BLT

Tim Keller back in the day

I’ve just recently read Tim Keller’s book The Meaning of Marriage.

 I recommend it to you – it is very challenging. 

 It is challenging I think because it is refreshingly articulate in it’s communication of the gospel message which is at the heart of Christian marriage and family.  Consequently it does not end up being so moralistic like the majority of well meaning but naïve Christian literature on marriage over the last twenty or so years. 

Too many current day Christian writers see the Gospel as being the ABC to church and the rest of the alphabet being compliance stuff.  Keller is so challenging because the gospel is not just the ABC to him it is the A to Z of the church.  I am convinced this is a more faithful interpretation of the Gospel.

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Written in tandem by an experienced preacher and a relatively inexperienced preacher this book is a down to earth practical book on how one goes about preaching.

The experienced preacher is Mark Dever, the Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC, the relatively inexperienced preacher (by his own admission) is Greg Gilbert who is the Senior Pastor of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville Kentucky.

Both are fairly well known around the world – probably Dever is more so for his work in the IX Marks ministry – Gilbert because he’s been involved in co-authoring a couple of books now.

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Can I have an Amen?

If John Owen were around today I reckon he’d have some great advice for what we loosely call the charismatic movement.

In fact to be honest if John Owen were around today – I’m sure he’d have advice for lots of people – but right now I just want to prioritise the Charismatic, Pentecostals, Four Square types – what ever you want to call them.

Some would argue that apart from perhaps Pelagius (354-c420), John Owen (1616-83) is Britain’s most famous theologian.

For those of you who don’t know the monk Pelagius had a fairly long running quarrel with the pin up boy of most traditions – Augustine of Hippo in the fourth century.  Amongst other things Pelagius claimed it was possible to live a sinless life without Christ – the ability to choose to do this (referred to as “free will”) was at the heart of his argument. 

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Here’s a great article on why the Christianity Explored course is so good.

Check it out;

check the article out here

Let the bird fly!

With a name like Gerhard Forde you may have a hunch that he may be a Lutheran.

And you’d be right.

Forde was the professor emeritus of systematic theology at Luther Seminary in Minnesota, in the States before he passed on in 2005.

I first came across some of his writing when I had a bit of a spat on all things Luther.

Forde wrote a meaty but good little discourse on Luther’s 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, which arguably was just as influential as the 95 thesis which he nailed to the Wittenberg church door in 1517.

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Tell it to me straight Betty!

Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, published after his death in 1963, is a collection of hypothetical letters C S Lewis wrote to a fictional character called Malcolm (with a wife called Betty and a Son called George).

Apparently Lewis tried to write a book on prayer in 1952 but got stuck and put it aside.  A decade later he had the idea of structuring the book as a series of letters.  That said the book is not totally concentric on prayers and tends to wander off a bit….but it’s still good.

Here are a couple of Q and A’s I gleaned from it (some paraphrased) that I thought I’d share with you.

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Kill, maim and slaughter!

Alot of people are quite shocked when they first read through the book of Joshua – this great account of the people of God as they take the promised land.

What takes them by surprise is that although the land is promised to them by God this doesn’t negate the fact that there are already people in the land - and those people are subjected to a huge amount of bloodshed at the hands of the people of God under the command of God as they conquer the land.

Invariably the question people ask is “doesn’t all this run contrary to the nature of a loving God?” – “How can a loving God command his people to butcher anyone?”

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The evangelical tent is a big one.

James Hunter who wrote a popular critique of evangelical culture a few years back outlined three paradigms that Christians use to culturally engage the world.  These were as follows;

1)Defensive against; we think we can change culture through politics or through getting control of elite institutions and wielding their power. 

2)Relevance to; we think they can change culture by becoming more compassionate, less combative and more contextual thereby winning enough individuals back into the church to make a difference in the culture.

3)Purity from; we think we can have no real impact on culture – invariably any such attempt to do so will end up compromising us so don’t even bother trying.

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One book I reckon all Christian’s should have on their shelves at home is “Knowing God” by Jim Packer.

It really is a classic, and although it may not be an end to end read for the average Christian reader, it certainly is a great reference book to have to dip into here and there.

I have a couple of ratty old copies lying round the house – over the years I’ve found them a great help.

It had a great chapter entitled “God’s wisdom and ours” which I was quite struck with on a recent revisit.

I thought I’d share the particular bits which impacted me.

Packer explains that broadly speaking the qualities of God are divided into two buckets, communicable and incommunicable.  The communicable ones are those which are passed onto us as image bearers of God, the incommunicable ones (obviously) are not.

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I haven’t read this book yet.  But based on this interview here I reckon this is a book alot of kiwi church leaders (and me) ought to read. 

Particularly if they consider themselves to be “missional”.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/book-reviews/interview/the_explicit_gospel

It talks of the tension between the individual salvation perspective and meta narrative perspectives of the gospel.  Too often says Chandler churches will pick one perspective and vilify the other (I reckon we’re doing that big time). 

Chandler endeavours to flesh out these tensions and pull us to a more robust and less reductionist view of the gospel.

When a fellow believer is going through a tough time it is tempting to offer some sort of reassurance:

All too often that comes out something like; “I’m sure you’ll be fine” or “I’m sure the doctor’s got it wrong” or “she’ll be right”.

And to be honest I think most recipients of such “reassurance” have a strong feeling that what’s on offer here is really a platitude.  That although the giver may have good intentions, he or she simply isn’t qualified to guarantee such a claim.

And although in many circumstances this willful misrepresentation causes no damage and slides off the external veneer of the recipient – it can cause a lot of damage.

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These may not be everyones cup of tea but here are what I reckon are a couple of books worth having on the shelf for reference sake.

First here is the first commentary from a new series entitled the “Reformation Commentary on Scripture”.  This one is in Galatians and Ephesians and is edited by Gerald Bray.  I spent a fair chunk of my spare reading time last year on Reformation history and was convinced that todays protestant church has managed to cover up much of what was uncovered during the Reformation.  The zeal has corroded and the great truths that stand behind the phrase “Justification by Faith” have been muddied down the years.

Here is a helpful smelling salt.

It is appropriate that the first book of this commentary series is on Galatians which was pivotal in addressing this false gospel that had crept in.  I understand Galatians was one of the fews commentaries Martin Luther remainded proud of to the end of his days (from memory is was that and the “Bondage of the Will”).

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If there is one thing I see as being the key to the true success of churches.

It is a church that functionally believes that the Bible actually is the word of God.

That is to say that in their heart of hearts they actually believed that the scriptures are breathed out by God and useful for correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness so His people can be fully equipped for good works.

Of course pretty much every church you go to will say that they believe the Bible is the word of God.

But I think there is a difference between saying it and functionally acting as if you believe it.

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Nobel Prize winner psychologist Daniel Kahneman was recently featured in the Listener exploring the approaches we take to making decisions.

As is often the case this coincides with Kahneman releasing his first solo book entitled “Thinking Fast and Slow.”  (Okay so I suspect the article is in truth half feature, half money hungry advertising.  Though that said apparently the Economist gave it a pretty good review…which in my view is a pretty powerful endorsement.)

 In it Kahneman argues that most judgments are products of mental rules of thumb that provide us with rough and ready answers to problems.

 As you can probably guess – going down this path has caused us some problems.

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Okay so I’ve heard it a few times during recent weeks but I reckon we’ve got a pretty awesome national anthem.

Though after a bit of digging I was quite surprised as I came to the conclusion that its lineage is not quite as clear cut as most people think.

God defend New Zealand was written as a Poem by Irish born Thomas Bracken in 1870.

After a range of jobs around the new “colonies” during the gold rush days (an experience which reflected richly on his writing) Bracken ended up in Dunedin and after some of his poems gained some recognition he began working in 1875 for the “Saturday Advertiser” which had as one of its primary aims “to foster a national spirit in New Zealand and encourage colonial literature.”  He ended up as editor.

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Sorry but it just has to be said - my firm hope is that Israel will make it to the Promised Land this Sunday.

(Go the good guys!)

Oh and glad we don’t have a Moses in the team – (assuming a red card would be in the offing if we did.)

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

You might find this a bit rich coming from the likes of me but I would say that any book by Don Carson can be trusted to be theologically sound.

Don’t be put off by the fact he’s an academic – he may have been ensconced in academia for quite some time but of late I’ve found “the Don” to have really got into the groove when it comes to writing his books for a wider audience than academic boffins.

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Whatever you do please don’t go and tell what I am going to say to the kids.

Now most people know that Santa Claus is basically a fancy name for Saint Nicholas.

You know – the fat guy in a red suit who jumps down our chimneys to give us all presents.

He’s actually a saint – forget about the Roman Catholic version of saints – that’s a croc – a saint according to the Bible is a person who is counted as one of the faithful in Christ Jesus (refer to the start of Ephesians if you want to check me out on that one)….he’s a Christian…

The red suit think apparently comes via Coca Cola – but I’m not going to chew the fat on that one now.

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I’ve just finished the New York Times best seller by A.J. Jacobs – The Year of Living Biblically – One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible.

It is a light hearted book by a non believing New Yorker of Jewish heritage to follow the Bible down to the nitty gritty.

And although not exhaustive – it was pretty interesting – and very funny at times.

At the outset Jacobs acknowledges he is not a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;

I was agnostic before I even knew what the word meant.  Partly it was the problem of the existence of evil.  If there is a God, why would He allow war, disease, and my fourth-grade teacher Ms. Barker, who forced us to have a sugar free bake sale?  But mostly, the idea of God seemed superfluous.  Why do we need an invisible, inaudible deity?  Maybe He exists, but we’ll never know in this life.P4

I’ve rarely said the word Lord, unless it’s followed by of the Rings.  I don’t often say God without preceding it with Oh My.P21

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