The Power of Healing Love in Marriage
The power of healing love in marriage is a miniature version of the same power that Jesus has with us. In Christ, God sees us as righteous, holy, and beautiful (2 Corinthians 5:21). The world tells us about our faults, and we know they are there, but God’s love for us covers our sins and continues despite them. So Jesus has the ability to overcome everything anyone has ever said about or to you. In a Christian marriage, you’re living that out in miniature.
Keller, Timothy (2011–11–01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 141). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
In his new book, “Am I Called,” Dave Harvey—sharing from a wealth of personal experience and illustrating from history—explores biblical principles and revealing questions to help prospective pastors discern their calling.
Am I Called?: The Summons to Pastoral Ministry (Crossway, 2012) is available on paperback & Kindle.
Many men have the skills to lead a church, but only some are called. Dave Harvey helps men considering pastoral ministry to see God’s active role in the process of discerning their calling.
God’s Word offers a clear framework for evaluating one’s call, especially within the context of community. Harvey offers six diagnostic questions to help prospective pastors process their calling, and what they should be doing now if they aren’t sure. Illustrated with personal and historical stories, Harvey explores biblical and practical principles for determining the pastoral call.
Over the past twenty-four years of ministry, Harvey has enjoyed assisting many men in discerning whether they are called into ministry. This book will guide you through that all-important process with wisdom and confidence in God’s faithfulness in your life.
Source: thegospelcoalition.org
Confessions, Generations, and the Future of the CRC
The CRC—Christian Reformed Church—has been struggling as of late with their historic confessionalism. Namely, the desire of some in the denomination to no longer require confessional subscription of its church officers:
“historically requires officers of the [Christian Reformed] church (pastors, elders, and faculty of Calvin College) to sign the Form of Subscription as an expression of commitment to our Three Forms of Unity: the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dordt—three historic confessions of the Reformed faith.”
Why is such a slip-and-slide in confessionalism happening in the CRC?
James K.A. Smith (Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College) has a hypothesis:
I think this is very much a generational issue. More specifically, I think this is a baby boomer problem. And for the past 20 years, the leadership of our denomination has been in the hands of baby boomers who absorbed an anti-institutionalism that was in the water in the late 60s and early 70s, which they then channeled toward the faith of their forebears—particularly their immigrant forebears. This gave us the disastrous attempts by the denomination to turn us into bland “community church” evangelicalism. It also produced the sort of covert Protestant liberalism that De Moor and others regularly tout.
Hey, baby boomers, I want to let you in on a little secret: you don’t own the denomination, though I know you’ve acted like you do for the past 20 years. And I know you think that the next generation is looking to eviscerate our confessional Reformed particularity just as you’ve been trying to do. But it’s a lot more complicated than that. In fact, I think you should start to realize that those opposing you are not just “old codgers” who aren’t as enlightened as you, but also younger folks who have seen where this goes and are actually looking for a more ancient faith. Some of us Gen Xers and rising millennials are not interested in your “updated” faith: we’re looking for the thick, rich particularity of historic Reformed faith, understood as an expression of catholic Christianity.
Read the whole blog post here.
And do pray for the CRC.
A Bottle in the Smoke
For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes. (Psalm 119:83 ESV)
Now, a bottle, when it is in the smoke, gets very black: so does the Christian, when he is in the smoke of trial, or in the smoke of the gospel ministry, or the smoke of persecution, get very black to his own esteem. It is marvellous how bright we are when everything goes right with us; but it is equally marvellous how black we get when a little tribulation comes upon us. We think very well of ourselves while there is no smoke; but let the smoke come, and it just reveals the blackness of our hearts. Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on the surface; they are good, for this reason, they make us know our blackness.
—C.H. Spurgeon, A Bottle in the Smoke, delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 23, 1856, by at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
My NT Greek professor Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington has a new book coming out: Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic (September 1, 2012).
“Many books on the Gospels slog through source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism–important topics to be sure. How refreshing it is, however, to find a book with a new approach, one that reads the Gospels as literature and sees their importance theologically. This book is like a cool drink of water in what is too often the desert of Gospel studies. While I don’t agree with everything Pennington says, his arguments must be reckoned with, and they further the conversation in productive and stimulating ways. I believe this is the best introductory book on the Gospels. Both students and professors will find it to be invaluable.”
—Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Pre-order the book here. Check out book’s website: readingwisely.com
Dr. Pennington’s website: jonathanpennington.com
Dr. Pennington’s Twitter: @DrJTPennington
The Worst Sermons I Have Ever Heard
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2 ESV)
I have heard—and probably have preached—some pretty bad sermons!
I have heard sermons that had points that were very difficult to follow, illustrations that didn’t tug the heart, stories that lacked flow and connection to the passage. I have heard homiletical introductions that were too funny for the Temple of the Living God; conclusions that would not conclude; movie clips that should be left out of a church building.
Some sermons were plain boring; some sermons were longer than they needed to be.
Yet I have realized that the worst sermons I have ever heard are not ones which lacked oratory dynamite or illustrative cleverness, but rather sermons that missed the point of the biblical text and thus the product of eisegetical genius.
These sermons may tickle the ears, wow the crowd, make both sons of God and sons of disobedience chuckle in laughter, but they have zero regard for authorial intent—human author nor Divine author.
The preacher forces his personal agenda to be main point of the passage, which could only otherwise be at most a minutia of an application from the text. And he stretches the text so believably because “his point” is a valid concern for today’s church, and yet he also stretches the text so heretically because it is the right theology from the wrong text.
Dear Pastor-Preacher,
If you are going to preach a thematic/applicational sermon that is not the passage’s author-intended point, preface this to your hearer’s beforehand.
Else they learn from your preaching how they ought to read the Scriptures: intentionally inserting their own “messages” into the Bible, a “main idea” that was altogether absent from the passage.
Such is at the least an F in preaching class, and at the worst an exegetical fallacy at its finest.
I pray that you would read your Bible well, and preach God’s Message well.
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;
[…] devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.
Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:7, 13, 16 ESV)
—
[Photo credit. *I am in no way referring to Mark Driscoll’s preaching in this post. Image is only for artistic effect ;-) ]
Someone Better is the Spouse You Already Have
One spouse looks at his or her spouse’s weaknesses and says, “I need to find someone better than this.”
But the great thing about the model of Christian marriage we are presenting here is that when you envision the “someone better,” you can think of the future version of the person to whom you are already married. The someone better is the spouse you already have. God has indeed given us a desire for the perfect spouse, but you should seek it in the one to whom you’re married.
Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 136). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Get @Matt_Redman’s "10,000 Reasons" for $5 on @AmazonMP3
Matt Redman’s latest album 10,000 Reasons, featuring the current hit radio song “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord),” can be yours for just $5 on Amazon throughout the month of May 2012!
Redman’s latest album has been acclaimed as “a true 5 star release”, and “one of the best worship albums of the year … every single song could be added to your Sunday morning worship set!”
Matt Redman’s 10,000 Reasons project is a fantastic live worship album that wonderfully displays his pure talent as a singer/songwriter and worship leader.
Each song off the album is filled with joy and hope, and they really excite and inspire me to worship God. Unlike other worship leaders, Matt possesses this rare ability to keep his material original and imaginative, which is a testament to why he is so popular.
Every single song from this album could easily be added to your Sunday morning set list. If you’re a fan of Chris Tomlin, Tim Hughes, Hillsong LIVE and Delirious you should not hesitate to pick up this album, which is by far the #1 worship album of 2011! (God Tunes Reviews)
Get Matt Redman’s “10,000 Reasons” for $5 on AmazonMP3!
Source: amazon.com
Moral instruction is not simply about knowing factually what’s right and wrong (though that’s part of it); it’s about learning to feel affection toward certain virtues and revulsion toward others.
Source: challies.com
Give your spouse the right to talk to you about what is wrong with you
Counselors will tell you that the only flaws that can enslave you are the ones that you are blind to. If you are in denial about some feature of your character, that feature will control you. But marriage blows the lid off, turns the lights on. Now there is hope. Finally you can begin dealing with the real you. Don’t resist this power that marriage has. Give your spouse the right to talk to you about what is wrong with you.
Keller, Timothy (2011-11-01). The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (p. 132). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
