June 2011

Weekend A La Carte (6/25)

Author Interviews - Michael Hyatt has written a good post full of tips for authors who are being interviewed. “If you are a published author--or plan to be one--you will inevitably be asked to appear on a radio, television, or Internet show to talk about your book. It's critical that you learn to do this well. Assuming you have written a good book, nothing drives sales of it more than publicity.”

Signs Your Sermon Isn’t Going Well - Mike Wittmer offers up a top-13 list of signs that your sermon isn’t going too well.

Dear Photograph - This is an interesting project—to take a picture of a picture from the past in the present. It’s hard to explain, so you may just need to check it out.

What Kind of Theologian Are You? - Because all Christians answer questions like, "Who is God?" and "Who is Jesus?", we're all theologians to some degree. So what kind of theologian are you?

Should I Change My Password? - This is a handy little utility. You enter an email address you tend to use to create accounts and it will tell you if you should change your password.

What To Do With the Children? - “Summer offers a unique opportunity to do ministry together as a family. A whole lot of free time offers a whole lot of opportunities to reach out to others and minister side by side. If your kids can get a taste of the value of serving like Jesus did, they'll be learning an important lesson.”

5 Years of Pastoring - Tim Raymond: “On April 9, 2011, I celebrated five years as Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana.  As I reflect back on these past years there are five main lessons that come to mind…”

How Much to Tip - Here’s an infographic that tells you how much to tip depending on what country you are in.

Passion does not compensate for ignorance. —Samuel Chadwick

What It Takes To Be An Evangelical Leader

This is an interesting little excerpt from Iain Murray’s recent biography of John MacArthur. In his Introduction Murray seeks to show what makes a man a leader among evangelicals. He offers a five-point answer:

In brief, an evangelical is a person who believes the 'three rs': ruin by the Fall, redemption through Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit. It follows that an 'evangelical leader' is a person who stands out in the advancement and defence of those truths. The title does not necessarily imply success judged by numbers and immediate results. on that basis neither Paul nor Tyndale might qualify.

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Free Stuff Fridays

Free Stuff Fridays
This week’s Free Stuff Fridays sponsor is Evangelical Press. EP is a non-profit mission organization. Its mission is to place sound Christian books and sound biblical teaching within reach of as many people as possible across the world. One hundred per cent of purchases and giving enables EP to hold conferences, produce books, newspapers, radio shows and correspondence courses. They currently have EP employees working in three continents, and books printed in sixty languages.

This week EP is giving away 3 new books:

  • Does God Believe in Atheists? by John Blanchard
  • The Power to Save: A History of the Gospel in China by Bob Davey
  • Making Sanity Out of Vanity by Stanley Gale

Does God Believe in AtheistsOf these books, Does God Believe in Atheists? seems particularly noteworthy. “This award-winning title traces the development of atheistic and agnostic thinking over the past 2,500 years and shows how thinkers like Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Neitzsche, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell and others have shaped many people’s thinking today. It also pinpoints the flaws in Darwinian evolutionism and in claims made for it by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others, explains why secular humanism self-destructs, reveals why here is no conflict between science and belief in God, exposes fatal errors in nine world religions and fourteen major cults and shows why the existence of evil and suffering is no reason to deny God’s existence.”

Also, here’s a special deal for North American shoppers. EP titles are available in North America through www.CVBBS.com. Between now and July 15 you can use the discount code epbooks to get an extra 10% off any of their books.

Giveaway Rules: You may only enter the draw once. Simply fill out your name and email address to enter the draw. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon.

Note: If you are reading via RSS or email, you may need to click through to see the form.

A La Carte (6/24)

Tell Me What to Write - A little while ago I added a component to my site that allows you to a) suggest topics for me to write about and b) vote other people’s suggestions up or down. So far this has proven a really interesting thing and it’s given me some good direction for future writing. Feel free to chime in!

N SKY C - Here is the average color of the New York sky, updated every 5 minutes. Weird but kind of cool.

Here Comes the Sun - Speaking of the sky (how’s that for a forced segue) here’s a photo essay that “offers some glimpses of the power, beauty, and transforming presence of the sun, taken since the beginning of June.”

Unblocking Writer’s Block - Here are some ways of unblocking writer’s block.

Unexpected Jobless Claims - Joe Carter pretty much sticks it to the media with this article. “There are two things the media never expects: (1) The Spanish Inquisition and (2) increases in jobless claims. In 19 of the past 24 months, the media has considered it ‘unexpected’ when jobless claims increase.”

Leaders Who Last - Here’s something for Toronto-area leaders to consider.

Sleep On It - It’s rarely a bad idea to sleep on it. Apparently it also makes a lot of sense scientifically.

10 Brands That Will Disappear - “24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that will disappear, which includes Sears, Sony Pictures, American Apparel, Nokia, Saab, A&W All-American Foods Restaurants, Soap Opera Digest, Sony Ericsson, MySpace, and Kellog’s Corn Pops.” (HT)

Do not work so hard for Christ that you have no strength to pray, for prayer requires strength. —Hudson Taylor

CK2:16 - Myths About Calvinism

  • Tim Challies
  • 06/23/11

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Ten Myths About CalvinismThis week’s guest on The Connected Kingdom is Dr. Ken Stewart, who is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Intervarsity Press recently published Dr. Stewart’s book Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition. David and I spoke to him about the Old Calvinism about the New Calvinism and about what the even newer future Calvinism may look like. Here is a table of contents pointing out some of the highlights of our discussion:

  • 1:30 - Overview of the ten myths about Calvinism
  • 9:35 - Purpose and audience of the book
  • 11:00 - Our polarized movement; who has the inside track on explaining and articulating the Reformed faith; too many Calvinist authorities
  • 14:47 - Clarification on Calvinistic brands
  • 16:15 - Did we blow the Rob Bell situation?
  • 29:06 - Theological accountability and Gospel Coalition
  • 31:42 - Fault lines in Calvinism

There is lots of interesting food for thought in this podcast!

If you want to give us feedback or join in the discussion, go ahead and look up our Facebook Group or leave a comment right here. You will always be able to find the most recent episode here on the blog. If you would like to subscribe via iTunes, you can do that here or if you want to subscribe with another audio player, you can try this RSS link.

The Basis of the Christian's Assurance

Yesterday I offered 3 statements on assurance of salvation. Today I’d like to follow that up with a brief word on the right basis for assurance of salvation. After that, I will offer a few book recommendations for those who struggle with this issue.

It is a sad but undeniable fact that many people who think they are Christians are not. At the final judgment many will approach Jesus convinced that they are saved only to be told that Jesus never knew them (and hence that they never knew him). The fact is that many people ultimately depend upon themselves for assurance of their salvation. This applies to believers and unbelievers. A person may be truly saved yet look to himself for assurance of this salvation. This is dangerous ground to tread; when a person experiences a time of doubt his misplaced assurance can drive him to despair. When our assurance rests on something we have done, a promise we have made or a prayer we have prayed, we have placed our assurance on shaky ground.

Let’s turn to the Bible to discover the true basis for our assurance.

Assurance Rests on God’s Character

In the last article I quoted the words of the Apostle Paul as we find them in 2 Timothy 1:12 “I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.” What was the basis of Paul’s assurance? He rested in the character of God. He knew whom he had believed and trusted that God was good and would preserve him. He trusted in the goodness of God and in God’s desire to save his people. He rested in the words of Jesus that “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” He knew that Jesus will never reject anyone who comes to truly comes to him, who rests in him for salvation.

Assurance Rests on God’s Promises

If our assurance of salvation rests on God’s good character, then we can also trust in his good promises. Here are a few of the promises of God regarding salvation.

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RCT4: The Liberal Bible

Reading Classics
Today we come to another of our readings in Gresham Machen’s classic work Christianity & Liberalism. This week’s chapter looked to the Bible as the source of the truths we believe. Machen sought to show how liberalism’s understanding of Scripture is as much in error as their view of God and man (which was the topic of the previous chapter).

He begins with a wonderfully concise affirmation of all kinds of biblical truths.

The way was opened, according to the Bible, by an act of God, when, almost nineteen hundred years ago, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the eternal Son was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men. To that one great event the whole Old Testament looks forward, and in that one event the whole of the New Testament finds its center and core. Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened. Hence appears the uniqueness of the Bible. All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the Christian view, is altogether dark, and humanity is lost under the guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin. But a new face has been put upon life by the blessed thing that God did when He offered up His only begotten Son.

There is a great danger in doing what many liberals sought to do—reduce the faith to mere experience, an experience of Christ. This was done, of course, at the expense of biblical authority.

The trouble is that the experience thus maintained is not Christian experience. Religious experience it may be, but Christian experience it certainly is not. For Christian experience depends absolutely upon an event. The Christian says to himself: “I have meditated upon the problem of becoming right with God, I have tried to produce a righteousness that will stand in His sight; but when I heard the gospel message I learned that what I had weakly striven to accomplish had been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ when He died for me on the Cross and completed His redeeming work by the glorious resurrection. If the thing has not yet been done, if I merely have an idea of its accomplishment, then I am of all men most miserable, for I am still in my sins. My Christian life, then, depends altogether upon the truth of the New Testament record.”

Says Machen, “Christian experience is rightly used when it confirms the documentary evidence. But it can never possibly provide a substitute for the documentary evidence.” Experience is important, but it can never be separated from the truths of Scripture or from Scripture itself.

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A La Carte (6/23)

Yesterday I was reading through the warranty manual for my van (not just for fun) and enjoyed reading about the hidden data recorders within the car: “Data may be stored if a crash event occurs. For example, vehicle speed, brake application, steering angle, air bag readiness, air bag performance, and seat belt use by the driver or passenger may be recorded. These types of systems are sometimes called Event Data Recorders.” It goes on to explain that these may be provided to law enforcement or insurance companies. Fun.

The New Catch - Playing video games is the twenty-first century version of playing catch. “The Nintendo generation wants to bond with their children on their old digital stomping grounds. ‘On the menu of things to do with your kid, it’s not the best choice,’ says MIT Professor and Alone Together author Sherry Turkle.”

Abandoned Six Flags - This is pretty cool. “Like little kids, we all experience a happy rush, a delighted thrill, when going to play at an amusement park. Yet when an amusement park is abandoned and an eerie silence settles over the rusty and crusty decay, the setting seems to twist the atmosphere of enthusiastic excitement into a suffocating blanket of dread.”

Remembering These Moments - The dad in me just loved this article. Is it possible that a part of the joy of heaven will be remembering and reliving treasured moments like these?

He Spanks His Kids - Denny Burk writes about spanking in the aftermath of that judge who was convicted of a felony for spanking her child.

Determined - This dog is determined to get the man to throw a stick. It isn’t going to work. Speaking of dogs, there’s got to be a sermon illustration for this one—a sheepdog who is terrified of sheep.

Muslim-Christian Dialogue - Over the past few years Thabiti Anyabwile has been able to particpate in a series of Muslim-Christian dialogues. You can learn more about them and watch video at the link. This may prove an important evangelistic site!

What have we time and strength for, but to lay out both for God? What is a candle made for, but to burn? —Richard Baxter

3 Statements on Assurance of Salvation

Today I would like to make 3 statements about a subject that is always relevant to Christians: assurance of salvation. This is an area of great confusion for many believers and an area that can lead to great discouragement. I am going to make 3 statements about assurance and then, Lord willing, follow up tomorrow with a word about the true basis for assurance.

1It is possible and even normal for the Christian to experience assurance of salvation.

John MacArthur calls assurance of salvation “the birthright and privilege of every true believer in Christ.” This assurance is not only possible but should be the normal experience for any believer in Christ. Romans 8:16 teaches that assurance of salvation is part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...” Hear what Matthew Henry says about this verse: “Those that are sanctified have God's Spirit witnessing with their spirits, which is to be understood not of any immediate extraordinary revelation, but an ordinary work of the Spirit, in and by the means of comfort, speaking peace to the soul. This testimony is always agreeable to the written word, and is therefore always grounded upon sanctification; for the Spirit in the heart cannot contradict the Spirit in the word.” 2 Peter 1:10 goes so far as to command us to pursue this assurance. "Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall."

Yet even more clear than these verses is 1 John 5:13. As John wraps up this epistle he reveals his purpose in writing it. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." God has seen fit to provide us an entire book in the Bible that will teach us to know that we have eternal life. Surely, then, we can agree that God intends that we have assurance that we are his children.

Having seen that it is both possible and normal for the Christian to experience assurance of salvation, we now turn to a second point which seems very nearly contradictory:

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A La Carte (6/22)

Most Expensive Schools - I’m proud that a school from my town of Oakville placed 3rd on this list of the most expensive private schools in the world. Quite needless to say, my kids do not go there. Nor will they. Ever.

Amazon’s Gold Box - Amazon’s gold box deal of the day is a good one: AA or AAA Energizer batteries in large quantities for low cost. I’m always amazed at how many batteries we go through around here.

Animal Magic - This is a great photo collection from TIME. Meanwhile, The Big Picture asks if weather is becoming more extreme (in the form of a photo essay).

This 8-Year Old - Be sure to read the news story John Knight links to in this blog post. “I loved how an eight-year-old boy helped his mother see the truth in the midst of her grief about the news that her unborn child had Down syndrome.”

Ex-Gay Friend - This is a really interesting article from the New York Times. In it, a writer goes to visit an old friend of his who used to be homosexual but then became a Christian.

Walmart vs Amazon - It’s the 21st century retail showdown in this infographic.

Ethics - An interesting article from Wired on how the big digital businesses make no mention of ethics in any of their business plans.

The Best Fears - Russell Moore’s column from Touchstone is worth a read. “Somebody please help me. I'm really, really depressed, and I don't know what to do. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know I was depressed until a new study came out, and I'm at high, high risk. An article by Vanderbilt and Florida State sociology professors, based on data from the National Survey of Families and Households, has concluded that parents are more susceptible to depression than non-parents.”

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. —Abraham Lincoln