Monthly Archive for February, 2011

Bad Mr. Huckabee, Bad

Published on February 28, 2011 in Missions and Politics. 1 Comment

John Mark Reynolds interacts with the criticism that Mike Huckabee has recently fielded for speaking out against the Islam religion.  For the record, I don’t necessarily Reynold’s critique of Huckabee, but I do appreciate the gist of the post.

Mike Huckabee thinks Islam is wrong and evidently the chattering classes think this is a serious issue.

The Christians of Constantinople cannot use one of the ancient churches of Christendom, because Islamic rulers will not allow it, but Mike Huckabee said something harsh about Islam so he must be rebuked.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch, cannot open a seminary, because the Muslim rulers of his nation will not condone it, but a Fox news commentator said something that offends Muslims so we must attend.

There is no land where Muslims are the majority and Christians are not second-class citizens, but a former Baptist minister publically disagrees with Islam and we must ponder the pain Huckabee may have caused Muslims.

I have friends doing humanitarian work in nations where Islamic tribes enslave Christians, but a former governor of Arkansas was politically incorrect, so Americans must discuss Christian tolerance of Islam.

Read the rest here.

How to encourage your pastor

Published on February 27, 2011 in Leadership. 0 Comments

Thom Rainer offers quality suggestions for encouraging your pastor.  The last one is the most important.

I have written on many occasions about the level of stress and pressure felt by pastors across our nation. I have specifically expressed serious concerns about some of the critics who constantly berate and demoralize our pastors (here and here).

In this post, let me offer some practical suggestions on ways we can encourage our pastors. The list below is not exhaustive, of course. But it does represent some of the most frequent ideas I have heard from pastors and their families.

Let your pastor know specifically how you learned something from his sermon. Pastors spend dozens of hours each week preparing sermons. They put their head and heart into the preparation of these messages. Many pastors at most, however, hear church members simply say, “Good sermon.” The pastor is left wondering if the message really was used of God to touch and convict the listener. I once preached a message on reconciliation between Christians. I later got a letter from a church member who let me know that she had initiated reconciliation with her estranged father of more than twenty years. That type of specificity is a great encouragement to those who pour their lives into their sermons.

Read the rest here.

A box of Crunch and Munch never hurts either.

Read this WONDERFUL chapter

Published on February 26, 2011 in Church. 0 Comments

Read 1 Corinthians today.  If you make it no further than verse 6, it will be time well spent.  Meditate on all 58 verses and you will have had a wonderful day spiritually.  Feel overwhelmed by its 58 verse length?  Let Pastor Andrew Ford help you out.

Though he may not displace Gordon Fee any time soon, Andrew Ford demonstrates that he used his recent back surgery for constructive purposes by summarizing one of the greatest chapters ever written.  For those without a background in theological study, “honkin,” is a technical term, but you should be able to understand its meaning using context clues.  Andrew Ford:

1 Corinthians 15 is 58 verses long.  Here is my summary:

A big honkin argument for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (and the believer’s resurrection as well) as a motivation that we should not live aimlessly (eat, drink for tomorrow we die vs.32) but rather we should be doing Kingdom work -  “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (vs. 58).”

Short Version:  Resurrection truth moves believers to meaningful Kingdom work.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Published on February 25, 2011 in suffering and Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Read Genesis 12-28 and notice again that this is not the sort of story anyone would have made up.  And, be reminded that though we cannot understand the events of life, we can be confident that God is putting the pieces of the puzzle together for His people.

These are troubling times.  Yesterday, I was called to the hospital for one of our flock who had only hours to live.  This follows a week with a funeral and an open heart surgery, continued battles with cancer, and news that a young man from my community in Iowa, the son of good friends, was in a serious accident with potential damage to his spine.

Never mind Egypt and the economy, Momar and the price of oil.

Yesterday, when I prayed with our friend at the hospital and her family, I quoted John 14:1-6 before I prayed.  ”Let not your hearts be troubled.  Ye believe in God.  Believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me.”  If you are troubled today, be encouraged to read John 14:1-6 aloud, preferably from the KJV.

But, if you have more time, I would encourage you to start reading Genesis in chapter 12.  Notice how much of Genesis is troubling to our finite minds. Be puzzled by how absolutely incredible the events of Genesis are. Consider:

  • Why did God call Abraham in the first place?  It certainly wasn’t because he was from a great family background.  Notice in Joshua 24 that they were idol worshippers.
  • Why did God use a man who denied at points that he was married to his wife, or caved into her demands to sleep with her Hagar?
  • Why was Jacob blessed even after he tricked his dying father,
  • Or, why couldn’t Rebecca have spent a few more days with her family before going to be Isaac’s bride?

Speaking of Egypt, why are there those famines in Genesis in which God’s people have to go down there?  If you read far enough to get to Judah and Tamar, you might ask yourself why we needed to know those sordid details.  Though, we certainly do need to know them!

Read Genesis for yourself and see if you don’t agree.  One thing that stands out from the story of Genesis is that people in the midst of it could never have known how it was all going to fit together.  Neither can we today figure out why God put it together in the way He did.  His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways, our ways (Isaiah 55:8 ff).

Yet, if we read Genesis from this side of the Cross, there certainly is something we do understand.  God had a plan that through the descendants of Abraham would come the Lord Jesus Christ, and from Him, salvation for all who would believe in Him.

From our human point of view, there is simply no understanding how the circumstances of life fit together, yet we can be sure that fit together they will.  As surely as Sarah gave birth to the son of promise, we can be sure that God works all things together for those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Let not your hearts be troubled. . . (John 14:1-6).

Trevin Wax: Should we baptize small children?

Published on February 24, 2011 in Church and Sacraments. 1 Comment

My position on this issue is remarkably similar to Trevin’s.

How should a pastor respond to a child who wants to be baptized? How should churches approach the subject of child baptism?

Two centuries ago, few Baptists would have even raised these questions. Many churches required their converts to be 18 years old before baptism.

Today, the situation is remarkably different. As Baptists, we still reject the practice of “infant baptism” because we believe baptism to be immersion of a professing believer, not the sprinkling of an unbelieving baby. And yet, many Baptist pastors baptize children at very young ages without sensing any sort of disconnect.

Read the rest here.

Earthquake pictures from New Zealand

Published on February 23, 2011 in Photography and suffering. 0 Comments

See more at The Big Picture and pray for New Zealand.

Gospel of the Trees

Published on February 23, 2011 in Creation and Recommended Links. 0 Comments

Alan Jacobs posts about a new site that  includes some beautiful photography set in Illinois:

Some years ago I decided that I wanted to write a book about trees, and more particularly the strangely central role that trees play in the Biblical story. That role meant, necessarily, that they would find their way, profoundly, into Western literature, and I wanted to say something about that too. But I love trees as they are in themselves, as material things in the material world, so I did not want them to take on a purely symbolic or metaphorical significance.

Though I wrote and even published some thoughts about trees, I couldn’t get the story to come together, no matter how hard I tried. My thoughts didn’t want to coalesce, refused to become a book; they remained scattered and disjointed. Moreover, I knew that if I ever succeeded in weaving them together, the resulting book would demand images — and more images than a cost-conscious publisher would be likely to tolerate.

Only after a long period of worrying over this did I come to the conclusion that my thoughts, such as they were, didn’t belong in a book, but rather constituted a website. So I contacted my friendBrad Cathey, a gifted designer, and he made a site for me.

It’s called Gospel of the Trees. Please check it out.

A video promoting Tim Challies’ forthcoming book

Published on February 22, 2011 in Recommended Reading. 0 Comments

I haven’t read this. But I’ll bet it’s worthwhile.

D.A. Carson on the intolerance of tolerance

Published on February 21, 2011 in Apologetics, Chesterton and Culture. 0 Comments

G.K. Chesterton famously said  that, “Tolerance is the virtue of people who don’t believe anything.”  Here Carson explains how the connotation of “tolerance” has changed over time.


HT: Z

The Cumulative Influence of Preaching

Published on February 20, 2011 in Preaching. 1 Comment

Even though you may not remember the points of last week’s sermon, that doesn’t mean that God is not using the preaching of the Word to nourish your soul.

Trevin Wax:

“Making a hospital visit to a suffering family makes more of an impact than the three points you made in your message on Sunday.”

Occasionally, I hear statements like this at pastors’ conferences and preaching seminars. The idea? Pastoral presence is more important than a pastor’s preaching. The implication? It’s better to spend less time worrying about your preaching and more time engaging people at a personal level.

Sounds good. But it’s shortsighted. And ultimately unhelpful.

Read the rest here.