BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Five hundred years ago, he said...

(Tim) "...nobody is fit to preach the Gospel in a hostile world, unless his mind has been prepared for suffering. Therefore if we are to prove ourselves faithful ministers of Christ, not only must we ask Him for the spirit of knowledge and of wisdom, but also for the spirit of steadfastness and of courage, so that we may never be broken by desperate suffering, for this is the lot of the godly." - John Calvin, Acts, Vol. 1 (Torrance) pp. 266--267.

"No woman miscarrying or barren in your land."

(Tim) A couple nights ago we were reading the Bible together following dinner. We've finished Genesis and are halfway through Exodus in Robert Alter's translation of the Pentateuch. After the necessary corruption of 'adam' in the first couple chapters of Genesis (which was so bad we started laughing at Alter's PC circulocutions), we've very much enjoyed using a literal translation that, otherwise, is so careful to keep the Hebraisms intact. A couple years ago we'd used Alter's translation of 1 and 2 Samuel and appreciated it quite a bit, too.

Reading Exodus 23, we came across this promise God makes to His covenant people. Speaking of all the wicked people-groups in Canaan who have finally filled their cup of wickedness, He declares:

...I shall obliterate them. You shall not bow to their gods and you shall not worship them, and you shall not do as they do, but you shall utterly tear them down and you shall utterly smash their pillars. And you shall worship the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water, and I shall take away sickness from your midst. There shall be no woman miscarrying or barren in your land. The count of your days I will fill.

At this point we stopped and I asked a question: "Would Christians today be angry at God if He blessed them this way--that none of our wives or daughters would miscarry or be barren? Say God poured out His favor on us and all our homes sprouted children just like olive trees sprout branches; would we be pleased, or would we be angry?"

But then, God hasn't blessed us in this way, has He? Barrenness and miscarriage are a central reality of pastoral ministry, today. And also birth control.

Birth control? That doesn't fit into this discussion...

Time to apply to ClearNote Pastors College...

(Tim) Last Lord's Day, our sermon was preached by a second year student at ClearNote Pastors College. He's half Arab, has never known his Dad, and never been to college. He came to Church of the Good Shepherd a couple years ago with a ring through his eyebrow, a spike through his tongue, bleached hair, and the hunger for God's Word typical of those who are brand spanking new Christians fresh from paganism and pool halls.

He doesn't have BibleWorks, Logos, or Gramcord on his computer, but he's read Calvin's Institutes and has thought carefully about the challenges Jonathan Edwards faced in Northampton and Stockbridge. He's dirt poor, but by faith he and his wonderful wife have already been blessed by God with two children.

Why do I write this? Listen to the sermon and you'll know...

Fear of judgement is God's gift to pastors and elders...

(Tim) Church of the Good Shepherd hosted Ohio Valley Presbytery for our Spring Stated Meeting a week or so ago. Here are my sermon notes...

What happens when pastors preach for a price...

Now hear this, heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and twist everything that is straight, who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with violent injustice. Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, her priests instruct for a price and her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the Lord saying, “Is not the Lord in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us.” (Micah 3:9-11)

(Tim) A military officer who was a member of our flock here in Bloomington some time ago and is currently stationed in Afghanistan (so please pray for him, his wife, and children) writes: "I came across this article and thought you might be interested in it. The double standard immediately becomes obvious to me as I try to comprehend that it is illegal (and punishable with a life sentence) for killing a child in a mother's womb by a mere civilian, but a doctor who does the same thing gets paid money and there is no consequence (setting aside eternal consequences).

Airman Sentenced to 10 Years for Forced Miscarriage
Sunday, May 03, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An airman in Alaska has been sentenced to almost 10 years behind bars after being found guilty of trying to force his wife to miscarry by lacing her food with ulcer medication...

Listen to a helpful sermon...

(Tim) This past Lord's Day, I was strengthened to sit under the preaching of God's Word done by Lucas Weeks, one of the middler year men in our ClearNote Pastors College. Lucas' sermon was titled, "We Are a Fragrance to Christ," with the text 2Corinthians 2:12-17. Download the sermon here from the iTunes store (of course, there's no cost). Then listen to it the next time you take a walk.

From one Christian monarch to another: amusing ourselves to Hell...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) If you want to begin to understand our day--the switch of the central currency of cultural engagement from the Bible to moving pictures, the use of film clips in Gospel preaching, the building of congregations around virtual images of themselves on the movie screen each Lord's Day employed by men like Mark Driscoll and John Piper, and the gift our head of state and his wife gave the Queen, recently--only two things are necessary: first, read the Second Commandment; and second, read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.

And while we're talking about the gifts the monarchs exchanged...

Gratitude for recent comments made here by our wives and daughters...

(Tim) Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "The cruelest lies are often told in silence," and as I noted a week or so ago, it's been interesting to watch how the recent post about Emergency Contraception (sic) Pills, birth control, and abortion has been carefully avoided by men, but embraced by women. There are lessons here, one of which I think is that pastors today are about as concerned about the blood guilt of our sheep as the chief priests and elders were about the blood guilt of Judas when he came to them in anguish, confessing...

Twelve year old girl defends the unborn...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brett) Here's a clip of twelve year old "Lia" speaking up for the unborn. What courage! How many of us pastors have said as much, and from the relative safety of our church pulpits? Here's a teaser. And make sure to go to the YouTube page to read the comment explaining why comments under the clip have been closed.

What if I told you that right now, someone was choosing if you were gonna live or die? What if I told you that this choice wasn't based on what you could or couldn't do, what you'd done in the past, or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you, you could do nothing about it? Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation. Someone is choosing without even knowing them... 

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"...

Another pending elevation to the throne...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave M.) One of the higher-visibility churches in the Presbyterian Church in America is Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Senior Organist, Diane Bish, and the late Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy. Yesterday, the church's pulpit nominating committee announced it had chosen Billy Graham's grandson, William Graham Tullian Tchividjian, to present to the congregation and Presbytery of South Florida for their approval as Coral Ridge's next Senior Pastor.

Denominational accountability is never rigorous, and rarely even present, when large churches appear on presbytery's docket. But being one of the last ecclesiastical communities confessing submission to the biblical commands concerning sexuality and authority, let's pray the men of the Presbytery of South Florida do due diligence on Pastor Tchividjian's commitment to Scripture...

Tim Keller addresses abortion...

(Tim) Here's an excerpt from a sermon recently preached by Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It was transcribed and forwarded by a friend who's attended Redeemer for years. He was encouraged that Pastor Keller touched on this issue in a sermon.

Preached on November 30, 2008, the sermon was titled, "In the Image of God," and the text was Genesis 1:26-2:3.

What happens in a society that got its idea of human rights from a belief in the image of God, that all people are created in the image of God? What happens to that society when as a society as a whole it loses the idea of God? You see, what happens when you have a secular society in which most of the cultural elite say "well, we don't believe in God anymore, and therefore we don't believe human beings were made in the image of God, we just evolved, they are very complex organisms?"

Now, how do you ground human rights in the worth of the individual human being? What does that worth consist of? What makes a human being worthy of rights now that you don't believe in the image of God anymore?

Nat Hentoff, a New Yorker with large biblical commitments...

(Tim) Last week, Nat Hentoff was laid off at the (Greenwich) Village Voice. This brings an abrupt end to Hentoff's fifty year run there, appropriately and affectionately titled "Fifty Years of Pissing People Off" by fellow Voice columnist Allen Barra in his recent tribute to Hentoff.

Hentoff started as a staff writer for the Voice back in 1958. His dismissal fifty years later coincides, almost to the day, with Louis Menand's short history of the Voice that ran in the current New Yorker. Beyond the Voice, Hentoff has also published in the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, JazzTimes (his best-known work may be as a jazz critic and historian), and Atlantic Monthly.

I note the dismissal of Hentoff, as well as the profile of the Voice in the current New Yorker, because this past week I've been enjoying a Christmas gift received from a friend in New York City who knows me well. A former member of Church of the Good Shepherd while studying at IU's School of Music, Regina Scow sent me an autographed copy of The Nat Hentoff Reader which I've been relishing this past week.

So far, I've read a short piece on jazz clarinetist, George Lewis; a longish one on my longtime favorite, Merle Haggard; some superb essays on racism in America including a good profile of Ken Clark titled, "The Integrationist;" and a rare glimpse of the racial suffering of Louis Armstrong in "Louis Armstrong and Reconstruction." The book also reprints Hentoff's classic essay exposing the practice of infanticide in America today titled, "The Awful Privacy of Baby Doe." I'll never forget reading it when it first appeared back in 1985. When I finished the piece, I remember feeling deep gratitude for Hentoff's leadership and courage.

I've been a fan of Hentoff for years now, largely (but not exclusively) because of his heroic defense of the First Amendment, the newborn, and the unborn. Interesting trio, aren't they? Imagine someone who tenaciously defends the First Amendment against the depredations of p.c. nannies also tenaciously defending the unborn and newborn against oppression and murder. He'd have to be a Christian, wouldn't he?

Well, in this case not...

R. C. Sproul on "the myth of influence"...

(Tim) Responding, I believe, to the inclination of pastors to avoid the biblical doctrine of election in their teaching and preaching work, Calvin points out that all Scripture is God-breathed, and therefore profitable. Those who avoid any doctrine Scripture reveals are denying the profitability of that doctrine for the souls under their care.

Brothers, think of the many doctrines we avoid. Do we really know better than the Spirit of God what is profitable to those whose watch-care has been entrusted to us? Are we wiser than God? Should each generation produce a Bible with the texts most suited to its day intact and all others excised?

But of course, the irony is that the doctrines we cut out today are precisely those must suited to the battle that rages around us. For twenty years, now, I've tried to get pastors to preach and teach on the biblical doctrine of sexuality--all to almost no avail. Too controverted. Too controversial. Too compromised in my personal life. Too cowardly.

Twelve years ago, I spoke with R. C. at a conference in Chicago. Lamenting the unwillingness of men to take a stand against neutered versions of Scripture, R.C. said something I've often thought of since...

When the sin of abortion can't be mentioned, there's always...

(Tim) Over under an old post, a man named Albert has been explaining why Tim Keller doesn't preach on abortion. Although he's written thousands of words, I think this gets at the nub of the issue:

Because, as I've said already, to (address the issue of abortion publicly) would be to detract people from the real issue. Would you be comfortable with the fact that if you brought up the issue of abortion to a liberal, all they heard was nothing but a Republican/Conservative ploy? ...Liberals will not buy your argument no matter how many times you qualify that what you're talking about isn't political.

So, good readers, if one preaches in Manhattan and wants to avoid issues that could be misunderstood, precisely what would one preach against?

Brothers and sisters, this is not a joke--but it's howlingly funny...

Another one bites the dust...

(Tim) Jake Mentzel bought Mark Driscoll's new booklet and reports Tim Keller has waved his magic wand and Mark's now walking around in a trance repeating Tim's mantra: "A woman can do anything an unordained man can do." I'm disappointed.

But really, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise. When they hang out with each other, either Mark's going to rub off on Tim or Tim's going to rub off on Mark. And ninety-nine out of a hundred times, I'd have my money on Tim.

By schism rent asunder, by heresy oppressed...

(Tim: This by Mark Chambers, although not the title. Incidentally, yesterday I received an e-mail from a longtime member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan who estimated the number of Redeemer's members who voted for Barack Obama was fifty percent.)

There is nothing particularly unusual about the picture above; nothing fantastic or different. It is just the result and remains of the  typical abortion;  a bit of messy refuse to be discarded after the useful cells have been harvested. At least it is not an entire waste, we can be thankful for that after all.

The decapitation is interesting. The heads of fetuses, being too large for the vacuum tube must be pulverized to facilitate removal. Similar to certain seed pods that find their way into my garage that are too large for the shop vac I must take steps to reduce the size of them in order to suck them up. I find that stepping on them works quite well, and it is only a minor annoyance. Not nearly so complicated as finding the obstacle via ultrasound in order to crush it with forceps. But doctors are adept at accomplishing the difficult and we must salute them...

Submergent men innoculate souls against the Gospel...

(Tim) It's hard reading the old guys. Think about Jonathan Edwards preaching any of his sermons to his flock in Northampton--any sermon at all, just pick one. In those days, the church wasn't a thinly sliced part of the town's demographic. Being reformed didn't mean smoking cigars, drinking single malts, keeping one eye on the Dow Jones and the other on the R. C. Sproul video. Rich and poor, young and old alike sat under Edwards' preaching and understood him.

Today, even pastors who spend our lives working with words are challenged just trying to read Edwards. If we'd been there to listen to him, the sermon's length, vocabulary, logic, and the prominence of biblical terrors would have left us stupefied. We would have left the church-house shaking our heads and clucking our disapproval.

The old guys require the reader to be literate and to have a heart knowledge of the Word of God. But who has the patience for such work today? And what congregation would put up with it?

Submergent wolves know this...

A message you're not likely to hear at Covenant or Redeemer Presbyterian (Manhattan)...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) Would you understand me if I said Baptists seem to have courage Presbyterians lack? Maybe it's a byproduct of being despised by Presbyterians, but whatever its origins, it's a wonderful gift from God to them and all of us.

Speaking of manly preaching, I give you Russell Moore. if you don't make a habit of listening to what he has to say or readingwhat he writes, you're missing out big-time. A few years back, Russ and I met at a conference. His work's been a great encouragement to me since then.

Here's a message he gave this past week at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary titled, "Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical: The Father of Jesus, the Cries of the Helpless, and Change You Can Believe In." One of our ClearNote Pastors College students, Jake Mentzel, summarizes the message...

Pastor Tim Keller, Gospel preaching, and abortion...

"...even from the relative safety of an in-house discussion among fellow believers and men ordained to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, his language seems to deny our sister's moral agency and the utter depravity of what she did to her own little ones."

(Tim, w/thanks to Joel) For quite a while, now, conservative reformed pulpits have been quiet about subjects that are controversial in our political context--particularly abortion. Here is a short article written by the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian (PCA) in New York City giving Pastor Tim Keller's explanation of this silence. The subject goes much deeper than the politics of abortion, to the very heart of our understanding of the Gospel and the place of the Law in Gospel proclamation and Lord's Day worship. First, this excerpt from Pastor Keller's article, followed by a response.

“Religion-less Spirituality” by Tim Keller

We will be careful with the order in which we communicate the parts of the faith. Pushing moral behaviors before we lift up Christ is religion. The church today is calling people to God with a tone of voice that seems to confirm their worst fears. Religion has always been outside-in-"if I behave out here in all these ways, then I will have God's blessing and love inside." But the gospel is inside-out-"if I know the blessing and grace of God inside, then I can behave out here in all these ways." A woman who had been attending our church for several months came to see me. "Do you think abortion is wrong?" she asked...

The fearful state of proud souls who reject the Church, with a postscript on harsh language from pastors...

(Tim) Few things have been responsible for more souls rejecting Church of the Good Shepherd than our fencing of the Lord's Table according to the requirement of the Presbyterian Church in America's Book of Church Order, that those who come to eat and drink must have placed themselves under the authority of the elders of our church or be a member of some other Bible-believing, evangelical church.

Typically, we surround those words with some explanation of the words' meaning and intent, focusing particularly on the fact that we cannot claim faith in Jesus Christ while rejecting the authority of Christ's Church and her officers which He Himself has commanded us to honor and obey. Whew, do the sparks fly!

Travelling around the country, I've been discouraged to observe how few PCA pastors submit to this Book of Church Order requirement. It's such a good and necessary rule, perfectly suited to drive a dagger into the heart of the cheap grace and hatred of authority at the heart of the reformed church today. So why aren't shepherds faithful to fence the Lord's Table in any other than a pro forma way?

Well, surely the rule has escaped the notice of some. Not every PCA pastor spends his life looking through the Book of Church Order for more rules to obey. Such a life takes a special kind of guy.

And yet, there are many of us who know about this rule and still don't obey it. Why not?

Well, as I said at the beginning, few things have been responsible for more souls rejecting Church of the Good Shepherd than our fencing of the Lord's Table according to this requirement. In other words, most of us don't do it because we don't want to discipline the flock to love and obey the Church and her officers. In a day when Rob Bell is hissing hatred of authority to everyone who will listen, it takes faith and faithfulness to teach, let alone require, submission to authority.

A few years ago, I was part of a lengthy e-mail discussion within our presbytery over whether or not this requirement was biblical. And as the discussion proceeded, the issue went beyond how the Lord's Table should be fenced, to the discussion of church membership itself--is it even biblical?

This afternoon, I was reading Calvin's sermon on 1Timothy 1:1,2 and came across a section that makes our duty clear in this regard. If pastors and elders read this and still allow men and women to come to our Lord's Table while rejecting the Church, her officers and authority...

Experience real moments...

(Tim) If you'd like to know more about the woman preacher named Joyce Meyer, here's the lead-in from a brochure I picked up in Indianapolis two weekends ago when she'd hired the Conseco Fieldhouse for people to come hear her preach. She wrote:

Joyce Meyer Ministries Conference Tour '08 (Worship with Matt Redman)

Come Together--with One Heart, One Voice

Be a part of genuine worship and relevant, inspiring messages. Where thousands of people unite to experience real moments, real change--this is your defining moment.

This text alone ought to be sufficient for an evangelical pastor to warn his flock to steer clear of Ms. Meyer's "ministries."

Presidential candidates, preaching, and the feminization of discourse...

(Tim, parts held over from the last presidential race) Assuming when the normal American goes through church doors he doesn't go through a paradigm shift about the nature of leadership, it's interesting to note what the secular authorities advise concerning the speeches of Bush and Kerry and to consider how this advice applies to our preaching, today:

(John Kerry) uses what George P. Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkley, calls "hedges," words and grammatical constructions that imply uncertainty or qualification.

"There are certain forms of grammar that don't commit you, phrases like 'I believe' or 'I think,'" Mr. Lakoff said. "Kerry has to learn not to do that."

"It is possible to be decisive and not sound decisive," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "People who speak in sentences that contain parenthetical phrases, people who begin a sentence and then deflect to add a series of illustrative examples before they end the sentences" do not seem authoritative, she said. "The language of decisiveness is subject, verb, object, end sentence." (Alex Williams, "George 'The Squinter' Bush vs. John 'The Grinner' Kerry--A Showdown of Style!" New York Times; Sunday, September 26, 2004.)

Is preaching authoritative today or have we learned to use "hedges?" Does our preaching...

Pastoral approaches to opposition...

(Tim: For those who skip the comments, here's one just posted as part of an exchange under the post, "Slaughterhouse-Two hundred and fifty thousand...." It would be good to read this in context, seeing the comments that gave rise to it. Regardless, the issues here dealt with come up frequently enough on this blog that I thought I'd give it main level posting in order to make some of the methods David and I employ on this blog more clear to our readers.)

* * *

Dear Friends,

It's unusual for such comments as that made by Ben above to be signed, and thus for us to know the person and life that's given rise to them. My guess is that, almost always, such comments come from desperate sinners who make no effort to hide it; their anger and tormented consciences are right there in plain sight.

It's my inclination to deal with them one of two ways: Either dismiss them and delete their comments, or call them to the Cross. Arguing and exposure are not my first choice.

On the other hand, most of the comments put up here on this blog that oppose what we write--particularly on matters such as abortion and sexuality--come from those who think of themselves as leaders, wise souls, deep thinkers, the cream of the crop. These people should be treated in an entirely different way; not at all with patience and tenderness, but satire, irony, and any other weapon that will expose them before the eyes of the sheep...

True Gospel preaching, perfectly contextualized and relevant...

"The fact that you and I are in the twentieth century is utterly irrelevant. It doesn’t make any difference at all. And all this talk about the need of a new message, some relevant word, is a denial of the Gospel." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

(Tim, w/thanks to Heidi) A number of months ago, Martyn Lloyd Jones' biographer, Ian Murray, wrote...

A wedding sermon...

(Tim) From the Pulpit of Church of the Good Shepherd
Wedding of Lucas Weeks and Hannah Bayly
May 17, 2008

That He Might Sanctify Her

Ephesians 5: 21-33

Lucas and Hannah, it’s a curious thing that the God Who made us, the One who is our Creator and therefore knows us best, has not left us free to develop according to our own inclinations. He does not abandon us to our own sentiments and passions...

Evangelizing mystical relativists...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kevin) Here's a helpful op-ed piece from the New York Times detailing the challenges we'll face in our preaching in the coming decades. It's written by David Brooks who's frequently good.

On commentaries...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff) Have I ever said anything about commentaries? Sure, but I'll have another hack at it.

When I left seminary, we had no money, so book purchases were mostly from used bookstores and resale shops. But I felt the need to have something "substantial" on at least one of the Gospels, so I took everyone's advice and spent about 40 of our limited dollars on I. Howard Marshall's commentary on Luke. "Stupendous example of evangelical scholarship at its very best" they all said, and I took the bait.

We moved to Pardeeville and I began preaching. Immediately, I looked for an occasion to use my most-excellent new tool and it wasn't long in coming. Choosing a text in Luke, I opened Marshall and...

Speaking positively about the difficult parts of shepherds' work...

(Tim) Here's a response to this comment left by a reader: "It seems that many in the complementarian community spend almost all their energy on the negative side of the equation."

Feminism is toxic and its relentless attack on Scripture and the Church doesn't give faithful shepherds a lot of opportunity to take their preaching and teaching somewhere else, avoiding this breach. We must focus our defensive work where the good deposit is under attack. In response to people complaining of the frequency of his preaching against fornication, Spurgeon said once that he'd stop preaching against it when people stopped doing it.

Pastors today aren't preaching or teaching against this heresy. And when we do, we do it half-heartedly making it clear to our flock and other shepherds that we wish the need for battle would go away because we're men of peace and love and grace, and we really don't enjoy beating up on women.

Now I may not have captured our critic's sentiments, personally, but from many years experience I know I've hit the mainstream. So think where we'd be if Calvin or Luther or Knox of any of hundreds of other shepherds had tried the positive approach in the darkness of Rome's shadow across the Middle Ages? What if Calvin had written his Institutes without the central thrust of opposing and exposing Rome? Would anyone read them?

The real issue isn't that many within the complementarian camp spend almost all our energy on the negative side of this equation, but that we live in an evil day much like the day of the Apostle Paul and Athanasius and Peter Waldo and John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and John Newton and J. Gresham Machen and Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Francis Schaeffer, and that our work must follow theirs in being faithful with God's "yes" and His "no." And if our only "no" is said in opposing those who don't say "yes" often enough to suit our tastes, we're not really saying "no," are we?

The net of interwoveness...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jake) Last week, a young man training for pastoral ministry passed on a link to this article from USA Today. And next to the link, he wrote: "quoted: pope benedict, mohler, keller, driscoll, osteen, etc."

Not to destroy "peace ...in the world," or to "tear... the net of [PCA] interwovenness, the fabric of humanity," but really, men. Can anyone fail to see the stark contrast presented in the final paragraphs of this article between Pastors Keller and Driscoll? Sin is man-centered with Pastor Keller, but very God-centered with Pastor Driscoll.

Note the article's author says, "Driscoll is sharply clear."

Precisely.

Ellul, Nuremberg, and abortion; with a note on the Obama/Wright ruckus...

(Tim) When I read Jacques Ellul's False Presence of the Kingdom a number of years ago, I found it very helpful in giving me a Christian understanding of Church-state relations, and particularly the danger of the Church being compromised in her work and message by the influence and power of the state.

Any Christian pastor watching the ruckus over the sermons of Senator Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this past few weeks should have quickly concluded that this controversy is significant, principally, in yielding one more step in the inexorable movement of the removal of truth and courage and boldness from the proclamation of God's Word in churches around our country. It's been a terrible moment when someone watching closely could literally watch the feminization of discourse taking huge steps forward, particularly in the public discourse of the Church and Her Word known as preaching. (And no, I'm not defending the particulars of Pastor Wright's sermons.)

If you haven't read this work by Ellul, buy it now and read it carefully. Ellul has the sort of mind and pen that probe and expose our hearts such that we are invigorated and feel as if we might be partaking of the air and wind of another more truthful and honest age.

Remembering Ellul's wonderful bracingness, I just found and read a short essay by him, from 1947, titled, "On Nuremberg." I post it here as an historical meditation on the depravity of man, and thus the necessity of the substitutionary atonement--Good Friday's priceless treasure of the cross and blood and death of Jesus Christ. Oh how we need that precious blood!

Think beyond ourselves, to the terrible bloodsheds Western civilization has been (and presently is) built upon...

Brothers, we must not buy into this...

(Tim) Here's an interview with the Rev. Dr. Tim Keller, the senior minister of Manhattan's Redeemer Presbyterian Church which is likely the most influential congregation of our own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. The occasion of the interview was the arrival of Dr. Keller's book at No. 18 on the New York Times bestseller list. The interview was done by Anthony Sacramone, editor of Richard John Neuhaus' First Things to which I'm a charter subscriber. I note this because I'm hopeful it will discourage readers from coming to the wrong conclusion as to why I say the following...

Although many of the pastors I love and respect look to Dr. Keller as the model preacher for our age, I do not. And of course, my purpose in saying this is to warn shepherds of the consequences of accepting Dr. Keller's preaching paradigm so clearly presented in this interview...

Sermons yesterday and today...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave M.) Here's a good explanation why "modern readers" will find Jonathan Edwards' sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, "a difficult text." The explanation is from the most recent E-mail newsletter produced by The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University:

Jonathan Edwards' (in)famous (sic) sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is among the most anthologized pieces of American literature. It is taught in most American literature survey courses in high school and college as the classic example of a Puritan sermon. As a result, it forms the only impression that most people have of Jonathan Edwards.

In spite of the obvious benefits to the legacy of Jonathan Edwards from this wide anthologizing, "Sinners" is a difficult text to engage, understand, and teach. The language is relentless and challenging. Its form and content is unfamiliar to most modern readers. Most of all, the text itself is specifically designed to provoke fear and discomfort in its hearers. All of these factors contribute to making "Sinners" a difficult text to read in 2008.

But difficult texts are often important texts that careful study. While "Sinners" is not representative of the full orb of Jonathan Edwards' thought, it is Edwards' most famous text and will no doubt continue to be studied and taught for many years to come.

Pastors and elders, would the souls under your care understand Edwards' sermon, or would they also find it "difficult?"

Was the preaching of Jonathan Edwards from heaven or earth?

(Tim) Preparing to preach tomorrow on Matthew 21:23 ff., the question the chief priests and elders of the people asked of Jesus reminded me of the attack of Charles Chauncy on Jonathan Edwards and the other preachers of the Great Awakening:

When (Jesus) entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?” (Matthew 21:23)

Isn't this always the question the status quo, official Christianity, the powers that be, or Kierkegaard's "Christendom" asks of true heralds of Christ: "By what authority are you doing these things?"

So no, although there are clear and significant problems that accompany bypassing proper authority, particularly when it's ecclesiastical authority, the dangers of letting that authority silence you when you are a herald of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are much greater...

 

Shepherds sneaking into the fold, undercutting "properly recognized and authorized shepherds"...

(Tim, with thanks to Dave C.) Commenters on this blog warn those who would "commit their very soul and eternal destiny to men (who preach) lacking the proper authority from God's ordinary means of salvation, the Church" pointing out that "the Church is the one given the task of calling and charging ministers with particular tasks and spheres of ministry." They conclude their warning: "Nor should we take kindly to supposed shepherds to sneak into the fold and take allegiance away from properly recognized and authorized shepherds..."

So I wonder who they'd side with in this battle? In this particular case (which is by no means rare across church history) who is it who is "lacking the proper authority from ...the church?" Who are the "properly recognized and authorized shepherds?"

One of the very many  problems with this Neo-Old School, Mark Noll, Daryl Hart argument is its failure to acknowledge that, by this very construct, John the Baptist, our Lord, and the Apostles all abrogated to themselves authority that bypassed those who claimed to be the only true successors to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Aaron. In other words, John the Baptist, our Lord, and every one of the Apostles were "lacking the proper authority ...from the church," and were not "properly recognized and authorized shepherds."

I believed, therefore I spoke...

(Tim) Keith Knowlden put a link to this clip up as a comment under "Debates over Women in Leadership." Excellent. Remember what they said about our Lord at the end of His Sermon on the Mount:

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. (Matthew 7:28, 29)

This whole trend is a part of the movement of our culture toward feminine cultural ideals. And it's particularly destructive in our communication patterns--what in the past I've called the feminization of discourse. When these patterns infiltrate the Church and men preach as if they were inviting the members of the congregation to share a journey with them, our message has changed and is no longer faithful to the Word of God. But of course, we won't be accused of arrogance, will we?

Northwestern University: a morality play for the church...

(by Tim) Sadly, reformed pastors identify less with those who live in rural communities and make their living as sheep farmers (what used to be called "shepherds") than with those who live in books and make their living as academics. So this story from today's New York Times is particularly instructive.

There's a big stink over a psychology prof at Northwestern University named J. Michael Bailey who's gored the ox of transexuals around the country. But before we get to Prof. Bailey and the transexuals, a few comments about the lesson Christians should learn from this battle.

For decades, freedom of religion and freedom of speech have been under a sustained attack and the content of the books we read, the sermons we listen to, and the Bibles we carry to church Sunday morning all bear witness to the attrition of these freedoms.

Speaking only of our Bibles, did you know that millions of Bibles used by evangelicals have had words deleted in order to avoid expressing incorrect opinions deemed to have the potential of being hurtful to women and Jews? Evangelical Bible scholars, linguists, translators, graphic designers, publishers, bookstore owners, and pastors all joined together to produce and sell Bibles that would not be vulnerable to charges of sexism or antisemitism. Many hundreds of times, the original Hebrew and Greek words were changed or deleted so the Bible would be less offensive to moderns...

One in ten check E-mail during worship...

(by Tim) If they did it while I was preaching, I'd think I had no one to blame but myself. (Thanks, Janet.)

Preaching: the power of words or of God...

A dear friend just lost his father. Following the funeral, he sent me this meditation. How we who preach and those who receive the Word need the power of the Holy Spirit:

For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power. -1Corinthians 4:20

I was recently reminded of this verse, and of the power of preaching, at the wake for my father. My dad was a member of The Veterans of Foreign Wars, and they performed a brief, simple ceremony at the funeral home. There were six men there, and one by one they read a brief prayer or statement about a virtue associated with military service and placed an object on the casket--a sprig of evergreen, a red rose, and so on. Then the saluted the flag, and the casket. It was very moving, and very powerful. And I couldn't help thinking that here were six very average old guys, not tall, not distinguished looking, not great speakers, not remarkable in any way to outward appearances, but they had all served in the armed forces in time of war.

It was who they were as men, what they had done, which was special, and what their service meant to them that made the simple ceremony meaningful, and got you all choked up. How much more, the preaching of the word, in spirit and in power. It's not how you speak, or even what you say in a way (you don't need to be original) but who it is that is saying it, what it means to them, and with what authority they speak.

Don't skip this piece...

A great short article on preaching here by Doug Wilson. Inspiring for those of us who preach.

Preaching and the feminization of discourse; a timely parable...

For a number of years, I've thought we need a book for preachers called The Feminization of Discourse. The book would show how the feminine priorities that have taken over the Western world have turned the preaching of God's Word from authority to mutual exploration and discovery. One friend lamented the preaching he'd sat under for a number of years saying, "Along with the indicative, can't we please have the imperative?" Read anything about the differences between male and female conversation and it's no mystery why the worship and preaching of our--yes, PCA--churches feel like a tea party. Having a reformed form of godliness, we deny the power thereof.

Our preaching is so graceful--more graceful than the preaching of Jesus or the Apostles. Anyone read the book of Acts, recently? Notice how often those listening to the sermon are confronted with the statement, "You killed Jesus!" No wonder repentance was the entry point to faith and baptism back then. But today? We're compassionate Christians, kinder and gentler elders, and sensitive graceful preachers who want to be liked. Above all. Yes, insofar as we can be liked and still be obedient, that's fine. But a choice between the two is no contest; being liked wins.

Now of course, right here the feminization of discourse kicks in and many are ready to condemn me for being dogmatic, making generalizations, or demonstrating a harsh and judgmental spirit, right?

Well, meet my friend Cesar Millan and see if we preachers have anything to learn from him about our exercise of the authority God has delegated to us, particularly in  the pulpit...

Faithful shepherds stand in the gap...

We all know what it is to play warfare in mock battle, that it means to imitate everything just as it is in war. The troops are drawn up, they march into the field, seriousness is evident in every eye, but also courage and enthusiasm, the orderlies rush back and forth intrepidly, the commander's voice is heard, the signals, the battle cry, the volley of musketry, the thunder of cannon--everything exactly as it is in war, lacking only one thing...the danger.

So also it is with playing Christianity, that is, imitating Christian preaching in such a way that everything, absolutely everything is included in as deceptive a form as possible--only one thing is lacking...the danger

-Soren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon "Christendom" 1854-1855, translated with an introduction by Walter Lowrie, (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1956) p. 258.

Addendum: Wednesday evening, March 8, Bryan Chapell and I met together to discuss this recent series of posts. After our discussion, here are several clarifications and corrections that I believe need to be made. I have made them here, at the top of the post, because it would be difficult to weave them into the post itself in a way that would call attention to them sufficiently as corrections.

First, it is unclear that the paragraph beginning, "The whole things is a tempest in a teacup" is not my judgment, but rather a hypothetical construct of what the average member of the PCA might have thought to himself.

Second, I refer to "the Covenant/Redeemer/Reformed mantra, "A woman may do anything a non-ordained man may do." Bryan told me that this is not his position and that he speaks against this position as an adequate representation of the Biblical perspective. This is an encouragement to me.

Third, Bryan rehearsed his actions in response to the chapel time in which Diane Langberg spoke, and clearly my own summary of those actions is not accurate. Here is an accurate record of what happened:

When General Assembly convened that summer and the time on the agenda arrived when President Chapell was asked to give an answer for what had happened on his watch, President Chapell told the assembly:

That Diane Langberg had been told ahead of time what the standards were for her speaking during the chapel time;

That after she spoke at Covenant Seminary, Diane Langberg received a letter reminding her of the standards, and expressing concern that those standards had not been followed; and

That the administration of Covenant Seminary met with students to explain the situation and to assure the seminary community that what had happened was not according to the standards they were committed to upholding.

Since I implied Covenant Seminary was not upholding the PCA position in its response to Diane Langberg's chapel time, I regret this inaccuracy and now believe Covenant's response was good.

Some wonder how I could accuse prominent teaching elders of the Presbyterian Church in America and the institutions they lead of sympathizing with the egalitarian, feminist cause? Don't I know the PCA's reason to exist is tied at the heart to opposing these ideologies? When a group of mainline PC(USA) churches left their own denomination for a more conservative one back in 1983, wasn't it necessary for them to found the new denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, precisely because the PCA wasn't willing to compromise on women in office? And isn't the same reason behind our present failure to bring into the PCA many churches currently departing the PC(USA) train wreck: that these churches and their pastors are determined to enter a denomination that allows their women to serve as pastors, elders, and deacons?

So, as a denomination we've paid our dues. We've seen the cost of our convictions, and haven't wavered. What on earth am I thinking, then, to accuse our seminary and its president of being allies of the egalitarian, feminist ideology?

It's a fair question, although I have no confidence I'll be able to answer it to the satisfaction of more than a few because the heart of the answer is tied up, not with specific arguments about Scripture's teaching about sexuality, but rather its teaching concerning the nature of pastoral ministry.

Several years ago, Covenant Theological Seminary had a woman preach in chapel. When it was reported within our denomination, it scandalized a number of presbyters across the country...

Plain, manger-like preaching...

In response to the final couple paragraphs dealing with preaching and rhetoric in my post, Worship wars: musicians, pulpiteers, and aesthetics, my dear brother, Ken Pierce, wrote:

I am not sure that it's fair to characterize men who have a different pulpit presence than personal presence as having displaced God's glory with their own.

It's rough around the edges, but my concern about this matter is so deep that I'm willing to take my lumps with this response.

It's not simply a "different pulpit presence" I'm aiming my criticisms at, but a different man. If the Apostle Paul went from talk around the table to writing one of his letters to preaching, no one would have been struck by the change in his personality, illustrations, or vocabulary. He wasn't a commoner while eating and a patrician while writing and preaching. And this is not at all to say that life should be lived at a monotone. It may well be that occasions are rare for a father to lift his voice at home or at potlucks, but if he doesn't make some radical alteration in his tone when he speaks of death, Heaven, and Hell, his tone will belie his message.

Clearly I didn't express myself very well since I agree with much you've written, and yet...

Don't you see the danger of turning the pulpit into a stage by employing rhetorical devices, illustrations, vocabulary, and affectations that detract from the foolishness and simplicity of the Gospel? Is this really no danger at all?

We've all seen women so painted on the face they've made themselves hideous. Gilded lilies.

I'm going to go out on a limb, here, but I think this issue is critically important for a recovery of the authority and power of God in evangelical and reformed pulpits. Comparisons are odious, but I would choose Peter, Stephen, Paul, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, and MacArthur any day of the week over John Doe, Joe Schmo, and the Reverend Doctor J. Wright Holiday.

Why? Because when I finish reading or listening to the men in the first list, the principle thing I'm left with is not the breadth of their reading or the depth of their learning, but the power, authority, justice, and mercy of our Heavenly Father. The messenger has not become the message...

Destroying good preaching...

The unmentioned scandal of late-20th/early-21st century preaching is not the number of preachers seeking outside inspiration for their sermons. That's well-documented. Just as baleful in its effect on modern preaching has been the number of preachers who have turned from preaching sermons to a flock to writing sermons for an audience.

My father used to tell his children that written and spoken English are two entirely different languages. And it's true. Equally distinct are sermons addressed to a particular flock and sermons written for a broad reading audience.

Throughout the centuries a number of great preachers have had their sermons collected and published. But the sermons contained in such volumes were seldom prepared with publication in mind. Rather, they were preached to a congregation (often from notes or extemporaneously) and later made available for publication. For instance, John Calvin's sermons are available in written form due to the work of a French shorthand expert named Denis Raguenier who took verbatim shorthand notes from Calvin's extemporaneous preaching. Luther's sermons were carefully recorded by a variety of listeners. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' sermons were mechanically recorded and later transcribed. Jonathan Edwards sermons are still being culled from handwritten manuscripts and must be edited for publication.

Today many preachers write sermons with minds divided between a local congregation and the national audience they hope to reach through a book they intend to publish out of their current sermon series. The result is wretched preaching (and often wretched publishing to boot).

Many of the greatest preachers of our time have declined in power as they have shifted focus from a local church and specific congregation to a national audience. If you listen to early sermons by many preachers whose sermons are routinely published today you find power not present in current preaching. Sadly, the powerful preaching of a young pastor often leads a publisher to offer book contracts for future sermons and those book contracts become the death of the preacher's power.

It's also true that preachers whose sermons are routinely broadcast often fall into a similar trap of preaching for a broad audience rather than preaching to build a particular Church

Preaching for posterity rather than for the current needs of a particular flock leads to emasculated preaching. Those who preach for publication can be divided into two camps: populists and scholars. Populists tend to become more oratorical, to illustrate more liberally and to over-simplify. Those preaching for more scholarly publication (commentaries, for instance) become more pedantic and theoretical. Both types of preaching are devoid of pointed application.

Many good preachers also write great books. But in the end, I am convinced that preaching for publication is preaching for pay and honor. And that always bodes ill for power.

They take the pulpit to be a stage...

Aside from Scripture, I've found Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor to be the most helpful book I've read on the calling of the teaching elder (pastor). Baxter's work is also extremely helpful for ruling elders. Strauch's Biblical Eldership is about the only contemporary book being read today on the eldership but I'd discourage its purchase or use due to Strauch's potent anti-clericalism. When I read him years ago, I found him to have a proudly disimissive attitude toward pastors that bore more resemblance to the galloping egalitarianism of American culture than, say, the Pastoral Epistles. But more on this later...

Here's the section of Baxter I quote more frequently than any other. Baxter is responding to those who object to pastors preaching to the conscience:

They say, "You are so precise and you keep talking about sin, and duty, and make such a fuss about these things, while pastor so-and-so, who is as great a scholar as you and as good a preacher, will be merry and joke with us and leave us alone, and never trouble himself or us with this sort of talk. You can never be quiet and you make more commotion than needs to be made; you love to frighten men with talk of damnation, when sober, well-educated, peaceable (reformed) pastors are quiet, and live with us like other men."

(People) will give you leave to preach against their sins, and to talk as much as you will for godliness in the pulpit, if you will but let them alone afterwards, and be friendly and merry with them when you have done, and talk as they do, and live as they, and be indifferent with them in your conversation. For they take the pulpit to be but a stage; a place where preachers must show themselves, and play their parts; where you have liberty for an hour to say what you (desire); and what you say they regard not, if you show them not, by saying it personally to their faces, that you were in good earnest, and did indeed mean them. -Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Banner of Truth, Carlisle PA: 1974) p. 85.

By the way, here's a page with a picture of Strauch among the other speakers at Doug Phillips Vision Forum's recent third annual Conference for Uniting Church and Family held in St. Louis this past week. Strauch and Phillips working together makes theological sense to me.

The farewell sermon of a faithful PC(USA) pastor...

Farewell sermons are particularly poignant, being the "be on guard and goodbye" message of a shepherd to the flock he has loved and cared for, but now must leave. If you haven't read the sermon Jonathan Edwards preached upon his departure from Northampton, find a copy and read it. Also, the message the Apostle Paul gave to the Ephesian elders when he took his final departure from them is one of the most moving texts found in the New Testament. Look for it in Acts 20.

Rev. Dan Reuter is a dear friend who, until a couple weeks ago, has been serving as the pastor of the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA)'s congregation in Nashville, Indianan, about a half hour east of Bloomington. For years, Dan has been an active participant in the work of reform within the PC(USA), but as he watched the denomination's Peace, Unity, and Purity Committee issue its recommendations and prepare to get them adopted at this summer's national general assembly, Dan realized that they would be successful and, given the godlessness of the recommendations and what would inevitably follow their adoption--namely, the normalization of the sexually immoral (particularly sodomites) being ordained and serving as church officers--he prepared to pull his credentials from the denomination and, consequently, his call to Brown County Presbyterian Fellowship.

This is the sermon he gave upon his resignation of the pastoral call to Brown County Presbyterian Fellowship...

A pastoral context for our posts...

Our longtime friend and sister in the faith, Elizabeth, just posted a comment recommending that we encourage our readers to listen to our sermons, the better to get a context for our writing. She writes:

To a casual observer this blog might give the impression that your conservatism is about being on the right side of the culture wars. And then too you have sympathizers posting that they'd rather be Baptists because at least then people would know where they stand on hot-button social issues. Your friend's second paragraph shows he is sympathetic to this outlook. ...I suggest you point him (and your general readership) to your recorded sermons, and start posting more here about the central doctrinal content of the faith, so that there will be no mistake as to whether your Christianity is merely a question of the best alternative to feminism, communism, corporate America, etc. Don't, like so many other American evangelicals, underestimate the dangers of a merely moral religion. Rome will beat you at it every time.

This is wise advice. So here is a link to David's 2006 sermons, and here is a link to my own. Recently, David has been preaching a series on idolatry, while I'm coming to the end of preaching through Galatians.

Readers might be particularly interested in three sermons I recently did on Galatians 6:1,2 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) focussing on the biblical doctrine of the church and the threats to that doctrine posed within the conservative reformed, or evangelical world. I'd encourage readers to listen to all three sermons, but if you only have time for one, make it Part 3.

Luther: Do not preach on lofty topics...

Rector Bernard von Dolen, minister in Herzberg, complained bitterly about his arrogant auditors who despised the reading of the catechism.

Dr. Martin Luther was greatly disturbed and fell silent. Then he said, "Cursed be every preacher who aims at lofty topics in the church, looking for his own glory and selfishly desiring to please one individual or another. When I preach here I adapt myself to the circumstances of the common people. I don't look at the doctors and masters, of whom scarcely forty are present, but at the hundred or thousand young people and children. It's to them that I preach, to them that I devote myself, for they, too, need to understand. If the others don't want to listen they can leave. Therefore, my dear Bernard, take pains to be simple and direct; don't consider those who claim to be learned but be a preacher to unschooled youth and sucklings."

-Martin Luther; Luther's Works, vol. 54; Table Talk; ed. & trans. Theodore G. Tappert; gen. ed. Helmut T. Lehmann; pub. by Fortress Press; pp. 235-236 under heading "Preach to the Simple and Not to the Learned" (also "Between March 28 and May 27, 1537" "No. 3573").

The honesty of comedians...

An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30,31)

Comedians die if they lie, pastors die if they don't.

A comedian tells a joke about a ballet dancer who's a "pansy" and his audience laughs. But pity the pastor who warns his flock away from a specific art form because of the sexual degradation associated with it. Opera? Film? Ballet? WWF? Cheerleading?

Yeah, I know, WWF and cheerleading aren't really art. Yeah, there are some good Christian movies. Yeah, we need Christians singing at Ravinia and Tanglewood.

Back up. My point wasn't to build a biblical theology of callings but to point out that pastors are paid to lie while comedians live off the scandalous truth.

Now, at this point I could do the standard qualifications and emasculate the post by saying there are some pastors who refuse to lie, some churches that want the truth, not every comedian is honest, and so forth.

Instead, here are some morsels from Kierkegaard's Attack upon Christendom:

The difference between the theater and the church is essentially this, that the theater honestly and honorably acknowledges itself to be what is is; on the other hand the church is a theater which dishonestly tries in every way to hide what it is....

The actor is an honest man who says plainly, "I am an actor."

One never gets a priest to say that, at any price.

Yes, I still love my church and no one here is asking me to lie. Yes, I'm speaking in generalities. Yes, I've had a good day. No, I'm not suffering from dyspepsia...

One of the most profound statements ever written by the Apostle Paul concerning the pastorate is his plaintive question put to the believers in the church of Galatia: "So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?" (Galatians 4:16).

Manly preaching...

I've been reading about a pastor named Mark Driscoll who rebukes emergent church leader Brain McLaren for equivocating on homosexuality. Driscoll pastors a church in Seattle. So, I followed a link to his church's site and then another link to Driscoll preaching on Google video.

Well, brothers and sisters, I'm not a fan of canned sermons. I don't listen to tapes. I don't watch videos. It's rare that I'm impressed by the preaching of dudes in untucked shirts. But this sermon was powerful. If this sermon is representative of his approach to pastoral minmistry, Mark Driscoll will be a force for Christ in years to come.