John Piper has just released a new book titled The Passion of Jesus Christ. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it? The book is obviously intended to coincide with the release of the movie. He is offering cases of 108 of the books for a suggested donation of $130 provided you promise to give the books away (rather than sell them). I have not read the book (though I intend to read the chapters posted on the site) but I imagine it will be theologically solid - much more so than most of the similar material out there. So if you want to take advantage of opportunities that are bound to come along through this movie, this offer may be one of your best options.

Read all about it here.

I found the following article posted over at He Lives. I had intended to go searching for just such an article today, so thanks David for saving me the Google time.

It was not until I had finished reading that I noticed it was written by a close friend of my parents who is also a former pastor of mine. The article looks at the second commandment and then draws examples of violations of it from Old Testament times. He also discusses God’s appearances as a man and other valid points.

Read it here.

Pastor Gleason draws three conclusions. I definitely agree with the first (that the O.T. Law still has relevance today) and the third (that the Word, baptism and Lord’s Supper are sufficient for us today). The second (New Testament Christians are still prohibited from making any image of the deity--even in a movie or in art) will take some more thought.

Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, the article is very well-written and researched and definitely worth reading.

The L.A. Times published a fascinating article in yesterday’s edition about The Passion of the Christ. Written from a skeptical point-of-view, it provides some interesting food for thought. Below are some excerpts:

Just what kind of box office “The Passion” will do when it opens Feb. 25 is impossible to predict. But it is clear that Gibson has tapped into a network of Christian church-based marketing that has been maturing for decades and that has been waiting, with almost biblical patience, for a high-profile, celebrity-backed religious picture to capture the nation’s attention.

One problem for movie marketers is that the Christian marketplace is not a monolith. For “The Passion,” one group -- evangelicals -- fits easily into the role of promotional missionaries for the film. Not only does the movie line up closely with their theology, it also offers an opportunity to re-energize the faithful and evangelize to family and friends by simply inviting them to “a Mel Gibson movie.”

Church-based marketing has grown increasingly sophisticated, especially in the last decade, under the influence of evangelical Christians, who have used rock ‘n’ roll, videos, movies and the Internet to deliver Gospel messages. This formed two parallel entertainment worlds -- secular and Christian -- that rarely met. It also stirred among evangelicals the dream of crossover Christian entertainment. Often, however, Christian offerings have been of a lesser quality or creativity than leading entertainment-industry fare. This has been true particularly in movies.

You can read the full article here. Unfortunately you have to register before you can read it, but it is a quick and painless process.

After posting about pragmatism yesterday I spent some time "corresponding" with various people about it, mostly by email and MSN Messenger, though at times I do step back in time and carry on old-fashioned verbal communication. I found that there is a misunderstanding about what pragmatism is. So let me explain by way of two examples.

Example 1

A church of 250 people has been offered the opportunity to have a popular female minister preach in their church in a few weeks. Though the church believes that having a woman preach is unscriptural, they see the benefit of allowing her to preach just this one Sunday (no matter your feelings on women preachers, for the sake of this fictional story you'll have to at least pretend you do not approve of women in teaching ministry). They share the news with the congregation and the people are electrified. They hold meetings to determine how they can best leverage this amazing opportunity. Eventually they decide they will spend a good portion of their advertising budget for that year on advertising this event. Each person is given cards to hand out to their friends and posters to hang in the work places. Prayer teams form to pray about this event and teams are trained to help respond to those who may wish to make commitments to Christ through the event.

As the big day approaches the excitement mounts. The morning of the service the members of the church arrive early, anticipating a great day in the history of their church. They are thrilled to see many of their friends and co-workers arrive. They are even more thrilled to see many strangers. By the time the service gets underway the church is packed. Literally hundreds of guests fill the seats that morning.

The service goes off without a hitch. The worship band plays songs that honor God and lead people to worship Him. The guest minister preaches an evangelistic sermon that shares the gospel message. By the end of the service many people are in tears and the prayer room at the back of the church is filled with people praying and making commitments to Christ. The congregation is overjoyed to see twenty five people come to the Lord.

In the aftermath of this service the twenty five people who made commitments to Christ all join the church and become active members. They grow in the Lord, becoming strong, committed Christians and even leading others to Christ. The church experiences a time of growth.

Example 2

A church of 250 people has been offered the opportunity to have a popular female minister preach in their church in a few weeks. The leaders gather the congregation together to speak about the opportunity and after prayer and discussion they decide to affirm their belief that the Bible does not allow for female preachers. Though they acknowledge that his opportunity could help their church grow and lead people to the Lord they politely decline the invitation.

Several weeks later on the day the guest minister would have been there, the church has 250 people in attendance. There are two or three guests, conspicuous by their hand-written name tags. The pastor continues in his message series which is a 10-part exposition of Ephesians. He preaches a good sermon. At the end of the service no one goes to the prayer room and no one sheds a tear.

In the aftermath of this service the church continues its slow growth..

Which Is Right?

Now please, do not get hung up on the issue of women preachers. I simply used that as an example (frankly, I couldn't think up anything better)! Feel free to replace that example with any contentious issue. What we need to determine is which of these two churches did the right thing.

From our human perspective we would see no reason to doubt that the first church did the right thing. They took a step of faith and God blessed them richly, and not only that but He also furthered His kingdom as twenty five people became believers that day. We have to acknowledge, though, that our human perspective means little if it does not agree with God's perspective.

What would God say? God, above anything else, desires obedience. More than sacrifice, more than excellence, more than results, God wants obedience. In eternity when all is made clear, God will tell the second church that they were the ones that did His will. Results simply cannot excuse disobedience. God may choose to use our disobedience to further his purposes, but this does not give us license to be disobedient.

Evidently the first church was the pragmatic one. They foresaw wonderful results but ignored the Bible. The second church was the obedient one, foreseeing wonderful results but choosing to heed the Bible. The point is this. Either the Bible or the results need to be our standard. The results, no matter how wild, cannot make up for disobedience.

Tomorrow I will move on to a specific area where pragmatism has taken root.

Pragmatism has become a dominant force in the Christian world. I want to take a brief look at the history of pragmatism and then show how it has influenced the church. In following days I am going to write about areas in the Christian world where it has had a significant impact.

Pragmatism is rooted in the philosophy of men like John Stuart Mill who had a great formative influence in philosophers like John Dewey who applied pragmatism to education and William James who applied it to religion. These men taught that the only way to determine truth was by practical results. Having been founded by philosophers, pragmatism was cemented into the Western mindset by the Industrial Revolution. Pragmatism in industry has changed the way we live. James Boice says "The goal is to find the fastest, least expensive way of producing products and getting things done. Pragmatism has improved living standards for millions who now enjoy the benefits of home ownership, adequate clothing, indoor plumbing…and abundant food." (Whatever Happened To The Gospel of Grace p.50) This has been achieved, of course, at the cost of quality and craftsmanship.

Pragmatism is defined by Webster's as "the doctrine that practical consequences are the criteria of knowledge and meaning and value." In short, truth is determined by consequences. Whether something is right or wrong, good or bad is dependent on results. Since the time of the Reformation, Protestants have affirmed the doctrine of sola Scriptura which teaches that the Bible alone is to be our standard of morality and truth. This standard is rooted in the early church and, of course, in the Bible. It has always been a fundamental teaching of Protestantism. Sola Scriptura was the foundational doctrine of the Reformation - the doctrine that everything else depended on.

Pragmatism and sola Scriptura must stand in opposition as each claims to be the key to determining truth. As Christians we need to decide if we are going to depend upon Scripture as the absolute standard of truth or if we will determine truth by consequences. Though we would be hard pressed to find a Christian who says "I believe in pragmatism" the philosophy manifests itself in the Christian world in many different ways. Though people affirm sola Scriptura with their mouths (or doctrinal statements) they deny it with their actions.

Pragmatism has reared its ugly head throughout the Christian world. It is found in statements about evangelistic techniques such as "if it only reaches one person it is worth it." It is found in Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Church, a textbook for church growth, where he writes "Never criticize any method that God is blessing." He also says "We must be willing to adjust our worship practices when unbelievers are present. God tells us to be sensitive to the hang-ups of unbelievers in our services." These ideas are not Biblical; they are rooted in the perceived consequences. Pragmatism is found wherever Christians run to join programs and hurry to change their worship services because of what they expect to see happen because of the changes they make. In short, it is found anywhere the emphasis is removed from what Scripture says and where the emphasis is placed on the expected results.

God does not always provide the results we would like to see. There are missionaries that have spent many years laboring in the mission field and have seen very few hearts and lives changed. Does this necessarily mean that their technique is flawed? Does it necessarily mean that they are not doing God's will? By no means! God sometimes chooses to provide results and other times He does not. Even Jesus experienced varied results when He ministered. In some towns the people listened and trusted in Him while other towns rejected Him. Again, this does not mean that Jesus' technique was flawed or that He was being disobedient. More than anything God desires and expects obedience of His children. Pragmatism has no answer to the question of how we determine obedience for obedience can only be determined through Scripture.

The obvious danger of pragmatism in the church is that we lose our focus on the absolute standard God has given us in His word. When we lose that focus the church is on the slippery slope to becoming like the world. When we discard of God's standards we must depend on our own deeply flawed standards. We begin to trust in ourselves and lose our trust in God.

Tomorrow I am going to speak about a specific area where pragmatism has outweighed Scripture.

I have indicated several times that I have concerns with the upcoming movie The Passion of the Christ. I would like to provide some information about why I have those concerns.

Primarily, the concerns stem from the fact that my church is going to be heavily invested in this movie. Until I discovered my church's plans in regard to the film I had little interest in it. But then my pastors have announced that they intend to buy and give away 5000 tickets to the film. They are going to purchase entire shows and just give the tickets away. After the shows they will give out information packages directing people to our church and asking them to think about and meditate upon what they have just seen. Starting next week the local theatre (24 screens) will have a sign advertising the free tickets, so we expect all 5000 tickets to be snatched up in short order. We will be running ads in the local newspaper, sending out postcards and letting people know by word-of-mouth. The pastors are more excited about this opportunity than I have ever seen them (with the exception, perhaps, of the day the church started). As the Web designer for our church, I have been asked to put together a site that will allow people to register for these tickets. As part of the marketing team I will be involved in drawing people to see the movie.

You see, then, that my concern is mostly selfish. I am going to be investing myself in this movie, and it is a movie I have not yet seen. The last thing I want to do is heavily invest my time and talents in a movie that I will later find God could not possibly bless. I want to do His will, and in this case it is difficult for me to discern what His will is. Part of that is because I have not seen the movie, and the other part goes deeper.

I abhor the pragmatism so common in this day and age, both in the church and beyond. Pragmatism is the belief that an action is made right or wrong on the basis of the results. I see so many people excited about this movie because of what they see it may achieve, but that is not the standard God calls us to hold to. He tells us to measure everything against the Bible. Our first thought when presented with an opportunity like this one is to look at the Word and see what it says. Does the Bible support making a movie about Jesus? Many people I know and respect would emphatically answer "no!" The tradition in which I was raised would definitely be against such a movie as I was taught to believe that portraying Jesus is in violation of the second commandment (which commands us not to make an image of God). I also have concerns with the fact that Mel Gibson is Roman Catholic and in saying that this movie is an expression of his faith, we are equating Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I cannot judge Gibson for I know little about the man, but regardless of his beliefs, I strongly disagree with equating the Catholic and Protestant faith.

At this time I have not yet decided what I think about the movie. I have little doubt that people will be drawn to churches and drawn to God through this movie. It may well be one of the greatest evangelistic opportunities of our time. But, and this may sound crazy, the results do not tell us if it is right or wrong. God may use our folly for His glory, but that does not excuse our sin. I want to measure everything I do against the Word of God. And that is exactly what I intend to do with this movie!

I do not often use terms like "God showed me" or "God has been teaching me." Perhaps it stems from my upbringing in churches where people simply did not speak like that, or perhaps I generally do not stop long enough to consider where God is working in my life. It could be that I grow tired of it being used so flippantly by so many Christians (ie "God told me to leave the established church"). But I digress. God has been showing me something that I would like to share.

He has not been showing me anything new or revolutionary. Rather, he has been pointing me back to the wonder of something that is taught in the Bible and the early church and though it almost disappeared for many centuries, it came back during the time of the Reformation. God has been showing me the infinite value and necessity of the doctrine that has come to be known as sola Scriptura. This is, of course, a Latin term used by the Reformers that translates to Scripture alone. In particular, God has been convicting me of one aspect of this doctrine, namely the sufficiency of Scripture. It seems wherever I look these days I find teaching about the sufficiency of Scripture. In the past two weeks I have read three books, all of which dedicated great detail to this doctrine and its importance. Prior to reading these I studied various translations and paraphrases of Scripture and the same questions and convictions came forth.

What then does it mean that Scripture is sufficient? It means that the Bible is sufficient for the church's life and work. It is able to draw unbelievers to Christ, to enable me to grow in godliness, to provide direction to my life and to go beyond myself and beyond the church to transform and revitalize all of society. As I read this definition of Scripture's sufficiency in James Boice's book "Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace" it was like the last piece of a puzzle fell into place and I finally understood what my primary concern is with so many of today's churches. These churches have stopped believing in the sufficiency of Scripture.

Almost every church, at least in the evangelical world, would include in its statement of faith that they believe in sola scriptura, even if they do not use those words to do so. And most of these churches do believe in the Bible's authority, inspiration and inerrancy. However, few would believe and put into practice the idea of the Bible's sufficiency. The evidence of this is visible in churches all around us. People no longer look to the Bible as being the key to evangelism. Instead they put their trust in music, drama, outreach programs and less imposing but more attractive church buildings. When people do come to church they are not challenged by the gospel.

It is interesting to see how Jesus evangelized. He used miracles, but this did not form the basis of his ministry. What he did more than anything was preach! He would often cease performing miracles in order to preach and share God's words. In the first chapter of Mark we see Jesus walking away from a crowd of what we would consider seekers, leaving them to go to a new village where no one knew who He was. Why did He do this? "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out." His miracles the previous day had drawn larger and larger crowds and more people were coming to be healed, but despite this "success" Jesus moved on because the foundation of His ministry was the preaching of the gospel. He did not want to be known as a worker of miracles when his true ministry was teaching.

How would we react in a similar situation today? I suspect we would consider anything that brought great crowds to our churches to be a success. Yet unless the foundation of our ministry is the faithful and full exposition of the gospel, the crowds mean nothing. God does not call us to gather crowds, but to make disciples by calling people to repentance. People are saved not by being in church and participating in services, but by the Word of God.

I believe it is only through a firm conviction of the sufficiency of Scripture that a church can truly consider itself built on a foundation of sola scriptura. Scripture's inerrancy, authority and inspiration mean little if we do not also believe in its sufficiency. When we do not believe in Scripture's sufficiency we must substitute it with something. What we put in its place can never have the power and authority of the Bible. It can never be sufficient.

I think I’m now all caught up with book reviews, so won’t be posting any more for at least a few days! I’ve somehow managed to read 8 books so far this year. That could have something to do with the scowls my wife has been giving me when I plunk down on the couch and disappear into a book for a couple of hours.

Now I need to move on to doing some more real writing…

Scouring the news sites I came up with some interesting links in regards to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

Hollywood Jesus has a review. You may want to turn down your speakers because the movie’s trailer plays automatically when you go to the site. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the review.

The Washington Times has an article about Christian leaders as well as some Jewish leaders who saw the movie. The Christians loved it while the Jewish people found it to be anti-semitic.

Lifeway writes about a showing for many Christian leaders. Those who saw it confirm it was Biblical and powerful. One of them comments specifically on the Protestant view of the movie saying “As Protestants, we may think there’s a little bit greater emphasis on Mary,” referring to settings in the movie, such as the scourging of Jesus, in which Mary is depicted as being present when Scripture does not confirm her participation. But Denison said it did not raise an overarching concern about the film.

Misc Reviews of The Passion of the Christ

• Rene Schlaepfer of Twin Lakes Church
• Ain’t It Cool News
• Mark Roberts
• Keith Fournier

I wrote this article a few weeks ago, but have decided to repost it as part of the Blogger Idol competition being held by a fellow blogger. This week’s theme has to do with freedom and I thought this article fit the bill. Enjoy!

There is a misconception about Christianity whereby non-Christians seem to think that Christians live their lives burdened by myriads of unfair and outdated rules. Though some of these rules are perceived to be admirable and praiseworthy, many others, they think, are simply burdensome and unnecessary. Few would argue that the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is a bad one. But when it comes to the commandments regarding adultery and sexual relations people no longer consider them praiseworthy. Many people look at Christians and scoff that we would allow ourselves to be ruled by Biblical precepts which demand that sex is to be enjoyed only by a husband and wife within a marriage relationship. I would like to take just a short time to look at the relationship of rules to freedom.

America is a nation of freedom. Why is it that this nation is the "land of the free?" Quite simply, it is because the country is governed by a set of laws that guarantee freedom. America is not a nation that is unburdened by rules. Rather, it is a nation bound by strict rules which protect its citizen's rights and freedoms. Consider a nation that had absolutely no laws; no governance; no constitution. Would that be a land where people would have true freedom? No! There would be terrible chaos and bloodshed and that nation would undoubtedly be a terrible place to live.

I am a Web designer by trade, and as such I need to be able to create. To be a successful Web designer and to create Web sites that are functional and attractive I need to operate within a set of rules. There is a governing body, the World Wide Web Consortium www.w3.org that oversees standards and governance for the Internet. These standards guarantee that every Web page that adheres to them will be visible by every Internet user. They ensure that a novice computer user operating a 4-year old computer will see a Web site identically to an expert using a brand-new computer.

For example, the rules dictate that every Web page needs to have a piece of code at the beginning that looks like this:

<body>

That small piece of code tells a Web browser that everything after that tag is HTML code (HTML is the programming language Web pages are written in) and should be displayed as such. Without that piece of code, the page would display only as a list of programming code. Similarly, at the end of the document there must be a piece of code that looks like this:

</body>

That "tag" tells the browser that the page has completed. Anything beyond that code will not be displayed in HTML formatting. There are hundreds of similar rules governing HTML coding. As a designer, I have the freedom to ignore those standards and write a Web page however I see fit. The problem, though, is that ignoring the rules will lead to any number of problems. The page may be formatted in a way that makes it very difficult to read. It may display as a combination of properly-formatted text and HTML code. It is even possible that the Web page will not display in any Web browser.

Imagine the headaches if every designer designed his sites to a different set of standards. One designer might create his sites to work only with a specific browser while another might make his work only if a computer is of a certain speed. Needless to say, browsing Web pages would be, at best, burdensome, and in many cases, impossible.

The alternative to operating outside the rules is to create Web pages within the necessary boundaries. When I learn of the rules and operate within the framework of those rules, I have total freedom to create a site that is functional, artistic and useful. I do not think anyone would consider that to be burdensome! On the contrary, it is necessary to have the Internet function with some semblance of order.

The analogy should be clear. God does not give us a list of rules so we can suffer and practice self-denial. God provides rules so that we can live within a good and necessary framework. Within this framework we can find true freedom to live as we were created to live. We see that rules and freedom are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. Rules provide freedom.