Really loving your child might well mean telling the experts to get out of the way – or telling the drug pushers to butt out because there might be better ways to proceed. And good parenting will often mean just letting our kids be kids: letting them learn by trial and error, by failure, by disappointment. Trying to give them a sterile, hygienic and risk-proof life will not help them in the long run.

Our children are under massive attack in ways not even conceived of until just recently. Obviously the trans assault on our kids is one major example of this. And one of the best books penned on that subject was Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze by Abigail Shrier (Swift, 2020). See my discussion about that very important volume here: Link
Shrier has just released a new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up (Sentinel, 2024). In it the investigative journalist examines the huge mental health crisis that our young people are experiencing. And much of the “therapy” that most children are receiving is simply making matters worse.
Many have written on our therapeutic culture and the enormous pressures our children are under. Shrier’s new volume may be among the more important books on these matters. She lays out her case early on: What children need most are loving and caring parents, not an army of “experts,” therapists and bureaucrats:
“We parents have become so frantic, hypervigilant, and borderline obsessive about our kids’ mental health that we routinely allow all manner of mental health expert to evict us from the room. (‘We will let you know.’) We’ve been relying on them for decades to tell us how to raise well-adjusted kids.” (xiv-xv)
Many well-meaning and caring people have made our children worse off in terms of mental and psychological health. Shrier does not decry all those in the helping professions, but she does remind us that wanting to help someone is not the same as actually helping someone.
And the history of recent therapy has been a mixed bag of frauds, fakes and fails, including of course lobotomies. Today therapists are pushing the gender dysphoria madness, resulting in a massive increase in diagnoses of this “condition.” Never mind the countless cases of regret and detransitioning.
This book looks at many of the recent therapies being foisted upon our young people, examines the research and various studies on them, and shares a number of personal stories along the way. She looks at how the digital age is causing extra stress and problems for young people, and examines various adult issues being foisted on our kids, such as radical sexualities, and fear mongering resulting in things like “climate anxiety”.
Yes the experts are now telling us that climate panic attacks are real things, and we need an army of therapists to “help” kids suffering from this. Hmm, maybe keeping adult worries and ideologies away from impressionable young people might be a better strategy.
Instead of feeding our kids the fantasies about how we are all going to die tomorrow, why not try telling them the truth, including the fact that trends in the environment are moving in the right direction. Shrier quotes Michael Shellenberger on this: “Deaths from natural disaster have declined over 95 percent over the last century. Actual disasters themselves have gone down over the last twenty years. . . . We’re more resilient than ever.” (p. 28)
But too many therapists, social workers, counsellors and drug companies all thrive on keeping our children in a constant state of panic and fear and depression – about everything. And since it is so often the far left pushing all this fear porn, be it about Covid or saving the planet, it is not surprising that teens “who identify with liberal and left-leaning politics have suffered worst of all” in terms of mental health problems. (p. 29)
Talk about creating a crisis and then perpetually pushing the therapy and help needed to deal with it all. Again, not all carers and helpers are in it for the money or what have you, but certainly many are. Simply consider the controversial and contentious issue of things like ADHD and a whole host of medicines and drugs that are being pushed out in the millions to deal with such matters.
Chapter 10, “Spare the Rod, Drug the Child” deals with this in some detail. She quotes from studies and experts who believe that “ADHD – characterized by overstimulation and distractibility – didn’t meet the standard definition of a ‘disorder.’ And Ritalin was no solution at all.” (p. 198)
Often behavioural modification, instead of a host of pharmaceuticals, is what our children in fact need. Moreover, instead of doing all we can to rid children of every sort of depression and anxiety, we need to learn that these two things may be an important part of our growth into mature and capable adults.
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Wisdom is not the pursuit of the old and gray in hair, but is best found in the formative years of development — from childhood onward. In the pages of the Bible the voice of wisdom cries aloud: “Young Men, Listen!”Parents and churches need to harmonize their voices with wisdom. Boys and men, enlisted in the ranks of Jesus Christ, need to be exhorted to move forward like an advancing army.

Very little is known about Jesus’ early life. Aside from his infancy — as recorded by Matthew and Luke — there’s an important episode when Jesus was twelve years old. Having gone to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover his parents, Mary and Joseph, lose their son only to find him in the temple being instructed by the teachers. In a moment of profound self-identification, Jesus’s response seeks to dispel the ignorance of his parents: “I must be about my Father’s business.” Simultaneously he’s the son of Mary and Joseph and the Son of the Father.
After this experience, the Evangelist summarizes the rest of Jesus’ most formative years: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52). This is a remarkable statement about the normal human development of Jesus, and how, as he matured in age and body, in his soul he advanced in wisdom.
Wisdom, simply and biblically defined, is the godly application of truth to a specific situation. It’s not merely the accumulation of facts and knowledge but it’s putting knowledge to work. Or, to define it this way, wisdom is the skill of godly living.
From his childhood the boy Jesus learned wisdom — he became skillful in godly living. While the Bible doesn’t say exactly how he became skillful, it’s not useless speculation to conclude he did so the way any person is made wise: through instruction in the Word of God: “For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright” (Proverbs 2:6-7). As Jesus learned the Scriptures he learned wisdom.
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So often, Spurgeon saw great crowds turn out for his open-air preaching. But he often observed that after the service, the people would simply disperse. There was little opportunity for follow-up. But at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, as people were converted, they were baptized, brought into the church, discipled, and engaged in the work of the church. This membership process was the way Spurgeon harvested the fruit of the Spirit’s work of revival.

In 1851, right around the time Charles Spurgeon began preaching, a religious census was taken throughout the United Kingdom. About 61 percent of the population reportedly attended church. By way of comparison, here in America in 2020, church attendance is around 20 percent; in the UK, it’s closer to 5 percent. Can you imagine if all of our churches tripled in size? Given the religious decline in our day, it’s easy for us to be impressed with these 175-year-old statistics. Simply put, in Spurgeon’s day, to be English was to be a Christian.
But Spurgeon wasn’t impressed. Despite of all the religious activity around him, Spurgeon saw that not all of it was truly spiritual. Speaking in 1856, he said,
In going up and down this land, I am obliged to come to this conclusion, that throughout the churches there are multitudes who have “a name to live and are dead.” Religion has become fashionable. The shopkeeper could scarcely succeed in a respectable business if he were not united with a church. It is reckoned to be reputable and honorable to attend a place of worship, and hence men are made religious.[1]
Unfortunately, many churches weren’t helping with the situation. Their pastors watered down the distinction between the church and the world in an effort to reach the unsaved. Spurgeon reflects,
They say, “Do not let us draw any hard and fast lines. A great many good people attend our services who may not be quite decided, but still their opinion should be consulted, and their vote should be taken upon the choice of a minister, and there should be entertainments and amusements, in which they can assist.” The theory seems to be, that it is well to have a broad pathway from the church to the world; if this be carried out, the result will be that the nominal church will use that path to go over to the world, but it will not be used in the other direction.[2]
With the rise of theological liberalism in his day, there was less and less about the church that was distinct from the world, both in what they believed and how they lived. Even as Christian nominalism was rampant, the church looked more and more like the world.
So how did Spurgeon fight back against all this?
If you’ve ever heard the story of Spurgeon’s life and ministry, you’ve probably heard something about all the sermons he preached,  the books he published, the orphanages he started, the Pastors’ College he ran, and on and on. But we tend to overlook that, more than anything else, Spurgeon was a pastor. He wasn’t primarily a Christian speaker or CEO-at-large. No, he pastored a local church. And as a Baptist, one of his fundamental convictions was that churches should only be made up of born-again believers.
This is what we call regenerate church membership. Here’s what Spurgeon says about church membership:
Touching all the members of this select assembly there is an eternal purpose which is the original reason of their being called, and to each of them there is an effectual calling whereby they actually gather into the church; then, also, there is a hedging and fencing about of this church, by which it is maintained as a separate body, distinct from all the rest of mankind.[3]
This work of “hedging and fencing” is what keeps the church distinct from the world. And as the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon saw it was one of his chief duties.
The Practices of the Metropolitan Tabernacle
Now, it’s one thing to talk the church being distinct. But how did Spurgeon practice meaningful membership in a church with over 5,000 members?
1. They Guarded the Front Door
One of the primary ways Spurgeon promoted meaningful church membership was through his church’s rigorous membership process.
To summarize, this process had at least six steps:
An elder interview
A visitor would come on a weekday to meet with an elder of the church to share their testimony and their understanding of the gospel. The elder would ask follow-up questions and record the testimony in one of the church’s Testimony Books. If the elder felt this was a sincere profession of faith, they would be recommended to meet with the Pastor.
Pastoral interview
Spurgeon would review the testimonies that were recorded, and, on another day, the candidate would come to meet with him. Some interviews were clear cases of conversion and Spurgeon had the joy of rejoicing in God’s grace with the candidate. Other cases resulted in further questions, as Spurgeon examined their story and their understanding of the gospel. It could be intimidating to meet with an elder or pastor, but that was never Spurgeon’s intention. Rather, he saw each membership interview as a chance to begin shepherding. He writes,
Whenever I hear of candidates being alarmed at coming before our elders, or seeing the pastor, or making confession of faith before the church, I wish I could say to them: “Dismiss your fears, beloved ones; we shall be glad to see you, and you will find your intercourse with us a pleasure rather than a trial.” So far from wishing to repel you, if you really do love the Savior, we shall be glad enough to welcome you. If we cannot see in you the evidence of a great change, we shall kindly point out to you our fears, and shall be thrice happy to point you to the Savior; but be sure of this, if you have really believed in Jesus, you shall not find the church terrible to you.[4]
Proposal to the congregation and the assignment of a messenger
The next step would be for the elder who performed the interview to present the name of the applicant and propose him for membership at a congregational meeting of the church. The congregation would then vote to approve a messenger to make an inquiry.
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Jesus was a master at engaging people within their culture, whether they approached Him as friend or foe. He related to people without typical cultural filters. Even His primary followers had different backgrounds and livelihoods. A classic example is Jesus engaging a woman of questionable character at Jacob’s well near Sychar in the region of Samaria. It was culturally inappropriate for a Jewish man to engage a Samaritan woman in conversation.

It’s been said that history is a wonderful teacher, but a terrible master.
In this guest article, Trip Kimball uses history as a teacher. It’s a scholarly look into three significant ways that Christians throughout history have responded to the changes around us —  both good and bad —  to give us a better understanding of how to respond to today’s cultural shifts in a biblical way.
— Karl Vaters

Culture is dynamic. Fluid and fickle. Culture changes over time, sometimes with extreme pendular swings. Popular culture is reflective of shared beliefs, values, and social norms.
Each swing of culture has its own trends, like currents within the ocean, as movements within the larger cultural context.
People tend to respond in one of three general ways to pendular swings in culture: to reject, embrace, or engage each swing. Only one of these approaches is effective in bringing helpful change or productive dialogue.
These pendular swings of culture have one fixed point — human nature. They all pivot on self, our basic nature. Not our identity but our being, our innate essence centered on self-preservation.
On the surface self-preservation makes sense. It’s expected, natural. But when the self is corrupt or fragmented it’s not so good. At its basest level, self-preservation is bound to cause conflict. These conflicts disrupt our shared experiences, resulting in culture clashes.
These culture clashes are very noticeable in cross-cultural missionary experiences, but they also happen across and within sub-cultures.
1) Rejection of Cultural Shifts
Rejection is the preferred approach of those who oppose a culture shift, especially when it impacts them personally. It’s not just resistance but rejection — an unwillingness to accept or consider a cultural change.
Rejection of a cultural shift is a defense of what was, an attempt to turn back the tide of change. On the surface, to those who are opposing the change, it seems gallant and right. But it takes on a sense of righteousness. And indeed, it may very well be a righteous stance.
It’s not hard to find exceptional examples of resistance to evil. The prophet Daniel and his three cohorts (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) refused to worship anyone else but their God, the Most-High God,  the Living God (Daniel 3:12–18, 26; 6:10–23, 26).
Their stand would cost them their lives, but God intervened.
Lessons from History
Taking a righteous stand against evil requires a willingness to die for righteousness’ sake. And God doesn’t always intervene.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a modern-day example of this. He was a Lutheran pastor/theologian who stood up to Nazism and paid for it with his life. His testimony is an example of resisting an evil trend.
Not all resistance to cultural change is so righteous or wise. The Jesus People Movement and the Charismatic Renewal of the mid 1960s and early -70s (parallel moves of God’s Spirit in America) were largely resisted and condemned by the established churches of that time.
The resistance proved foolish and fruitless. It reminds me of what Gamaliel warned Jewish leaders about when they considered contending with the followers of Jesus; …if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it — lest you even be found to fight against God (Acts 5:39).
This is as a lesson to consider when attempting to resist/reject present cultural trends. The resistance of Bonhoeffer and others in the German Confessing Church did not stem the tide of Nazism. That took a world war. And yet the Nazi mindset and influence lives on.
The Jesus Movement and Charismatic Renewal did prevail and reshape the practice of Christianity during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and -70s. It powerfully impacted American culture, then sadly faded. What was once a powerful cultural influence morphed into the present common approach to culture.
2) Embracing Cultural Shifts
The flip side of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the German Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazism is the German Christian movement. This movement was composed of fanatic Nazi Protestants, a politicized church subculture that was devoid of the Spirit of God.
This movement embraced the political-cultural wave of Hitler’s Nazi regime. They reshaped theology to buttress their nationalistic beliefs, distorting the gospel into their own racist image.
Another spiritual movement in America during the 1970s and early -80s was a hybrid smorgasbord of Eastern religions and amenable philosophies. These quasi-religious groups became known as the New Age movement, a full embrace of the countercultural social revolution of the Sixties.
It epitomized what became known as the Me Generation of the Seventies.
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To pursue this objective the word nation was replaced by the word ethnicity. But it won’t work!  It may have some success in Christian families, in the church were members of various nations all change their allegiance to Christ, and it may have some success within a common geographical boundary where the Ten Commandments of the Christian Faith still have the force of law, but outside of these, I believe it is ultimately a recipe for disaster. 
America is no longer a nation in the biblical sense.  It is an empire.  A nation has the four boundary markers I have just mentioned, but an empire is a combination of nations living under one authority, usually under some type of tyranny.

When I was a young minister, I never heard of the word “ethnicity,” but today it is as common as pumpkins in the Fall.  My contention is that this word is relatively new, and that it was intentionally created by modern America to replace the concept of a “nation” as it is used in the Bible.  It has become a popular word in the church too.  The word ethnicity is not used in the King James Version of the Bible.  Not that I am a KJV-only person, but the more ancient language translations do give us the mindset of the past.  For example, in the typical English translation of the Greek language, Jesus told his disciples to make disciples of all the nations, not of all the ethnicities. The word “ethnicity” comes from the Greek term “ethnos” which is generally translated as nation in the English Bible.
The English word “nation” is derived from the same word as “nativity” which reminds us of the birth of Christ.  The word nation was chosen in older translations because it describes a people group with the same birth or ancestry.  In the distant past there existed patriarchs (like Abraham), and from such men came forth generations to follow.  This created a nation.  The most common element of a nation was being of the same birth.  Later, the word “race” was used in other translations, but again, this is a relatively new word that was not used in the old KJV (except as in running in a race).
In the New Testament the Apostle Paul adds to this definition of a nation, when preaching on Mars Hill, he said that God created the nations and defined them by borders as well as birth.  “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).
Luke tells us of another common attribute of nations when he describes the nations gathered at Pentecost in Acts 2:5-6 as having a common language: “Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven.  And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.”
The Bible obviously includes one more marker in the concept of a nation, and that is a common religion which produces a common culture with common traditions and customs such as the celebration of Christmas and Easter. The great commission (Matt. 28: 18-20) is a command to change the religion of each nation by the preaching of the gospel and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This assumes that a nation, as defined in the Bible, still remained a nation even after receiving the gospel, but the God it worshipped was changed (like in Ninevah).
Nations as defined in the Bible are here to stay.  Actually, nations even as defined by these markers will appear before God in heaven. Heaven is described as a place where, “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (Rev. 21:24).
Thus, the four common marks of a biblical nation are a common birth, a common border, a common language, and a common religion.
We still think of nations with these markers when we think of the Japanese, the Chinese, the Dutch, and even such nations as Israel.  They are typically nations with a common border, a common language, a common ancestry, and a common religion (communism in China).
This was true of the United States in its earliest days.  America for much of its early existence consisted of mostly White Evangelical Protestants who spoke the English language. The nation had borders (that eventually covered the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans). Blacks came to America under compulsion via the institution of slavery and eventually became part of the sinews of our nation, even though they were of a different birth and ancestry.  Indians (native-Americans) were incorporated into the United States by force under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.  Ellis Island opened this nation to other European descendants. Jews and Muslims would follow.
Why has the word ethnicity replaced the word nation?  Because it aligns more with the American notion of a nation, which is contrary to the biblical view of a nation. The word ethnicity empties the word nation of three of its major markers—a common ancestry, a common language, and a common religion.  Like all generations, we tend to read the Scriptures through the lens of our culture rather than read the culture through the lens of the Scriptures.  America prides itself on the diversity of nations living within a common geographical boundary with different languages and religions where democracy guarantees freedom and peace for all eternity.  Democracy has become our new god.
To pursue this objective the word nation was replaced by the word ethnicity. But it won’t work!  It may have some success in Christian families, in the church were members of various nations all change their allegiance to Christ, and it may have some success within a common geographical boundary where the Ten Commandments of the Christian Faith still have the force of law, but outside of these, I believe it is ultimately a recipe for disaster.
America is no longer a nation in the biblical sense.  It is an empire.  A nation has the four boundary markers I have just mentioned, but an empire is a combination of nations living under one authority, usually under some type of tyranny.
Protestant pluralism is waning as a significant force in America.  We now live under a secular polytheism.  The United States Constitution was created for a Christian people, and not for a muti-cultural conglomeration of various nations with their different ancestors and different religions living within one geographical border.
America has been balkanized and there is no longer unity under the banner of Christ.  This is one reason why there is so much political upheaval. One good example of this is the hatred now seen on college campuses where there is a verbal war between Jews and Hamas-sympathizers (who represent Muslims). The Middle East has been imported to our American geographical boundaries, and the result is the seed of hatred between these various nations living within our country.  As other nations are imported into America (some in the middle of the night by airplanes), the danger of the demise of this great nation is at hand.
Somewhere along this timeline the word ethnicity replaced the word nation to accomplish a goal contrary to the Bible. Never in the history of man since Adam and Eve have different nations with different religions lived in peace within the same boundaries, except by the force of war.
However, America, in its arrogance and its belief in the goodness of man, thought she could ignore the biblical concept of a nation and create a new tower of Babel where a multitude of nations could live together within the same border in a peaceful existence without a common religion. The goal was a melting pot, but we have created a boiling pot. The word ethnicity was a means to this end. That’s why I don’t use the word.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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Christianity should not only influence what we support but also how we engage in the political sphere, namely, in a spirit of humility, charity, and good-faith deliberation. Christians should reject Christian nationalism, but not allow the moral panic surrounding it to shame them out of fully engaging in the public square, and doing so as Christians. Overall, Hall’s book is a vital contribution and a welcome alternative to the series of muddled screeds that constitute the mainstream discourse on Christian nationalism.

A moderately informed observer of American politics in the 2020s might be forgiven for perceiving Christian nationalism to be an imminent and existential threat to our political order. As of this writing, a Google search for the term quickly yields headlines such as “Christian nationalism is a grave threat to America,” and the grammatically questionable “What is Christian nationalism and why it raises concerns about threats to democracy.” The past several years have produced a flurry of books and articles from both popular and academic presses claiming to unearth Christian nationalist designs in virtually every aspect of right-wing politics. It’s a moral panic. But at a glance, one might suppose so much smoke must surely emanate from a very great fire.
In his recent book, Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism? Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church, Mark David Hall calls for everyone to take a deep breath. Once we wave away the alarmist rhetoric and sort through the arguments and evidence, Hall suggests, there is ultimately little cause for concern. While acknowledging that Christian nationalism exists and is problematic, he argues that it is far less prevalent than we have been led to believe, and that the stakes are low in any case. In the unlikely and unfortunate event that Christian nationalists succeeded in securing a greater degree of state recognition of Christianity, this would not represent anything like a fundamental threat to American democracy. Nevertheless, he concludes we should still oppose Christian nationalism where we encounter it, in favor of a robust understanding of the religious freedom and pluralism that are fundamental principles of the American founding. The book is a timely and necessary response to the litany of doomsaying that has marked so much recent progressive commentary. The tragedy is that the people who most need to hear its message are the least likely to read it.
Hall first addresses polemical works from authors such as Katherine Stewart, Julie Ingersoll, Randall Balmer, and Andrew Seidel. In their work, he points to several problematic claims: that the Christian Reconstructionist movement is enormously influential, that the Christian Right originated as a defense of racial segregation, and that the current Supreme Court is on a crusade to establish Christian supremacy. Scrutinizing the evidence for these claims, he finds much of it to be incomplete, distorted, exaggerated, or in some cases fabricated outright. He marshals considerable counterevidence from the historical record as well as direct communications with key actors to argue that accounts of the Christian Right viewed as foundational in many progressive circles are of marginal evidentiary value. Some are better understood as minor subplots in the American Christian landscape, while others are pure partisan narrative.
He then turns to the empirical research on Christian nationalism. Hall is in many ways quite charitable towards social scientists, granting that their studies are more rigorous and made in good faith. Nevertheless, the studies too are ultimately susceptible to similar partisan distortions. For instance, in the widely cited Taking America Back for God, sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry offer an extreme definition of Christian nationalism as an ideology that “includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism,” a kind of toxic stew poisoning much of the political right. They proceed to claim, based on survey data, that over half of the American population (51.9 percent, to be exact) subscribes to this ideology to some extent, a prospect that does, indeed, seem to be cause for alarm. Yet these claims are based on survey questions that appear far more benign than the phenomenon they are purported to measure. For instance, respondents ostensibly show Christian nationalist sympathies by agreeing that “the federal government should advocate for Christian values.” Other social scientific sources demonstrate a similar mismatch between rhetoric and the evidence, which is wholly inadequate to support claims of Christian nationalism as something extreme and widespread.
Although Hall treats the polemical and social scientific work on Christian nationalism separately, this is something of a blurry distinction. Some of those he identifies as polemicists have academic credentials, while some of the work credited as scholarship is transparently partisan in its claims. Furthermore, through avenues such as collaborations, citations, and reviews, scholars of Christian nationalism treat even the most aggressive polemicists as if they were themselves credible authorities and comrades-in-arms. I fear this dynamic does more to degrade the credibility of the scholarship than it does to raise that of the polemical literature.
Having demonstrated serious flaws in claims regarding the prevalence and danger of Christian nationalism, Hall then turns to an assessment of the figures who have openly embraced the label. He focuses on published works articulating and advocating some form of Christian nationalism, specifically those by Douglas Wilson, Andrew Torba, Andrew Isker, and Stephen Wolfe. Though he finds little merit in their ideas, he nonetheless concludes, first, that their visions bear little resemblance to the kind of white supremacist hellscape feared by the critics of Christian nationalism (though they may be plausibly read as ethnocentric or patriarchal), and second, that “there is little reason to believe [these works] will have much impact beyond a handful of idiosyncratic Calvinists.”
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Written by Kyle E. Sims |
Sunday, September 22, 2024
We live in a cynical world, it is easy to become cynical even in our thoughts of God. We can drag the Lord’s love and actions down to our level. You can even think about the Lord’s giving us grace like a parent who in frustration overlooks our transgressions. The Lord’s grace is a deliberate act of love by the Lord. He gives us grace because He loves us His people with a perfect love. He saved us so that we might be restored to Him and be transformed to be like Him. 

Grace is often thought of in relation mainly to our justification. We are saved by grace. Our sin and sinful nature are justified by grace alone. As a result, the Christian is now right with God. There is a danger that we only think about grace in relation to our justification and not our sanctification. Not a few folks have an idea that we enter the church by grace and remain by our efforts. This is not what the scriptures teach. Hear the words of Paul as he deals with the thorn in the flesh;
[9] But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [10] For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 (ESV)
Living by grace reminds us who we are as sinners saved by grace. We need grace to enter the kingdom of God and we need grace to continue in the Christian life. We must never forget that we live by grace alone. This is how you can forgive and love your enemies because you have been loved and forgiven by God. This is why you can pray for those who hurt you and oppose you.
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Written by M. R. Conrad |
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Prayer is verbalized dependence on God. If we are not praying together, are our churches truly depending on God? We have strategies, seminars, books, and videos. We have programs designed to fill any lack in our churches. But no programs can replace God. And only prayer accesses His power (Ephesians 6:10-18) and His wisdom (James 1:5). God is the one who saves, not us. God is the One who transforms lives, not our programs. And God is the One who guides us as we look to Him.

No smoking gun for the demise of the weekly prayer meeting can be found. That Wednesday tradition is simply fading off the scene in much of American Christianity. As far as I can tell, nobody is trying to kill it. Regular prayer meetings are simply vanishing.1
What is replacing prayer meeting in the life of the church? In some cases, another preaching service has filled in where prayer meeting was last seen. In other instances, children’s ministry or outreach programs have stepped into the void. However, in an increasing number of churches, prayer meeting has given way to nothing. Few came, so, the service was cancelled, leaving little trace behind.
Of course, Christians pray in every church service, right? Why should we be concerned for the loss of a dedicated prayer meeting? Traditions came and go. We have freedom to pray when and where suits our schedules best. However, where regular prayer meetings have already vanished, what have we lost?
We Lost a Biblical Emphasis
The Bible emphasizes the importance of prayer, especially corporate prayer. The first church listed cooperate prayer as one of its pillars (Acts 2:42). We see the entire church praying together in the face of persecution (Acts 4:31; 12:12; 16:25). The first church leaders gave themselves to “prayer and the Word,” refusing to let mundane matters to dethrone this spiritual discipline (Acts 6:4). Paul gathered the leaders of the church at Ephesus for a time of corporate prayer (Acts 20:26). In the more than thirty instances of prayer in the book of Acts, no less than nineteen specifically refer to corporate prayer. Clearly, corporate prayer was vital to the early church.
We Lost a Historical Impetus for Evangelism
In church history, prayer meetings have often coincided with gospel advance. For example, the first missions movement in America began with the Haystack Prayer Meeting. Those at this meeting were instrumental in sending out Adoniram Judson, the first American commissioned as a missionary.2 Over a hundred years later, when evangelist D. L. Moody traveled to a city to preach the gospel, he started regular prayer meetings that continue long after his team had left.3
In our day, the general trend in society is away from Christianity. Many formerly robust congregations are now dwindling. Evangelistic fervor among believers has cooled, and even those committed to faithful witnessing often admit little fruit.
Where is the power? Where are the conversions?
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It’s not enough to know what is good and what is true; we must come to love what is good and love what is true. We are now in the realm of the affections, and suddenly the parenting terrain is vast and the task before us utterly daunting. For now we will no longer be satisfied with filling our children’s heads with the information they’ll need to be able to succeed, but we will be aiming at something more profound and therefore more difficult: cultivating knowledge and virtue, right thinking and right feeling, understanding and desires.

My friend said something to me over breakfast that has been rattling around my old cerebrum ever since. We were talking about how different generations have approached raising Christian children and he said this about the approach of our parents: “It feels like they wanted to teach us only enough theology to sustain a personal spiritual life, and no more.”
We might call this the theologically minimalist approach.
There were plenty of exceptions, but in the broadly evangelical world, I think it was the norm rather than the exception. The important thing was to accept Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour. After that, we had some notions of personal piety like daily quiet time, but not much energy was spent setting a theological foundation or developing a compelling vision of Christian maturity.
I discern something similar in the way evangelical Christians often think and talk about parenting in our own day.
Parenting Minimalism
There seems to be an assumption that, beyond teaching the Bible and the gospel to our kids and praying that they come to saving faith, there isn’t much that would differentiate Christian parenting from non-Christian parenting. The content and pedagogy of their education can be pretty well the same; the books they read and shows they watch and music they listen to can be pretty well the same. In short, their actual cultural formation can be pretty well the same. This is a kind of parenting minimalism that actually makes some sense in a context where the broader culture still has strong vestiges of Christian influence, as was arguably the case until not that long ago. It might not have been ideal, but it seemed like it could work out decently well.
But, to be blunt, those days are well behind us. Even as my own generation, the millennials, was being formed and coming of age in the 1990s and 2000s, it became clear that not all was well. The shaping influence of the broader culture was already militating against the spiritual priorities of our parents. We heard the gospel at church (and perhaps at home), but were being shaped more fundamentally by the priorities of our peer groups, the media we took in, and the education we received.
The result? Millennials left the church at a higher rate than any previous generation.
Christian Paideia
As I started having my own children, I began thinking again about education. But education is not really the word I’m looking for. We have this entrenched modern notion that education is what happens during the school day and it relates to what fills the student’s head. It concerns that secular middle space where mathematics, literacy, and (maybe) history are necessary preconditions for gainful employment. That’s how most people think of education today—that thing you need to get a good job. And many Christians, not knowing any better, adopt this view.
We need a better word than education until it can be rehabilitated. One option is formation, which I’ve already used once or twice in this piece, but the problem with that word is how broadly it can be used for unrelated topics, such as industrial processes. Education is too narrow, formation a bit too broad, so let’s just reach over into another bucket—the Greek bucket—and use paideia. This is the word Paul uses in Ephesians when he speaks of raising children in the “nurture [paideia] and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
The idea here is of a whole-person approach to shaping the next generation. As Joe Rigney puts it, “Paideia is the all-encompassing enculturation and formation of a child into a citizen. Christian paideia, then, is all-encompassing Christian discipleship.” We find this idea clearly described in Deuteronomy 6, where God commands the Israelites to embrace a deeply thorough approach—when you get up, when you sit down, when you walk—to teaching their children.
We tend to think of education as relegated to intellectual knowledge, but paideia includes character formation and virtue as well.
It’s not enough to know what is good and what is true; we must come to love what is good and love what is true.
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Sunday, September 22, 2024
The concept of believers being the gifts of the Father to the Son forms a central element of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John 17. Jesus makes repeated references to this “giving”: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. (John 17:1-2)

The motif of the gift of the elect to the Son is expressed by Jesus on various occasions, particularly in the gospel of John:
This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:39-40)
In this passage Jesus makes it clear that He is concerned about every believer being raised up at the last day. This qualifies His statements about what the Father has given Him that would never be lost. It is believers who are given to Christ by the Father, and these believers will never be lost. This affirmation builds upon what Jesus declared only moments earlier:
But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. (John 6:36-38)
Jesus is emphatic in His assertion that all whom the Father gives to Him will in fact come to Him. The order here is crucial. Jesus does not say that all who come to Him will then be given to Him by the Father. We do not determine by our response who will be the Father’s gift to the Son. Rather our response is determined by the prior election of God for us to come to the Son as gifts to Him.
The concept of believers being the gifts of the Father to the Son forms a central element of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John 17. Jesus makes repeated references to this “giving”.
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