Calvin: Why He Still Matters

W. Robert Godfrey, author of the new biography of John Calvin entitled John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor, wrote an inspiring article on Calvin’s significance to ministers today.  Here is an excerpt:

Calvin exemplified in his life and work a determination to seek to bring every thought captive to Christ. That was his passion, such was his confidence in the Word of God. That is also what he wanted to teach others. To quote Calvin, “Whoever, therefore, would desire to persevere in uprightness and in integrity of life, let them learn to exercise themselves daily in the study of the word of God; for, whenever a man despises or neglects instruction, he easily falls into carelessness and stupidity, and all fear of God vanishes from his mind” (Commentary on the Psalms, on Ps. 18:22). Calvin was certain that many people tended very naturally to carelessness and stupidity. That is surely a lesson that does not need to be taught from Scripture; it is a lesson that pastors learn by experience! Calvin recognized, and we should recognize because it is even truer today, that we are surrounded by voices that are blaring lies. The only way to sort that out is to be sure that the Bible is constantly speaking to us, that the Bible is in our hearts and in our ears and in our mind so that that authority of the Word of God is a living and vital authority for us. The Bible must constantly challenge the way we look at the world, the way we look at our fellow men and women, the way we think about God and his world.

Clowning around in the Pulpit…literally.

Clowns in the Pulpit

A recent column by Josh Rottenberg in Entertainment Weekely sighted the awkward and many times blasphemous crossroads where Hollywood and faith have met.   In it, he discusses the failure of Christians to attend movies primarily for religious reasons.  Attempts to make Christian-targeted films resulting in massive box-office smashes have failed.  This was Hollywood’s pragmatic attempt to use the pulpit to find a market for its movies.

“‘After The Passion, there was a gold rush,’ says Phil Vischer, a co-creator of the Christian-themed cartoon franchise VeggieTales.  ’Hollwood thought, ‘This is great! We can market movies to pastors and they will get up on Sunday and tell their whole congregation to go see them! It’s a new button we can push, and money will fall from the sky! It was doomed from the get-go.”

As a result, though somewhat successful, Christian-themed movies (however blasphemous or vague)  like The Chronicles of Narnia, Evan Almighty, The Da Vinci Code, The Golden Compass, and The Nativity Story, have largely fell short of expectations in this theory. Instead, the Christian community has found identification with the Edenic-themed WALL-E, the amoral The Dark Knight and the strangely pro-life comedy Juno.  Why can’t Hollywood capture Christian audiences when it means to?

“Hollywood still hasn’t quite figured out how to crack the Christian code. ‘With a snap of his fingers, [mega-church pastor] Rick Warren could deliver hundreds of thousands of people to a movie,’ says Matthew Crouch, producer of the 1999 Christian film The Omega Code, ‘Hollywood is trying to figure out how to reach them.  But how do you get Rick Warren to sign on to a script? That’s the six-million dollar question Hollywood’s trying to answer.  But they don’t know how easy it is to offend that faith. You have to realize you’re playing with fire.”

Could I suggest something?  The reason Hollywood cannot reach the Christian community is the reason that Rick Warren can reach so many people.  Nominal Christians want the gospel and _________. Hollywood fails to understand the power of the gospel.  That though they classify us as a “faith,” our faith is real because it has an object–the person and work of Jesus Christ, the only name given under heaven whereby men may be saved.  Rick Warren does not understand this, hence EW ’s citation of his success. Rick Warren wants a faith-based program ministry that forgets that we are a people who are not of this world.  Though we want to help alleviate the ailments of this world, we understand that the most important ailment is sin, and its only remedy is the gospel of God.  Rick Warren does not get this.  Hollywood does not get this.  We are not of this world. We are passing through; the gospel is not. God has a purpose for the gospel in this world–to save sinners for himself and therefter to hear the praises of his glory in his Son.

What we have here in this article is a sad realization of the modern liberalism that has crept so pervasively into our churches–a watered-down version of Christianity that defines itself merely on a works-based mantra-”follower of Christ.” Any attempts to “reach people” are found in sweeping them through a gospel doorway right onward to an unoffensive life of service.  Before I continue, let me be clear: I believe that we are called to a life of service to mankind.  I do not believe that we are called to this life of service apart from a clear and uncompromising proclamation of the gospel.  This is our purpose: to lift up the Son for all to turn to and so be saved. Christians are the only people in the world who have a reason to do service–namely, to testify to the power of God to save sinners because of the person and work of Christ.

I have made quite certain that I am at odds with Rick Warren.  His gospel is watered-down, empty, and cursorily.  He has “bigger fish to fry,” namely, the PEACE plan. A acronym that basically stands for the gospel + good works.  We note the way he popishly declares people saved who read his book if they said that prayer at the end of his book.  “Welcome to the Family of God!”  He then ushers them on to service as if to say, “Now that you considered the gospel (a very thin one at that), you need to move on to bigger things, like service to mankind.” Foolishness…

There is no experience of weight under the law of God, there is no sense of shame for sin before a holy God, there is no mediating advocate through the finished and complete work of Christ, there is no repentance, there is no faith.  The gospel of Rick Warren is dead because it is natural.  It not the supernatural faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is pragmatic and cursorily.

I find in this interesting article from EW an indication that many clergy are reaping what they have sowed.  By ignoring the supernatural power of God’s purpose in the gospel, we have turned to all manner of natural elements to reach the carnal mind.  We will even dress up like clowns to entertain it. Note the interesting testimony Rottenberg uses to begin his article:

“It’s one thing for some nerdy fanboy who lives in his parents’ basement to show his enthusiasm for The Dark Knight by dressing up as the Joker. But for a pastor to stand before his congregation in full Joker regalia, complete with ratty wig and gruesome makeup, and deliver a sermon on good and evil–that’s something else altogether.  Last summer, in a radical attempt to engage his young congregants at the Christ Chapel Mountaintop Church in Manassas, Va., pastor Rob Seagears did exactly that.  Each Sunday, Seagears dressed up as a character from that weekend’s top-grossing film and used the movie–no matter how vulgar, violent, or ungodly it seemed–as the basis for a discussion of Christian morality.”

Reading this with as much charity as possible, I acknowledge that I don’t know this pastor’s heart and intention.  I also don’t know the content of his message (or even if there was one).  He might have had a clear presentation of the gospel in his message, but based on this information, it was probably what it said-”a discussion of Christian morality.” 

This is not the gospel.  This man, literally, was clowning around in the pulpit.  This is not the charge of the pastor.  The pastor is called to preach the gospel (2 Timothy 1:8-14; 2:15; 4:1-2).  Paul himself refused to turn from it in the name of “contextualization.” 

As Mark Dever once so wisely proposed:  “Here’s a good measure to see if your contextualization is a good contextualization that honors God.  Does it make the offense of the gospel clearer or does it disguise it?”

For the Corinthians, Paul refused to talk to them in the style of some Greek orator and so titillate their carnal intellectualism.  For the Galatians, he refused to have them think the gospel must be added to circumcision and other Judiaic laws and so massage their carnal desire to be self-righteous.  For the Colossians, he refused to allow them to think that wisdom, knowledge and spiritual experience was found anywhere but in Christ–not in the worship of angels, mysticism, or aceticism–and so “transcend” to the upper realms of spirituality.  Paul wanted to know nothing among his people but Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2).  Indeed, this was of first importance to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:1-3).

My first reaction to the story given of this pastor is to call him a false teacher who is disqualified from the ministry, but after I calm down, I remember this quotation he gave to EW:

“Pop culture is the language they speak…This was about meeting them where they are and trying to build a bridge back to God.”

I will trust what he said and take it to mean that he truly wants to reach people.  But what does it mean when we say “reach people”? Does it mean that we want to help them live their best life now and so ignore their need for Christ’s righteousness? Does it mean we want them to have a purpose-driven life and so forget the cross in the dust of our service projects?  Or does it mean that we want to reconcile them to God through faith in Christ by an open and pleading proclamation of the gospel (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)?

My purpose here is not to attack cultural engagement.  My purpose here is not to attack this pastor (though I still will contend that he requires church discipline for mocking the pulpit).  My purpose here is to call pastors back to their charge in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus: Preach the Word! (2 Timothy 4:1-2).

This man wants to discuss Christian morality by dressing up like a clown, or by dressing up like Indiana Jones, or by driving up to the pulpit in a motorcycle dressed up like Batman.  What foolishness, what a shame, what a mockery to that sacred desk…

Paul wants to know nothing among his people but Christ’s death and resurrection.  Don’t ever assume that your people know the gospel.  Unpack all of its glorious facets for the rest of your preaching ministry.  This is your charge.  People will respond to the gospel because this is where God has placed his power.  Either they will respond to it with derision or they will respond to it in faith.  This is what we have been promised from the beginning (2 Timothy 4:3-4; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6).

Hollywood can’t reach the carnal mind for Christ–the gospel can. The Men of God, however, must guard that good deposit entrusted to them (1 Timothy 6:20).  Don’t make a mockery of that good deposit.  We are not clowns; we are preachers. Let Hollywood mock the Cross, but we will stand by it until our Master returns.

Working with you for the gospel,

Vince R.

Regeneration vs. the Idolatry of Decisional Evangelism

It was about the time I heard this sermon that I was only 90% sure how I felt about the “sinner’s prayer.”  After this sermon, I was 100% sure.  I put the “sinner’s prayer” in the ground, buried it, and put up a tombstone that said “anathema.” Our evangelism is weak, unbiblical, and it is eternally destroying some.  What are we preaching? See for yourself, and examine yourself. What are you preaching?

Echoes of the Reformation in 2009

Check out this article from Time Magazine: Ten Ideas Changing the World Right Now: #3 The New Calvinism.

_____________

Thanks Sareena for finding this.

Inoculated to Jesus?

“The hardest thing is not convincing people they’re saved; the hardest thing is convincing people they’re lost.”

-John Piper

100% Gospel: Jonathan Dodson on “Gospel and Method”

Jonathan Dodson contributed to The Resurgence web blog with these two articles.  I had a verbal “wow” when I read them.  Check out both parts.  I have provided excerpts from both.  Think hard especially about part II.  It is there that I was even more convinced of this simple equation: Preach Word -> Church Growth.

Part I

“Perhaps we need to be debating the strength of the gospel that is being preached, taught, shared, and shown in our churches. Are we incarnating and attracting people to a diluted gospel or a strong gospel? Are we incarnating kitsch gospel or kerygmatic gospel? In the end, what are we calling people to? Is our gospel both missional and communal or inward and individualistic? If it’s the latter, then something is wrong with our gospel. What would happen if we stopped debating methods and started debating gospel—winsomely and charitably?”

Part II

“Each concoction of the 50/50 gospel is actually quite dangerous. They all produce churches that attract people to morality messages, missional activities, and communal experiences. The goal of the church is reduced to converting people to a better way of living, not to a better God to be believing.“

Working with you for the gospel method,

Vince R.

Why I am very disappointed in Rick Warren….

After his insightful questions at the Saddleback forum, his decent worldview-illumining comments on Hannity and Colmes after it, and a few times when I’ve heard him speak some basic gospel tennants in his pulpit (albiet not as clearly and distinctly as I would have put it), I find these comments on the Way of the Master Radio very disturbing.

Make no mistake about it; that is Warren’s voice.  Also, those are not chopped comments.  He’s allowed to say his thought very very clearly and completely.  The radio comments from the host may be a bit brash and less gracious than I would have put it myself, but they say exactly what needs to be said. Exactly what needs to be said about Warren’s comments!  In fact, Warren’s comments are no less brash, and they are completely flawed.  He interprets texts allegorically!!!

After hearing this, I truly doubt I want to give Warren the time of day.  Very dangerous and unbiblical methodology and ministry philosophy. I really wanted to work next to him in the vineyard despite our differences, but now I think he might be in another vineyard.  Tragically, my suspicions have been confirmed.

John Piper gives some very insightful and biblical counterpoints which are completely refreshing.  Once again, I hope you will consider what you read my brothers and sisters.

Viewing “The Shack” through the Lense of Truth

Perhaps you have heard of the book The Shack by William Young.  Apparently, there are Christians who are going completely ga-ga about it.  Here’s how Eugene Peterson (the sole author of The Message) endorses it:

“When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

Really?! Are you really making that assertion, Mr. Peterson?  John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is a cross-generational work of art because it contains cross-generational truth.  Does this book contain truth?

Here’s Jay Leno, exemplifying the pagan culture, giving it a shrugging endorsement:

I have never read it.  I might in the future.  But many men for whom I have great respect because of their godly, biblical, Christ-exalting committment have given it a big thumbs-down.

Dr. Russell Moore, for example, in one of the Albert Mohler programs during late July, said that he was about 100 pages into it, and he couldn’t help but think that he could spend his time much better than reading “this heresy.”

Tim Challies, a Christian Reviewer whom I respect has released his review of the book.

This person posts Challies’ defense of that review after receiving his responses from those who disagreed.

Lastly, Mark Driscoll let’s us know what he thinks about the book:

You know, I completely understand the argument that says that I have no right to endorse these critiques of a book of which I have not read.  Yet the idea remains: Could your time be spent better? Does it deliver what it promises? Does it deliver what it promises in a God-exalting, Christ-centered, biblically faithful way?

I guess that you will have to decide that, but I exhort you to understand how quickly Satan can use anything to turn your eyes from the truth.  I DO NOT give you a recommendation to read the book.  In fact, I will quickly say that I can give you a great onslaught of titles to read which I believe will serve you far better.

Nevertheless, I have read some reviews who have favored the book (swing a dead cat and you’ll hit a thumbs-up review for this book), and I am mostly amazed at many who loved it because of their intimate and personal identification with suffering.  That is the very subject which prompted the writing of the book, and also chronicles the book’s main subject.  (It’s Job without the four friends and the one true God.)

It’s just one man who faced tragedy speaking directly to a god called the God of Christianity inside a Shack.  USA Today gives us some insight here about that issue.

I am deeply moved to empathy by the way Mr. Young faced tragedy in his own life.  I am not distant or cold to that truth, yet I cannot say that I would be responding in love if I were, maybe as his pastor,  to respond to his situation in a way that compromises truth.  This is not love.  “Love…rejoices with the truth.”

The only way to minister to a weary soul facing tragedy is not through allegory or symbolism.  It’s through God’s revealed word which tells us this:

“For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 2:18

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

The Lord is not distant from your suffering.  He’s been through it before, and his suffering was the worst there could be.  Most of all, by this suffering, we are brought near to God by grace through faith in Christ.

People like Mr. Young who face the tragic realities of a fallen world will do better for themselves if they find faithful loving pastors and teachers who stay true to Scripture and the one true God.  It is far better than any “fiction” because it is eternal truth that calls us to reconcile and fellowship intimately with the Most High God. That’s the lense through which we must view any suffering.

Working with you to consider carefully what you read,

Vince R.

Heeding the Eloquent Preaching of a Newborn Heart: How I Fight Worry

Only yesterday, I received some distressing news.  In fact, the news went with me to bed.  It lay next to me and stared into my open eyes.  It was on the ceiling, and it whispered in my ear.  It haunted me until the ebb and flow of consiousness exited, and sleep took hold in a blur of restful worry.

It was this simple statement:  “[They are] going to see if Rob Bell can come to Wayland and speak at chapel.”

Some of you don’t really understand how much that worries me or for that matter, why it worries me.  While this is not a post about the harms of a ministry like that of Rob Bell’s, I will say that my first concern is not for what is there in his ministry.  Rather, it is a concern for what is not there.  Namely, the gospel of God, clearly taught and preached.  I know that this comes from a lack of respect for God’s Word.  Where you find a lack of respect for God’s word in a ministry, there you will find a lack of faith in God’s Word in a ministry.  Where a minister has a lack of faith in God’s Word, there you will find those to whom he ministers lacking faith in God’s Word, too. Frighteningly enough, very few of today’s evangelical church members even know what the gospel is, and this is due to an infantile and weak understanding of the Bible and of the very religion to which we hold.  What’s more, while they will be held accountable for not searching deeply and heartily the Scriptures on their own, their pastors, entrusted by God to guide them, will be held accountable all the more.  May they tremble at that truth. You who seek to lead God’s people through the preaching and teaching of the Word, tremble at that truth, too.

That is all I will say about Rob Bell.  Unfortunately, many of my friends really like him.  I say this to them with respect, gentleness, but honest and concerned boldness:  If you want to grow closer to God, you could do a whole lot better than to listen to this man.

Nevertheless, my point is this:  Worry haunted me into the night.

How does one fight this?

I suggest this one truth: preach the gospel to yourself.

Listen to the edifying and eloquent preaching of a newborn heart, and spurn the dismantling and eloquent taunting of indwelling sin.

It comes to this: To whom will you listen? The fleshly man or the spiritual man.

Here is a concept by Dr. Paul Tripp, a Biblical counselor whom I discovered through the ministry of C.J. Mahaney,

“No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do. You’re in an unending conversation with yourself. You’re thinking to yourself all the time, interpreting, organizing, and analyzing what’s going on inside you and around you.”

It’s really true.  Who do you hear most of all?  Not mom, not dad, not friend, not pastor, not brother or sister, not girlfriend or boyfriend.  More than anybody else, you hear…you.

Isn’t that an amazing truth?  It’s true because you live inside yourself.  The only one who knows you better than you is God, so as far as mankind is concerned, you are the most influentual person in your life.

So, you have to decide:  When should I listen to myself?

First and foremost, you must understand, how incredibly depraved you really are.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

Must I also type out all of Romans 7 for you to display and present the complexities of the human condition.  Paul knew it…you know it.

So friend, who do you listen to?  I share with you one quotation from D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones’ book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures:

“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”

Did you see that? Read it again.

My problem last night was that I was not telling myself what is true.

That statement from Martyn-Lloyd Jones set me free last September when I first read it.  It set me FREE.

What do I need to do? Preach the gospel to myself.

Jesus Christ, the living and abiding Son of God, came to earth and lived a sinless life.  He NEVER sinned.  EVER!  He lived a sinless life, and he was scourged and beaten and mocked and reviled and hated until he was led like lamb to be slaughtered on a device of torture, that bloody-yet oh so beautiful-cross.  That’s the most beautiful blood in the World!  It poured and spilt to the ground as he died, praying for those who killed him.  And on that cross, he bore my sins.  When he died, reigning sin in my life died, too.  Death died, too!  There is nothing in my future that will take that from me!  Nothing!  Christ has finished it. What’s more, three days later he rose again.  He killed my sin, and he killed my shame.  I am free in Christ.  What have I to worry about.  “He who did not spare his own son but freely gave him up for us all-how will he not with him freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32

Because of Christ, what have I to worry about? It’s finished.  Seek first his rightousness, that rightousness imputed to me by faith in Him.  That is the gospel.

My response: Repentance and belief.

If you are worrying about tomorrow, repent and believe the gospel of God.

If you are worrying about this country, repent and believe the gospel of God.

If you are worrying about your friends because many times, they don’t seem to be concerned about holiness, repent and believe the gospel of God.

Preach the gospel to yourself.

I suggest C.J. Mahaney’s sermon from New Attitude 2008 entitled God’s Word and our Feelings at  www.newattitude.org.  In it, he exposits Psalm 42.

It set my brother free, and it will set you free, too.  So what can I say about the possiblity of this guest speaker coming to speak to lost souls who need the gospel here at my school? I cite this truth:

“And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.  But the one who endures to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole word as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come….false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.  See, I have told you beforehand.” Matthew 24:10-14, 24-25

I think the key here is that people like this man will come and lead many astray.  “See, [he has told us] beforehand.”  People will even attempt to lead astray God’s elect.  But Jesus is so careful when he adds, “if possible.” I praise God’s name that a man like Rob Bell has no power to touch God’ s elect.  It’s not possible.  In addition, the gospel WILL be proclaimed to all the nations.  There is no doubt about that because my Lord said it will be.

I am arrogant and prideful to think that Rob Bell has enough power to thwart God’s will.  And oh how many are much worse than he.  Even Oprah and her pluralistic mysticism can’t touch my Lord and his sovereign will to gather his people to himself.

Truth has set me free from worry. Listen to the truth of the newborn heart, born again by the living and abiding word of God.  Cultivate that truth in your heart by hiding it there.  Do you even what’s true? I tell you where to find it: God’s own Word.  Know the Word, and you’ll know how to fight worry.  That’s how I do it.

Working with you to listen intently to the eloquent preaching of a newborn heart,

Vince R.

 

 

 

 

The Power of Words and the Wonder of God: 2008 National Conference

If I had the resources, I’d be in Minneapolis, Minnesota in September.  I look forward to the sermons on the internet after this occurs.  As an English guy, this conference is causing my mouth to water.  Words really are powerful enough to get us a man like Hitler.  Don’t forget it.  God’s words are really powerful enough to create the entire universe.  Don’t ever forget that!

Working with you to comprehend the powerful tool of Words,

Vince R.