September 27th, 2008 Jeff
Tim Chester, co-author of Total Church, was interviewed over on the Desiring God blog. Check it out. Good stuff.
I’ve been reading the book and am challenged on a number of levels. My soul and mind resonate with the subtitle: “A radical reshaping around Gospel and community.”
A helpful quote from Chester:
One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with unbelievers.
May God allow us to serve in the church with this trajectory.
Posted in Blog, Books, Church Planting, Ekklesia, God-centered, Gospel, Ministry, Reading, missional | No Comments »
September 7th, 2008 Jeff
We are all a prone to have small visions for life. But you have to admit that bacon is pretty amazing…
Posted in Blog, Books | 2 Comments »
July 31st, 2008 Jeff
This week we had week two of our class, Enjoying the Bible for All Its Worth (see note on the first week, on erasing biblical aliteracy ).
The three-week crash-course is meant to only whet one’s appetite for devouring God’s Word, so we can enjoy HIM for all He’s worth!
A number of the attendees asked for a list of helps — how can I understand the Bible better? (If you are like me, you feel so far behind!) I had a stack with me and showed them a few of my most trusted ones. Here’s the list and a comment on each. Some are for beginning and intermediate readers, others are more advanced. I note the features of each. The links are to Amazon, for the least expensive prices available (use these links).
My suggestion: go with one or two of the below and delve in!
Just starting out
The Jesus Storybook Bible // The best children’s Bible I’ve found. Links every story within the overall message of the Bible, pointing the way to Jesus.
There is also no shame in reading this as an adult (even not to your kids), for learning and knowing the overarching Story of Scripture is essential to knowing, loving and enjoying God above all else. [$11.55]
With the Word by Warren Wiersbe // a pocket-sized chapter-by-chapter commentary — a short page per chapter, very brief — on the key themes and main points of each chapter in Scripture. It’s like having the faithful preacher there next to you explaining the way with you, daily. [$12.74]
A Study Bible is also helpful. I’m eagerly awaiting the ESV Study Bible release this fall (watch an intro here ), and have used the Nelson NKJV Study Bible (Kari’s choice; her’s is falling apart after so much use!) and Zondervan NIV Study Bible in the past.
(See links to Bible reading plans below.)
God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Story-Line of the Bible by Vaughn Roberts // A brief panoramic view of all of the Scriptures and God’s big picture in His story, past, present and future. [$9.60]
Intermediate
Playing With Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul by Walt Russell // this forms the essential emphases of the class, and goes deeper and wider than we were able to in our short time together. Russell’s insights and pastoral heart come together with the mind of a brilliant professor/teacher. [$10.19]
Promises Made: The Message of the Old Testament by Mark Dever // An overview of all 39 Old Testament books, the ones we are prone to neglect and misunderstand, in a simple yet comprehensive format. Written for any level of reader. Helps one to see the ‘forest’ as well as the most important ‘trees.’ [$26.39]
Promises Kept: The Message of the New Testament by Mark Dever // An overview of all 27 New Testament books in a simple yet comprehensive format. Written by a veteran pastor with clarity and faithful to the text. Helps one to see the ‘forest’ as well as the most important ‘trees.’ [$19.79]
How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour by Gordon Fee (a revision of many of the concepts from his How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth ) // Book-by-book introduction and discussion of key themes and core emphases. For any level of reader. Both books are tremendous helps.[$12.91 + $11.55]
Daniel Fuller’s Unity of the Bible [$19.79] and the late Ray C. Stedman’s Adventuring Through the Bible [$14.99] are also extremely helpful resources. One of my profs, Albert Baylis, has a more advanced (but with lots of charts and helps) treatment of the OT: From Creation to the Cross (formerly called On the Way to Jesus ) [$20.27]
(Note: I receive a very small kickback on any new books purchased through the links listed above. Only enough to help me pay for shipping on my next order or something like that. But every penny helps, so consider buying through here.)
Bible Reading Plans
Let me know if you have any questions or need any help.
Enjoy!
Posted in Blog, Books, Enjoying the Bible, Reading, Sanctification, Theology | No Comments »
July 13th, 2008 Jeff
Just finished reading a fascinating book, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Collin Hansen (Crossway Books, 2008). Hansen is editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine, and a phenomenal writer and story teller, in my humble opinion.
His new book is an expansion and more detailed research project of his September 2006 article in Christianity Today magazine . During that time and afterward he traveled all around the country (for nearly two years) chronicling the diverse movement, from the Passion conferences to Southern Seminary, to Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis (home of John Piper, pastor for preaching and vision), to Sovereign Grace Churches, to visit with dozens of churches and pastors and professors across the country, to Yale and Princeton (Jonathan Edward’s roots) and all the way to Seattle (home of Mars Hill Church and Mark Driscoll, preaching pastor, and the Acts29 church planting network). It is truly amazing how much info, interviews, reflections and candor he Hansen was able to pack into 156 pages.
Having read and followed most of the "key players" among the resurgence in and towards the doctrines of grace for a few years, I was delighted to better understand their interwoven story. I recommend this quick read for those not familiar with the God-centered theology, or with an caricature/skewed view of it as it relates to biblical doctrine. Others have reviewed and responded to the book in other places (see links below).
Hansen’s book reads like a string of captivating articles, and he does more than give facts as he reflects, summarizes and connects the doctrines of grace, people of grace, the centrality of Christ and some of the various issues facing the American church with journalistic creativity. I especially appreciated the tone found throughout of an others-directed, servant-like humility and the need for evangelism, mission (and missions), and serving the local church and community. To be God-centered, Bible-saturated and Gospel-driven means to give our lives away sacrificially.
Spurgeon is quoted on page 114 noting how the doctrine of election is not aimed at dividing saints, but rather "Israel from Egypt" (as in the OT). He goes on:
“A man may be evidently of God’s chosen family, and yet though elected, may not believe in the doctrine of election. I hold there are many savingly called, who do not believe in effectual calling, and that there are a great many who persevere to the end, who do not believe in the doctrine of final perseverance. We do hope that the hearts of many are a great deal better than their heads. We do not set their fallacies down to any willful opposition to the trust as it is in Jesus, but simply to an error in their judgments, which we pray God to correct. We hope that if they think us mistaken too, they will reciprocate the same Christian courtesy; and when we meet around the cross, we hope that when we meet around the cross, we hope that we shall ever feel that we are one in Christ Jesus.”[1]
Let all remember:
“What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” ( 1 Cor. 4:7 )
(Brister and Challies are both mentioned in the book.)
[1] Quoted in Iain H. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1995), 112.
Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Reading, Theology, Web | No Comments »
July 9th, 2008 Jeff
" ‘Tis not that I did choose Thee,
For Lord, that could not be;
This heart would still refuse Three,
Hadst Thou not chosen me …
My heart owns none before Thee,
For Thy rich grace I thirst;
This knowing, if I love Thee,
Thou must have loved me first."
– Josiah Conder, 1836
Found in the front matter of the Jesus Storybook Bible we bought Dutch. Wow, that’s the type of Christ-exalting humility and truth I hope our young son to grasp. We hope to swim with him in the deep end of God’s perfections and grace (even from this young age).
"We love becaus e he first loved us ." [ 1 John 4:19 ]
Posted in Blog, Books, Family, God-centered, Grace, Theology | No Comments »
May 7th, 2008 Jeff
Damian and Norman over at Christians in Context posted a guest post by me (Jeff) after I won a great new book in a recent drawing they held. I won The Expository Genius of John Calvin by Steven J. Lawson. Looks to be a great book and from what I’m told highly accessible and full of practical helps.
Here’s what they let me say as a promo for their blog/site (read it here or there ):
Last week, after arriving home from a discouraging day attempting to tutor disinterested public high school students, I received an email from Damian saying I had won a book from Christians in Context. I won something? Me? I haven’t won anything since … a GameBoy in middle school. Wow, that was almost two decades ago. Where is that gadget anyway?…
Back to the story … there I was in the middle of my context, thinking about how I’d won a book that links me, a Christian, to the text of God’s Word. Thank you guys for the great gift, and reminding me again of the value of good theology to fuel daily life. (And at that moment it suddenly dawned on me that while tutoring that day, in response to one of the girl’s questions she has provided an open door for explaining the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ. Christ was there in that context.)
About a month ago I stumbled across Christians in Context via a link from the Parchment and Pen blog and theological word of the day . The first post had me hooked, and I’ve had Norman and Damian fired up in my RSS feed reader ever since. A recent post by Damian on John Owen and mortification of sin not only resonated with me personally (read: convicted me), but also helped me to see the great need to be reading good theology and applying it to my life.
The whole idea of being a Christian in one’s context seems to be gaining traction these days. It is almost funny to think of how "contextualization" is a buzz word in the church today, while the Bible [and Jesus] simply calls it "obedience" (Matt. 28:18-20). Some Christians may not like the former word (and I think that is probably just as well, as it’s a bit technical even for leaders), but I think we can all relate to the latter.
Obedience, like love, and motivated by it, involves values and evaluation. We each live in a unique context, a culture that demands our time and resources and often allegiance. And rather than think we can (or even should) escape our culture, we are called to evaluate all things, bringing every thought captive to the mind of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) and live as sojourners in the tension between two worlds (Phil. 3:17-21). Loving God and loving people as Christ brings His redemption is our happy tension. While we dare not change the unchanging Gospel of Christ, we can seek to change ourselves (1 Cor. 9:22-23), and doing so involves agonizing strain and labor and discipline (vv. 24-27). As the Church, being Christians in Context is not easy, but in a two-second-vapor-of-a-life (James 4:14) we live in that happy tension.
Thanks again guys for reminding us why and how to live in this happy tension — as sojourners in our context, reflecting Christ.
Because of Jesus who is The Image of God,
Jeff
Posted in Blog, Books, Reading, missional | 3 Comments »
May 2nd, 2008 Jeff
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any [person] is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that comprises the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.”
- A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy , chapter one, "Why We Must Think Rightly About God," p. 1
Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Quotes, Reading, Theology | 2 Comments »
April 24th, 2008 Jeff
By its nature, saving faith loves God and delights in God as the sum of all that could ever satisfy the soul.
—John Piper, Future Grace , p. 252.
Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Gospel, Jesus, Joy, Justification, Quotes, Reading, Theology | No Comments »
March 24th, 2008 Jeff
“Sin is what we do when you are not fully satisfied in God.”
—John Piper, Future Grace, p. 9.
“If we are not fulfilled and secure in God, we will inevitably seek other sources of happiness and security.”
—Ken Sande, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, p. 112.
Posted in Blog, Books, God-centered, Joy, Quotes, Reading, Sanctification, Theology, godly trajectory | No Comments »
March 1st, 2008 Jeff
“Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.”
- Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 30.
[HT: Of First Importance]
As I think through Theodicy, I see (by analogy) a stool with four legs:
- God’s Omnipotence,
- His Omniscience,
- His Love & Goodness, and
- His entering into His creation to suffer with us.
I’ve found that many who attempt to give a Christian reason why a good and sovereign God would allow suffering either limit God’s omniscience, limit His ability, while wanting to uphold His goodness. Each of those three must be upheld, but a fourth point must also must be added to the mix, for God is not some distant deity. While transcendent and separate from His creation, He has come near, and remains imminent, working, sustaining, loving. In the incarnation God became a Man, revealing Himself to us in the best possible way. And He suffered with us. (Wow!)
In a cohesive theodicy, all four categories are important, as God has revealed Himself as infinitely able, all-wise and knowing, abounding in love and goodness, and possessing an unrivaled humility that brought Him into this world in the Son. Each of this attributes speak of God’s infinite beauty and value, for He is worth more than we can ever imaging. And since He is glorious, and we are His, what does that make us?
—
I hope to read Keller’s book this year. His wisdom, insights love for God are compelling, and even if he ends up being only half as engaging in writing than when speaking, the book will be well worth its price.
Posted in Blog, Books, Quotes, Reading, Theodicy, Theology | 3 Comments »
