them every week. I would like to ask about the topic of being unequally yoked. I am in a serious relationship that is headed toward marriage with a man who became a Christian. But he seems to take Christ a lot more casually than I do. I have shared with him my desire to build a Christ-centered family and have frequently tried to point him toward Christ. He agrees. But from his actions, it doesn’t appear that Christ is truly number one in his heart.

“I’m trying my best to encourage him to have greater reverence for God without coming off as judgmental. But I always have this nagging worry. Am I still obeying Christ by continuing this relationship when my boyfriend is less spiritually vibrant? Would that make us unequally yoked? In my circles, it seems like there are few single Christian men who are spiritually mature to choose from, and I suspect I’m not the only woman facing this dilemma.”

No, I suspect you’re not. Let me rehearse what I just heard because it’s pretty bleak.

This young woman is in a relationship headed for marriage.
She is dissatisfied with how casually her boyfriend takes Christ.
She thinks his actions don’t show that Christ is number one in his heart.
She wishes he had greater reverence for God.
She sees him as not spiritually vibrant.

So, it sounds to me like she is very much aware of Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 7:39 that Christians are only supposed to marry “in the Lord” — that is, marry other Christians — and she is trying to discern whether that clear line in the sand also implies that a serious Christian woman should not marry a lackadaisical Christian man.

Idleness in a Suitor

Now, my short answer from the little I know of her case is this: no, she shouldn’t. Now let me give some reasons for why I would be so blunt, and then back up with a slight qualification at the end. Let’s start with 2 Thessalonians 3:6:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

“Spend some serious time and see whether or not some changes come about to prove another kind of character.”

So there was this problem in Thessalonica that some of the church members, perhaps because they thought that the day of the Lord was so near, were not supporting themselves by work and were becoming busybodies and moochers in the church. And Paul didn’t jump to the conclusion that they were not Christians — not yet. But he said — and he called it a command “in the name of the Lord,” no less; he strengthened it — that the other Christians in the church should keep away from the idlers, a kind of holy ostracism, in the hope that this might shame them and bring them to repentance and obedience.

Now the analogy I’m drawing between the disobedience involved in laziness and idleness at Thessalonica, on the one hand, and the kind of apparent spiritual lethargy in Crystal’s boyfriend, on the other hand, is that there’s disobedience on both parts.

He takes Christ and his word casually.
Christ doesn’t seem to be number one in his heart.
He doesn’t manifest serious reverence.
He doesn’t have spiritual vitality.

Another word for that is disobedience.

He’s disobeying the command of 2 Peter 3:18 to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
He’s disobeying the command of Revelation 3:16 that we should not be lukewarm, lest Jesus spits us out of his mouth.
He’s disobeying the command of Romans 12:11: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit.”
He’s disobeying the command to “serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2).
He’s disobeying the command to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Ephesians 6:10).
He’s disobeying the command to love God with all his heart and all his soul and all his strength and all his mind (Luke 10:27).

And the list could go on and on. I cannot imagine Paul saying to the young women at Thessalonica, “Now I’m calling the whole church to stand clear of Christian men who walk in idleness, but it’s okay if you fall in love with one and marry him.” You need to spend some serious time and see whether or not some changes come about to prove another kind of character.

Christ, His Church, and the Couple

Then consider what marriage actually is designed by God to be. “A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Something very profound is meant by the term one flesh. That bodily union in sexual intercourse is the physical expression of a much deeper union of heart and soul, pointing to the covenant relationship between Christ and the church.

Paul quotes that very text, Genesis 2:24, and then he says in Ephesians 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” There isn’t anything in human relationships comparable to the depth of the union of persons between a husband and a wife in covenant relation as they seek to reflect Christ and the church. It’s the profoundest of human relationships.

Therefore, a woman or a man contemplating marriage should take stock with the greatest seriousness: will I be able to pursue such a profound union of heart and mind and body with this other person?

Spiritual Trajectory

And the last thing I would draw attention to is this: a woman should be asking herself whether the man she is thinking about marrying is growing into the kind of maturity and character that will make him a responsible, Christlike spiritual leader in the home. Christian women are not called in marriage to lead their poor benighted husbands. The Bible says that the husband is to be the head of his wife and their family. There is a spiritual maturity, a strength of character that precedes this leadership. That’s what she should be looking for.

Now, here’s where I said at the beginning that I would give a slight qualification to my statement that Crystal should not pursue marriage with this man. The qualification is this: it is quite possible that a man who is a newer believer may not yet have the biblical foundations or teaching that will enable him to grow into the kind of mature, responsible spiritual leader for which he’s destined. That means that a woman considering marriage to such a spiritually untried man must be very discerning concerning the kind of character traits she sees emerging in him, which may signal that he is or is not on his way to the wisdom and knowledge and strength and humility required for biblical headship in his family.

And here’s the test I would encourage her to make: Is he humbly eager and growing? Or is he halfhearted and unresponsive? Or is he resistant and defensive? I can see those three possibilities: (1) humbly eager and growing, (2) half-hearted and unresponsive, or (3) resistant and defensive. Those are the three responses that I can see a young convert having as a Christian leader, like a pastor, tries to help him; or Christian books are given to him; or his Christian girlfriend points him toward biblical maturity. I think it’s possible for a spiritually wise woman to see emerging character traits of leadership and maturity and wisdom and humility and grace and strength as she watches him respond. How does he respond to all the Christian input that he should be seeking and getting?

“Don’t doubt God’s good providence in your life if you should think it wise to put the brakes on this relationship.”

If she sees eagerness and receptivity and responsiveness and growth, she may be encouraged to keep moving forward. But if she sees unresponsiveness and laziness and lack of interest, lack of zeal — or worse, resistance and defensiveness — it seems to me she would be asking for a lifetime of frustration to move forward in that situation. So, Crystal, may the Lord give you great wisdom and courage in this relationship. Don’t doubt God’s good and wise and loving providence in your life if you should think it wise to put the brakes on this relationship. God is for you as you walk in his will.

Singular Focus

That’s good: better to remain unmarried than to marry a nominal, spiritually lethargic man.

Yeah, absolutely I would say that. And if we are going to talk about that in any detail, I would spend a good bit of time exalting the virtues and possibilities of singleness, because I think not enough has been made in the church with regard to helping single people get a vision for their life while they’re single, and that singleness may last a lifetime.

I can point to two or three remarkable older single women at Bethlehem over the years whose lives were absolutely stunning in their exemplary usefulness at every level — in families, among children, in Bible studies and Bible teaching, and service and overseas. If a woman — or a man, for that matter — gets ahold of the calling that Paul really envisioned for his own singleness, I don’t think they would view the absence of marriage as the catastrophe that some believe it is. But I love marriage. I think marriage is God’s ordinary way forward for the human race — but not for everybody.

So yeah, the answer to that question in my mind is this: better to be a godly, fruitful, obedient, devoted single than a person who’s constantly regretting that my partner just doesn’t seem to get it spiritually, and they remain a kind of nominal spiritual dud all their lives.

Another thing to say is that if you’re married to such a person, you should be. People ask me, “How do you know if you’re married to the right person?” The answer is this: look at the name on the marriage certificate. That’s the answer. God doesn’t encourage divorce because one partner is a nonbeliever or a nominal believer. You learn to grow in grace with what God has given you.

Headship’s High Calling

And there’s an urgent call here too for men, single men, to be discipled and to be ready for marriage. And that’s a whole other topic.

Oh my, yeah, it is a whole other topic. I hope any young single man listening would not mainly feel beat up or discouraged, but rather say, “Okay, I’ve got a job description. If I am to think in terms of marriage long-term, the Bible says to think in terms of growing into the humble, Christlike, wise, strong, discerning, mature man that could lead a godly, mature, courageous, strong, articulate woman.” And that really is the way to think about life, I think, if they’re not devoted to singleness. The only kind of man a woman wants is a mature and godly man, and the only kind of woman a man wants is a mature and godly woman. And therefore, the man has to press on to be her head.

And I would just qualify one thing here. That may make some men think like, “Oh, I have to have a high IQ,” or “I have to have the same grades in class.” Well, that’s not true. That is not true. You can be a godly, initiative-taking, loving, burden-bearing, protecting, providing leader with a wife who’s a lot smarter than you are. Yes, you can. And we can talk about that forever.

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The Ones Who Sow and the Ones Who Reap

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

Every Olympics provides us with a few special moments. While the great majority of the athletes and the great majority of their successes and failures quickly fade from our consciousness, a few special ones tend to stick around.

One moment from the 2020 Olympics that will remain in our minds, even if only because of the mountain of memes it generated, is an Australian swimming coach celebrating his athlete’s success. Ariarne Titmus has just narrowly edged out her American rival to claim a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle. Her coach, Dean Boxall, is overwhelmed with the emotion of it. While Titmus celebrates in the pool, Boxall celebrates in the stands far above where he screams and pumps his fists. Oblivious to the cameras capturing every moment, he yells and gesticulates madly in joy and celebration. He is very nearly overcome.
And well he should be, for though he is not the one who swam the race or the one who will soon have a gold medal to hang around his neck, he still shares in the victory. And because he shares in the victory, he shares in its glory. His celebration displays his involvement, it exhibits the fact that Titmus would not have triumphed had it not been for the attention, commitment, and expertise of her coach. Though it will be her name that goes in the record books, the victory belongs to both of them.
And just so, God arranges life in this world so that rewards are dispensed not just to the conspicuous few, but to the unseen many. There may be one pastor in a church who will receive the Lord’s commendation for his many years of faithful service. But surely God will not overlook the deacons who served every bit as faithfully, albeit in different ways. Surely God will not forget their diligence in “serving tables” so that their pastor could be fully committed to his ministry of Word and prayer. Surely God will not overlook the pastor’s wife who so lovingly supported her husband with her prayers and blessings. Surely whatever reward he receives will be gladly and joyfully shared with the ones who enabled him to serve so well.
I think of an old author who labored for many years to provide the church with books that would provoke and challenge, that would teach precious, needed truths. Though he sat in solitude in his study day after day and year after year, he did not work alone, for he had a secretary who served as his right hand. Whatever results the Lord brought about through those books, surely she shared in them for the way she supported and enabled him. He could not have done it without her, so surely the results are hers as much as his.
I think of an old missionary who ventured to distant lands and founded a ministry that proved powerfully effective in reaching men and women for Christ. Yet the funds that supported him had come entirely from a small number of philanthropists. While this missionary has had his name recorded in the annals of history, and while he is the subject of many biographies, their names have long since been forgotten. But there is no doubt that as they stand together before the Throne, they share equally in the joy, in the triumph, in the victory of that ministry and all the good it brought about.
No great accomplishment, no great triumph, no great success in the history of the Christian church, or the history of your life or mine, can be attributed solely to the individual who receives the acclaim. Though some may go unrecognized here, they shall be commended by the one who sees and knows all things. The ones who sow shall rejoice as much as the ones who reap, the ones who supported as much as the ones who accomplished. Those who shared in the labor shall share in the results, and share in the reward.

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A La Carte (September 24)

By Tim Challies — 3 years ago

Good morning. May the Lord bless and keep you today.

Westminster Books has a couple of deals you should know about this week. The first is on the John Piper preaching bundle while the second is on a new children’s book.
There’s a nice collection of reference works in today’s list of Kindle deals.
Clinging to God and Grammar
Carl Trueman: “In times past, progressive politicians described those they despised as clinging to ‘God and guns.’ I suspect that we are not too far from a time when they will insult those they deplore for clinging to God and grammar. That might sound an odd claim, but the days are coming rapidly to an end when it was morally acceptable to think that language, among its many functions, had a positive relation to reality. Today, dictionaries and grammars look set to become relics of a bygone age of evil oppression.”
Ten Truths About a Liar
“Is Satan capable of inception? Does he whisper temptations in our ear? Is Satan’s authority, power, and relationship to unbelievers the same or different from Christians? These are all valid and, frankly, somewhat haunting questions. I am not left emotionally unmoved by the many destroyed marriages and ministries around me Satan has devoured. I trust your experience is comparable.”
The Influence Game
Janie B. Cheaney writes about some of the trappings of online fame.
What Lewis Had Wrong about Hell
Bob McKelvey writes about Lewis’ The Great Divorce and says that “What Lewis communicates about anthropology in these vignettes is unsurpassed. Sadly, what he conveys about theology proper is appalling.”
Smartphones and Fallen Natures
Doug Eaton: “There are so many benefits to today’s technology that it is hard to overestimate, but that does not mean there are no negative consequences involved, especially when we combine it with our sinful nature.”
Heart Medicine
Kristin shares another little anecdote from her childhood while drawing a lesson from it.
Flashback: How to Pray Like a Pastor
Personally, I pray for one of these traits each day, using the bullet points as a guide. Perhaps you will find it helpful to do something similar.

How sweet is rest, after fatigue! How sweet will Heaven be, when our toilsome journey is ended. —George Whitefield

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God’s Love for the Believer is as. . .

By Nicholas T. Batzig — 3 years ago

Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Friday, September 24, 2021
When we consider the enormity of our sins, and our hearts begin to sink under the weight of a sense of the guilt that we have incurred, we must remember the eternal purposes of God in the everlasting covenant of redemption. When we begin to have hard thoughts of God, we must fix our eyes on the cross and see the infinitely beloved Son of God hanging on the tree out of the divine love of the triune God for sinners.

One of the most challenging trials for believers during our pilgrimage through this dark and fallen world is to truly believe and rest in the love that God has for us. Sinclair Ferguson once noted that the experience of so many believers is the internalizing of the thought, “He loves me, He loves me not.” Many believers lack the assurance of their salvation precisely because they focus on the enormity of their sin to the exclusion of the enormity of the love of God for sinners. God’s love superabounds to the salvation of sinners. So how should we think about the love of God toward us who believe, while we acknowledge the reality of sin in our lives?
Much can be said about the love of God toward His people. Distinctions and categories must be drawn. God has a general love for His creation, a covenantal love for the visible church, and a eternal redeeming love for the elect. Scripture distinguishes between God’s love of complacency and His love of benevolence. Then, there are marks of God’s love. For instance, the author of the Proverbs and the book of Hebrews tells us that God disciplines those He loves (Heb. 12:3–11). Spiritual discipline is a mark of the love of God for His children–not of His just punishment which He reserves for unbelievers. That being said, here are a few of the foundational, biblical truths about the love that God has for His people:
The Bible places the love of God for His people at the foundation of every blessing that God freely bestows on us in Christ. Scripture tells us that the triune God has loved us with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3), that His love “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5), that He demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), and that “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The love of God leads Him to adopt believers into His divine family, making us sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1). The Apostle John (the Apostle of love) summarized the principle of the love of God toward His sinful people, when he wrote, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
The love of God is something upon which we can never meditate too often. It is the bedrock of our Christian continuance in the faith. If we forget the love that God has for us, we will sink under the weight of the guilt of our consciences and our own desire for legal performance. If we lose sight of the love of God, we will live in servile fear of Him, seeking to gain His approval on the basis of our works. So, what are some ways that we can rightly apprehend the security of the love of God for us, sinful though we be?
Read More

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God’s Love for the Believer is as. . .

By Nicholas T. Batzig — 3 years ago

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Covenantal Baptism

By Jason Helopoulos — 3 years ago

If God counts children as members of the covenant community who are to receive this sign and seal of his covenant, then those who neglect covenantal baptism prevent covenant children from receiving one of God’s chief means of grace for their lives and the life of the church. These practical and theological implications are why the “discussion” about baptism is not idle theological discourse.

Baptism. Need I say more? Too often, it is best known as the church family “celebration” that causes conflict. This sacrament seems to be fertile soil for debate, disagreement, ridicule, and even mocking among fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet baptism lies at the very heart of the charge that our Lord and Savior gave to the church in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18–20, and it represents, as we shall see in these pages, the core of the Christian faith—the gospel. When we approach it as a source of conflict and controversy, we miss the blessing that is attached to this sacrament, as well, and the kind- ness God has shown his people—the family of Christ— by gifting it to them. I hope that this book, beyond anything else, will show you this blessing and kindness.
I take it for granted that if you are reading this book, you have some interest in the doctrine of baptism. That is good. That is right. Maybe you are a parent who is wrestling with whether you should baptize your child (or children). Maybe you are new to the Reformed tradition or wrestling anew with what you believe about baptism. Maybe you are a pastor attempting to articulate covenantal baptism more clearly, or a teenager wondering whether you should be “rebaptized” at the urging of friends, or a Christian parent wondering whether your wandering child’s previous baptism means anything for him or her now. Maybe you are simply looking for a quick refresher on the reasons for and blessings of covenantal baptism. This book is written for you.
But before we enter the discussion on baptism, I ask you to make a commitment with me. John Rabbi Duncan, a Scottish Presbyterian from a former generation, once said, “I’m first a Christian, next a Catholic,1 then a Calvinist, fourth a Paedobaptist,2 and [finally] a Presbyterian.”3 He places the right things in the right order. Before you read further, commit with me in the tenor of Duncan’s confession above, first, that you are a Christian; second, that you identify as a member of the universal church; and that everything else follows in importance.
We need to remain careful not to make too much of baptism on the one hand but neither to dismiss it with a nonchalant attitude on the other. Baptism is truly a “secondary doctrine.” Yet it is a significant doctrine. Our beliefs regarding baptism inform our parenting, our expectations of our covenant children, and even what church we attend and join. And, since blessings are attached to this sacrament (as we shall see), we desire those blessings to be received by all who are able. Most of all, because baptism is a foundational part of the Christian faith, our view of it should be well-informed and biblical.
If those who practice covenantal baptism4 by baptizing their children do so in contradiction to God’s Word, then they put words (and especially promises) in the mouth of God that are untrue. And yet, if God counts children as members of the covenant community who are to receive this sign and seal of his covenant, then those who neglect covenantal baptism prevent covenant children from receiving one of God’s chief means of grace for their lives and the life of the church. These practical and theological implications are why the “discussion” about baptism is not idle theological discourse.
This is an excerpt from the introduction to Jason Helopoulos’ book, “Covenantal Baptism,” part of the Blessings of the Faith series. Pick up a copy of, “Covenantal Baptism” for more information on this often-debated doctrine. Used with permission.

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Covenantal Baptism

By Jason Helopoulos — 3 years ago

Post Views: 512

It Is Finished: Beholding the Cross of Christ from All of Scripture

By David Schrock — 3 years ago

As one Old Testament scholar has put it, “I like the New Testament, because it reminds me a lot of the Old Testament.” Indeed, the New Testament should remind us of the Old Testament, because every page of the New Testament (and often every paragraph) is filled with quotations, allusions, and echoes from the Old Testament.

Have you ever watched a new movie, where you started 10 minutes before the end?
Many years ago, when big hair was still in style, I was introduced to Back to the Future in this way. My friends were watching this movie and I joined them at point where Doc Brown crashed through garbage cans, warned Marty and his girlfriend about their future children, and drove to a place where “we don’t need roads.”
If you only know the last ten minutes of Back to the Future, however, you won’t understand the significance of the DeLorean, the date (November 5, 1955), the speed (88 miles per hour), or the electricity (1.21 Gigawatts) that makes time travel possible. Nor will you understand the flux capacitor and its cruciform power to rewrite history. All of these details are revealed over the course of the movie and only in watching the movie from beginning to end, can you make sense of its ending.
Something similar happens when we open our Bibles and behold the man hung upon a Roman cross. While many well-intentioned evangelists point to Christ’s cross as the center piece of our Christian faith and the way of our salvation, it is an event in history that only makes sense when you begin in the beginning. That Christ was buried in a garden tomb does more than give us an historical referent; it tells the significance of Christ’s death as the way of God’s new creation, because after all it was in a garden where Adam sinned and brought death to the world. Now, raised from a garden tomb, Jesus as the new Adam has introduced a new way of life.
In this vein, the biblical storyline is necessary for understanding why the Son of God had to die on a tree, be buried in a tomb, and raised to life on the third day. Indeed, even if we know that Christ did not stay dead—that he rose from the grave, walked the earth teaching his disciples for forty days, and ascended to heaven, where he now sits in glory—we cannot make sense of the cross. Or at least, our interest in Christ’s death and resurrection leads us to ask: But what does it mean?
Indeed, the way to understand Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is to place those events in the timeline of God’s redemptive history. That timeline begins in creation, proceeds through the fall of mankind into sin, and picks up countless promises of grace and types of salvation throughout the Old Testament. In fact, to be most precise, God’s plan for Christ’s cross did not begin in space and time; it began before God spoke light into the darkness (Gen. 1:3). As Peter says in his first sermon (Acts 2:23) and his first epistle (1 Peter 1:20), the cross of Christ was the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan for the salvation of his people.
In Scripture, therefore, the cross is the climactic work of God to redeem sinners and rescue the dying.
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