1 Corinthians 14:8, “If the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?”
I have never seen a church rise in spiritual power where the preaching was unclear, indistinct, overly cautious, timid. Every church I know of that is making a gospel impact has an unmistakably clear and winsomely courageous preaching ministry.
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America’s Young Theologian concludes that it is (or at least was on Jan 18-20) “morally superior to be American than Christian.” That conclusion is based on the observation that Americanism brought together disparate wings of the church in a way that Christianity hasn’t to date.
This unity is claimed because Rick Warren and Gene Robinson both prayed at the inaugural events of President Obama. But this conclusion is based on the assumptions that (1) both Warren and Robinson are, in fact, Christians, and (2) that there are no reasons for Christians should separate themselves from one another.
1) Robinson prayed to “the god of our many understandings.” I don’t think that’s the Christian God. The God of the Bible is very exclusive. He is not the God of our many understandings, but only of his own revelation. Anyone who prays to such a man-made god is committing some serious idolatry and very likely is not a Christian. His understanding of God seems to be seriously flawed.
2) Even if Robinson actually does have saving faith in the God of Scripture, he should be disciplined by the Church (I’m using this word in the sense of the body of true believers present in the world today) for living an ungodly and rebellious lifestyle of homosexuality, and should in no way be allowed to represent the Church to the world. The Church should unite around the person and work of Jesus Christ, but Scripture is clear that we are to put out of fellowship those who live such perverse lives without repentance.
Sometimes division is a good thing for the purity of the whole, and the salvation of the few.
No, being an American is in no way superior to being a Christian. Especially not in a moral sense. Not if your standard of right and wrong is based on biblical truth.
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As an elder at the church, the small subset of the flock for which I am directly responsible, consists of the high school and college students. More college students than high school right now.
As I work at shepherding these young people, I’m always looking for ways to stir up their affections for the Lord and His Word. I attempt to teach deep truths in an engaging way and offer practical application. I don’t always accomplish this very well, but it’s the goal I’m striving for. The purpose being to raise them up in maturity, to help them increase their knowledge of God and affection for him, so that they may better serve as fruitful members of the body.
Two things I’m disturbed by in the American church “youth” culture.
1) Treating the “youth” as tomorrow’s church, rather than realizing they are part of the church NOW! They should be actively involved in fellowship with the whole church, acts of service within the church and community, worship with the corporate body, etc.
This goes hand-in-hand with a similar attitude that treats the elderly as yesterday’s church. The age segregation that occurs in our churches disturbs me greatly. I would like to see more intergenerational worship, teaching, fellowship, and service. I would like to see the elderly energized by the youth, and the youth taught by the experience of the elderly.
2) The intellectual and theological babying of young people in our churches. I am greatly disturbed by the shallowness of most of the teaching curriculum I see advertised for use by youth pastors. Are people really using this stuff?!! They must be, or it wouldn’t be produced and marketed in such alarming quantity.
An email I received this morning was advertising a Youth Leader resource.
Every three months we select the newest and best nine albums and one video from all the different Christian music companies and develop a music-based Bible study for each album.
They provided an example Bible study built around a song by the group Building 429. Let me say that I have nothing against this band. I’ve never really listened to them, but I’ve heard good things about them.
The “lesson” contains the following parts.
How did David describe the places where he couldn’t escape God’s presence?
Why would David use “darkness” as one of his descriptions of where God is? (Because it’s easy to be afraid of the dark.)
What are some places where you are glad God is present?
Name some of the places or times when you aren’t so glad God is present everywhere, all the time.
Does it bother anyone else that the Bible study just barely covers two of the eight parts of this lesson? This might qualify as a Bible study for children’s church, might.
Christians in America wonder why young people are leaving the church in droves, while this is the sort of thing we are feeding them at the high school level? Seriously! They’re not kids. They are young adults. They are learning advanced mathematics, and philosophy in school, while the church plays games with them!
We need to wake up and start discipling these young people. Teach them theology. Prepare them to face the world in a deadly spiritual battle! Demonstrate that we take this seriously!
And finally, what all this says about the maturity level, teaching (in the spiritual gift sense) ability, and seriousness of youth leaders, is very sad.
Many youth leaders need much discipling themselves. They don’t have a firm grasp of (and can’t articulate) good theology themselves, how can we expect them to teach others. Often the youth leader in a given church is a college student, or recently graduated college student, who like video games as much as the youth themselves do. What the youth need is a responsible adult who will model maturity, discipline, responsibility, seriousness, etc., and teach them not to waste their lives in juvenile pursuits.
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I’ve just started two new series at church.
This series is an Old Testament Survey. On Wednesday evenings I’ll be teaching the college and adults mixed class. We’re covering one book of the Old Testament each night. Suggested reading for this series is:
I’m encouraging everyone to read the book we’ll be studying the week before we cover it. Hopefully they are reading Genesis this week!
In this Sunday Morning series I’ll be answering a number of questions about God, the Bible, and living the Christian life. Everyone has questions, so I decided to let the youth ask some of theirs. To begin with I’m asking the questions and asking them to prepare an answer. In a few weeks I’ll start tackling their questions.
We’ve done two of these already. The youth are getting into this and have had lots of notes and good answers for both these questions.
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Pray. Or, more specifically, hurl yourself at God.
That’s step three in a list of five actions Jared Wilson suggests for battling doubt. I love it! I love that imagery. I’ve been thinking about prayer a lot recently. After reading Hudson Taylor’s biography I’ve been moved to get more serious with my own prayer life.
Hurling myself at God full force seems like a good way to think about it. Totally abandoned. My cares, concerns, fears, and requests cast so far into God’s care that I can’t pick them back up again. I’ve heard, “Lay your concerns at Jesus feet and don’t pick them back up again.” If I hurl not only my concerns, but myself, into his arms, I can let him carry me.
Hurl yourself at God!
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Of all the biographies I’ve read, this one may have inspired me more than any other.
Hudson Taylor led the largest missionary effort outside of Scripture. He was abandoned to serving his Lord. He was completely sold out. This book, written by his children, inspired me because I want to live the way he did. I want to trust God for provision instead of trusting in my own efforts. I want to learn the discipline of prayer and Bible reading that Hudson Taylor had.
His commitment to reading Scripture daily, reading through his Bible year after year, and constant prayer, are examples I aspire to in 2009.
His spiritual secret is nothing more than faithfulness in the spiritual disciplines and reliance on Christ to live in and through him. Finally understanding unity with Christ was the key that unlocked spiritual peace for Hudson Taylor. After he learned this lesson of oneness with Christ, he wrote in letters to his children and friends.
I used to try to keep my own heart right, but it would always be going wrong. So at last I had to give up trying myself, and to accept the Lord’s offer to keep it for me. ¹
and
Compared with this union with Christ, heaven or earth are unimportant accidents.
Oh, it is joy to feel Jesus living in you: to find your heart all taken up by him; to be reminded of his love by his seeking communion with you at all times, not by your painful attempts to abide in him. ²
This book isn’t a how-to manual for spiritual disciplines, prayer, or union with Christ. It is simply the story of one man’s life, lived for Christ in faithfulness, and joy.
If you need inspiration in your own life, I encourage you to read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.
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This year I decided to read through the Bible using Robert Murray M‘Cheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar. As an added twist, I’m doing my reading from the ESVSB and reading all the notes, book introductions, etc. I’m reading through the articles and extra features located in the back of the SB on Sunday afternoons.
As I’m using this magnificent tool for my reading and my studying, I’ve come to the conclusion that one thing is sorely missing from the study Bible, a General Index.
When I was younger, my first study Bible was a Dickson New Analytical Study Bible in KJV. This was a long time ago, and that Bible is pretty worn out. One nice feature of that SB, aside form the Bible Dictionary it included, was the General Index. While the scholarship, layout, etc. are much superior in the ESVSB, it lacks a General Index.
The General Index is much like a concordance, only instead of listing verses containing the word you’ve looked up, it contains page numbers of articles, introductions, significant notes, maps, dictionary entries, etc. This would be a fabulous addition to the ESVSB. There are many great features included in the ESVSB, but no central hub to connect them all. I would love to be able to look up the word ‘Temple’ in a GI and have a list of page numbers for diagrams, significant notes, theological articles, etc. that have to do with the Temple.
The listings could be coded in some way so you would know what the page number was, I for Book Introduction, A for Article, N for Note, D for Diagram, M for Map, etc.
The image I’ve included in this post is a picture of the General Index in my DNASB, turned to the entry for Temple.
This is a feature I would sure like to have access to. Of course, that would mean I’d have to buy another copy!
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