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On December 23, 2015 By In Theology

A long time ago in a Galilee far, far away

Guest Post by Dr. Scott Masson

It is that time of year when the cultures of Christmas past, Christmas present, and even Christmas future converge upon our family celebrations.  While there is always a sense of anticipation at what will come underneath the tree, for Christians the greatest gift of Christmas has already been unwrapped, and its message remains evergreen.  The Gospel of Matthew explains that the prophet Isaiah’s words were fulfilled in Jesus’ birth:  “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matt. 1:23)

It was the day Love came down.

I have yet to see the latest installment in the Star Wars series, the futuristic film released this Christmas present.  My hope is that its plotline has improved upon Episode one, in which George Lucas revealed that the unfathomable mysteries of the Force lay in a microscopic material cause:  Darth Vader’s mother had conceived a son, not by a man, but by the mysterious power of the midi-chlorians that inhabit and flow through all of life. (more…)

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On December 10, 2015 By In Interviews, Theology

Interview with Gary DeMar on his latest work: “A Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Prophecy”

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bgtibp_Page_1_largeIn this interview, Uri Brito speaks with Gary DeMar, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Prophecy. 

For many Christians, interpreting Bible prophecy is a complicated task. As a result, they often turn to so-called Bible experts and complicated charts that include gaps in time, outrageous literal interpretations, and numerous claims that current events are prime indicators that the end is near. Many Christians are unaware that the same Bible passages have been used in nearly every generation as “proof” that the end or some aspect of the end (the “rapture”) would take place in their generation.

They’ve all had one thing in common: They’ve all been wrong.

(more…)

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On December 3, 2015 By In Interviews, Theology

Following up on Following Bell: An Interview with Dustin Messer

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dobsonIn this interview, Uri Brito talks with Dustin Messer, author of the article, Following Rob Bell: The Edges of Faith and the Center of the Zeitgeist at Kuyperian Commentary. The article has drawn over 60,000 views and continues to be discussed on social media. In this brief interview, Messer adds a follow up to the diverse response he has had since the article’s publication.

Listen now:

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On December 2, 2015 By In Theology

The Upside-Downness of the Gospel: A Look at the Beatitudes, Part V

[5] “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

There is a tendency to view meekness as weakness.1 The meek is not someone who capitulates over the face of threats. He doesn’t retreat and act as if it is all a lost cause. We need to re-orient our minds to how the Bible views these characteristics. Remember that the kingdom of God is upside down to those in the world; and in one sense, the way the people of God live is upside down in comparison to how the rest of the world lives. R.J. Rushdoony once wrote that meekness is strength that is tamed. The meek know that their strength comes from Yahweh; he trusts and places his trust in Yahweh to make the world right; he sees Jesus as the ultimate restorer of Israel and the world. The meek has been united to the kingdom of heaven and has a new Lord and Master. He is being built up in the strength and maturity of Christ, the King, but yet this strength is balanced by self-control. The meek does not use his strength to lord it over people or to belittle others inside or outside the kingdom, but he uses his strength as a means to reveal the power of God and his kingdom. Consider Moses. The Bible says he was the meekest man in all the earth (Num. 12:3). Moses was known for his strength. He led an army and shepherded a nation. And when he was accused by others he didn’t say: “Look at me; the all-powerful Moses; the rescuer of Israel, the destroyer of Egyptian forces.” No. Moses restrained his strength and humbled himself before God praying that God would vindicate him in light of his enemies. Are you beginning to see the picture?

The way God honors this controlled strength is by giving the heirs of the kingdom, the earth!

But why would God give us the earth? We are the heirs of the Abrahamic promise. In Romans 4, Paul says that the promise is that we will be the heirs of the world. This earth, this system, this land, this air, everything is given to us; to inherit and to embrace. This is our world, not the devil’s, it is our world given to us by the ruler of the world, Jesus Christ. And the way we begin to claim it and adorn it and fashion it according to the kingdom of heaven is by being meek.

Practically, this means controlling your strength. How often are we guilty of using our strength or our position of authority to deride or to put down another? How often have we used our strength or our position in life to abuse our authority? How do we as parents conquer our children and their hearts? Do we assert our authority or do we win them with the way of meekness? How we assert our authority without abusing our strength is precisely what it means to be meek. And if we are going to rule the earth as God’s army we need to begin by being meek.

Our Lord Jesus did precisely that. He could have come to earth and obliterated all those Pharisees who disagreed with Him. He could have used His angels to bring about perfect justice, but this is not the Christ we know. The Christ we know is the one who became meek for our sakes and because He inherited the earth in His death and resurrection, we too are called to follow in His steps. (more…)

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On November 30, 2015 By In Culture, Theology

Following Rob Bell: The Edges of Faith and the Center of the Zeitgeist

UPDATE: My friend Uri Brito and I had a conversation about the impetus behind (and reaction to) this post here.

Several days ago, Kent Dobson, successor at Rob Bell’s famous Mars Hill Bible Church, stepped down as teaching pastor. He opened his announcement/sermon by reading the Scriptural story which gives name to the church, the account at Mars Hill. Dobson says when he first came to Mars Hill, he was animated by Paul’s example of cultural engagement. Paul quoted the poets of the people; he spoke their language. Dobson said he understood Paul to be preaching a traditional gospel message but using different, more relevant, packaging.

Likewise, he said the church was meant to have the same gospel but deliver the message in a more hip way. Specifically, he wanted a “cool church” with “cooler shoes” than the traditional church down the road. However, Dobson said he not only began to question the packaging of traditional “church,” but also the message – the gospel. To fully understand his evolution he says, “you’ll have to read my memoirs.” The CliffsNotes version, for those of us who can’t wait, goes thusly:

“I have always been and I’m still drawn to the very edges of religion and faith and God. I’ve said a few times that I don’t even know if we know what we mean by God anymore. That’s the edges of faith. That’s the thing that pulls me. I’m not really drawn to the center. I’m not drawn to the orthodox or the mainstream or the status quo… I’m always wandering out to the edge and beyond.”

If you don’t have time to watch the whole sermon, just picture Portlandia doing a Dane Cook spoof. Slouched in his flannel shirt, he swivels on his chair as he muses about his restlessness, his angst, and his exploration into the unknown. I don’t know how he actually came off in the room, in the moment. But watching from a distance, he seemed like a romantic vagabond, a sensitive soul longing for a home he’s never known—perhaps like Huckleberry Finn if Huck were super into Spiced Chai Lattes and self-indulgent journaling.

(more…)

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On November 9, 2015 By In Theology

Two conferences on the Trinity in London, England

It’s a pleasure to announce two forthcoming conferences at Emmanuel Evangelical Church in London, England, in March 2016. Both conferences are on the subject of the Trinity, and our speaker is Pastor and Theologian Peter Leithart, President of the Theopolis Institute.

The Emmanuel Church Conference, The Very Practical Doctrine of the Trinity, is open to anyone, and takes place on Saturday 12 March 2016.

The Emmanuel Ministerial Conference, Rediscovering the Trinity, is aimed at Ministers, Elders and theological students, and takes place on Monday 14 March 2016.

(more…)

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On November 4, 2015 By In Books, Culture, Theology

On the Mount, for the World: Ethics in the Kingdom of God


William Edgar’s contribution to Resurrection and Eschatology deals with the view of culture espoused by Geerhardus Vos. In describing the Vosian view of culture, Edgar shows the differences that exist between the Reformed and the Anabaptists vis-à-vis the kingdom of God. Edgar does this masterfully by contrasting the Reformed reading of the Sermon on the Mount with that of Richard B. Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament—arguably the most influential work on ethics written in the past 50 years. Says Edgar:    

“Contrary to Hays’s radical view, the point of the Sermon on the Mount is not to set up a special ethic for the church, but to proclaim a new world order, one where the kingdom of God has come, one where the blessedness of its members is for now, not just later. True enough, the sermon tells us about God’s radical love in Christ, a love that forgives enemies and gives good gifts to its children. But the sermon is neither ascetic nor revolutionary. There is no section of life to which it does not speak. The key to the sermon is Matthew 5:17, in which Jesus proclaims he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. His teaching explains the full extent of God’s law, and puts an end to casuistry.

(more…)

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On October 30, 2015 By In Books, Politics, Theology

Narrative Christology

Richard Hays’ book Reading Backwards is a remarkably insightful piece of work, which prompts some thoughts about how the four evangelists (and for that matter the other NT authors, though that is not Hays’ concern here) depicted Jesus’ divinity. It is sometimes assumed that the apparent reticence of the evangelists to ascribe deity to Jesus (at least in straightforward, blunt, propositional, “Jesus is God” terms) reflects either the fact that they would have disagreed outright with the idea; or perhaps the fact that they were feeling their way towards something that they did not fully grasp, and which only later came to be understood more fully. The former possibility is problematic for obvious reasons; the latter seems to me somewhat patronising.

What is less commonly considered is the possibility that the New Testament authors may have grasped with a great deal of sophistication and nuance exactly who Jesus is (though perhaps not in the terms that became prominent in later theological and philosophical discussions of the incarnation), and that they simply chose to express this understanding in narrative form, within a complex of allusions and echoes, narrative retellings and reidentifications, metaphors, types and figures – the sort of thing Richard Hays calls “Figural Christology”. The substance is all there; our failure to see it reflects less the NT authors’ crudeness or lack of theological development, and more our somewhat shrunken idea of what counts as “theological truth”.

In any case, perhaps even to ask “What did the evangelists believe about Jesus?” is a slightly misdirected question, because it all to easily draws our attention away from the NT text to guesswork about what was believed by people long dead. This is a mistake, and one which inevitably leads to dead-end speculation, because apart from the evidence of the NT writings we have very little idea what the NT authors believed. It’s also pretty tragic, because we have no direct access to the minds of long-dead men, but the NT writings are directly in front of us. And it is these writings, not some speculative reconstruction of the thoughts of the men that wrote them, which comprise the Holy Scriptures and teach us the faith.

These writings – inspired as they are by the Spirit of God, so that the human authors may well have spoken better than they knew – certainly do speak of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, in whom Israel’s God came to be present in the world; a man whose words and works are the words and works of God; a man in whom the invisible became visible, the eternal became temporal, the immortal became mortal; a man through whose sacrificial saving grace God was and is at work to save the world. These and similar narrative formulations may lack something of the philosophical precision of later Christological formulations, but I’m not sure they lack so much of their substance. On the contrary, at its best, the road to Chalcedon and beyond is simply an attempt to draw out and express again (perhaps in response to critics, perhaps as a natural process of spiritual-intellectual development, perhaps in pursuit of further clarity, perhaps for other reasons) what the Scriptures actually say about Jesus.

I suspect that Richard Hays has a great deal to teach us about how the Scriptures speak of our Saviour.

Rev Dr Steve Jeffery is Minister at Emmanuel Evangelical Church, London, England (Blog, Facebook, Twitter)

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On October 24, 2015 By In Books, Family and Children, Theology

The Benefits of Growing up in a Tradition

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In the book Philosophers Who Believe, Nicholas Wolterstorff offers a beautiful account of his spiritual journey. While I was deeply moved by his whole story, I was particularly impressed by his appreciation for the Reformed tradition in which he was reared:

“The grace that shaped my life came not in the form of episodes culminating in a private experience of conversion but, first of all, in the form of being inducted into a public tradition of the Christian church…. My induction into the tradition, through words and silences, ritual and architecture, implanted in me an interpretation of reality—a fundamental hermeneutic. Nobody offered ‘evidences’ for the truth of the Christian gospel; nobody offered ‘proofs’ for the inspiration of the Scriptures; nobody suggested that Christianity was the best explanation of one thing or another. Evidentialists were nowhere in sight! The gospel was report, not explanation. And nobody reflected on what we as ‘modern men’ can and should believe in all this. The schema of sin, salvation and gratitude was set before us, the details were explained; and we were exhorted to live this truth. The modern world was not ignored, but was interpreted in the light of this truth rather than this truth being interpreted in the light of that world.”

Wolterstorff then goes on to say that this tradition was thoroughly and completely biblical:

“The piety in which I was reared was a piety centered on the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament together. Centered not on experience, and not on the liturgy, but on the Bible; for those themselves were seen as shaped by the Bible. Christian experience was the experience of appropriating the Bible, the experience of allowing the Bible to shape one’s imagination and emotion and perception and interpretation and action. And the liturgy was grounded and focused on the Bible: in the sermon the minister spoke the Word of God to us on the basis of the Bible; in the sacraments, celebrated on the authority of the Bible, the very God revealed in the Bible united us to Christ. So this was the Holy Book. Here one learned what God had done and said, in creation and for our salvation. In meditating on it and in hearing it expounded one heard God speak to one today.”

I always enjoy reading Wolterstorff, especially his work on education. This story, however, gave me new appreciation for the man, for the tradition which shaped him, and for the grace of God which sustains such traditions in an increasingly individualistic age.

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On October 20, 2015 By In Books, Culture, Theology, Wisdom

The Redemption of Friendship

 

I’m always happy to read a book on friendship (just this year, I was immensely helped by Wesley Hill’s wonderful new book on the subject). However, it’s especially fun to read a book on friendship written by a really good friend (it’s like reading a book on blood draining by your favorite butcher!). In Friendship Redeemed, my comrade Adam Holland has written a fine work on a subject that desperately needs more thoughtful reflection. I think anyone who picks up the book will take away a number of very helpful insights. Particularly, the book will give you (1) a lens through which to view friendship, (2) examples of what redeemed friendship looks like, and (3) practical tips for living out redeemed friendship.

To begin with, Holland offers a lens through which to view friendship:

“Fixing our relationships with one another is not going to be resolved by a 10-step program or adding just a couple things. Living in this new humanity calls for a person to put on a new pair of glasses, through which he will look and see the world.”

The first chapter is simply an examination of friendship through the lens of the biblical story: creation, fall, redemption. We were created to have friends:

 “Mankind was created in the image of the triune God. We were created to live in harmony or perfect unity with one another.”

Holland doesn’t just start in the beginning, he starts before the beginning, grounding our friendship in the triune nature of God. Of course, he quickly shows how that communal nature of man is broken:

 “Man learns how to interact with one another through how they interact and relate to God. Once man sins by refusing to listen and obey the word of God, it then impacts man’s relationship with one another.” He then goes onto say, “When our vertical relationship with the Lord is not right, it has ramifications into our horizontal relationships with one another.”

As you might guess by the title, the rest of the book shows how friendship is being redeemed under Christ’s reign. Perhaps the whole book is best captured in the following sentence, “Christ’s death makes reconciliation possible not only with God, but also with one another.” For Holland, the biblical story isn’t simply head knowledge, something to be tucked away for Bible-trivia night. No, the gospel changes things, it redeems. At the end of the book, you’ll see how the biblical story invites you to participate, to pick up the script of the gospel and engage in the drama of redemption.

The second thing you’ll take away from the book are examples of what friendship actually looks like. Particularly, you’ll see what friendships looks like in the life of Paul. Holland justifies his use of examples in the following way:

 “If we truly want to fix our relationships and have our relationships fulfill their intended purpose, we need an example in which to look.  The famous agrarian and short story writer Wendell Berry once said, ‘It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.’  We need an example to demonstrate to us how to live. Imagine that you never saw a football game in your entire life. It would not be likely that you would ever become a football player. Imagine now that you had Peyton Manning come teach you about football and train you how to play the game. The chances of you growing in your knowledge and ability to play football would increase dramatically.”

In my mind, this is where the book really pays off! Many who grew up in evangelical circles have been burned by “exemplar” models of preaching. We were taught to identify with the hero of a given story, and left church knowing we were supposed to “try harder,” but not really knowing how. In reaction, the current emphasis is (rightly!) to see Jesus as the hero of every story. Once we understand that Christ is the “better David,” we’re then motivated to obey out of love and gratitude, not out of a folksy “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.

While this is all well and good, we must not become more biblical than the Bible. Or, as my mom might say, we shouldn’t be “too smart for our own britches.” The Bible is full of fallen, yet worthy characters who we are called to emulate (just read Hebrews 11!).

It’s not easy to apply character studies in a Christocentric way, yet that’s exactly what Holland does! From Tychicus, to Onesimus, to John Mark, to Epaphras, to Luke, to Demas, Holland shows how Paul’s various friendships can serve as a model, an example of how to live out gospel-centered friendship.

Lastly, you will take away various “tips” on how to live out redeemed friendships. While I didn’t do a verse count, I suspect there were more references from Proverbs than any other book. In fact, the whole book has a “proverbial” feel to it. Said differently, it drips with wisdom. As one example, take the theme of vulnerability. Below are three passages related to vulnerability which will give you a taste for the practical flavor of the whole book:

“Forgiveness within our friendships is not about righting the wrong, but it is about lavishly pouring out the love of Christ, even when it is at our own expense.”

“In Paul’s list here of his friends, he has two friends now that have abandoned him. How can you tell whether one of your friends is going to be a John Mark (a friend that leaves and comes back) or a Demas (a friend that leaves you and never returns)? You can’t! So, should we shut the door on any friendship in fear that they may abandon us or hurt us? No! Paul models for us how living on the other side of the cross calls for believers to take risks with others. Sometimes you are going to get hurt.”

“Paul’s life and ministry are a testimony to others willing to take a risk on him. Paul went from killing Christians to being one. I imagine that Christians were not lining up to have him over for dinner shortly after his conversion. Rather than being safe, take risks for the sake of the gospel. Rather than leaving the church because you have been hurt, stay and be an agent of change. You may get hurt along the way, but the joy of seeing others transformed will far outweigh any pain that you may receive.”

In the end, Holland has written a fresh, readable, biblical, winsome book on friendship. While I’d recommend it to anyone, I especially think it’d be useful in a small group setting.

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