Marco Ament’s The Magazine is a new iPad-only magazine that publishes four or five medium-length articles every two weeks. The articles cover a wide variety of subjects targeted largely at geeks and curious people. I think I probably qualify under both headings. It’s a unique publication and one I’ve generally enjoyed, though, as with every magazine, there are both hits and misses.

The November 7 issue featured a hit by Harry Marks, an aspiring novelist, who wrote about “The Problem with Self-Publishing.” Self-publishing has long existed in one form or another and used to be considered “vanity publishing”—a way an author could satisfy his pride by seeing his name in print even if all other avenues had been closed. However, it has traditionally been an expensive option, requiring the author to pay in advance to have a certain number of copies of his book typeset and printed. Marks says:

It used to be difficult getting a novel published. Aspiring writers would slave over their legal pads and later computers for months, even years, writing and revising and rewriting until they had something they could call “passable.” These hopeful scribes would then draft query letters, synopses, resumes, and other proposal items and submit them to agents, filing away rejection letter after rejection letter until the fateful day one brave literary agent would take a chance on them.

What is true of novels is true of every other genre. Many hopeful authors today continue to wage this long battle only to face continual rejection. However, there is now a new way out of this loop of rejection: self-publishing that costs nothing or nearly nothing. While self-publishing used to require a significant up-front payment, today it is as simple as putting together an ebook or using one of the print-on-demand publishers that will print (literally) anything and take only a royalty on copies sold. Now anyone can print anything. Many do. I know this because they send me their books.

I am not entirely opposed to self-publishing. Not everyone self-publishes for poor reasons and not every self-published book is of poor quality. Some people self-publish because they want to give their book away for free or for the absolute lowest cost. Others want to produce just a limited number of copies for a very fixed reason. Well and good. But this is the exception far more than the rule. Self-published books show up in my mailbox in waves, and while I am always eager to find the proverbial diamond in the rough, most of these books have very little to commend them. Of the hundreds or thousands of self-published books I’ve received over the years, I could count on one hand the ones that have been even close to the quality of books published through traditional channels. So many have awful covers (and yes, we do judge books by their covers), terrible layouts, unreadable fonts, hundreds of spelling mistakes, endless grammatical blunders, and on and on.

Marks’ concern is mine as well. The existing systems are in place for a reason and perform many helpful functions. One of the most helpful functions is rejection. Agents reject books and so too do acquisitions editors. Their job is to serve as gatekeepers and to refuse the books that are least worthy of publication. Though we can grant that they occasionally judge poorly and reject books that would sell well or that would make a significant contribution to a certain field, these gatekeepers are trained and equipped to filter out the worst and least helpful of the millions of submissions. When they reject a book, they almost always do the reader a favor.

Christmas is fast approaching and, as I so often do at this time of the year, I feel tension between Christmas as a day to commemorate the birth of Jesus and Christmas as a day to exchange gifts and spend time with family. I don’t think there is any good reason to feel this tension, as if these things cannot co-exist, and yet it is there year after year.

As Christmas draws near, my church is spending four Sundays looking at Songs for the Savior, the four songs Luke records in the opening chapters of his account of the life of Jesus. This past Sunday we looked to Mary’s song and saw it as an opportunity to respond to the news of Christ’s incarnation as Mary did: with trust in the good purposes of God and with rejoicing in the character of God as revealed in the miracle of God becoming man.

What stood out to me about Mary’s response to the news that she would give birth to this child is her humility through it all. You might think that being chosen to be the mother of the Messiah would generate pride, but this is not what we see in Mary. Though she immediately understood that people would forevermore regard her as specially blessed, she knew that she was in no way deserving of this honor. It was nothing that she had earned.

…he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed; for his who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

This is not the Mary of Roman Catholicism who was without sin and, in that way, the most suitable mother in all of human history. No, she is a sinful girl who stands in desperate need of the very Savior she is carrying. She is humbled at the honor that is hers because she has a realistic assessment of who she is.

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

Do you see what she does here? She compares herself to people who have great intellectual gifts, who have great power and authority, and who have great wealth, and she realizes that she is just a young girl from a small and unimportant town in an out-of-the-way province. As one author has said, she is a nobody from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere.

Of all I love about God—and there is a lot I could list!—this is very near the top, that he chooses such unlikely people to benefit from his gifts and his grace. He lifts up those who know they are unworthy and brings down those who consider themselves most worthy. He passes over so many of the brilliant and rich and powerful, and instead bestows his grace on the lost and the least.

In some areas of my life God has called me to lead and in other areas he has called me to follow. Whether I am leading or following, the calling is one of service. As Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” Leaders must serve in their leadership and followers must serve in their following.

God has called me to lead my family and he has called me to be involved in the leadership of my local church. And in all my leading these words from David Powlison present me with a challenge: "You particularly image Christ by looking out for the well-being of those God has placed within your care."

Powlison’s words challenge me by demanding an answer to this question: In my leadership am I providing an accurate picture of Christ? Or do the ones I lead see an image of Christ that is warped and distorted? Do they see me looking out for their well-being as Christ looked out for the well-being of those he loved? Or do they see selfishness instead?

Do my children look to the way I lead my wife and see a reflection of the love of Christ? Or do they have cause to doubt that he is truly for them, that he loves them with a steadfast and immovable love?

Do the men and women of Grace Fellowship Church see me leading them and learn that Christ labors for them in prayer, that he longs for them to know the Father through the Word? Or do they see a distortion, a picture of Christ who is self-centered and lazy and ambivalent.

This is why these words from Powlison challenge me as a leader. There are many measures I could use in an attempt to gauge the effectiveness of my leadership. I could measure by the way people receive me, by the way they regard me, by the number of people who follow me, by wealth or health or happiness. Each of these measures is too easily manipulated; each is too subjective, too prone to my own agenda.

But when I frame the success of leadership in its relationship to Christ, here is where my heart has little room to run away or hide or manipulate. Here my heart must see Christ as the model and myself as the one striving to be like him. Am I a good and godly leader? I need only look to Christ and see myself in relation to him; that is where I’ll find my answer.

Are you Tim Challies?” These are not words I was expecting to hear while waiting to retrieve my luggage at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. I had just flown from Lucknow to New Delhi as I began a marathon journey back to Canada. And now I was standing by the luggage belt, waiting to move to the next stage of the journey. But I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit.

Thursday was our last day in India--our last full day, at any rate. We spent most of the day in and around Lucknow, seeing the city, looking at the sights, and enjoying the company of our hosts. Lucknow is a small city only in comparison to one as huge and sprawling as New Delhi. Though it is awfully busy, it seems almost laid back by comparison to Delhi. What may stand out most about the city, at least from what we saw, is the almost inconceivably massive Ambedkar Memorial. Former Chief Minister Mayawati built many of these monuments across Utter Pradesh, supposedly as a tribute to India’s Dalit’s, the untouchables. In reality they are monuments to herself and calls to turn from Hinduism to Buddhism. Built with hundreds of millions of dollars of government money, these monuments are opulent beyond description, an utter waste of money and space in a nation with so many pressing needs. Though beautifully built, many people in India consider them symbolic of government futility and corruption.

After eating a final dinner with our friends, we set out for the airport, enjoying one final experience of India’s roadways. A quick flight took us to New Delhi--a flight that seemed as rushed as any travel on the ground, though without all the horn-honking. How often does a one-hour flight land fifteen minutes early? We give a thumbs up to IndiGo Airlines.

And then, as we picked up our baggage, someone asked, “Are you Tim Challies?” There were two British pastors standing there, waiting to fetch their bags. Like us they had been in Uttar Pradesh with a Christian group and they had been training pastors to understand and to teach the Bible. They had kept up with my blog while in India and made the connection between me and the blog when they saw someone whose ethnicity set him apart from the Indian crowd a little bit. We ended up spending a couple of enjoyable hours together while waiting for our flights home.

The reason I mention these two pastors is that Murray and I found that their assessment of the church in northern India was very nearly identical to our own. The church there is growing quickly, but it is lacking in depth. There are a growing number of leaders there who love the Lord, who are eager to serve him, and who are doing this very well. Yet they are lacking in training and in resources. It was a joy to hear that these men had been involved in training pastors in years past and that they intend to carry on that work in years to come. This year they spent a whole week of eight-hour days investing in the church of northern India by investing in her pastors. It was one of the Lord’s unexpected blessings that we got to spend this time with them.

We spent Wednesday night aboard a train that took us from New Delhi to Lucknow. We woke up in a very different part of the country. We were greeted at the station by a friend--a local pastor--who promptly took us to his apartment for breakfast. The city here is smaller, a little less noisy and less busy, and quite a bit less smoggy than New Delhi. The train station was huge and beautiful and built to look British, no doubt a hold-over from colonial days.

For the past several decades there has been slow gospel growth in Uttar Pradesh, but recently the pace has increased and more and more people are coming to the Lord. This local church pastor is native to India and fluent in both English and Hindi. He is a graduate of Southern Seminary and completed the internship program at Mark Dever’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church before returning to Lucknow to take up the work here. You may have heard him share his testimony at the most recent Together for the Gospel conference. While he and his church are not in imminent danger of outright physical persecution, it would be unwise to mention his name or the name of his church. Christianity is regarded as a western religion and conversions to Christianity--of which they are seeing many--are regarded as defection or disloyalty.

As this man pastors a local church, he is also involved in training and mentoring the current generation and the next generation of church leaders. He has around him several young men who are prospective pastors, each involved in a mentorship program. And he meets regularly with other area pastors to help in their ongoing training.

Shortly after we arrived in Lucknow we went to that meeting of church pastors and leaders from across the state; there were perhaps 30 of them there yesterday, though often more than that are able to attend. They meet on a monthly basis to learn God’s Word and to encourage one another. They are pastors and church leaders, yet few have had formal training and there are scant resources in Hindi to help them in their ministry. Murray and I were able to hear their testimonies of how the Lord saved them. For an hour we sat and listened as they recounted how they Lord had opened their eyes to his truth. That was a tremendous blessing.

I was asked if I would like to say something to them, so through a translator I spoke for some time from Ephesians 6 and putting on the whole armor of God. It was a real privilege. As we heard afterward, many of these men do their work in the simplest ways--they pastor small churches and then meet with families or individuals throughout the week. As they study the Bible together, they invite friends and neighbors to sit with them. And the gospel spreads steadily from house-to-house and village-to-village.

Everyone I asked assured me that the Indian Railroads would be a cultural experience I would not want to miss if I was looking for good slice of life in India. Last night pastor Prasoon drove Murray and me through the endless Diwali celebrations so we could take an overnight train to Uttar Pradesh. It had been a good day; a fun one. We got off to a slow start, hanging around the guest house for a couple of hours, before I was asked what I would like for lunch. I went with McDonald’s. It’s not that I particularly like McDonald’s, but that I was curious to know what their menu would look like in a nation where cows are sacred (to Hindus) and pork forbidden (to Muslims).

It turns out they have pretty much all the same chicken items as in North America, but none of the beef or pork. In their place are vegetarian dishes like the McEgg Burger (egg and mayo on a bun) or McSpicy Paneer. I decided to try the Chicken Maharaja Mac--a rough chicken equivalent to the Big Mac. It was not delicious. On the plus side, the Oreo McFlurry was every bit as good as the North American one and the fries were just as they should be. The McDonald’s was in a mall and I was surprised to see that security checked the trunk of the car before we drove into the parking garage and that a security guard passed over each of us with a metal detector wand as we walked into the mall (albeit rather halfheartedly). New Delhi reflects some fear of terrorism, presumably based upon Muslim on Hindu violence.

In the afternoon we drove to the church building to spend some time with the college and career group of Delhi Bible Fellowship’s south congregation. It was Diwali, the year’s major Hindu celebration, which meant that all the schools and most of the businesses in the city had been shut down. We ended up talking about how to know and do the will of God and from there how to grow in spiritual discernment. It is a great group of young people, most of whom are Indians, but some of whom are from elsewhere in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them over several days. They were kind enough to send me on my way with a pretty amazing t-shirt.

There were still several hours before the train left so I asked to see something in New Delhi that was beautiful, something that was genuinely New Delhi. The city is so sprawling and so blanketed in fog that real beauty is hard to come by. We soon found ourselves at Qutub Minar, a monument that is something like 800 years old.

Jet lag and culture shock are just plain cruel when they team up. This week I find myself halfway around the world, in a time zone ten-and-a-half hours removed from my own and in a culture so vastly different that it is difficult to comprehend. After two or three days in the east, I fooled myself into believing that I had adjusted well to the time difference. But then Sunday evening and Monday I was so utterly exhausted I had to admit defeat and spend a lot more time flat on my back.

Jet lag is easily enough to overcome—just give it time and a few sleeping pills, and you’ll be back on your feet. It is the culture shock that surprises me more. I have spent my life in Toronto, a city that is multicultural to the extent that over half of its current population was born in a different country. My church is made up of people from all kinds of different countries and ethnic backgrounds. Somehow I thought this would give me an advantage when I suddenly found myself deposited in the middle of New Delhi.

Culture shock is apparently “The feeling of disorientation experienced by someone who is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.” I guess it is the accumulation of these things that brings about that sense of shock, the quick piling up of the unfamiliar ways of life, the unfamiliar attitudes, the foreign sights and smells.

Delhi is a city of over-stimulation, where there is so much happening, so much that to the outsider appears to be complete chaos, that the mind quickly goes into a state of sensory overload. It is just too much to process all the sights, all the sounds, all the smells, all the movement. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

I have found myself jotting down some of the differences between life in India and life in North America (at least, life in Canada). Here are just a few of the things that take getting used to.

In India there are few bathtubs and few dedicated showers. Rather, most bathrooms are tiled throughout with one side of the room having a toilet and sink and the other having a shower protruding from the wall. Most people seem to use a two-bucket system where one big bucket is filled with water from the shower while a second smaller bucket is used to draw water from the big bucket to pour over your head and body. This saves on hot water since few homes have a large water heater like the ones in North America. Instead, there is often a very small heater mounted over the shower.

In North America, lines on the road are meant to be followed strictly. In India they are almost completely ignored. If the road space allows five cars to squeeze in side-by-side, there will definitely be five cars there no matter what the lines indicate. Cars are also regarded as more of a utility, an object that will necessarily get dented and scratched in the course of normal use.

Last Friday I worshipped at Redeemer Church of Dubai and then spent the rest of the day with Pastor Dave Furman and his wife Gloria (read A Day in Dubai). Saturday morning I got up early (along with Murray Robinson, who is traveling with me) and headed to the airport to continue the journey east. We arrived at the airport to find that the flight was overbooked and that our seats had been given away. It took some pleading, but eventually the good people at Emirates managed to find two empty seats and put us aboard.

The flight from Dubai to New Delhi was just a little bit over three hours long and entirely uneventful. We passed quickly through immigration—a process in which not a word was exchanged between the immigration officer and me—and after finding our luggage were met by Prasoon Goel. Prasoon is the pastor of one of the congregations associated with Delhi Bible Fellowship (DBF is an English-speaking Evangelical church that has seven congregations throughout the city). To that point Prasoon and I had only ever communicated via email and Skype, so it was a joy to put a face to the name.

We bundled into Prasoon’s car and hit the roads of Delhi. For all its charms, Delhi does not make the best first impression. Driving is every bit as entertaining as I had heard. While there are lines painted on the roads, they seem to be suggestions at best as no one pays them the least attention. If a car can fit into a space, it will inevitably squeeze in there. You would look in vain for a car that doesn’t have at least some scratches and dents. Horns are used constantly; they signal intent or warning and are rarely meant as an expression of anger. The roads are shared by cars, trucks, autos (three-wheeled taxis), bicycles and endless numbers of motorcycles—motorcycles carrying televisions, motorcycles carrying entire families, motorcycles everywhere. Pedestrians walk through it all, always at a constant pace so the cars can properly gauge when to go honking past. At some intersections little children approach the cars, looking sad while they mimic eating food. Except on the major roads, cows wander at will, snarling traffic and eating whatever they find lying around.

Even more notable than the traffic is the smog. New Delhi is known for its smog problem and it is especially bad this time of year when the air is still and when there is little rain to wash it all away. It is a smog you can smell and taste. It gets in your eyes and nose and mouth and just won’t go away.

Traffic and smog are the first impressions, but, of course, the city has its charms as well. We bunked down at Prasoon’s house on Saturday night and on Sunday headed straight for church. Worshipping with Delhi Bible Fellowship was every bit as much a joy as worshipping with Redeemer Church of Dubai.

DBF, like Redeemer, is extremely multi-cultural, drawing not only native New Delhians, but also a lot of ex-pats and foreign workers of various stripes. A church of around 300 people, they meet in a rented facility and have two identical services each Sunday morning.

This is the tenth installment in a series on theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, faith, pride, and election.

Revelation refers to the revealing of something that was previously unknown. In the case of theology, revelation refers to the revealing of the knowledge of God’s character and ways.

The Bible presents two types of revelation.

1) General revelation refers to the knowledge of God that is revealed in creation. This is spoken of in Scripture in places like Psalm 19:1-2:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

Scripture teaches that, because of what is evident in creation, every human being has received enough knowledge about God to be justly condemned before him for their sinful rebellion against his rule. As Paul says in Romans 1:18-20,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

2) Special revelation refers to the knowledge of God that comes to us supernaturally through prophetic words. Today it refers most particularly to the words of prophecy that have been recorded for us in the Bible. Paul speaks of this kind of revelation in 2 Timothy 3:14-15:

But as for you [Timothy], continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Scripture teaches that, apart from a new, supernatural word from God, every human is consigned to the condemnation they have received through General revelation.

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

Despite humanity’s sinful rejection of him in general revelation, God has graciously, mercifully sent another Word, one of mercy and reconciliation through the death of his Son. And all who receive and rely on this revelation will be saved.

It must have been almost a year ago that I received an email from a pastor in India, asking me if I would consider traveling all the way to New Delhi to teach at his church and to meet some of the Christians in that country. I thought about it, prayed about it, and talked to my fellow elders at Grace Fellowship Church and together we decided that I ought to go. A few other pieces fell into place and it soon became a trip to Dubai, New Delhi and the province of Uttar Pradesh.

On Wednesday evening I jumped aboard a plane and headed to Dubai—my first time in the Middle East.  We (Murray Robinson, an elder at the church who is traveling with me) arrived in Dubai on Thursday evening; that was 13 hours of flying time, but 22 hours when factoring in all the time zones. 

Dubai is a city that has long fascinated me from afar. It is no less fascinating on the ground. The first impression was of the airport—a big, busy airport with people of every race and nationality bustling around. It was kind of like Toronto, but a bit more so. It took us about a half hour to clear customs, something that required a photograph and a retinal scan. We were met by Dave Furman who pastors Redeemer Church of Dubai. A short cab ride took us to the apartment where he lives along with his wife Gloria (who blogs at Domestic Kingdom) and their three children.

This morning was Friday (NOTE: I wrote this yesterday but am posting it today), and since this is a Muslim country, Friday is the first day of the weekend and the day set aside for worship. It’s kind of different having the first day of the weekend set aside for worship. Redeemer Church meets in a beautiful hotel ball room and several hundred people call the church home. Dubai is a city of ex-pats and Redeemer is comprised almost entirely of people who were born elsewhere and migrated to Dubai to work. Redeemer is an evangelical church very much in the Reformed stream and meets here with the assent of the government. They love the gospel and they love one another. The worship service, from the songs to the sermon and the prayer, could have been lifted straight from Grace Fellowship Church. The people were delightful and very welcoming.