February, 2006

Snow and Evangelism

February 12, 2006

Snow has cancelled services at Hillcrest Baptist Church (where I was to preach this morning) so I will have the joy of attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church and hearing Greg Gilbert preach on Ezekiel 24.  It’s wonderful to have a church that a large portion of the congregation walk to.  It makes our gatherings snow-proof!

One more thing.  Having been deprived of an opportunity to preach the gospel this morning, and having written recently on this weblog about conversions, I am reminded of how much I need your prayers for my personal evangelism.  Pray that I be a better, more obedient, more active personal evangelist.  I am surprised that I, as someone who goes around speaking on evangelism, evangelize personally as little as I do.  It grieves me, and so I pray and strategize.  I am encouraged by a statement of the late Bill Bright, “Successful evangelism is sharing the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.”  I am thankful to leave the results to God, but I cannot leave the evanglism to God, as well!  Pray for me, friends.

Duke, The Fall and Conversions

February 11, 2006

Ah, CJ is again lamenting that most undeniable proof of the Fall – another Duke basketball victory. Alas, this one over his beloved Terrapins. And to think that Mark graduated without ever being caught up with the Cameron crazies. Providence – guess that has made his friendship with CJ possible!

Now Mark, thanks for another good post today on conversion. I regularly hear (I’ll not say where) evangelism and missions reports, even of the short-term variety, touting staggering numbers of decisions or professions, meaning in the reporters’ mind "conversions." I have the same reaction as you express in the post.

One sure fire sign that something short of the New Testament fullness of discipleship is in view is when their is no real, vital and lasting connection of the "new convert" with the local church. The local church often hasn’t been involved in witness-bearing to the individual. The individual has not given account of his faith and publicly professed Christ in the midst of the congregation – nor can pastor, elders and people lend confirmation to the evidences of new life. No commitment to an on-going discipleship has been indicated by the person – and often sadly no such discipleship has ever been practically in view by those who were engaged in the initial "evangelism."

With you, Mark, one of my constant prayers for the ministry here at First Pres., is that we would see conversions, and more of them. But I mean conversion in all its glorious, supernatural reality. The Spirit must do it. It is always surprising in light of our spiritual deadness. And it yields not merely a momentary decision and assent to a Gospel presentation, but a grace-endowed, Gospel-rooted, Spirit-transformed, church-shaped life of discipleship.

After all, Jesus told us to "make disciples."

The Already and the Not Yet

February 11, 2006

"At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him." Hebrews 2:8

Duke 96-Maryland 88

Who's objecting?

February 11, 2006

When people ask me what they can pray for me and our church about, I very often ask for prayer that we would see more conversions.  I thank God for the conversions we have seen, but I would like to see more, for God’s glory! 

I’m not, however, a big fan of the big conversion numbers that are reported by some evangelical churches.  I don’t believe them.  I think they discourage real evangelism and true conversions and actually make our towns and cities more difficult places to evangelize.

I remember one friend telling me years ago that their church had had over 200 baptisms in the previous year.  I was stunned!  I asked him "Is the town changed?"  He didn’t understand.  "What do you mean?" he asked.  I told him that was about as many conversions as Edwards saw in the Great Awakening in Northampton.

As I kept asking questions, it became clear that he didn’t really know the people, he didn’t know if they were still (months later) going to his church, the church (with a couple of thousand in attendance) was not noticeably larger, and those being baptized were mostly children of the church (another topic).  My point is, 200 baptized was just normal business for them, and it made no difference.

I pray for conversions that make a difference!  It’s a little-known fact that George Bernard Shaw’s first published writing (when he was nineteen) was a letter to Public Opinion belittling a Dublin revival staged by the renowned American evangelist D. L. Moody. Shaw was not an enthusiast for the evangelist.  He said that crowds attended such services merely for free entertainment, and those who were converted became ‘highly objectionable members of society.’

I can’t imagine Shaw would even notice most of our "converts."  Pray for conversions–real conversions, conversions that matter, conversions that result in changed people–and more conversions–for the glory of God!

Thanks Mark, Al and CJ

February 9, 2006

Thanks CJ and Al for your kind words, and to Mark for your good posts. I took the "red-eye" back from Los Angeles, arriving in Jackson on Wednesday morning at 9. I was by God’s grace able to have lunch with my wife and son, work all afternoon, preach the Wednesday evening midweek service (on Psalm 87) at First Pres, and teach a Senior High girls’ small-group on Reformation and Post-Reformation church history thereafter, before heading home and happily collapsing in my bed that night! I’m grateful for your prayers for strength and stamina, CJ. The Lord heard and answered.

Our Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) Board meeting was most encouraging. The leadership of Professor Randy Stinson of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY) as the Executive Director of CBMW has been superb. Randy has overseen a steady development of the total work of the organization. We met with a number of strategic partners in LA, as we continue to form new friendships and networks in our quest to see evangelicalism resist the cultural capitulation to feminism everywhere evident in so many churches, and to embrace joyfully the Bible’s clear and vital teaching on manhood and womanhood in the home and church (a teaching which we designate by the short-hand "complementarianism").

Speaking of which, everyone ought to know about Wayne Grudem’s recent book Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions. (Sisters, Ore: Multnomah, and Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press). It is a tour de force. In it, Wayne pours in much of what he has learned from over twenty-five years of close involvement in the controversies over men’s and women’s roles in the home and church. CBMW hosts an on-line site that allows you to access some of this material, and where Dr. Grudem will answer any "new" evangelical feminist arguments for "egalitarianism." You can find it here.

Wayne was a co-founder and long-time president of CBMW and still serves on the board. He has also taught on biblical manhood and womanhood, in both required general courses and special electives at the M.A., M.Div., D.Min., and Ph.D. level, for the past twenty-five years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and, more recently, at Phoenix Seminary. In addition, he has spoken and debated on this issue who knows how many hundreds of times in both American and European contexts. Wayne sees the book as a culmination of that work. By the way, Wayne is currently research professor of theology and Bible at Phoenix Seminary. He received a BA from Harvard, an MDiv from Westminster Seminary , and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Here are some things to bear in mind about this book. It  . . .

* is the product of over 20 years of research on biblical manhood and womanhood by a recognized leader of the "complementarian" position

* clearly and biblically upholds male leadership in home and church

* promotes greater appreciation of male-female equality in the image of God and encourages more openness to women’s gifts and ministries in the church

* explains a beautiful pattern for marriage as designed by God

* gives detailed quotations and clear, balanced answers to every leading evangelical feminist author and book in the last 30 years

* explains specific application to dozens of real-life situations in church and parachurch ministries

* answers arguments about specific Bible verses, church history , how to interpret the Bible, cultural relativity , present-day experiences, fairness and justice, and practical application

* contains many pages of Biblical and historical information that cannot otherwise be found in one place, and many new discussions never before published by this author.

* warns of troubling trends in many evangelical feminist writers who undermine the authority of Scripture

* includes the full text of policy statements on women’s roles in 41 denominations and parachurch ministries

* never loses sight of the beauty and joy of our manhood and womanhood as created "equal but different" in the image of God.

Buy it. Read it. Live it.

It's Good To Be Home

February 9, 2006

Mark, I just returned from L.A. last night. The CBMW board meeting was very fruitful. Serving on this board is a privilege and joy, and there were many evidences of God’s grace throughout our time together. Lig, since you are the chairman of this board, I think it would be more appropriate for you to do a post on the content of our time together.

Mark, I called Al in Dallas and we tried to arrange a time together in L.A.,but we couldn’t make it work since Al’s plane came in later on Tuesday evening. We were hoping Al could meet us at the Reagan Presidential Library where we were having dinner that evening. So nothing bad has happened (except that Duke won again), and God’s kindness has been evident in so many ways. I am just catching up on stuff today, and I went to Chad’s basketball game this afternoon. Al, please give us an update on your time at Biola when you return home.

Mark would you like me to teach 1 Corinthians 12-14?

Thank God for CBMW

February 9, 2006

In 1970, Vine Deloria (since then noted and recently retired professor at Univ of Colorado, authority on native American culture) wrote that “Religion has shifted to take in every change in the winds, so that its obedience to American culture and political trends is apparent. As lifestyles have changed, so has the theology of the churches” (in We Talk, You Listen).  To Bible-believing Christians this is a sadly accurate commentary.  That is one reason I thank God for the work of CBMW.  Thanks CJ & Lig for investing all the time you do in helping us appreciate God’s great gift of gender and how we serve our members well by understanding it and teaching about it biblically.

Hello? Hello? Is Anyone There?

February 9, 2006

Lig, Al, CJ?  Where are you guys?  Did something bad happen?

Humble Dogmatism

February 8, 2006

Tonight, we at CHBC did our
own little bit to encourage Bible reading–we read the entire book of I
Corinthians out loud!  It took about 45 minutes, and it was really
encouraging and powerful to hear the message of the book as a whole.  This
was done as an introduction to a regular series of Wednesday night studies in
the book of I Corinthians.  (CJ, who knows what will happen with CHBC
studying I Corinthians!  And Lig, we’ll make sure and pay special
attention to 7:14–that paedobaptistic text than which there is no better!!)

Anyway, I think that such
reading encourages the right kind of humility.  How can we as Christians
be humbled without hearing the Word to which we should submit?  How can we
be humbled apart from hearing and heeding the Word of God?  How will our
churches ever be the truly humble assemblies we want them to be if they do not
hear and submit themselves to God’s Word?

What we need is humble
theology–theology which submits itself to the truth of God’s Word.
"Liberal" theology–theology which does not view Scripture as finally
trustworthy and authoritative–is not humble before the Word.  Churches
which are tentative and decry dogmatism may sound humble, but it is not
truly humble to do anything other than to submit to God’s Word.  Christian
humility is to simply accept whatever God has revealed in His Word.
Humility is following God’s Word wherever it goes, as far as it goes, not
either going beyond it or stopping short of it.

Bertrand Russell, the late,
well-known, British philosopher wrote in 1950 that “The essence of the liberal
outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are
held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and
with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This
is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which
they are held in theology," (in “Philosophy and Politics,” in
Unpopular Essays, [1950] p. 15). These days, I guess many are holding
theological conclusions in such a "scientific" manner.  But such
hestitancy is not humility.  The humility we want in our churches is to
read the Bible and believe it–everything God has said, dogmatically, and
humbly!  It is not humble to be hesitant where God has been clear and
plain.

 

Loss of interest in reading . . . the Bible

February 7, 2006

Dear Al, Are you sure that omnipresence and ubiquity are incommunicable attributes of God?  Well done, all over the place, brother!  I pray that God sustain you and yours during this intense time of travel.

I had the joy of spending the day giving 4 talks on evangelism up at the Sovereign Grace Pastor’s College at their first conference on evangelism.  I spoke about what evangelism is, a biblical theology of it and of the gospel, some about the practice of evangelism in the pastor’s life and ministry, and finally, about the practice of our congregation in evangelism. 

In that next to the last talk–on evangelism in the pastor’s own life and ministry–I spent some time talking about evangelism through our regular exposition of Scripture.  CJ, what wonderful guys the Lord has raised up there.  And what a joy to see their commitment to expositional preaching as the foundation of their ministry.  We can evangelize through preaching God’s Word!  I mourn that so many preachers no longer preach expositionally.  But I know that this has been a problem for the last century in evangelical churches.  Mr. Harvey, in his book The Pastor: His Duties and Qualifications (Philadelphia, 1879), notes that  “This method of preaching has of late years gone into disuse, partly because, the Bible having ceased to be the chief reading of the churches, the popular interest in exposition has decreased; but when rightly followed it has advantages, both to minister and people, beyond those of any other form of preaching,” (p. 52).

I am struck and saddened by the fact that in the late 19th-century, the change in our churches was already being noted.  And how much havoc has been wrought by the fading away of the Bible from our churches.  CJ, I am delighted to think of the young ministers that I saw today, feeding their congergations from the Word!

I pray that as we encourage people to recover a zeal for reading, that pride of place, first in the schedule, will be the reading and studying of the Bible itself.  That’s good for them, the churches, the preachers, the gospel.  For all of us.