Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 199

Gratitude: God’s Will for Us

In this 3 minute video and the following transcript, I share some thoughts about gratitude.

1 Thessalonians 5 says, “Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes we search for the will of God. We wonder if it’s God’s will for me to go to this school, have a relationship with this person, move to this apartment, apply for this job, or whatever it is.

But in several places, Scripture tells us exactly what God’s will is. Here’s one of those places: it is God’s will that you give thanks in all circumstances—thanksgiving, gratitude, an expression of our hearts praising God for His goodness and how He has provided for and taken care of us. This is something that is built into what it means to be a follower of Christ.

People who learn to say “thanks” become more thankful. It’s a great thing to cultivate in a child by teaching them to say “thank you” for things. Maybe they’re not feeling all that grateful at the time. But the habit of expressing and saying “thank you” makes a more thankful person.

We live in a culture where there is a spirit of entitlement—where we think we deserve all of these great things. If something doesn’t go our way, we feel like we’ve been robbed and deprived. When a person gets what they think they’re already entitled to, they’re not grateful for it. After all, “I deserved it!” And when they don’t get what they think they deserve, there’s the spirit of ingratitude.

This is where we as Christians need to focus on what Christ has done for us and the promises of Scripture. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” God has promised us—guaranteed us with a blood-bought promise, the shed blood of the Son of God—that He will in the end use for good even the hardest things that have ever happened to us.

That’s why I think Scripture can tell us, “Be joyful always. Give thanks in all circumstances.” We may not know why something difficult is happening now. One day we will, and we’ll see how God used it in our lives for His glory and for our ultimate good.

      

Related Resources

Book: 90 Days of God's Goodness
Blog: Sustained through Gratitude
Article: Long, Habitual, and Uninterrupted Mercies

photo credit: Sadie Hernandez via photopin cc

The Authority of Scripture and the Supernatural Leading of the Holy Spirit

A Conversation between Two Reformed Pastors

I enjoyed this dialogue between Doug Wilson and Mark Driscoll, two controversial pastors who I happen to appreciate. Please, rather than commenting about why you don’t like either of them, just listen to what they’re saying here and judge it on its own merit. THEN I welcome your comments. :)

I think you’ll find it interesting regarding the question of how we can hold to the authority of the Scriptures while recognizing the miraculous leading of the Holy Spirit. Can Charismatics and Calvinists be harmonized? Don’t let the title throw you—it’s a good and entertaining interaction.

Doug Wilson Interviews Mark Driscoll | Part II - Spiritual Gifts & Cessationism from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

      

Related Resources

Blog: "You Are in Danger": Mark Driscoll Preaches on Hell
Video: How God Uses Evil for Good: A conversation with Mark Driscoll

Save Saeed

Some of you have followed the story of the Iranian pastor Saeed Abedini. I’ve included a video in this post in which his wife Naghmeh speaks of her husband’s eight year sentence to a horrific prison. Saeed was in Iran helping with an orphanage when he was arrested for sharing his faith in Christ. His wife is still struggling with how much she should tell the children about what their father is going through.

Every day an estimated 200 million Christ-followers suffer across our globe. Hebrews 11:35-38 recounts stories about God’s suffering children. It says,

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy…

I have always loved those words, “of whom the world was not worthy.”

If you wish to sign a petition pleading for Saeed’s release, go to the ACLJ site.

If you want to be informed about how you can pray for and help people around the world who are suffering for Christ, see Voice of the Martyrs. I encourage you to consider supporting Voice of the Martyrs as we do at EPM. (Another ministry to check out is The International Justice Mission.)

Please watch this video from www.savesaeed.org and let God touch your heart through it.

 

      

Related Resources

Book: Safely Home
Blog: Remember Us and Pray for Us: the Persecuted Church
Audio Message: Those of Whom the World Is Not Worthy

Seeking Our Happiness in God

In this 2.5 minute video and the following transcript, I share some thoughts about happiness.

Paul says in Philippians 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” There is an artificial distinction people often make between joy and happiness. Scripture actually has a lot of words like joy and happiness and delight and pleasure that are interrelated. God really does want us to be happy; after all, He made us to be a happy people. Go back to Genesis 1 and 2 and look at Adam and Eve in the garden, and you’ll see the beauty of the place.

But Scripture makes it clear that God is the ultimate source of happiness. Our problem is when we start seeking happiness in things that are secondary instead of primary. That’s where idolatry comes from. In our sinful state, we take things that God has made (which are in and of themselves good, intended for our benefit by God) and we make them what our life is all about. We elevate them to a place of lordship and they become idols in our lives.

Scripture says we are to seek our happiness in God. We’re happy because He’s our Creator and Redeemer. Yes, we have come to terms with the reality of our sin, which should make us very unhappy. But unhappiness is a temporary state because of what He did for us on the cross to resolve the problem of our sin and of our consequent unhappiness, which is the result of the curse. According to Scripture we are one day going to be delivered from the curse because of what God has done on our behalf.

What does that mean for us now in our lives? As we walk with God and seek to please Him, we also seek to find joy and happiness that’s derived from Him—a happiness that’s wrapped up in who He is. Matthew 25:21 says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. ....Enter into your master’s happiness.” God says we can ultimately enter in to a happiness that exists within God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

      

Related Resources

Book: Life Promises for Eternity
Blog: Giving Thanks Brings Happiness
Article: Cultivating Joy in Our Giving

Sunflower photo credit: ColinBroug via sxc.hu

The Guardian Project

Eternal Perspective Ministries is enthusiastically supporting the Guardian Project to help provide the first ever mobile ultrasound unit in Oregon to reach abortion-minded moms. 

Why a mobile ultrasound unit? In partnership with Portland PRC, a mobile unit will focus on the downtown Portland and Tanasbourne areas where there are currently no alternative pregnancy resource centers for women. Portland PRC reports that 90-98% of abortion-minded and abortion-vulnerable women in the Portland area decide to choose life after seeing their baby via ultrasound. (Mobile ultrasound units are successfully operating in several other states including Texas, New York, California, Arizona and Florida.)

Learn more in this video:

To fund the operating costs of the unit, on September 7, 2013, the Guardian Project will be hosting an annual run “4 Their Lives” featuring a half marathon, 10K walk/run and Family Fun 5K walk/run. Feel free to share this opportunity to run or walk with anyone you know who might love the exercise and also the opportunity to speak up for the unborn and their moms. It’s a win/win combination.

This project is led by two very capable couples who are doing an outstanding job in organizing and directing it. For years I’ve desired that younger people would take up the vision of prolife work and am thrilled to see this happening!

Our desire should be to do what Scripture says: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9). We encourage you to pray for this project, sign yourself and your family up for the walk or run (and tell others about it), and give generously to help save the lives of innocent children and give much-needed help to their mothers. We believe it's really going to make a difference.

If you’d like to give financially toward this project, you can donate through EPM. (Select “The Guardian Project” under Special Funds; 100% of the funds given will go directly to the project.)

      

Thanks to EPM’s Stephanie Anderson and Kathy Norquist for their help in compiling the information in this blog post.

Related Resources

Blog: Shouldn’t we care about other social injustices besides abortion?
Audio: How did your prolife concern develop?
Book: Why ProLife?

The Crucial Question Related to the Affordable Care Act: Does Human Life Begin at Conception or Implantation?

When does human life begin? At conception or implantation? Your answer determines how you’ll view the Affordable Care Act.

There has been a great deal of confusion about what exactly the Affordable Care Act mandates in regards to abortion and contraceptives. Some emphatically state the ACA does not mandate employers providing insurance that covers abortifacients for their employees. Some emphatically state it does. Both accuse each other of ignorance or deception.

Here’s an attempt to clear the waters, though I’m certain some commenters will disagree, since no matter what you say about this, you can always find websites that confidently proclaim something different! :) So let me just say that we’re doing our best with this information, but I can’t guarantee whether or not there will be further changes.

The Affordable Care Act mandates all employers with over 50 employees to offer health insurance. This health insurance is mandated to provide “preventative care.” This preventative care is mandated to include FDA-approved contraceptives.

On February 1, 2013 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released updated text regarding exemptions to the contraceptive mandate. The proposed changes would exempt only organizations that are religious non-profits from the contraceptive mandate.

All for-profit businesses (with over 50 employees) will be required to cover contraceptives, even if the owner of the company objects to contraceptives on moral and/or religious grounds. (This would include all Catholics who take seriously the teachings of their church.)

Though medical providers cannot be forced to commit an abortion due to a violation of conscience, there is no provision for the dispensing of contraceptives to be included as part of the “conscience protection” clause. (Thanks to EPM’s Julia Stager for researching most of the above for me!)

Many Christians do not think contraceptives are inherently wrong.  But many of those same believers do not agree that the government has the right to violate the religious beliefs of others, and are aware that the next government-mandated step will likely be the violation of their own convictions.

United Health Care explains the effects of the ACA on women’s health issues, by making this definitive statement: “Abortion is not part of women’s expanded preventive services under the health reform law.”

That settles it, right? Well, yes, if you don’t read the two sentences from the same source that immediately follow the above: “The guidelines do require coverage of emergency contraceptive methods as prescribed. Accordingly, certain ‘morning after’ pills, such as Plan B® One-Step and ella®, which are FDA-approved emergency contraception, will be covered as prescribed.” (read the full text)

So the ACA supposedly doesn’t mandate coverage of abortions, but it does mandate coverage of chemicals that can cause abortions, as long as they are called “contraceptives” rather than abortifacients.

The problem is that morning after pills are taken too late to prevent conception. What they can prevent is implantation of an already conceived human being. If human life begins at conception, whatever ends that life, no matter how early, is an abortifacient.

The fact that it’s caused by a chemical “contraceptive” rather than by the instrument of an abortionist doesn’t make it a non-abortion. It just makes it a nonsurgical abortion occurring when the child is very young.

So the critical question is: When does human life begin?

If you believe life doesn’t begin until implantation, then you can say that what prevents implantation is not an abortifacient. Only then can you make a sincere claim that “abortion is not part of” this health care requirement. The problem is, in my opinion, based on many hours of studying what happens at the moment of conception, you would be sincerely wrong.

Here’s what I wrote about whether life begins at conception or implantation, in my book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?:

According to the meaning conception always had—which is the meaning still held to by the vast majority of the public and many if not most medical professionals—there is no way any product is acting as a contraceptive when it prevents implantation. (Call it a contra-implantive, if you wish, but when it works in that way it is not a contra-ceptive.)

In this book, I use “conception” in its classic sense—as a synonym for fertilization, the point at which the new human life begins. Contraceptives, then, are chemicals or devices that prevent conception or fertilization. A birth control method that sometimes kills an already conceived human being is not merely a contraceptive. It may function as a contraceptive some or most of the time, but some of the time it is also an abortifacient.

The problem of “contraceptives” that are really abortifacients is not a new one. Many prolife Christians, including physicians, have long opposed the use of Intra-Uterine Devices (IUDs), as well as RU-486 (“the abortion pill”) and the Emergency Contraceptive Pill (ECP). Some, though not all, have also opposed Norplant, Depo-Provera, NuvaRing and the “Mini-pill,” all of which sometimes or often fail to prevent conception, but succeed in preventing implantation of the six day old human being. (For more details, see “The IUD, Norplant, Depo-Provera, NuvaRing, RU-486, and the Mini-Pill.”)

But what about the widely used birth control pill, with its combined estrogen and progestin? Is it exclusively a contraceptive? That is, does it always prevent conception? Or does it, like other products, sometimes prevent implantation, thus producing an early abortion? That is the central question of my book. If you are interested, I cite dozens and dozens of medical sources which, in my opinion, prove that each human life begins at conception, not at implantation or some later time.

Here are just a few of those.

Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania:

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes in Paris (discoverer of the Down Syndrome chromosome):

“After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being…This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School:

“It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic:

“By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School:

“The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception.”

Dr. Landrum Shettles, pioneer in sperm biology, fertility and sterility, discoverer of male- and female-producing sperm:

“I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest—that human life commences at the time of conception—and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances.”

Does the Bible agree with the scientific evidence that life begins at conception? Read these passages and decide for yourself:

“The babies [Jacob and Esau] jostled each other within her [Rebekah].” (Genesis 25:22)

“If men fight and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely…” (Exodus 21:22)

“As you do not know…how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child…” (Ecclesiastes 11:5)

Note: in each of the above references God calls that which a pregnant woman carries a “child.”

“In the womb he [Jacob] grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God.” (Hosea 12:3)

“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.” (Job 10:8-12)

“Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:15)

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

“Surely I was sinful at birth; sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5)

Note: Only a person can have a sin nature. David’s statement clearly shows he was a person at the point of conception.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

“His mother Mary… as found to be with child through the Holy Spirit…[the angel said] ‘what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” (Matthew 1:18-20)

“But the angel said to Mary ‘you will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus…The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:30-31, 35)

Summary of Luke 1:39-44: After the angel left, Mary “hurried” (v. 39) to get to Elizabeth. Unborn John the Baptist (in his 6th month after conception) responded to the presence of unborn Jesus inside Mary. Allowing for travel time, Jesus was no more than eight to ten days beyond conception when they arrived. Implantation doesn’t begin until six days after conception and isn’t complete until twelve—most likely Jesus was not yet fully implanted in his mother’s womb when unborn John responded to his presence.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

When did the Word (Christ) become flesh? When did he leave heaven and come to earth? Was there generic soul-less flesh conceived in Mary waiting for Christ to inhabit it later in the pregnancy? No­—it is basic Christian doctrine that Christ became flesh at the moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, at the moment of fertilization. He became human at the exact point all others become human, the point of conception. The “blastocyst” is an eternal human soul, literally “the least of these [vulnerable people],” Christ’s brethren (Matthew 25:40).

You must decide whether you believe both the scientific and biblical evidence, or either of them. But if you do not believe that human life begins at conception, you need to ask yourself whether it’s because of lack of evidence or your desire not to believe the evidence. If indeed human life does begin at the point of conception, when the new and never-before-existing DNA of a unique person comes into existence, then the ACA certainly should violate your conscience.

The ACA requires insurance coverage that includes proven abortifacients such as the morning after pill, as well as the standard birth control pill, which according to every company that produces it, sometimes fails to prevent ovulation, and when it does can cause a fertilized egg (human being) not to implant in the altered endometrium. Therefore, despite the semantics and the claims to the contrary, this law does indeed require employers with 50 or more employees to pay for insurance coverage of chemicals that will result in abortions.  

      

Related Resources

Blog: Why the Hobby Lobby Case Matters
Video: Randy Alcorn Addresses the Attack on Religious Liberties
Book: Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?

Books on Preaching, Managing Time, and Sports Nanci and I Watch: Part 2 of a Q&A

Today’s blog is Part 2 of an (updated) interview I did a few years ago. (See also part one.)

What books on preaching, or examples of it, have you found most influential in your own preaching?

Since I’m no longer a pastor, I don’t preach regularly. I do speak on various subjects and texts from time to time, often related to writing I’ve done or am doing. It’s been many years since I’ve read a book on preaching, but I remember appreciating Stott’s Between Two Worlds. I love reading the sermons of Charles Spurgeon, though I wouldn’t recommend the rest of us try his preaching methodology, which was far from expositional. It worked marvelously for him, because he was so saturated in Scripture that it came out his pores as he preached. He was one of a kind! One of my greatest experiences in writing a book was We Shall See God, for which I combed through Spurgeon’s sermons on Heaven and the New Earth, and excerpted the passages I thought were most powerful. Sixty percent of that book is Spurgeon, forty percent is me talking about Spurgeon and further developing or launching off from what he preached. The sixty percent of the book I highly recommend is Spurgeon’s. (Someday I will have to offer a feeble apology to Spurgeon for making myself his coauthor, but since we’ll be in Heaven, I’m confident he’ll take it well.)

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

In Charles Hummel’s booklet Tyranny of the Urgent, which I read as a young Christian thirty-five years ago, he said that what is urgent is often not important, and what is important is typically not urgent. It’s not urgent to spend time with God, talk with your wife, or read to your kids, but it is extremely important. It may be urgent to return someone’s call, go speak at some event, or turn in a manuscript next Thursday, but not important. (The manuscript, for instance, will likely sit in your editor’s inbox three weeks before he has time to open it.)

Years ago I developed a response to the 99% of things I have to decline: I have to say “no” to many good things, and even some great ones, in order to be able to say “yes” to those very few things God has called me to do. I live by this, saying no unless there’s a compelling reason to say yes. My life is very full, but that way I am free to do some things I couldn’t otherwise do (including, in the past, coaching teenage boys and, in the present, playing with my grandkids, hanging out with my wife and riding my bike).

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your leadership?

No one said it in exactly this way, but several men have said what helped me come to this way of thinking: Care about people but don’t live to please them. If you do, you’ll fail your Lord, and you’ll fail people too. As a young pastor I cared too much what people thought. The best cure for this was twenty years ago when I was repeatedly arrested and went to jail for peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience at abortion clinics. I did it because I believed God wanted me to stand up for unborn children. But it was extremely unpopular in Oregon, to say the least, and even many Christians, including some of our church folk, disapproved. I learned to accept that. We live out our lives before the Audience of One. In the end, His approval is the one that matters. If our goal is to hear others say, “Well done,” we won’t do what we need to do to hear Him say it.

Where in ministry are you most regularly tempted with discouragement?

When I was a pastor, my discouragements were with people who were going nowhere spiritually, neglecting the basic spiritual disciplines, and living unfruitful lives year after year. Then, of course, there were the always-critical or easily-hurt, high-maintenance folk. It could be discouraging because I wanted to mentor, disciple, and shepherd, not change diapers and listen to whiners. (I’m being a bit blunt here. :) 

As a director of a para-church organization, Eternal Perspective Ministries, I’m seldom discouraged in the ministry, as our staff stays on task, has a Christ-centered work ethic, and gets along well. But because I often have to withdraw in order to do my writing I feel like I let them down by not being available as much as I want to be, and used to be. (I have an office behind my home, and they’re at the ministry office nine miles away, where I normally come in only once a month for prayer, sharing and lunch.)

As a writer, especially on the big books such as Money, Possessions and Eternity; Dominion; Heaven and If God is Good…, there have been times at 3:00 a.m. when I’m asking God, “Is this really worth it?” I feel like giving up or not going the second mile in research or doing yet another revision and seeking further critique that will create still more work for me. Sometimes the big projects feel like they will never end. But God graciously empowers me, and I sense his sweet presence with me in those otherwise lonely hours.

God usually encourages me by time with Nanci, our kids, grandchildren, and our close friends. And often He encourages me with the emails that come in from people who say God used my books to change their lives. Frequently they come at exactly the right time, causing me to weep and renew my determination to persevere with my current writing.

Do you exercise? If so, what do you do? 

I bicycle three times a week, outdoors in good weather, otherwise on a stationary bike in my office. I also play tennis, usually singles because it’s better exercise than doubles. I’m an insulin dependent diabetic, and the exercise is therapy. If I go two days without exercise, I feel lousy.

What sports do you like to watch?

We watch NBA and MLB when it comes to playoffs, but not regularly. We try to watch the tennis majors when we can, especially Wimbledon and the U. S. Open. The one sport we watch regularly from beginning to end is the NFL. Nanci is a major pro football fan. For years she had our kids and grandkids and our kids’ friends and their children over for Sunday night football every week, fixing up a great meal for the 15-20 who showed up. When I’m asked to speak in NFL chapels, Nanci’s my main reason for saying “yes,” since tickets come with it, and she loves to meet the players. Often during games I’m exchanging texts with family members of a few players we know, or the Seahawks chaplain, who’s a friend. We don’t generally follow college football. But several years ago Bob and Pam Tebow invited us to stay with them in Florida and watch their son Timmy quarterback the Gators. Suddenly we were wearing blue and orange. We had a blast. (That's us in the photo with the Tebows and our friends the Webers.)

What do you do for leisure? 

Tennis, biking, watching a good movie with Nanci. And I read and read and read.

If you were not in ministry, what occupational path would you have chosen?

When I was in the eighth grade, a few years before I’d heard the Gospel, they gave us a survey asking what we wanted to be when we were older. I said 1) an astronomer, 2) a philosopher, or 3) teacher. If I had to answer that today, if I couldn’t be a writer (which would be tough to give up), I would want to be a teacher, maybe at a Bible college or seminary.

      

Related Resources

Blog: Some Thoughts about Fathering (and Grand-fathering)
Article: Can't You See That I'm Busy?
Book: Heaven

Watch photo credit: digital_a via sxc.hu

Devotional Habits, Books I’m Reading, and the Best Constructive Criticism I’ve Ever Received: Part 1 of a Q&A

What follows is Part 1 of an interview I did some time ago. (I’ve changed and updated several things to bring my answers up to date.) Part 2 will be posted on Friday.

Describe your devotions. What time do you wake up in the morning? How much time do you spend reading, meditating, praying, etc.? What are you presently reading?

My wife Nanci likes to go to bed around 9:30. Sometimes we read for forty minutes or so until she’s ready to sleep, then I get up to go study, research, and write. Since I rarely go to sleep before midnight, and often at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., my wake-up time varies day to day. Generally, I sleep around seven or eight hours and usually don’t schedule morning appointments, to allow flexibility in my study.

My devotions are consistent in occurrence but differ in their form. I’ve gone through the Bible in different reading programs. Other times I simply open God’s Word to a portion of Scripture and meditate on it, asking God for guidance. I don’t mean that I stick my finger in the Bible and just read wherever it lands—although I have done that and it can be fun. My normal approach to Bible study is to pore over texts that relate to something on my mind and heart. Sometimes this has been prompted by my research on current book projects.

Sometimes I use the ESV Study Bible, read the text of Scripture and look at the notes. I’ve done the same with the online FaithLife Study Bible. For the last year or so I’ve been listening to one of two audio Bibles, which I really enjoy. One is on the free app YouVersion, which is on my phone and also available for computers and tablets. It has a selection of versions, including the ESV, and also has high quality free audio.

The other audio I often listen to in the mornings (on my smartphone or Kindle Fire) is the Word of Promise, which I bought on Audible.com. These are terrific readings of Scripture by professional voice actors, including Richard Dreyfus (Moses), Jim Caviezel (Jesus), Louis Gossett Jr. (John), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mark) and others.

At times my Bible study is systematic; other times I find myself going from place to place in my Logos Bible study software, wherever I sense the Spirit of God leading me. No matter what approach I take, Bible study is pure pleasure for me.

Every book I write involves much Scripture, except my novels, but even then I meditate on Scripture related to a theme in the novel (for instance, passages on persecution when writing Safely Home, my novel set in China).

I believe that all study of Scripture should be devotional, so on some days I have the privilege of doing ten hours of mostly biblical and devotional study.

What book(s) are you currently reading in these three categories: (a) for your soul, (b) for your ministry, (c) or for personal enjoyment?

It’s hard to break it down, because, very honestly, everything I read is for my soul, my ministry and my personal enjoyment. Some of my memorable recent reads and rereads include The Search for Happiness by James Huston, The Humor of Jesus by Earl Palmer, The Wit of Martin Luther by Eric W. Gritsch, The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken, and Hot Tub Religion by J. I. Packer. I am still enjoying reflections on my 2012 reading of The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung and also of Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Choosing Gratitude and Ann Voscamp’s A Thousand Gifts, probably the best two books on thankfulness that I’ve ever read.  

I suppose the most strictly personal enjoyment category is reading fiction. I’ve recently listened to the science fiction book Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card (with terrific readers), as well as A Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy. Right now, I’m listening to Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes, read by Alan Cumming.

I’m always pulling from my shelf something by C. S. Lewis, e.g. his essays in God in the Dock, and A. W. Tozer, e.g. Born After Midnight. I also read a lot of good books I’m asked to endorsed (reading ones now by Paul Tripp and Jon Bloom), but I’ve had to cut way back on this because otherwise I’ll never make time to write my own!

Apart from Scripture, what book do you most frequently re-read and why?

I do re-read some books, though there aren’t many I read more than two or three times. I’ve read Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy several times, as I have Lewis’s Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia, as well as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Another favorite is Francis Schaeffer’s He is There and He is Not Silent. I’ve also gone back to Piper’s Desiring God and Bridges’s The Joy of Fearing God. 

When you finish a book, what system have you developed in order to remember and reference that book in the future?

I underline copiously and scrawl in the margins. Sometimes I write notes in the front of the book, with page numbers. When doing research, I have a secretary who can read my hieroglyphic notations and type up my marginal notes, boldfacing and yellow highlighting to distinguish from the text of the book I’ve underlined. Later in the research, I go through the file, copying and pasting possible citations, along with my notations. This becomes a very rough initial draft which I reorder as I go, cutting out the majority of both the citations and my notes. My original notes either disappear or get morphed, though sometimes they make their way as is into my final book. When I’m certain I want to quote from a source, I not only underline, but put an asterisk. To confirm bibliographic information later, I can search for the quote by key words.

If you could study under any theologian in church history who would it be and why?

I suppose Augustine, Calvin and Edwards are obvious choices, but I would be more inclined toward Charles Spurgeon, giving honorable mention to John Newton. Some wouldn’t think of them as theologians per se, but their pastoral roles and life experiences brought a great deal to the table I would love to draw from.

What single piece of counsel (or constructive criticism) has most improved your preaching?

“It is impossible to make a balanced statement.” (And yes, even that is an unbalanced statement.) You can spend all day qualifying what you’re saying and removing the punch from it. Jesus made many statements that have to be clarified by others (e.g. plucking out your eye and cutting off your hand, and hating your family). But it is a mistake to strip such statements of their power by immediately modifying them and saying what they don’t mean instead of what they do. I think we are free to make prophetic statements without always qualifying them.

Similarly, it is impossible to speak the gospel truth without offending some people. We should always speak the truth in love, and we should be full of grace and truth, yes. But in the end we also need to be bold enough not to water down the message. Many pastors and Christian leaders and Christians in every walk of life are imagining they can reach the world more effectively if they stay away from saying anything controversial. Well, the gospel itself is highly controversial. It offers a wonderful life-changing gift, but it also calls us names (sinners). It demands that we recognize we deserve to go to hell, and repent and admit our wickedness. And that we bow our knees to Jesus and step down off the throne of our lives. Apart from a saving work of God’s Spirit, people cannot do that, and they will ultimately feel slighted and offended when they hear the gospel, including the claim that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.

      

Related Resources

Blog: We Shall See God: Spurgeon’s Devotional Thoughts on Heaven
Video: Recommended Books on Biblical Interpretation, Theology, and Audio Bibles
Book: We Shall See God 

Randy's Bible photo credit: Motoya Nakamura/The Oregonian

Uncoolness, Tolerance, and Christ’s Bride the Church

I came to Christ at an uncool church (not the one in the photo, but built in the same era). Coming from the family of a tavern owner, and never having been part of a church, it was strange to hear the way people spoke, how they dressed (the men wore suits and ties) and what they sang, including occasional songs in Swedish. I remember one sermon when the pastor talked about taverns being places of darkness and “dens of evil.”

The intolerance toward taverns was pretty weird to me, since they were my favorite places to go as a kid. (My dad owned a couple and serviced others with cigarette and pinball machines and jukeboxes, and sometimes I went with him.) Everybody seemed nice; the men would let me shoot pool with them, and the barmaids would let me sit at the bar. Then they would give me Hoody Korn-Kurls, Bireley’s orange soda pop, and incredibly good fried chicken. (Right now I would trade my Kindle Fire for Korn-Kurls and a Bireley’s orange—I mean, if I weren’t an insulin dependent diabetic. Maybe on the New Earth…)

I didn’t drink the Hamm’s beer or the Olympia that was in most people’s hands, nor was I offered it. But I distinctly remember looking forward to turning 21 someday just so that I could go to taverns legally! I’m not suggesting that was the loftiest of goals, I’m simply saying that was my background, and it didn’t fit with my church. (Okay, I don’t care if you’ve never had a beer, but if you grew up in the Pacific Northwest and you’re, say, mid-fifties or older, you want a blast from the past? Check out the video below for what we used to see on TV when I was a kid.)

Though the church was odd and uncool and a bit uninformed about people of the world (like my family), it did offer one thing that compensated for all its shortcomings. It told me something I had never heard anywhere else: the gospel. The people there told me about Jesus. After eight months of attending the church, while reading my Bible one night, I came to faith in Christ. By then I knew people who would teach me the Bible, give me good books to read, and help me grow in my faith. And when I got to know them, most of these church people were kind, loving and caring and desired that people (even those tavern people) would come to Jesus (and one day also learn to sing Swedish hymns).

I associated that church with Jesus. I knew it was Jesus who changed my life. I was His follower. So when somebody at church was gruff and mean, it didn’t shake my faith. My faith had never been in church people. From the beginning, my faith was in Jesus. When I learned something from the Bible, when somebody taught me something, the fact that he didn’t think much of taverns didn’t keep me from learning and growing closer to Christ.   

Years later, at the same church, I was a youth pastor. When I was 21 years old I met a 19-year-old guy named Steve Keels. Steve had just come to Christ. He joined the college group I was teaching, and we spent many hours talking about God. Steve also came from a nonchristian home. His dad had been a professional baseball player and then a longshoreman. Like me, Steve didn’t know what to make of the “ladies trio”, the “singspirations”, the soloist who made the stained glass windows shake, and the guest speaker who spoke against rock music. But he too grew in his faith and came to love that church as I did.

Years later I was involved in a new church, and eventually Steve joined us. He and I are still part of that second church today. For both of us, the Swedish church and our present nondenominational church, where we’ve been for 35 years, are the only ones we’ve ever known.

But though Steve and I were surrounded by a lot of kids who grew up in that Swedish church, 35 years later many of those have left church completely. Not just that original church, but “the church” in general.

I find that the most severe critics of the church are those who grew up in it. Many of them have now left the church, and some seem proud to have done so. They like distancing themselves from “all those judgmental hypocrites,” and celebrate how amazingly tolerant they and their friends are.  (They are not very tolerant of Bible-believing churches, of course, but that’s different.)  If there is one thing they’re certain of, it’s that churches are uncool. And nobody wants to be uncool.

Meanwhile, people like Steve and me who grew up outside of churches, in families without Christ, are not so quick to throw out the baby of Christ’s bride with the bathwater of uncoolness.

Recently I was asked to endorse a book written by a young man calling young people to (or back to) the local church. I suggested he add one point to his list of encouragements: “Show to church people the same tolerance you advocate that church people show to the world.” In fact, Scripture goes a step further. We are to do good to all men (and to show them tolerance is to do them good), but especially to the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). You are family. Treat Christ’s people as family.

People who haven’t left the church but remain critical often fall into referring to church members as “they.” “Those church people are into doing this and not doing this. They preach at you and lay guilt on you and have music I don’t like. And they don’t do enough to help people.” But where is the “we”? Where is the “We don’t do enough to help people”? When the church you attend is “they”, your heart isn’t there and your body won’t be much longer.

Cool can only take us so far.  For example, it’s very cool these days for believers and unbelievers alike to stand up against sex trafficking and advocate for the victims of injustice. But it’s decidedly uncool to stand against killing those same children before they are born. So it’s not just that the church looks uncool or the music is uncool. It’s that they stick up for people that the world won’t stick up for.

I love it when young people and old people are part of the same churches, showing each other grace and tolerance and speaking the truth, but doing so in love. I love it when the old are not shaking their heads in disapproval of the way the young dress, their jewelry and tattoos, the way they speak, and the songs they sing. I love it when the young are not rolling their eyes at the way older people dress, the way they speak, and the music they sing.

I have a suggestion for older people (apparently I am one now, according to my birth certificate, even though of course I am still cool :). How about we lead the way and show young people that the exclusiveness of salvation in Christ and believing God’s Word does not lead to condemnation and expecting others to dress and talk and act like us?  And young people, I call upon you to respect and learn from older people as Scripture commands us to do (Leviticus 19:32, Proverbs 20:29, 1 Timothy 5:1).

A church is a gathering of people diverse in race, occupation, age and gender. When those who are already the same in these areas are united, it is not as great a testimony to Christ’s grace as when those who are very different are united in the same Lord.

If you want to go further on this subject, below is a short post by Ray Ortlund, who reminisces about the church he grew up in. And as you’ll see, he also talks about it being uncool…but offering something very cool.

      

I Remember When

By Ray Ortlund

I grew up in a healthy church in the 1950s and 60s. It was gospel-centered before we used those terms. I can remember some wonderful things.

I remember when churches were not commodities but communities. I grew up in a spiritual neighborhood, where the adults took responsibility to care for the next generation. I lived among hundreds of spiritual aunts and uncles who loved me, told me about Jesus, corrected me when I got out of line and generally sacrificed for me so that I could grow up to be a man of God.

I remember when the Bible was cherished as so sacred that we treated the very leather and paper as “The Holy Bible.” We read the Bible, sang the Bible, prayed the Bible, memorized the Bible, heard the Bible preached, and learned the Bible from cover to cover.  I grew up knowing my way around the Bible—and knowing that it mattered supremely and eternally.

I remember when this crucial question was always close at hand in our collective and personal consciousness: Is your life fully surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ? My spiritual teachers did not hope I might fit Jesus into the margin of my crowded life.  They confronted me, lovingly, gently, insistently, that Jesus is Lord. I needed to know that. No one else would have told me. Thank God they did.

I remember when we prayed together, the whole church together. I grew up listening to adults pray mature, adult prayers. They showed reverence and depth and faith that with God nothing is impossible.

I remember when we tithed. And in our home, if because of our tithing we didn’t have enough money ourselves to make it to the end of the month, we still tithed.  Jesus came first.  Period.  And with no self-pity but with privilege.

We were uncool.  We really did need some refreshing in our music and communication. But there was also something real and solid and powerful there.  We must never lose it.

Related Resources

Blog: The Church: Don't Give Up on God's Plan
Article: Because of the way someone at a church hurt me, I’m afraid to join any local church and currently attend one online. What are your thoughts about this?
Books: LifeChange Book Set

Trillia Newbell on Femininity, Motherhood, and God’s Word

Six months ago Trillia Newbell wrote a memorable blog about what kind of woman God calls His daughters to be. Here it is. Hope you enjoy it.

Trillia is a wife, mom, and writer. She writes about faith, family, fitness, theology and the African-American experience. To hear from her regularly go to her blog. She has some great stuff to say. Also follow her on Twitter: @trillianewbell.

Femininity: June Cleaver, Clair Huxtable, or the Valiant Woman?

by Trillia Newbell 

One of my female icons growing up was Oprah Winfrey. I dreamed of being like her one day. After high school, I went to college and did everything I could to be successful. I made good grades, took internships, studied abroad, and got into law school. Then something odd happened. I began to sense God calling me to be a wife and mother.

Yikes!

I remember sharing my desire to be a wife and mother with a research professor and not being well received. Apparently I was forfeiting all that the Civil Rights leaders had worked so hard for me to be able to do as a black woman. Without an understanding of how the Lord can change hearts and minds, I can easily see how my decision not to go to law school could appear foolish.

I felt pressure from the world that I needed to be “successful,” but here I was, desiring to be a mother. Where was I to look for guidance?

June Cleaver?

As God began to change my heart, I started to wonder what the application of this newly found desire for motherhood looked like. I was convinced that motherhood was a high calling, but did that mean I was called to be a stay-at-home mother? Thankfully I also had a husband to help me wade through these issues, and we came to conclude: yes and no.

That doesn’t sound like much of a conclusion. But yes, God calls women to pay close attention to their homes. As a matter of fact, the woman who is oriented to her home is called wise. “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down” (Proverbs 14:1). The home matters, and throughout Scripture God makes reference to the home and its importance (Proverbs 24:3, 15:6, 3:33, Titus 2:5).

Yet are all mothers called to be June Cleaver? You remember the fictional character of the show Leave it to Beaver. The New York Times records June’s character as glamorous, a woman who wore pearls and high heels at home and helped her family get out of jams. June baked a steady supply of cookies, and used “motherly intuition to sound the alarm about incipient trouble.” June was seemingly joyful, agreeable, and content in her role. There is much to be commended about her character.

But I wonder if June was not also the product of a particular 1950s American milieu. She was at home in her white suburban neighborhood. She served her family well, but wasn’t always a good example of strength, initiative, or courage. Her activities in the community included social events like weddings and school fundraisers. June was ideal only in part.

Clair Huxtable?

In contrast, there’s another American icon who busied her life around caring for her family and work: Clair Huxtable.

Clair (played by Phylicia Rashãd) was witty and tough. She was a lawyer, and she was also the mother of five children on the hit TV show, The Cosby Show. Clair would make dinner, lovingly care for her husband, and listen to her children. And in 2004, her character was named “” by a poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation.

But I wonder if Clair was not the product of 1980s feminism. Clair was aggressive, and at times bossy. The saying, “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” might apply to the Huxtable household. When the kids stepped out of line or didn’t meet her standards, it was judgment time (check out “The Night of the Wretched,” season 6, episode 22, for a good example).

Though she cared deeply for her husband, she often treated him like a child, not trusting him as he ventured into his many household projects. She worked hard for her family, which is commendable, but just like June, her fictional character falls short of ideal.

The Valiant Woman

June and Clair aren’t mutually exclusive. From all appearances, these fictional characters loved their homes, their husbands, and their children. But if we want to gain a biblical vision for the ideal woman, we should look at the wise words of King Lemuel’s mother in Proverbs 31. God does not idealize June Cleaver or Clair Huxtable, but holds up the Proverbs 31 woman.

I already know that many people are tired of the Proverbs 31 woman and are cringing, just by looking at that subtitle. No worries, I’m not merely going to talk about how excellent she is. I’m thinking about one thing, and that is God’s word. Paul gave us insight on the value of God’s word when he said, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). God says his words are useful. That means that even if the “excellent wife” has been used and abused, his word still stands true. The woman is an ideal that we should look to; she is in a book dedicated to teaching wisdom.

The valiant woman, commonly known as the Proverbs 31 woman or the “excellent wife,” is noble. She is respectful to her husband, she is trustworthy and kind, she is brave, she takes initiative, she works hard with her hands, she works inside and outside of the home, she is wise and respected. She is generous and thoughtful. She is blessed by her children and her children blessed her.

In his commentary on Proverbs, Bruce Waltke writes, “The ideal wife in this Hebrew heroic poem . . . is diligent, ‘take charge,’ is engaged in profit-making ventures, and is also a wise teacher and philanthropist.”

A Radical Change of Heart

Most importantly, the Valiant Woman is a woman who fears the Lord (Proverbs 31:30). And that is what God desires for us. God wants our hearts. He wants to give us a new heart and a new purpose (Ezekiel 36:26–28). When he changes us, he changes us to the core. God’s desire is that we love him with all our hearts and love our neighbor as ourselves (and I’d argue the closest neighbor to me is my husband and my children). As we rightly fear God and honor his design for femininity, the details of how that gets worked out in our homes will look differently for each woman.

The radical change in my heart calls for a radical change in my pursuits, which brings me back to the decision my husband and I had to face. I personally could not be Clair and pursue my law degree while still trying to care for my husband, care for my home, and serve my children. Yet I couldn’t be June: I work part-time, I’m not ironing my husband’s underpants, and when I wake up I have a fight that the fictional character didn’t have. I fight my selfish flesh by the word of God and through his grace. I needed to look to God’s word for direction, not to the world.

A Miracle Only God Could Do

I didn’t first jump at the thought of having children, and I definitely didn’t jump at the idea of femininity as defined by Scripture. It took time for God to reveal his will and heart to me in the Scriptures. And now in marriage, because God has been so very gracious to me, I can and do submit. I also love to be home with my children. This is a miracle that only God could do in my heart. I had to (and continue to) fight not only the world, not only feminist thoughts, but a culture that would say I sold out.

This article originally appeared on Desiring God .

      

Related Resources

Book: Help for Women Under Stress by Randy and Nanci Alcorn (coming soon exclusively from EPM - learn more)
Blog: How does one gain the courage to make personal sacrifices for God?
Article: Needed: A Counter Revolution by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Photo Credit

Mother and child: Lars Plougmann via photopin cc