Wittmer points out that this might not play very well on the Larry King show (click here).
Archive for the 'Gospel' Category
One of my sabbatical highlights was watching the below video on my computer while in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.
In Holy Subversion, I briefly recount the conversion story of my father-in-law, Florin Trifan. Bro. Trifan was a Communist party member in Ceausescu’s Romania back in the 1970’s. Sent to spy on a Baptist revival meeting, he heard the gospel and trusted Christ. He then abandoned Communist ideology and eventually became a pastor.
In 2007, we were fortunate to have Corina’s parents visit us here in the U.S. The videos below (part 1 & part 2) are of Bro. Trifan giving his testimony at our church (I’m the translator). I encourage you to listen to his story.
Bro. Trifan is currently battling throat cancer. He has been through an operation, three rounds of chemotherapy, and he will start radiations in the next few weeks. Please pray for him and for our family during this difficult trial.
John Frame answers the question:
First, by recognizing that no matter how good you may be in your own eyes and in the eyes of other people, you are a sinful person in the eyes of a holy and righteous God (Romans 3:23). Second, by recognizing that sin against perfect holiness deserves death (Romans 6:23). Third, by recognizing that you can do nothing to prevent the eternal death that is coming to you, and by throwing yourself upon the mercy of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Fourth, by recognizing that Jesus died in the place of his people (Mark 10:45) and that he offers eternal life to all who trust in that sacrifice (John 3:16). Fifth, by personally trusting Jesus: asking forgiveness on the basis of his shed blood and seeking to obey him as your Lord, your supreme Master. Evangelical Reunion, page 15.
Dorothy Sayers in Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine
Official Christianity, of late years has been having what is known as a bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much on doctrine – -dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – - and the dogma is the drama. . .
Now, we may call that doctrine exhilarating, or we may call it devastating; we may call it revelation, or we may call it rubbish; but if we call it dull, then words have no meaning at all. That God should play the tyrant over man is a dismal story of unrelieved oppression; that man should play the tyrant over man is the usual dreary record of human futility; but that man should play the tyrant over God and find him a better man than himself is an astonishing drama indeed. Any journalist, hearing of it for the first time, would recognize it as news; those who did hear it for the first time actually called it news, and good news at that; though we are likely to forget that the word Gospel ever meant anything so sensational.
Perhaps the drama is played out now, and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that at least once in the world’s history those words might have been spoken with complete conviction, and that was upon the eve of the Resurrection.
For more on Dorothy Sayers, see this recent post. Notice the question I asked in the comments.
“As far as I know, there has never been an age that has not produced fairy tales. It doesn’t seem to matter what is going on at the time. It can be a time of war or peace, of feast or famine. It can be Calvin’s Geneva or Calvin Coolidge’s U.S.A. . . .Frederick Buechner.”
Fairy tails end well. Famously so. You know the clichés: “fairy tale ending” and “happily ever after.” Jack chops down the bean stock. A prince wakes Snow White with a kiss. Dorothy realizes that the end of the rainbow was in Kansas all along.
But, if “fairy tale ending” is a cliché because “they all lived happily ever after,” fairy tale beginnings are an all together different matter. Fairy tales open deep in the woods. No sooner has the storyteller said, “Once upon a time,” than the cyclone heads for Kansas or the wicked step sisters begin tormenting Cinderella. Indeed, the principle aim of the first couple of pages of a fairy tale is to instill something just short of terror in the child listening. Picture the horrific difficulties your average fairy tale protagonist faces. Little Red Riding Hood’s invalid grandmother lives on the other side of a wolf infested forest. A troll lurks under the bridge the three billy goats gruff need to cross if they are to avoid slowly starving. Lacking GPS, Hansel and Gretel implement a flawed method for finding their way home, and it is their bad fortune to do so a stone’s throw from the cottage of a witch who eats children, but only after boiling them first.
Predictably, some suggest we tell a bland version where the Big Bad Wolf only chases the first two little pigs. I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying what they’re selling. What a colorless land our children would visit, if for fear of thorns in the beginning, we never shared the thrill of good news at the end.
Insurmountable odds and grave danger make fairy tales work. My little girl pleads with me to read her fairy tales, no matter how scared she may get. Sometimes, she even hides under the blanket. But, she has never left before “happily ever after.” She stays because she is rightly convinced that, however wicked the step mother may be, the story will end well. There is, the promise that things will get better and that, as Buechner says, in fairy tales, “happiness is inevitable and endless.” And, though she couldn’t put it in words, intuitively, Mary Beth understands that the light at the end of a fairy tale will shine all the brighter for having started so deep in the forest.
If, as Buechner has pointed out, there has never been an age that didn’t appreciate fairy tales, surely it is because they resonate with something true, however dark the woods may be.
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.(2 Co 4:16-18)."
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I can’t really move forward unless I learn more thoroughly the gospel’s content and how to apply it to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the gospel. God intends his Good News in Christ to mold and shape us at every point and in every way. It increasingly defines the way we think, feel, and live. Tullian Tchividjian.
One of our central emphases in leadership development for the “Bricks” is to demonstrate how the Gospel should transform every area of life (see What is the Gospel?). The Gospel is not just a way to avoid hell – it is the power of God at work in our lives. Tullian Tchividjian recently wrote an excellent article about this for Leadership Magazine.
I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, while afterward we advance to deeper theological waters. But I’ve come to realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths, but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. In other words, once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel, but to move them more deeply into it.
In his letter to the Christians of Colossae, the apostle Paul portrays the gospel as the instrument of all continued growth and spiritual progress, even after a believer’s conversion.
"All over the world," he writes, "this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth" (Col. 1:6).
After meditating on Paul’s words, a friend told me that all our problems in life stem from our failure to apply the gospel. This means I can’t really move forward unless I learn more thoroughly the gospel’s content and how to apply it to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the gospel. God intends his Good News in Christ to mold and shape us at every point and in every way. It increasingly defines the way we think, feel, and live.
Read more here.
J.D. Greear: “Saying ‘Preach the gospel; if necessary use words’ is like saying ‘Tell me your phone number; if necessary use digits.’”
While it is certainly necessary to adorn the Gospel with godly behavior, the Good News must be proclaimed in Word.
HT: JT
In, a Gospel-Driven Life, The: Being Good News People in a Bad News World, Michael Horton makes a confession about his Christmas shopping to which many of us can relate.
Early in my marriage, I learned a hard lesson about love – - a lesson that I am still trying to learn. Saturated with crazy American ideas of love as a spontaneous feeling that I wanted to express in my own way, I routinely gave my wife gifts at Christmas and her birthday that she did not want. As an act of kindness, she told me what she wanted, but I bristled. I wanted to give her what I thought she would like, not what she told me she liked . My “giving” was actually a form of selfishness. I was greedier for my own self-satisfaction at having my choices vindicated than I was at bring delight to my wife. That’s how deep our sin goes: even doing things for and giving things to others becomes opportunities for us to assert our pride.
It is sort of like the sacrifice that Cain brought to god, which was not the sacrifice that God commanded. When God rejected Cain and his sacrifice in favor of Abel and his offering of a lamb, jealousy turned to murder. Later in the story, the sons of Aaron—priests in God’s tabernacle –offered and unauthorized fire in God’s worship. They were just being “spontaneous,” adding their own personal touch to God’s worship, but God had not appointed it and therefore he took their lives and then and there.
My wife is a sinner as I am, so she tends to more more lenient. God, however, is holy and will not greet our “spontaneous” offerings of creative and self-authorized worship with the indulgent shrug, “Well, it’s the thought that counts.” It’s the thought that is perverse.
I can relate to this thought from Tullian Tchividjian:
For preachers, Monday mornings can be dark. I can’t speak for every preacher, but the devil works hard to discourage me on Monday’s–reminding me of all my faults and failures and how unqualified I am to be doing what I’m doing. I need the gospel every day but sometimes I feel like I need it especially on Monday’s.
Tullian includes a wonderful Gospel prayer from Scotty Smith.
Read more here.
