Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 93

Trusting the Bible Even When It’s Hard

Honest and wise words from B. B. Warfield about how to approach the Scriptures when we encounter difficulties in the text:

The question is not, whether the doctrine of plenary inspiration has difficulties to face.

The question is, whether these difficulties are greater than the difficulty of believing that the whole church of God from the beginning has been deceived in her estimate of the Scriptures committed to her charge—are greater than the difficulty of believing that the whole college of the apostles, yes and Christ himself at their head, were themselves deceived as to the nature of those Scriptures which they gave the church as its precious possession, and have deceived with them twenty Christian centuries, and are likely to deceived twenty more before our boasted advancing light has corrected their error,—foundation for our faith and no certain warrant for our trust in Christ for salvation.

We believe this doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures primarily because it is the doctrine which Christ and his apostles believed, and which they have taught us. It may sometimes seem difficult to take our stand frankly by the side of Christ and his apostles. It will always be found safe. (The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 128)

How to Be Better Bereans (3 of 3)

8. Test Difficult Doctrines Against the Scriptures Before Simply Discarding Them

Christians from a broad church background may have a hard time accepting unfamiliar  doctrines that strike them as overly precise or controversial. Thinking through predestination, the roles of men and women, eternal punishment, or the uniqueness of Christ (to give but a few examples) can be challenging and confusing. But if we are like the Bereans we will not discard hard teachings just because they are hard. We will search the Scriptures to see if these things are so.

Be open to being surprised by the word of God. The Bereans must have been surprised to learn that the Christ would suffer, die, and be raised to life. But they accepted it because they saw it in the Bible. Don’t ditch difficult doctrines without testing them against the Scriptures.

9. Be Humble Enough To Take the Bible At Its Word No Matter Who You Are

If you read through the book of Acts you’ll notice that Luke often points out the high social standing of those who receive the word of God. We could be turned off by this, asking ourselves “Why is Luke making such a big deal about this? It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or famous.” And this is true. But part of what Luke is trying to show us (and Theophilus) is the humility of those in high standing who are humble enough to submit themselves to the word of God. He wants to underscore their complete submission to Scripture. Many of these individuals may have thought they were too important for the word. But real nobility, Luke reminds us, is being humble enough to listen to the word no matter who you are.

Calvin says, “We know how hardly men came down from their high degree, what a rare matter it is for those who are great in the world to undertake the reproach of the cross, laying away their pride, and rejoice in humility … And surely this is the first entrance into faith that we be ready to follow, and that abandoning the understanding and wisdom of the flesh, we submit ourselves to Christ, by him to be taught and to obey him.”

It is our pride that keeps us from believing. It is our pride that will not admit God’s word is the most important word we need to hear. It is our pride which imagines we know who we are and how to be saved and how to live apart from the Bible. It takes great humility to submit yourself unreservedly to the word of God.

10. Give the Bible the Final Say In Every Matter On Which It Means to Speak

I sometimes hear people say that Scripture is a conversation starter. And I suppose that’s true in one sense. There can be a lot of good conversations after you read the Bible or hear an expositional sermon. But if the Bible is a conversation starter, it is to start a conversation about the God of the Bible who has the final word in all our conversations. Let’s reason together. Let’s not be afraid of honest dialogue. And let’s be sure to test all our songs, our books, our creeds, our blogs, our lectures, our sermons, and our science against the Bible.

One of the reasons different professing Christians and different churches come to such wildly different understandings of the Christian faith is because we approach the Bible so differently. The question: What is our ultimate authority? Every Christian and every church will say, in some way, that our theology must accord with Scripture. But what is our ultimate authority? How do we make our closing arguments? Do we give the final word to reason and experience, to sacred Tradition, or to the holy Scriptures?

All religion rests on authority. For that matter, every academic discipline and every sphere of human inquiry rests on authority. Whether we realize it or not, we all give someone or something the last word. You may give it to your parents or to your culture or to your community or to your feelings or to the government or to peer review journals or to opinion polls or to a holy book. We all have someone or something we turn to as the final arbiter of truth claims. For Christians, that authority must be the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

When interpreted correctly, the Bible is never wrong in what it affirms. It must never be marginalized as anything less than the last word of everything it means to say.

How to Be Better Bereans (2 of 3)

4. We Must Approach the Bible With Eager Expectation

The Bereans received the word with all eagerness. That was their posture to the word—readiness and expectation. Whether in a conversation or in an audience, your posture says something. It indicates whether you are leaning forward, ready to listen, ready to learn, or whether you are bored and distracted. The Bereans had good posture. They were at the edge of their seat—ready to receive the word, ready to believe.

Are you eager to come to the word? Are you eager to take advantage of opportunities to hear more of God’s word? Have you thought about trying Sunday school again, or a small group, or a Bible study, or Sunday evening, or a conference, or picking up a good book? I know we cannot say yes to every opportunity, but we should ask ourselves: Am I indifferent to these opportunities or am I eager for more of them?

There is no movement of the Spirit in the history of revival, and no genuine movement of the Spirit in the human heart, that does not result in a new hunger for God’s word. I’ve seen it many times. You probably have too, maybe in your life. When God grabs a hold of someone’s life, you can see in his newfound eagerness for the word. He is excited to read, to study, to learn, and to grow, ready to get into the word whenever he can.

5. Be Prepared to Study the Word Deeply

The Bereans examined the Scriptures. The word “examined” can refer to a legal process, like a trial. Acts 17:11, therefore, speaks of an in depth, detailed, intelligent examination of the Scriptures. Many of us work so hard in so many other areas. We work hard to learn a language, get a degree, practice an instrument, study for our boards, or train for sports. But how hard do we work to understand and examine the Scriptures?

You don’t have to be the smartest person. It does not say that the Bereans were more noble because they were all 4.0 students. It is not about being smarter, but about digging deeper.

There is a unique confidence that is acquired when you see something in the Scriptures for yourself. Not simply that you’ve heard this or somebody told you that, but you’ve seen it for yourself. You saw the connection in the word. You looked up the cross references. You checked your concordance. You thought it through. You prayed about it. You took notes. There is a new confidence that comes because you are not just accepting things secondhand, but (often with the aid of good teachers) you see it right in front of you in the pages of Scripture.

At the most basic level, anyone can do what pastors do. It requires hard work and training, but it does not require the world’s leading intellect. Normally, when I read through my text for the first few times I think “What in the world am I going to say?” It only comes through studying and searching and praying and reading that you begin to see things you hadn’t seen before. I need to study the word deeply as a pastor. And every church member need to do the same.

6. Be Confident That You Are Able to Study the Bible and Discover the Truth of God’s Word

There are things in the Bible that are hard to understand. We must be diligent with means. We need to learn good habits of study and exegesis. We need to learn from gifted teachers God puts in our midst. But none of this means the word of God is inaccessible to “ordinary” people. Far from it. The Bereans were Jews, so they would have been well steeped in the Scriptures—whereas we often have Biblical illiteracy to overcome—but just in terms of sheer education, opportunities, books read, and studies done, there is just no comparison. We are among the most highly educated people in this history of the planet. We have an embarrassment of riches at our disposal. Most people reading this blog are not lacking in the tools to think critically and search the Scriptures for themselves.

And yet, we can too easily give up.

One of the reasons we give up is because we think we will never be able to discover the truth because so many smart people disagree about what is true. You may think, “There are PhD’s over here that say one thing about a verse and another group that say just the opposite. What chance do I possible have to figure this out?” Don’t give up. If you get three PhD’s in a room you are bound to have fifteen opinions. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the Bible or history or economics or entomology, you are going to get very smart people who see things differently. If we are going to toss up our hands every time a really smart person disagree, we are not going to know anything about anything.

The Bereans were ordinary people, two millennium ago, who believed they could hear what Paul said and discern whether or not his words were true to the Scripture. We can discover the truth. Don’t give up on it just because there are many ways to look at things.

7. Recognize That Some Things Which Claim to Be From the Bible Are Not

You have to admire the zeal of the Bereans. When they heard this new teaching from Paul, they undoubtedly understood that he was making his case about the Messiah from the Bible. They could see that he was reasoning from the Scriptures, but still they wanted to determine if what Paul was saying about the Bible actually came from the Bible.

Almost everyone who has ever cared about Christian theology or Christian ethics has claimed Scriptural warrant for their positions. Everyone in the church professes a desire to be biblical. And yet, we need to be like the Bereans and recognize that some ideas that come with a Bible verse attached may not actually be from the Bible. It is terribly frustrating to see churches, institutions, and denominations refuse to put certain teaching outside the pale, just because the teaching claims to be biblical. All the major heresies in the history of the church have claimed some Biblical support. When Augustine was arguing with Pelagius about the nature of grace and human inability, they were arguing about texts of Scripture. But only one of them was true to Scripture.

I understand that the Bible is not equally clear on every issue but on essential matters we have to simply say, “Look, I know you have a verse there that you think supports this position, but that is not what that verse means.” The Scriptures teach us that there are false teachings that false teachers try to peddle out of the Scriptures themselves. False teachers always have Bible verses, so we have to be discerning. That is what the Bereans were searching. They heard Paul argue from the Scriptures, but they needed to make sure for themselves the passage meant what Paul said it did.

How to Be Better Bereans (1 of 3)

The Jews in Berea, it is said, were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). How telling–for them and for us–that nobility is measured not by titles, land, parentage, wealth, or degrees, but by how we handle the word of God. Our approach to the Scriptures sets us apart as riff-raff or royalty.

So how do we become better Bereans?

That’s the question I recently posed to my congregation and the question I want to explore this week. How can we be more like the noble Bereans and less like the rabble from Thessalonica (Acts 17:5)?

Let me suggest ten ways: three for today, four for Wednesday, and a final three on Thursday.

1. Listen to the Sermon With an Open Bible

There is no authority we have in the pulpit except in so far as it is derived from the word of God. It worries me when I speak at different places and read through the Scripture text without hearing anyone opening their Bibles (or at least stare down at a screen). I want to say, “You don’t know me. You don’t know if you should listen to me. You don’t know if anything I have to say is worthwhile. I hope you didn’t come to hear me. God is the one worth listening to, and he only speaks by his word. So I’ll wait a few seconds while you grab a Bible.”

Incidentally, you do not want to be at a church where you can listen to sermon after sermon and it doesn’t even matter if your Bible is open. You want to be at a church where the preaching is pulling you in to the text—to see it, to listen to it, to find connections with it. The best stuff in every sermon should arise from the truth you see in the text, not from the illustrations, the stories, or the preacher’s own enlightenment.

In Nehemiah 8:8 it says about the leaders in Jerusalem who came and were teaching the word that “they read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave this sense so people could understand the reading.” In a nutshell, that’s what preaching is. The preacher reads from the book and then explains it clearly so the people can get it.

Ultimately, the only reason to listen to any preacher is because he brings you back to the Scriptures. Hopefully you trust your pastors because you know them personally and can see evidences of grace in their lives. But just being a nice person or a good parent or a sincere teacher does not mean you have any real God-given authority. There are lots of people who are sincere and nice and fine people who do not teach what accords with Scripture. They speak without divine authority.

Test everything. Take your Bible with you. Open it up. Follow along. See for yourself whether everything being taught accords with Scripture.

2. Don’t Rush On From the Word of God to the Rest of Your Life

The Bereans saw Scripture as something that deserved their attention. It merited their time and effort. They examined it daily. They were not skimming; they were searching. And to do that, you have to give yourself unhurried time in the word.

It’s not an absolute rule, but in general careful time in the Bible is better than a large quantity of time. Better to have five to ten minutes of slow, digestive, meditative study than cruising through thirty minutes of not really paying attention.

One of the great dangers for all of us is that the seed of the word of God would be choked out by thorns. Remember the third soil in Jesus’ parable. It seemed to be good. The heart seemed to receive the word and bear fruit. That is, until the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth choked it out and the plant became unfruitful.

How common it is for people to go to church, hear something that speaks to them powerfully, and they will seem to be on fire for God for a few weeks or even a few months. But then what happens? It’s not like they make a conscious decision to stop believing what they once believed or to stop going to church like they once did. Their falling away is not a deliberate choice as much as a bad habit learned through busyness and distraction. These withering plants let their time in the word dry up, fade up, disappear. No more searching. No more lingering. No more unhurried time to see what things are so.

There is a great danger every Sunday that we would be stirred and not changed. We come to church, feel a little something, but it turns out to be nothing but a little Jesus inoculation–just enough of the virus to keep you from getting the real thing. If God is working on you next Sunday, don’t waste it. Don’t rush on from the word to the rest of life. Find someone to pray with you. Have that conversation you need to have. Don’t turn on the football game the second you walk back in the house.

The work of the Lord in our lives is more like a crock pot than a microwave. We want our spiritual growth to be obvious and immediate. But God’s work is often deliberate and imperceptible. Do you want Hot Pockets for lunch or a good, slow cooked, pot roast? Do you want to be mature in Christ? Get in the word and take it slow.

3. Get In the Word as a Way of Life

The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily. They came to the Bible and kept coming back. Is there a frequency and consistency to your spiritual consumption? We will not make progress in godliness without persistence in God’s word.

And why did the Bereans go every day? Presumably, because they wanted answers. They wanted to know the truth. They believed that they would learn something from the Scriptures that they could not learn anywhere else. They wanted to know if Paul’s message was true—that is why they searched daily.

If we are not going be in the word of God with consistency, we have to focus not just on discipline but on faith. Do you struggle to make the Bible a regular part of your routine? Consider what you are not believing about the word? Do we believe it has something relevant to say? Do you believe there are answers to life’s hardest questions in the Bible? Do you think you will find the comfort and presence of Christ in this book? The Bereans went to the Scriptures daily because they were eager to listen to God and they believed the Bible was the place to go to hear his voice.

Why do we check email compulsively? Or Facebook? Or Twitter? Or the old fashioned mailbox? Because we believe there is news for us—there’s something there. Someone may have just put up a sweet video of a cat or a status update about someone who made a nice lemonade. Really important stuff like that. We check because we believe we may hear something relevant and necessary. And yet, what could be more relevant or necessary than God’s word?

Let this truth be a diagnostic tool you and for me: Our behavior with the Scriptures is an indication of our belief about the Scriptures. The Bereans looked into the Bible every day because they expected to find something there. Do we?

Monday Morning Humor

There is something about people laughing when they shouldn’t be laughing that makes me laugh.

The Puritans, Strange Fire, Cessationism, and the Westminster Confession

Without trying to sort through everything (or really anything) that has been said at the Strange Fire Conference–let alone sifting through what has been said and done in response–I thought it might be helpful to take a step back and give some historical perspective on the question of cessationism.

In the first section of the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith we find reference to at least some kind of cessationism.

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased. (WCF 1.1, emphasis added)

Clearly, the Westminster divines believed there was a cessation of something. Whether the Confession means to embrace everything one might now mean by cessationism is another matter. But certainly we cannot relegate to the theological wasteland the belief that something about God’s way of revealing himself has changed.

Undoubtedly, the best book on cessationism in the first century of the Reformed tradition is Garnet Milne’s published dissertation The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy Is Still Possible (Paternoster, 2007). In this work–a model of careful scholarship serving the church–Milne argues that the Puritans were overwhelmingly cessationists, but that their cessationism was not without some permeable boundaries (see also Vern Poythress’s article on “Affirming Extraordinary Works of the Spirit Within Cessationist Theology”).

It’s worth reading this section from Milne’s Preface, especially his point about “mediate” and “immediate” revelation:

In the opening chapter of the Confession, the divines of Westminster included a clause which implied that there would no longer be any supernatural revelation from God for showing humankind the way of salvation. Means by which God had once communicated the divine will concerning salvation, such as dreams, visions, and the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, were said to be no longer applicable.

However, many of the authors of the WCF accepted that “prophecy” continued in their time, and a number of them apparently believed that disclosure of God’s will through dreams, visions, and angelic communication remained possible.

How is the “cessationist” clause of WCF 1:1 to be read in the light of these facts? Was it intended as a strict denial of the possibility that any supernatural revelation for the purposes of salvation could take place after the apostolic period, or did its authors, as some modern scholars have argued, allow for a more flexible view, in which such divine revelation through extraordinary means might still take place? This books explores these questions in the light of the modern debates over the interpretation of the Confession’s language and its implications for the church today. It considers the difference between “mediate” and “immediate” revelation as understood by the Westminster divines, and attempts to show that only “immediate” revelation was considered to have ceased, while “mediate” revelation, which always involved Scripture, was held to continue.

A detailed analysis of the writings of the Westminster divines reveals that these churchmen possessed both a strong desire to maintain the unity of Word and Spirit and a concern to safeguard the freedom of the Holy Spirit to speak to particular circumstances through the language and principles of Scripture. God still enabled predictive prophecy and spoke to individuals in extraordinary ways, but contemporary prophecy was held to be something different from the extraordinary prophecy of New Testament figures.

In the minds of the Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans, prophecy was considered to be an application of Scripture for a specific situation, not an announcement of new information not contained within the Bible. The Scripture always remained essential for the process of discerning God’s will. (xv-xvi).

A little later, Milne summarizes his thesis:

The book concludes that the Westminster divines intended the cessationist clause to affirm that there was to be no more extra-biblical, “immediate” revelation for any purpose now that the church possessed the complete Scriptures. The written Word of God was fully capable of showing the way of “salvation” in its wider scope as either temporal or eternal deliverance.

At the same time the divines did not intend to deny that God could still speak through special providences that might involve dreams or the ministry of angels, for example, but such revelation was always to be considered “meditate.” The primary means was held to be the written Scriptures, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The unity of the Word and Spirit was maintained, and God’s freedom to address individual circumstances remained intact. (xvi-xvii)

Whether you agree with the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Puritans on this matter, I don’t think anyone grappling with Milne’s research can deny that he presents a compelling case for the conclusion just stated. Without a doubt, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches cessationism, but it is a cessationism which requires considerable nuance and allows for supernatural surprises so long as they are working with and through the Word of God.

Three Surprising Ways to Grieve the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is often described as light. He shines into the dark places of the heart and convicts us of sin (John 16:7-11). He is a lamp to illumine God’s word, teaching what is true and showing the truth to be precious (1 Cor. 2:6-16). And the Spirit throws a spotlight on Christ so that we can see his glory and be changed (John 16:14). That’s why 2 Corinthians 3:18 speaks of becoming more like Christ by beholding the glory of Christ. Just as Moses had his face transfigured when he saw the Lord’s glory on Mount Sinai (Ex. 34:29; 2 Cor. 3:7), so will we be transformed when, by the Spirit, we behold God’s glory in the face of Christ.

The Spirit, then, is a light to us in three ways: by exposing our guilt, by illuminating the word of God, and by showing us Christ. Or to put it another way, as Divine Light, the Holy Spirit works to reveal sin, reveal the truth, and reveal glory. When we close our eyes to this light or disparage what we are meant to see by this brightness, we are guilty of resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51), or quenching (1 Thess. 5:19) or grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:30). There may be slight nuances among the three terms, but they are all speak of the same basic reality: refusing to see and to savor what the Spirit means to show us.

There are, then, at least three ways to grieve the Holy Spirit—three ways that may be surprising because they correspond to the three ways in which the Spirit acts as light to expose our guilt, illumine the word, and show us Christ.

First, we grieve the Holy Spirit when we use him to excuse our sinfulness. The Spirit is meant to be the source of conviction in the human hearts. How sad it is, therefore, when Christians try to use the Spirit to support ungodly behavior. We see it when people—whether genuinely deceived or purposeful charlatans—claim the leading of the Spirit as the reason for their unbiblical divorce, or for their financial impropriety, or for their new found sexual liberation. The Holy Spirit is always the Spirit of holiness. He means to show us our sin not to excuse it through subjective feelings, spontaneous impressions, and wish fulfillment disguised as enlightened spirituality. If the Holy Spirit is grieved when we turn from righteous into sin, how doubly grieved he must be when we claim the Spirit’s authority for such deliberate rebellion.

Second, we grieve the Holy Spirit when we pit him against the Scriptures. The Spirit works to reveal the truth of the word of God, not to lead us away from it. There is no place in the Christian life for supposing or suggesting that careful attention to the Bible is somehow antithetical to earnest devotion to the Holy Spirit. Anyone wishing to honor the Spirit would do well to honor the Scriptures he inspired and means to illuminate.

Sometimes Christians will cite the promise in John 16:13 that the Spirit “will guide you into all the truth” as reason to expect that the third person of the Trinity will give us new insights not found in the Scripture. But the “truth” referred to in John 16 is the whole truth about everything bound up in Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. The Spirit will unpack the things that are to come, insofar as he will reveal to the apostles (see v. 12) the significance of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation. The Spirit, speaking for the Father and the Son, would help the apostles remember what Jesus said and understand the true meaning of who Jesus is and what he accomplished (John 14:26).

This means that the Spirit is responsible for the truths the apostles preached and that in turn were written down in what we now call the New Testament. We trust the Bible—and do not need to go beyond the Bible—because the apostles, and those under the umbrella of their authority, wrote the Bible by means of the Spirit’s revelation. The Bible is the Spirit’s book. To insist on exegetical precision, theological rigor, and careful attention to the word of God should never be denigrated as stuffing our heads full of knowledge, let alone as somehow opposed to the real work of the Spirit.

Third, we grieve the Holy Spirit when we suggest he is jealous of our focus on Christ. The Holy Spirit’s work is to serve. He speaks only what he hears (John 16:13). He declares what he is given; his mission is to glorify another (John 16:14). All three persons of the Trinity are fully God, yet in the divine economy the Son makes known the Father and the Spirit glorifies the Son. Yes, it is a terrible thing to be ignorant about the Spirit and unwise to overlook the indispensable role he plays in our lives. But we must not think we can focus on Christ too much, or that when we exalt Christ to the glory of God the Father that somehow the Spirit is sulking off in the corner. The Spirit means to shine a light on Christ; he is not envious to stand in the light himself.

Exulting in Christ, focusing on Christ, speaking much and singing often of Christ are not evidences of the Spirit’s dismissal but of the Spirit’s work. If the symbol of the church is the cross and not the dove, that’s because the Spirit would have it that way. As J. I. Packer puts it, “The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,’ but always, ‘Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him, and hear his word; go to him, and have life; get to know him, and taste his gift of joy and peace.’”

Again, to know nothing of the Holy Spirit is a serious mistake (cf. Acts 19:2). But when Christians lament an over-attentiveness to Christ or moan about too much emphasis on the cross, such protestations grieve the Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit is not waiting in the wings to be noticed and lauded. His work is not to shine brightly before us, but to shine a light on the glory of Christ. To behold the glory of God the Father in the face of Jesus Christ the Son is not to sideline the Holy Spirit; it is to celebrate his gracious work among us.

Whether we are talking about holiness, the Bible, or Jesus Christ, let us never set the Spirit against the very thing he means to accomplish. We do not honor the Spirit by trying to diminish what he seeks to exalt. And we do not stay in his step by pushing others (or ourselves) in the direction of the very things that grieve him most.

Is Confrontation More Important than Contextualization?

My favorite preaching book that I never hear anyone talk about is Preaching Like Paul by James W. Thompson. The author is outside of the normal evangelical circles (he teaches at Abilene Christian University), and the book is not published by one of the evangelical publishing houses (Westminster John Knox Press). But his emphasis on preaching as didactic and propositional (with an appeal for a response) is spot on, and his beef with felt needs and narrative preaching styles is refreshingly contrarian.

If there is a dominant theme in the book it is that the Apostle Paul preached with authority, made his listeners uncomfortable, and did not tailor the thrust of his sermons to fit his audience.

Although Acts portrays Paul as carefully adapting his message to the listeners–even employing the Stoic categories of that culture–in the speech at Athens (Acts 17:22-33), the letters provide no indication that Paul’s evangelistic preaching involved allowing the listeners to set the agenda. From his perspective, their story consists of hopelessness (1 Thess. 4:13) and enslavement to idols (1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Cor. 12:2; Gal. 4:3, 8) and passions (1 Thess. 4:5). When he says that “Jews demand signs and Greek desire wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22), he acknowledges an aspect of their story in the form of their common pursuits. Paul’s evangelistic preaching is a challenge to his listeners’ story, for his evangelistic preaching always culminates in a call for the listener to turn from the old existence to a new plot that is determined by the story of Jesus. (47-48)

Later, Thompson is even more provocative in arguing that Paul seemed more concerned to confront his hearers with the claims of the gospel than to contextualize those claims for them.

By refusing to treat the gospel as merchandise (2 Cor. 2:17) or to “tamper with God’s word” (2 Cor. 4:2), Paul demonstrated his concern to be faithful to a trust, even if his faithfulness produced few results. Although he knew that his audience considered his story “foolishness,” he nevertheless preached “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:22-23) in a direct challenge to an alternative view of reality.

His proclamation was neither a response to the questions that the people were asking nor an attempt to present Christianity as the answer to their own pursuits. In his claim that God has acted in the events of the cross and resurrection, he knew that he was challenging a culture’s myths and that his listeners would consider the message scandalous (1 Cor. 1:18-25; Gal. 5:11). Paul gave his listeners a clear choice, a message that they could reject! We easily forget that most of them did. A challenge to the world’s view of reality and a summons for listeners to conform their story to the larger story is not likely to result in easy victories. . . .Paul is not the evangelist who depends on his cleverness, sermonic technique, audience manipulation, or adaptation of the message for the sake of having maximum results. His task is to confront the audience with a message that it does not want to hear, leaving the response to God. (48-49)

What does this mean for preaching today? Thompson offers three points of application: (1) Evangelistic preaching is not based on market analysis. (2) Evangelistic preaching offers a clear message for our hearers to either reject or accept. (3) Evangelistic preaching cannot program the results in advance; we must have faith in God’s role in the preaching event.

Like I said, it’s a good book. And this is very good advice.

 

The Virtue of Laughing at Vanity

When I was a young whipper snapper in college–zealous for the truth, devouring all the good theology books I could, and perhaps a little too serious at times for my own good–I stumbled upon the book The Humor of Christ by Elton Trueblood. I remember not liking the book very much, concluding that Trueblood tried too hard to make Christ into a Galilean funny man. But now many years later–and, I trust, a bit more more mature and more balanced–I think Trueblood was on to something.

While I still don’t agree with every point the Quaker theologian made, I find his big idea compelling: “It is true that our common lives are helped by both genuine religion and genuine humor. In the teaching of Christ the two forms are conjoined” (125). Trueblood, who pays close attention to the gospel narratives and dialogues, makes a convincing case that Christ often used irony, purposeful exaggeration, and humorous parables, and knew how to engage in witty conversations where he gave as good as he got.

In particular, Trueblood argues, Jesus exemplified the great virtue of helping others to laugh at vanity. Because humans are given the gift of self-consciousness, we are prone to pride and vanity. But with this self-consciousness also comes the ability to laugh at conceit.

Christ was demonstrating one of the universal elements of His humor when He served the cause of true religion by exposing the pompous person whose profession far exceeds his practice. . . .Vanity is a great weakness of mankind in general, but it seems especially ludicrous when it appears among the professionally religious. The contradiction between man’s humility before God and his strutting before men is a perfect opening for ridicule, and Jesus employed it to perfection in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. (35-36)

Satire, sarcasm, irony, hyperbole–these are dangerous weapons, only to be wielded in spiritual warfare with caution and with great aplomb. But they are to be wielded at times. To poke fun at the oh-so-important, the perpetually offended, and the self-righteously sentimental can be good, godly work. When it comes to poking at the pretensions of the proud, laughter is often the best medicine. Vanity cannot be reasoned with, but it can be mocked. In the presence of overwrought solemnity and self-serving pomposity, Christ shows that a little humor goes a long ways.

 

The Bible Motivates Us In Many Ways

As important as justification is for the Christian, it’s not meant to be the only prescription in our pursuit of holiness. Without a doubt, it is gloriously true that we are accepted before God because of the work of Christ alone, the benefits of which we receive through faith alone, by grace alone. That ought to be our sweet song and confession at all times. Justification is enough to make us right with God for ever, and it is certainly a major motivation for holiness. If we are accepted by God we do not have to live for the approval of others. If there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus then we do not have to fear the disappointment of others. There’s no doubt that justification is fuel for our sanctification.

But it is not the only kind of fuel we can put in the tank. If we only remind people of our acceptance before God we will flatten the contours of Scripture and wind up being poor physicians of souls.

Think of James 4:1: “What causes quarrels and fights among you?” James does not say, “You’re fighting because you have not come to grips with your acceptance in the gospel.” He says, in effect, “You’re at each others throats because you’re covetous and you’re selfish. You want things that you don’t have. You’re demanding. You’re in love with the world; You’re envious. That’s what’s going on in your heart right now.” Now, we might try to connect all that with a failure to believe the gospel, but that’s not what James says. He blames their quarrels on their love of the world.

You only have be a parent for a short time to see that people sin for all sorts of reasons. Lately we’ve been using the excellent book Long Story Short for our morning devotions with the kids. When we came to the story of Cain and Abel the book suggested a little lesson where you hand a ten dollar bill to one child but not the others. Then you ask the kids, “What would your response be if I gave your sister ten dollars because she did something very pleasing to me, and I gave you nothing?” The aim of the lesson is to relate with Cain’s envy toward Abel. So I just asked the question, and my son, in whom there is no guile, replied without hesitation, “Daddy, I’d punch you in the stomach.” Now what’s going on in his heart at that moment? Is his most pressing need to understand justification, or is there a simpler explanation? I think my son at that moment, like the people James was addressing, was ready to fight because of covetousness. He saw ten dollars, thought of Legos, and was willing to do whatever he had to get what he wanted.

The problem with much of our thinking on sanctification is that we assume people are motivated in only one way. It’s similar to the mistake some of those associated with Christian psychology fell into. They assumed a universal needs theory. They operated from the principle that everyone has a leaky love tank that needs to be patched up and filled up. If people could only be loved in the right way they’d turn around and be a loving person. Well, I don’t doubt there is some commonsense insight there. But does the theory explain everyone? Is this the problem with Al-Qaida or Hamas? They all have leaky love tanks? Or are some other issues at play?

I have no problem acknowledging that sin is always an expression of unbelief. But there are a lot of God’s promises I can disbelieve at any moment. Justification by grace alone through faith alone is not the only indicative I can doubt. I can disbelieve God’s promise to judge the wicked or his promise to come again or his promise to give me an inheritance or his promise to turn everything to my good. These are all precious promises, each one a possible remedy for indwelling sin. To remind each other of justification is never a wrong answer. It is a precious remedy, but it is not the only one.