Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 70

Redeemed to Perpetuate the Name

Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.”
– Ruth 4:9-10

Boaz is that rare man who does things because God lives (Ruth 3:13). So behind and within all of his provision and care for Ruth is the desire to glorify God. We see this even in his expressed motivation upon winning Naomi’s land and Ruth’s hand from the redeemer with first dibs. He says he has purchased them to perpetuate the names of dead relatives. Clearly Boaz is a “worthy man” (Ruth 2:1) and not just in the sense of financial means.

Were it not for Boaz’s larger-than-self vision, we would not have the story of Ruth. Her faithfulness, her commitment, her optimism, her submission are to her praise and God’s, but Boaz’s faithfulness — his full-of-faith-ness — in redeeming her puts her on the map. Against the dark backdrop of the book of Judges’ lawless grotesqueries, in which every man did what was right in his own eyes, Boaz shines with the predawn radiance of God’s glory in Christ.

Do you know the name of the kinsman redeemer first in line?

Exactly. In Ruth 4:1, Boaz calls him “friend,” and the Hebrew behind that word roughly translates to “so and so.” Whether his reasons for passing on Ruth were good or bad, old so-and-so’s name is not perpetuated. But we know who Elimelech, Mahlon, Naomi, and Ruth are because Boaz honored them by honoring God.

And because Boaz honored them by honoring God, his own name is perpetuated, and his son’s, and his son’s son, and his son’s son’s son, and so on until the lot of them spill into Matthew 1, and what we learn there is that Boaz has redeemed Naomi’s plot of land and Ruth’s widowed hand in order to perpetuate the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

And this is why any of us are redeemed: not just so that we’d be personally forgiven and fulfilled, but so that God’s name and Christ’s lordship would be magnified in every nook and cranny of our lives spreading into every square inch of the world until we spill into the life and world to come. We are redeemed for his namesake and to perpetuate his name.

The Cross Was Damnation, and He Took it Lovingly

Was there ever such love?

Rabbi Duncan was a great old Reformed teacher in New College, Edinburgh, a hundred and more years ago. In one of his famous excursions in his classes, where he would move off from the Hebrew he was supposed to be teaching to theological reflections on this or that, he threw out the following question: “Do you know what Calvary was? What? What? What? Do you know what Calvary was?” Then, having waited a little and having walked up and down in front of them in silence, he looked at them again and said, “I’ll tell you what Calvary was. It was damnation, and he took it lovingly.” The students in his class reported that there were tears on his face as he said this. And well there might be. “Damnation, and he took it lovingly.”

– J.I. Packer, Knowing Christianity

Only As Deep As Your Gospel

Yesterday morning I tweeted this: “The marriage controversy is not unrelated to the fact that many churches will be overdosing on silliness this Sunday.”

Some asked me what I meant by it. This is what I meant:

Church life in general and the worship gathering in particular, over time, shape a Christian’s thinking and values. Since that is true, we have a good insight toward an answer to these questions: Why do you suppose so many self-professing Christians today see no sin in same-sex couplings? And why do you suppose so many evangelicals who do still see the sin nevertheless seem to struggle to think and speak about marriage with any depth beyond political soundbites and emotional cliches?

We are reaping what we’ve sown with our church life the last 25 years. The story widely told as our “gospel” amounts to a self-helpy self-actualizing self-fulfilling pragmatically spiritual whatchamacalitism. We decided doctrine was too dry, so we tore it out and humidified the sanctuary auditorium with fog (sometimes literally). And Hendricks warned us: “A fog in the pulpit is a mist in the pew.”

I’m not trying to oversimplify. I’m only saying that American evangelicalism by and large has. And if our long-timers don’t know the gospel with enough depth to navigate the confusing waters of our post-Christendom culture, it’s our own dang fault. They can only go as deep as the gospel we give them.

The Mystery Unfolding, Grasping: A Maundy Thursday Reflection

On Maundy Thursday in 1521, the Pope issued a Papal Bull listing Martin Luther and his followers for the first time as heretics. They had already been excommunicated, but now they were singled out as beyond redemption even in the afterlife. No indulgence could spring them. No, in fact, their only hope for escape from torment was a word from the Pope himself.

Fairly convenient, wouldn’t you say?

In his inimitable way, Luther scoffed, reprinted the bull with his own retorts written in the margins, and charged the Pope with being a drunk. Tres awesome.

At the heart of the theological scrum was this: who damns and who saves? The Pope sets up himself as the arbiter, or, at least, Christ through himself. Luther says it is Christ alone.

It can be a fuzzy thing, this eternal life business. Who is in? Who is out? How do we know? What compels one in? What propels one out? We are veiled from what eternity looks like despite living in it right now. That second that just past is a pixel in eternity. The moment you pull the covers up to your chest in bed tonight is another. The moment still to come when you stop breathing is yet another.

What holds all this together? What connects all dots, accounts for all willed actions, foresees and forestalls? Jesus the exalted Christ, who upholds the world by the mere word of his power. When life appears frayed at the edges, when all of life feels as though spread too thin like butter on bread (HT: Bilbo Baggins), Christ brings into stark clarity all necessities for all of life. He is the necessity for all of life. He encompasses all the complexities in the simplicity of incarnate humanity and the wonder of exalted deity.

Have I lost you?

All I mean to say is, Jesus Christ is the apex of human existence, having been raised up on a cross and raised up out of the grave at the fulcrum of all of history. So when popes issue bulls to keep certain people out, citing all manner of disagreements and offenses, we may claim allegiance with Jesus Christ, who makes the matter quite simple, because he alone is the matter.

Paul gets much better at what I’m trying to get at here when he talks about “mystery.” For Paul, mystery is not something unsolved. It is something that was once unsolved but is now available and visible. But it’s still a mystery. It doesn’t cease being a mystery. This is because we cannot grasp Christ; Christ grasps us. When Paul speaks of mystery (as in Romans 16), he is talking about something we’ve been enlightened about but which is perhaps still too big for the container of our enlightenment. It is a light we can see and which fills us up, but is not limited to our filling.

Here is a good example from his words in 1 Timothy 3:16:

Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:
He appeared in a body,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.

“Beyond all question” just refers to the fact that this hymn (if that’s what it is) is a confessional piece. It is theological and something to believe, to stake our life on. (The ESV in fact uses the word “confess” here, but I confess I like the NIV’s “beyond all question” better.) And then this: “the mystery of godliness.”

What is the mystery of godliness? What is the mystery of how God’s glory is manifested and spread? It is not a mystery in the sense that Jon Benet Ramsey’s murder is a mystery or Amelia Earhart’s disappearance is a mystery.

This mystery is grasp-able because it itself comes near and grasps. A body that serves and heals and teaches and dies and is brought back to life by the Spirit and returns to the angelic abode. A body that is proclaimed far and wide. A body that is believed upon. A body that ascended to the God-dimension, where it sits presently at the Father’s right hand.

The mystery is that the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell in the fullness of humanity.

This Maundy Thursday, press further into the mystery unfolding before you every second: That no Pope or other papal personality (be it devil or man) holds your soul in his hand. Christ alone does, and since he has gone before you, the way is secure. It is secure because “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” I don’t want you to be ignorant of this mystery! (HT: Romans 11:25)

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
– Ephesians 1:9-10

The Good News of the Obedient Jesus

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

– John 13:14

Tomorrow we will mark the day Jesus commemorated the Passover meal with his disciples on the night of his betrayal and arrest. He gives them the “new command” to love. And notably, shockingly, he washes his disciples’ feet.

Our sinless Lord is not above his own commands. As God he is perfectly holy so he needs no repentance. As the fulfillment of the law, his righteousness is impeccable. He is the transcendent, eternal Son of God. But he is no snob. He will not command of us what he is not willing to do himself or empower through himself. This is gospel. Because in his perfect obedience, we find refuge from our sin and the dissolution of it. Indeed, Jesus will exchange our soiled garments for his clean ones.

Writin’ n’ Yappin’

I do try to keep posts like this to a bare minimum, so I hope you will indulge me this rare foray into self-promotion. For those that are interested, after the jump below are my upcoming publishing and speaking schedules.

Incidentally, I have a newly redesigned website where these schedules are regularly updated and where interested folks may inquire about booking me to speak at their church or event.



Publishing Schedule

I was privileged to pen the introductions to the books of Habakkuk, Malachi, and Galatians in the now-available ESV “The Story” Bible.

In April, my entry on Romans in Crossway’s new Knowing the Bible study guide series will release. You can check out the snazzy new site for the whole series at the previous link.

My next book, The Pastor’s Justification: Applying the Work of Christ in Your Life and Ministry, will release from Crossway in July. It is already available for preorder.

In September, Crossway is unveiling the new ESV Gospel Application Study Bible, for which I wrote the notes for 1 & 2 Peter and Jude.

I am also grateful to be again assisting Pastor Matt Chandler with his next two books, the first of which — To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain — will be released from David C Cook this fall.

Next year, I will have companion books on Jesus’ parables and miracles coming out from Crossway, as well.

Speaking Schedule

In two weeks, I will be on a 9Marks breakout panel on “Conversion and Community” at The Gospel Coalition conference alongside Al Mohler, Jonathan Leeman, JD Greear, Jeramie Rinne, and Mike McKinley.

May 3-4, I will join Ray and Jani Ortlund for the Men and Women of Wisdom Conference in Hingham, MA.

May 31-June 1, I will be joining Bryan Chapell and worship leader Todd Agnew for the Passionate Grace Conference in Moses Lake, Washington.

On June 2, I will be preaching the two morning services at Living Water Community Church in Vancouver, WA.

August 1-3, I will be speaking on The Missional Family at this year’s St. Louis Family Camp.

On October 11-12, I will be speaking on the gospel and suffering at the Rooted Conference for youth ministry workers in Atlanta, GA.

November 9, I will be speaking on the gospel, secularism, and moralism at a Gospel Coalition regional event in Columbus, Ohio. Details coming.

Perversion of Justice (in Another Sense)

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.

– Genesis 18:19

We keep hearing from confessing Christians the appeal to biblical justice in the question of marriage equality and the like. I think beneath the fundamental redefinition of marriage to something both foreign to and against the Scriptures is the fundamental redefinition of justice, as well.

Justice in the Bible is not some nebulous fairness or sense of altruistic equality. It is the spreading dominion of the righteousness of God. (Note how often justice is paired with righteousness in the Bible.) When God calls us to “do justice,” he is calling us to reflect the life-giving, culture-flourishing, gracious abundance that is in keeping with his glory. Justice includes care for the poor and hungry and sick, for instance, because it is a reflection of God’s righteousness to address the effects of the fall on individuals and systems with gracious provision. In a sense, justice is taking the prelapsarian mandate (Gen. 1:28) into the postlapsarian world. Justice is grounded in the harmonic Eden and aims at the shalom of the new Jerusalem (2 Chron. 9:8, Isaiah 33:5). Justice is sourced in the righteousness of God (Job 37:23), the holiness of God (Deut. 32:4). Therefore, biblical justice is only superficially fairness but more deeply the express manifestation of the righteousness of God.

In that sense, it is not justice for the state to sanction same-sex marriage. It is in fact injustice, because it sanctions as “righteous” what God has called unrighteous. The Bible calls the failure to do justice a “perversion of justice.” Even in seeking to do justice, then, when Christians disconnect biblical justice from the concept of the kingdom of God, they are perverting justice. We are told multiple times in the Scriptures who will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is a rejection of the righteousness of God, therefore, to say those very same excluded will be included.

Christian culture has adopted the imbecile habit of thinking conceptually as the world does. Thus love becomes primarily a romantic feeling disconnected from the holy God who is love and the “definition” we see in 1 Corinthians 13. Peace becomes merely the absence of conflict or judgment or disapproval, functionally disconnected from the holy Lord who is himself peace (Eph. 2:14). Joy is not found in the Lord but instead following your bliss, doing what fulfills you, finding what makes you happy, etc. And justice becomes giving people what they want because, after all, it’s only fair.

But the Scriptures do not lend us these amorphous virtues to be shaped however the cultural winds are blowing. All of the biblical virtues are embodied in Christ. They have a shape. It is not “keeping the way of the Lord” to call evil good (Mal. 2:17). Or just.

Worship “Style” Isn’t (Always?) Neutral

Really appreciated the following exchange from Trevin Wax’s interview today with Imagining the Kingdom author James K.A. Smith:

Trevin Wax: How would you respond to the person who says the forms of worship are interchangeable, but the message must always remain constant? While admitting there is flexibility in forms from culture to culture, I think you’d want to push against the idea that the forms don’t matter.

James K. A. Smith: Absolutely. I think we buy into a form/content distinction precisely because we’ve reduced the Gospel to a “message.” So then we think we can just distill that “message” (the content) and then drop it into any “form” we want.

But as I argue in the book, forms are not neutral. Indeed, that was one of the core arguments of the first volume, Desiring the Kingdom: cultural practices that we might think are “neutral” – just something that we do – are actually doing something to us. They are formative. But what they form is our heart-habits, our loves and longings that, as we’ve already mentioned, actually drive our action and behavior.

So you can’t just go pick some “popular” cultural form and insert the Gospel “message” and think you have thereby come up with “relevant” worship. Because it’s more likely that you’ve just imported a secular liturgy into Christian worship. Sure, you might have changed the content, but the very form of the practice is training us to love some other vision of the good life. This is why I think a lot of innovation in worship, while well-intentioned, actually ends up welcoming Trojan horses into the sanctuary.

The response is not to come up with “the next best thing” in worship. It is to find new appreciation for historic Christian wisdom about the form of worship for the sake of discipleship.

Why I Attend TGC

The conference culture in evangelicalism takes a lot of heat, and a lot of that heat is deserved. We are definitely in danger of idolizing celebrity pastors, becoming “respecters of persons” (in the “fear of man” sense), and none of us is immune to that. But I am grateful for conferences in general, and the ginormous ones in particular.

In 2009, I attended with some team members of our Nashville church plant that year’s Gospel Coalition Conference. It was the first conference of any kind I’d attended since the Willow Creek Leadership Conference in 1996. So I didn’t enter the fray as a conference junkie, but my experience that year at TGC definitely colored what I hope to get out of conferences each year. Since then, I have attended the annual “big gospel conferences” — T4G and TGC — each year. I try to make it to smaller regional events in my area as I can, but I prioritize the “big” conference every year, and my church helps me afford to go. So I am attending The Gospel Coalition’s national conference next month. Here are four, but not the only, reasons why:

1. I get to see more people in real life than I do at smaller events.

If I want to see as many of my pastor and ministry friends from around the country as possible, it is most likely they will be at the big conference. And there have been great opportunities to further fraternity in coffee breaks and after-hours events. TGC is great for connecting and reconnecting with as many of my brothers and sisters as possible.

2. My wife enjoys it.

T4G and TGC are generally for generalists. They are focused supremely on the gospel. Therefore I can take my wife to these conferences, as I have since 2010, and not worry the subject matter will be specifically narrowed to this nut or that bolt of pastoral ministry. I know that the preaching will very often apply to her as easily as to me, so she doesn’t have to feel like we are just there for me and she’s simply hanging on. Also, as I don’t have the availability or income to attend multiple conferences a year, usually when I am at a Christian event, I have some role to play. I am blessed my wife has been able to attend many of these speaking engagements with me, but when I’m there, I am largely focused on my responsibilities and she becomes my support and encourager. But she doesn’t have my undivided attention. At TGC, I have the opportunity to just be, and to just be with my wife. Going to the conference each year has become a great time of rest and reflection with Becky that we both look forward to.

3. Live preaching from men who have earned my trust.

I love the smaller venue vibes, especially the intensive and more relational way teaching in those events is carried out. I am speaking at more of those kinds of events each year and I benefit a lot from the content my colaborers present there. But since I really only get to one conference a year as a non-responsibility attendee, I know I can count on the quality preaching from men I admire and trust at T4G and TGC. I don’t listen to very many podcasts any more, and even when I do, they don’t quite meet the need I have to sit under the proclaimed word of God. And because I am preaching almost 52 weekends a year, and at other engagements in between, I crave this opportunity to sit under live preaching of the gospel and receive the word of God. If that is my desire, and if my options are limited, one could hardly blame me for choosing the conferences where I know I will hear the gospel boldly proclaimed by exulters in Christ I have come to trust and respect.

4. I am encouraged by the bigness.

Again, I enjoy the relational aspects of smaller venues, but my heart is also greatly encouraged when I see 4,000 people in one room exalting God and exulting in the gospel. Cynics may scoff, but this is helpful to my heart. I pastor a relatively small church in a very small town in a very small state, the least religious state in the nation. Going to a huge conference that centers on the gospel of Jesus Christ and that is teeming with people talking about and enjoying Jesus is hugely refreshing.

Set Free for Freedom

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
– Galatians 5:18

From Christian World, September 25, 1874:

LAST Sunday evening, Mr. Spurgeon, before beginning his sermon, announced that he should not preach long that night, because he wished his friend Mr. Pentecost, who was on the platform, to say a few words to the congregation.

Mr. Spurgeon then gave a very earnest address on the words, “I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord; I will keep Thy statutes. I cried unto Thee; save me, and I shall keep Thy testimonies.” (Ps. cxix. 145-6.) He spoke strongly and plainly upon the necessity of giving up sin, in order to success in prayer for “quickening,” and as an evidence of sincerity. Mr. Spurgeon, in concluding his discourse, said, “Now then, perhaps Brother Pentecost will give you the application of that sermon.”

“Brother Pentecost” is an “open communion” Baptist minister, of the American city of Boston. He responded at once to Mr. Spurgeon’s call, and, stepping to the front of the platform, gave some excellent remarks on the latter portion of the text, with much simplicity and force of manner.

Referring to one part of Mr. Spurgeon’s sermon, he gave us an interesting bit of personal experience. He said that some years ago, he had had the cry awakened in his heart, “Quicken Thou me.” He desired to be more completely delivered from sin, and he prayed that God would show him anything which prevented his more complete devotion to Him. He was willing, he thought, to give up anything or everything if only he might realise the desire of his heart.

“Well,” said he, amidst the profound silence and attention of the immense congregation, “what do you think it was that the Lord required of me? He did not touch me in my church, my family, my property, or my passions. But one thing I liked exceedingly—the best cigar which could be bought.”

He then told us that the thought came into his mind, could he relinquish this indulgence, if its relinquishment would advance his piety? He tried to dismiss the idea as a mere fancy or scruple, but it came again and again to him, and he was satisfied that it was the still small voice which was speaking.

He remembered having given up smoking by the wish of his ministerial brethren, when he was twenty-one years of age, for four years. But then, he had resumed the habit, for he declared during that four years he never saw or smelt a cigar which he did not want to smoke. How, however, he felt it to be his duty to give it up again, and so unequal did he feel to the self-denial, that he “took his cigar-box before the Lord,” and cried to Him for help. This help he intimated had been given, and the habit renounced.

Mr. Spurgeon, whose smoking propensities are pretty well known, instantly rose at the conclusion of Mr. Pentecost’s address, and, with a somewhat playful smile, said,

“Well, dear friends, you know that some men can do to the glory of God what to other men would be sin. And notwithstanding what brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed to-night.
“If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, ‘Thou shalt not smoke,’ I am ready to keep it; but I haven’t found it yet. I find ten commandments, and it’s as much as I can do to keep them; and I’ve no desire to make them into eleven or twelve.
“The fact is, I have been speaking to you about real sins, not about listening to mere quibbles and scruples. At the same time, I know that what a man believes to be sin becomes a sin to him, and he must give it up. ‘Whatsoever is not of faith is sin’ [Rom. 14:23], and that is the real point of what my brother Pentecost has been saying.
“Why, a man may think it a sin to have his boots blacked. Well, then, let him give it up, and have them whitewashed. I wish to say that I’m not ashamed of anything whatever that I do, and I don’t feel that smoking makes me ashamed, and therefore I mean to smoke to the glory of God.”

Source for Photo and Excerpt: The Spurgeon Archive