BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Merry Christmas!

David and I wish each of you a very merry Christmas!

A Psalm of Christmas

Lord we blame
the innkeeper
for only giving you
the stable
when his inn was full
but what about
all the others
who lived in Bethlehem
that night
when you were born.
Why were
all their houses
that weren't full
of guests
fast closed
against the one
who contained you?
God bless
our little homes
this Christmastime
make them
big enough
to welcome you
contained in those
for whom the world
has no room
except
a cold and lonely
Christmas day.

- Joe Bayly

Man, who is but a maggot...

Where is sin? I've been reading Job and it struck me that this truth is completely absent from the church:

How then can a man be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be pure? If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less man, who is but a maggot--a son of man, who is only a worm! (Job 25:4-6)

Do your children know they are sinners? Do you and your wife know how desperately wicked you both are--that your hearts are unbelievably deceitful? Do you preach for conviction of sin in your flock? Do you share Jonathan Edwards' conviction that the doctrine of original sin is the key to conversion and revival? 

It's always struck me that the Reformed church seems incapable of preaching the sinfulness of sin. Yet doctrinaly, we continue to pay lip service to total depravity. How can we do this? What good is it to have a tool that we are in principle opposed to using? The demons have more faith in total depravity...

ClearNote Bloomington Choir: Ride On, King Jesus!

Phil Moyer directs the choir of ClearNote Church, Bloomington last Lord's Day singing "Ride On, King Jesus!" (TB)

Roman Catholicism is a medieval heresy...

Under the post, Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods..., one comment elicited this response from your scribe. I posted it as a comment, there, but also put it here for the benefit of those who don't keep track of comments. (TB)

Brothers, allow me a few responses, although they must be hopelessly brief considering the weight of these matters.

>>Be careful when you sling around words like apostasy, idolatry (Per Calvin we're all "fabricum idolarum") and heresy.

We are careful. That is, careful--very careful--to keep them alive. The proper word to use concerning Roman Catholicism is 'heresy'. Read Joe Brown's Heresies. Reformed pastors and elders use this word following our Reforming fathers's example because Roman Catholicism is a system of doctrine that leads souls to Hell. Systematically.

The center of Rome's system is the merchandising of salvation through...

"A minister with a Scripture..."

A few days ago, Tim Keller used his own Gospel Coalition blog to issue an apology for this very bad interview he did back in 2008 in conjunction with the release of his The Reason for God. The matter came to light only now because the video of the interview was only just released by Veritas Forum. Keller's apology is good in that apologies generally are; but it's bad in that some aspects of the interview that are most unfaithful to Scripture aren't addressed by the apology.

Noting this, I submitted a comment under the Gospel Coalition's announcement of the apology. The comment appeared for a few minutes, then was removed. Five days ago I submitted a request to the Coalition's e-mail asking them to...

"For the wrath of man shall praise you..."

Here's the manuscript for the sermon I preached the Lord's Day following 9/11 ten years ago, and then again yesterday on its tenth anniversary. I should add that the manuscript usually serves only as my loose outline for the preaching of God's Word.

Not to worry, Congresswoman Bachmann's resigned membership in her WELS church...

The Wisconisn Evangelical Lutheran Synod sees the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and raises them one. Or maybe ten.

In my former home of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, the WELS congregation was the dominant religious presence in town. When they called a new pastor, Mary Lee and I decided to invite him with his wife and children over for dinner. After a cordial introduction, we sat down at the table and I turned to him and said, "I've heard lots of things through the years, but let me ask you directly: do you pray, do I pray, or do we not pray at all?"

He answered, "You go ahead and pray and we'll sit by," and immediately his good wife turned to their children and said, "We're going to pray; fold your hands and close your eyes." God bless her.

We had a pleasant evening. During the conversation the WELS pastor told us his grandmothers was a godly Baptist and that he didn't pray with her, either...

Must a gay man go straight?

Under another post, a longtime reader named Jay asks a question that seems worth answering on the main page.

* * *

Dear Jay,

Answering a question like this by writing rather than in person is very difficult, pastorally. How can I show you I love you and am very concerned that you know the mercy of God for your particular set of temptations, especially in a time and place when any condemnation of sodomy is seen as at least shrill, and likely smug, insensitive, and grounded in self-righteousness, to boot?

Still, I will work to answer you because you say others are unwilling to do so, and because you are a precious soul belonging to the Lord of us all Who bought us each with His Own Blood and has called us to be holy as He is holy. If you want, I can put you in touch with those struggling with your particular set of temptations who are a part of our church here in Bloomington and you may ask them if what I write here is from love or censoriousness? You may ask whether you’d find our church to be loving of all regardless of their particular besetting sin, or loving only of those with more acceptable besetting sins?

So on to the difficult work others have avoided.

You wrote, “I would not consider myself heterosexual at all. Is being straight a requirement?”

Let’s clarify the question. The opposite of straight is gay, so another way of asking the question would be, “My psychological and emotional identity and inclinations are completely homosexual, so can I be give in to them as long as I don’t go all the way?” Or another way of saying it would be, “May I give myself to gayness rather than straightness in everything but physical intercourse, and will this please God?”

The answer is...

A psalm for Easter...

Let's celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed.
Laugh like a man
who finds he doesn't have cancer
or does but now there's a cure.
Christ opened wide the door of heaven.
Laugh like children
at Disneyland's gates.
This world is owned by God
and He'll return to rule.
Laugh like a man
who walks away uninjured
from a wreck
in which his car was totaled.
Laugh
as if all the people in the whole world
were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.

-Joe Bayly

Wise as serpents, harmless as doves...

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.” When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:24-28).

(Tim) The newly inaugurated governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, said this inside a Christian church from that church's pulpit during a worship service: "Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother." 

ABC reports:

A spokesman for the Anti Defamation League said the governor's comments were "stunning" and "distressing" and were tantamount to proselytizing.

"It is stunning to me that he'd make those remarks. It's distressing because of the suggestion that he feels that people who aren't Christian are not entitled to love and respect. On the day that he is sworn in as governor, he's sending a statement to the public saying if you're not Christian you can't be with me. From our point of view that is proselytizing for Christianity and coming very close to a violation of the First Amendment."

Let me keep reminding us that the much-ballyhooed separation of church and state that lulls a certain type of naive Christian man to sleep is a figment of our imagination and this becomes more clear each day. What was meant by freedom of religion by those who wrote and adopted our U.S. Constitution was freedom to acknowledge and worship the Only True God according to the leading of our own consciences. It was never meant to allow Islam or the fools of evolution who say there is no God the same protection as Christians. This is a simple historical fact and is avoided at all costs by those who live in a dream world and desperately want to believe secularism is a tolerant religion.

Exactly like the ancient Roman Empire, America's laws and civil magistrates and the schools they force us to fund are supremely religious and utterly intolerant. The religion is secularism and it's committed to outlawing true Christian faith. Those Christians who think they will be allowed to practice Biblical faith under secular civil magistrates are blind to the reality of their own lives as well as the lives being prepared for their children and grandchildren...

A Psalm for the new year...

Psalm 90: A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

A psalm for the new year...

A Psalm of Anticipation 

 

Lord Christ

Your servant

Martin Luther

said he only had

two days

on his calendar

today

and that day

and that’s

what I want too.

and I want

to live

today

for

that day.

 

-Joe Bayly

On Christmas Eve...

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:4-6)

A Psalm for Christmas Eve

Praise God for Christmas
Praise Him for the Incarnation
for Word made flesh.
I will not sing
of shepherds watching flocks
on frosty night
or angel choristers.
I will not sing
of stable bare in Bethlehem
or lowing oxen
wise men
trailing distant star
with gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Tonight I will sing
praise to the Father
who stood on heaven's threshold
and said farewell to His Son
as He stepped across the stars
to Bethlehem
and Jerusalem.
And I will sing
praise to the infinite eternal Son
who became most finite
a Baby
who would one day be executed
for my crimes.
Praise Him in the heavens.
Praise Him in the stable.
Praise Him in my heart.</i>

-Joe Bayly

Good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people...

(Tim) So far, it's been watched by twenty million, all of whom--together with the food court patrons--have heard that Jesus Christ Alone is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Forever and ever and ever and ever and...

Announcing our 4th Annual Good Shepherd Band Christmas Sing-A-Long.

(Jody Killingsworth) Each year, our worship band joins forces with our adult and children’s choirs and fifteen or so orchestral musicians from Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music to lead the Bloomington community in celebrating the Incarnation of our promised Messiah. It’s exuberant, ecstatic, poignant, energetic, stirring, tremendous, resplendent; and best of all, participatory!

So come sing your Christmas hearts out with us. Then join us for Lord’s Day worship the next morning. We’d love to have you, especially if you’re from out of town. Let us know, and we'll do our best to find a home for you and your family while you're here.

When: Saturday, December 11 at 7pm 

Where: Church of the Good Shepherd          

Here’s a teaser to whet your appetite…

Too ashamed to admit that it even exists...

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:13)

(Tim, w/thanks to David W.) Like Joseph Smithism, Mohammedanism is not all it's cracked up to be. The best way to understand it may be to think of an heretical polar opposite to dispensationalism. With Islam, it's not the Old, but the New Testament that's thrown out. And yet it's not the Old Testament left intact, but the Old Testament eviscerated of the Fatherhood of God, with only a terribly perverted law and justice remaining.

There's no mercy; there are no antitypes pointing to the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. There's no Suffering Servant, no promise of a Redeemer.

Islam is the Judaizers run amuck...

Veritas Forum's Tim Keller on sodomy: "It's not good for human flourishing"...

(Tim) My parents gave most of their lives to campus ministry. The first IVCF staffers in New England back in the forties, they lived in Cambridge and were responsible for all of New England. I grew up going to Bear Trap Ranch and Cedar Campus--IV's camps for student leadership training--and listening to Dad teach the Word of God.

And now, for most of our ministry Mary Lee and I have served in college and university contexts. We started in Madison, Wisconsin; moved to Boulder, Colorado; then on to Boston; and now, for the past eighteen years, here in Bloomington, Indiana, where half the population of 70,000 or so is connected to Indiana University. Our church is filled with IU undergrad and graduate students, as well as profs and other IU employees.

So it's not from inexperience concerning the spiritual needs of the Academy that I say I've never been much of a fan of Veritas Forum. Well-intentioned, yes; but largely ineffective. Watching it over the years, including here in Bloomington, I'd say the main effect it has is allowing evangelical Christians who have been silent and compromised academics on their own campus to thump their chests for a week while hired guns come in and clean up the town. But with one exception--Walter Bradley, if you're curious--the hired guns seem pretty tame when it comes to their ability and willingness to pull the trigger. So, unlike the Apostle Paul's itinerant ministry, nothing much gets cleaned up.

Few places are as evil and so desperately need a clear and bold witness to sin, righteousness, and judgment--and then, to the wisdom and glory of the Cross of Jesus Christ--than the Academy...

A Psalm for Easter...

Let's celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed.
Laugh like a man
who finds he doesn't have cancer
or does but now there's a cure.
Christ opened wide the door of heaven.
Laugh like children
at Disneyland's gates.
This world is owned by God
and He'll return to rule.
Laugh like a man
who walks away uninjured
from a wreck
in which his car was totaled.
Laugh
as if all the people in the whole world
were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.

-Joe Bayly

Joe Sobran: preaching to the conscience and the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation...

(Tim) Ten years ago, I read this column by Joe Sobran. Joe's declaration of faith gave me joy, but what struck me, particularly, was this statement:

Great as Shakespeare is, I never lose sleep over anything he said. He leaves my conscience alone.

Still today, I find myself wondering whether what's lacking in Shakespeare is not also lacking in my own preaching? Do God's sheep leave my proclamation of the Word of God each Lord's Day morning with easy consciences? Is their sleep always peaceful? If so, what an unfaithful minister of the Gospel I am.

Then we hit Sobran's promotion of the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation. If you think it scandalous that I'd give any space to Sobran's defense of transubstantiation, never fear. Think about this.

Jesus didn't say, "this wine which is poured out for you," "this wine is the new covenant in my blood," or "for as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine...."

Rather, He said:

“This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20b). And the Apostle Paul said, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (1 Corinthians 11:25-28).

Reformed Protestants have no need to fear the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. If their claim to hold to the literal meaning of these texts were true, it wouldn't be the wine, but the cup that becomes our Lord's blood. Have you ever tried to drink a cup?

I was in prison, and you came to Me...

(Tim) Speaking of the Gospel, what's the most productive building in the country for souls believing in the Lord Jesus and being saved? If you guessed Saddleback or Redeemer, you're wrong. It's the local county jail.

Maybe a man's spent his life escaping accountability, with the full complicity of his mother and father, teachers, coaches, and boss, but the day finally comes when he's arrested for hitting a young boy with his car, killing him while he's driving under the influence of alcohol. Then, for the first time in his life there in the county jail, this man is forced to take a hard look at himself. No more excuses. No manipulation or lies to his loved ones. He's going to face the judge and this time Daddy can't save him.

So there in his cell, he's ready to hear the message of the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us from all sin, and each year God is pleased to give repentance and faith to many thousands in county jails around the country.

Think about the Philippian jailer. An earthquake hits his jail, causing the walls to crumble and the prisoners' chains to fall off. What's his immediate response? Thinking his prisoners have escaped, he draws his sword to kill himself.

Doesn't that strike you as odd--that this jailer would react to a natural disaster by committing suicide?

Tolerance's steel shackles and the gagging of Wheaton's Christian witness...

“Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way" (Luke 6:26)

"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name" (Matthew 24:9).

Taking the measure of how Wheaton's Department of Education will implement their Teacher Education Program Conceptual Framework and what kind of Christian witness it would allow Wheaton students to have and still be certified requires seeing the increasingly narrow constraints applied through these three "goals/outcomes related to social justice" spelled out on page four.

The first outcome required of the students is that they "work effectively with all children and their families regardless of race, creed, religion, national origin, sexual preference, disabling condition, or capabilities." As Professor Rasmusen said under an earlier post, as long as "work effectively" is fairly defined and doesn't exclude the diversity of orthodox Christian thought and speech related, for instance, to sodomy and sodomites, we have no problem.

But anyone half alive in these United States today knows how "work effectively" is likely to be defined. As I said to George Marsden years ago when he was busy arguing that Christians should also have a place at the table (of the modern university), if they give us our place and we open our mouths about the slaughter of the unborn children all around us; or if we utter a single word about Adam being created first, and then Eve; we'll be removed. In a heartbeat, our place will vanish. Poof! It's gone.

So we move on to the second "goal/outcome related to social justice" required of students. They are "to ensure that diversity is respected and that candidates have the opportunity to work in diverse environments and with diverse colleagues and teachers." Now we begin to see how "work effectively" is defined by Wheaton's profs as they evaluate their students. The above diversities must be "respected." Of course we respect different races and national origins and disabling conditions and capabilities. No problem.

But would a student be "respecting" the diversity of sodomy or Islam if he presented a loving and graceful and merciful and cogent and truthful witness against it? If he taught the true history of expansion by Jihad...

Pure and undefiled spirituality of the Church...

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27).

(Tim) Comment #16 under Mr. Kristoff's blog follow-up to the oped piece he ran in the Times, today:

No church in the country has had a higher visibility in evangelical leadership during the twentieth century than Boston's Park Street Church where, for decades, Harold John Ockenga formed the consciences of coming generations of evangelical leaders. Go back to the eighteenth century and it's Park Street on Boston Common where William Lloyd Garrison spoke, repenting of his colonization compromise on the slave question, announcing his new commitment: "No union with slaveholders." Before that, Park Street was central to the Sunday school movement--another national work of the Christian social conscience.

This to say that the sort of evangelicals tracing our theological heritage back to men like Jonathan Edwards (who suffered in his second pastorate for his unflinching defense of the native Americans in his small village) have always been the bleeding edge of liberal when liberal means loving and generous and, like good Job, snatching the innocents from the jaws of the wicked.

To those who know historic--not mass-market blowhard evangelicalism, the suggestion that President Bush was a sea-change in our concern for the poor and disenfranchised is humorous. Jim Wallis has never spoken for us...

Nicholas Kristoff on evangelicals' street cred...

(Tim) The oped piece by Nicholas Kristoff in today's Times argues that liberals should cut evangelicals some slack on the compassion scale, recognizing they do a lot of what even secularists would recognize as good deeds. It takes him by surprise, but really it shouldn't. The Western world is living off the capital of godly men and women who, from the love of Jesus Christ, have loved their neighbor and done what is necessary to help him. AIDS patients and orphans, slaves, Jews under the Third Reich, disenfranchised black Americans, prisoners, the sick, small children working and dying as chimney sweeps, the hungry ad thirsty, the unborn...

But of course, not the unborn. Never ever the unborn.

This is the reason David and I bring these little ones up so often. Yes, there are many who pay lip service to the unborn, claiming to be opposed to abortion, personally, but to think it's a states rights issue. Or a religious issue: "While I'm personally opposed to abortion and think the fewer of them we have, the better; still, every child should be a wanted child and our Supreme Court has declared it's a woman's right to choose."

The unborn never quite make the cut as legitimate victims needing the protection of the civil magistrate. Lots of professed concern, but nothing approximating Righteous Job's snatching them from the jaws of the wicked...

U.S. Supreme Court vs. Gianna Jensen...

“Now Gianna, we love your message and your story, but you don’t really need to say so much about Jesus.”

(Tim) This from Leslie Taylor on this tragic anniversary of the betrayal of God's little ones by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade:

* * *

She was born alive after her birth mother went in for a saline abortion, 7 ½ months pregnant.

In Gianna’s words, “They didn’t know who they were trying to kill.” Gianna’s a survivor and a voice for many more who aren’t...

The day after Christmas...

(Tim) This from the grandfather of two of our grandsons. It was signed, "For my brothers and sisters in Christ, Pastor David Crum." Used without permission.

The Day After Christmas
December 26, 2009
 
‘Tis the day after Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature is stirring
(Well, I am, but does that count?) *
The children and mother
Are resting in bed
The drive from Virginia
Has left them half dead.
 
Once more Christmas has come
And it’s gone twice as fast
You wait for its coming
Then whoosh! it is past.
The presents are open
The wrappings are trash
The gifts have been given
And I’m all out of cash.
 
Yet, Christ has not gone
He lives still today
I worship Him now
As I did yesterday.
Tomorrow I’ll praise Him
And the next day too
Christmas is over
Christ remains in me

And He’s also in you.

A psalm for Christmas Eve...

Praise God for Christmas
Praise Him for the Incarnation
for Word made flesh.

I will not sing
of shepherds watching flocks
on frosty night
or angel choristers.

I will not sing
of stable bare in Bethlehem
or lowing oxen
wise men
trailing distant star
with gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Tonight I will sing
praise to the Father
Who stood on Heaven’s threshold
and said farewell to His Son
as He stepped across the stars
to Bethlehem
and Jerusalem.

And I will sing
praise to the infinite eternal Son
Who became most finite
a Baby
who would one day be executed
for my crimes.

Praise Him in the heavens.
Praise Him in the stable.
Praise Him in my heart.


-Joe Bayly

Christmas voices...

Christmas Voices

by Joseph Bayly IV

Joseph

It’s cold and drafty. She’s cold. Why couldn’t the boy have been born while we were still in Nazareth, instead of here, alone, no one to help. Only me, and I’ve never delivered a baby.

Fear not, Joseph.

I do believe God. I take him at his word. A baby. But not mine.

Take unto thee Mary.

Mary—how I love her. I love you, Mary. Here. Hold my hand. I’ll see that nothing goes wrong. No, God will see to that, he’ll take care of you. He’s got to—it’s his baby. Don’t be afraid.

She shall bring forth a son.

He’ll work beside me, help me smooth a yoke, build a house. I’ll get him a little saw, the boy and I will work together...

Lo! He abhors not the virgin's womb...

(Tim) Christmas has always been babies. It started with two babies in their mother's wombs, One with an eternal weight of glory and the other, recognizing that Glory, preparing His way by proclaiming His presence to the only one listening--His mother, Elizabeth.

Think of it! John the Baptist beginning to do the work of His calling when he was still in his mother's womb. What a man! What a child! A faithful prophet, he couldn't open his mouth and speak, so in his mother's womb he rolled and jumped and kicked and turned somersaults! His mother got the message...

Christmas babies...

(Tim, w/thanks to one dear woman who loves babies) This clip is a good way to celebrate Christmas. Our Lord may very well have had a goat drinking out of his bath water.

The Reformed doctrine of reaching down...

(Tim, w/thanks to Ben Cr.) One of the more hidden members of Good Shepherd Band is Aaron Jones, an early music keyboardist who serves the Lord by "reaching down." What's the reference?

Check out his myspace Radio Friendly: American Pirates page--particularly his song, "Reach Down." (I also appreciated "I Shall Be Satisfied.")

Knowing many of our readers are forthrightly Reformed, I can anticipate objections to a Reformed man putting "the least of these" to song...

Two nights a-jousting...

(Tim) Just a reminder to come to our Christmas Sing-a-Long this Friday evening--now just two nights away. Don't miss it and invite everyone you love! There will be lots of cookies and cocoa as we take joy in, and glorify, our Lord Jesus Christ. See you there!

Me and Jesus, plus nothing...

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. (Hebrews 13:17)

(Tim) The results of Trinity College's 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) are in and they confirm that the souls of Americans are not being lost to false religions, but to the complete rejection of the Church. This confirms my own experience.

Far and away the largest number of souls who have rejected Church of the Good Shepherd's doctrine in the past decade, investigating us but leaving for somewhere else, left because we require a believer be a member in good standing of some evangelical, Bible-believing church to join with us at the Lord's Table.

We fence the Table quite inclusively, really. I use the liturgy of the old Scottish Book of Worship and it's a balm for weak souls trusting in Christ alone for our salvation. But then, at the end, I warn off those who reject Christ's authority, rejecting the authority of elders over their own soul. If they believe they can relate directly to God, bypassing the ministry and authority of His Church, this rebellion disqualifies them from communing with us, I tell them.

Of course, I go on to show them how easily they may correct the matter...

Why God named the race 'adam'...

(Tim: this is a rerun) The Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over man by woman, saying "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve." (1 Timothy 2:12a)

With this simple statement, Paul explicitly affirms what is implicit throughout God's Word: that the order of creation establishes patriarchy as God's pattern for leadership in human relationships. Addressing the matter of propriety in prayer, the Apostle Paul again emphasizes this order: "For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake" (1 Corinthians 11:8,9).

Imagine a new believer, thoroughly confused by our disordered world, discovering the truth of passages such as 1Corinthians 11:3-16, 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1Timothy 2:9-15, and 1Peter 3:1-7. What a deep sense of relief to discover that the order of creation gives us universal principles for the relationships between men and women.

But while the facts of Eve's creation are instructive for establishing proper order between man and woman, Genesis goes on to reveal another important biographical note about Adam and Eve. The significance of this biographical detail, also, is revealed more fully in the New Testament.

The first hint of this element comes after the Fall when God, walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, inquires of Adam, "Where are you?" When Adam responds by explaining that he and Eve found themselves naked and hid, it is notable...

Why "pregnant" doesn't cut it...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave C.) Doug Moo has done a good recent commentary on Romans and is a faculty member at evangelicalism's Harvard, Wheaton College. So why are my concerns unabated when he gives us assurances all will be well with the 2011 updated NIV his Biblica Committee on Bible Translation is producing?

Defending the integrity of the sort of changes he and his people will be making, yesterday Fox News reported Moo saying:

Most changes will have nothing to do with gender inclusivity, Moo said. And the TNIV provides a glimpse of likely changes: In the '84 NIV, Mary is "with child," but in the TNIV she is "pregnant."

Why am I not reassured?

We're halfway to a billion babies slaughtered in their mother's wombs in the past few decades, and our best and brightest...

Missional or Commissional?

(Tim) Here's the manuscript for our final sermon on the Gospel of Matthew; and specifically, our final sermon on the Great Commission. Please forgive me for not cleaning it up prior to posting it, here. Lots of formatting and spelling mistakes will irritate you, I'm sure. And please keep in mind that sermon manuscripts are not sermons.

Brian McLaren bloviating his shame...

(Tim) Three or four of you have now sent me notification that Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren is observing the Muslim holy days of Ramadan this year. Joining with them in their daily fast/feast cycle, McLaren makes this promise in behalf of himself and all those following him in his folly:

We will seek to avoid being disrespectful or unfaithful to our own faith tradition in our desire to be respectful to the faith tradition of our friends.

Good readers, when you and your pastor start to refer to our only Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Only Begotten Son of the Father as "our own faith tradition," your soul is in peril and you need to get out of that church and find a true Christian church where your own soul, as well as that of your wife and children, will be guarded--not sold for fame and fortune. Do it quickly.

But back to His Pomposity: McLaren has a bunch of reasons for turning towards Mecca and he's spreading all of them across the known world. If you think of the Emergent Church leaders as publicity hounds...

"My little daughter is dying..."

(Tim) This is a sermon manuscript--not a transcript--and thus differs substantially from the sermon itself.

From the Pulpit of Church of the Good Shepherd
(Service held at Sherwood Oaks Christian Church)

Funeral Service for Elizabeth Rasmusen held July 24, 2009 at 10:00 AM

My Little Daughter Is Dying
Mark 5:21-24; 35-43

(Preliminary comments on the frequency of death of children in Colonial America, followed by excerpts from prayer requests taken from the flip sides of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon manuscripts.)

Professor Stephen Stein, a retired faculty member here at Indiana University, read the flip sides of hundreds of the scraps of paper on which Jonathan Edwards wrote his sermons. At the time, paper was a valuable commodity and Edwards recycled the pieces of paper given him by his parishioners containing their prayer requests each Lord’s Day, later writing his sermons on them. Professor Stein published an article outlining the content of those requests and they're instructive for us today, on this occasion of the death of little Lizzie Rasmusen. Listen as I read you a few excerpts of these requests and see if there is anything for us to learn from souls who have gone before us...

When "large crowds were going along with Him," He said...

(Tim) "iChristian" is an app offered to iPod Touch and iPhone users in Apple's iTunes store. Here's its description:

Now your iPhone / iPod Touch is a missionary, preacher and the evangelist!!! The iPhone / iPod Touch application "iChristian" ("Become a Christian") contains the minimum of required information to become a Christian. Alter the prayer of salvation. you may register as a Christian. If you would like, you may request a certificate of a Christian.

If Jesus warned those wanting to become His disciples that they must count the cost of following Him, then for us to offer salvation to unbelievers through such a come-on line as "contains the minimum of required information to become a Christian" is to mislead them. It's spiritual bait-and-switch...

A psalm for Easter...

Let’s celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed...

A psalm for Maundy Thursday...

A Psalm for Maundy Thursday

Tonight
Lord Jesus Christ
You sat at supper
with Your friends.
It was a simple meal

that final one
of lamb
unleavened bread
and wine.
Afterward...

A meditation for the middle of Holy Week...

(Tim) Too many hop, skip, and jump through the Christian year, from Palm Sunday to Easter to the Fourth of July to Christmas. Even among those who are more observant, though, almost none of us include the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, and the condemnation of the elders, stated clerks, and pastors in our Holy Week festivities.

So, dear souls, why did the religious leaders hate Him so? Why did they spend a night suborning perjury? Why did they hound Him to death? And what occupied Jesus' time between the cries of "Hosanna to Son of David" and these, a few days later: "His blood be upon us and upon our children! Crucify him!"?

Earlier today, a comment was posted elsewhere on this blog that included this statement:

I simply think we need to be careful before generalizing a particular trait to an entire class of people. Categories are useful for us humans, but I don't think God sees us in those terms...

To which I responded with a comment that, by private e-mail, a reader requested I post here on the front page. So here it is, my own meditation for the middle of Holy Week:

Dear (Reader),

There's truth in what you write, but the minority report is stunning...

A psalm for Palm Sunday...

(Tim) Back around 1985, Dad and Mud came up for the weekend to the small town in rural Wisconsin where Mary Lee and I were serving a yoked parish of two churches affiliated with the mainline PC(USA). Some years later, we voted to transfer into the PCA and changed our name to Grace Presbyterian Church.

As it happened, that Lord's Day was Palm Sunday and I was preaching on Jesus' Triumphal Entry. During the school year, the drill was Rosedale Presbyterian Church out in the countryside first, greeting the brothers and sisters of that godly congregation prior to worship. Then, worship over and the benediction given, I'd hop in the car and get to town just in time to give the call to worship in the town church.

"All Israel will be saved..."

(Tim) Here's a report from a missionary couple I've had the pleasure of getting to know recently. I was so encouraged by their report that I thought I'd pass it on to our readers. The names of the couple and their cities have been removed to protect them, their brothers and sisters in Christ, and their Gospel work.

* * *

Although we're learning Hebrew, (my husband and I) are able to minister in Russian here, too. There are an estimated one million Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel. They're coming to Christ in unprecedented numbers...

How the world sees Christ through His Bride...

(Tim) Like it or not, to the American unbeliever today we are all "evangelicals." That is, we all believe in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, honor His Word, and call those lost and without hope in this world to repentance for their promotion and commitment to baby-killing, adultery, child molestation, sodomy, and greed. To them, we are not split into Reformed and Arminian. They can't distinguish between Reformed, Evangelical, and Emergent, let alone Barely-Reformed and Truly-Reformed.

So when Rick Warren prays, he prays for us. When Franklin Graham speaks, he speaks for us. When Tyndale House publishes, they publish for us.

Tragically, this means those who watch HBO's documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard--or interviews Haggard and his family are doing for The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live--will believe they are peering through a periscope into our souls, our marriages, our families, our churches, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Filmed by Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, this documentary is what has given rise to this latest shame of ours. Due to be aired by HBO this coming Thursday, January 29th, Haggard taking his story public and appealing for sympathy led to another tragic revelation.

John the Baptist's moral performance narrative...

(Tim: This from and by Eric Wilson)

Scene: Children sitting in the marketplace...

Aaron: As exciting as it's been to see and hear of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, I could hardly be more disappointed in John the Baptist, lately. I just don’t understand what he was trying to do.

Bartholomew: Really, it’s not that surprising. He always struck me as caught up in the "moral-performance narrative"...

Merry Christmas!

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. (Galatians 4:4-6)

A Psalm for Christmas Eve

Praise God for Christmas
Praise Him for the Incarnation
for Word made flesh.
I will not sing
of shepherds watching flocks
on frosty night
or angel choristers.
I will not sing
of stable bare in Bethlehem
or lowing oxen
wise men
trailing distant star
with gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Tonight I will sing
praise to the Father
who stood on heaven's threshold
and said farewell to His Son
as He stepped across the stars
to Bethlehem
and Jerusalem.
And I will sing
praise to the infinite eternal Son
who became most finite
a Baby
who would one day be executed
for my crimes.
Praise Him in the heavens.
Praise Him in the stable.
Praise Him in my heart.

-Joe Bayly

Submission's difficulty...

(Tim) So why do we hate authority? Is it really that difficult to submit to our husband or father?

It struck me this morning that Jesus must have thought it important to tell His disciples what great difficulty He had submitting to His Father's will the night He was betrayed. Three times we're told "He went a little beyond" Peter, James, and John when He prayed, "My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as you will."

Maybe the disciples overheard Him?

But Luke records the "little beyond" Jesus went to pray was "about a stone's throw." And Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the disciples fell asleep as Jesus prayed. So no, it's unlikely they heard Him.

Our Lord must have thought it important His disciples know of His weakness, and how He pled for the cup of God's wrath to be kept from Him. And beyond His disciples, you and I, also. Our Lord determined that we should know and be encouraged by His Own terrible struggle toward submission to His Father.

Slaves, students, congregants, children, employees, wives, presbyters, citizens--every single one of us in the place of our submission to the authority God has placed over us--our Lord Jesus was tempted in all ways like as we are, yet without sin. Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Nevertheless, not my will, but thine.

Barack Obama rocks XV: Not a Muslim, and certainly no Christian...

(Tim) Each week, our church has a pickup soccer game at an elementary school near an apartment complex where a number of Muslim law school students live. When we're playing, one or more of the men (and sometimes their wives and children) come over to watch, and occasionally to play. Always, we talk afterward inviting them over for dinner and to church Lord's Day morning. A week and a half ago, one of the men came to both Sunday school and church.

Most of the men are from Turkey, but one is Liberian. During a conversation, the subject of Senator Barack Obama's faith came up and the Liberian gentleman said, "Barack Obama's a Christian, isn't he?"

"No, he's not a Christian," I answered.

"But doesn't he go to a Christian church?" he asked in some confusion.

"Well yes, he holds membership in a church that claims to be Christian, but it's not...

The Christian home is an acid test of true Christian faith...

(Tim, w/thanks to David Lehr) In a nation where the majority of citizens claim to have "a personal relationship" or to be "living a narrative" with Jesus at the center, how is it that babies keep being murdered at a rate of 1.3 million per year? How is it that women continue to take on more positions in which, by design and intent, they exercise authority over men? How is it that the family meal has died? That what my Dad called "that huckster" now owns the center of our living room and dying room? That no one practices hospitality any more--except possibly at restaurants or hotels? That husbands love internet sluts instead of their beautiful wives? That one fifth of our nation's women now arrive at their early forties never having given birth to a child?

Really, the older I get, the more sense it makes to me that the New Testament epistles place such constant and heavy emphasis on simple (or should I say basic) household matters. Do we really think that killing babies, women sleeping with women and men with men, children defying their fathers, mothers abandoning their children and home for a public life, husbands loving prostitutes instead of the virtuous wife God gave them, wives refusing to submit to their husbands and taking over the leadership of the church, smutty plays and drama and poetry, and spoiled cats and dogs are things unknown in the world of the early Christians?

Syncretistic pressures on Navy chaplains...

(Tim) Under the Jeremiah Wright post, Al comments:

"One of the things that disturbed me most in my 20 year Navy career was the number of Chaplains who walked around with crosses on their sleeves, who claimed the name of Christ, yet had no love for Christ or his Gospel.

"While in the Persian Gulf during Ramadan, onboard the USS Nimitz, I was in my rack (bed, for you civilians) at evening prayer. The senior Chaplain in the battle group came on the 1-MC (ship’s intercom) and delivered these words: “Dear God, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Mother Earth… you are known by many names…” I was dumbfounded by such blatant syncretism and ripped open the curtain of my rack and everyone in the berthing compartment (place where Sailors sleep) was staring at me...