Justin Taylor's Blog, page 128

5 Theological Errors of the Prosperity “Gospel”

David Jones of Southeastern Seminary (who co-authored with Russell Woodbridge Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Has the Prosperity Gospel Overshadowed the Gospel of Christ? has a helpful summary on five doctrines the prosperity gospel teachers erroneously advance.

Here’s an outline:

1. The Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement.

2. Jesus’ atonement extends to the “sin” of material poverty.

3. Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God.

4. Faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity.

5. Prayer is a tool to force God to grant prosperity.

Read the whole thing here for a brief analysis of each doctrine with quotations from the advocates.

Why Hobby Lobby Matters

An op-ed from Notre Dame’s Rick Garnett, writing in the Los Angeles Times:

The Green family [who owns Hobby Lobby] has not confined its Christian beliefs to Sunday worship, and has instead expressed them through the operation of its Hobby Lobby stores for nearly 40 years. . . .

Like millions of religious believers and groups, these challengers reject the idea that religious faith and religious freedom are simply about what we believe and how we pray, and not also about how we live, act and work. At the heart of these two cases is the straightforward argument that federal law does not require us to “check our faith at the door” when we pursue vocations in business and commerce.

There should be no question about the sincerity of the religious beliefs at issue. These are not cases where the profit-focused managers of publicly traded mega-companies are cynically trying to save a few bucks or to gain a competitive edge.

As many would-be Sunday shoppers know, the Green family “walks the walk.” Signs on Hobby Lobby stores’ doors say that they close on Sundays “to allow employees time for worship and to spend time with their families.” Their stores do not carry shot glasses, lewd greeting cards or vulgar posters, and the background music is Christian. Hobby Lobby contributes generously to charities and starts full-time employees at nearly double the minimum wage. When the Greens and Hobby Lobby do this, and many other things, they are living out their faith and exercising their religion.

Hobby Lobby also provides excellent health insurance, which includes coverage for most — but not all — contraceptives. However, because of the Greens’ firm belief in the dignity of human life and about when and how it begins, Hobby Lobby cannot provide coverage for some of the required drugs because they could cause an abortion.

The government and others argue that the Greens’ religious beliefs are irrelevant because they’ve freely chosen to enter the rough-and-tumble world of commerce and that, in any event, the exercise of religion is for individuals, not corporations. But Hobby Lobby’s lawyers at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty will be on solid ground when they explain to the court that both of these arguments are misguided.

The issue is not whether groups, associations and corporations have religious freedom rights under federal law. Of course they do. After all, religious hospitals, schools, social service agencies and churches are not “individuals,” but it would be bizarre to say that they don’t exercise religion.

And the question should not be whether legal protections for religious liberty stop at the sanctuary door or evaporate when a person is trying to make a living or a business is aiming to make a profit. At a time when we talk a lot about corporate responsibility and worry about the feeble influence of ethics and values on Wall Street decision-making, it would be strange if the law were to welcome sermonizing from Starbucks on the government shutdown but tell the Greens and Hobby Lobby to focus strictly on the bottom line.

You can read the whole thing here.

See also Denny Burk’s helpful post on why it’s not true to say that Hobby Lobby denies its employees contraceptives and is forcing their religion on them.

Adoption: Bringing Their Son to His New Home

A brief film on Aaron and Jamie Ivey’s trip to reunite with and adopt their son, orphaned after the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010:

For Jamie’s perspective, go here.

View more stories from The Austin Stone church at austinstone.org/stories.

HT: Z

The Joy, Work, and Beauty of Motherhood: A Day in the Life

We need more celebrations of self-sacrificial motherhood. Here is a great example of art serving truth:

HT: Owen Strachan

A Dialogue between N. T. Wright and Richard Gaffin

AT the 2005 Auburn Avenue Pastors Conference on “Paul’s Theology: The Apostle and His Theology,” NT scholars Tom Wright and Richard Gaffin ask each other questions about biblical theology, interpretation, justification, etc.:

The Biggest Hole in Our Gospel Is the Gospel Itself

In his editorial for the latest edition of Themelios , D. A. Carson interacts with Richard Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us?

This frank and appealing book surveys worldwide poverty and argues that the American failure to take up God’s mandate to address poverty is “the hole in our gospel.” Without wanting to diminish the obligation Christians have to help the poor, and with nothing but admiration for Mr Stearns’s personal pilgrimage, his argument would have been far more helpful and compelling had he observed three things:

First, “what God expects of us” (his subtitle) is, by definition, not the gospel. This is not the great news of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Had Mr Stearns cast his treatment of poverty as one of the things to be addressed by the second greatest commandment, or as one of several entailments of the gospel, I could have recommended his book with much greater confidence. As it is, the book will contribute to declining clarity as to what the gospel is.

Second, even while acknowledging—indeed, insisting on the importance of highlighting—the genuine needs that Mr Stearns depicts in his book, it is disturbing not to hear similar anguish over human alienation from God. The focus of his book is so narrowly poverty that the sweep of what the gospel addresses is lost to view. Men and women stand under God’s judgment, and this God of love mandates that by the means of heralding the gospel they will be saved not only in this life but in the life to come. Where is the anguish that contemplates a Christ-less eternity, that cries, “Repent! Turn away from all your offenses. . . . Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezek 18:30-32). The analysis of the problem is too small, and the gospel is correspondingly reduced.

Third, some studies have shown that Christians spend about five times more mission dollars on issues related to poverty than they do on evangelism and church planting. At one time, “holistic ministry” was an expression intended to move Christians beyond proclamation to include deeds of mercy. Increasingly, however, “holistic ministry” refers to deeds of mercy without any proclamation of the gospel—and that is not holistic. It is not even halfistic, since the deeds of mercy are not the gospel: they are entailments of the gospel. Although I know many Christians who happily combine fidelity to the gospel, evangelism, church planting, and energetic service to the needy, and although I know some who call themselves Christians who formally espouse the gospel but who live out few of its entailments, I also know Christians who, in the name of a “holistic” gospel, focus all their energy on presence, wells in the Sahel, fighting disease, and distributing food to the poor, but who never, or only very rarely, articulate the gospel, preach the gospel, announce the gospel, to anyone. Judging by the distribution of American mission dollars, the biggest hole in our gospel is the gospel itself.

HT: Z

Do You Know Union with Christ?

James S. Stewart wrote that “union with Christ, rather than justification or election or eschatology, or indeed any of the other great apostolic themes, is the real clue to an understanding of Paul’s thought and experience” (A Man in Christ [Harper & Bros., 1955], vii).

John Calvin said that union with Christ has “the highest degree of importance” if we are to understand justification correctly (Institutes 1:737).

John Murray wrote that “union with Christ is . . . the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. . . . It is not simply a phase of the application of redemption; it underlies every aspect of redemption” (Redemption—Accomplished and Applied [Eerdmans, 1955], pp. 201, 205).

Lewis Smedes said that it was “at once the center and circumference of authentic human existence” (Union with Christ [Eerdmans, 1983], xii).

Anthony Hoekema wrote that “Once you have your eyes opened to this concept of union with Christ, you will find it almost everywhere in the New Testament” (Saved by Grace [Eerdmans, 1989], 64.

Hoekema explains that the New Testament uses two interchangeable expressions to describe union with Christ:

We are in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17; John 15:4, 5, 7; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 12:2; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 1:4, 2:10; Phil. 3:9; 1 Thess. 4:16; 1 John 4:13).
Christ is in us (Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27; Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Eph. 3:17).

Three passages (John 6:56; John 15:4; 1 John 4:13) explicitly combine both concepts.

Hoekema says that we should see union with Christ “extending all the way from eternity to eternity.” He outlines his material in this way:

The roots of union with Christ are in divine election (Eph. 1:3-4).
The basis of union with Christ is the redemptive work of Christ.
The actual union with Christ is established with God’s people in time.

Under the third point, he shows eight ways that salvation, from beginning to end, is in Christ:

We are initially united with Christ in regeneration (Eph. 2:4-5, 10)
We appropriate and continue to live out of this union through faith (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:16-17).
We are justified in union with Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:8-9).
We are sanctified through union with Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; John 15:4-5; Eph. 4:16; 2 Cor. 5:17).
We persevere in the life of faith in union with Christ (John 10:27-28; Rom. 8:38-39).
We are even said to die in Christ (Rom. 14:8; 1 Thess. 4:16; Rev. 14:13).
We shall be raised with Christ (Col. 3:1; 1 Cor. 15:22).
We shall be eternally glorified with Christ (Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:16-17).

And here’s a helpful quote from Sinclair Ferguson (in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification [IVP, 1989], 58), explaining in a nutshell why union with Christ is the foundation for sanctification:

If we are united to Christ, then we are united to him at all points of his activity on our behalf.

We share

in his death (we were baptized into his death),
in his resurrection (we are resurrected with Christ),
in his ascension (we have been raised with him),
in his heavenly session (we sit with him in heavenly places, so that our life is hidden with Christ in God), and we will share
in his promised return (when Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory) (Rom. 6:14; Col. 2:11-12; 3:1-3).

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology.

It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God’s activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness.

Some newer treatments of this important subject:

Robert Letham, Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology

Marcus Peter Johnson, One with Christ: An Evangelical Theology of Salvation

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Found in Him: The Joy of the Incarnation and Our Union with Christ

Robert Peterson, Salvation Applied by the Spirit: Union with Christ (forthcoming, 2014)

What Parts of the Bible Are Binding? Some Principles from D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson, writing in Modern Reformation, offers some principles with illustrations:

Determine not only how symbols, customs, metaphors, and models function in Scripture, but also to what else they are tied.
Thoughtfully limit comparisons and analogies by observing near and far contexts.
Many mandates are pastorally limited by the occasion or people being addressed.
Always be careful how you apply narratives.
Remember that you, too, are culturally and theologically located.
Frankly admit that many interpretive decisions are nestled within a large theological system, which we must be willing to modify if the Bible is to have the final word.

You can read the whole thing here.

Update: If you’re not a subscriber to MR, you can access the article by going to this blog post and clicking on Carson’s article on the “Tabula Rasa Fallacy.”

John Piper’s New Poem and Video: “The Calvinist”

Calvinism, they say, is making a comeback. But poetry? We rarely hear traditional poems today, apart from rhyming couplets in songs or greeting cards or spoken-word pieces with a beat. So I am thankful to hear and watch this robust, life-giving poem from John Piper—read by Piper with the help of friends Matt Chandler, R. C. Sproul, D. A. Carson, Thabiti Anyabwile, Alistair Begg, and Sinclair Ferguson—showing that Calvinism is not an arcane point of theology but a tough-and-tender approach to all of life before the face of God.

You can watch it below or read it here.

7 Thoughts on Pastors Writing Books

An excellent and important post here from Kevin DeYoung.

Here is the outline, with a quote from each section:

1. Writing for others is a privilege.

(“Writing is hard work, but authors should never forget that to be read is also a tremendous gift.”)

2. Writing should be in the service of others.

(“All of us who write must constantly ask the question: am I really doing this to serve others or to serve myself?”)

3. Writing should be kept in proportion.

(“I need to be a faithful preacher and a caring shepherd before I am a good writer.”)

4. Writing should be kept in perspective.

(“If an older man publishes his magnum opus, let the accolades roll in. But when 30somethings and 40somethings marvel slack-jawed at their own writings—sheesh. It’s embarrassing.”)

5. Writing should be overseen with accountability.

(“There is no one way to work with a pastor-author, except that there should be some governing body within his church that encourages, approves, and holds him accountable.”)

6. Writing should be done by the person whose name is on the cover.

(“The simple fact is that for 99% of the reading public they assume that if your name is on the cover of a book that you wrote the book.”)

7. Writing should be done humbly.

(“Don’t pass along all the kudos about your stuff. ‘Let another praise you, and when they do, go ahead and retweet your awesomeness’—I don’t think that’s what Proverbs had in mind.”)

Read the whole thing.