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On July 27, 2019 By In Politics

A Primer on the Gospel

We cannot exhaust the beauties of the Gospel, but we can provide a bigger picture of the Gospel than what is typically presented in the Church today. The hope is that we would grow ever more grateful for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the Gospel?

First, the Gospel is about Christ. The clearest Bible passage is found in I Corinthians 15 where the Apostle Paul summarizes the Gospel focusing on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. In Romans 1, Paul says he declares a Gospel about the Son, who was descended from David. Later in Romans, Paul makes a powerful connection between the Gospel and Christ’s incarnation. The Apostle John declares that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6). Everything that makes the Gospel beautiful is beautiful because of Christ. So when we think about the Gospel, one fundamental facet of it, perhaps the most central of them all, is that the Gospel is about Christ and his work for us.

Unpacking the Gospel

The word Gospel is not just a word we use in the Christian world. In fact, the word was used in the ancient world for various reasons. For example, the word gospel was used when Caesar would have a son, or if he won a great military victory, or if a new Caesar ascended the throne – the proclamation of that news was called gospel. Caesar’s heralds would then announce the gospel in all the empire.

The Christian community adopted this language to proclaim a different message; not a message about Caesar, but a message about Christ. The Gospel is about Christ because Jesus Christ is greater than Caesar. The most basic confession of faith is Jesus is Lord. The Gospel is good news because it announces that Jesus’ kingship is greater than Caesar’s.

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On July 5, 2019 By In Podcast, Politics

Episode 63, Doing Theology in a Twitter Age

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:23 — 35.0MB)

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Uri and Dustin team up once more to talk about the role of theology in a Twitter age. They focus on the good, the bad and the ugly of theologizing in a day of little patience and excessive opinations. They delve into some personal habits on-line as well as offer good advice on how to do theology that attracts rather than repels.

Music from Smith Leithart. You can find Smith’s music here.

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On June 29, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Family and Children, Men, Politics, Wisdom

Defy the Culture: Get Married

As you look around at the cultural confusion, you might be wondering how to get involved. Where do you start with the kind of mess that is all around us? I have a simple suggestion: get married. And then throw a really big party to celebrate. You might even consider inviting the whole town. I am not being flippant here. This is a serious recommendation and it is a key tactical move in attacking the enemies of darkness. Nothing causes greater consternation in the foe than a godly wedding celebration and a godly marriage.

Over the month of June, the Rainbow Mafia has been inundating us with their brainwashing techniques. And they have been laying it on thick. Business after business has been running Gaystapo ads. And they are super cheesy too. Given this ploy, it is wonderfully defiant to celebrate a Christian wedding.

In this age of sexual perverts, a Christian wedding ceremony is a fantastic grenade to lob at our culture. This kind of grenade accomplishes two things: first, it destroys the folly of the world and second, it exalts the beautiful reality. This is a wonderful way to attack the evil around us. It is a one-two punch that is incredibly winsome. At a Christian wedding, we hear clearly and profoundly the truth of the world: God made us male and female and it is good. He made Adam and Eve for each other. Jesus proclaimed this as Christian marriage in the gospels. This is the reality of the world. All the other perversions are fakes. And those other relationships are ugly and harmful. We get the chance to stand against those errors when we celebrate a Christian wedding.

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On May 19, 2019 By In Politics

Disciple-Making Hospitality

He was an unlikely convert. Hated by the Jews as a traitor who extorted his own people, tolerated and backed by Rome to collect taxes, Levi (or Matthew) was in a special class of wicked in the eyes of society. He was an outcast; a rich outcast, but an outcast nonetheless. He didn’t fit in with any group among his people, especially those who were eagerly anticipating and preparing themselves for the kingdom of God. Luke tells us how he became a disciple of Christ (Lk 5.27-32).

Jesus obviously didn’t understand social dynamics when he called him to be a disciple. This guy’s tax booth was on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, close to where Simon, James’, and John’s fishing businesses were located. They had probably been extorted by this guy. What a band of disciples this would make!

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On May 13, 2019 By In Politics

Should I be a Writer? Some Advice

I recently received an email from a friend asking for advice on writing, specifically whether or not I thought he could be a professional writer. After sharing my reply to him on FaceBook, a few friends suggested I post it here as well.

I should offer a disclaimer before starting. I’m only mildly qualified to offer an opinion; I’m no expert! In seminary, I edited a theological journal and after that I was a ghost writer for about a year. I’m thankful nowadays to have a biweekly column for BreakPoint and contribute to a few other places, including Kuyperian Commentary.

For me, however, writing has always been an extension of what I understand to be my real calling, teaching and pastoring. That said, I do have some advice to offer. Specifically, I think there are three questions you should ask yourself before deciding whether or not you’re called to write: Can I write well? Can I write often? Can I write well often?

Can I write well?

I know when I ask myself this question, the answer is always “no.” I learned this from Ira Glass: to be a writer, you have to be a good reader. To be a good reader, you have to have good taste, for lack of a better word. If you have good taste, you should be able to recognize the disparity between the quality of your work and the quality of a true master. When I read Ross Douthat’s column, I feel like I’ve never written an original piece. But, I know there’s a way—one way, in fact—to narrow the gap between my writing and his, which brings me to the second question you should ask, Can I write often?

Can I write often?

When George Will was given a weekly column, he was nervous he wouldn’t have something to say each week. “Surely there’s something that makes you mad once a week,” Bill Buckley told Will, “You mustn’t squander the anger!” Don’t waste a creative thought. John Stott slept with a notepad by his bed just in case he wanted to capture a worthwhile thought he had in a dream! Everyone has these creative thoughts, a writer is just one who writes them down. Dennis Miller has this illustration: everyone is watching water drip from a faucet. A comedian is one who cups his hands underneath it, pours it in a bottle, and sells it. That’s being a writer.

Can I write well often?

In his autobiography, Steve Martin makes the point that lots of performers can be great. Being good is the hard part. Being great one night is a fluke, it’ll happen occasionally to everyone who sticks at their trade. The trick is being consistently good, week after week, year after year.

The reality is, you wouldn’t be thinking about being a writer if you hadn’t written a great piece at least once. But the question isn’t whether or not you can write a great piece, it’s whether or not you can write good pieces consistently. In the genre I write in, Jake Meador is the gold-standard. What makes him remarkable isn’t that his best pieces are particularly dynamite (though they are!), it’s that his worst piece are still good.

Having read the piece you sent me, I think you can write well, and I know you have the grit to write often. But, neither of us can answer the third question, at least not yet. There’s only one way to find out if you can write well often: you have to try. For what it’s worth, I’m betting the answer will be “yes!”

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On May 6, 2019 By In Politics

Christian Platonism and the Platonic redemptive story

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend two back-to-back conferences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first was the annual Kuyper Conference, whose overarching theme was “Christ and Community.” One of the major speakers was Hans Boersma, until recently a professor at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, soon to join the faculty of Nashotah House near Milwaukee.

In an address titled, “Neo-Calvinism and the Beatific Vision,” Boersma suggested that the neo-Calvinist emphasis on continuity between this life and the next lacks a proper sense of the beatific vision of God.

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On May 5, 2019 By In Politics

Saved By Others’ Faith

The scene must have been somewhat frightening at first and then somewhat comical as it unfolded. Several determined men wanted to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. They learned he was at a house on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, so they picked up their friend on the bed on which he was lying and took him to the house. When they arrived, the place was packed. There was no room for four men carrying a paralyzed man on a bed to squeeze through the crowd. But they were not deterred. They took the steps up to the roof, began removing the tiles, and lowered their friend right in front of Jesus.

The whole scene points to the seemingly hopeless situation of the man. Luke depicts the paralyzed man as a dead man. His body is lifeless, laying on a bed which might as well been a bier. His friends are digging through the earth—clay tiles—in order to lower this man down. There is a symbolic burial occurring. But they are lowering this man into the grave where Jesus is. As Luke makes clear at the end of his Gospel, Jesus turns the grave into a place of life; a place through which we are healed in resurrection.

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On May 2, 2019 By In Politics

Voices at the Margins: the problem with identity politics

The Bible manifests great concern for marginalized, especially those among the people of God who fell into the categories of widow, orphan and resident sojourner. Because these groups were at a disadvantage under the land tenure system, thus deprived of a secure means of livelihood, the law of Moses mandated special means of ensuring that such people be provided for. When I was teaching, I would give my students a series of scripture texts that emphasized our duty to care for the poor, such as Isaiah 1:11-17, 10:1-4, Amos 5:21-24, and Psalms 72 and 82.

In recent years this recognition that God calls us to care for the poor and oppressed has taken a new form. Now many people are telling us that we have an obligation to listen to the voices of the marginalized. What does this mean?

The book of James may provide a clue:

Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

Here the voices are of those who have been cheated of their wages, that is, they have been victims of injustice. Their employers have ignored their cries and are therefore subject to God’s judgement, as pronounced by the apostle. If the labourers have been marginalized, it is because their employers have pushed them to the margins–something that must be rectified. How? By paying them the wages they are due.

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On May 1, 2019 By In Politics

Look To Your Baptism

If you had to talk to another Christian about some sin in his life and the fact that he is presuming upon God’s grace, where would you begin the discussion? Go ahead, think about it. I’ll give you a minute….

Some might begin by questioning the salvation of the person. The question might be, “Has there ever been a time in your life when you prayed the sinner’s prayer and asked Jesus into your heart?” Others might not go that far but may appeal to the person on the basis that he knows this isn’t the right thing to do. In our Protestant, evangelical world (which is the world in which I live) we will, normally, appeal to almost anything except what the apostle Paul appeals to in Romans 6: baptism.

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On April 26, 2019 By In Politics

Easter: The ABC of our Faith

We need to continually return to the root of our faith, to those first historical events that propel us to move forward as a people. The Church Calendar helps us to never outgrow the life of our Lord from his birth to his Ascension.

The Resurrection is the foundation of our faith. In modern evangelicalism, we tend to view the Resurrection of Jesus merely as validation or proof that the crucifixion accomplished what it was supposed to. In other words, the Resurrection is lovely because now the death of Jesus means something, and we get to spend eternity in heaven. But the Bible ascribes more significant value to the empty tomb.

The Four Gospels navigate us through the life of Jesus and give us a glimpse into the meaning of the Resurrection. But if we simply build our thinking around the Four Gospels, we will have an incomplete view of who we are and who Jesus is. The Four Gospels are not enough. We need the entirety of God’s Revelation. In other words, “If our gospel begins and ends on Good Friday, it is impoverished.”a 

Though we glory in the cross, though we preach the cross, though we love the old rugged cross, the cross is not enough! And I make that statement very carefully. As one scholar stated, “If the story of the prodigal son was only based on cross-theology, there would have been only forgiveness, but no joy and feast.” The message of the cross is incomplete without the Resurrection. The cross and the Resurrection can never be separated.

The Resurrection not only validates the cross, but it is a sure sign that we are shadows of our future selves. We are now partly what we shall be. This reality is apparent as we enter into the Acts of the Apostles: the early Church began to live out their Resurrection among the nations. In fact, “the preaching of Jesus’ Resurrection is arguably more pervasive than the cross in the book of Acts (Acts 2:31; 3:26; 4:2; 33; 10:41). The Psalms most quoted in the New Covenant are Psalms 2 and 110, which speak directly of Jesus’ Resurrection and exaltation. Cyprian once wrote: “I confess the Cross, because I know of the Resurrection…since the Resurrection has followed the Cross, I am not ashamed to declare it.” This is back to basics! We are a cruciform people, but if we overemphasize the cross, our identity is incomplete.

So, let us consider a few implications of the Resurrection, keeping in mind that the Resurrection is more than a confirmation of the cross, but it is the foundation of our faith. Paul makes this point when he says that without the Resurrection, we are of all people most to be pitied. He does not say this about any other event in the life of Jesus.

First, the Resurrection is the objective grounds of salvation. We often look at the cross as the grounds of our salvation, but God saves us by, in, and through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul makes this explicit when he says in Romans 4:25: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” In I Corinthians 15:17, Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” But aren’t we justified and forgiven on account of Jesus’ death? Of course! Romans makes that clear! For the Apostle Paul, the Resurrection is the vindication of Jesus as the Faithful Son and as the righteous sin-bearer.

It is “the creative power of God that imparts life to soul and body.” This is who we are. We are nothing more, nothing less than saints united to the Resurrected Christ. This is the objective ground of our salvation.

Secondly, the Resurrection is not only the source of our justification, our right-standing before God, but the Resurrection is also the power that drives our sanctification; that is our growth in King Jesus. Some theologians have referred to this as anastasity, from the Greek anastasio, meaning Resurrection. Anastasity is the way the Resurrection flows into our lives. I confess this is in many ways is revolutionary to Christians who have never considered the Resurrection in this light. What the cross of Jesus does for us is to bankrupt our pride, it sobers our minds when we become full of ourselves, and it pulls the plug on any naïve triumphalism. When we are tempted to be proud of any accomplishment, we need to look no further than the cross of Jesus to give us an enlightened view of what Jesus had to suffer to take our sins.

But the Resurrection is the other necessary and prominent part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and part of God’s people. We cannot only have a theology of the cross because a spirituality that meditates only on the cross could potentially reduce us to self-loathing, spiritual insecurity. The impression, then, is that we remain, pathetic, lowly sinners, miserable wretches, unable to do one good thing for God even though we are justified by the event of the empty tomb.

I suggest this is a pietistic simplification of the Christian life? Anglican scholar Michael Bird summarizes best our status:

Some Christians might feel humble when they tell everyone how pathetic they are; a form of self-deprecation. Rightly so, we should be the first ones to share our struggles with others, but let us not think less of ourselves that how God thinks of us. “If God thinks well of his Son, He thinks well of you. If God loves His Son, He loves you, for you are partakes not just of his sufferings, but also of his glory.b

Finally, the Resurrection calls us to a new way of living. Paul says in Colossians: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things.” Some have interpreted this to mean that we are to be so heavenly minded, that we ought to abandon our earthly concerns. After all, this world is merely passing by. But I think this interpretation lacks a fundamental understanding of the role of the Resurrection in the mind of Paul. Who are we? We are resurrected saints. This is the most basic foundation of our humanity as Christians. And if we are resurrected saints, where does the resurrected Christ now abide? He abides at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Where Christ is we are. We are to act and live as if we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. We are to have a heavenly perspective on our earthly life. This reality is to have an impact on our present. Our status in Jesus Christ calls us toward the goal of faithfulness.

Easter is the most basic fact of our humanity. It is who we are. It is because of the bodily Resurrection that we live, breathe, and have our being in a Christ who shows mercy, rather than a Christ who condemns us. The Resurrection of Jesus vindicated Jesus as the bearer of the ugliness of sin, so when he looks at our Lord sees beautified saints. We can never take that for granted. Our standing before the Father causes us to love one another more fully, to serve one another more sincerely, to embrace a more robust view of hope, to feast more abundantly, and to worship the Risen Christ with greater passion. Easter is the abc of our faith. If it is anything less, we are most to be pitied, but thanks be to God, Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

  1. Michael Bird, Evangelical Theology, 436.  (back)
  2. Michael Bird, Evangelical Theology, pg. 445  (back)

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