R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 565

Come As You Aren't

Too many conversations are far too predictable. Praise the sovereignty of God in salvation and someone will inevitably remind you that God didn’t make robots. You will then remind said friend that dead people are passive people, only to be reminded that God is not willing that any should perish. Warn against the dangers of too much wine, and someone will in turn present the biblical praises for wine, and before long in the back and forth you can count on someone pointing out that sometimes oinos means grape juice. As soon as the conversation begins we know how it will end.

It is the habit of my family to dress for church. I have, on more than one occasion, argued in print that we casually worship a casual god because we enter into his presence casually. I have suggested that on the Lord’s Day we should dress as if we were going to meet the King, because we are going to meet the King. I know, from experience, that it won’t take long for someone to point out the obvious, that God looks not at the outward, but at the heart.

This nugget of wisdom is designed to make us comfortable, even in our comfortable clothes. The implicit message is Jesus doesn’t care what you wear, because He can see what a wonderful person you are. Unlike the modern day Pharisees who are always judging people, Jesus has the insight to really understand you. It is true enough that Jesus is far more concerned with what is in our heart than He is with what is on our backs. It is likewise true that Jesus knows exactly what is in our hearts. What confuses me, however, is how this is supposed to comfort me. Would I rather have Jesus judge me on the basis of my recently dry-cleaned suit, my well ironed dress shirt, and my just-so necktie, or would I rather He judge me on the basis of my desperately wicked, self-deceiving, black as ink heart?

What our “Come as you are” dress says about us is that we are meeting a “Come as you are” god. But if we come as we are, because of what we are, we are walking straight into the wrath of God; we are walking straight into hell.  The God we worship is not a come as you are god. He is instead the true and living God who cannot even look upon sin. He is a consuming fire, who insists above all else that He be treated as holy.

The glory of the gospel is that God isn’t looking at my clothes when I come to worship. Whether I am dressed to the nines or dressed in flip-flops, He isn’t looking at my clothes. He is, however, looking at what I am wearing. And praise God what I’m wearing not only covers my body, but covers my heart as well. What I wear to worship is what I wear the rest of the week. I do not come dressed for a formal dance. I do not come dressed for a picnic on the beach. I come instead dressed like royalty. I come dressed like a prince. For I wear the righteousness of the Son of God. I do not come as I am. I come as I AM is.

2011 Fall Conference - Session 1 (Panel Discussion)

This evening we opened with a panel discussion with Voddie Baucham, George Grant, Michael Morales, R.C. Sproul and R.C. Sproul Jr. Chris Larson, executive vice-president of Ligonier Ministries, moderated the discussion followed by questions from the audience. Here is a summary of some of the topics of conversation.

Chris Larson: Dr. Sproul, tell us about your vision for a Bible college.

R.C. Sproul: Twenty years ago, I had a meeting with a board member and we talked about the Kingdom needs in Orlando—we talked about the need for a classical Christian school and started one of those. I was also a founding dean of Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, bringing that initiative down from Jackson, MS. But while speaking, we realized one thing we didn't have is a reformed Bible college. I'm only aware of one other.

[image error]Several factors combined to make me think of the importance of this need. We had this historical phenomena of mainline evangelicalism by dispensationalism which was an innovation at end of 19th century and spread like wildfire. But people didn't realize it was a departure from historic Christianity. The Scofield Reference Bible was published, and colleges and seminaries grew out of this phenomena. Seminaries went to the left but I noticed the students from Bible colleges would recognize that and go a different direction. I figured if you can get students at the college level they can be productive students for the rest of their lives.

The idea was a dream. It became a goal and then a reality due to the support of our constituents.

CL: What did you think of George Grant's message this afternoon and how it ties in to the curriculum of the school?

RC: That message emphasized the importance and necessity of grounding people in the great Book. I can't imagine anyone doing a better job or a better keynote address for the launching of a college devoted to the great Book.

CL: You all have experience in higher education and have seen the attention put on the Bible. Why is there an emphasis in the Bible's pre-eminence?

R.C. Sproul Jr.: If education is just the delivery of information and it's not about changing who we are but equipping us to do this or that, then they're right. It won't teach you how to write computer programs or balance your books. It will, however, teach you to be an honest and diligent man which gets to the heart. The whole idea of separating the knowledge from discipleship is the root of the problem. You can still err if you think the Bible is just a pile of content to be mastered.

RC: True education leads us out of the darkness of the fallen mind to the light. Education presupposes the need for the Word of God.

CL: We hear a lot of talk about knowledge versus discipleship and how knowledge isn't enough. How do you integrate knowledge with discipleship?

Voddie Baucham: We tend to believe acquiring knowledge is an end unto itself. If we pursue God, we have the greatest good that there is to attain. All of a sudden we see the acquisition of knowledge as on par with developing character and discipleship is a way to follow and emulate people that walk in that way.

CL: How do the other solas flow out of sola Scriptura?

JR: The gospel is not like "there's a problem" and God tries to figure out how to solve it. The gospel of Scripture is the revelation of who God is. This flows out of his character. When you let this Book tell you who God is, it will show you how we can relate and its purposes to glorify his Son (sola Christus) and in that glorify himself (sola deo gloria). Those solas, ilke this Book, tell us who God is.

RC: There's also the historical context of sola Scriptura. It was the formal cause of the reformation. Luther was driving to stand for the gospel because of his prior commitment to sola Scriptura—the solas were set on the Word of God and not on the trade of the church.

Audience: Is it possible for a born-again, Bible-fearing believer to be a liberal, progressive democrat?

RC: I would say yes.

George Grant: I would say yes…barely. You're going to have a hard time voting for anyone though, just like I think a Bible-believing conservative is going to have a hard time finding a candidate. We can look and see all the things that need to be done in society, and right now we don't have leadership and any theological strides to lead us there.

JR: I believe the Bible speaks to every conceivable issue there is, but culturally speaking we have come to define evangelical by our political mood rather than our convictions about what the Bible teaches about how we can have peace with God.

Audience: I'm often baffled by the limitations of words when talking about the autobiography of God. What do we do when words don't say enough because He is infinite?

RC: We have verbal and non-verbal communication. There is no substitute for verbal communication, and God has condescended to speak to us in our own method of communication. The only legitimate way of interpreting sacred Scripture is to interpret it literally, meaning you interpret it as literature, as it is written. What you can't do is look at historical narrative as poetry. God has chosen to communicate to us through verbal communication, and it's our duty to seek to understand it in the clearest possible way. The Bible is inexhaustible.

2011 Fall Pre-Conference (George Grant)

Dr. George Grant opened our conference The Autobiography of God with the pre-conference session on "The Great Book Program." Here is what he had to say:

The Thirst for Knowledge

People are always talking about the importance of knowledge, but knowledge is not necessarily all its cracked up to be. It can be greatly overrated. After all, the Apostle Paul says that “’knowledge’ puffs up” (1 Cor. 8:1).

Knowledge can be mastered and transferred. Data and skills can be catalogued. But truth and wisdom are not so easily attained. For decades, educational systems have emphasized gaining knowledge. We want our kids to have knowledge of basic information and, especially, skills for the job market. Ours is the information age. Communicating knowledge has been our objective, and we have assumed kids can make their way in the world if they know data and have the career skills they need.

Americans are enthusiasts for education. We demand the best and the latest of what education can offer. We have spared no expense or effort in pouring knowledge into the minds of the next generation. Spending has increased four hundred percent per pupil in the last 25 years. The number of support personnel has quadrupled and teachers’ salaries have doubled in the same period. Education is the second-largest industry in the country, consuming a quarter of a trillion dollars and employing three million teachers and administrators.

School reform has topped the agenda of public officials for the past ten election cycles. But what do we have to show for it? It is ironic that we seem to know so little about everything. We are drowning in information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, but American education is a dismal failure. Teacher competency; administration efficiency and effectiveness; and student achievement and advancement are all down.

Consider these facts about education in America:

Thirty-five million can read only the basics and then only with difficulty.
SAT scores show a continually decline from 1963 to the present even though standards have been lowered five times.
Out of the 158 members of the United Nations, the United States is number forty-nine in basic literacy.
Nearly forty percent cannot draw inferences from written materials.
Only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay.
Forty-four million cannot find the Pacific Ocean, including 3 million residents in California.
Sixty-one million cannot come within five hundred miles of locating the nation’s capital.
Nearly half of all Americans are so poorly educated that they cannot calculate the price difference between two items at a grocery store or apply for a job at a fast food restaurant.

So many people are undereducated that they do not know that they are undereducated. We’ve hired experts, changed curriculum, and overhauled education, but nearly 45 percent cannot read the front page of USA Today. How did this happen in the information age? How has so little information gotten through if we are so concerned to impart knowledge?

The Root of the Problem

One reason for these problems may be that education is more than the transfer of information. Passing on information is important, but education involves something more. Spurgeon once said that “knowing is not education.”

Another reason may be that many think education has an ending point. Education does not have a finish line or a final outcome. Instead, it is a deposit, endowment, or a small taste of future learning. All talk of education should remind us that we have only begun to learn what we need to learn. Our heritage has introduced us to much, but we’ve only been introduced to what is out there. A life of adventure in all arenas of study still awaits us. In fact, the lessons that never end are the most important. Nevertheless, the view that education has an ending point is not the main problem.

Christian educators have brought us back to the classics, but we are still ignorant. What we need to propose is not a great divide between Jerusalem (church) and Athens (world) but to recognize that there are some questions that Athens cannot answer.

I love the great books — Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer. I have reveled at the chance to sit down with a young man and take him through poetic verse. These are wondrous things, but the great books will fall short if we do not have the Great Book Program.

The Word of God is His revelation of Himself — of His wisdom, holiness, providence, truth, and more. It is His plumb line and His bottom line. When God speaks, His Word stands firm forever. His standards and precepts do not change from culture to culture or age to age. God’s Word is truth (John 17); it is sacred (2 Tim. 3). In Scripture we have the very oracles of God. It is true, good, forever right, and the standard for all judgment. It is the word of life. How, then, can we understand other writers if we have not plumbed the depths of the Word of God?

If we only have great books programs in the classics, we only prove Paul right in his statement about knowledge.

Jesus said we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:1–4). It is sufficient to bring all things into focus.

All Scripture is God-breathed. It is living and active (2 Tim. 3:16–17). The Word of our God shall stand forever. Heaven and earth will pass away but His Word will not (Matt. 24:35).

We affirm these things, but how do we account for the biblical illiteracy evident in even the best churches. People rightly answer questions about television, popular music, and so on. But they can’t tell you the name of the bald prophet or the day Jesus died on the cross.

None of this catches the Lord God by surprise. God warned His people that they must be vigilant to adhere to the Word of God. He warned them to tune out the voices of the world and hear His voice clearly (Deut. 8:11).

A Comprehensive Plan for Education

Deut. 6 gives a glimpse of covenant succession, and gives a comprehensive plan for discipleship, even education. It is the foundation/paradigm for godly education. Note verse 20. We are to recount the past. This plan touches all of human existence

All education, all discipleship is necessarily theological at its root. It begins with the declaration to know and love God (vv. 4–5). You can’t know anything if you cannot know that there is one, sovereign God who spoke the world into existence. You can’t know anything!

We buy fancy curricula, have homework until 10 p.m., are up at 6 p.m. to cram for a test, but there is never an opportunity to open the Word of Life.

The Great Book Program is literary at its heart. The words will be on the heart of the children (v. 6).

It is normal for the West to have a bent toward the literary. But the place reading needs to start is where the words actually give life — the Word of God.

V.7 talks about the need of diligent labor in education. How many people actually work hard in the Word? Are we teaching our people to labor in Scripture? Do we exhort pastors and parents to teach diligently?

There is a covenantal bias and relational emphasis in this program (vv. 7–8). Commands are taught to children and are to be discussed all the time. The Great Book Program is not a class we talk on in period three. It is to infiltrate and subsume every other discussion and discipline.

There’s an aesthetic bias. The Word is to adorn our lives and our days (v. 9). It’s not just a matter of the heart, and it is to infiltrate everywhere and everything in the believer’s life.

There’s an ethical bias. We have an exhortation that these things are not just philosophical. We are to do what is right, good, and true (vv. 16–19). We are to practice the faith, as C.S. Lewis says, even when the faith seems remote because in the practice comes faithfulness.

The meaning of all this comes alive when we tell the story of God’s providence in our midst. First Corinthians 10 calls us to look back at the hand of God’s providence. That is how the past can direct us in the present. That is the Great Book Program.

The Solution

Many Americans want politicians to solve our educational mess. Many look to professional educators to solve the problem But the fact is that the answer to America’s great educational crisis is for God’s faithful people to recover a love for God’s Word and its sufficiency for all of life.

We need not only faithful preaching from the pulpit but for mothers and fathers to undertake the Great Book Program in their homes. When we become people of the book again, we can wonder at the marvels of the treasure of our heritage rightly.

At this moment of crisis, it is not our next president who will ultimately matter but the person who is teaching our children and grandchildren the story of redemption. May be God pleased to move us to initiate a comprehensive Great Book Program in our homes, churches, schools, and culture. And May God be pleased to use the likes of us in His great plan.

The Reformation and the Men Behind It

As Reformation Day (Oct. 31) approaches, we will be presenting a series of posts about the major Reformers who led the effort to restore the church in the sixteenth century—Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, William Tyndale, Heinrich Bullinger, and John Calvin. These posts are excerpted from Pillars of Grace by Dr. Steven J. Lawson. In this book, Dr. Lawson traces the teaching of the doctrines of grace from the Early Church Fathers to the Reformers. Each chapter focuses on one man and includes a biographical sketch. It is these biographical sketches that we will be posting on the blog. We hope you will enjoy and learn from the stories of these remarkable men. In today’s post, Dr. Lawson offers some background on the Reformation and the Reformers. 

The Protestant Reformation stands as the most far-reaching, world-changing display of God’s grace since the birth and early expansion of the church. It was not a single act, nor was it led by one man. This history-altering movement played out on different stages over many decades. Its cumulative impact, however, was enormous. Philip Schaff, a noted church historian, writes: “The Reformation of the sixteenth century is, next to the

introduction of Christianity, the greatest event in history. It marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. Starting from religion, it gave, directly or indirectly, a mighty impulse to every forward movement, and made Protestantism the chief propelling force in the history of modern civilization” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII: Modern Christianity—The German Reformation [1910; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980], 1). The Reformation was, at its heart, a recovery of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and this restoration had an unparalleled influence on churches, nations, and the flow of Western civilization.

Under the guiding hand of God, the world scene had been uniquely prepared for the Reformation. The church was greatly in need of reform. Spiritual darkness personified the Roman Catholic Church. The Bible was a closed book. Spiritual ignorance ruled the minds of the people. The gospel was perverted. Church tradition trumped divine truth. Personal holiness was abandoned. The rotten stench of manmade traditions covered pope and priest. The corruption of ungodliness contaminated both dogma and practice. 

On the other hand, a new day was dawning. Feudal states were giving way to nation-states. Exploration was expanding. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492. Trade routes were opening. A middle class was rising. Opportunities for learning were increasing. Knowledge was multiplying. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press (1454) had vastly improved the dissemination of ideas. Under all of these influences, the Renaissance was at high noon. Moreover, a further alteration in the world scene was soon to be ushered in by the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, bringing great changes especially in the church of Jesus Christ.

In light of such dramatic upheaval, certain questions beg to be asked: What factors led to the Protestant Reformation? Where was the Reformation born? How did this powerful movement come about? Where did it spread? Who were the key leaders who stoked its flames? What biblical truths were unleashed on the world at this time? To begin to answer these questions, we must focus in on those giants of the faith who led the Reformation.

The Magisterial Reformers

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, God began to raise up a series of strong-willed figures known to history as the Reformers. There had been earlier reformers in the church, but those who came to prominence in this period were the best educated, most godly, and most faithful reform leaders the church had ever seen. These men were steeped in Scripture and marked by audacious courage in the face of opposition. They were emboldened by deep convictions as to the truth and a love for Christ’s church that drove them to attempt to bring it back to its timeless standard. In the simplest terms, they longed to see God’s people worship Him according to Scripture. These men were shining lights in a dark day.

“The Reformers did not see themselves as inventers, discoverers, or creators,” according to historian Stephen Nichols. “Instead, they saw their efforts as rediscovery. They weren’t making something from scratch but were reviving what had become dead. They looked back to the Bible and to the apostolic era, as well as to early church fathers such as Augustine (354–430) for the mold by which they could shape the church and re-form it. The Reformers had a saying, ‘Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda,’ meaning ‘the church reformed, always reforming’” (Stephen Nichols, The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World [Wheaton: Crossway, 2007], 17).

The Magisterial Reformers are so called because their reform efforts were supported by at least some ruling authorities, or magistrates, and because they believed the civil magistrates ought to enforce the true faith. This term is used to distinguish them from the radical reformers (Anabaptists), whose efforts had no magisterial support. The Reformers are also called “magisterial” because the word magister can mean “teacher,” and the Magisterial Reformation strongly emphasized the authority of teachers.

Scripture Alone

In time, the message of the Reformers became encapsulated in five slogans known as the solas of the Reformation: sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”), solus Christus (“Christ alone”), sola gratia (“grace alone”), sola fide (“faith alone”), and soli Deo gloria (“the glory of God alone”). The first of these, sola Scriptura, was the defining benchmark of the movement.

There are only three possible forms of spiritual authority. First, there is the authority of the Lord and His written revelation. Second, there is the authority of the church and its leaders. Third, there is the authority of human reason. When the Reformers cried “Scripture alone,” they were expressing their commitment to the authority of God as expressed through the Bible. James Montgomery Boice states their core belief: “The Bible alone is our ultimate authority—not the pope, not the church, not the traditions of the church or church councils, still less personal intimations or subjective feelings, but Scripture only” (James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? Recovering the Doctrines That Shook the World [Wheaton: Crossway, 2001], 32). The Reformation was essentially a crisis over which authority should have primacy. Rome claimed the church’s authority lay with Scripture and tradition, Scripture and the pope, Scripture and church councils. But the Reformers believed that the authority belonged to Scripture alone.

Schaff writes: “While the Humanists went back to the ancient classics and revived the spirit of Greek and Roman paganism, the Reformers went back to the sacred Scriptures in the original languages and revived the spirit of apostolic Christianity. They were fired by an enthusiasm for the gospel, such as had never been known since the days of Paul. Christ rose from the tomb of human traditions and preached again His words of life and power. The Bible, heretofore a book of priests only, was now translated anew and better than ever into the vernacular tongues of Europe, and made a book of the people. Every Christian man could henceforth go to the fountain-head of inspiration, and sit at the feet of the Divine Teacher, without priestly permission and intervention” (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII, 17).

The Fountain of Sovereign Grace

This commitment to Scripture alone led to the rediscovery of the doctrines of grace. Any return to the Bible inevitably leads to the truth of God’s sovereignty in saving grace. The other four solas—solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, and soli Deo gloria—flow from sola Scriptura.

The first Reformer was an Augustinian monk who nailed Ninety-five Theses against the Roman Catholic practice of selling indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517. His name was Martin Luther (1483–1546). This bold act by a monk with a mallet launched the Reformation. Other Reformers would follow, such as Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), Hugh Latimer (1487–1555), Martin Bucer (1491–1551), William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1536), Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), John Rogers (1500–1555), Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), and John Calvin (1509–1564). To a man, they were firmly committed to the truths of Scripture and sovereign grace.

Excerpted with edits from Pillars of Grace, © 2011 by Steven J. Lawson. Published by Reformation Trust Publishing, a division of Ligonier Ministries.

$5 Friday: Masculinity, Atheism & Providence

Find $5 Friday resources this week covering masculinity, atheism, atonement, providence, suffering, and preaching. Sale starts today at 8 a.m. and ends Saturday at 8 a.m. EST.

View today's $5 Friday sale

Free Live Webcast: 2011 Fall Conference

The 2011 Fall Conference at Reformation Bible College starts in less than 24 hours, and we are excited to be able to offer a free, live webcast of the conference.

Joining Dr. R.C. Sproul will be respected pastors, theologians, and leaders Voddie Baucham, George Grant, Michael Morales and R.C. Sproul Jr., all of whom will explore how the Bible tells us about who God is, not as a list of attributes, but as three persons in one being, working together in space and time. 

Click here to view the webcast

We will also post session summaries on our blog during the conference. Use the webcast website to set calendar reminders.

The stream will go live Friday, October 14, 2011 at 3:00 p.m. EST. Here's a schedule if you want to tune in for a particular session. You can find more information on the conference sessions on our website.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14

3:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. Session #1 -- George Grant
Pre-Conference:  The Great Book Program

7:45 p.m. — 8:45 p.m. Session #2 -- All Speakers
Panel Discussion

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15

9:15 a.m. — 10:10 a.m. Session #3 -- George Grant
Before All Time

10:10 a.m. — 11:00 a.m. Session #4 -- R.C. Sproul Jr.
Lord of Space & Time

11:30 a.m. — 12:30 p.m. Session #5 -- Voddie Baucham
The Rescuer

2:25 p.m. — 3:20 p.m. Session #6 -- Baucham, Morales, Sproul, Sproul Jr. 
Questions & Answers 

3:20 p.m. — 4:10 p.m. Session #7 -- Michael Morales
Every Knee Will Bow

4:45 p.m. — 5:35 p.m. Session #8 -- R.C. Sproul 
Eternity

Death Does Not Have the Last Word

This month's issue of Tabletalk deals with the always-difficult and always-relevant issue of death and disease. Here is how R.C. Sproul begins his contribution:

The guns of secular naturalism, when aimed at the Christian faith, resemble not so much shotguns as carefully aimed rifles. The chief target of the naturalist is the biblical doctrine of creation. If the doctrine of creation falls, all of Judeo-Christianity falls with it. Every skeptic understands that. Thus the constant shooting at Genesis 1.

But along with the assault against divine creation comes an assault against the biblical teaching of a historical Adam who is involved in a historical fall, the result of which is the entrance of death into the world. If Adam can be confined to the genre of mythology and the fall set aside with him, then we see death as a purely natural phenomenon with no relationship to sin.

Much is at stake with the biblical teaching of the fall because this doctrine is linked to the doctrine of redemption. The historical function of the first Adam is matched and conquered by the historical life of the last Adam, Jesus Christ.

Keep Reading "Death Does Not Have the Last Word."

Great Quotes from Discovering the God Who Is

I recently had the opportunity to read through almost all of the books of R.C. Sproul. Along the way I built a collection of some of the best quotes from each one of them. Here are several of the best from Discovering the God Who Is.

With conversion comes a new capacity for understanding and appreciating the true nature and character of God. We are now open and receptive to an unprecedented degree of acknowledging, loving, and adoring the God who is.

Learning of the character of God is an experience that cannot be exhausted in a single lifetime in this world. Even with the new eyes of faith we grope at times as blind men and squint with myopic eyes through a glass darkly. The more we interact with God’s unveiling of Himself in sacred Scriptures, the more light we are able to apprehend.

I know that life changes. We decay. We hurt. We die. Nothing in this life is for sure. That’s why you and I need a God who is bigger than life, certainly One who is bigger than death. We need a God who cannot be slain, a God who cannot die. Magic won’t do. Myths won’t work either. This God must be real.

Because God is silent and invisible, we tend to think He is absent from us. When we can’t “feel” His presence with the accompanying tingle on the back of the neck and the chill along the spinal cord, we tend to think He is absent. Our experience is more of the divine absence than of the divine presence.

To be known by God is our highest privilege. The deepest folly of man is to flee from the eye of God. Hiding from God is as foolish as it is futile. There is no adequate hiding place. We can call from the mountains to fall upon us and the hills to cover us. But the eye of God can see through mountains and penetrate the cloak of hills.

God is neither under law nor apart from law but rather is a law unto Himself. God’s actions are bound by God’s nature. He must always act and does act according to His own character. His own character is altogether pure and morally perfect. He cannot act in an arbitrary manner because it is not His nature to be arbitrary.

The more we search the Scriptures the deeper we should move in our understanding of God. The more we know Him, the more we understand how worthy He is of our worship. We adore Him because He is adorable. We honor Him because He is honorable. We love Him because He is altogether lovely.

Parents, Give Children Clear Instructions

Joel Beeke's latest book, Parenting by God's Promises, now available for pre-order, contains many practical suggestions to help Christian parents raise their children in a way that honors God.

In his chapter, "Preventive Discipline", Beeke offers this piece of parenting wisdom to help lessen the need for corrective discipline:

“We are leaving in fifteen minutes. Please clean up your room before we go.” That command sounds clear, doesn’t it?

Perhaps there are twenty items on the floor when the child walks into his room, and about ten more things out of place. He picks up five things and then comes downstairs. His parents ask whether he has cleaned his room. He says, “Yes.” The parents check the room and exclaim: “It’s a pigpen in here! You didn’t clean your room.” The child says, “Yes, I did!”

Is it possible this boy really believes he has cleaned his room? Because a child thinks very differently from an adult, often what the adult says by implication does not get through to the child. The child may interpret an order in a way not intended by the parent. In the above example, perhaps the parents are to blame for not making their request perfectly clear. It would be better for them to say: “Pick up everything lying on the floor and put it where it belongs. Remember, in fifteen minutes we have to leave, so you should work fast.” Do you see the difference? We must be specific and leave nothing to the imagination. When we ask a child, “Did you get everything off the floor?” he should understand what we mean.

Give children clear instructions. You will not have to employ corrective discipline as much when both of you understand what is expected.

Excerpt from Joel Beeke's Parenting by God's Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace.

From Billy Graham To Sarah Palin

Near the close of the 1976 U.S. Presidential campaign, Newsweek magazine famously declared 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” In subsequent years, Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority,” Pat Robertson’s “Christian Coalition,” and James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” assumed leading roles on the stage of American political life. Each strongly identified with the Republican party and conservative public policy.

In the last decade, however, a new set of actors has appeared on this stage. Leaders such as Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, and Ron Sider – all bearing evangelical credentials – have bristled against evangelicalism’s longstanding identification with the Republican party. Promoting left-of-center public policies, these spokesmen do not appear to be speaking only for themselves. Polls suggest that a growing number of younger self-identified evangelicals have wearied of the policies and party affiliation of their elders. Forty years ago, Wallis and Sider were sideline figures in evangelicalism. Today, they are closer to the mainstream of evangelical sentiment than they have ever been.

What happened? In From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism, Hart offers an account of and an explanation for this recent turn of events. He charts a deep and longstanding current within American evangelicalism – one that has paradoxically embraced both right-leaning and left-leaning public policies. He also argues that the tradition of American political conservatism offers evangelicals a constructive model for civil engagement – if they are willing to listen and learn.

The majority of Hart’s book is a narrative of evangelicals’ engagement in American politics since the mid-twentieth century. He begins with the National Association of Evangelicals, founded in 1942. The NAE positioned itself between fundamentalism and the theological liberalism of the mainline, and soon began to address such issues of civil and political concern as the threat of communism; alcohol consumption; and religion and public education. In doing so, Hart argues, the NAE demonstrated that it was “simply heir to the politics that had sustained Protestants since the middle of the nineteenth century” – unabashed patriotism, moral crusading (often invoking the power of government as a means to this end), and direct appeal to the Bible as norm for American public policy (40, 39).

Even so, most evangelicals before the 1970s opted out of direct political engagement. This decade, however, ushered in “a variety of Supreme Court decisions, policy initiatives, and protest movements [that] challenged the Protestant character of the United States and threatened evangelical institutions” (40). This sea-change precipitated the rise of the Moral Majority, whose ascendancy among evangelicals in the political sphere was sealed by the electoral victory of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Hart offers exposition and analysis of the publications of several influential evangelicals in the last quarter of the twentieth-century – Peter Marshall, Jr., Francis Schaeffer, Donald Dayton, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Chuck Colson, Ralph Reed, Marvin Olasky, James Skillen, Jim Wallis, Randall Balmer, Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, and Michael Gerson. Many of the right-leaning authors in this group, Hart observes, often appeal to a Christian origin to the United States, from which Americans and their government are said to have precipitously declined. This historical conception has inspired crusading political efforts to stem the tide of personal immorality and what is perceived to be the social and political assault on the family. Left-leaning authors, on the other hand, often appeal to a comprehensive social vision that they believe derives from the Old Testament prophets and Jesus’ teaching concerning the Kingdom of God. This vision prompts them to redress, through political means, racial inequity, injustice, poverty, and human rights. For all their differences, Hart concludes, these writers – right and left – often reflect an unbending and uncompromising moral idealism, appeal directly to the Bible as an authority in ordering the affairs of the United States, conceive the United States as playing a unique and divinely-assigned role in world affairs, demonstrate “theological naiveté about human depravity,” and fail “to see the links between political convictions and [the] legal and political forms” embedded in over two centuries of American “federalism, republicanism, and constitutionalism” (199).

We should therefore not be surprised at the political shift in evangelical sentiment over the last decade. Whereas evangelicals may have identified themselves with political conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s, this union really represents a marriage of convenience. Evangelicals saw the Republican party and its policies as the best hope for stemming what they saw to be the widespread assault on the traditional family. Evangelicals, however, are not reliably conservative because they do not – and never have – self-consciously operated from conservative principles.

So what are these principles? Hart acknowledges the sheer difficulty of answering this question. For one thing, conservatism “is inherently opposed to ideology.” Why? “Thinking about how to be traditional, as opposed simply to living with received customs, is an indication that tradition has ended” (207). Furthermore, twentieth century political conservatism has proven something of a kaleidoscope. Hart references George H. Nash’s famous analysis of mid-century conservatism as a cord comprised of three diverse strands – traditionalism, libertarianism, and anti-communism. These strands have not always co-existed harmoniously. Even so, conservatism is not altogether porous. Conservatism’s paterfamilias, William F. Buckley, Jr., after all, famously and unambiguously expelled both Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society from the household. Conservatism, then, has admitted and does admit of some definition.

For Hart, the traditionalist Russell Kirk provides as good a definition of conservatism as one will find. Kirk proposes six “canons” of conservatism – 1) “belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience” 2) “affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems” 3) the “conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes” 4) “freedom and property are closely linked” 5) “faith in prescription, or ‘custom and convention, coupled with a distrust of’ sophisters, calculators, and economists” 6) hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress” (186-7).

Hart prescriptively concludes the book by arguing that “evangelicals should be conservative” (207). What might this look like? Evangelicals should first “reconsider the source of American greatness” (216). American greatness rests not in what is said to be the United States’ Christian origins, but in her heritage of limited government, religious freedom, and of the prioritization of “culture and character formation” to “political solutions” (219). Evangelicals should also “reconsider the source of Christian greatness” (220). The “true mark of faithfulness is not evident in outward displays of power [but] in simple, ordinary, and spiritual ways, such as saints gathered for prayer and worship, catechumens learning the church’s creed, or the care of widows, orphans, and the otherwise dispossessed” (ibid.). If the church takes this standard to heart, then she will value “spiritual warfare” more than “the culture wars,” and understand herself to be a “pilgrim” and not a “crusader” (222,3).

Hart’s book rightly stresses that evangelicals, as citizens, ought not to withdraw from civic and political participation. His prescription is decidedly not quietistic. Evangelicals should, however, engage in more reflection and self-criticism when it comes to participating in public affairs. Conservatism offers a largely untested means by which evangelicals may contribute to the public good in ways that will not contravene but complement their most basic beliefs and commitments. Even if Hart does not detail a comprehensive overview of the diversity of the resources of American conservatism (Hart, for instance, mentions but does not explore the natural law tradition), he has sufficiently whet the reader’s appetite to pursue a promising way forward.

Hart’s book is also a timely reminder to the church not to seek worldly ends by worldly means. The Scripture has given to the church not only a mission all her own, but also the means to carry out that mission. There is no question or doubt about the outcome of that mission – even the gates of Hell cannot prevail against the church. The question is whether evangelicals will summon the nerve and will to resist the siren calls of worldly power and goals, and invest her energies in an enterprise in which divine power is made evident in human weakness.

GUY WATERS is Associate Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, Mississippi, and a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He has authored or co-edited seven books, including A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Justification: Being Made Right With God? (Christian Focus Publications), and How Jesus Runs the Church (P&R).