Justin Taylor's Blog, page 310

Free Shipping on ESV Student Study Bibles

WTS Books is offering free shipping on ESV Student Study Bibles, starting today and going through next Thursday (July 28).

Did Northern Evangelicals Cause the Civil War?

Collin Hansen pens an exemplary review of a new book.

God's Good Gifts: The Evil of Rejecting Them and the Right Way to Receive Them

Two questions to ask when reading this passage:

How big of a deal is it to forbid that which is permitted and to pronounce as evil that which God has declared to be good?
How can we receive God's good gifts in a way that glorifies his great name?

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith

by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,

2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,

3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For everything created by God is good, and

nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,

5 for it is made holy

by the word of God and prayer.

—1 Timothy 4:1-5

Also compare this with 1 Cor. 10:30-31: "If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

Also see this post today from Kevin DeYoung in which he seeks to apply these verses to entertainment.

Campus Crusade for Christ Name Change

CT's Sarah Pulliam Bailey has a on the ninth-month process whereby Campus Crusade for Christ International will change its name to Cru.

How Valuable Is Every Word of Scripture?

"For whatever was written in former days was written

for our instruction, that

through endurance and

through the encouragement of the Scriptures

we might have hope."

"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 competent,

equipped for every good work."

—Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:16-17

Poverty in the U.S.

Here is an abstract for a recent study on poverty in the United States. I've italicized the key consideration for Christians who want to develop well-informed (not just well-intentioned) policies and strategies to minister spiritually and physically to the the needy (as we are called to do):

For decades, the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that over 30 million Americans were living in "poverty," but the bureau's definition of poverty differs widely from that held by most Americans. In fact, other government surveys show that most of the persons whom the government defines as "in poverty" are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term. The overwhelming majority of the poor have air conditioning, cable TV, and a host of other modern amenities. They are well housed, have an adequate and reasonably steady supply of food, and have met their other basic needs, including medical care. Some poor Americans do experience significant hardships, including temporary food shortages or inadequate housing, but these individuals are a minority within the overall poverty population. Poverty remains an issue of serious social concern, but accurate information about that problem is essential in crafting wise public policy. Exaggeration and misinformation about poverty obscure the nature, extent, and causes of real material deprivation, thereby hampering the development of well-targeted, effective programs to reduce the problem.

You can access the whole study here.

A couple of helpful books on poverty relief include Marvin Olasky's influential

The Tragedy of American Compassion and Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett's When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Yourself.

What Is Worldliness?

In his book Losing Our Virtue David Wells described worldliness as

that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal. (p. 4)

In an interview he elaborated on worldliness in connection with fundamentalism (of yesterday) and evangelicalism (of today):

We have just come out of a period within the evangelical world where worldliness was treated as a very trivial matter. I actually remember the time (this dates me significantly) when Mrs. Billy Graham came to England at the very beginning of Graham's crusades, and the newspapers carried all kinds of articles about the fact that she was a Christian woman and she wore makeup. There were many Christian women in England, in those olden days, who did not wear makeup — they thought it was worldly.

But it wasn't only makeup. There was a time when Christians didn't go to most movies. There were all kinds of worldly things that, within fundamentalism in particular, people didn't do.

The problem with this was that they identified really quite trivial things as worldly.

If you look in the New Testament, worldliness is not trivial at all. What you have, in fact, is a competing loyalty: anybody who loves the world cannot be a friend of God. That is how profound is the choice that we are making.

So the question is, where and in what ways have these antithetical, competing loyalties intruded into our souls unwittingly?

Sermon Illustration Alert

Dr. Suzanne Simard:

[Graduate student Kevin Beiler] has found that all trees in dry interior Douglas-fir forests are interconnected, with the largest, oldest trees serving as hubs, much like the hub of a spoked wheel, where younger trees establish within the mycorrhizal network of the old trees. Through careful experimentation, recent graduate Francois Teste determined that survival of these establishing trees was greatly enhanced when they were linked into the network of the old trees. Through the use of stable isotope tracers, he and Amanda Schoonmaker [. . .] found that increased survival was associated with belowground transfer of carbon, nitrogen and water from the old trees. [HT: Andrew Sullivan]

"Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls." (Jer. 6:16)

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." (Ps. 1:3)

4 Things I've Learned about God through My Baby Who Was Born Blind

A moving and insightful post from Mike Anderson. Praying for all the desires of this dad's heart.

An Interview with Louie Giglio