Monthly Archives: October 2013

Age of Opportunity: Chapter 1

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you…
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
(Proverbs 2:1, 5-6)

by Josh Liu

Proverbs and other portions of Scripture are wrought with examples of godly parental instruction to children. Parents, fathers in particular, are seen as significant spiritual influences in the lives of their children (cf. Deuteronomy 6:20; Ephesians 6:4). The youth ministry, then, seeks to support and build up the ministries of the parents. To better equip ourselves in partnering with the parents in the discipleship of their children, the youth staffers are going through Paul David Tripp’s Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens for the 2013-2014 academic year. We hope to better understand Scriptural precepts, principles, and examples of godly parenting in order that we might more faithfully minister to the families in Lumos.

In the opening chapter, Tripp confronts a familiar tension within parents: teenage hormones. He challenges that instead of viewing teens as victims of hormones or that parenting teens is a season of survival, it ought to be considered a golden age of parenting. What he means is that prior to these teen years when the parents’ role was mainly authoritative, now, these are unprecedented opportunities to engage with their children like never before. The seemingly mundane or trivial trials of adolescence are the opportunities for parents to “jump into the battle and move toward [their] teenager. It is a time for engagement, interaction, discussion, and committed relationship. This is not a time to let a teenager hide his doubts, fears, and failures, but a time to pursue, love, encourage, teach, forgive, confess, and accept” (Tripp, p. 23). Children going through adolescence are experiencing many new things and are beginning to process those experiences differently from pre-pubescence. Don’t misunderstand–parents of young children ought to be engaging, instructing, discussing, etc. but many parents of teenagers often fall into authoritarian parenting that exasperates their children, or relinquish their call to disciple their children and become disconnected with their children. Adolescence is a great opportunity not to be missed by parents, or by the church.

age of opportunity

Adolescence is also a great opportunity in the progressive sanctification of parents. Tripp makes the insightful observation that these teen years expose the parents’ heart; they reveal the parents’ desires, wishes, fears, and so on. A teenager does not radically change parents in an instant; rather, they often expose what was already in the heart. Tripp notes that our culture tries to avert parents’ responsibility by saying, “we need to come up with positive strategies of survival that preserve the sanity of the parents and the stability of the marriage, and that keep the teenager out of as much self-inflicted danger as possible” (Tripp, p. 18). This sounds great, but it distracts from a core issue: the parents’ hearts. Tripp concludes that “when parents begin to recognize, own, confess, and turn from their own wrong heart attitudes…the result is a marked difference in their relationship to their teen and in the way they view the struggles of the teen years” (p. 18). Adolescence is a great opportunity for parents (and the church) to mature and love Christ more.

In reflecting on all this, I was reminded that adolescence is a great opportunity for the teenagers themselves. Yes, these are formative years that build up to a particular way of life, but more so, these are significant years to shine the light of the gospel to those around them. I often challenge junior high and high school students who profess to know Christ as their Lord and Savior that they have an incredible opportunity to witness to their friends and family now. They get to see their classmates each day, often for a number of years if they continue going to the same school. They get to show their peers how one who loves and submits to Christ lives his life, responds to trials and temptations, invests his time, depends on Scripture, pursues peace and reconciliation, and so on. Adolescence is a great opportunity to evangelize and make disciples of Christ.

The youth staff and I are continually thankful for the privilege of participating in this particular time of the youth’s and parents’ lives. Indeed, this is a great age of opportunity. Please, pray.

Weekly Links – Strange Fire Conference

“One other thing. Continuationists may believe that the Strange Fire guys are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But they should begin their response by acknowledging that in the contemporary charismatic world, there is an awful lot of bathwater, and — even on their accounting — not very much baby. This is something that needed to be done, and because there has not been (to my knowledge) a large continuationist conference rebuking the manifest excesses of the wahoo brethren, this conference was inevitable.” (Douglas Wilson, Excesses of the Wahoo Brethren)

by Stephen Rodgers

Since the Strange Fire conference was such a significant topic recently, I wanted to do a post collecting a number of resources and perspectives related to it. After trying to organize the material a few different ways (topically? chronologically?), I finally threw up my hands and decided to do a mix of both: some of this will be organized by source, and some by chronology.  So without further ado, here we go.

I also may add to this article as more resources become available, but I wanted to get this up since a number of folks at the church have asked about it.

Editor’s Note: This page has been updated numerous times since it’s original publication.  The most recent update was on 3/10/2015.

Introduction

Lyndon Unger wrote a series of posts that laid out the origins and issues relevant to the (then) upcoming Strange Fire Conference.  They’re still probably the most interesting and readable introduction to the subject.

Media

Primary sources are important. Before you spend too much time studying what other people thought about the messages, you should probably listen to the messages yourself. I’m also including Pastor Patrick’s reflections on the conference since this is the LBC Beacon after all.

GTY

Grace to You is the ministry of John MacArthur and Grace Community Church. These are the folks who who organized the conference in the first place.

Here are their articles recounting the specific days of the conference:

And here are several articles responding to particular issues after the conference:

The Cripplegate

The Cripplegate is a teamblog from a number of pastors and seminary students who either are directly associated with Grace Community Church and TMS, or used to be and have moved on to ministry in other areas.

Here are their articles summarizing the specific sessions of the conference:

And here are several articles responding to particular issues after the conference:

The Cripplegate is also re-posting the Butler / Unger review of Authentic Fire (original links below in the “Reviews, Responses, and Books” section):

Pyromaniacs

Pyromaniacs was originally the blog of Phil Johnson (a speaker at the conference and the Director of GTY). He retired a while back, but Dan Phillips and Frank Turk have been keeping the doors open in his absence.

Since the conference, Dan Phillips has been doing a series of articles (and a sermon or two) recounting his thoughts on the conference:

Tim Challies

Tim Challies runs one of the more prominent sites in terms of conservative Christian blogs. He also has a reputation for being a fairly level-headed guy. He watched the conference on livestream and blogged his thoughts on the sessions:

Reviews, Responses, and Books

There have been a couple of books published in response to both the Strange Fire conference and the Strange Fire book. This section collects responses and evaluations of those books.

The first book to respond was Frank Viola’s Pouring Holy Water on Strange Fire. Lyndon Unger reviewed it (unfavorably, to put it mildly), and eventually an updated and corrected version was released.

The second book to respond was Michael Brown’s Authentic Fire. Lyndon Unger and Fred Butler teamed up to do a response to that book. As I write this, that review is still in progress. Since they cross-post a lot, I’m going to list the relevant links according to the corresponding chapters in the book.

Lyndon Unger (again)

Since this all began, Mr. Unger has written enough that I really can’t fit him into the “misc” section anymore.

Post-Event Roundup / Miscellaneous Articles

Here’s a collection of articles from various folk who I consider interesting and/or noteworthy.

Editor’s Note: Craig S. Keener is a noteworthy charismatic scholar.  I don’t mind including his review here for the sake of completeness, but the website that is hosting it (pneumareview.com) seems to be splitting the review across a riduculously-large number of pages, most likely in an effort to exploit pageviews. Shame on them. Just be aware.

The Driscoll Incident

So one odd thing happened at the conference: Mark Driscoll showed up on the last day and made an impromptu and unscheduled appearance. Here are a few articles related to that event (including his own explanation of what happened).

Editor’s Note: this is included for the sake of completeness; if you somehow are under the impression that this is central to the content of the conference itself, then please stop…do not pass GO…do not collect $200. Remember Tim Challies? He wrote a book a few years ago that might help you with your much more immediate problem.

For Further Study

If there’s sufficient interest, it might be worthwhile to build a full-blown hub post on charasmaticism in general and the sign gifts in particular.  In the meantime, here are a few resources you can avail yourself to:

In That Hour Jesus Rejoiced In Spirit

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

From Luke 10:21

The Saviour was ‘a man of sorrows,’ but every thoughtful mind has discovered the fact that down deep in His innermost soul He carried an inexhaustible treasury of refined and heavenly joy. Of all the human race, there was never a man who had a deeper, purer, or more abiding peace than our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘He was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.’ His vast benevolence must, from the very nature of things, have afforded Him the deepest possible delight, for benevolence is joy. There were a few remarkable seasons when this joy manifested itself. ‘At that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.’ Christ had His songs, though it was night with Him; though His face was marred, and His countenance had lost the lustre of earthly happiness, yet sometimes it was lit up with a matchless splendour of unparalleled satisfaction, as He thought upon the recompense of the reward, and in the midst of the congregation sang His praise unto God.

In this, the Lord Jesus is a blessed picture of His church on earth. At this hour the church expects to walk in sympathy with her Lord along a thorny road; through much tribulation she is forcing her way to the crown. To bear the cross is her office, and to be scorned and counted an alien by her mother’s children is her lot; and yet the church has a deep well of joy, of which none can drink but her own children. There are stores of wine, and oil, and corn, hidden in the midst of our Jerusalem, upon which the saints of God are evermore sustained and nurtured; and sometimes, as in our Saviour’s case, we have our seasons of intense delight, for ‘There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God.’ Exiles though we be, we rejoice in our King; yea, in Him we exceedingly rejoice, while in His name we set up our banners.

3.24p

Weekly Links (10/25/2013)

The cross which is the object of faith, is also, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the cause of it. Sit down and watch the dying Saviour till faith springs up spontaneously in your heart. There is no place like Calvary for creating confidence. The air of that sacred hill brings health to trembling faith. (Charles Spurgeon)

by Richard Shin

Is it really nearing the end of October? Goodness gracious. Don’t be too sad; we have articles for you!

  • Kevin DeYoung has a short series on how to be better Bereans (Acts 17:11). You can find them in three parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
  • Jesse Johnson compiled 1-2 sentence summaries of each session, the Challies summaries, and the Cripplegate manuscripts. On that note, the Grace to You staff shares some closing thoughts on the conference here.
  • Al Mohler recently addressed the faculty at Brigham Young University, the hub of Mormon intellectualism, on the state of religious freedom in America. You can find the transcript here.
  • Have you wondered why faith is not considered a “work”? Matthew Barrett from the Gospel Coalition answers this question in the most recent edition of “You Asked”.
  • Jonathan Holmes from the Biblical Counseling Coalition shares a word on doubt and answers the question on whether it is fatal or futile. He shares some insight from the Epistle of Jude that helps us understand how to deal with doubt.
  • The Wall Street Journal did a profile piece on Russell Moore. And you can find his response to the article here.
  • The Gospel Project blog has a new series on the God-centered worldview. It’s still only a couple posts in, but you can find the entire series here.
  • And last but not least, Thabiti Anyabwile has a knack for writing in a way that provokes the reader to reflect deeply. He does it again after watching Ja Rule’s interview (yes, the rapper). You can find the interview and his post here.

Coram Deo

Nursery Update

by Sandra Kim

The Nursery Ministry has always been such a blessing in my life in so many ways. Many years back, when we were cramped in a 10 x 10 room with 1 bin of toys and about 4 children, I relished in spending time with the youngest children of our church. It was fun to get to know them and their families as we supported one another to help the kids practice sharing, singing, and praying together.

As our children multiplied (Praise God!) our rooms moved, and buildings moved altogether, our focus on the children were the same. I took a break from serving in Nursery while my daughter Samantha had her turn to sing, read and play with her beloved Nursery teachers. Now that she has moved up to Sparklers, I get to come back to my smock and sing praise songs on the yellow rug.

Through all these transitions, God has reminded me of the importance in loving Him and loving his people. There are times when my arms were sore the whole day after serving in Nursery or I felt pressure to memorize “Rock of Ages” because one of the children only wanted to sing that song as he envisioned himself as Mr. Eugene Park and we had to sing along as he strummed the air popper toy as his air guitar, or take trips to the bathroom every 15 minutes to practice potty training with the kids. God can use all moments to remind us that we can worship Him as long as our hearts are focused on God. I have learned so much through my interactions with the babies, children and parents of our church. It is a joy each Sunday I get to serve, teach and minister alongside so many ladies. I learned and practiced how to change diapers and hold babies in Nursery and now I get to share my experience with the younger ladies in our ministry. I hope and pray that you too find a ministry you can share in the joy of serving and sharing in each other’s lives.

Signs of Spiritual Maturity #14: Gracious No Matter What

by Elder Peter Lim

One of the most obvious signs of a maturing Christian is graciousness. At the root is the word “grace” which refers to the giving of something that is not necessarily deserved. In our context we are talking about someone who returns kindness when it may be justifiable to retaliate for an unkind deed. All Christians will show grace at least from time to time because we mimic the character of God and it’s at the core of how He treats us, by giving us the gift of forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ even though we don’t deserve it. A maturing Christian is consistently characterized by graciousness and shows a pattern of it despite varying degrees of difficult circumstances encountered over time. So what are some of these difficult circumstances? Examples will help.

Gracious in Conflict Situations

Let’s face it. Living in peace with other people, even Christians, is not always easy. Although there are basic processes of peacemaking in the Bible and discussed in many books, the actual making of peace is often complicated by personal pain and perceived wrongs. The key to resolving difficult circumstances is clarity in understanding the issues at hand. But achieving clarity requires many meetings and discussions to clearly understand each party’s perceptions and misperceptions. This is usually a lengthy and time-consuming process and requires a willingness of all parties involved to see it through and see peace as a worthwhile goal. This also means that there will be many opportunities to escalate the situation instead of defusing it. The difference between escalating and defusing is grace. Until the ownership of responsibility is sorted out, each party will feel like it’s the other party’s fault. Therefore an extra measure of grace is necessary to show the other kindness, which you believe the other party doesn’t deserve. The greatest killer of grace is an unwillingness to discuss the issue because then there is no possible way to reach clarity. Someone who uses the excuse that it’s too painful to discuss is obviously not a mature believer. It’s almost like saying that the pain that he’s going through is greater than the pain and humility that Jesus endured in being born as a man and being crucified on the cross.

Gracious Leaders

Being gracious is especially important for leaders. One big way to sow seeds of division within the church is to complain to your spouse and/or other people about dumb decisions that the other leaders make. There is a right way and a wrong way to discuss serious issues that are facing the leaders of the church. Again, grace is the difference.

The gracious way:

  • Consider whether it’s even a good idea to share a particular issue with a spouse since it may cast a fellow leader in a negative light
  • Consider whether it’s an issue of biblical conviction or personal preference
  • Consider whether it’s more of an area of expertise of a fellow leader than oneself
  • Ask your spouse to help you understand the alternatives and consider which biblical principles might apply

The ungracious way:

  • Use your spouse to vent your frustrations
  • Casting a negative light on other leaders, belittling their abilities and decision making

There are no excuses why a leader would be ungracious to a fellow leader. The lack of grace is an obvious disqualification from leadership and evidence of a lack of understanding of one’s own standing before God.

Gracious to other Christians

Sometimes well-meaning Christians make (or support) statements such as, “Christians are hypocrites” or “Christians are so judgmental” trying to identify with those who criticize Christians so that they can see that we acknowledge our faults too. After all, there is truth in those statements. However, these statements are sometimes misunderstood as if it’s better not to be a Christian than to be one. It can also communicate a lack of graciousness toward other believers, and the unbeliever is left thinking that this person just threw his fellow believers under the bus. Instead, we should acknowledge our faults but also share how Christ has changed us to be more gracious and less hypocritical and judgmental. I’ve known a lot of genuine Christians and the more mature Christians are the most unjudgmental and unhypocritical people I know. They aren’t perfect people (no one is!) but the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives is obvious. I strive to be like them.

Summary

No Christian has an excuse not to show grace. God’s grace can raise the deadest sinner from the dead. This includes you, me, Hitler, and [insert here the most-deserving-of-death person you can think of]. Is there anyone that you can think of that you haven’t been showing grace to? Consider this your opportunity to have a “growth moment” and show grace to them even if they don’t deserve it… especially if they don’t deserve it. Be gracious no matter what.

He Was Heard In That He Feared

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

From Hebrews 5:7

Did this fear arise from the infernal suggestion that He was utterly forsaken. There may be sterner trials than this, but surely it is one of the worst to be utterly forsaken? ‘See,’ said Satan, ‘thou hast a friend nowhere! Thy Father hath shut up the bowels of His compassion against thee. Not an angel in His courts will stretch out his hand to help thee. All heaven is alienated from Thee; Thou art left alone. See the companions with whom Thou hast taken sweet counsel, what are they worth? Son of Mary, see there Thy brother James, see there Thy loved disciple John, and Thy bold apostle Peter, how the cowards sleep when Thou art in Thy sufferings! Lo! Thou hast no friend left in heaven or earth. All hell is against Thee. I have stirred up mine infernal den. I have sent my missives throughout all regions summoning every prince of darkness to set upon Thee this night, and we will spare no arrows, we will use all our infernal might to overwhelm Thee: and what wilt Thou do, Thou solitary one?’ It may be, this was the temptation; we think it was, because the appearance of an angel unto Him strengthening Him removed that fear. He was heard in that He feared; He was no more alone, but heaven was with Him. It may be that this is the reason of His coming three times to His disciples-as Hart puts it-

‘Backwards and forwards thrice He ran,
As if He sought some help from man.’

He would see for Himself whether it were really true that all men had forsaken Him; He found them all asleep; but perhaps He gained some faint comfort from the thought that they were sleeping, not from treachery, but from sorrow, the spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh was weak. At any rate, He was heard in that He feared. Jesus was heard in His deepest woe; my soul, thou shalt be heard also.

3.24a

Weekly Links (10/18/2013)

Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment.  (A. W. Tozer)

by Richard Shin

  • First off, we want to make you aware of the free book the Logos is offering: Brothers, We Are Not Professionals by John Piper. There are also some other discounts on the page of which you can take advantage if that’s your cup of tea.
  • The Strange Fire conference is currently being held at Grace Community Church, hosted by Grace to You. You can still follow the last day via live stream here. Or if you prefer, you can follow Tim Challies’ conference notes here. Mike Riccardi from the Cripplegate blog is also writing summaries here.
  • Do you desire to become a missionary overseas? If so, perhaps you should check your reasons. Laura Parker shares ten reasons you shouldn’t become a missionary.
  • Last week, I linked you to an article by Al Mohler on how pornography affects the brain. In the same week, John Piper wrote a similar article on the addictiveness to pornography. And he followed up this week with four observations that give people hope for renewal.
  • Jeremy Walker is doing a series on effective personal evangelism. He gives the introduction here. The first requirement of an effective evangelist here. And the second here.
  • And not for naught, Southern Seminary released a documentary on Al Mohler here. If you don’t know the history behind the Southern Baptist Convention, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and their rampant liberalism of the past, you would do good to watch this video.

Coram Deo

God Is Awesome

by Pastor Patrick Cho

The word “awesome” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “causing feelings of fear and wonder.” This is undoubtedly a fitting adjective to describe our God. To borrow from the old worship refrain, our God is an awesome God. What is desperately needed in the church today is a greater sense of God’s greatness and majesty. In order to preserve the idea that Jesus is our friend, we have adopted perhaps too casual of an attitude towards God. We treat Him like He is our buddy. This casual attitude is sometimes reflected in our prayers. We talk to God like He is anyone else. Of course, we can come to the Lord honestly and pray to Him candidly, but we would do well to remember that we are speaking with the God of the universe and of our lives.

This casual attitude also manifests itself in our casual approach to Sundays. Our worship services have adopted this casualness. People waltz into church consistently late. Even the way we dress is oftentimes embarrassingly casual. This isn’t to say that church should be stuffy or follow some rigid liturgy. But when someone walks into church on Sunday morning, there should be a sense of passing through a threshold into the presence of God.

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Exodus 33:18-23 and 34:4-8. This is the account where Moses asks the Lord to show him His glory. God quickly reminded Moses that no one could see His face and live, but He accommodated His servant by promising to walk by and reveal His back. The next day, when Moses ascended Sinai, the Lord hid him in the cleft of a rock and passed by. As He passed by He proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”

If Christians today could experience the brief encounter Moses had with the Lord on Sinai, perhaps they would be quick to respond the way Moses did immediately after his meeting. The text says, “And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped” (Exod. 34:8). Moses worshiped because this experience all the more helped him to understand what an awesome God he served. He knew it from what he was able to see, but perhaps he knew it more from what he was able to hear. God’s own words revealed to Moses who he was and what He was like.

Considering this, perhaps we have something much closer to Moses than we might have originally suspected. I would argue that we have something even greater in the Bible we possess. We enjoy the incalculable privilege of holding the completed revelation of God’s Word. Everything God has desired to communicate to us is perspicuously written in the Bible. Moses received a couple sentences, but we have received sixty-six books! Moses looked forward to the fulfillment of God’s promises. We get to live on this side of the cross and look back on much of what God fulfilled in Christ.

Living in such privileged position with our access to the God of the Scriptures, we would be remiss to ignore the incredible benefit afforded us. Shouldn’t we be doing all we can to gain more of Him, to know Him more and be more intimately acquainted with God our Savior? This year, our Grace Life family ministry will be walking through a study of God. Our hope is that through this time together we will develop a greater appreciation and deeper worship, that the thought of God would evoke in us feelings of fear and wonder!