I’m back

I just got back from 5 days of camping and preaching/teaching for Faith Bible Church, San Francisco (and their sister churches).  Their students were a blast!

I got the most comments I think I ever got this past week.  I responded to some:

What’s new:

1. I responded to an interesting commenter who supports Tony Jones.  This may be an interesting and edifying discussion.
2. D. A. Carson has new audio I added to my Carson audio post thanks to Ray.

My Question to Tony Jones from his conversation on the Al Mohler show.

(To listen to the conversation, click here.)

Tony,

I’m sorry to comment on this post, but I didn’t see opportunity on the latest post. Please accept my apology. Thanks for your appearance on the Al Mohler show. I was really blessed by your humble and conversational demeanor.

I had two questions from the conversation that I wanted to ask you.

1) If Scripture transcends historical and scientific tests, can Scripture be inconsistent with history? I’m sorry if my question is too modernistic, but this is where my mind goes at this point.

2) Is saying truth is local another way of putting an adjective on the word truth, just like saying truth is universal or truth is absolute?

In Christ who is the truth,
PJ Tibayan

I want Christ, not simply knowledge about him…

     “Things that are intended to be the means of this pursuit instead becomes the ends. For example, the goal of understanding the truths of the gospel is to have a deeper relationship with Christ. But when theological knowledge becomes the goal, Christ is displaced.”

 

-       Paul Tripp, How People Change, p. 13

 

What is the Gospel? D. A. Carson declares the Apostle Paul’s Answer

You can watch or listen to the message. Right click to download. Also see what’s at The Gospel Coalition Website.

For some Christians:

• The gospel tips people into the kingdom then you move on. We believe the gospel is more comprehensive even for discipleship and consummation.
• Others identify the gospel as the two great commandments.
• The ethical teaching of Jesus found in the canonical gospels. It is often his teaching divorced from his passion and resurrection. But there was no gospel of Matthew. It was the gospel according to Matthew. Accounts of Jesus’ teaching cannot be understood without reflecting on the death and resurrection – reduces Christianity to mere duty.
• The tendency to assume the gospel while devoting more time to evangelism, marriage, the poor, politics, or many other things. People remember what we’re passionate about.

1 Cor. 15:1-19.

Outline: (1) 8 summarizing words, (2) 5 clarifying sentences, and (3) 1 evocative summary.

8 summarizing words

1. The gospel is Christological. It is Christ-centered. It is in every New Testament book and corpus. The gospel is not preached if Christ is not preached. Not just Christ’s person, but it must include his death and resurrection. Jesus is the promised Messiah who died and rose again.
2. The gospel is theological. God sent his Son. It was the Father’s will. It is no more Christological than theological. Furthermore, Christ did not just die, he died for our sins. Sin is an offense against God. God punishes sin. What makes sin so bad is its idolatry and the de-godding of God. God, sin, wrath, death, judgment make 15:3 theological and of first importance.
3. The gospel is biblical. He died for our sins and was raised according to the Scriptures. Whether he was thinking of the OT or NT, the biblical
4. The gospel is apostolic. Paul draws attention to the apostles. Look at the sequence of pronouns in v. 12.
5. The gospel is historical. First, 1 cor. 15 refers to burial and resurrection. The body was the same that died and rose. It was 3 days later. It was dateable. Second, the manner in which we have access to the death and burial and resurrection is the same access we have to any historical event. Through the witness and remains of those who were there by means of the records they left behind. That’s why Paul enumerates the witnesses. The Bible is the writing down of these first witnesses. Third, we must see that unlike other religions, the central Christian claims are irreducibly historical. Part of the validation of faith, is the truthfulness of faith’s object. The bible never tells us to believe something that is not true. At the end of the day it is not faith about Jesus that saves, it’s Jesus who saves. Fourth, historical is a slippery word. If historical excludes supernatural means then it is not historical. But if we say it takes place in a space-time continuum, then it is historical and it is in this sense we say the gospel even is historical.
6. The gospel is personal. It sets out personal individual salvation. If it is not personal and powerful, then it is either abstract or antiquarian. (Where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved).
7. The gospel is universal. It reaches every people group. It doesn’t save everyone without exception. Those exclusively connected to the first Adam will not be saved. There is no racism here.
8. The gospel is eschatological. They are blessings from the last day brought in today. The final declarative judgment is applied to us today. But also in another sense, the final transformation, the fruit in the consummation is also part of the gospel.

5 clarifying sentences

1. This gospel is normally disseminated in proclamation (15:1). (The method is preaching). The good news must be announced, heralded, and explained. It is re-revelation from God.
2. This gospel is fruitfully received in authentic, persevering faith (15:2).
3. This gospel is properly disclosed in personal self-humiliation (15:8-10). When the gospel does its work, proud Christian is an oxymoron.
4. This gospel is rightly asserted to be the central confession of the whole church (15:11, 32). One must test the churches by the Scriptures. Always be suspicious of churches that proudly flaunt how different they are from what has gone before.
5. This gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the King. All of God’s reign at this point is mediated through Jesus. There are still enemies out there. One day, the final enemy, death itself will die. Jesus mediatorial kingship will end and God will be all in all.

1 evocative summary

The gospel is quite cognitive. Here is what to be explained and believed. Yet something else must also be said. The gospel must transform attitudes, affections, and not just cognition. Where the gospel does its work, it transforms. The gospel transforms everyone’s lives in all places and stages and situations. This must be done not by abstracting social principles from the gospel, not by imposing on rules, not by focus on the periphery in the vain effort to sound prophetic, but by preaching, teaching, and living out the glorious gospel of our blessed redeemer.

^ESV 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

 

 

Statement from the Gospel Coalition statement:

(6) The Gospel

We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ–God’s very wisdom. Utter folly to the world, even though it is the power of God to those who are being saved, this good news is christological, centering on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is “Christ died for our sins… [and] was raised”). This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are according to the Scriptures), theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God), historical (if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others), apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events), and intensely personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved).

Book sale on marriage and family resources

There is a great sale on marriage and family books until July 10.

Here are some that I recommend:

On marriage:

1. Each for the Other by Bryan Chapell
2. Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God by CJ Mahaney
3.  When Sinners Say I Do: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage by Dave Harvey

On parenting:

1. Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp
2. Growing Up Christian
3. Everyday Talk
4. How our Children Come to Faith 

Stand in the Presence of God’s Holiness Regularly

D. A. Carson describes the experience of Joshua and Moses of standing in the presence of God and being commanded to take their sandals off because the ground they are standing on is holy. Then D. A. Carson makes this important statement for Christian leaders:

However unique these circumstances, we too must have leaders accustomed to standing in the presence of holiness (For the Love of God, Vol. 1, July 3).

How true and how convicting! I can remember days gone by where this was more true in my life. I want to stand in awe of God and his holiness to the point of hating sin and unrighteousness in my life more than self-righteously separating myself from others as if I have more in common with God than I do with them. That is what the Lord convicted me of yesterday from Carson’s words:

Not only does Isaiah understand that sin separates us from God, he also identifies himself completely with his sinful people: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (64:6). The greatest intercessors have always recognized that far more connects them with the common lot of sinners than what distinguishes them — and in any case they do not hesitate to plead with God on behalf of those who will not plead for themselves (For the Love of God, Vol. 2, July 2).

How do I get accustomed to standing in the presence of holiness with awe and submission and fear and trust in God? Here are the ideas that come to my mind:

1. Meditate on the character and uniqueness of God.
2. Memorize verses on God’s holiness or greatness.
3. Think about the cross and Christ propitiatory work.
4. Repent from sin and fight it by the Spirit’s power and the gospel with all my might.
5. Read John Owen on sin.
6. Ask God to give me a sense of living before his holy presence while I type these words and while I and other read them.
7. Bow before God in worship and total submission like Joshua did, and take off my shoes or anything else that may make me dirty or inappropriately casual before God Almighty who is infinitely holy.

(ESV) Joshua 5:13-15 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.