Thanksgiving Exercises

What do we do differently on Thanksgiving?  A few quick notes.  Personally, I try to have a longer quiet time in which I thank God for much that I’ve been praying about that year.  As a family, we have friends over, generally Christian and non-Christian, American and international.  We will, before we eat, sing a hymn or two.  We will read a psalm and pray.  When people sit down with their food, I will read some early thanksgiving proclamations from the 17th century, perhaps from the revolutionary period, from Lincoln, and the current year’s.  (Each year the president makes a thanksgiving proclamation, which you can print out from the White House’s website.)  I’ll read a little about the history of Thanksgiving, and ask a few questions about it.  (Like, how did it get moved from the last Thursday in November to the fourth?)  My wife generally lays out 3 corns on each plate before dessert to remind us of the thanksgiving for surviving the first winter at Plymouth.  We go around 3 times, each expressing something that we’re thankful for.  This time ranges from serious to light and back again.  And then we pray.  All of this is interspersed with lots of conversation (and eating) and likely some games for those who want to stay around into the evening.  (And, ok, maybe we do watch Mr. Bean’s Christmas special.) 

Al, Lig, CJ, any customs you guys would share?

Glory must begin in Grace

"Now heaven is begun here,
or else never begun.
Grace is therefore called heaven,
because heaven is begun here.
Glory must begin in grace."
Richard Sibbes, “The Power of Christ’s Resurrection” (Works V.199)

Haven't Had a Conversation with a Non-Christian Lately?

Al, in your next blog entry please list some of your human limitations! 

Our dear brother Al Mohler is at it again, only this time on the website of the Washington Post!  They have begun a new project (along with Newsweek magazine [owned by them]) in which they want to encourage public conversation about religion.  And they have asked Al to be one of their regular contributors.

If you go to http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/ you will find there Al’s blog entry on beginning a conversation with an admission of our faith in God’s truthful revelation of Himself.  And look at all the responses he’s getting!  Read them.  Scores of them.

If you haven’t had a conversation with a non-Christian lately, the various, largely hostile, responses to Al’s simple statements will remind you of the climate we are in.  I pray reading them will inflame our hearts with a desire for God to be vindicated, to be seen to be the gloriously good God that He is, and also with a desire for these readers to learn why they are alive–to know and love and obey our great God.

Keep it up, Al.  May God make us faithful with our non-Christian friends.  And may He bring them in, even as He has us.

Unbaptized Church Members?

Here are some more of my musings on this topic.  Perhaps they will be of use to you.  I give them to you in compact form.

IF you think the congregation IS the final judicatory
     AND you think that believer baptism is both certainly TRUE and CLEARLY IMPORTANT,

          then you will require belief in believers baptism for membership in the congregation. Weaken any one of those three ideas (congregationalism; certainty of truth of believers baptism; importance or significance of believers baptism) then it will cease to be regarded as an appropriate requirement for membership.

So, among those who could reject this as a requirement for membership would be those who are

*committed congregationalists and baptists, but who simply think the issue is not really very significant;

*committed congregationalists who agree that baptism is important, but are not quite certain of the rejection of infant baptism or the truth of believer baptism;

*committed baptists who understand the importance of baptism in the church, and yet don’t conclude that the authority in the church should necessarily rest with the congregation as a whole.
FURTHER QUESTIONS:

Will you discipline people for not coming to the Lord’s Table?

Will you discipline people for not being baptized?

Doesn’t a church have to define what is and is not coming to the table, and being baptized?

Preaching Christ In Miami

Pastor Rickey Armstrong (of Glendale Baptist Church, Miami) has assembled a great group of speakers for the Miami Pastor’s Conference this year.  I got in tonight, and found myself sitting behind Tom Ascol.  We were treated to great messages by Ken Jones and Thabiti Anyabwile.  More on that in a moment.  Tomorrow and Saturday (Lord willing) will be fellowship with more of the brothers here, and teaching by Sinclair Ferguson, Kevin Smith, Michael Leach, Anthony Carter, and, our host pastor, Rickey Armstrong.

Glendale Baptist Church is lovingly hosting this event, which began this evening with 2 excellent addresses.  Both Ken Jones & Thabiti Anyabwile spoke to us from Luke 24, Ken doing the more expositional treatment of parts of it, Thabiti giving us more a summary address.

Ken spoke on the Necessity of Christ-Centered Preaching.  He first explained how the disciples Jesus encountered on the Road to Emmaus couldn’t comprehend the nature and extent of Jesus’ prophetic office, the work of God in the death of Jesus, the necessity of suffering in accomplishing redemption and therefore were set up to miss the fact and significance of the Resurrection itself.  Jesus rebuked them for their foolishness, their slowness to believe, and their not seeing the correlation of Christ’s suffering and glory.  Five lessons for the other disciples from all of this:  1) they must understand that Jesus’ words and works were in conjunction with the Scriptures; 2) that they fulfilled the Scriptures; 3) that Scripture explained His suffering and ours; 4) Our preaching consists of presenting Christ in all of Scripture; 5) the promise and power of the Spirit is in conjunction with proclaiming Christ from all of Scripture.  Ken concluded by exhorting us that if we’re to have the right questions asked from our preaching (What must we do to be saved?) the right message has to be preached.

Thabiti spoke on "Preaching Christ from the Law."  He noted that this was a timely topic for all of us (addressing ways this is especially useful for African-American preachers, because of the way both Black Theology and word-faith stuff will use the Exodus/Deliverer imagery from the OT, but will do so only by bypassing Jesus.  And this, of course, is never right.  The main body of Thabiti’s address dealt with how we should preach Christ from the Law.  1)  Preach Christ in creation and re-creation.  Thabiti rehearsed some of God’s perfections, and then showed us how Christ was the fulfillment of all of this. 2) Preach Christ as the Second Adam who reverses the Fall.  3) Preach Christ as the righteous fulfillment of all the Law’s demands.  (Some good stuff here on the role of the Law!)  4) Preach Christ as the fulfillment of the Exodus narrative.  Jesus seems to re-enact and complete Israel’s calling.  5) Preach Christ as the embodiment of the Old Testament covenant.  All its sacrifices and priesthood pointed to Christ.  All the promises of the Law are fulfilled in Christ.

Both these talks were specifically applied to African-American and Evangelical churches.  They were received well.  And I’m looking forward to the fruit of these in the lives and ministries of those of us there who preach. 

May God continue to grow all the stewards of His Word in our understanding and faithfulness to His Word, and so bless His people and glorify Himself.

On Dividing Your Life and Doctrine

CJ, thank you for letting Justin Taylor and Tim Challies post your address from the T4G conference (and your chapter in the forthcoming book).  You can find it over at www.challies.com. 

This address is a wonderful reminder of the care we should give to our congregations and our own souls, and of the wonderful care that Christ will give to us.

Extinct Emotions

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Preaching through II Peter, seeing the warnings against immorality, and at the same time reading of current movies, I’m reminded that the immorality of Peter’s day is alive and well in our own time.  Our secular friends view our Christian morality as a losing proposition–we lose out on experience and pleasure, all for rigid, legalistic rule-keeping.

A couple of years ago, I read an interesting rebuttal against this idea.  Christianity wasn’t in view.  Rather, it was a less morally controlled present pitying a more morally controlled past.  And this is what one character in John Fowles’ novel The Magus says in response.  It’s worth considering.

“We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did.” (John Fowles, The Magus, p. 149).

A whole species of feeling lost:  the price of the loss of innocence.  That’s a lot more expensive than even the over-priced movie tickets of today.

Reformation Day 2006

With gratefulness to God we celebrate the 489th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his famous 95 Theses, calling for reformation in the church.  The young Augustinian monk put his life on the line and we now know that a great Reformation was begun — a reformation that would lead to a recovery of Gospel and truth.

We should remember that the Reformation was also, in one sense, a band of brothers — men brought into friendship and fellowship by a common commitment to Reformation truth — the Gospel of Christ.

Thus, they were Together for the Gospel – Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Sola Scriptura, Soli Deo Gloria.  May we follow in their faithful example.

It is indeed a day to celebrate and an anniversary to remember.  Happy Reformation Day 2006.

C.J. at Southern Seminary

C.J. came to Southern Seminary and Boyce College this week and took the campus by storm.  You can download or listen to his excellent messages here.  As always, C.J. brought his heart and passion to the proclamation of biblical truth.  I was so glad to introduce this dear friend to the Southern Seminary family.

Of course, the big question of the week was this — What will C.J. wear?  I did not worry about it, but my dear friend was concerned that he be a good guest.  Frankly, I thought I would have to sneak into a funeral in Maryland to see C.J. in a coat and tie.

Nope.  He appeared in Alumni Chapel in sartorial splendor.  Here is proof.  What a friend.  What a preacher. What a servant.  What else can I say?

Enjoy the messages.  I can assure you that we did.

I can only hope and pray that my students will come to know friends in ministry like I have come to know in Mark, Lig, and C.J.. 

Thanks C.J.!  And thanks to Bob Kauflin for leading us in God-centered worship through music during the week.  What a gift to have Bob and C.J. together.  There is something magnificant about the way Bob leads from the piano. 

Photo credits: Top photo, Andrew Rawls.  Bottom photo, John Gill.