God’s Gifts for Our Vocation

Doug Wilson, in the Desiring God interview he did with Pastor John Piper (during the 2009 National Conference on Calvin) about his recent movie, Collision, and how God gifted him for it:

. . . Other people should be cultivating other gifts. When you discover what it is that God has called you to, you should throw yourself into that, and ask God to use it at some point in His good time. So if it’s giftedness with government, or with service, or with administration, or with helps, or with words, cultivate that for the glory of God.

Wise counsel.

Keller on Gospel Self-Honesty

Tim Keller, via Church Matters:

The gospel gives you psychological freedom to handle the wrong things that you will do. You won’t have to deny, spin, or repress the truth about yourself. These things don’t make it impossible to know who you are. Only with the support of hearing Jesus say, “You are capable of terrible things, but I am absolutely, unconditionally committed to you,” will you be able to be honest with yourself.

OT Narrative Notes

Some helpful notes here from the Unashamed Workman.

Agreement With or Without the Gospel?

SEBTS president Danny Akin and SECWF dean Bruce Ashford make a clear, concise, heartfelt argument over at Between the Times for Baptists to stop fighting over, in the words of Akin and Ashford, Calvinism and Arminianism. Their argument can be summed up with the excellent closing line:

For the sake of the billions who have never heard the gospel, we must rid ourselves of fundamentalist infighting that distracts from, and contradicts, the proclamation of the gospel.

To that end, I most heartily agree.

At the same time, few in the SBS seem to want to say what exactly it means to preach the gospel in a biblical way. Southern Baptists just want to assume that, if a church and its pastor(s) sign The Baptist Faith and Message, they must necessarily understand and preach a faithful gospel.

Sadly, this is not the case.  Another post could be added to expand this point, but preaching any kind of man-centered gospel, ones which put the emphasis on the commands of God and our duty to obey them as greater than the mercy of God in the cross of Christ, is not gospel preaching.  It doesn’t present the good news in an identifiably biblical way. 

So, I would ask my dear professors and teachers Drs. Akin and Ashford, if a Southern Baptist were to preach a gospel of works, what would that look like? Would the rest of the convention agree to work with this person or church? Would we try to shelter them under the name of “unity” and “liberty of conscience,” or would we call out their false teaching for what it is?

The talk of unity for the sake of the nations is all well and good, but it would be ignorant and misleading to say that the gospel is well understood among Southern Baptists. Clarifications, Doctors, are needed more than occasionally, as you imply. They are needed all the time. We don’t want agreement without the gospel – only with it.

The Point of Scripture

Martin Luther:

Therefore, he who would correctly and profitably reads Scripture should see to it that he finds Christ in it; then he finds life eternal without fail. On the other hand, if I do not so study and understand Moses and the prophets as to find that Christ came from heaven for the sake of my salvation, became man, suffered, died, was buried, rose, and ascended into heaven so that through him I enjoy reconciliation with God, forgiveness of all my sins, grace, righteousness, and life eternal, then my reading in Scripture is of no help whatsoever to my salvation.

Via: The Resurgence

Mohler on Male Maturity

SBTS President Al Mohler writes on Boundless.org about several marks of male maturity.  This is deep, interesting, heart-probing, challenging stuff.

(HT: Thabiti)

Reformation Day Self-Examination

Courtesy of Pastor Chris Castaldo, using the Reformation’s key doctrines as starting points.

(HT: Kevin DeYoung via Thabiti)

Joined to Christ and through Him to His Church

Thabiti quotes James V. Brownson’s The Promise of Baptism about the meaning of Christianity:

Up to this point, we have been discussing what it means to be a Christian. But in a very real sense, there is no such thing as an individual Christian. When God joins Christians to Jesus, God also joins them to something bigger than themselves; they become incorporated into the church, the “body of Christ.” In the New Testament, it is inconceivable for Christians to think of themselves as united to Christ without also thinking about the ways they are united to other Christians…

Thabiti then concludes, “I wonder if those who oppose church membership aren’t guilty of not having thought enough about what it basically means to be a Christian.”

Amen.

What Kids Know About Martin Luther

In honor of Reformation Day and the poverty of knowledge about it, I’ve created a pie chart (over at GraphJam) to explain the problem.

SEBTS’s Six Crucial Aspects of the SBC in the 2st Century

Over at Between the Times, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary blog, Dr. Bruce Ashford and Danny Akin blog about the Mission of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 21st Century.  They give six crucial aspects, saying “Our mission must be one that is:”

1. revealed in the Christian Scriptures
2. based upon God’s mission
3. (a) focused on the nations and (b) focused on this nation
4. driven by biblical theology
5. centered in the gospel
6. based on local church initiative and supplemented by entities and associations

They will be expositing these in the coming weeks.

Which Is Worse, Being Burned or Belittling God?

Over at Desiring God, Pastor John Piper blogs on the relationship between physical suffering and spiritual suffering, physical pain and spiritual treason against God:

What is stunning and essential to see is that physical horrors correspond to spiritual horrors. God knows that we do not feel horrible about the spiritual horror of our sin. We take it lightly. But we get very angry and very agitated and very indignant about the horrors of our physical suffering. So God correlates the two in order to make plain to us how horrible sin is. Belittling God feels like a light thing to us. Being burned feels huge.

The Swell Season

A while back, I blogged about enjoying the movie, Once, and its soundtrack, performed by the members of The Swell Season.  Recently, TSS has released their second album, Strict Joy, and you can listen to parts of it at their home page or all of it on Pandora.com.

You can also hear their first album at the Once homepage.

What’s Best Next Blog

Lately, I’ve been greatly enjoying Matt Perman’s work, productivity, business, creativity, and life blog, called, “What’s Best Next.”

Recently, he has written most helpfully on how to organize your desk and office, recommended productivity tools, and how to get your inbox to zero.  I have profited (and changed my practices) from all three.

Enjoy, and to God be the glory for redeeming our ever-shortening time!

Free Tim Keller Sermons Now Online

To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (NYC, NY) is launching their Free Sermon Resource, featuring 150 of Pastor Tim Keller’s sermons, all downloadable at no monetary cost.

The sermons are categorized as follows:

• Discovery
• Growth
• Mission

(HT: Resurgence)

Collision, Humor, and Absolute Truth

Collision is a movie chronicling the tour of debates between Christian pastor Doug Wilson and atheistic journalist Christopher Hitchens.  Here’s one hilarious (if you believe in absolute truth, that is) clip that didn’t make it into the movie.

(HT: Doug Wilson)