Justin Taylor's Blog, page 14
October 15, 2020
Paul Tripp on 12 Leadership Principles for the Local Church
Video introductions to Paul Tripp’s book, Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church (Crossway, 2020).
Achievement
Principle 1: A ministry community, whose time is controlled by doing the business of the church, tends to be spiritually unhealthy.
Gospel
Principle 2: If your leaders are going to be tools of God’s grace, they need to be committed to nurture that grace in one another’s lives.
Limits
Principle 3: Recognizing God-ordained limits of gift, time, energy and maturity is essential to leading a ministry community well.
Balance
Principle 4: Teaching your leaders to recognize and balance the various callings in their life is a vital contribution to their success.
Character
Principle 5: A spiritually healthy leadership community acknowledges that character is more important than structure or strategies.
War
Principle 6: It is essential to understand that leadership in any gospel ministry is spiritual warfare.
Servants
Principle 7: Being called to leadership in the church is a call to a life of willing sacrifice and service.
Candor
Principle 8: A spiritually healthy leadership community is characterized by the humility of approachability and the courage of loving honesty.
Identity
Principle 9: Where your leaders look for identity will always determine how they lead.
Restoration
Principle 10: If a leadership community is formed by the gospel it will always be committed to a lifestyle of fresh starts and new beginnings.
Longevity
Principle 11: For church leaders, ministry longevity is always the result of gospel community.
Presence
Principle 12: You will only handle the inevitable weakness, failure, and sin of your leaders when you view them through the lens of the presence, power, promises, and grace of Jesus.
October 14, 2020
John Piper on the Collapse of Mars Hill and the Failure of Christian Leadership
This video is now five years old. Pastor Norm Funk asks John Piper about Mark Driscoll and the implosion of Mars Hill Church and those who are tempted to give up on the church after a pastoral failure.
I think it’s worth listening to again, especially when the public failures seem to multiply in our day.
Piper makes five main points:
We are not in a unique situation: historically, and today, we are letting Jesus down regularly.
From a biblical perspective, God has historically been willing to use people to speak gospel truths who have motives and attitudes that are defective.
Don’t throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of sin. To walk away from Jesus because Jesus’s representatives are failures is to make an absurd choice. It would mean walking away from the one hope of your life.
God must be the kind of general over his army that willingly accepts tactical defeats for strategic victories.
If you say you love Jesus but you are giving up on the church, you are not following Jesus.
O, Come All You Unfaithful
Above is the official music video from Sovereign Grace Music for a new song, “O Come, All You Unfaithful,” written by Lisa Clow and Bob Kauflin from the album Heaven Has Come.
This video contains people who are processing “O Come, All You Unfaithful,” most of them for the first time, in light of their own experiences. A stillborn child. A strained marriage. Feelings of shame. Legalism. Loss. Loneliness. Or simply having a heart that weeps with those who weep.
We think seeing their responses as Lisa Clow sings communicates even more clearly that Jesus wasn’t born for people who have it all together. He was born for those who have nothing.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”” (Matthew 11.28–30, ESV)
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1.21, ESV)
So come.
Lyrics:
O come all you unfaithful
Come weak and unstable
Come know you are not alone
O come barren and waiting ones
Weary of praying, come
See what your God has done
Christ is born, Christ is born
Christ is born for you
O come bitter and broken
Come with fears unspoken
Come taste of His perfect love
O come guilty and hiding ones
There is no need to run
See what your God has done
He’s the Lamb who was given
Slain for our pardon
His promise is peace
For those who believe
So come, though you have nothing
Come He is the offering
Come see what your God has done
October 12, 2020
You Don’t Know Roe: A Visual Guide to the Landmark Supreme Court Decision of Roe v. Wade
No Supreme Court opinion has been more misunderstood and its arguments more misrepresented in the public square than Roe v. Wade (1973).
There seems to be a widespread perception that Roe was a moderate opinion that does not support abortion on demand, i.e., unrestricted abortion for all nine months for virtually any reason.
This leads to all sorts of strange results, like the majority of American supporting Roe, while just 29% of Americans want abortion to remain “legal under any circumstances” (which is what Roe v. Wade functionally means, when taken—as it was intended—with its companion decision, Doe v. Bolton).
I recently came across the Wardenclyffe Academy. They are beginning to produce free videos on YouTube marked by careful scholarship and interesting animation with the goal of help to make complicated ideas more accessible.
(The two guys behind it are Peter Kinney and Logan Zeppieri. Peter—who does the voice-over—graduated from CSU Sacramento with a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Law, and he will be attending law school at Liberty University. Logan—the animator—graduated from CSU Sacramento with a BA in Philosophy of Science and an MA in Philosophy from Talbot School of Theology. They co-author the scripts.)
The three videos below on Roe v. Wade walk through its origin, its journey from the District Court to the Supreme Court, and the nature of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
October 6, 2020
The Case Against Pro-Lifers Voting for Joe Biden
Twenty five years ago, John Piper wrote:
No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president.
But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career.
These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office. . . .
You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It’s simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those.
What this means is that being pro-life should be a necessary condition for earning my vote, but it is not a sufficient one.
I want to commend a new piece this week by Robert P. George and Ramesh Ponnuru.
They look at Joe Biden, a Roman Catholic, who claims to agree with his church about abortion, but does not believe he should impose his religious belief upon others. In other words, he is in the camp of those who are “personally opposed” to it but believe it should be legal.
Here he is, speaking briefly last night about Roe v. Wade:
George and Ponnuru show that the Catholic Church agrees with the indisputable fact of modern embryology.
Because this is a truth fully available to natural reason (that is, it doesn’t require special revelation in the way that belief in the incarnation does), this means “abortion is not the sort of wrong (or sin) that law and the state have valid reasons for tolerating. On the contrary, it is precisely the sort of grave injustice and violation of fundamental human rights that it is a central duty of law and the state to prohibit.”
They continue: “For government to permit abortion, the Church teaches, is for government itself to commit an injustice against its victims—denying a disfavored class, the unborn, protection it affords to all others. To be responsible, or partially responsible, for the injustice of the law in exposing unborn children to legally authorized lethal violence is to be complicit in grave injustice.”
George and Ponnuru then connect this to implications for voting: “To grasp the grave injustice of abortion is to take on some responsibility to work to end it both as a social practice and as a legally permissible option.”
It is not the only issue, and citizens have other responsibilities too. But the gravity of abortion and the fundamental issue of human rights weighs more heavily than other political issues, even important ones.
They write:
The individual pro-life voter is not responsible for ending abortion, because he cannot achieve that goal. He is obligated, however, to do what he can, which is to cast his vote in solidarity with the unborn victims of abortion. Because the modern Democratic Party has become ever more committed to abortion and more hostile to legal protection for unborn children at any stage, pro-lifers who agree with Democrats on issues other than abortion have sometimes labored to find ways to rationalize voting for Democratic candidates who pledge to ensure that unborn children are exposed to lethal injustice (though, of course, they prefer different, more euphemistic language).
The authors enumerate several of arguments for why a pro-life person might vote for the Democratic candidate, but they argue that each of them suffers from similar fatal flaws.
In particular, it is important to note that Biden “not only supports the legality of abortion but gives every indication of supporting it at every stage of pregnancy, and who shockingly and shamefully discarded his decades-long opposition to taxpayer funding for abortion (only hours after reaffirming it). He is allied to a speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who says that the next set of budget bills will include such funding. His current position on this question annihilates any possible case for Biden as someone who would reduce the number of abortions, even if (contrary to what justice in fact requires) his opposition to a right to life for the unborn could be overlooked.”
George and Ponnuru conclude with a wise perspective on voting:
To vote for a candidate for president is to have an infinitesimal effect on the outcome of the election, but to wholly determine whom one wills to be president. And while one need not will all that the candidate one votes for endorses, one’s choice must be fair, that is, in accord with the Golden Rule, applied bearing in mind the gravity, scope, and scale of the greatest injustices and violations of human rights at issue in a society and in contestation between candidates and parties.
The pro-lifer who votes against Biden may not keep him from winning. He will, however, at least refuse to join in tolerating a massive violation of human rights for hundreds of thousands of victims of direct and intentional lethal violence.
This is true of the pro-lifer who votes for Trump; it is true as well of the pro-lifer who, moved by objections to President Trump on the basis of human rights or other weighty reasons, votes for a different pro-life candidate or for no presidential candidate at all.
The choice between those options can reasonably be influenced by all kinds of considerations, including even how close the election seems to be in one’s state.
Neither of us has endorsed Donald Trump. Both of us have been intensely critical of him on issues of personal character and, in some cases, public policy. We do not claim, as some have claimed, that Catholics and other pro-life citizens have an obligation to cast their ballot for him. The premises of the argument against abortion do not by themselves compel such a stance. People who share the view that the abortion license is a profound injustice on a massive scale that must be resolutely opposed can reach different conclusions about whether Trump deserves their vote.
If, however, the considerations we have adduced in this essay are sound, they practically preclude a vote for Biden. If one acknowledges the gravity, scale, and scope of the injustice of abortion, and of a legal regime that denies to an entire class of human beings the most basic of human rights, thus exposing them to lethal violence, then it is hard to imagine what proportionate reasons there could be for joining one’s will to the desire of a supporter of it for great political power.
There are compelling reasons to refrain from voting for Donald Trump. But this piece by George and Ponnuru is one of the clearest I have read arguing why Joe Biden does not deserve our vote.
September 22, 2020
New Books and Bibles from Crossway in September
Here are the new resources releasing from Crossway this month.
The titles include, among others:
Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church by Paul David Tripp
Unfolding Grace: 40 Guided Readings through the Bible
ESV Every Day Bible.
Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church
The church is experiencing a leadership crisis. For every celebrity pastor exiting in the spotlight, there are hundreds of lesser-known pastors leaving in the shadows. Why are so many pastors leaving the ministry? Best-selling author Paul David Tripp suggests that lurking behind the failure of a pastor is a weak leadership community.
Turning to Scripture for guidance, Tripp presents readers with twelve leadership-community principles necessary for a gospel-centered leadership model. Here is a book with a message for those new to ministry as well as those experienced in it—God’s abiding presence is your hope in leadership.
“The strength of this book lies in the way Tripp shapes his treatment of leadership by two things: his understanding of the gospel, and his grasp of the organic nature of the local church. At one level, this is an easy read; at another level, it is sometimes probing and painful.”
—D. A. Carson, Theologian-at-Large, The Gospel Coalition
Unfolding Grace: 40 Guided Readings through the Bible
The single most popular book in the world—the Bible—came to us over many centuries from many authors and in many different literary styles. Yet every part fits together into a coherent whole. Its pages tell a unified story of grace a story that climaxes in the triune God of love redeeming sinners and sufferers through his Son, Jesus.
In Unfolding Grace, discover the overarching storyline of God’s Word as it is revealed through forty Scripture readings drawn from key points in the biblical narrative. Each passage, coupled with brief and accessible commentary, will help you follow God’s grace as it unfolds from Genesis through Revelation.
“Each turning of the page of this beautiful book draws its readers ever-deeper into the breathtaking flow of the Bible’s epic story of redemption where the reward is, in Jesus’s words, ‘grace upon grace.’ This book will surely be used to introduce many readers to ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Read it, and give it!”
—R. Kent Hughes, Senior Pastor Emeritus, College church, Wheaton, Illinois
Unfolding Grace Study Guide: A Guided Study through the Bible
The single most popular book in the world—the Bible—was written over many centuries by many different authors, each with a unique literary style. The many stories within its pages continue to grip the hearts of readers and introduce them to their Creator. However, the Bible is more than just a book about events in history: it’s a unified story.
The Unfolding Grace Study Guide serves as an onramp to this unified story by helping readers grasp the central message of redemption that runs from Genesis through Revelation. Designed to be used in conjunction with Unfolding Grace, each lesson—with a short summary paragraph and reflection questions—promotes discussion, fosters spiritual growth, and enriches understanding of the Bible, making this ideal for small-group study, Sunday school class, or for individual use. Printed on thick paper and featuring a lay-flat binding optimized for note taking, the Unfolding Grace Study Guide is a great resource for anyone looking for an interactive exploration of the storyline of Scripture.
“With eye-catching illustrations, guided insight, and a helpful narrative structure, Unfolding Grace and the Unfolding Grace Study Guide act as gentle and wise companions to anyone who wants to read through Scripture with purpose and clarity. I highly recommend this beautiful resource.”
—Shelby Abbott, author, DoubtLess and Pressure Points; speaker; campus minister
Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas
Between purchasing presents and planning travel, enjoying holiday pageants and attending parties, it is all too easy for the busyness of Christmas to crowd out a quiet anticipation of this sacred season. This anthology edited by Nancy Guthrie draws from the works and sermons of classic theologians such as George Whitefield, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and Augustine, and from leading contemporary teachers such as John Piper, Randy Alcorn, Tim Keller, and Joni Eareckson Tada to help readers enter into the wonder of Jesus’s incarnation and birth.
Each of the twenty-two essays in this volume expounds on a particular aspect of the Christmas story and includes the appropriate Scripture passage from the ESV Bible. It is sure to awaken people’s longing and prepare their hearts for a fresh experience of the coming of Jesus each and every Christmas season.
ESV Every Day Bible: 365 Readings through the Whole Bible
Setting and maintaining a goal of reading through the Bible in a year can be tough in the busyness of everyday life. The ESV Every Day Bible was designed from the ground up to be an inviting daily-reading Bible, to help readers achieve their goal of reading through the Bible in a year. Each daily reading presents a passage from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs in an attractive double-column typesetting printed on high-quality Bible paper. The combination of a thoughtful reading plan, beautiful layout, and affordable cost make this Bible a perfect choice for those looking to savor their reading of the Bible over the course of a year.
The Greek-English New Testament: Tyndale House, Cambridge Edition and English Standard Version
The Greek New Testament is a tremendous gift to the church because in it God originally delivered the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Greek-English New Testament: Tyndale House, Cambridge Edition and English Standard Version enables readers to easily interact with the original Greek text by presenting the corresponding English translation on the opposite page for easy reference. This volume joins together the work of The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge that was created under the oversight of editors Dr. Dirk Jongkind (St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge) and Dr. Peter Williams (Tyndale House, Cambridge) with the ESV text, making this momentous work an accessible way to interact with the New Testament in its original language.
September 21, 2020
On Jackwagons, Civics, and Judges: Ben Sasse’s “Schoolhouse Rocks” Lessons
In 2018, at the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Senator Ben Sasse gave something of a Civics 101 lesson that is worth hearing again—and sharing.
He explains: “Every confirmation hearing is going to be an overblown, politicized circus. And it’s because we’ve accepted a bad new theory about how our three branches of government should work—and in particular about how the Judiciary should work.”
You can watch it above.
His four main points are as follows.
1. In our system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of our politics.
2. It’s not.
Why not?
Because for the last century, and increasing by the decade right now, more and more legislative authority is delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is impotent. The legislature is weak. And most people here want their jobs more than they really want to do legislative work. And so they punt most of the work to the next branch.
3. This transfer of power means that people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. And when we don’t do a lot of big actual political debating here, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the Supreme Court is increasingly a substitute political battleground. It is not healthy, but it is what happens and it’s something our founders wouldn’t be able to make any sense of.
4. We badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power from our constitutional system.
Here is Senator Sasse’s October 12, 2020, opening statement in the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, giving an “8th grade lesson” in civics and religious liberty.
Transcript:
I think it would be very useful for us to pause and remind ourselves and do some of our civic duty to eighth graders to help them realize what a President runs for, what a Senator runs for, and on the other hand why Judge Barrett is sitting before us today and what the job is that you’re being evaluated for.
So, if we can back up and do a little bit of eighth grade civics I think it would benefit us and benefit the watching country – and especially watching eighth grade civics classes.
So, I’d like to distinguish first between civics and politics because there was a time – the Chairman said at the beginning of this hearing – there was a time when people that would be as different as Ruth Bader Ginsburg – and she was a heroic woman – that’s absolutely true, and Antonin Scalia, another brilliant mind and your mentor. People that different could both go through the Senate and get confirmation votes of 95 or 98 votes. And the Chairman said at the beginning of the hearing he doesn’t know what happened between then and now.
I think some of what happened between then and now is we decided to forget what civics are and allow politics to swallow everything. So, if I can start I’d like to just remind us of the distinction between civics and politics.
Civics is the stuff we’re all supposed to agree on regardless of our policy view differences. Civics is another way we talk about the rules of the road. Civics 101 is the stuff like Congress writes laws, the executive branch enforces laws, courts apply them.
None of that stuff should be different if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian or a Green Party member. This is basic civics. Civics is the stuff that all Americans should agree on like religious liberty is essential.
People should be able to fire the folks who write the laws and the voters can’t fire the judges. Judges should be impartial. This is just Civics 101.
Politics is different. Politics is the stuff that happens underneath civics. Civics is the overarching stuff we as Americans agree in common. Politics is the subordinate, less important stuff that we differ about.
Politics is like if I look at my friend Chris Coons and I say “Listen up jackwagon, what you want to do on this particular Finance Committee bill is going to be way too expensive and might bankrupt our kids.” Or if Chris looks back at me and says “Listen up jackwagon, you’re too much of a cheapskate and you’re underinvesting in the next generation.” That’s a really important debate. That’s a political debate. That’s not civics. Civics is more important than that. Civics doesn’t change every 18-24 months because the electoral winds change and because polling changes.
I think it’s important that we help our kids understand that politics is the legitimate stuff we fight about, and civics is the places where we pull back and say, “Wait a minute. We have things that are in common, and before we fight again about politics, let’s reaffirm some of our civics.”
So, I’d like to have just sort of a basic grammar of civics for five minutes. One thing we should all agree on and two things that we should all disagree with. We should agree on it, but one thing we agree about and are in favor of, and two things that we agree on that we should all reject.
First, a positive, grand, unifying truth about America, and that is religious liberty. Religious liberty is the basic idea that how you worship is none of the government’s business. Government can wage wars, government can write parking tickets, but government cannot save souls. Government is really important. War is important. Parking tickets are important. But your soul is something that the government can’t touch. So, whether you worship in a mosque, or a synagogue, your faith, or your lack of faith, is none of the government’s business. It’s your business, and your family’s, and your neighbor’s and all sorts of places where people break bread together and argue, but it’s not about power, it’s not about force, it’s not about the government.
This is the fundamental American belief. Religious liberty is one of those five great freedoms clustered in the First Amendment — Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly and Protest — these five freedoms that hang together, that are the basic pre-governmental rights, are sort of Civics 101 we all agree on well before we get to anything as relatively inconsequential as tax policy. So, civics should be the stuff we affirm together. And contrary to the belief of some activists, religious liberty is not an exception. You don’t need the government’s permission to have religious liberty.
Religious liberty is the default assumption of our entire system, and because religious liberty is the fundamental 101 rule in American life, we don’t have religious tests. This committee isn’t in the business of deciding whether the dogma lives too loudly within someone. This committee isn’t in the business of deciding which religious beliefs are good and which religious beliefs are bad and which religious beliefs are weird. And I just want to say, as somebody who’s self-consciously a Christian, we got a whole bunch more really “weird” beliefs. Forgiveness of sins, the Virgin Birth, resurrection of the dead, eternal life. They’re a whole bunch of really, really crazy ideas that are a lot weirder than some Catholic moms giving each other advice about parenting. And yet there are places where this committee has acted like it’s the job of the committee to delve into people’s religious communities.
That’s nuts. That’s a violation of our basic civics. That’s a violation of what all of us believe together. This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democrat idea. It’s a Democrat idea and a Republican idea, but more fundamentally, it’s an American idea. The good news is whether you think your religious beliefs might be judged wacky by someone else, it’s none of the business of this committee to delve into any of that in this context, because in this committee, and in this Congress, and in this constitutional structure, religious liberty is the basic truth. And whatever you, or I or Judge Barrett believe about God isn’t any of the government’s business. We can all believe in that in common.
We should all reaffirm that in common, and that should be on display over the course of the next four days in this committee. Now a couple of terms that all of our eight-graders should know as things we should reject in common. And again, shared rejection, not Republican versus Democrat or Democrat versus Republican, but a shared American rejection. And the first is this: judicial activism. Judicial activism is the idea that judges get to advocate for or advance policies, even though they don’t have to stand for election before the voters and even though have lifetime tenure.
Judicial activism is the really bad idea that tries to convince the American people to view the judiciary as a block of progressive votes and conservative votes, Republican justices and Democratic justices. This is the confused idea that the Supreme Court is just another arena for politics. When politicians try to demand that judicial nominees, who are supposed to be fair and impartial, when politicians try to get judicial nominees to give their views on cases or to give their views on policies, to try to get them to pre-commit to certain outcomes in future court cases, we are politicizing the courts and that is wrong.
That is a violation of our oath to the Constitution. Likewise, when politicians refuse to give answers to the pretty basic question of whether or not they want to try to change the number of justices in the court, which is what court packing actually is. When they want to try to change the outcomes of what courts do in the future by trying to change the size and composition of the Court: that is a bad idea that politicizes the judiciary and reduces public trust.
On the other hand, depoliticizing the Court looks a lot like letting courts and judges do their jobs and the Congress do our jobs. You don’t like the policies in America? Great, elect different people in the House and in the Senate and in the presidency. Fire the politicians at the next election, but voters don’t have the freedom to fire the judges; therefore, we should not view judges, and we should not encourage the judges or public to view them, as ultimately politicians who hide behind their robes. The antidote to judicial activism is originalism.
Originalism, also known as textualism, is basically the old idea from eighth grade civics that judges don’t get to make laws. Judges just apply them. An originalist comes to the court with a fundamental humility and modesty about what the job is that they are there to do. An originalist doesn’t think of herself as a super legislator whose opinions will be read by angels from stone tablets in heaven. Judicial activism, on the other hand, is the bad idea that judges’ black robes are just fake, and truthfully they are wearing red or blue partisan jerseys under there.
We should reject all such judges, and so today, when we have a nominee before us, we should be asking her questions that are not about trying to predetermine how certain cases will be judged. A final term that we should be clear about, I mentioned early but I think it’s worth underscoring, is we should underscore what is court packing.
Court packing is the idea that we should blow up our shared civics, that we should end the deliberative structure of the Senate by making it just another majoritarian body for the purposes of packing the Supreme Court. Court packing would depend on the destruction of the full debate here in the Senate, and it is a partisan suicide bombing that would end the deliberative structure of the United States Senate, and make this job less interesting for all 100 of us, not for 47 or 53, because it’s hard to get to a super majority that tries to protect the American people from 51-49, 49-51 swings all the time. What blowing up the filibuster would ultimately do is try to turn the Supreme Court into the ultimate super-legislature.
Court packing is not judicial reform, as some of you who wrote the memo over the weekend got the media to bite on.
Court packing destroying the system we have now. It is not reforming the system we have now, and anybody who uses the language that implies filling legitimate vacancies is just another form of court packing, that’s playing the American people for fools.
The American people actually want a Washington D.C. that depoliticizes more decisions, not politicizes more decisions.
So, Judge, I am glad that you are before us. I am looking forward to hearing your opening statement later today, and I look forward to the questioning you have to endure over the next two or three days even though you probably look forward to it a little bit less.
Congratulations and welcome.
Four Reasons the Confirmation Hearings Have Become a Politicized Circus
In 2018, at the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Senator Ben Sasse gave something of a Civics 101 lesson that is worth hearing again—and sharing.
He explains: “Every confirmation hearing is going to be an overblown, politicized circus. And it’s because we’ve accepted a bad new theory about how our three branches of government should work—and in particular about how the Judiciary should work.”
You can watch it above.
His four main points are as follows.
1. In our system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of our politics.
2. It’s not.
Why not?
Because for the last century, and increasing by the decade right now, more and more legislative authority is delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is impotent. The legislature is weak. And most people here want their jobs more than they really want to do legislative work. And so they punt most of the work to the next branch.
3. This transfer of power means that people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. And when we don’t do a lot of big actual political debating here, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the Supreme Court is increasingly a substitute political battleground. It is not healthy, but it is what happens and it’s something our founders wouldn’t be able to make any sense of.
4. We badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power from our constitutional system.
August 31, 2020
New Books and Bibles This Month from Crossway
Here are some new and notable resources releasing from Crossway this month.
Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones
Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin
Discipling your family can feel like an intimidating task, but it doesn’t need to be overwhelming or complicated. With a simple plan in place, discipleship is something every parent can do.
Pastors Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin have made it their mission to help you develop a sustainable rhythm of gospel-centered discipleship focused in three key areas: time, moments, and milestones. Filled with suggestions, sample plans, and Scripture references, this book begins with the end in mind—equipping you to create a unique plan for your family as you raise your children in the love and fear of the Lord.
“If you are a flawed parent who doesn’t have it all together, but believes that God desires to use you to shape your kids toward knowing and enjoying Jesus, pick up Family Discipleship! It’s a profound yet down-to-earth guide to help you form a framework for your home that fits your personality and gifts.”
—David Robbins, President and CEO, FamilyLife
When the Stars Disappear: Help and Hope from Stories of Suffering in Scripture
When suffering overwhelms us, it is easy to despair and even doubt God’s goodness. As the clouds of suffering roll in, we can lose sight of everything but our pain. In these moments, when the stars disappear, we must turn to Scripture to find assurance that God can and will carry us through. In this book, Mark Talbot recounts the suffering of some of the Bible’s greatest saints. They show us what it means to remain faithful and hopeful through life’s darkest times—and thus help us cling to God’s sure promise that he will never leave us or forsake us but will be with us and sustain us until the storms subside and the stars reappear.
“Mark Talbot gives the reader a remarkable study of suffering saints and how their mistakes and victories teach us lessons of endurance. I highly recommend this stellar discussion of true Bible stories that will inspire and refresh your heart!”
—Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder, Joni and Friends International Disability Center
Esther: The Hidden Hand of God
The book of Esther reads much like a fairy tale: a young Jewish queen, her wise older cousin, an evil royal servant, and a self-centered king. But Esther is no fairy tale. From the beginning of the book to the end, God is the main character of the story—even though he’s never mentioned.
Join Lydia Brownback as she digs deeper into the book of Esther and learn how God is faithful to keep his promises and deliver his people. This story ultimately points to the gospel, revealing the need for a better deliverer, a better king, and a better kingdom than any found in this world.
The Flourish Bible Study series equips women to study the overarching storyline of the Bible book by book. Designed for individual or group use, each 10-week workbook features conversational teaching that aims to make in-depth Bible study accessible to women in all seasons of life, along with practical application questions and additional recommended resources.
“Here is a study intent on making disciples who know and worship their God.”
—Jen Wilkin, Bible teacher; author, Women of the Word; None Like Him; and In His Image
Is Jesus Truly God? How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ
The question of Jesus’s divinity has been at the epicenter of theological discussion since the early church. At the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the church fathers affirmed that Jesus is “true God from true God.” Today, beliefs such as this one are confessed through creeds in churches around the world, and yet there remains confusion as to who Jesus is.
New Testament scholar Greg Lanier traces the rich roots of creedal Christology through the Scriptures, explaining six ways that the Bible displays Jesus’s divinity. As you discover the overwhelming biblical evidence for the divinity of Christ, you will be drawn to the inescapable conclusion that the man Jesus Christ is more than just a footnote in history—he is truly God.
“This book does two remarkable things: it solidly reinforces Christian belief in Jesus as God by gathering the most up-to-date evidence, and it also helpfully reshapes our ways of talking about Jesus as God, in greater conformity with biblical patterns of thought. Lanier doesn’t just show that the Bible teaches the deity of Jesus, he shows precisely how the Bible teaches it.”
—Fred Sanders, Professor of Theology, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University; author, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
Strangely Bright: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World?
Pumpkin crunch cake. Game night with friends. Jazz music. Baseball. These are good gifts—and potential threats to the worship of God.
At the heart of the Christian life is a tension between the supremacy of God over all things and the enjoyment of all things for his sake. In this short book, Joe Rigney offers a biblical vision for enjoying God in everything and enjoying everything in God. God’s gifts are invitations to know and enjoy him more deeply, and as this truth is impressed upon our hearts, we will discover that the things of earth grow strangely bright in the light of his glory and grace.
“Many of us are illiterate when it comes to reading anything other than a book. Joe follows Scripture’s example by teaching us how to read the world, the creation, and the gifts of God under the authority of the word of God. This is an important book and I hope you’ll read it.”
—Abigail Dodds, author, (A)Typical Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ
He Is There and He Is Not Silent
As one of the greatest Christian philosophers of the twentieth century, Francis Schaeffer made it his mission to relate Christianity to the surrounding culture’s worldview. His works continue to have relevance today as Christians grapple with current issues in metaphysics, morals, and epistemology. In this redesigned apologetic work, Schaeffer encourages readers to have a deeper understanding of who they are, who God is, and how they know him as they encounter the infinite-personal God who is there and is not silent.
“When our world falls apart and we must go back down to the very foundations to rebuild, we do not need slapdash, glib formulas. We need something solid, real, and honest. That is what Francis Schaeffer brilliantly offers us in He Is There and He Is Not Silent. The living God has drawn near to us and made himself known to us. If we rebuild our broken lives with his wisdom, we will have something compelling to say to our generation.”
—Ray Ortlund, Pastor to Pastors, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee
Concise Theology
Theology is important for the Christian life. And though it is marked by many complex terms and doctrines, there is yet what J. I. Packer calls “the permanent essentials of Christianity.” This concise introduction to these essential doctrines distills theological truths so both scholar and layperson alike can grow to treasure the unchanging pillars of the Christian faith.
Each of the ninety-four chapters explores a different doctrine in a way that is easy to understand and rooted in historic Reformed teaching. As you learn more about the foundational teachings of the faith, you will grow in the knowledge of God and will worship him as your Creator, Redeemer, and sovereign Lord.
“J. I. Packer’s Concise Theology is the best simple guide to Christian doctrine that I know. Because it is systematic, precise, and saturated with Scripture, I often use this book to introduce young people and new believers to the basics of their faith.”
—Philip Graham Ryken, President, Wheaton College
ESV Women’s Study Bible
The ESV Women’s Study Bible was designed to help women in all seasons of life pursue a deeper, transformational understanding of Scripture.
Drawing on content adapted from the best-selling ESV Study Bible and the ESV Women’s Devotional Bible, this study Bible was created for women who are serious about God’s Word, want to learn more about what the Bible teaches, and want to apply Scripture’s life-changing truth to everyday life. The ESV Women’s Study Bible features over 523,000 words of study content, along with over 350 reflections connecting Scripture to life, book introductions and timelines, character sketches of key figures, detailed maps and illustrations, articles on important theological topics, and elegant artwork from artist Dana Tanamachi interspersed throughout. Contributors include best-selling authors like Jen Wilkin, Lauren Chandler, Ann Voskamp, Trillia Newbell, Kristyn Getty, and more.
August 28, 2020
A Shepherd Pleads for the Government to Let His Church Gather
Jack Trieber, who has been pastor of the North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California, offers a heartfelt response to the cease-and-desist letter with a $10,000 fine his church has received—although in the past they have complied with all restrictions; they are seeking to provide masks, social distancing, and other precautions in their church building; and their community is not a Covid hotspot.
Christians can disagree on how best to think through these complicated issues, but the way in which Pastor Trieber does this—seeking to honor and to persuade—makes him a helpful voice to hear in these days.
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