Thursday, September 2, 2010

2010-09-02

  • DeYoung lauds Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students, but criticizes Spurgeon’s famous “Don’t do ministry if you can do anything else” advice that has frightened a lot of seminarians (and discouraged a fair number of pastors). While we want ministers who actually want to be ministers, and not those under compulsion (1 Peter 5:2), and it isn’t good that many are pushed into ministry by well-meaning folks who think every college or youth group superstar ought to be a pastor, and we are perhaps quick on the green light, Spurgeon’s advice here is over the top. “Is it really a biblical requirement to insist that a pastor could not possibly be content doing anything else? How does this allow for the naturally diffident or those possessing varied interests and gifts. True, I don’t want a pastor whose real passion is drywall or needlework.” His passion must be preaching and the Gospel. What of the person who can be energized doing other things? Or the discouraged pastor who some days could be content doing anything but ministry? And some even think wrongly that Spurgeon meant men become ministers because they can’t do anything else. We must not insist on more than God’s demands. The pastor should earnestly desire to preach and to serve the church. “If we take Spurgeon too literally we’ll scare away some good potential pastors, not to mention the real harm we might do to some sensitive pastoral souls come next Monday morning.” A Quibble With Spurgeon

  • Bring the Books: “The editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour, was on Jimmy Fallon last night discussing Vogue's annual Met Ball fundraiser. This year's musical act was Lady Gaga. While discussing the event, Wintour revealed that Lady Gaga "was communing with God and she was praying in the back, waiting for God to tell her it was all right to go actually onstage."” To which the post says, “Somebody needs to send Lady Gaga a copy of Kevin DeYoung's new book Just Do Something. She might be on time for more appearances that way.” [silliness]. Lady Gaga Needs To Read Kevin DeYoung

  • Harris writes that the key truth of 1 Peter 5:1-5 is that a church can only survive and thrive if it accepts Gods pattern for humble leadership. He presents these points: The Pastor's Calling: To Shepherd God's Flock. How Pastors Should Lead: Willingly, Eagerly and By Example. The Responsibility of Church Members: Be Subject. The Essential Characteristic for All of Us: Humility. Humble Shepherds and Sheep

  • Phillips asks, “To which one of these questions can you not even begin to give a clear, plain, simple, definitive, directly-Biblical answer?” and presents 22 questions. [Hint: I think it’s 11 – “How do I tell which feelings are God's way of nudging me to do something, or God "talking" to me, and which are just my flesh, my imagination, or something else?” – and yes, this is significant]  One of these things is not like the others

  • This looks great – articles from DeYoung, Dever, Sinclair Ferguson, and more. This covers pastoral perspectives, and hell in biblical and theological perspective. A sample from Naselli’s article on interpreting hell in the New Testament: “We may disagree about some finer nuances of our literal and metaphorical interpretations of hell’s darkness, fire, and suffering, but we should agree that, at the very least, the New Testament teaches that hell is eternally miserable, terrifying, and painful. It’s certainly no better than being cast into literal “outer darkness” or being tormented with literal “fire and sulfur.” The New Testament’s message couldn’t be clearer: “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29), and “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31); so we should “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28).[8]”  9Marks Journal on Hell

  • Challies writes: “It was interesting to watch the big Apple event yesterday (where they unveiled new iPods, a new AppleTV and a new iTunes). It seemed to me that if you didn’t know the context of the event, it would be very difficult to distinguish it from religion. Steve Jobs has done an amazing job of building a brand that inspires religious fervor. It’s a little bit creepy, to be honest. And this coming from a guy who is typing these words on an iMac…” [The Mac cult won’t turn my into an iClone ;-) And with Windows 7, why in the world would I switch? Windows 7 is fantastic. And I’m a computer engineer…]  A La Carte (9/2)

  • Harris posts a great quote: “"And what manner of men will they be? Men mighty in the Scriptures, their lives dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and holiness of God, and their minds and hearts aglow with the great truths of the doctrines of grace. They will be men who have learned what it is to die to self, to human aims and personal ambitions; men who are willing to be 'fools for Christ's sake', who will bear reproach and falsehood, who will labour and suffer, and whose supreme desire will be, not to gain earth's accolades, but to win the Master's approbation when they appear before His awesome judgment seat. They will be men who will preach with broken hearts and tear-filled eyes, and upon whose ministries God will grant an extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit, and who will witness 'signs and wonders following' in the transformation of multitudes of human lives."” What Manner of Men Will They Be-

  • If you missed it, from Mahaney’s blog: The Cross and Resurrection (Series Recap)

  • Aig: The Institute for Creation Research's struggles with the state of Texas illustrate the continual slide away from the biblical foundation of our country. No Country for Ol’ Creationists

  • CreationSafaries writes: “James J. Lee took hostages today at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, but was killed by police before he harmed anyone (see New York Times). Lee, who authored a website called SaveThePlanetProtest.com, left a manifesto with a list of demands, calling humans “filth” and demanding the Discovery Channel inform viewers that humans were ruining the planet. His rants included demands to saturate the public mind with indoctrination into Darwinian ideas: “Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’ brains until they get it!!” The Discovery Institute (no connection to the Discovery Channel) used this incident to highlight the deleterious effects of Darwinian thinking.” Bruce Chapman, Discovery Institute Director, notes the disparity in news coverage between religious madmen and this Darwinist one: “Oddly missing from initial news accounts was any mention of Darwin,” he said; but James J. Lee made it clear that Malthus and Darwin were prime motivators of his mental anguish, as was Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. John West in Evolution News and Views compared the silence of major newspaper coverage about the Darwin connection to what would happen if an anti-abortion vigilante took hostages at an abortion clinic: “you can be sure the newsmedia would tenaciously track down and publicize every anti-abortion association and comment of the criminal in question,” he remarked. Malthusian Maniac Killed Before Killing Hostages

  • JT collects a table of proverbs on words. Christianity and Words- Part 4

  • Uggh. Charismatics and John Crowder- what's the deal on this freak-show-

  • From Sola Panel – read Edwards’ Religious Affections.Can you feel it-

  • Here’s a reflection on Hitchens and death (Hitchens dying of cancel, and remaining stalwart in his atheism). “The contemplation of death must be horrifying for those who pin all on the frail reed of the ego.  The dimming of the light, the loss of control, the feeling of helplessly and hopelessly slipping away into an abyss of nonbeing.  And all of this without the trust of the child who ceases his struggling to be borne by Another.  "Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."  But this of course is what the Luciferian intellect cannot do. It cannot relax, it must hold on and stay in control.  It must struggle helplessly as the ego implodes in upon itself.  The ego, having gone supernova, collapses into a black hole.  What we fear when we fear death is not  so much the destruction of the body, but the dissolution of the ego.  That is the true horror and evil of death.  And without religion you are going to have to take it straight.” http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/08/on-hitchens-and-death.html

  • JT interviews Michael Haykin. Useful for those interested in starting to learn about the church fathers. Haykin recommends these two for newbies: “Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (Yale University Press, 2003) and Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin Books, 1993).” Reading the Church Fathers- A Beginner’s Guide

  • Patton has some thoughtful comments here. The question is not simply does the movie contain sinful behavior (which is often where we stop), but does it have sinful behavior in relation to these three. Is it celebrated? Is it accessible? Is it normalized? What Movies Will I Let My Kids Watch-

  • From AiG: This article discusses quantum mechanics, relativity, and string theory, in a balanced way. It concludes: “Modern physics is a product of the 20th century and relies upon twin pillars: quantum mechanics and general relativity. Both theories have tremendous experimental support. Christians ought not to view these theories with such great suspicion. True, some people have perverted or hijacked these theories to support some nonbiblical principles, but some wicked people have even perverted Scripture to support nonbiblical things. We ought to recognize that modern physics is a very robust, powerful theory that explains much. At the same time, the theory is very incomplete in some respects. In time, we ought to expect that some new theories will come along that will better explain the world than these theories do. However, we know that God’s Word does not change.” Chapter 30- Do Creationists Believe in “Weird” Physics like Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and S

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