Barnabas Piper's Blog, page 62
October 1, 2018
New Happy Rant: Changing Worship Song Lyrics, Destiny Pants, and Christian Witchcraft
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Barnabas, and Ronnie rant about the following:
Why do reformed people feel the compulsion to change the lyrics to hymns and worship songs?
When is it even ok to mess with a writer’s work like that?
Introducing DESTINY PANTS–yes, they are as awesome as you might think
What’s the deal with Christalignment (not a typo) tarot cards? Is that Christian witchcraft?
SPONSOR
[image error]Big thanks to our sponsor IVP Books, specifically Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble. We live in a distracted, secular age. These two trends define life in Western society today. We are increasingly addicted to habits―and devices―that distract and “buffer” us from substantive reflection and deep engagement with the world. And we live in a secular age―an age in which all beliefs are equally viable and real transcendence is less and less plausible. But the gospel of Jesus is inherently disruptive: like a plow, it breaks up the hardened surface to expose the fertile earth below. In this book Noble lays out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society’s deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus.
We’d also like to thank sponsor Noah’s Event Venue. Noah’s offers fantastic venues for churches to expand, to plant, or to start a campus and comes equipped with high end A/V, classroom space, and all the general meeting needs churches have (aside from a pour-over bar and leather aprons) – though they do have coffee/cafe services! They have multiple venues across the country in most major metro areas, so if you are a church leader looking for space to grow, plant, or move your congregation check them out.
Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:
Order fresh roasted coffee from Lagares Roasters
Order your Happy Rant swag from Missional Wear (Use code RANT to get discounts on swag and/or shipping)
Please consider supporting the podcast financially as well. We have set up a Patreon page, and your donations help us cover production costs, do live events, and grow the podcast by trying some new things. Oh, and of course there are perks for those who commit to helps us such as free books and coffee!
To listen you can:
Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.
Episode #215
September 28, 2018
3 Things I Like – September 28
Each week (give or take one here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1. Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
[image error]Enger is one of those authors who writes so sublimely that I cannot stop reading but who almost makes me want to quit writing because he is so far beyond where I will ever be. He may be the best novelist alive today. His stories are about people, and the plot flows from the richness of the characters. He communicates deep, true things with wit and subtlety so as not to bludgeon readers. He is hilarious in a delightfully understated, Scandinavian manner. Virgil Wander is his third novel (Enger is profound, not prolific), and it is as excellent as his first two, Peace Like a River and So Brave, Young, and Handsome. It is difficult to describe these books because they are not about an event or a place or a plot. They are about the normal, yet profound, lives of their characters. Enger taps into the soul, mind, and imagination but his books don’t lack action or suspense. They are page turners for all the best reasons, and you should get ALL of them.
2. The Peaky Blinders
[image error]This is a Netflix Original show starring Cillian Murphy, Helen McRory and a host of other exceptional, if lesser known, performers. It is about the leading crime family in Birmingham, England shortly after WW1. It is a steel town with a violent underbelly, and the Peaky Blinders (the gang led by the family) rule it. Throughout the various seasons they face betrayal, invasion, intrigue, war, and more. The villains are villainous. The good guys are confusing; you are rooting for a crime family after all. The show is violent and profane (or what evangelicals like to call “gritty” and it has “some content”). They acting is exceptional, the writing is strong, and the plots are gripping. In all it is a rough and rowdy ride in an exceptionally cool setting.
3. Songs I Heard by Harry Connick Jr.
[image error]Harry Connick Jr. has long been one of my favorite musicians. He is what Michael Buble wants to be when he grows up. I remember hearing for the first time when my youth pastor played his album 11 when I was in junior high. I have loved his music ever since. This album is one of his most creative. He reimagines songs from his favorite childhood movies – Sounds of Music, Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz. and more – as jazz and big band tunes. Connick is a genius, and this album is really fun.
He Reads Truth: Gifts from the Holy Spirit
I have the privilege of contributing to He Reads Truth, a website of whose purpose is “To help men become who we were made to be, by doing what we were made to do, by the power and provision that God has given us to do it, for the glory of Jesus Christ.” They do this by providing scripture reading plans accompanied by reflections that can be accessed for free online or purchased as print books. For those of you looking to engage scripture in a fresh way – either because you are dried up or have been away from it, these studies/plans will refresh your soul and engage your mind.
What follows is one of the pieces I wrote for the plan on 1&2 Corinthians. You can find the full plan HERE.
1 Corinthians 14:1-39, Exodus 25:8, 1 John 4:1-3
The devil loves nothing more than believers taking our eyes off Jesus. It’s his sole mission—to pull people away from Christ—and he excels at it. One of the devil’s most devious and effective methods is stirring up dissension and debate within the church, what Scripture calls a spirit of confusion. We get mired in arguments, frustration, judgment, preferential tug-o-war, and all of it under the guise of defending truth or seeking good things. In reality, though, we’ve forgotten the reason for church: joining together to worship and reflect Jesus. Confusion has defeated us, and that’s what this passage in 1 Corinthians 14 is about.
Here, Paul sets out to offer clarity, the opposite of confusion. From the top, he says he wishes people would pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and he follows that up a few verses later by saying that all gifts are for the good of the church, to build one another up. This is Paul’s thesis, and everything else in the passage points to that.
Our temptation is to tie others and ourselves in knots with debates over speaking in tongues and prophecy. What do they mean? How should people do them? Are they gifts for everyone? These questions matter enormously, and they’re also a temptation—a temptation toward confusion and distraction.
We can never forget that we are to “seek to excel at building up the church” so that, “everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged” (vv. 12,31). This is why God grants gifts of the Spirit, and anything that doesn’t move the church in this direction is of a false spirit, as 1 John chapter 4 tells us. We are to test the spirits (vv.1–6). If this sounds oddly mystical or confusing, John clarifies:
Does the spirit profess Christ or does it not?
Does it point people to Jesus or distract them?
Does it diminish Jesus or make Him bigger?
This is a sharp knife to divide the false spirits from the true, and the helpful gifts from the unhelpful.
We ignore these instructions at our own peril and at the peril of our churches. We are called to be a sanctuary, a dwelling place of God, both individually and corporately. But when we allow chaos and confusion to supersede Jesus, we stop being a church and become nothing more than a gathering of people. Only when we seek to excel in building up the church with spiritual gifts, confessing Christ above all else, will we be the church God calls us to be through Paul’s words.
September 25, 2018
New Happy Rant: British Bake Off, Michael W. Smith, and Another Great Awakening
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas rant about the following topics:
Ronnie surviving denominational board meetings
TGC and the Great British Bake Off
Michael W. Smith’s claim that he would be the key to another great awakening
We’d like to thank our sponsor – Noah’s Event Venue. Noah’s offers fantastic venues for churches to expand, to plant, or to start a campus and comes equipped with high end A/V, classroom space, and all the general meeting needs churches have (aside from a pour-over bar and leather aprons) – though they do have coffee/cafe services! They have multiple venues across the country in most major metro areas, so if you are a church leader looking for space to grow, plant, or move your congregation check them out.
Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:
Order fresh roasted coffee from Lagares Roasters
Order your Happy Rant swag from Missional Wear (Use code RANT to get discounts on swag and/or shipping)
Please consider supporting the podcast financially as well. We have set up a Patreon page, and your donations help us cover production costs, do live events, and grow the podcast by trying some new things. Oh, and of course there are perks for those who commit to helps us such as free books and coffee!
To listen you can:
Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.
Episode #214
September 21, 2018
3 Things I Like – September 21
Each week (give or take one here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1. Cast Iron Skillet
[image error]I bet you didn’t know that you could make bacon taste better than it normally does. Well, you can, and it requires no candying or seasoning or sigaring or carmelizing or anything. It just requires a cast iron skillet. The same goes for chicken and beef and cornbread and even pies. Cast iron is the magic implement that makes food cooked at home taste home-cooked. And, as a bonus, it is good for home defense too. You’ll never knock a burglar out with some Teflon coated aluminum thing.
2. Harry’s Razors
[image error]I have to shave about 1/3 as often as an average man and about 1/8th as often as a lumberjack type man, so you’d think I would care less about my shaving experience. In fact that means every shave is more memorable, like a trip to the dentist. It also means I always forget to buy razors when I need them (twice a year). Enter Harry’s Razors – high quality razors making the shave less miserable shipped automatically on a schedule that suits me, and they are priced reasonably too. On top of that their other products (face wash, after shave, shave cream, etc.) are high quality too. I never run out of razors and I dread shaving 47% less, and I smell good when I’m done.
3. Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: An Oral History
[image error]50 years ago Johnny Cash recorded his most famous album – Live at Folsom Prison. The album is a classic, and the story behind it is captivating. THis Rolling Stone oral history is an incredible read detailing how the event came about and what happened there.
September 20, 2018
Happy Rant Sports Episode #18 – The Big 3, Nike & Kaepernick, and NFL Announcers
In this episode of The Happy Rant Sports podcast Ted and Barnabas discuss the following topics in and around sports:
The Big 3 – a league of former NBA and college stars
Nike’s decision to feature Colin Kaepernick in an advertisement campaign and all the controversy that has brought about
The slide of NFL announcers, especially on Monday Night Football
Being a baseball fan when your team sucks
Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:
Order fresh roasted coffee from Lagares Roasters
Order your Happy Rant swag from Missional Wear (Use code RANT to get discounts on swag and/or shipping)
Please consider supporting the podcast financially as well. We have set up a Patreon page, and your donations help us cover production costs, do live events, and grow the podcast by trying some new things. Oh, and of course there are perks for those who commit to helps us such as free books and coffee!
To listen you can:
Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.
Episode #18
September 17, 2018
New Happy Rant: Concerts, Nike, and Copying Pastors
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas wander to and fro through the following topics:
Ted’s experience at a Fallout Boy concert
Which Union Seminary put out a heretical statement?
A pastor chopping up Nike gear in the pulpit
A church looking for a pastor to preach famous guys’ sermons word for word
We’d like to thank our sponsor – Noah’s Event Venue. Noah’s offers fantastic venues for churches to expand, to plant, or to start a campus and comes equipped with high end A/V, classroom space, and all the general meeting needs churches have (aside from a pour-over bar and leather aprons) – though they do have coffee/cafe services! They have multiple venues across the country in most major metro areas, so if you are a church leader looking for space to grow, plant, or move your congregation check them out.
Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:
Order fresh roasted coffee from Lagares Roasters
Order your Happy Rant swag from Missional Wear (Use code RANT to get discounts on swag and/or shipping)
Please consider supporting the podcast financially as well. We have set up a Patreon page, and your donations help us cover production costs, do live events, and grow the podcast by trying some new things. Oh, and of course there are perks for those who commit to helps us such as free books and coffee!
To listen you can:
Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.
Episode #213
September 13, 2018
The Best Quotes from “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction,” Part 2
I recently read and loved Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. It is a balm, a kick, a nudge, a lesson, counsel, conversation, realistic, hopeful, and profoundly biblical and beautiful. As he walks through the Psalms of ascent the reader is drawn into worship and closer to God. Here is the second selection of the best quotes; read part 1 HERE.
27. Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience.
28. The hard work of sowing seed in what looks like perfectly empty earth has, as every farmer knows, a time of harvest. All suffering, all pain, all emptiness, all disappointment is seed: sow it in God and he will, finally, bring a crop of joy from it.
29. One of the most interesting and remarkable things Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness of the redeemed.
30. Joy is what God gives, not what we work up. Laughter is the delight that things are working together for good to those who love God, not the giggles that betray the nervousness of a precarious defense system.
31. Our work goes wrong when we lose touch with the God who works “his salvation in the midst of the earth.” It goes wrong both when we work anxiously and when we don’t work at all, when we become frantic and compulsive in our work (Babel) and when we become indolent and lethargic in our work (Thessalonica). The foundational truth is that work is good. If God does it, it must be all right. Work has dignity: there can be nothing degrading about work if God works. Work has purpose: there can be nothing futile about work if God works.
32. Relentless, compulsive work habits (“work your worried fingers to the bone”) which our society rewards and admires are seen by the psalmist as a sign of weak faith and assertive pride, as if God could not be trusted to accomplish his will, as if we could rearrange the universe by our own effort.
33. Too much of the world’s happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. [image error]
34. To guard against all such blasphemous chumminess with the Almighty, the Bible talks of the fear of the Lord—not to scare us but to bring us to awesome attention before the overwhelming grandeur of God, to shut up our whining and chattering and stop our running and fidgeting so that we can really see him as he is and listen to him as he speaks his merciful, life-changing words of forgiveness.
35. The way of the world is marked by proud, God-defying purposes, unharnessed from eternity and therefore worthless and futile.
36. For it is apathetic, sluggish neutrality that is death to perseverance, acts like a virus in the bloodstream and enervates the muscles of discipleship. The person who makes excuses for hypocrites and rationalizes the excesses of the wicked, who loses a sense of opposition to sin, who obscures the difference between faith and denial, grace and selfishness—that is the person to be wary of. For if there is not all that much difference between the way of faith and the ways of the world, there is not much use in making any effort to stick to it.
37. For perseverance is not resignation, putting up with things the way they are, staying in the same old rut year after year, or being a doormat for people to wipe their feet on. Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength.
38. The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God’s faithfulness. We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous, because God sticks with us.
39. [Psalm 130] immerses the suffering in God.
40. Wait and watch add up to hope.
41. Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulation, of scurrying and worrying.
42. And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom and our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God.
43. All cultures throw certain stumbling blocks in the way of those who pursue gospel realities.
44. When an ancient temptation or trial becomes a feature in the culture, a way of life that is expected and encouraged, Christians have a stumbling block put before them that is hard to recognize for what it is, for it has been made into a monument, gilded with bronze and bathed in decorative lights.
45. It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable, and rewarded as an achievement.
46. Our lives are lived well only when they are lived on the terms of their creation, with God loving and us being loved, with God making and us being made, with God revealing and us understanding, with God commanding and us responding.
47. A Christian with a defective memory has to start everything from scratch and spends far too much of his or her time backtracking, repairing, and starting over. A Christian with a good memory avoids repeating old sins, knows the easiest way through complex situations, and instead of starting over each day continues what was begun in Adam.
48. If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. And they must be connected. There must be an organic unity between them.
49. Scripture knows nothing of a solitary Christian. People of faith are always members of a community.
50. Everything we learn about God through Scripture and in Christ tells us that he knows what it is like to change a diaper for the thirteenth time in the day, to see a report over which we have worked so long and carefully gather dust on somebody’s desk for weeks and weeks, to find our teaching treated with scorn and indifference by children and youth, to discover that the integrity and excellence of our work has been overlooked and the shoddy duplicity of another’s rewarded with a promotion.
51. You can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; It is a simple motor movement. You may not be able to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise. We are psychosomatic beings; body and spirit are intricately interrelated. Go through the motion of blessing God and your spirit will pick up the cue and follow along.
52. Blessing is at the end of the road. And that which is at the end of the road influences everything that takes place along the road . . . A joyful end requires a joyful means. Bless the Lord.
September 11, 2018
New Happy Rant: Shorter Sermons, Signing Statements, and All Jobs Are Equal
In this episode of The Happy Rant Ted, Ronnie, and Barnabas rant about the following hot topics:
Kevin DeYoung advocating for shorter sermons? The end is nigh.
Why do evangelicals like to sign statements so much, especially ones that make people mad like the recent Social Justice statement, and what good do they do?
So “job shaming” is a thing, even of former TV actors on popular shows. And sometimes it leads to viral statements about the dignity of work that deserve our attention.
We’d like to thank our sponsor – Noah’s Event Venue. Noah’s offers fantastic venues for churches to expand, to plant, or to start a campus and comes equipped with high end A/V, classroom space, and all the general meeting needs churches have (aside from a pour-over bar and leather aprons) – though they do have coffee/cafe services! They have multiple venues across the country in most major metro areas, so if you are a church leader looking for space to grow, plant, or move your congregation check them out.
Be sure to visit HappyRantPodcast.com where you can:
Order fresh roasted coffee from Lagares Roasters
Order your Happy Rant swag from Missional Wear (Use code RANT to get discounts on swag and/or shipping)
Please consider supporting the podcast financially as well. We have set up a Patreon page, and your donations help us cover production costs, do live events, and grow the podcast by trying some new things. Oh, and of course there are perks for those who commit to helps us such as free books and coffee!
To listen you can:
Subscribe in iTunes.
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher.
Leave us a rating in iTunes (it only takes 1 click and it really helps us).
Listen using the player below.
Episode #212
The Best Quotes from “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction,” Part 1
I recently read and loved Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. It is a balm, a kick, a nudge, a lesson, counsel, conversation, realistic, hopeful, and profoundly biblical and beautiful. As he walks through the Psalms of ascent the reader is drawn into worship and closer to God. Here is the first selection of the best quotes.
1. The world is no friend to grace.
2. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure.
3. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.
4. Christian consciousness begins in the painful realization that what we assumed was the truth is in fact a lie.
5. Rescue me from the one who tells me of life and omits Christ, who is wise in the ways of the world and ignores the movement of the Spirit.
6. The moment the word God is uttered, the world’s towering falsehood is exposed—we see the truth. The truth about me is that God made and loves me. The truth about those sitting beside me is that God made and loves them, and each one is therefore my neighbor. The truth about the world is that God rules and provides for it. The truth about what is wrong with the world is that I and the neighbor sitting beside me have sinned to refusing to let God be for us, over us, and in us. The truth about what is at the center of our lives and of our history is that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross for our sins and raised from the tomb for our salvation and that we can participate in new life as we believe in him, accept his mercy, respond to his love, attend to his commands.
7. Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision . . . Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.
8. Any hurt is worth it that puts us on the path of peace, setting us free for the pursuit, in Christ, of eternal life. [image error]
9. [Repentance] is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world that is a yes to God.
10. For many, the first great surprise of the Christian life is in the form of the troubles we meet.
11. No literature is more realistic and honest in facing the harsh facts of life than the Bible. At no time is there the faintest suggestion that the life of fait exempts us from difficulties.
12. Faith is not a precarious affair of chance escape from satanic assaults. It is the solid, massive, secure experience of God, who keeps evil from getting inside us, who guards our life, who guards us when we leave and when we return, who guards us now, who guards us always.
13. Much of what we commonly describe as Christian behavior is not volitional at all—it is enforced. But worship is not forced. Everyone who worships does so because he or she wants to.
14. Feelings are important in many areas but completely unreliable in matters of faith . . . We live in what one writer s has called the “age of sensation. We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting.
15. Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week.
16. We would very soon become contemptuous of a god whom we could figure out like a puzzle or learn to use like a tool.
17. The basic conviction of a Christian is that God intends good for us and that he will get his way in us. He does not treat us according to our deserts, but according to his plan.
18. Every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive.
19. Freedom is the freedom to live as persons in love for the sake of God and neighbor, not a license to grab and push. It is the opportunity to live at our best, “little less than God,” not as unruly beasts.
20. God is for us. God is our help.
21. God doesn’t need me to defend him. He doesn’t need me for a press secretary . . .The proper work of a Christian is witness, not apology.
22. The reason many of us do not ardently believe in the gospel is that we have never given it a rigorous testing, thrown our hard questions at it, faced it with our most prickly doubts.
23. The psalms are great poetry and have lasted not because they appeal to our fantasies and our wishes but because they are affirmed in the intensities of honest and hazardous living.
24. We speak our words of praise in a world that is hellish; we sing our songs of victory in a world where things get messy; we live our joy among people who neither understand nor encourage us. But the content of our lives is God, not humanity.
25. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.
26. Nothing counter to God’s justice has any eternity to it.
