Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 119
January 2, 2013
Christian Parenting Reminders
Guest Blogger: Jason Helopoulos
Some of my greatest joys in life stem from being a parent to two delightful children. However, some of my greatest struggles in life also stem from being a parent to these same two children. There are days that I cannot imagine anything more rewarding and other days that I want to get into the fetal position and remain there for a week. Here are a few reminders for me and all the other Christian parents out there:
Affection and Love: We can never show our children too much love. I have yet to meet the adult who tells me, “My parents just showed me too much love!” But sadly, I have often heard the reverse. Shower your children with affection. May they know our warm embraces and messy kisses!
Have the Right Goal in View: As Christian parents, our goal in raising our children is not primarily to prepare them for going out into the world as fully functioning adults. Our goal, as Christian parents, is to prepare our children for eternity! This should shape all that we do in our homes.
Focus on My Responsibility: But having said that, we can’t “force” our children to be faithful, less sinful, or more righteous. That isn’t our responsibility. Our responsibility is to be faithful in our own charge as parents. In that regard, I can surely hinder or help their sensitivity to Christ, growth in sanctification, understanding of grace, and maturing in character, but I can’t guarantee it, secure it, or determine it. Let’s be faithful in what we do have responsibility for and spend less energy trying to control that which we don’t have responsibility for.
Keep Your Eyes Forward: We can be prone to look over our shoulders. What will OUR parents think? What will others at church think? What will my pastor think? Our children are disobedient and we find ourselves cringing inside and looking to see if anyone else was watching. And when we see others looking on, immediate concern grips our minds. Will they think my children are disobedient or bad? Will they think I am a terrible parent? Stop! We aren’t parenting for others’ approval. We are parenting for the good of our children to the glory of God. Let’s keep our eyes looking forward and heavenward for the good of our children and the glory of God.
Don’t Get Too High nor Too Low: Children change, so let’s not get too high or too low by what we see in our child’s character, actions, or soul in any given day or during any given period. Let’s rejoice some. Let’s mourn some. But let’s do so with restraint.
Tomorrow has Enough Worries of its Own: We can’t control today, let alone tomorrow. Be faithful today. My son taking a toy from his sister today doesn’t mean he is a good candidate for robbing convenience stores at age eighteen. We can get caught up in what they will be like next week, next year, or when they are twenty-one. Let’s just be faithful in our parenting today.
Run the Right Direction: God knows a thing or two about wayward children, so let’s seek Him who has an understanding ear. What grace we need in parenting and what grace is given in Christ. May we run to Him with our frustrations, struggles, trials, and failures. He should be our first counselor and comforter.
Parent on Your Knees: Oh for an army of parents who exercise as much energy in prayer for our children as we do in lecturing them. Prayer may be the most important and most neglected of parental responsibilities. Let us pray for and with our children–not just before bed–not just over meals, but throughout the day and for all their lives.
Show and Tell: Let’s not just tell our children about the Christian faith, but show it. Let us ask for their forgiveness when we have been irritable or have yelled at them, lead them in family worship, talk much about Christ, extend grace, be quick to point out God’s good providence, joyfully lead them to church, pray for and with them, and sing a few hymns in the shower!
Christianity not Morality: Morals are good, but not in and of themselves. Let’s teach our children and pray for a morality that flows from a heart changed by God’s grace. For many of us, our default is to slip into morality parenting, rather than Christian parenting. The former is focused solely upon outward behavior, the latter is focused upon inward change which will manifest fruit in moral outward behavior.
Lastly and Most Importantly, Count the Blessings: Let’s thank God everyday for our children. Even on those hard days, find the blessings amidst the chaos! Count every blessing that comes as a parent. Let it fill us with wonder that the Lord of the Universe has given us the privilege of having these little souls under our care. What a blessing. Thinking on that may even help us get out of that fetal position.
December 31, 2012
December 29, 2012
Top Ten Blog Posts of 2012
Earlier this week a friend sent me a list of my top ten blog posts (by page views) from 2012. I like lists, so I thought I’d pass this one along. Some posts on the list were not a surprise to me (like 1-4), but a few others I had forgotten all about (like 7, 9, 10).
1. “Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really”
2. “Following Up on the Jesus-Religion Video”
3. “What the Bible Really Still Says about Homosexuality”
4. “Why Christians Should Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage”
5. “The Church and Homosexuality: Ten Commitments”
6. “Seven Thoughts on the Elephant Room and T.D. Jakes”
7. “If We Believe All the Same Things, Why Do Our Churches Seem So Different?”
8. “10 Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam”
9. “What Sermon Prep Really Looks Like”
10. “Don’t Assume”
December 28, 2012
In Praise of Denominations
Guest Blogger: Jason Helopoulos
“We are moving into a post-denominational age” or so we are told. If that is the case, I for one don’t think it is good news. Denominations serve a real purpose and are worthy of our promotion, propagation, and commitment. I know that many of us have been “burned” by denominations and there is much fruit being born by different networks, fellowships, and independent churches. However, we shouldn’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Networks, fellowships, and independent churches can’t provide the same benefits as a denomination. They may be able to provide some of the things below, but not all of them.
Accountability: Every church and every pastor of a local church needs accountability. If we believe that sin is a true reality, then we will strive to check it. And that often requires a voice outside of our own local church. Denominations provide structure with their policies, appeals process, confessions, and authority.
Safeguarding the Pastorate: Pastors can be the greatest harm or blessing to a local church and its people. This is a reason for the high qualifications listed in Scripture. Therefore, there should be a rigorous, time-tested, biblically faithful process by which men are ordained as pastors. This process should include a true trial, a true testing, and actual confirmation by men who can give an honest and unbiased assessment. Denominations provide for the credentialing and ordination of men in a way that seminaries, fellowships, and independency won’t and sometimes can’t.
Safeguarding the Congregation: Congregations need the protection afforded by denominations. A congregation at odds with its pastor or leadership should have a body to which it can appeal. And this body should have some authority to counsel and possibly intervene (depending on our ecclesiology) in the midst of a troubling situation.
Safeguarding the Pastor: As much as the congregation needs protection from unruly and overbearing pastors, so pastors need protection from fickle congregations. A pastor should have recourse when he finds himself at odds with his congregation. He should have a body to which he can run for counsel. And there should be a process in place by which a congregation at odds with its pastor can’t jettison him at a moment’s notice and move on to the next willing candidate.
Unified Confession: A congregation should also be able to expect certain theological precision and convictions from its leadership based upon the denomination’s stated beliefs and theology. In this way, a congregation is protected from a pastor who would come in and change the church in drastic ways (i.e. from an infant baptizing church to a believer’s only baptizing church).
Unified Mission: Denominations allow for a concentrated and comprehensive approach for engaging in ministry. It is just easier and more effective to do missions, Christian education, planting churches, etc. with a group of churches who belong to one another and are united around the same theology. Their combined assets, both physical and spiritual, will far-outstrip anything they can do independently or by uniting with a handful of like-minded churches.
Unified Voice: There are times when a myriad of voices should be replaced with one strong voice. When an old or new heresy has emerged, it is helpful to belong to a denomination that can speak with one voice to this aberrant teaching. There are also moments when the church should speak to the state or to another group of churches; and denominations provide this possibility.
Theological Precision: Every denomination must have some statement of faith. And usually those statements of faith are examined and tested over the years through the courts of the church or the annual assemblies of the denomination. In this way, theological precision is encouraged not only in the seminary, but in the confines of the church itself.
Fellowship: Don’t underestimate the advantages denominations provide for fellowship. Annual general meetings, regional meetings, and even denominational committee meetings can provide fellowship that is lacking for many pastors and churches. I have witnessed this often in the communities where I have pastored. In each locale, I have been contacted by area pastors looking for fellowship and a way to bring our churches together for some area events. Why? Because they see the need and have the desire for fellowship with like-minded men and churches. Belonging to a faithful denomination provides this.
Mutual Encouragement and Support: Every church and pastor needs to know that they are not alone. It is easy to get caught up in our own little corner of the world and feel quite isolated and as though there is nowhere to turn. Denominations can be useful in encouraging the work of the ministry and actually supporting that work in a significant way.
Denominations are not always easy or enjoyable, but they are worth sustaining. Without them there will be a void that we just can’t fill. A void that will do injury to the Church and her work in this world.
December 27, 2012
The Offense of Christ
C. S. Lewis was right. Jesus cannot be just a good, moral teacher. He said so many audacious, outlandish things that he must either be a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Jesus was not just one of many pointers; he was the point. Not just a prophet, but the fulfillment of all prophesy. Not just a lord, but the Lord of lords. Not just a godly man, but the God-man.
Our world suggests that there are any number of saviors, and they are not all religious or “spiritual.” The world says, “Here’s what will give you purpose. Here’s what will give you meaning. Here’s what will help you feel like a better person. Here’s what will deal with the guilt you have in your life. Here’s what will give you satisfaction.” The list of saviors is ever expanding: technology, art, diets, sex, entertainment, education, morality, humanitarianism, sincerity, hard work, patriotism, politics. But according to God’s Word, they do not save.
This has always been the offense of Christianity: that we are guilty of sin; we are all in need of a Savior; and the only Savior who can truly save is Jesus Christ the Lord.
This was the message that is proclaimed over and over again in the early church. It didn’t matter if the Apostles were talking to Jews or Gentiles, servants or masters, ordinary people or religious people or the highest ranking official in the Romans Empire. The message was the same. Still is. Repent. Believe. Look to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin. Submit yourself to him. Open your heart to him. Trust in him. Look to him for the hope, the healing, the new life that only he can give.
The scandal of Christianity is that there is only one way. The good news is that despite all of our selfishness and all of our stubbornness and all of our sin, there is still a way.
December 25, 2012
A Christmas Story
Every Christian loves the story of Christmas. We love to hear about the angels and the shepherds. We love the think about noble Joseph and humble Mary. We love the wise men and the star of Bethlehem. We love the whole nativity scene. Most of us know the story so well we smile just to hear the name Quirinius (whether its pronounced correctly or not).
It’s a great story because it’s a familiar story. It’s a true story. And Christmas is wonderful because it’s not the beginning of the story. In fact, the more you know about the stories leading up to The Story, the richer and deeper and sweeter Christmas will be.
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Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman. They were actually the only people alive at all. There names were Adam and Eve. God made them. And like everything else God made, he made them good. But they didn’t stay that way very long. On one very bad day, they ate from the only tree they weren’t supposed to eat from. It was a terrible day, the second worst thing that’s ever happened in the world.
A snake had tricked them and told them a lie about the fruit. He said they would be like God if they ate it. But actually the opposite was true. When they ate the fruit, the were separated from God. It would never be as easy to be close to God as it had been before that day.
God was not happy with Adam and Eve. He wasn’t happy with the snake either. Because they disobeyed, God put a curse on the man and the woman and the snake and everything else. He kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden paradise he had made for them. It wasn’t possible for people so bad to live with a God who is so good. That’s why they had to leave.
But before they left, God made a promise. He promised that the evil serpent, the Devil, would always be at war with Eve and her children. Now that doesn’t sound like a very nice promise, that bad guys and good guys would fight all the time. Who wants to be in a war that never ends? But that’s where the good part of the promise comes in. God promised that one of Eve’s children would, some day, eventually, sooner or later, crush the head of that nasty serpent. Nobody knew when or how, she would have a child to put things right.
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But things got a lot wronger before they got righter. Adam and Eve had several kids, including two brothers named Cain and Abel. Abel was a good man, but Cain was not. And when God accepted Abel’s gift instead of Cain’s, Cain got very angry. So angry, so hurt, and so jealous that he killed his brother. The first murder in history, but sadly not the last.
Things were not the way they were supposed to be. Everything fell apart after sin entered the world. Things got so bad in the world, and so fast, that God decided to start over. The people on the earth were terribly wicked in their hearts, all the time, every day. They didn’t deserve to enjoy God’s world anymore. So God took it from them. Or, more exactly, he took them from it. He sent a flood that wiped away everyone and everything, because it had all been stained with sin.
But God saved one family on the earth–one family that trusted him and believed his word. Noah, his wife, and their sons and daughters-in-law were spared. They lived for a lot of days with a lot of animals in a big boat called an ark, while it rained and rained. God was going to start over with his creation. He was angry with the world that hated him, but he was still at work to save the world that he loved. That’s why he rescued Noah and his family. God wanted to give his people another shot. Noah was going to be a new kind of Adam.
The problem was Noah was too much like the first Adam. It didn’t take long after they got of out the boat for Noah to do some pretty bad stuff himself. He trusted God enough to build an ark when everyone laughed at him, but it turns out he could be just as foul as the rest of them. Even one of Noah’s sons got cursed, just like everything got cursed back in the Garden. History was repeating itself. Whether it was Adam or Noah, the first world in the beginning or the second world after the flood, people just couldn’t get things right.
One time, a whole bunch of people got together to build a giant tower. They thought they could build all the way up to heaven. But it must not have been all that big because God had to come down just to see it. And when God saw it, he was not pleased. Everyone was working together, which was okay, but they weren’t working for God, and that was not okay. They were trying to show how smart and impressive they could be all on their own. They thought they didn’t need God. So God mixed up all their languages and spread them out all over the place.
As you can see, things were still not going well in the world God had made. God would have to find another way to save his people.
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Not too long after this whole tower business God called a man named Abraham to leave his home and go to a new country. (Ok, actually his name was Abram at this point, but everyone remembers him as Abraham). When God called Abraham he made a lot of big promises. He promised to bless Abraham and to bless everyone who blessed Abraham. He promised to curse everyone who cursed Abraham. He promised Abraham a land and a child. God promised that Abraham would be the father of a great nation and that all nations would be blessed through him. Pretty much, all the blessing that God wanted to give Adam and Eve he promised to Abraham. And the best part was this time God was going to do everything himself to make sure Abraham got his blessing.
You might think that God wanted to bless Abraham because he was such a swell guy. But if you thought that you’d be wrong. Abraham didn’t know God at all when God called him. And even after God called him, Abraham could still be a liar and a bit of a scaredy-cat. Abraham had only two things going for him: God promised to bless him and Abraham believed God’s promise. That’s all Abraham had going for him. Good thing that’s all he needed.
At times it looked as if God wasn’t going to keep his promises to Abraham. For starters, it was like a hundred years before Abraham and his wife Sarah (who used to be Sarai) had a baby named Isaac (who, thankfully, was always called Isaac). And then when the baby became a boy God told Abraham to kill him. That must have seemed like a not-so-funny way to make a great nation out of Abraham, but Abraham listened to God anyways. And at the last second, God gave Abraham a ram to sacrifice instead of his beloved son. It was God’s way of saying, “I’ll take care of the rescuing. Just trust me.”
Well eventually Isaac grew up, got married, and had some kids of his own. Twins to be exact–Esau and Jacob. God picked Jacob to get the blessing even though he was the younger brother and wasn’t supposed to get the blessing. But God is God so he gets to pick. Jacob had twelve sons and this time it was the fourth son, Judah, who wound up with the blessing. Jacob told Judah that a lion of a leader would come from his family.
They may sound like pretty decent folks, but Abraham’s family was even more messed up than Abraham. Isaac was sort of weakling. Jacob was a selfish trickster. And Judah did such dumb stuff we don’t even want to talk about it.
But God kept his promises all the same. He blessed the whole lot of them despite themselves. Things were on track for the Snake-Crusher to come from the gnarled Abraham-Isaac-Jacob family tree.
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Several hundred years later, however, it looked like things had gotten way off track. See, when God told Abraham to leave his home, he promised to give him a new land in Canaan. It was going to be a great land. It was supposed to remind God’s people of the Garden they once had. But Abraham and his sons never really possessed the land they were promised. And now four hundred years later Abraham’s family were slaves in Egypt.
How they got to Egypt is a long story, but here’s the short version: they went to Egypt because their was a famine in Canaan, and when they got to Egypt Jacob’s sons found their long lost brother Joseph, who helped get them food and a place to live even though he was there because his ten old brothers had been jealous and sold him into slavery. (I told you it was a long story.)
Well, delivering them from famine was one thing. That’s when Israel’s family was still pretty small (Israel, by the way, was Jacob’s new name; I guess everyone needed two names back then). But how would God save a couple million people from slavery? It’s not like he could just turn the Nile River to blood and send frogs and gnats and flies and disease and boils and hail and locusts and darkness and death until Egypt’s Pharaoh let them go. Actually, that’s exactly what God did. God raised up Moses to deliver his people, but in reality God did all the work. He sent the plagues. He led the people with a fire and a cloud. He made the sea turn to dry land so the Israelites could walk through, and he turned the dry land back to sea when the Egyptians tried to cross. It seemed that no matter what they did or what people did to them God always found a way to save his people.
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Which was a very good thing. Because it seemed that no matter how many times God saved his people they were never quite safe from themselves. See, after God delivered his people from Egypt he gave [image error]them a lot of commandments. This wasn’t a bad thing. They were good commandments. And if they obeyed the commandments, God’s people would be blessed. There would be food and children and long life and protection and a new home. It would be just like they were in paradise again. That’s where God was leading them all along. But if they didn’t obey, there would be curses, sort of like the ones that fell on Adam and Eve and the serpent.
As you might have guessed, the people didn’t do so well obeying God’s commands. And once Moses and his helper Joshua died, they disobeyed even more. When they did work hard at some rules-like the rules about sacrifices-they didn’t really obey those rules from the heart. They just checked them off their list and forgot about the more important rules.
Not that they deserved it, but God finally gave them their promised land. God did the work to get them in, but God’s people didn’t do the work to drive everyone else out. This meant a lot of trouble for the Israelites. They constantly had enemies to fight. And worse, they constantly had to fight the temptation to be just like their enemies.
Sometimes things would go well for Israel, when they had a good leader and when they obeyed. But most often things went poorly for Israel. God gave them rules. But they didn’t follow them. God made his dwelling among them. But they didn’t keep themselves clean. God sent judges to lead them. But Israel didn’t listen. God provided priests to do God’s holy work. But the priests didn’t know how to be holy either.
Of course, God still had his promises to keep. But most days it was hard to imagine how any man could save this stubborn people. It was even harder to imagine how such a man could come from among this people.
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God’s people always had a hard time not copying everyone else around them. This was especially true when it came to having a king. Although God warned them how bad kings could be, they just had to have one. So eventually, God gave them a king.
The first king was Saul. Other than being tall, he was not much to write home about. Pretty disappointing all around. The second king, young David from Bethlehem, was definitely much better. In fact, in the stories that lead up to The Story, there’s no one more important than King David. When David wasn’t busy sinning, which he did in some really big ways, he was a good, wise, merciful king. A lot of good things happened to God’s people when David was in charge. They were victorious and prosperous and blessed.
But the best thing that happened was what God promised would happen. God told David that he would always have a son to sit on the throne. He promised David an everlasting kingdom. This was good news for David, and even better news for God’s people. It meant that God had not forgotten the guarantee he made in the Garden. A deliverer was on his way. And now everyone who had ears to hear knew he would be a son of David.
But the next son of David was not the one they were looking for. Solomon started off on the right foot, but he ended up tripping quite spectacularly. After Solomon, the kingdom split in two, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Neither kingdom was very good. God punished Israel first, then Judah. In the course of four hundred years God’s people went from top dog to dog food. They had been kicked out of their own land just liked Adam and Eve had been kicked out of their own paradise. And worst of all, David’s house and David’s throne were no more. What had happened to God’s promises?
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Believe it or not, the promises were definitely still there. In fact, God kept on making more promises all the time. God promised that the Snake-Crusher, Abraham’s child, Judah’s lion, David’s Son would come from Bethlehem. God promised he would be born of a virgin. God promised a messenger to prepare the way. God promised that the Deliverer would save Israel and be a light to the nations. God promised lots of amazing things.
But Israel was too busy disobeying God’s commands and ignoring God’s warnings to notice. God sent miraculous prophets like Elijah and Elisha and rebuking prophets like Amos and Malachi and sad prophets like Jeremiah and good news prophets like Isaiah. It didn’t matter which ones God sent or how many, the people never listened. Not for very long anyway.
And so one day it happened that God stopped sending the prophets. No more warnings. No more direction. No more word from the Lord. Only silence. For four hundred years. God had sent prophets, priests, and kings; he tried starting out and starting over with Adam and Noah; he chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he gave Moses the law; he sent Israel judges; he raised up deliverers; he conquered enemies; he provided sacrifices; he lived among them in a tent and in a temple; God gave his people every opportunity and ten thousand chances, but still sin and the Serpent seemed to be winning.
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Until…all of a sudden, they lost.
Which brings us at last to Christmas. This is where we meet the new Adam, the child of Abraham, and the Son of David. It’s at Christmas where we see the real Deliverer, the real Judge, the real Conqueror. No one understood it completely at the time, but when Mary pushed out that baby, God pushed into the world the long-expected Prophet, Priest, and King. God gave his people a new law, a new temple, and a new sacrifice. Best of all, he gave his people a new beginning.
Of course, some things were different than people had expected. The stable with the animals and the scandal with Mary were surprises. But the biggest surprise what that the Chosen One of God was chosen by God to die. It just didn’t seem right that the one destined to crush the serpent would be crushed himself. So when Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, died, it seemed a shocking evil beyond belief. And it was. The worst thing that’s ever happened in the world.
But also the best. Just as we would expect from God. And just as God planned it.
We break promises, so God keeps his. We run from God, so he comes to us. We suffer for sin, so the Savior suffers for us. The history of our Story is the story of God doing what we can’t in order to make up for us doing what we shouldn’t. And so deliverers are born to die. Things fall apart so they can come together. God kicks his own people out of paradise and then does whatever it takes to bring them back again.
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The story of Christmas is a wonderful story. It’s a familiar story. And it’s a true story. But it’s not the beginning of the story. As we’ve seen, it’s actually the beginning of the end of the story that we are still in the middle of.
We needed a Savior. So God promised a Savior. And God sent a Savior. “You shall call his name Jesus,” the angel told Joseph, “for he will save his people from their sins.” That’s why he came. That’s why he reigns. That’s why we follow him. Because that little baby in the straw is the One God said would come, the One who is coming again, and the One who loves us even more than we love Christmas.
December 24, 2012
Keep Christ at the Center of Christmas And Enjoy the Inflatable Reindeer
Christmas is the first claim of Christianity — it’s the declaration that the divine actually entered this world, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the idea is so huge, so weighty, so overwhelming, that everything else we think or feel has to bend to it. It’s an enormous star that suddenly appears in the human galaxy, and its gravity begins drawing every planet into its orbit.
The danger here is that everything can collapse into it. Christmas is so huge it would devour the universe, if it could. It would devour even the Christianity that gives it meaning. And this is what our friends who complain about the commercialization and overindulgence of Christmas rightly see. Without the liturgical calendar of Advent, without the structure of the Christian year, we end up with Christmas catalogues arriving in the mail before Halloween. With secularized silliness like the greeting “Happy Holidays!” With reindeer, and candy canes, and Santas, and everything, anything, but the Christ child.
And yet, we can have the penance of the Advent season. We can have the crèche. We can have the carols of weight and theological substance: Mild he lays his glory by, the Wesleyan carol “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” reminds us, born that man no more may die.
And if we do have all that, if we locate ourselves within the great Christmas tradition, why can’t we simply enjoy all the rest? I love Christmas, Kathryn. I love the swirl of words in it, like snowflakes through the yellow circle of a streetlight late at night. I love the inflatable reindeer, and the houses insanely covered with lights, and the fruitcakes as heavy as uranium and nearly as radioactive, and the tinny Muzak, and the frenzied shoppers, and all the rest.
I like beautiful things at Christmas better than shoddy commercial junk, because I think it’s easier to see the honor being paid to God in the beautiful and the carefully made. But I love even the most gimcrack trash of the season — because I don’t think people are necessarily far from wisdom even in their greatest foolishness. In our confused and stumbling way, we are honoring God, expressing our love and joy, when we pile onto the season’s mad bonfire all that Christmas silliness.
It’s a festival, a wild, crazy thing, just like what the Middle Ages knew. And if it swirls out from its center in goofy antics and mounds of presents, so what? Know that at its center lies an infant in a cattle shed, and enjoy all the rest of it.
