BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Rejoice each day...

Here's a good devotional Rev. David T. Myers will be writing each day. It's a ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America's Historical Center which is run by our good friend, Wayne Sparkman. Each day's reading will include short doses of church history and the Westminster Standards, plus honey from God's Word. Why not subscribe and make your commitment to read this devotional and five chapters of Scripture a day this year? It's not too late to start.

The only way Biblical Christians today can survive without going all ghettoish is to remind ourselves that every doctrine we live and teach has been boringly normal across the centuries of Church history. It's only the hirelings of our own time who call these doctrines monstrous. So subscribe to Pastor Meyers' devotional and innoculate yourself against becoming a sourpuss. We stand in full and joyful agreement with all those fathers of the faith who went before us!

(TB, w/thanks to David Mc.)

Our new blog design...

Best present of the year is this new design for Baylyblog that sons Ben Crum, Joseph, and Lucas Weeks just surprised me with. Ben did the beautiful design. Joseph is almost finished importing past content consisting of 3,450 posts, who knows how many images, 29,088 comments, and 6,107,620 words. And Lucas is building the guts on Drupal 7.

We'll be able to have many different authors and a number of other possibilities that would have made TypePad see cross-eyed. Really, TypePad got to be a pain and we've been wanting to move to a new platform for some time, now.

This is just a Photoshop pic of the design. Hope you all like it as much as I do. Let us know your thoughts.

I'm so very, very happy! 

Please pray for RC Jr. and his dear Denise...

One brother we love is suffering, with his family, an intimate knowledge of the tenuousness of his wife's life just now. RC Jr.'s wife, Denise, is suffering under Leukemia and we ask you to pray for them. RC just posted a meditation on the shortness of life and God's kindness and tenderness in numbering our days. It's good. May I ask you to read it and pray for RC and his dear Denise? (TB)

House rules: on comments...

Dear Readers,

Again, recently, we've asked for identification information from those submitting comments that are personal in their criticism of the author of the post (usually David or me), a publicly known leader, or another commenter on Baylyblog. This has long been our policy. If a reader criticizes the charater of someone, he needs to identify himself by name--both first and last.

We've also long held that men should almost always identify themselves when engaging in public teaching and discussions of Scripture's doctrines. It's not healthy to be a secret Christian. It's not good to have a secret commitment to doctrines that are a confession of Christ in this evil day. Unashamed acknowledgment and proclamation of everything Jesus commanded is integral to our fulfillment of our Lord's Great Commission. If we're not faithful in these small things, our Lord may well not find us worthy of the larger stewardship of the baptism of blood.

He has warned us of the consequences of being ashamed to publicly declare His word that sodomy is an abomination against God. His word that greed is idolatry and greedy men will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. His word that woman is not to teach or exercise authority over man because He created Adam first, then Eve; and because it was not the man, but the woman who was deceived by Satan.

Take the doctrines under the most intense attack today both outside and inside the Christian church: it's precisely those places where our shame or zeal is measured by our Lord...

FAQ: about title changes...

If you've read Baylyblog for a while, you've learned that we make changes to posts after they go up. Some of those changes are to correct my failure to honor Jesus in my tone or arguments, some are because I catch typos, some are to correct factual errors, and some are to improve clarity. Well over ninety-five percent of those changes are made in the first hour following publication and are insignificant. Four of the remaining five percent are made in the first twenty-four hours and are usually insignificant. Less than one percent are made later than that and those late changes are almost always due to more significant mistakes, so when those changes are made, they're usually noted at the beginning of the post. Which is to say significant changes are always noted.

Blogs aren't hard print publications and one of the principal differences is that blogs aren't static. After a magazine is printed it's impossible to make a correction, but it's the work of a moment to correct a post. Some online publications are mirror images of hard print publications, so they follow hard print rules. Others have no hard print version and are able to make insignificant changes without facing the problem of a discrepancy between the article's hard copy and its online version.

Online publications should not be forced onto the Procrustean bed of hard copy rules. Hard copy and online publications are as different as night and day, so new wine should be given new wineskins.

I mention this because a web site has noted that I changed the title of a post published yesterday and they assumed my title change was due to readers e-mailing me with negative feedback...

Update to "A minister with a scripture" post...

The blog of the Gospel Coalition men continues to show itself thin-skinned, circling its wagons and refusing to respond to readers. The "Minister with a scripture..." post has been updated with the latest. Scroll down to the bottom of that post to keep abreast...

(TB)

"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...

So what about anonymous comments...

Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. (Mark 12:4)

A reader personally unknown to me and my brother, David, wrote of his appreciation for Baylyblog, and then asked this question:

(H)aving seen some of the comments you have made (on Baylyblog about anonymity), I wanted to ask if you believe it is wrong if I post a comment only using my first name? The reason I do so is that I am (an) engineering student and will (soon) be graduating ...and it would probably make it quite difficult for me to get a job since employers google names and mine is a rare one... Is that a bad reason?

To which I responded:

Dear John Doe,

I have mixed feelings about this, dear brother...

An exchange over at a blog hosted by First Things...

There's been an exchange concerning Cru/Campus Crusade for Christ International and parachurch organizations over at a blog hosted by First Things. Here's my latest comment. Really, someone should write a book...

Legacy publishers' days are numbered...

Legacy publishers are in trouble and no tears needed. As with seminaries, colleges, denominations, parachurch organizations, missions, and certainly churches, wealth and power corrupt. So it's good to see fresh faces committed to God's truth using the new media that are taking the publishing world by storm. Although those losing money and power will bear false witness against it...

Rants and manifestos...

(Tim) Robert and Phama Woodyard of First Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Washington, are Mary Lee's and my closest friends. Their fourth son, Reed, attends Azusa Pacific College and co-authors a new blog, Rants and Manifestos, with his friend, Mark. Check it out. These men are working to honor God.

The hens are squawking and the goose is chasing David aross the barnyard...

(Tim) On the floor of Ohio Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of America, my brother, David, moved that the presbytery overture General Assembly to cut off the gravy train for the denomination's tiny circulation magazine, bYfAITH. The motion which easily passed calls for bYfAITH to be moved toward being self-supporting with all denominational funding to be cut off in 2012. bYfAITH responded this week with a piece leading one reader to comment: "The article is an excellent example of 'advocacy journalism,' albeit quite subtle, ecclesiastical-style."

Brother David made the motion because the denomination's administrators at the PCA's Atlanta headquarters have been pouring money into this failing venture year after year, all the while complaining that churches have not been faithful in funding their work. Turns out their shortfall each year has been about fifteen per cent of their budget, precisely the amount they have chosen to sink into a tepid, house organ that speaks only for the denomination's power brokers and the hip children they've spawned.

bYfAITH quoted David saying he didn't seek the end of support for bYfAITH because of dislike for bYfAITH. The motion had been written by others and was being taken before Central Indiana Presbtery. David was sent a copy of it, thought it had merit and when another church in Ohio Presbytery called for a study committee to address all AC publications and spending, David suggested the Indiana overture as a better alternative. It seemed like a good way to solve the chronic shortage of financial support the PCA's denominational apparatus suffers. Ohio Presbytery agreed and sent it on to General Assembly where the commissioners will watch as the Bills and Overtures Committee is lobbied by the good-old-boys and buries the overture.

So beyond its complete failure, financially, what's wrong with bYfAITH?

Ringing Rob's bell...

(Tim, w/thanks to Brandon) Yes, we're already sick of Rob Bell's perversions but here's a post that does the job well. In fact, it's what Justin Taylor should have written in the first place.

No mincing and prancing and "I wonder" and "don't you think?" and "Maybe it's just me, but..." here. Just straightforward exposure of Rob Bells' betrayal of the Gospel and it's been done surgically. Read it.

One of its merits is that the author, Pastor Kevin DeYoung, did us all the service of transcribing Bell's blather, and here's the centerpiece...

Comments on comments...

(David/Tim) Comments are generally welcome, but unchristian behavior, including dishonesty, chronic false teaching, and unfair attacks on others will not be tolerated, nor will we seek to justify our actions as moderators. Those who lose their commenting privileges will never have lost them because they disagree with us, but almost always they will claim that's the reason.
 
Those who assume we haven’t corrected women who’ve spoken in an unseemly way against ordained officers of the Church on our blog simply think we must be as inconsistent as they are. The presence of bad stuff in the comments here, though, doesn’t mean we haven’t admonished or sought to correct behind the scenes--as we have also sought to do with Darryl Hart whose presence we’ve tolerated far longer than I (David) have liked.

"Suzy did not want a leader for a husband..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Michael F.) The men over at Pyromaniacs do excellent work. Read them regularly. Today, Dan Phillips posted "Are You Sure You Want a Husband Who...".  Don't miss it.

Discipline, denominations, and blogs...

(Tim) Below a recent post, we've been having a discussion of the nature of leadership and discipline in the church, and I'd like to call attention to this exchange in which I respond to a few comments. Likely, readers need to check out the larger context of the earlier post before they'll understand some of what's written, here, but it's not necessary.

* * *

>>a) Carl Trueman is ordained in the OPC, which means he really doesn't have a reason for making comments about his PCA boss, Peter Lillback, one way or the other.

What? Whatever happened to the church and to church associations (which we call denominations) being confessional communities rather than institutional self-perpetuation machines? This is one of the principal things that disappointed me about the PCA: over and over on both the presbytery and general assembly level men would be zealous for their institutional interests in a way that bypassed or harmed the purity of the Church and Her doctrine. Trueman may not have the ability to discipline Lillback formally within his own denomination, but Lillback is much more accountable and vulnerable to Trueman than he is to the members of his presbytery. Behold, the two men work together! If Trueman thinks Lillback is in error...

Every vile or idle word...

(Tim: This from Elder Jeff Moore of Church of the Good Shepherd)

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. - Ephesians 4:29

...and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 
- Ephesians 5:4

Increasingly, I'm aware of, not only my own failure to honor Christ in my speech in all spheres of my life, but also everyone else’s failure in light of God’s holy commands. Since God was opening my eyes to the incredible importance of words, tongue, and how we so often dishonor him, I have tried to be more keenly aware of all speech everywhere and in every area of life.

This is even more apparent and important in the digital age of computers, internet, texting, tweeting, cell phones,  and whatever the new flavor of the month is for communicating with the world. Information bombards us at breathtaking pace and from many sources. Rarely does any of it honor God.

We can get so immersed in the cultural norms for the way we communicate that we lose discernment on how it is we accomplish obeying, by God’s glorious grace, God's commands to us in the epistle to the Ephesian church. Note this letter was given to the church, God's people.

We cannot confine this passage to simply the spoken word in personal conversation when we can hide behind our façade of respectability, if we like. Nor can we be so confined in our application of these commands and also the oft-cited passages in James 3:1-12 regarding the danger of the tongue. No, this also includes the cell phone, the telephone at work and home, and our online words clattering on endlessly...

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

...we’ve just replaced Bill Hybels and Rick Warren with Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll. -Bill Streger

(Tim) Maybe someone else saying it will take the heat off us.

Pornography and faith...

(Tim) These wise words were made as a comment under the recent post, Stats on internet pornography, by Alex McNeilly, a young sax student in Church of the Good Shepherd. Thank you, Alex.

* * *

Regardless of how guarded any home is against sin, particularly the sexual sin of the media, in the world opportunities to indulge in it will abound. But even as we build larger and stronger walls against these sins in the home, worldly access to them becomes ever more available as we see in the stats in this post. As a result, I agree with Kevin that the strongest defense against these things lies in the spiritual battle.

We must teach our children the dangers of sexual sin and pornography, so that when they go into the world (a friend's house, a computer lab, a video store, etc.), where there are no guards, their hearts will already be fortified against these iniquities...

Print and web publishing...

(Tim) Over at I, Cringely, the buildup to the tablet Apple's rumored to be coming out with soon is the occasion for an excellent series of articles on publishing's past and present. As Jobs prepares to unleash Apple's latest, where have we been and where are we headed?

When I started blogging for World, lots of people told me to shorten my posts because no one wanted to read online content longer than a paragraph or two. As I saw it, though, the web was another gift from God allowing us to bypass The Suits at the wealthy Christian magazine and book publishers. It didn't seem right to waste this tool on the sort of once-over-lightly crud most blogs served up. Why not use the web as an extension of a pastor's calling to shepherd God's flock?

Sure, there was no pay in it. But if what we cared about was the Church; if what motivated us was Her protection and sanctification in the Word of God; then shepherds could use this new medium with joy, thanking God for the ability to publish without the transfer of money in either direction. Not being paid by any publisher was the perfect equation for us, wanting as we did to write some pieces no evangelical publisher would allow.

The wonder of it is that, once again as at the time of the Reformation when printing and pamphleteering hit, God has given us technology that makes it possible to bypass the compromised or corrupt powers that be...

Copyright law used to deny God's Word to Portuguese believers...

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1)

(Tim) Under "Save your church money...," David Ker, a Bible translator and blogger of Mozambique, commented on the lockdown the Portuguese and Brazilian Bible Societies have put in place denying Portuguese Christians access to Portuguese digital versions of God's Word.

In a blog post titled, "Illegal sources of the Portuguese Bible in digital format," he writes:

While every other major world language has multiple versions of the Bible represented online, Portuguese has not one. To paraphrase Emerson, make the Bible illegal and we all become criminals*.

The spirits of John Wycliff and Brother Andrew hover over this shameful situation compelling us to act. If the enemy forces were a state religion like the Church of England or an oppressive government like China or Iran we would think nothing of risking our lives to bring the Bible to those who can’t access it otherwise. But in this case because the bad guys have the words “Bible Society” in their name we’re supposed to sit on our thumbs...

Cures for the summertime blues...

(Tim) Steve McCoy does a great blog titled Reformissionary. Here's his latest post listing things we can do to connect with others in our cities/towns this summer.

On vacation last week, I regularly offered to take pics for the person holding the camera who was obviously the only family member who wouldn't be in the picture. I like Steve's idea, offering to take the pic on his own camera and e-mail it to them. As I said, Steve's suggestions are good.

The necessity of self-criticism...

(Tim) There's an excellent online community called the Puritan Board (just to the left) where discussions have been carried on, recently, concerning a couple posts, here. Predictably, The longest discussion focused on the Complaint filed against Metro NY Presbytery after their recent adoption of a position contrary to the PCA Book of Church Order--namely, approving the practice within her bounds of withholding ordination from male deacons and affirming male and female deacons serving together in diaconal ministry without sexual distinction.

The apologist for Redeemer's practice frequently posting here under the name "Mason" has been active in the discussion there, also, but with a somewhat different posture. You don't need to be a member of the Puritan Board to read the comments and I encourage our readers to note the common sentiment expressed that Metro NY, Redeemer, and other churches, presbyteries, and elders taking similar positions may need to be questioned concerning their practice.

More interesting to me, though, is the discussion recently put on ice by the Puritan Board's moderators because it was getting warm. Started by a man who posts under the nom de plume, Pergamum/MacDaddy, he wrote:

Article about the PCA

---

Is this a good article, bad article, accurate, inaccurate?

BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...: The demographics of the PCA: Follow the money...

__________________
Pergamum

Interesting discussion, and a couple noteworthy things:

First, even reformed men seem to have fallen into the pomo trap of thinking they can reason while avoiding generalizations...

A reformed congregation that doesn't use grace to silence the fear of God...

(Tim) Conrad Mbewe serves as the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia--one of the more vital reformed witnesses the Lord has raised up in our time. The congregation is known for reaching into the dregs of society in a non-patronizing way, doing frontline evangelism, training pastors at a pastors college they sponsor, planting churches around the country, etc. As I said, the Lord's presence and blessing are obvious to those familiar with the congregation. This is a reformed congregation with a large heart, no censorious spirit, expansive in its witness and hopes, and living in the fear of God.

Maybe that's the thing that most strikes me about Pastor Mbewe and his people: they have not used reformed doctrine as a pathway to cheap grace that silences the fear of God. Everything is not "grace, grace, grace" to them. Their harp of ten thousand strings does not harp on that one string so long.

This is a test. Read through Kabwata's prayer letter noting the parts we must admit would never be written; or, if written, never quite make it past the editor's keyboard of our own churches' newsletters. To help with the task, I've put several in bold italics.

If the letter piques your interest, here's Pastor Mbewe's blog where you'll find a truly Biblical apostolic African voice.

* * *

KABWATA BAPTIST CHURCH PRAYER LETTER

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

March 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,   

We open this prayer letter with the words of Scripture, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:5-6). That is our testimony as a church as we review the last few months of the year 2008, including the first few months of this year.

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The year 2008 was full of tears, as we lost precious church members who graduated from the church militant to the church triumphant. We also wept much over the excommunications that were necessary in order to avert the judgment of God upon the church...

The blog pays off...

(Tim) Believe it or not, neither David nor I would rate the blog very high in our "Why I love the ministry" column. It's work we believe necessary, and it does have its rewards, but they're not usually of the warm fuzzy sort.

This weekend, though, the Bloomington side of the blog is getting a payoff that is, in fact, warm and fuzzy. For the first time, we're meeting our dear sister in the faith, Kamilla Ludwig, who's come for a visit. Last night she arrived in the middle of...