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A La Carte (October 17)

By Tim Challies — 5 months ago

Westminster Books has a new book on sale that is meant to assist parents as they help their children build their lives upon solid ground. They just overhauled and improved their site, so it’s worth a visit!
Today’s Kindle deals include a book for worriers (or those who love them), a book meant to grow your appetite for God’s Word, and several others.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Key Discipline: Observe Without Judgment)

Mike Emlet: “Moments of joy are too easily swallowed up by intrusions small and large. These joy interrupters could be the next hard thing on our rapidly expanding to-do list on a given day, or the shocking news of a loved one’s cancer diagnosis. Whether minute or monumental, the challenges and griefs of life in this fallen world can quickly overshadow our perception of the good that God brings into our lives.”

Join us live for #MISSIONARYCON24 today for free at missionary.com/live. The conference commemorates the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s English Bible translation. See the conference schedule. Speakers include Sinclair Ferguson, John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, Conrad Mbewe and others. (Sponsored)

I appreciate Tom Schreiner’s handling of a difficult text.

There is some helpful cultural analysis in this article. “What matters more than coherent views is a compelling vibe. Politicians know this. They have little incentive to bother communicating policy positions. This has become abundantly clear in modern televised presidential debates. If a debate moves the needle for any voters, it won’t be because of policy substance; it’ll be because certain vibes resonated with—or repulsed—them.”

“Remember, if Jesus said we’d be known as his disciples by our love for one another, what does it tell the people around us when we are as hostile and divisive as everyone else? We want to live faithfully in the world. We want to be radically committed to gospel-driven love—and with it, honesty, peace, and harmony.”

“In every situation, in every decision we make—as individuals or as a church corporately—our goal is to reflect the beauty of Christ by adorning the gospel with our blameless behavior. This does not make every decision easy or simple, but it does let us know what the chief priority in our decision-making must be: how can I best glorify the gospel of Christ in this situation?”

Having come out of hyper-Calvinistic circles, Simon wants you to know that such churches get their doctrine seriously wrong.

A day squandered and a day embraced—both will leave you weary…But a day spent purposefully, a day spent in bringing glory to God by doing good to others—this is a day that will bring pleasure, even as it brings fatigue…

There is nothing whatsoever surprising about sin. Holiness, however, is the most surprising thing in the world.
—Ligon Duncan

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Redemption: The Wonder of God’s Covenant Love (Part 2)

By Robb Brunansky — 5 months ago

This article is part 2 of a series, you can read part 1 here.

After all the trials Naomi and Ruth experienced in the first two chapters of the Book of Ruth, God’s steadfast love appears to be at work for these women. God is not going to abandon them, and He has a good purpose even in their afflictions. He is about to put His unfailing mercy, grace, and kindness on display in the lives of these two women who have endured so much difficulty.

As we read in this narrative, God really doesn’t do anything overly spectacular to complete this story from a human perspective. God’s steadfast love shows up, not through direct divine intervention, but through His people displaying divine love through their faithfulness.

This concept is important for us to grasp because we live in a culture of broken promises and relationships where loyalty and faithfulness are rare. People in our world often lie, breaking promises and faith in relationships. Steadfast, faithful love is almost non-existent in our society.

That’s the reality of the world, but it shouldn’t be the reality of the church of Jesus Christ. God has called Christians to steadfast love so we might reflect His character to our broken world. There are three characteristics of this faithfulness to consider from Ruth 3 and 4 as we strive to emulate the Lord’s steadfast love.

First, to emulate God’s steadfast love, we need to understand that steadfast love is relational.

We cannot display God’s steadfast love in isolation from others; we need to be in relationships with people to obey this calling of showing the Lord’s steadfast love to him and the world. We see this relational aspect of steadfast love in Ruth 3.

In this chapter, we observe the importance of showing steadfast love in our relationships. Naomi shows her daughter-in-law this love by arranging her search for a husband. Ruth shows this love repeatedly to Naomi – especially when she adheres to Naomi’s parameters during her quest for a husband. Boaz even recognizes her love and obedience when he says, “You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich” (verse 10).Ruth also shows this love by being prudent in her search for a mate, seeking to do right before the Lord. Boaz shows this steadfast love by agreeing to marry Ruth.

If we are going to be people who display God’s love and kindness, we must interact and be in relationships with others. We need this kind of kindness in our churches, marriages, families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and so on. As we show continued kindness and grace to others, we will reflect God’s nature and character toward us.

Second, to be people who show steadfast love, we need to realize that steadfast love is costly.

There is a difficulty that accompanies this kindness, loyalty, and love. It’s easy to be kind when people are kind to us. It’s easy to show love when we stand to gain something from that transaction. It’s easy to be loyal to those who can benefit us. However, the love God has shown to His people goes beyond what is convenient. It is costly. We see this aspect of steadfast love in 4:1-11 with Boaz’s interaction with a possible redeemer of Naomi and Ruth, who did not want to jeopardize his immediate family’s inheritance.

Ruth’s redemption in this story parallels our own – although our redemption is more costly than any human example. Our redemption was purchased, not with earthly riches, but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1). Because of this amazing redemption, we are now co-heirs with Christ and have received an inheritance. How incredible it is that, unlike the first redeemer in Ruth, Jesus does not wish to guard His inheritance, but shares it with His people because He is our great redeemer.

As we consider steadfast love, then, we see that it is often costly, difficult, and risky. We are called to step out in faith, trusting God for our inheritance, for our protection, for our well-being – not selfishly seeking to protect ourselves from hurt, mistreatment, ostracism, or loss.

For us to love like God has called us to love, we must take risks. We will have to reach out to the person unlike us. We will have to be first to break the silence during a conflict with words of reconciliation and peace. We will have to be willing to step out to help someone we might otherwise pass by. We will have to overcome the fear of being rejected or ostracized when we tell someone about Jesus. Steadfast love is costly, difficult, and risky; it is not safe or convenient.

Lastly, steadfast love is rewarded.

From verse 12 through the end of the book, we read of one blessing after another. Naomi, like Job, is restored. God has not been against her, but He has been working for her in her suffering, bringing about a great deliverance through her family line. Naomi’s suffering had a greater purpose, namely, the salvation of humanity.

Ruth has a son named Obed, which means worshiper, giving readers beautiful insight of this ending. Naomi went through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged praising the Lord for His goodness. Ruth is also marked as a worshiper of the true and living God, with her husband Boaz.

Christians can be assured that when we arrive on the other side of any trial and see God’s great purposes, we will be awestruck by His goodness and be driven to worship Him, like Naomi and Ruth. It’s not easy to see that promise amid our sufferings. The natural reaction is to rename ourselves Mara from bitterness, as Naomi did when she returned home. For all God’s people, though, the moment of worship comes when we see God’s glory displayed, realizing that His will is always for our good.

The end of the story of Ruth is just one more step in the story of God’s redemption of sinners. In verses 21-22, we read, “And to Salmon was born Boaz, and to Boaz, Obed, and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David.” This David would receive an everlasting covenant of an eternal kingdom, a kingdom His offspring would rule forever and ever.

The story that began with so much tragedy ends with redemption, salvation, promise, hope, and ultimately, with worship. Boaz steps out in faith, jeopardizes his own inheritance, and becomes an ancestor of the Messiah. Ruth, who has proven her faith of the unseen Lord throughout this journey, winds up being a key person in the genealogy of Jesus. In Matthew 1, there are three women listed in Jesus’ genealogy. Two of them are Gentiles. One of them is Ruth.

Steadfast love is rewarded and blessed. It might be inconvenient, risky, and costly. Yet it is always worth it in the end. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection prove this to be true.

Proverbs 20:6 asks a pointed question: “Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, but who can find a trustworthy man?” Many people talk about steadfast love, but few practice it. Many people say they are loyal, kind, and faithful to the end, but most of them aren’t. It’s difficult to find a person of true, faithful, enduring steadfast love. Nevertheless, may we as believers of Jesus Christ be characterized by His steadfast love in a world that desperately needs the hope and promise of salvation.

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Should We Baptize Holy Infants? The Meaning of a Puzzling Passage

By Thomas Schreiner — 5 months ago

One of the more difficult and controversial verses in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 7:14: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy” (NASB 1995). Christians disagree about the implications of this verse for baptizing infant children. But before we enter that discussion, a word should be said about the context and the wider point of the paragraph.

Contagious Holiness

In 1 Corinthians 7:12–16, Paul addresses the question of mixed marriages, marriages in which one spouse is a believer and the other is an unbeliever. If we look at 1 Corinthians 7 as a whole, we see that matters of purity pressed upon the consciences of the Corinthian believers. Because of this, some of them naturally wondered if they should stay in a marriage with an unbeliever. Should a believer remain married to someone who belongs to Satan rather than God, who lives in darkness instead of light, who worships idols instead of the true and living God? Would it not stain believers to have a sexual relationship with someone who hates the Lord Jesus?

Paul’s answer is astonishing. We expect, based on the Old Testament, that he would say the believer would be defiled and stained by such a relationship with an unbeliever. Instead, Paul turns the argument in the opposite direction. The believing spouse isn’t defiled by the unbelieving partner. Quite the opposite! The unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believer. And it doesn’t stop there: the children are holy as well.

We are reminded of Jesus’s relationship with what is unclean. We know from the Old Testament that touching a leper made someone unclean. Yet when Jesus touched the leper, he wasn’t rendered unclean. Instead, cleanness radiated from Jesus, and by healing the leper, Jesus cleansed him. We see something similar in 1 Corinthians 7. The holiness of the believing spouse transfers, at least to some extent, to the unbelieving spouse and to the children of their union.

Sanctified, Not Saved

A question immediately arises, however: What does it mean for an unbelieving spouse and the children of mixed marriages to be holy? Does it mean they are saved by virtue of their relationship with a believing spouse or a believing parent? If unbelieving spouses are sanctified, and the children of such unions are made holy, then it would make sense, on one level, to say they are saved. On the other hand, we know from Scripture’s teaching about salvation that people are not saved by mere association with believers. The Bible teaches plainly and pervasively that we are saved by personal faith in Jesus Christ. We have no basis for thinking that anyone is saved because he or she is married to a believer or the child of a mixed marriage.

In fact, Paul confirms in this very context that the unbelieving spouse isn’t saved merely by being married to a believer. Paul writes, “For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:16). Scholars debate whether this verse is optimistic or pessimistic about the spouse’s potential salvation. I agree with the optimistic view since the main point of this passage is that believing spouses should not forsake marriage to an unbeliever, and thus, Paul gives a motivation to continue in the marriage. At the same time, optimism isn’t the same as a guarantee. Clearly, by being married to a believer, the unbelieving spouse has a greater opportunity for salvation. Still, the unbelieving spouse is not saved simply because he or she is married to a believer.

So, we return to our initial question: What does it mean for an unbelieving spouse to be “sanctified” through the believing spouse? It is hard to be certain! Perhaps all we can say with confidence is that the unbelieving spouse, by being placed in the realm of the holy, has a greater potential for salvation through the believing spouse.

What About Their Children?

You may be wondering by now if I have forgotten the original question of this article. However, the preceding discussion is necessary to understand what it means when Paul says that the children of mixed marriages are holy.

“If there is no reason to baptize unbelieving spouses, there is no reason to baptize unbelieving children.”

Our Presbyterian friends often appeal to this verse in defense of infant baptism. Of course, infant baptism warrants a wider discussion than simply this verse, and readers are encouraged to consult this article by John Piper and Steve Wellum’s chapter on the matter in the book Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ. Nevertheless, it is also important to consider this particular verse since the holiness posited of children here is often adduced as a defense for baptizing infants.

We see here that the children in a marriage are holy. Does this holiness justify baptism? There are no exegetical grounds in the context to think that it does. We noticed earlier that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified through the believing spouse. We also saw that the sanctification of the unbelieving spouse isn’t saving. Since the unbelieving spouse isn’t saved by means of the sanctification described here, there are no grounds for baptizing him or her. In the same way, the holiness of the children doesn’t qualify them for baptism.

Some may find significance in the fact that unbelieving spouses are “sanctified” and the children “holy.” But such an observation doesn’t carry much weight. The words “sanctified” and “holy” are in the same semantic range, and thus the word “holy” doesn’t signify that the children occupy a different realm than unbelieving spouses. To put it simply: if there is no reason to baptize unbelieving spouses, there is no reason to baptize unbelieving children.

In the Realm of the Holy

Paul is not suggesting or encouraging the baptism of infants or children who have not yet come to faith in Christ. Still, this text does offer encouragement for raising yet-to-believe children. They are in the realm of the holy. The presence of a believing parent gives one a greater hope that the child will turn to Christ for salvation. We don’t have a promise or guarantee of salvation, nor does Scripture give grounds for baptism before belief, but having a believing parent means that the child should be repeatedly exposed to the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Infants in a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever should not be baptized since baptism is reserved for those who believe. And yet, neither are such infants defiled and unclean, and in that we have hope.

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God-Centered Children: Teaching Our Kids the Biggest Vision

By John Piper — 5 months ago

We have a mission statement at Desiring God with several lines in it. The last line goes like this: “. . . grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures.” That’s what we exist to be, and that’s what we encourage other ministries to be. So, one of the main reasons I’m here is that I believe Truth78 is one of those ministries — grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures.

When the founders of this ministry, David and Sally Michael, were my colleagues in the ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church (where we served for decades together), this was the glorious impact that they had on me and on the ministry to our children: everything was grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures. They left a legacy not unlike that of John Bunyan.

Spurgeon loved the classic Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. He loved it because it was grounded in, governed by, and saturated with the infallible Christian Scriptures. He said,

[Bunyan read the Bible] till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, “Why, this man is a living Bible!” Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline. The very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the word of God. (Autobiography, 2:159)

God-Centered Discipleship for Children

When David wrote us at Desiring God, asking me to come, he said,

My hope is that John will do what he has always done to validate the significance of faithful, God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, doctrinally grounded, mission-advancing discipleship beginning with the youngest of children.

The key to that long list of hyphenated phrases (that I love) is to realize that the phrase Bible-saturated gives rise to all the others. So, I want to try to pick one of those — namely “God-centered” — and reflect with you about its meaning, its rootedness in the Bible, and how ministry to children sheds light on it. In other words, it’s not only true that being God-centered shapes children’s ministry (which it does), but also that doing ministry to children shapes the way we think about God-centeredness. It goes both ways. Being God-centered shapes the way we do children’s ministry, and doing children’s ministry thoughtfully shapes the way we think about God-centeredness.

Beyond Contextualization

For example, what doing ministry to children clarifies for us is the limits of what’s called contextualization. Contextualization ordinarily means that you bring a truth to a culture or a group and you try to find some idea or practice or language in the group that would help make this truth understandable. Then you put the truth in the terms of something understandable in the target culture, all the while trying not to lose the truth. We all do this, for example, if we go to Germany and we have to use German in order to get our idea across.

But when children are the “target culture,” so to speak, what they make plain is that, to make truth about God understandable, we must do more than connect our ideas with concepts they already have. Because what we discover in their little minds — their glorious, Godlike little minds — is that they don’t yet have sufficient concepts for grasping many biblical realities. So, contextualization proves to be an insufficient method of communication. It’s important but insufficient. What needs to be added is this: concept creation. It’s not the adaptation of biblical reality to already-existing concepts but the actual creation in the mind of new concepts, new structures of thought, new ways of viewing reality.

Children are not unique in this regard. They are just a very special case. The Bible teaches that all human beings, apart from the renewal of the mind that comes through being born again, do not have the categories of mind for seeing reality for what it really is. For example, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says,

The natural person [what we are apart from the transforming effects of the Holy Spirit] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So, every pastor, every Sunday school teacher, and every parent has to deal not only with levels of mental maturity but with levels of spiritual capacity. There are important biblical realities that simply will not fit into the human mind until new concepts, new structures of thought, new ways of viewing reality are created by the Holy Spirit through parents and Sunday school teachers and pastors. This is what I’m calling concept creation. The ministry to children simply makes this necessity crystal clear.

We must so teach, and so pray, as to create categories of thought that don’t yet exist, so that strange and wonderful biblical realities will make sense.

Strange and Wonderful Truth

Let me mention a few of those biblical realities that don’t fit the natural human mind.

1. God rules the world, including the sins of human beings — like Pilate’s expediency, and Herod’s mockery, and the mob’s “Crucify him,” and the soldiers’ brutality (Acts 4:27–28) — yet in such a way that God does not sin as he governs sin.

2. God governs all the steps of all people, both good and bad, at all times and in all places, yet such that everyone is accountable before him and will bear the just consequences of his wrath if they do not believe in Christ.

3. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures, divine and human, such that he upheld the world by the word of his power while living in his mother’s womb.

4. The death of the one God-man, Jesus Christ, so displayed and glorified the righteousness of God that God is not unrighteous to declare righteous ungodly people who simply believe in Christ.

These kinds of mind-boggling, category-shattering truths demand our best thought and our most creative labors — especially when trying to communicate them to children (or at least to prepare children to someday be able to grasp them).

Biblical Defibrillator

Here is the way all this relates to my focus on God-centeredness. As I have tried to make a case for God-centered everything over the past fifty years, what I have found is that many Christians simply take that concept and fit it comfortably into their already-existing mental framework. They do not see how explosively contrary it is to things they hold dear but are in fact mistaken or out of proportion.

“Being God-centered shapes the way we do children’s ministry.”

I look at what the people do in worship, or preaching, or counseling, or teaching, or curriculum development for children, and I realize they don’t mean what I mean. They don’t mean what I mean by God-centeredness. It’s not having the same outcome. The phrase “God-centered” is fitting into a concept they already have, and it’s not the same as mine. I’m really not communicating.

So, I have felt that something more is needed here if communication is really going to happen. I really do need not just contextualization but concept creation. The reality I see is being adapted to another view of reality and being lost in the process, while the terminology remains the same.

What do you do to build into a person’s mind (adult or child) a reality that isn’t there? One strategy that I have used for many years is to state the reality I’m trying to communicate in such a shocking (and yet true) way that it requires either rejection or the biblical remaking of some part of the mind.

Let’s take our theme, God-centeredness, as an example. To awaken people to what I mean by God-centeredness, I have regularly used the phrase God’s God-centeredness. That phrase has a double effect. First, it’s strange: people have not used it. And second, it’s troubling: they don’t like it. Why is that? Because it implies that God does what he forbids us to do — namely, exalt himself and make himself central. It forces people to ask whether it might be right for God to do this but wrong for us to do it. And why might that be? And that is a very fruitful question. That might take us to glorious discoveries. Even our children will be troubled by the fact that God does things he tells us not to do.

So, what I’m trying to do is to create a concept, a view of reality called God’s God-centeredness, that does not yet exist in people’s minds (or in a child’s mind), so that when it takes root as fully biblical and beautiful, it makes all God-centeredness as radical as it really is.

Tour of Concept Creation

So, come with me, if you will, on a short biblical tour of how I have tried to do this kind of concept creation. This is what we have to do with our teachers in children’s ministry so that there is a trickle-down effect for the children as gifted teachers find age-appropriate ways of creating concepts in their minds.

There are about four stations on this tour.

Station 1: Awakening Through Provocation

I start with a provocative, shake-you-out-of-your-slumbers quiz to force people to face the issue of whether they will say God is God-centered or not. These questions could be adapted for different age groups, even for children.

Question 1: What is the chief end of God?
Answer 1: The chief end of God is to glorify God and to enjoy magnifying his glory forever.
Question 2: Who is the most God-centered person in the universe?
Answer 2: God.
Question 3: Who is uppermost in God’s affections?
Answer 3: God.
Question 4: Is God an idolater?
Answer 4: No, he has no other gods before him.
Question 5: What is God’s chief jealousy?
Answer 5: God’s chief jealousy is to be known, admired, trusted, obeyed, and enjoyed above all others.
Question 6: Is your enjoyment of the love of God mainly owing to the fact that he makes much of you, or is it mainly that he frees you to enjoy making much of him forever?

I press on these unusual questions because if we are God-centered simply because we believe God is man-centered, then our God-centeredness is in reality man-centeredness. But pressing the reality of God’s God-centeredness forces the issue of whether we treasure God because of his excellence or mainly because he endorses ours.

So, now people are agitated. The concept of God-centeredness isn’t fitting so neatly into their minds as they thought it would. They are troubled by the possibility that a way of thinking they’ve never dealt with might be true — namely, God’s God-centeredness.

Station 2: Validation Through Scripture

Now we flood the mind with Scripture about God’s God-centeredness. God’s eternal, radical, ultimate commitment to his own self-exaltation permeates the Bible. God’s aim to be exalted, glorified, admired, magnified, praised, reverenced, trusted, and enjoyed as a supreme treasure is seen to be the ultimate goal of all creation, all providence, and all saving acts. What I have found is that the following litany of God’s God-centeredness proves overwhelming to people, either winning them or losing them. Many professing Christians bury their heads in the sand of their own theological preferences and ignore the clear teaching of Scripture. But here’s what we find:

1. “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:5–6 my translation).

2. God created the natural world to display his glory: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

3. “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3).

4. “He saved them [at the Red Sea] for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power” (Psalm 106:7–8).

5. “I acted [in the wilderness] for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations” (Ezekiel 20:14).

6. After the people sinfully ask for a king, Samuel says, “Do not be afraid. . . . For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:20–22).

7. “Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act [in bringing you back from the exile], but for the sake of my holy name. . . . And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name . . . And the nations will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 36:22–23).

8. “[Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

9. “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that . . . every tongue [should] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

10. “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake” (Isaiah 43:25).

11. “Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Peter 4:11).

12. “Immediately an angel of the Lord struck [Herod] down, because he did not give God the glory” (Acts 12:23).

13. “. . . when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:10).

14. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24).

15. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Now, this Bible bath of God’s God-centeredness (God’s relentless self-exaltation) often creates a crisis, because people do not yet have a category for how God can be so self-exalting and still be loving.

Station 3: Clarity Through Objections

God’s God-centeredness is not megalomania because, unlike our self-exaltation, God’s self-exaltation draws attention to what gives us the greatest and longest joy — namely, himself — while our self-exaltation lures people away from the one thing that can satisfy their souls: the infinite worth and beauty of God in Christ. When God exalts himself, he is loving us. He is showing and offering the one thing that can satisfy our souls forever — namely, God.

Listen to how Jesus prays for us in his last hours in John 17: “He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you . . .’” (John 17:1).

“Don’t underestimate how the Holy Spirit can use God-centered teachers to build glorious concepts into children’s minds.”

He’s asking God to glorify God by glorifying the Son. Then in John 17:24, he prays for us and draws us into this glory: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.”

Lest we think we might see him in his glory and not be able to love him and enjoy him as fully as we ought, he adds this prayer in John 17:26: “[I pray, Father, that] the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” In other words, “When they see my glory, grant them to love and enjoy it (me) with the very love and joy that you’ve had in me from all eternity.”

This is God’s radical and loving God-centeredness. And to receive it requires a profound, Holy Spirit–given concept creation, not just the adaptation of a biblical reality to a fallen, man-centered mind.

If a person has the greatest treasure in the world, and he wants to share it, most people would embrace that person as loving. But if a Person is the greatest treasure in the world, and he wants to share it, many people will reject him as an egomaniac. For that to change, the mind must be renewed. God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the most loving act, since love offers what is supremely and eternally satisfying — namely, God.

Station 4: Awakening to Happiness

If God is merciful in shaping this new mental framework that we have seen in the Bible, people awaken to the fact that the pursuit of their happiness in God is, in fact, the fulfillment of God’s purpose to be magnified. God exalts himself as the all-satisfying treasure of the universe, and we magnify that greatness by, in fact, being supremely satisfied with him. God’s pursuit of his glory and our pursuit of joy turn out to be the same pursuit.

This is what Christ died for. First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ . . . suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” And what does he intend for us to find when we are brought to God as the greatest treasure in the universe? Psalm 16:11 says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Children can get this. Don’t underestimate how the Holy Spirit can use God-centered teachers to build glorious concepts into their minds. You say to the first and second graders in your class,

Let me tell you a story about two brothers. One brother was sixteen years old and the other was just your age. He was seven. The younger brother liked his older brother a lot. He liked him so much that nothing made him happier than to spend time with his big brother. He would rather be with his big brother doing things together than anything else.

Now, the big brother knew this. He knew that he was the greatest treasure in his little brother’s life. He knew that he had great value in his little brother’s eyes. So, on his little brother’s birthday, he gave him a box about the size of a shoebox. In the box was a note that the older brother had written. His younger brother opened it and read,

Here’s a gift to make you glad,Nothing wrong, and nothing sad.The best I have, I’m sure you’ll see:A fishing trip, just you and me.

Then you ask the kids in your class, “Do you think the older brother was bragging when he said that the best gift he could give his little brother was to give him a whole day of fishing with his big brother?”

The need is very great for the next generation to be rescued as early as possible from the natural man-centeredness with which we are born.

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The Glorious Christ Presents Rich Insights about Christ from Puritan John Owen

By TFL — 5 months ago

Alistair often reminds us that some of the most challenging portions of Scripture to study are those we’re most familiar with. We may also find this to be true in our study of Jesus Himself. The Glorious Christ: Meditations on His Person, Work, and Love will take you deep into the character and saving power of Jesus so that you can reflect on His glory and majesty.

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What Is the Church (and Who’s in It)?

By TFL — 5 months ago

What is the church? For many, the word church conjures up images of steepled buildings, stodgy services, and stuffy men in collars. It is an object of mistrust for others, full of cruel hypocrites. For some, it’s a hobby that some people enjoy to little consequence—“all so harmless, so gentle, so proper.” For others still, it’s simply bizarre.

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The Evangelistic Shift

By Jake Meador — 5 months ago

Once the issue of trans identities arose, an openness to traditional Christian accounts became more costly….The social costs for progressive non-Christians of simply expressing an openness to or curiosity about traditional forms of Christian belief became much higher.

When I first started writing online in the early 2010s, most of what you might term the evangelistic openness I saw in media culture was coming from the political or cultural center-left.
A columnist at the New York Times came to faith.
A religion writer from Vox did as well.
Additionally, there were editors at both Vox and the New Yorker who were part of PCA or ACNA congregations. A number of other prominent writers in elite media seemed open to faith.
I remember hearing one such figure, now at the Times with quite a large platform, interview all three of Rod Dreher, Michael Brendan Dougherty, and Patrick Deneen within about a 12 month stretch in the late 2010s. Hearing some of his questions, particularly in his conversation with Dougherty, had me genuinely wondering if he was close to conversion.
This was also, of course, the tail end of Tim Keller’s ministry at Redeemer. Given Keller’s success as a church planter and ecosystem builder in New York and given New York’s significance culturally, much of this era may well be tied up in Keller’s presence and Redeemer’s ministry.
Yet if you look around today, something has shifted: To my eyes there is very little evangelistic openness in the center-left world. There are still plenty of Christians to be found, but virtually all of them that come to mind for me are not adult converts and came from Christian backgrounds.
But if you look at the right or the reactionary ends of the political horseshoe where right and left begin to converge, the picture is quite different: Jordan Peterson’s wife is now Catholic. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a one-time new atheist who did events with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, is a Christian. So is Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw.
Meanwhile, figures like Tom Holland and Douglas Murray and Bari Weiss all seem, to varying degrees, interested in Christian faith in a way that goes beyond mere intellectual curiosity.
Moreover, as younger Americans politically polarize by gender, with men tending toward the right and women toward the left, those trends seem to also align with young men going to church in growing numbers even as young women continue to dechurch.
It would be a mistake to suggest this is happening because Christianity itself is “right wing.” In the first place, defining “right wing” is itself a fraught project—is it the “right wing” politics of Dwight Eisenhower or Mussolini? The politics of Reagan or George W. Bush or the politics of Orban or Meloni? Or should we range further afield—what about the “right wing” of D’Annunzio or Disraeli? “Right wing” conceals as much as it reveals in such conversations.
In the second place, one can easily think of any number of political positions one could plausibly assign to the right that do not align at all with historic Christianity. (Matthew Rose’s A World After Liberalism is the essential book to read on this.)
So what accounts for this shift and how should Christians respond?
The answer to the first question might be surprisingly simple: The shift dates back to the growing awareness, acceptance, and promotion of transgender sexual identities in mainstream American culture. This shift, dating to the mid 2010s and probably peaking in the early 2020s, did two things that fundamentally changed the evangelistic landscape for Christians in America. (I know some will argue that the real shift has to do with “wokeness” more than it does trans issues specifically. I don’t find this altogether persuasive both because I think one can disambiguate the different parts of the “woke” package and because I think issues of sexuality strike at the vitals of Christian belief and practice in uniquely complicated and challenging ways.)
The Mid 2010s Evangelistic Shift
First, as acceptance of transgender identities became a litmus test for the American left, the conflict between left wing political ideology and Christianity was redefined and intensified. A left wing media figure in 2015 might be able to signal friendliness to conservative post-liberals, for example, both as a sign of sincere desire to understand the appeal of Donald Trump and as an openness to alternative theories of American social collapse. Social breakdown was, after all, a long-standing concern of many on the American left dating back decades and certainly well-established by the early 2000s when works like Nickel and Dimed and Bowling Alone hit American bookstores.
But once the issue of trans identities arose, an openness to traditional Christian accounts became more costly: Christianity was no longer seen as a plausible conversation partner with left-wing political concerns around public justice. Instead, it became regarded as a threat to the lives of transgender individuals that made it impossible for trans people to publicly exist as their authentic selves. The social costs for progressive non-Christians of simply expressing an openness to or curiosity about traditional forms of Christian belief became much higher, in other words.
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Further Thoughts on Political Discussions in Christian Forums: A Series of Incomplete, Unscientific, but Hopefully Helpful Reflections

By Tom Hervey — 5 months ago

If you believe a response is justified, let your first aim be to vindicate Christ’s honor, not that of yourself or your preferred candidate, party, or position. It is he who is most wronged when his forums are turned from a concern with his will to earthly affairs which distract from his redemptive kingly reign in the hearts of his people. This means that the main point should be objecting to others being political, not per se how they were political, and that bringing reasons why one might disagree is foremost a means to that end.

In a previous article I wrote about discussing politics in Christian forums, doing so in the abstract and in reference to a rather obscure example; and in so doing I was compelled to violate the very principles I announced. Space prevented further consideration, but there is more to be said, as some correspondents thought that I did not give the subject sufficient treatment. One said that I had said what not to do, but not what to do; an all too frequent problem in popular Christian ethics, to be sure. Another correspondent thought I had almost argued that we are to be silent in the face of the evils that afflict our nation, and before people who have no qualms being political to our harm. It was felt that I had so much made the faith a matter of spiritual concern as to have no bearing on our lives as temporal citizens. Those are serious objections, and I am pleased my correspondents brought them, for I am dependent on such correspondence to know how my thoughts are perceived by others. And how I intend them and how they are actually perceived do not always align, so for a few clarifications.
By a Christian forum, I meant any forum whose stated purpose is to advance the knowledge of Christ, be that forum ecclesiastical or parachurch in nature. I except personal blogs, podcasts, and other more informal things that claim to consider other things besides questions of our faith. By politics I meant the civil (legal, administrative) affairs of civil polities, that is, governments and their citizens. I did not mean ecclesiastical politics, nor comments on civil affairs that are moral in character.
Romans 13 tells us how to interact with civil authorities, which has some effect on our politics. Is a minister who expounds the meaning of that passage being political? Not in the sense that I meant. He is giving doctrinal and moral instruction, and doing so that believers may act in a manner that is conducive to peace, does not invite persecution, and is a testimony to the life in Christ that will hopefully commend it to unbelievers. He declares it for the benefit of the church and for unbelievers as neighbors; it is not an act in partisan political competition. That is different from saying ‘vote for candidate A’ from the pulpit. That would be political and inappropriate. Again, by ‘politics’ I meant a direct involvement in civil affairs – advocating this law or that party – not something that has an indirect effect on it, and whose main character and purpose is moral/doctrinal/faith-related.
I also left exceptions for when we are directly attacked and for moral matters in which there is a clear Christian position. If there is a sickness outbreak and casinos are left open but churches closed by law, an obvious injustice that makes claims of public health so much hypocrisy, by all means protest as Christians, both to the authorities and in Christian forums. And in matters in which there is a clear Christian position, I see no wrong in it being published in Christian outlets or from the pulpit. Murder is wrong, for example, and dueling involves such, hence we have historically opposed dueling. More contemporary examples would be infanticide, abortion, euthanasia, etc.
That exception, while appropriate, also invites the question of ‘who decides what is a matter with a clear Christian position?’ Assuming we agree on principles, who is to say whether an agreed principle requires a given application? We all agree the shedding of innocent blood (Prov. 6:17) is wrong. And I think we all agree that commends denouncing dueling, for dueling is indefensible, a matter of personal pride when insulted rather than public or private justice. There is a clear link between principle and application there.
What about when that link is not clear, when things are a matter of tradeoffs between imperfect options that carry both good and bad consequences? There is a clear Christian position on dueling. There is not a clear Christian position on form of government (representative v. monarchical), type of economy (agrarian v. industrial), or many of the particulars of criminal justice (how the courts work, policing tactics, etc.). Our faith has principles that can be brought to bear on that last question, such as that punishment should be proportionate to offenses punished (Ex. 21:23-25), corruption guarded against (23:8), trials fair with suitable evidentiary procedures (Deut. 19:15), etc. But how we implement those principles might vary, especially where our circumstances differ.
I think the legislature should not prescribe the particulars of law enforcement’s defensive tactics (i.e., how they physically restrain combative suspects), and that such questions are best answered by the people who actually have to use said techniques against wrongdoers who are trying to beat them unconscious or flee, rather than by office-dwelling politicians who have never faced such circumstances. The state where I live disagrees, forbidding certain holds to be employed in the restraint of suspects (SC Code 23-1-250). I think that’s mistaken, but I do not conclude that the legislators who profess faith who voted for said law are therefore to be accounted false professors of our faith. It’s a civil disagreement, not a question of orthodoxy or sincerity in the faith, and while it presumably has an effect on how well police are able to do their jobs, I don’t see where it would be appropriate to the mission of this outlet for me to write an extended article arguing why SC Code 23-1-250 should be abolished.
In saying this I touch another thing which some people felt I did not give sufficient consideration before, which is that I take it for granted that it is permissible for believers to engage in politics in general, and in other forums besides the church and Christian outlets. I shouldn’t write an article critiquing SC 23-1-250 for The Aquila Report or ask my local session to petition the state legislature to repeal it. But I can write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper doing so, or can write the head of the state house’s public safety committee to urge him to vote for its repeal. Again, I objected to politics in Christian forums, not Christians in political forums. Most of my action on this is private (direct correspondence), rather than public, but I am somewhat politically engaged myself, though one might not know it from my public writing at this outlet.
But I believe in respecting the proper time and place for such things, and Christian forums are not the right time or place. Political forums (or other means of political action) are. That was the substance of my previous argument, that bringing civil politics into Christian forums represented an intrusion where they do not belong, a trammeling the proper boundaries between faith-based outlets and civil-political ones in which the faith-based was made political much more than the political was sanctified.
(Before proceeding, let me point out that this is not limited to politics, and that many other matters do not belong in Christian forums: this is not the place to advance a critique of this or that school of art, recommend rule changes to college basketball, interject literary criticism, share recipes for chess pie, or otherwise intrude artistic, athletic, entertainment, scientific, or various other matters that distract from Christ’s gospel. Those are all fine things, in their proper place—and this isn’t it.)
Now granting that there are exceptions for moral matters and for when we are directly assailed, and granting that Christian liberty and Christ’s lordship over the rest of our lives permit us to be political in the proper forums, there does arise a further, rather rankling question: what do you do when other people drag politics into Christian forums? May you defend your own position if you disagree, lest people mistake the published opinion for the Christian one? I believe the answer is yes, but with some hefty caveats.
One, there is a time for all things (Eccl. 3), so it is sometimes best to let a matter pass without criticism, even when you think it is wrong. “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Prov. 19:11); “love covers all offenses” (10:12); and “the beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out” (17:14). If you believe the person who did it is a brother, it may be best, for sake of concord, to forebear his wrong in being political (and perhaps being wrong politically too) in a Christian forum (Gal. 5:15).
Two, if you believe a response is justified, let your first aim be to vindicate Christ’s honor, not that of yourself or your preferred candidate, party, or position. It is he who is most wronged when his forums are turned from a concern with his will to earthly affairs which distract from his redemptive kingly reign in the hearts of his people. This means that the main point should be objecting to others being political, not per se how they were political, and that bringing reasons why one might disagree is foremost a means to that end.
Three, recognize that once you engage politically it is easy to get carried away with it. When a Presbyterian elder implied that evangelicals who support Israel were selling their souls, I sought to rebut the slander, both of God’s people and of the Israeli people. In so doing I was compelled to consider technical questions like the blast area of 500 lb. bombs. It doesn’t take too much of that before your initial purpose gets lost in the weeds. Just as reading theology (especially polemics) ought to be abetted by a larger portion of scripture, prayer, and the other means of grace, so also should a political disagreement lead you back to God, lest it loom too large in your mind.
Four, while vindicating Christ’s honor ought to be our main concern, we do have the right to vindicate our own rights. It is best to respect the conscience of the weaker brother where we can (Rom. 14), but it is possible that our interlocutor is not a brother but a sly false teacher trying to subvert the faith to worldly purposes; and even where we think he is sincere (or can’t tell), it is not right for someone else to say that being a believer requires adhering to a debatable position. If a teetotaler says that our faith requires both personal abstention from alcoholic beverages as well as petitioning the government to prohibit them, I reserve the right to disagree, especially when he twists scripture (‘Jesus made grape juice, not wine’), implicitly slanders me for disagreeing, or says things in Jesus’s name that are simply ridiculous and false (‘beer is the devil’s brew,’ which openly contradicts 1 Tim. 4:4-5).
Five, those who are right ought to take the moral high ground and keep above mudslinging. Strong words are one thing; personal nastiness quite another. Even when we call a spade a spade we ought to be as honorable and charitable as we can.
The moral is: be slow to fight (Jas. 1:19), avoid it when you can, and disagree in a measured way that is balanced by other concerns. That said, there is a need for people to insist that politics be kept out of Christian forums at present, for intrusions are frequent and many of those that do it seem oblivious to what they are doing. There is behind this a matter of great import which I have not the space to consider here and that deserves its own treatment, namely that what appears to be only political is at root a clash between competing, all-encompassing worldviews. But a consideration of that requires a future article. Till then render unto Caesar, but not where you ought to render only unto God.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation.

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A Key Discipline: Observe Without Judgment

By Tim Challies — 5 months ago

One of the great privileges of my life has been worshipping with Christians all around the world. As I travel, I always try to prioritize Sunday mornings with a local church, and that’s true whether it is in North America or North Africa and whether it worships in English or another language. And while I’m always especially interested in worshipping with a church that is Reformed and Baptist like my own, I am also glad to worship in any of the gospel-preaching Protestant traditions. And so I’ve spent Sunday mornings with Baptist and Presbyterian congregations, Brethren and Anglican congregations, Christian Missionary Alliance and Dutch Reformed congregations, and many more besides.
It can be jarring to worship in a church that adheres to an unfamiliar tradition. Customs may be strange and patterns may differ from what I am accustomed to. And it is at the point of such differences that I immediately find myself tempted to pass judgment. After all, my tradition and my church have thought deeply and come to firm convictions about the elements and circumstances of our worship. Everything we include and everything we exclude has been carefully considered. My first instinct, then, is to assume that other churches have not thought well about these matters or perhaps not thought about them at all. My instinct is to assume that a church is faithful to Scripture only to the degree that it is similar to own.
But I have learned that a crucial discipline when visiting other like-minded churches is to observe without judgment. It is to observe quietly and humbly and then, when appropriate, to ask clarifying questions. And more often than not, I have been encouraged and even challenged by these clarifications. This is true whether the church has been around the corner or around the world.
In one church I looked at the bulletin and saw a woman listed there as a pastor. This surprised me because I had been under the impression that this church was complementarian. As I observed further, I saw that several other positions also listed a female pastor. A clarifying question helped it make sense. In this country, they use “minister” or “ministry” where we use “pastor.” Hence, they were every bit as complementarian as my own church but simply use different nomenclature. Their “women’s pastor” is our “women’s ministry leader.” I was glad that I had withheld judgment.
In another church, I immediately noticed that the men and women split up when they entered the sanctuary so that men sat on one side with women on the other. This cuts hard against my own cultural understanding of the equality of men and women. But when I asked, I was told that separating the sexes in formal settings is normal in this culture and that it would be a significant hindrance to evangelism if men and women were to sit side by side. Men and women alike would be uncomfortable sitting pressed together. I was glad I had withheld judgment.
I have attended churches whose services included an element of dance. This was not interpretive dance or dancing in the Spirit, but a style that was obviously celebratory. I learned that in these cultures no celebration is complete without a dance and that it would be more scandalous to omit one than to have one. They also explained their understanding of Scripture to show their conviction that even while God does not demand this kind of dance, he also does not forbid it. Once more, I was glad that I had been slow to judge.
In still another, I attended a prayer meeting in which every person prayed at the same time—hundreds of voices crying out to the Lord at once. In my setting, we apply the biblical admonition that “all things should be done decently and in order” to mean that one person prays at a time and then ends his or her prayer with a hearty “amen.” This then signals that someone else can begin to pray. But a church in which everyone prayed at the same time struck me as chaotic and disorderly. Yet when I asked, I was told that this church arose out of a time of revival and that the kind of fervent prayer that birthed the church has forever remained present in the church. Not only that but the prayer meetings are carefully organized and led—just in a different way from my own setting. As I continued to observe, I felt a growing appreciation for that kind of prayer and was thankful that I had been slow to judge.
I have been in churches in which I was told they have female pastors but then learned that something had been lost in translation so that what they called pastors actually function as what I would term deacons. I have been in churches in which women were not permitted to participate in certain elements of the service that I believe are open to all believers but received a helpful explanation of why such public participation would be inappropriate in that culture. And, as it happens, I have been in churches in which women were permitted to participate in elements of the service that I believe are restricted to pastors but received a helpful explanation of why they believe such participation honors Scripture. I could go on and on.
I might not agree with all of these decisions even after gaining the necessary interpretive facts, but in every case, I have had an opportunity to learn and to grow in my respect for other Christians and the way they’ve wrestled through the issues and come to their decisions. And so, because my tendency is always to judge before carefully observing, I have trained myself instead to observe without judgment. It has become a key discipline as I visit other churches and join them in worship.

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Withholding Nothing

By Bill Elliff — 5 months ago

What are the limits of my faith? Where will I stop when God instructs me to take a hard step?…To even suffer so that His life and sufficiency in me can be more brilliantly displayed for all the world to see?

He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”Genesis 22:12
The great measure of our spiritual life is how far we are willing to trust God.

If we don’t believe in God’s character, we will never trust Him with anything.
If we are tentative or somewhat unsure of His character and goodness, we may trust Him in some areas, but there is a limit. If that is so, then there is a limit to how greatly God can use us.
But if we are fully convinced of God’s goodness, integrity and faithfulness, we will be willing to withhold nothing from Him in faith. These are the men and women who are most greatly used by God.

This was Abraham’s experience. Abraham’s faith was not built overnight. After a long life of walking with God, He came to the ultimate test. God asked him, now over 100 years old, to take the son he’d waited for all his life and sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah (the same mountain, by the way, where God’s son would later be crucified).
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