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Why Is Baptism a Means of Grace?

By Nick Batzig — 5 months ago

Many refer to baptism as “an outward sign of an inward profession of faith.” While professing believers and their children certainly receive baptism as a mark of discipleship (Matt. 28:18–20; 1 Cor. 7:14) in obedience to Jesus, the covenant sign is not first and foremost pointing to something we have done. Rather, it is the sign that points to what God has promised to do in Christ by the Spirit. Coming to a settled understanding of this is vital if we are to understand how baptism functions as a means of grace.

A Christian family once approached the late Dr. John Gerstner and asked him to baptize their newborn child. As the time approached for the ceremony, the mother of the child asked if they could hold off until she could get the baby a white gown for the service. Gerstner asked the mother what the significance of the white gown was. The mother replied, “To symbolize the baby’s innocence.” Gerstner replied, “If the baby is innocent, then why are we baptizing him?” This anecdote captures something of the widespread confusion about the nature of baptism.
Many view baptism as a mere religious and ceremonial formality. Others invest far too much efficacy to the outward act of baptism, suggesting that it imparts saving grace to every recipient. The truth is that baptism is both a simple act and a complex act. It is simple in that it is a ceremonial washing in the name of the triune God, instituted by the Lord Jesus to be a mark of discipleship. It is complex regarding the precise meaning of its nature, its subjects, and its efficacy. To come to a right understanding of how baptism works in the lives of God’s people, we first need to consider the nature of the act of baptism.
Baptism, like its old covenant counterpart, circumcision, is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace (Rom. 4:11), pointing to the promise of the credited righteousness of God by faith in Christ. It is a sign insomuch as it points beyond itself to the promised regeneration of the Holy Spirit and cleansing by the blood of Christ. It is a seal by which God affirms the truth of this promise to professing believers and their children. Christian baptism is a divinely appointed sign and seal of God’s covenant promises. This, in turn, makes baptism a means of grace.
When considering baptism as a means of grace, we must first recognize it to be a divine act. The triune God applies this sign and seal to His people in the new covenant. Many erroneously view baptism, first and foremost, as a sign of something they have done (i.e., a sign of the act of their own profession of personal faith in Christ).
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The Greatest Gift My Father Gave Me

By Kyle Grant — 5 months ago

To be a parent is to be a teacher. Have times of both organized and organic Biblical learning in your home. This isn’t novel stuff, but simple steps in accomplishing a miraculous source in the life of our children, cultivating the Word of God to keep them walking in the wisdom of God.

One of the greatest gifts my father ever gave me was the treasure of Proverbs. He challenged my older brother and I to read the book ten times over the summer and be ready to discuss it when school started up again, which would’ve been my brother’s junior and my sophomore year of high school. The words of wisdom and warnings of folly regularly ring in my heart because of my father’s intentional wisdom to immerse us in the book.
Proverbs helpfully addresses significant specific topics, true friendship, hard work, the pursuit of a spouse, wise speech, foolish sexuality, and beyond. It’s immensely practical and life-giving but foreboding and enigmatic. Yet in its most basic form, it’s a parenting book, and even more specifically, it’s a book on fatherhood. It is powerful paternal poetry.
The phrase “my son” or a similar phrase appears approximately 25 times in the book. The paternal instruction is primarily given by Solomon, but not exclusively. The book aims to make little children into wise adults. We should live in this book, for by it, our children may live.
Important Clarification
Bear in mind this is wisdom literature not didactic doctrine. Therefore, we should read Proverbs as probabilities not promises. This doesn’t mean Proverbs is a lesser tier of Scripture, merely different in genre and intent.
I have been asked, usually related to the discipline passages (Prov. 13:24; 22:15; 29:15 eg.), if this doesn’t guarantee success, is applying Proverbs necessary or even relevant? Counter question, if this is God’s wisdom to you, why would you want to do it any other way? If this is God’s wisdom to us it is our folly to reject it.
Instructional Parents
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, (Proverbs 1:8)
Note the roles in the verse. The son is the listener and mom and dad are apparently giving instruction worthy of attention. This means fundamentally that a wise home is characterized by teachable children and teaching parents.
Let’s talk teaching. Are you teaching your little ones, or merely telling? Teaching here involves the why and basis for the wisdom (note the preceding verses 1-7). Telling is concerned with the command and result, but teaching is concerned with the command and motivation. Wise parents are teaching parents.
How then do we teach this wisdom? To teach the wisdom of God we must teach them the Word of God.
Can I give you two categories for teaching the Word in your home?
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Parents, Know and Defend Your Rights

By Kristen Waggoner — 5 months ago

The Wailes and Roller families recently joined with another family to enlist the legal help of Alliance Defending Freedom. They filed a lawsuit against JeffCo for refusing to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, thus hampering the rights of parents to make informed decisions about their children’s upbringing, education, and privacy. At the core of the school district’s policy that allows this egregious behavior is the idea that the government can raise kids better than parents.

When Joe and Serena Wailes allowed their 11-year-old daughter to attend a trip to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., sponsored by their public school district, they were told she would room with three other fifth grade girls. It wasn’t until their daughter was in her room getting ready for bed on the first night of the trip that she discovered she would share a bed with a boy who self-identified as a girl.
Bret and Susanne Roller live in the same school district in Colorado, Jefferson County Public Schools, locally known as “JeffCo.” When they sent their 11-year-old son on a sixth grade camping trip known as Outdoor Lab, they were told their son would be in a cabin with six to 30 other boys, including a male high school counselor. It wasn’t until their son was in the mountains—away from home and without any means of communication—that he realized the school district had lied. His 18-year-old counselor was not male but was instead a “non-binary” female.
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A La Carte (October 14)

By Tim Challies — 5 months ago

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
Today’s Kindle deals include several excellent commentaries (including Kent Hughes on Romans and James Hamilton on Revelation) and an important book by Mark Dever.

“In a world that is ever changing and changing for the worse, what a joy that we serve a God who does not change. Indeed, a God who cannot change. Why? Simply because perfection cannot be improved upon. If God changed for the worse, He would then cease to be perfect and by extension cease to be God. Alternatively, if God changed for the better this would then mean that He corrected some lack in His being that mandated moral improvement, suggesting He was at some time or another in a state of imperfection, and thus, no God at all.”

Trevin Wax expresses his appreciation for Elisabeth Elliot on the basis of some new biographical information. “In this telling, there’s no halo over Elisabeth’s head, no smoothing out all the rough spots. Austen’s admiration for her subject comes through, but the way she shows respect for Elisabeth is by refusing to sugarcoat the challenges that arose or ignore the doubts that hovered over her hardest years.”

Meanwhile, Vance Christie writes about Adoniram Judson and uses him as an example of someone who deconstructed his faith but then repented.

Paul Tripp recently invited me to be a guest on his long-form podcast. You can watch it at this link or listen to it on all the major podcast apps.

It’s a mystery that good churches so often send out bad missionaries.

The most important parts of this article come in the last couple of paragraphs where Justin explains the difference good theology makes.

While I’m a master at identifying the sin in other people, I’m a mere novice at identifying the sin in myself. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

Guard your thoughts, and there will be little fear about your actions.
—J.C. Ryle

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Wholly Spirit, Wholly You: The Real Adventure of Life in Christ

By Clinton Manley — 5 months ago

Quest stories captivate us. Whether it’s Bilbo’s journey there and back again or Dante’s ascent to Paradise or Reepicheep’s voyage to find the utter East — we find the pilgrimage narrative irresistible, especially if the road teems with adventure and the hero is transformed into someone lovely. There is a reason The Odyssey has fired man’s imagination for three millennia, a long homeward trek past temptations and monsters innumerable.

We were made to go to God, the Home for our souls, made to enjoy God more and more forever, to really live. And the only way to get there is by following the Way crossing the only Bridge that brings us to God (John 14:6; 1 Peter 3:18). And we can only walk that Way when God’s own breath fills our lungs and animates our steps, when his Spirit sets us walking in a new direction as new creations on new adventures.

We love quests (at least in part) because we were made for a Godward quest led by God’s Spirit. And we can trace the contours of that sojourn by attending to the Spirit’s work in Romans 8. Abraham Kuyper rightly observed, “The Holy Spirit leaves no footprints in the sand.” But those led by the Spirit certainly do.

New Direction

In Romans 8:4, Paul divides the world into just two groups: those who walk according to the flesh and those who walk according to the Spirit. That’s it. Either the flesh directs you or the Spirit does. You are walking according to one power or the other.

Of course, walk is a metaphor, so what does it mean? The emphasis of walk falls not on pace but on direction. Picture a path. One way, the path leads up and into life. The other way leads down and down to death. All people move on this path, and eventually, they will get where they are going — either to life or to death.

Without the Spirit, death draws us like flies to filth. The pull is imperious, inexorable, irresistible. As sons of wrath, we march the wide way to death, following the course of this world, in lockstep with the discordant beat of sin’s siren call (Ephesians 2:1–3). In Eden, our first father forfeited the way of life, setting the feet of all his sons trudging ever downward. The world still rings with the clink, clink, clink of shackled feet chained to sin by choice and blood, making the trek to death. Can you hear it? Do you remember the sound of your own chosen chains?

But the Spirit breaks our bondage. He sets us free from the power of sin and death (Romans 8:2). He snaps the dark enchantment. He breathes life into those who walk in death. He wholly reroutes our hearts, puts us on the path to forever pleasures and full joys, and sets our feet dancing to his rhythm (Psalm 16:11; Galatians 5:25). The Spirit gets us walking in a new direction.

This “new way of the Spirit” leads us into the abundant life Jesus promised (Romans 7:6; John 10:10). We can begin even now to roam the garden paths of Eden — to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). What was lost then, Christians increasingly enjoy now. God with us is realized by God in us. As Tom Schreiner writes, “The future deliverance from death has invaded the present world in the death and resurrection of Christ” (Romans, 294). The life the Father planned and the Son purchased the Spirit guides us into.

As New Creations

But this new direction results from a deeper change wrought by the Spirit. New direction comes from new creation. Who you are determines where you are going. The NASB captures this new way of being:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5)

We were in the flesh; now we are in the Spirit. We were dead in trespasses; now we are alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1–5). We were stonehearted; now we are softhearted (Ezekiel 36:26). We were enemies; now we are reconciled (Romans 5:10). In short, we were one kind of creature; now we are new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Spirit as “the Lord, the giver of life,” effects this change from the Father through the Son.

“The life the Father planned and the Son purchased the Spirit guides us into.”

And our new direction is evidence of our new creation (and no condemnation, Romans 8:1–2). The fleshly person does not and cannot please God (Romans 8:7–8). But the Spirit-led person can and will please him. Leading reveals lineage (Romans 8:14). Sons of Adam follow the flesh to death. The Spirit leads sons of God to life. Direction reveals desires. If the flesh rules, you will gratify its desires. But if the Spirit governs you, his desires will be yours (Galatians 5:16–17).

Just as a compass can be corrupted so that it no longer points north, the soul without the Spirit does not orient to God. Indeed, it cannot! It hates God (Romans 8:7). It points away from him. But the Spirit re-magnetizes the soul. He is the internal principle (the “law” in verse 2) that points us to true North.

How does the Spirit recreate and re-magnetize our souls? He dwells in us! “You . . . are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you” (verse 9).

Christian, you who have the Spirit of Christ, have you considered the wonder and weight of that reality? The Spirit of God lives in you and leads you. The Spirit who brooded over the chaos waters at the beginning of all things, the Spirit who gives life to what lives, the Spirit who led Israel through wild places by fire and cloud, the Spirit who descended like a dove on the long-awaited Messiah, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead with omnipotent power, the Spirit who fell like fire at Pentecost, the Spirit who blows where he will and begets whom he will, the Spirit who is the third person of the eternally happy Trinity — that Spirit dwells in you! How could you expect to be anything less than utterly altered by his presence?

With God in You

New creations really are new. Do not think that setting your mind on the things of the Spirit concerns just your thinking. The change involves “the whole existence of a person,” as Schreiner puts it (Romans, 405). Just as the heart in the Old Testament concerns all the inner life — thoughts, affections, and desires — the mindset here is just as expansive. Everything changes when the Spirit transfers you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13).

If the Spirit dwells in you, God is in you. Imagine you had access to my spirit. You could think my thoughts, know my desires, and feel my affections. God’s Spirit does just this. He pours God’s own love into us (Romans 5:5). He teaches us the very thoughts of God, revealing truth and rerouting the ruts of our minds. He is the mind of Christ in us (1 Corinthians 2:10–13, 16). He gives us godly desires (Galatians 5:16–17).

The Spirit gives us God’s own happiness. When Jesus said that his joy would be in us and our joy would be full (John 15:11), he anticipated this ministry of his Spirit — the same Spirit he rejoiced in (Luke 10:21), the same Spirit that embodied the love and joy of the Father in the Son (Matthew 3:16–17).

Augustine marveled at this mystic reality. He confessed to God,

When people see things with the help of your Spirit, it is you who are seeing in them. When, therefore, they see that things are good, you are seeing that they are good. Whatever pleases them for your sake is pleasing you in them. The things which by the help of your Spirit delight us are delighting you in us. (Confessions 13.31.46)

It boggles the mind, but the Spirit of God in man is God’s own life and fullness in man. Here is a new creation indeed!

On New Adventures

Is it any surprise that new creations going in a new direction embark on new adventures? And adventure really is the right word for the Christian life. To be on an adventure is to participate in a story, to embark on a journey perilous but full of promise, to engage in daring action in hope of glorious reward. We were made new, crafted by Christ, to walk these new paths and perform these great deeds (Ephesians 2:10).

But Spirit-led adventures are unlike the adventures we’re used to. On this adventure, if you walk, you will arrive. The end is written. The Ring will be destroyed; yet you must walk it into Mordor and throw it in Mount Doom. Again, you will get where you are going, but you really do have to go.

Paul highlights this fast friendship between God’s sovereignty and man’s agency:

If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:13–14)

The Spirit empowers the Christian life (“by the Spirit”), but believers act it out (“you put to death”). We must work the miracle. For Paul, the reality that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” does nothing to undermine the agency, yes, and the urgency of “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12–13).

Quest of Life and Death

What does this Spirit-led, man-walked adventure look like? On the one hand, it looks like death — if you put to death the deeds of the body. The way is soaked in the blood of slain sin. Dragon carcasses litter the roadside. Crosses, thick as a forest, mark where “the flesh with its passions and desires” have been crucified (Galatians 5:22–24). Trash heaps piled high with worldly lusts — sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness — lie smoldering by the way, torched with holy fire. The signs of wars waged and battles won are everywhere.

Pilgrim, if you walk by the Spirit, this is your adventure, your battleground. And there is no place for parley on this path! You must slay and crucify, torch and kill, and give no quarter to your dragon-lusts. Put to death the deeds of the body.

And if you do, you will live. This is the way of life (Psalm 16:11). There is no other. The way may be paved in daily death, but the end is eternal life. After all, we are walking in the footsteps of our older Brother, who endured the cross for the joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2). By his Spirit, we follow his direction, doing the will of his Father, sharing in his suffering, imitating his stride. The Spirit-led adventure looks like increasingly looking like Christ (Romans 8:29). By the Spirit, the adopted sons of the Father walk the way of the Son. The adventures of the Spirit never stray outside the happy land of the Trinity. Where the Spirit leads, there is the Son and Father, and there is eternal life (John 17:3).

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A Renewed Mind, a Transformed Life

By Chris Larson — 5 months ago

Through the light of Scripture, we begin to understand God’s holy character and realize our sinfulness—learning all that was lost in Eden, and discovering why we long to return from exile to the Father’s fellowship. That leads us to turn in repentance and look with joy to the redemption found only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Did you know that Romans 12:2 is regularly one of the most shared Bible verses across the entire internet?
If you have been familiar with Dr. R.C. Sproul’s ministry for some time, it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that Romans 12:2 is a frequently discussed verse at Ligonier as we think through new ways to serve Christians who are pursuing renewed minds. When he named Ligonier’s daily radio broadcast in 1994, Dr. Sproul turned to Romans 12:2 to describe the broadcast’s purpose: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” From this verse, our farthest-reaching ministry initiative, Renewing Your Mind, was launched. Dr. Sproul explains:
God gives us the revelation of sacred Scripture in order for us to have our minds changed so we begin to think like Jesus. Sanctification and spiritual growth [are] all about this. If you just have it in your mind and you don’t have it in your heart, you don’t have it. But you can’t have it in your heart without first having it in your mind. We want to have a mind informed by the Word of God.
In another exhortation from his classic book, The Holiness of God, Dr. Sproul wrote:
The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the “renewal of the mind.” This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed.
There can be a temptation for some Christians to take a verse like Romans 12:2 and turn it into a “Just Do It” Nike-style battle cry of transformational sanctification divorced from the previous eleven chapters penned by the Apostle Paul. Yet the imperative of Romans 12:2 flows from the “mercies of God” outlined in Romans 3:21–12:1. This undeserved favor for redeemed sinners, given through the grace of God in Christ, provokes an outpouring of gratitude and a life of joyful duty.
Romans 12:2 is a vital hinge on the door of biblical truth.
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Training in Godliness

By Simon van Bruchem — 5 months ago

All of us need to train for godliness. It doesn’t matter if you are a new Christian or if you have been a believer for fifty years. All of us need to work on building godly habits of Bible reading and prayer. We need to confess our specific sins and actively work on loving God and others in different ways. We need to meet with other believers.

In the past few months, I have become more regular with working on my physical fitness. I have managed to fit a few different exercise sessions in each week as part of my everyday routines. At the start, it didn’t seem like much had changed. Starting something new meant that my muscles that were used to not doing much suddenly had to work, and they were a little sore. Yet, after a while, I could up my intensity and weight levels. I noticed that I had more energy and less sore muscles from everyday living. It’s still a work in progress, but I am slowly becoming fitter and stronger, and the benefits are noticeable.
All of this reminded me of this passage from 1 Timothy:
7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
(1 Tim. 4:7-9 ESV)
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10 Puritans Who Changed the World: John Flavel, the Preacher of Providence

By Joel Beeke — 5 months ago

Flavel was flexible, resilient, and persevering amid suffering. When he could not preach, he wrote. For example, during the persecution of Nonconformists in the 1670s and early 1680s, Flavel published at least nine books, including A Token for Mourners, The Touchstone of Sincerity, The Method of Grace, and Treatise on the Soul of Man. Flavel’s Mystery of Providence is perhaps the best book ever written on the doctrine of divine providence. It comes from the pen of a man who experientially knew suffering in the crucible of affliction.

John Flavel was born in the town of Bromsgrove, England. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a pastor who died (along with John’s mother) during the Great Plague of 1665 while imprisoned at Newgate for nonconformity. After receiving an education in the Scriptures from his father, John began his studies at the University of Oxford, where he was a remarkably diligent student. After receiving ordination from the presbytery of Salisbury in 1650, Flavel settled in Diptford, where he honed his gifts. In 1656, he accepted a call to minister in the seaport town of Dartmouth. This position earned a smaller income than he had received in Diptford, but his work was more profitable. Many were converted through his ministry.
Government officials ejected Flavel from the pulpit in 1662 for nonconformity but he continued to meet secretly with his parishioners for worship. Once he even disguised himself as a woman on horseback to reach a secret meeting place where he preached and administered baptism. Another time, when pursued by authorities, he plunged his horse into the sea and escaped arrest by swimming through a rocky area to safety.
After the Five Mile Act went into effect in 1665—prohibiting pastors from teaching within five miles of their pastorates—Flavel moved to Slapton. There, he continued to minister to many in his congregation. He secretly preached in the woods, sometimes until midnight. Once, soldiers rushed in and dispersed the congregation. They apprehended and fined several fugitives, but the rest brought Flavel to another wooded area where he continued his sermon. Flavel preached from other unique pulpits, including Salstone Rock, an island submerged at high tide.
After King Charles II gave Nonconformists greater religious freedom in 1672 by issuing the Declaration of Indulgence, Flavel returned to Dartmouth. When officials canceld the indulgence the following year, Flavel once more secretly preached in homes, secluded neighborhoods, or remote forests. In the summer of 1682, he sought safety in London, where he assisted in a friend’s congregation. Flavel returned to Dartmouth in 1684, where he continued his ministry under house arrest. He preached there every Lord’s Day and on many weekday evenings to the gathered crowds. He was faithful even in the face of opposition from the government and hostile townspeople (who burned his effigy in a mob). Yet he wrote concerning his beloved Dartmouth, “Oh, that there were not a prayerless family in this town!”
In 1687, King James II issued another indulgence for Nonconformists that allowed Flavel to preach publicly again. His congregation built a large chapel to herald his return to the pulpit.
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Eloquence and the Heart, Part 2

By Mark Abdelmessieh — 5 months ago

Who deserves the presence and the empowerment of the third person of the Godhead? We surely can do nothing to merit His blessing. “God doesn’t use people because they are gifted. He uses people (even preachers) because he is gracious… If we do believe (this), then we will pray – we will pray before we speak, and we will pray for others before they speak.”[17] Indeed, we can only ask humbly and earnestly and ask (and even teach) our audience to pray for this unction upon us as we bring God’s Word to them.

How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34)

In the first part, we saw how eloquence can have a place in Biblical preaching only when it takes the role of servant not master. The master is the Bible. Any form of eloquence that will hinder the message is must be done with. Any form of eloquence that will hone the Biblical message can be used for the glory of God and the benefit of God’s people. Now we turn to the important truth that the seat of eloquence is the heart.
Too often when the word “eloquence” is mentioned we think first of the gift, the skill, the art, the tongue, the will and the mental abilities. However, the truth that Jesus binds speech primarily to the heart should inform all our thinking about God glorifying eloquence.
William Perkins penned, “Gracious speech expresses the grace of the heart.”[1] It is not a surprise then that when people heard Jesus, they said “no one ever spoke like this man!” (Jh. 7:46; cf. Lk. 4:22). Jesus was the most eloquent man who ever lived because He owned the purest heart ever existed.
If the main telos of preaching is not merely to deliver information, but to seek the transformation of the hearers, then the preacher’s heart must be first transformed by the content he preaches.[2] In other words, if the goal of preaching is “to bring people face to face with the living God”[3] then the preacher’s heart must experience this encounter first. It is this transformed heart that is filled with the reality of God’s character and God’s messages that best sees and exhibits Him (Matt. 5:8).
The prophet Jeremiah knew something of this truth when he said, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it (that is God’s Word) in, and I cannot” (Jer. 20:9). Paul echoes the same truth in saying, “I believed, and so I spoke.” (2 Cor. 4:13). It is only when the heart is filled with living faith and burning zeal for the truth that the mouth will speak with true eloquent. This principle is behind the fact that “beggars are often eloquent”, A. Alexander expressed. For, “The most important point in true eloquence is to be absorbed in the subject so as to think of nothing else. He who understands and feels his subject and lets nature give the expression, possesses the eloquence of which I speak.”[4] In another place he adds, “To have the heart of the preacher duly impressed with the importance of what he delivers, is better than all rules, and will in great measure cover defects, or rather remove them. Nature teaches the proper tunes to those who have strong feelings much more effectually than any rules of rhetoric.”[5] No doubt the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had burning tongues because they had burning hearts (Lk. 24:31-35)!
How then can your heart be kindled with the truth you seek to preach? It must be admitted that this is primarily the gracious work of God’s Spirit. However, when the Spirit works, the preacher will seek “not only to cultivate piety generally,” but to prepare his heart “for every discourse” he is seeking to deliver. Unfortunately, many preachers fail in the due preparation of their own hearts before preaching.[6] One way to prepare one’s heart is by preaching every sermon to one’s own heart first. Without savoring and digesting the truth first, one cannot deliver it with power for others to taste it.[7] The heart (and the preaching) cannot be dull if the glory of God is manifest to it. “A pastor who is not manifestly glad in God does not glorify God… A bored and unenthusiastic tour guide in the Alps contradicts and dishonors the majesty of the mountains.”[8] If the heart is kindled with the majesty of God, the tongue will follow.
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When Internet Culture Becomes the Culture

By Austin Gravely — 5 months ago

Internet culture is, for most people, the most attractive thing to do at any time of the day or night. When the majority of Americans are addicted to smartphones and social media, they are not turning them off. Even if you personally participate little in internet culture, your neighbors are likely being reshaped on internet culture’s terms without even realizing it. Sooner or later, you will encounter the formative effects of internet culture in your life. Are you prepared to share the Gospel, defend the Christian faith, and make mature disciples of Christ against a backdrop of the fraternity, fandom, and fantasy that internet culture provides?

Try to define the word “religion”.
If you have a hard time coming up with a good definition, you’re not alone. “Religion” is notoriously difficult to define; philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, sociologists, and historians all answer the question in a different way. But imagine if I said, “Well, since there is no universally agreed-upon definition of ‘religion’, religion doesn’t exist.” You’d think I’d gone mad even if you weren’t an academic. Religion is everywhere! It may be hard to define, but you know it exists without having to think twice about it.
Now, try to define “internet culture”. Again, if you have a hard time coming up with a definition, that’s okay. Like “religion,” “internet culture” is challenging to define, and like “religion”, it’s definitely real.
The secular world recognizes that internet culture exists, and a new generation of writers and content creators have found immense success by trying to answer the question, “What do we do about it?” In contextualizing events and artifacts of “internet culture” for the masses, writers like Charlie Warzel, Casey Newton, Taylor Lorenz, and Ryan Broderick have created enormous audiences for themselves by taking the weird, niche, and/or dangerous aspects of internet life seriously. Dozens of highly successful YouTubers have followed suit, such as Tiffany Ferguson, Jenny Nicholson, Kurtis Conner, Wendigoon, and Supereyepatchwolf—just to name a few.
Christian thinkers and writers recognize the power of the internet and have been at the forefront of writing about the dangers of smartphone addiction, excessive social media use, and internet pornography. But where secular internet culture writers often approach their topics from a live-from-the-scene-of-the-crime perspective, Christian writers are frequently on the outside looking in. Both perspectives are important, but if we want to seek and save the lost where they are found, we cannot approach internet culture solely from the safety of the sidelines. Someone needs to call an ambulance, like a lifeguard team rescuing a drowning swimmer. Someone needs to be prepared to do CPR, but none of that matters if someone isn’t willing to dive into the water to bring the victim to the surface first.
The Three “Fs” of Internet Culture
One way scholars study “religion” is to look for common categories that religions share despite their differences. Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are all mutually exclusive religions with beliefs that are incompatible with each other. Still, each has a category for “holy texts,” “sacred spaces,” and even a “goal” to work towards. These categories can stand independently and overlap with other religious categories.
We can take a similar approach to “internet culture”, and the nearly limitless internet sub-cultures. Though far from exhaustive, we can better understand “internet culture(s)” by examining three categories: fraternity, fandom, and fantasy.
Fraternity
American history is replete with fraternal orders—more casually known as “social clubs” or sometimes “secret societies”—that served as important community centers of power alongside churches and schools. Organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Lions Club International, and even the Ku Klux Klan sought to give like-minded Americans a place to belong and work together for a common goal, whether for charity through community service or reinforcing white supremacy. While most of these organizations were originally men-only (hence “fraternity”), parallel orders for women or women-only social clubs, such as sororities on college campuses, also existed. Each of these groups has its rites of initiation, vocabulary, customs, and expectations for how a good member participates in the group.
Discord servers, subreddits, and group messaging apps function as the “fraternal orders” of internet culture. Whether based on fandom, discussed below, or shared occupation, these groups exist to bring like-minded people together in a communal space for a communal purpose. Like any real-world fraternal order, each of these spaces has its initiation rites, vocabulary, customs, and expectations of its members. Of all the various subreddits, Discord servers, and group chats I participate in, no two are alike.
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