Daniel Darling's Blog, page 56

Lee Strobel’s Crisis of Faith

Lee Strobel is a world-famous apologist who has presented arguments for the Christian faith in a variety of popular venues and has debated the sharpest secular minds. But what happened when he had his own personal crisis of faith, when a sudden illness brought him close to death? In a new and unusually personal book, Strobel talks about a fresh understanding of grace. I asked him about this in an interview for Leadership Journal:

Most of your books are a journalist’s search for the truth, but this one seems shaped more by your experience with a sudden and serious illness. How did this change the way you think about God?

My wife found me unconscious one evening. I woke in the emergency room, where the physician said, “You’re one step away from a coma; two steps away from dying.” An odd set of medical circumstances had caused my blood sodium level to plummet, leading to confusion, hallucinations, and threatening my life.

In the midst of that muddled mental state, I became convinced that everyone had abandoned me and that I had lost everything, including my reputation, my finances, and my house. Worse yet, I imagined God had walked away from me. It was my son, Kyle, a professor of theology, who walked me through an extraordinary prayer experience to reconnect me with Jesus. I came to realize that even if I did lose everything in this world, it was okay—because I would never lose Christ. I’m grateful God restored my health and that this condition will never recur, but I’m even more thankful for the lessons learned from being at the gate of death.

Read the rest here:

The Way Home – Episode 5 featuring John Dickson

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

On today’s show I welcome John Dickson, Australian speaker, author and historian. He is a founding director for the Centre for Public Christianity.

Book: A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible
Twitter: @johnpauldickson
Website: johndickson.org

 To learn more about the 2015 ERLC Leadership Summit on “The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation,” go to erlc.com/summit2015. When registering use coupon code: WAYHOME for a 15% discount. This event will be held in Nashville on March 26-27, 2015.

Jerusalem, Judea, and the Uttermost Parts

Pastors are always wrestling with an international and a local focus as they think through ministry emphasis. I asked David Platt about this in my weekly interview for Leadership Journal. He’s written a new book, Counter Culture, challenging Christians to think soberly about how the gospel compels them to think critically about pressing social issues.

How would you encourage church leaders to think through both reaching the nations and also thinking through their responsibility here in America?

We are always tempted to turn a both/and into an either/or when it comes to the local and global components of the Great Commission. But the beauty of this commission is that we don’t have to choose between reaching our communities and reaching the nations. Instead, we lead the church to reach our communities and the nations. As we make disciples where we live, teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded us, we realize that he has commanded us to spread the gospel to every people group on the planet. Therefore, a fundamental part of our local disciple-making must be a focus on global disciple-making. Pastors and church leaders, then, have a responsibility to fan a flame for God’s global glory in every local church.

Read the entire interview here:

The Way Home – Episode 4 featuring Thabiti Anyabwile

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

Today on the podcast I’m joined by Thabiti Anyabwile, church planting pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., prolific author and thinker. You can read his blog here and also his work at The Front Porch.

Book: The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence
Twitter: @thabitianyabwil

 To learn more about the 2015 ERLC Leadership Summit on “The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation,” go to erlc.com/summit2015. When registering use coupon code: WAYHOME for a 15% discount. This event will be held in Nashville on March 26-27, 2015.

Champions for Life In Every Generation

I had the chance to write some reflections on my time at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. for OnFaith. Here’s a snippet of my column:

As I think about the fight for life, I’m struck by the fact that this is a cause every generation of Christ followers must embrace. Every age, until the full consummation of the kingdom, will be beset by brokenness and feature incursions on the Imago Dei.

When Roe v. Wade is overturned (and we pray earnestly for that day), it will not end the prolife movement. Other threats will emerge and require the same Spirit-fueled fortitude I saw at the March for Life. If every human trafficker were brought to justice, there would still be attempts to treat human life as a commodity. If every immigrant were welcomed, if our communities were perfectly integrated, still you’d see attempts to value one ethnic group over another.

This reality is not cause for despair, but a source of hope, for in our mission as followers of Christ we find distant echoes of the kingdom to come. Because the march for life is not just a once a year protest, but a daily way of life. Because the march for life doesn’t end on the steps of the Capital or the Supreme Court, but in that city whose builder and maker is God. When we march for life, we’re marching to Zion.

You can read the rest here:

The Way Home – Episode 3 featuring Joe Rigney and Joseph Williams

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

On today’s show, I speak with Joe Rigney, Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Worldview and Institutional Writer at Bethlehem College and Seminary about his new book, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts. We talk about these questions: Can a Christian enjoy the things of this earth and still glorify God? When does enjoyment of things become idolatry?

Then I discuss religious liberty issues with Joseph Williams, associate counsel at American Center for Law and Justice and ERLC Research Fellow. Why Christians should care about religious liberty? Why Christians should care about religious liberty for other religions, such as Islam?

Show Notes:
Joe Rigney (Starts at 3:28)

Book:  The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts
Twitter: @joe_rigney
Bio: bethlehemcollegeandseminary.org/index.php/academics/faculty/joseph-rigney

Joseph Williams (Starts at 17:24)

Canon & Culture article: Applying the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Different Scenarios
Twitter: @jjosephwilliams
Website: thewiseguise.com

 To learn more about the 2015 ERLC Leadership Summit on “The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation,” go to erlc.com/summit2015. When registering use coupon code: WAYHOME for a 15% discount. This event will be held in Nashville on March 26-27, 2015.

Addressing Cultural Issues in the Pulpit

How do pastors preach on contemporary cultural issues? Or should they? This is a question every pastor faces as he contemplates both the spiritual needs of his congregation, the questions swirling in society, and the weighty commission to preach the Word of God. When I pastored, I constantly wrestled with when to address certain topics, how to address them, and in what format. I’ve also observed and watched pastors of large and small churches organize their preaching. Here are a few ways I’ve seen pastors address contemporary cultural issues:

1) Textual: Personally I feel the most healthy way for pastors to structure their sermons is through the systematic preaching of Bible books. Expository preaching guides a pastor along, presenting to him every Sunday the text he is to preach, not the text he wants to preach. It helps avoid the kind of cut and paste approach we often take to favorite verses and help the hearer soak in the cultural background, the context, and the biblical author’s original intent. There is a richness to studying an entire book. What’s more, it prevents us from skipping over texts that are difficult or controversial. So how does this kind of preaching lend itself to addressing contemporary cultural issues? It simply forces us to address what the text addresses. It’s nearly impossible to preach through a book of the Bible and not hit on a contemporary cultural problem. The key for application is to not just apply the text in ways the congregation is already assuming, but in ways they are not. We shouldn’t just aim for amens from people who already agree, but to find ways in which they will be provoked to think differently. So, for instance, preaching on the Great Commission in Matthew forces us to think through what it means to “make disciples of all nations.” How does this affect our view of different people groups, of immigrants? Preaching through Genesis forces us to think through our views of the sanctity of human life. James confronts our attitudes toward the poor. Peter counsels us in our posture as counter-cultural “exiles” representing the Kingdom of Christ.

2) Topical: Though I favor expository preaching as the majority of preaching content during regular worship, I do believe there are occasions for topical messages on cultural issues, particularly during times of heightened awareness, such as dominant news story or special Sundays (Sanctity of Life Sunday, etc). I think this can be done in a well-thought out way. Sometimes this kind of message is called for if it is a time of crisis and this particular subject is all people are thinking about. There are ways to do this well, I think. First, I think even topical messages should be grounded in a specific text, if at all possible, to prevent proof texting. Some issues are easier to do this on than others. With some topical sermons on cultural issues, it’s helpful to walk through the development of an idea as it moves through the canon of Scripture. I’ve also seen pastors do a topical series on cultural topics. This can be done well also, but we should guard against picking topics that conform to our own political positions or topics that we know will automatically get amens from our audience. We should be holistic and address topics that the Bible clearly addresses, regardless of how they might be perceived in the audience. I think it’s also important, during a series like this, to ensure the congregation that the choice of cultural issues to be discussed is not exhaustive and that the Word of God is driving the messages, not a set of talking points from a political party or movement. Pastors also need to work especially hard at separating their personal political opinions from what God has declared in Scripture. What God’s people need from the pulpit is not a copy of what they get from cable news or talk radio. They need to hear the Word of God.

3) Shoehorn: A shoehorn is a hybrid between a textual message and a topical message and it’s something I was often tempted to do as a pastor. It goes something like this: You have your preaching calendar worked out for the entire year but something big comes up and you want to address it so you find a clever way to make the text you are assigned to preach speak to the current cultural moment. I don’t advise this. People can always tell when you’ve shoehorned something into the text that isn’t there, making the text say something that it doesn’t say. Better to do one of two things: a) if you deem the current cultural moment important enough to address on Sunday morning, offer a 5-10 minute intro before your sermon where you stop and say something like, “We are going to continue through our current series, but I felt it important to address this . . . .” b) schedule a special time for a talk on the subject or c) send an email or post a blog with your thoughts on the subject. d) if it’s really, really important, change your Sunday morning message and adjust your schedule. I think this option should be used sparingly, otherwise, you become a slave to the news cycle rather than a servant of the text of Scripture.

Other ways to address cultural issues: 

There are other ways to address cultural issues than the Sunday morning worship time. For instance, churches could schedule a series of classes or talks on specific issues. Tim Keller has done this with great success at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, building an event around a particular topic. Matt Chandler has also done this at Village Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area with forums on weeknights. I’ve seen other churches do similar things. I kind of like this format. It allows the church to go deep on particular issues in a way that may not fit for a Sunday morning series. It might also allow the church to leverage expertise from the congregation or from outside the church, giving people the opportunity to hear important perspectives from issue experts.

The church may also see fit to partner with other evangelical churches in the area to host a conference on a particularly important cultural issue or point their people to conferences hosted by other Christian organizations (like ERLC, for instance!). Other ways to educate and inform people is through targeted teaching in small group sessions, book studies, and the use of the church’s online media (blogs, videos, podcasts).

Bottom line: Pastors should not ignore cultural issues, but should shepherd their people well by helping them think through issues biblically. There are ways to do this through faithful application of the text of Scripture.

Enjoying God’s Good Gifts

Is it okay for a Christian to, gulp, enjoy a nice steak, the laughter of good friends, or, even a football game between two good teams? Joe Rigney says yes. He’s not a new book out, Things of Earth, Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts. Last Friday I had the chance to interview him about this:

It seems much of Christian teaching is about a choice between loving God and loving the world he has made. But you’re saying that it doesn’t have to be this way?

Well, the Bible certainly does present the dichotomy that way sometimes. John says “Don’t love the world or the things in the world,” by which he means that we shouldn’t delight in that which God has forbidden. Elsewhere Paul tells us that he counts everything as rubbish compared to knowing Christ. So it’s certainly legitimate to put creation on one side of the scale and God on the other, provided that we find God to be infinitely more precious and delightful than the world he’s made. That’s why the psalmist says, “On earth there is nothingI desire besides you.”

I want to suggest that the Bible speaks in other ways about the relationship between loving God and loving his gifts. For example, “Eat honey, because it’s good” is a biblical exhortation. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Not just the heavens, but everything else. The visible world was made to reveal the invisible God, and so there must be a way of enjoying it that also enhances and increases our enjoyment of him. I wrote the book to flesh out what exactly that type of God-centered delight in created things looks like.

You can read the rest of the interview here:

The Way Home – Episode 2 featuring Bethany Goodman and Dean Inserra

Listen to this week’s episode of The Way Home

Welcome to the second episode of my podcast The Way Home. Today’s episode features Bethany Goodman, assistant director at March for Life Education and Defense Fund, and my friend Dean Inserra, pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Fla.

Show notes:

Bethany Goodman segment starts at 2:24 

Twitter: @beth1027
Website: bornwithabeautifulpurpose.com

Dean Inserra segment starts at 17:51

Twitter: @deaninserra
Website: deaninserra.com

Drive-By Discipleship

A couple weeks ago our small group studied the first few verses of Colossians 2. We are currently going, a few verses at a time, through this beautiful letter written by Paul and inspired by the Spirit of God. I was struck by the opening words of the second chapter:

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, (Colossians 2:1-2 ESV)

At first glance, it seems Paul is either whining or bragging on himself. “I want you to know how much I struggle for you.” What does Paul mean here? As we studied this passage, it became that what Paul didn’t mean was, “C’mon guys, can’t you see how hard I’m working for you here? A little credit would be nice.”

No, not at all. What Paul is something different and, sadly, a little foreign to the way we think of discipleship today. I think when most of us think of discipleship, we think of it in this process: first: evangelize, second: meet regularly and go through a curriculum for spiritual growth. Both of these things are important. Evangelism–actually opening our mouths and sharing the good news of what Christ has done–this is our mission. And systematic study is vital for spiritual growth new converts.

But if we look at what Paul is saying here, we find that discipleship is so much more than we think. Paul is communicating to these people how much he is invested in them, how much he is for them. Imagine, for a moment, how encouraging this much feel. Paul cared deeply for their spiritual lives. He loved them. He spent long nights praying and thinking of their spiritual welfare. This is what true brotherly love and discipleship look like.

I fear that much our discipleship is didactic in nature. We’re trying to make a point. So we think that discipleship means writing another blog or sending another tweet to people we barely know.  But real discipleship happens off-screen, in private conversations, over a period of many years. It springs from natural friendships.

Paul had earned the right to speak into the lives of the believers at Colossae.  Not because he had a PhD from a seminary. Not because he was on the NYT bestsellers list. Not because he had 100K followers on Twitter. Those things can all be leveraged for influential good. But the real spiritual growth transfer happens in deep and caring relationships. This Church and these people would listen to what Paul had to say because Paul had been invested deeply in their lives.

I wonder if we put enough premium on this kind of relationship today. It seems there is a lot of drive-by discipleship today. It’s so easy to think that because we’re posting pithy quotes online that we’re doing God’s work. It’s easy to think rebuke and discernment are at-replying a famous Christian on twitter with whom we disagree. But is this really how people grow?

Pastors and church leaders would do well to model Paul’s investment in their people. Pastors who deeply care for their people, who actually know them well, will see a much better response to their preaching. But pastors who are only present on Sunday to deliver content–God uses this preaching to change lives–but it won’t be as effective as faithful, person-to-person ministry over a long season.

Parents would also do well to model Paul’s life. Our kids have to know that we are for them. So when we discipline and rebuke, they know it’s out of love, not out of frustration or anger. Are we present with them?

Even when we write, email, tweet, text: does the intended audience feel that we care about them? That we are invested in them? That even if we must sharply disagree, contend, proclaim–we’re doing it with a heart broken by love for the people God loves?

Or are we doing drive-by discipleship? This is a good question to ask ourselves.