Last night, we had a complete database failure here at BReformed, and there are still some broken things like the links to the right.
I apologize if your RSS feed received gobbeldygook from this blog overnight. We’ll try and get everything fixed sometime this week.
The company where I work allows employees to take their birthday as a holiday. Last year, I spent my birthday-holiday at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary visiting with Al Mohler in his office to discuss our mutual genealogy (we have the same sixth-great grandfather) and then spent a little time in his catacomb-like library at his home. That seems like it was only last week.
Today, I used my birthday-holiday two weeks early to attend an all-day workshop at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. The workshop covered lexical exegesis using the BibleWorks software, which I have been using for several years now. BibleWorks is the best software on the market for Bible research: nothing else comes close. Our workshop was taught by Dr. Matt Harmon, associate professor of New Testament at Grace Theological Seminary. Everyone in the class was thrilled with Dr. Harmon’s superb teaching style. We spent a some time investigating BibleWorks’ tools for textual criticism (with the NET Bible), and general lexical research across various morphological texts. Dr. Harmon demonstrated tools we did not know existed in BibleWorks, such as a graphical search engine which can employ Granville Sharp’s rule. The algorithmic construction of that rule in graphical format (click here to see) was pretty cool for me (being the English fanatic and software developer that I am.)
BibleWorks is not Logos or PC Study Bible on steroids. It is a research tool in a class all its own. An industrial-strength, granular data engine like BibleWorks allows a serious Bible student to do what men fifty years ago would have spent years and years doing, if nothing more than documenting relationships between different writers of the Biblical text. Properly used, the preacher can exegete a passage on his own with confidence, and relate it to his people in English. I hope to illustrate this in a future post using Revelation 21:8. This is not academic stuff; I pity the seminary student who treats this as an academic experience. For me, an analogy can be expressed thus: “One can be a tourist of the Grand Canyon, observe what everyone else observes, and parrot the features someone else points out. Or, with time and effort, one can become the geologist and know, love, and live in the Grand Canyon.” Even though it takes time and hard work, I prefer the latter because I want to study to show myself approved unto God. I am not interested in being a parrot that only says what the strongest voice says, or what my favorite author has said. Neither, on the other hand, should this become erudition itself (i.e., the people in the pew do not need to be impressed with this.) I want to personally know the “why” of scripture so that I can teach the fact of a matter with honesty. I want to understand the textual relationships, and see the tapestry of God’s inspirational work.
Anyways, so much for my annual birthday update, 2 weeks early this time. I would encourage you, no matter who you are, to cancel your cable TV subscription and invest in BibleWorks and use it. It is a diving board into the deep end of the Bible study pool. And with instruction from someone like Dr. Harmon, you can more fully appreciate the words behind the Word.
Turn off the TV tonight (if you have one) and instead watch these YouTube videos of a recent interview on CNN between Glenn Beck (the host) and Christian author, Joel Rosenberg.
I have read Rosenberg’s fictional books (except the most recent one, “Dead Heat“) in which he presents a clear-headed scenario of current events and how they might logically play out. His experience as a past geopolitical analyst provides for rather uncanny insight into Iraq, Iran, Russia, and the rest of the nations, and how they figure into the Bible’s prophecy concerning Israel’s final conflict in the world. Intriguing, to say the least.
I have been told that a literal reading of the text is important to preterists. For example, in Matthew 24:34, preterists insist that “this generation” applies only to those people actually alive when Christ spoke those words. As I understand it, the preterist believes that Christ’s second coming ostensibly occurred in 70AD, when the temple was destroyed, and the Matthew 24:34 generation was extant in fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy.
In order to employ the preterist’s understanding consistently, take note of the following words of Paul as they relate to that same generation:
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Cor. 11:26 ESV)
According to preterism, the second coming of Jesus occurred in 70AD thus postdating Paul’s writings, and his death at the hands of Nero. In other words, Paul wrote that excerpt above prior to the supposed second coming of Christ - which the preterist says happened roughly three years after Paul died. Therefore, the words “until He comes” must be consistently interpreted by the preterist to be within the scope of that 70AD coming.
Which brings us to the question: “If Christ has already come, why do preterists take communion?”
The text of this 253-page book took more time to read than any other book I have read in recent memory. Every page, every paragraph, was thoughtful and salient. It was neither tedious, nor a clanging-cymbal. It was engaging, fair, and “obvious”.
By “obvious” I mean that the authors’ analysis of the emergent/ing church movement reads with the clarity and relevance of the little child who cried out, “But he has nothing on at all!“
D.A. Carson’s book, “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church” was a good book, but not as good as “Why We’re Not Emergent“.
The authors unwrap the emerged package of postmodern-Christian religion by using the very words of the movement’s de facto leaders: Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Don Miller, Erwin Raphael McManus, Stan Grez, Doug Padgitt, and others.
But the best part of the book is the Epilogue. Diverging from the central theme of analyzing the emergent movement, the Epilogue is a short treatise on the seven churches of Revelation 2-3, a section of scripture I have studied as often and exhaustively as I can for over twenty years (which is why I found this to be the best part.) The author proposes (p. 245) that,
“most emergent Christians either came from Ephesus churches or perceive Ephesus churches to be the overwhelming problem in the Christian West.”
That notion is spot on. I am troubled, to be sure, with the emergent/postmodern movement; but I am equally, if not more, troubled at the Ephesus-style church that doesn’t love (Luke 6:27; Mark 10:21; Eph. 4:15), whose preaching sounds like a clanging cymbal (1 Cor. 13:1), or thinks it is presenting the true gospel while doing nothing more than showing disdain for those perceived to be more heretical (e.g., Luke 18:11.) The authors of this book spoke the truth in love, and communicated the preciousness of the Gospel.
This is an inexpensive book; you need to read it. It will help you trim your wick and develop a deeper love for Christ & His Church and will, at the same time, challenge you to lovingly discern what is true and false in the professing Church today.
Looking Upward asks the question, “When are we justified?”
Dunker Journal takes the words out of my mouth concerning the so-called “Christian” bookstore…
This book was reviewed on a Grace Brethren-oriented site some weeks ago, heartily recommending it. I was intrigued, because the title expresses exactly how I have felt from time to time over the past several years. The recommendation of the other reviewer was so strong that he even wished he had been the publisher. Therefore, I couldn’t resist and Amazon got a donation from me.
This would be the first Gordon MacDonald book I would read since the early 1990’s. Now I remember why I don’t read Gordon MacDonald.
Gordon MacDonald is well-known in evangelical circles for various reasons, some of those reasons actually being a catalyst to read the book. I supposed, in my naivete, that MacDonald was, perhaps, “asking for the ancient paths”, perhaps awakening to and decrying the identity-crisis postmodernism has wrought in the Church. Everything about the cover and the other reviewer’s recommendation said, “Buy it!” As you can see, I bought the book presupposing that it would agree with me. That same presupposition is why the other reviewer recommended it: he agreed with it.
It’s kind of like liver. I love the smell of liver while it cooks: everything about the aroma says, “This is an advertisement that the flavor will be twice as good as it smells.” But one bite and I know that liver was not on the sheet lowered down in Peter’s vision. Same with this book.
So here’s the nutshell of it. This book is essentially fiction from the imagination of Gordon MacDonald and his wife, both of who are old enough to be my parents. It recounts, in a first-person sense, a church that is in the midst of an identity crisis. The premise of the book is not the problem; the problem is the storied solution.
The book is a straw man. It is an imaginative narrative that lays out the already-tired notion that a vibrant church is a church that exists in a state of flux, needing to re-invent itself for the culture (or at least for that which is notionally cultural.) MacDonald’s story encounters all the typical, contemporary issues: the generational divide, the music, the church name, the sermons… he manufactures the arguments, the conflict, and the resolution ostensibly from his own experiences.
On page 146, Rick (a character) argues for changing the church name to make it more appealing to the community. He argues that the church name “ought to be designed primarily for people who are not professing Christians” and uses the church name “Scum of the Earth” as an example. He concludes that, “a church should consider changing its name about every ten years or so.” MacDonald leaves the reader with the impression that Rick is right.
Yes, we have the liberty to change the church name - and what a waste of time. My observation here is twofold: 1) The Church is supposed to be composed of, and is meant for, Christians. That’s why New Testament calls the Church “the household of faith“. The name of the assembly should reflect the Christians who gather there. Christians have been bought, and have been washed. We are not what we once were; we have a new and better name. Now, as Christ’s bride, we are not scum of the earth.
This reminds me of restaurants here in downtown Dayton that never last. People will start up these little cafes in a city that has no interest in going downtown to eat after the work day. They decorate the place, develop a “unique” menu, create a cool name (like “Blue Moon Cafe”) and then expect people to “come in”. But guess which restaurant remains profitable in downtown Dayton? Denny’s. (This is true.) Denny’s remains “relevant” while the others eventually go out of business in spite of doing all the “right things” and conforming to all the right “market research”. And that is what will happen to the church that spends its time and energy on the ideas Gordon MacDonald tries to promote in his story.
MacDonald’s story is almost an unabridged example of everything a local church is encouraged to do that has nothing to do with Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Church has become the little cafe where religious people do their little creative notions and hope they are as hip as the other church who was already doing it.
On page xix of the Introduction, MacDonald says this about himself,
“I was committed to pointing the church toward the outside world and getting it to see that the real action was what happened, not on Sunday in the church building, but between Sundays in the home, in the marketplace, in the school. There, not here, was where we would reveal the kind of Christ living in our hearts.”
That sounds good at first, but upon further consideration is obviously flawed on two counts: 1) Pointing the church to the outside world does not equip the church to evangelize the outside world. Rather, the pastor should be pointing the church to Christ. 2) Similarly, what happens on Sunday morning is infinitely more important than what happens outside the church building, because what will happen outside the church building is directly proportional to what happens inside the church building. Get that order wrong, and you end up with a Rotary Club, not a church.
Let me boil this down: If a pastor has a church of people, his charge is to shepherd those people. His charge is not to be looking toward the community and fashioning his church to market to that community. His simple, sole charge is to feed and take care of Christ’s lambs, the ones given to him, equipping them to go into the world and preach the gospel where they are or wherever God may order their steps to take them. The people, by the grace of God, should be bringing converts to the household of faith to be baptized, to sing psalms, hymns & spiritual songs, and to hear the Word of God. They should be doing this because they themselves have been pointed to Christ.
The conclusion of the book, around page 223, reveals the result that is characteristic of the humanitarian church. The story winds up thus:
“In the weeks and months that followed, we began to see strangers come through the door and find places to belong in our various ministry ventures. Most visitors…had his or her own adjustments to make as they came to understand the implications of following Jesus.”
Strangers? Ventures? Adjustments? Implications? Apparently these “strangers” do not have to become Christians. All they have to do is “make adjustment”. Just follow the logic here: the book starts out (as noted above) promoting the presupposition that the pastor should point people outside the church “where the real action was”. If that is true, why are strangers coming through the doors at the end of the story? Why aren’t people coming through the doors who were converted in the marketplace by church-goers who were being intentionally missional outside the church?
I’ll tell you why: it’s because everyone in this fictional church thought that “doing church” consisted of revamping the music, and changing the organization name. But even in this book it doesn’t play out because the logic just doesn’t work. In other words, the book makes no claim that Christians are increasing and maturing in the ranks of the local church because it can’t!
