Archives for September 2007

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Burmese riot police attack monks: “Monks’ shaved heads stained with blood could be seen at the Shwedagon Pagoda where police charged against protesters demanding the end of military rule.”

The news out of Myanmar (Burma) call to mind the life of Adoniram Judson and his missionary enterprise in the very shadow of the famous Shwedagon Pagoda mentioned in this article. Here are links to pictures of the Buddhist shrine:

• on mir.com
• on zininfo.com
• on trekearth.com

I wonder what the results of this unrest will be for the Christians in Burma, especially for a good friend and colleague who is a member of our mission. Whatever happens, I hope greater freedom for the gospel is the result. I suppose the unrest doesn’t make that promising.

For a life of Judson, I can think of no finer work for easy reading than To the Golden Shore by Courtenay Anderson. It is well worth your reading, and especially I think well worth reading to children. Some parts are hard to get through, the tears will flow.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Online couple cheated with each other | The Daily Telegraph: “Online couple cheated with each other”

Larry Rogier has an excellent comment here.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

David Cloud is one of those figures with whom I find myself alternately in agreement and disagreement. I agree with him in many of his emphases and especially on his condemnation of ‘easy believism’ which he calls ‘easy prayerism’. I disagree with him profoundly on his promotion of King James Only views, although I don’t begrudge his holding them.

The subject of this post is not a matter of theological disagreement or agreement. It is a matter of integrity in reporting. In a headline item in his ‘Friday News Notes’, he sent out just last Friday this jarring headline:

BJU PROFESSOR RECOMMENDING NEW EVANGELICAL MINISTRIES

In the short article that follows, Cloud criticises a presentation by Nathan Crockett at the Whetstone Conference this last summer at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, specifically criticising Dr. Mark Minnick and alleging that Dr. Minnick gives blanket endorsement to New Evangelicals. Cloud attempts to slime Bob Jones University with the same charge. [Nathan Crockett is Dr. Minnick’s son-in-law.]

I downloaded the presentation earlier this summer but had not yet listened to it. Since Cloud so unfavorably reviewed it, I took some time in my travels today to listen to the presentation. If you would like to hear the presentation, it is available here for purchase. Here is my take:

Far from a blanket endorsement of new evangelical ministries, Bro. Crockett repeatedly made disclaimers throughout the presentation: “we wouldn’t agree with many things said on this site”, “they don’t take the kinds of stands we would take”, “we don’t endorse their positions”, etc. The point of the presentation was to provide awareness of on-line resources especially with a view to using the internet as a source of information for sermon preparation and for being able to be aware of things our people may bring up (such as movies — and you know that you will be dealing with people commenting on the movies they see, don’t you?) A wise pastor should be aware of current events, both as a resource for sermon illustration and for awareness of what the people are thinking about. Cloud criticises Crockett for mentioning the New York Times as a source of news… (eyes roll!!) Bro. Crockett did mention that the NYT is a liberal paper, but it is a NEWSpaper, is it not? And, quite frankly, it is an excellent resource for news on the web, with an eye into the liberal mindset. The people we are trying to reach in North America think this way, how do you expect to reach people you don’t understand? (And the NYT is a great source of crossword puzzles, my own little on again, off again addiction!)

Could Bro. Crockett’s presentation have been better? I suppose. I suspect that Crockett himself would confess so. I found the presentation to be quite helpful. He mentioned sites which I wasn’t really aware of, but think could be quite useful as resources. From my perspective, there were generally more than sufficient disclaimers throughout, anyone who listens to the actual presentation would not come to the coonclusion that either Minnick or Crockett offered any kind of ‘endorsement’ of new evangelicals in any way. One can only wonder if Cloud isn’t miffed that his own efforts weren’t mentioned!

In short, I am quite disappointed by Cloud’s comments. In my view, he dishonestly misrepresents Mount Calvary Baptist Church, Mark Minnick, Nathan Crockett and Bob Jones University.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I am sailing up the Strait of Georgia as I type this. It is an absolutely gorgeous evening. Blue skies, a low sun setting over Vancouver Island, the hills and mountains of the Island a purple haze, merging into the few clouds hanging low in the West where the sea meets the sky. The waters of the Strait are calm, quietly rippled. Even a prairie boy like me can admit admiration for this part of God’s wonderful creation.

I am heading home from a day down to Seattle. As I mentioned in my last post, my dear mother-in-law is very ill. My wife has gone to Nashville to spend a few weeks with her, perhaps the last weeks our dear one will spend on earth. It is lung cancer. The name of the disease is the name of decay and the curse. The fruit of Adam’s sin wracks our mortal bodies, bringing them down to dust in the end.

All our labours, hopes, and dreams come to an end at last, at least as far as this life is concerned. Even now, in my own body, decay is evident. I cannot run so far as I once could. Run? I can barely run at all, and not for long. One day, if the Lord tarries, it will be my turn to lie at death’s door and answer the call of the curse as well.

The purple glory in the west seems to belie the dread and despair my soul feels. What congruence hath this glory in this world of sin and shame? The sight of the setting sun brings to mind the hope of the kingdom to come, the glories of the King who died for all men, and especially for the household of God. The sun is setting on this world, but the Son is rising. One day, in all his brightness and glory, the curse will be gone and done. All His saints will reign with Him … now that is an incongrous thought, as I think of the weary body of my dear wife’s mother, coming close to the end of her earthly span. She will one day stand with the Son, in His glory. And so will I, and all who love Him and look for his appearing. We are not significant players in this world of might and men, but we will reign with the Son.

The Son in his Book promises these things to us. Believest thou this?

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

P.S. For a look at some Vancouver Island sunset images, these are the best I’ve seen on the Web:

Stubbs Island Sunset

BC Coast Sunset

Sunset Nootka Sound

It is so beautiful around here we tend to take it for granted.

Well, we began our series in Romans today. I managed the exposition of the first word: “Paul…” I was quite pleased with the result. Our title and subtitle for the message is this: “Paul: or, what would it be like if Osama got saved“

In a real way, the name Paul represents the whole theme of Romans. If ever there was a name emblemantic of ‘a soul set free’, it is that of Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, the apostle to the Gentiles. His biography occupied the bulk of our message, causing us to consider in vivid personal illustration the gospel of God, the theme of Romans.

In this message, a good deal of introductory material prefaced the body of the message. I dealt with my method of exposition [glacial], noting it’s similarity with D. M. Lloyd-Jones. In fact, I shared this quote:

I do not announce a programme, and for this reason, that when you are studying the Word of God you never know exactly when you are going to end. At least, I have a very profound feeling that such should be the case, believing, as we do, in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We know from experience that He suddenly comes upon us û He illumines the mind and moves the heart û and I believe that any man who expounds the Scripture should always be open to the Holy Ghost. That is why some of us do not broadcast sermons, because we find it difficult to reconcile ourselves to a time-limit in these matters. I wonder what would happen to an occasional broadcast service if the Holy Ghost suddenly took possession of the preacher! Well, it is exactly the same on an occasion like this. I may have planned to map out a certain portion and to say certain things, and I might therefore draw up a syllabus, but, as I say, it is my profound hope that the Holy Ghost will overrule me and my ideas, and any little programme I may have. So I will thus go on from week to week trusting to that leading and that guidance, not promising to do any given amount every Friday.

I also dealt with the importance and place of Romans, with a few additional quotes. If you care to see them, you can check the pdf of the outline, linked above.

I took the proposition entirely from v. 16: “The gospel of Christ … is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Three points covered the message, with the emphasis on the first point: The likeness of Saul’s sin to every man’s sin. Saul’s sin (threatenings and slaughter) is only separated from hatred by a matter of degree. In this way all men are connected in their sins, whether they be an Osama or a me. The second point: A life changed by the supernatural work of Jesus Christ. Here we see the confrontation of Paul by Christ, after goading Saul towards the truth of the gospel by means of things like conscience, his knowledge of God’s standard of righteousness revealed in the OT, and the testimony of believers whom he persecuted. In the vision, Saul is confronted with his sin, with the revelation of Christ, and essentially with the call to ‘Follow me!’The closing point is this: The likeness of Paul’s new life to Christ’s holy life. Immediately he is baptized, stands for Christ in the Damascus synagogue, experiences the persecution he once performed, goes on to faithful pastoral and evangelistic service in the work the Lord separated him to. What a transformation. What would it be like if Osama got saved? Well, Saul (meaning ‘desired’) was changed to Paul (meaning ‘little’) and Paul made much of Christ, and little of self. Paul’s name stands at the head of the epistle as exhibit A of the transforming power of the gospel, the theme of the whole book.

~~~~

In our afternoon service, we returned to our discussion of my philosophy of the local church. Last week was ‘It’s a Body’, this week was ‘It’s a Growing Body: it grows into the head by the ministry of the parts‘. In this message, we went through Eph 4.11-16 talking about the process of the church, looking at ‘the body’ not as a static body but as a living, growing organism, growing up into its head, which is Christ. The Lord gave gifts to the church (men in authority) to equip the saints to do the work of serving and building so the body can grow to the goal of Christlikeness, unswayed and undeceived. For this to succeed in the local church, the saints in the body need to see themselves as essential role players in Christ’s body – the effort needed to ‘grow the church’ must come from saints (who are equipped by the leadership). The growth process can break down at several points: the leaders may fail to equip, the saints may fail to serve, the ‘neophytes’ in the body may fail to grow to take their place as servants in the body and the whole body can collapse when one part of the body fails to fulfill God’s plan.

~~~

In my last post I said I had planned three more posts right away… they didn’t happen, but there is still a plan. I don’t know when I will get a chance to update the site next, however. My wife’s mother is very ill and we are getting my wife down to the airport in Seattle for Tuesday to go be with her. We are a bit in busy mode over the next few days.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

It is time for my regular sermon summaries, wherein I think my messages over. This way, I get to preach them twice, once to everyone in church, and once to myself as I try to summarize them.

The morning message concluded our short series on Discipleship and Child Training. I got the main ideas for this message from an outline by Wayne Mack, referenced in earlier posts. The message was entitled The Necessity of Discipline. We covered first the necessity that the disciple-maker be a disciple, then we discussed the notion of ‘admonition’ or ‘correction’. Disciple-making is the process of challenging and changing the thinking of men who are habitually in the mode of flesh-dominated, world-influenced thinking. From that mindset, we must admonish in such a way as to develop biblical thinking processes.

But there is something else needed – discipline. This idea is contained in the word ‘paideia’, the word translated ‘nurture’ in Eph 6.4. We went to Heb 12.4-13 where the word is much used and translated ‘chasten’ or ‘chastisement’. Here is our proposition: “Effective Christian training, whether it be children or disciples, requires discipline to form disciples.” In understanding the nature of the discipline we are talking about, we looked at the word ‘paideia’ and the accompanying words in Greek. The word refers to a process whereby the Greeks employed slaves to educate their children, including putting the child completely under the authority of the pedagogue who instructed, corrected, and disciplined the child in order to educate him. Our Hebrews passage is an expositon of Prov 3.11-12, which says, “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: 12 For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” So when we speak of the nature of discipline, it refers to the bands and restrictions placed on the disciple for the purpose of changing his mind and behaviour. The Lord employs this kind of discipline repeatedly, in both testaments. The discipline is intended to make us willing to yield. God could put so much pressure on you to make you do his will, but he doesn’t do that – he puts enough pressure on you to give you the opportunity to yield to his will willingly.

In our world, the solution to bad behaviour is often thought to be ‘more education’. But our society frowns on discipline of any kind. They are willing to multiply words, but that is all that worldly education amounts to, words heaped upon words. Whether you listen and learn is left up to you, no one will make you learn. No one will discipline you in the modern educational system. They will just ‘talk to you’. The current generation is the most “talked to” generation in history, and seems to be among the least restrained and most undisciplined. Could it be that what is lacking is logical, just, loving, firm discipline?

~~~

The afternoon service was much more satisfying to me than last week. Our title was It’s a Body with this sub-title, “it functions by interdependence [servant-fellowship]”. What I am trying to do with this series is to preach my philosophy of local church ministry. This idea, the idea of the body, is an important metaphor for the church. In the message, the first thing I did as a means of extended introduction was to read every passage in the New Testament talking about the church as ‘the body’. That meant we had about ten texts for our message instead of one. I offered a summary statement in each passage to give a bit of an idea of the overall doctrine. Then, for the body of the message, we concentrated on the ideas presented in 1 Cor 12, where Paul is arguing with the Corinthians about their strife over tongues. In essence, they are missing the point of the body. They are being too individualistic, too self-centered. That is not what the church is about, it is about interdependence, or what I call ‘servant-fellowship’. The concept of interdependence is given in 1 Cor 12, the key to interdependence is given in 1 Cor 13 – the love chapter. This is where we need to be, and this is the kind of spirit the Lord himself taught.

The Lord’s teaching really illumines what I am trying to produce in the local church. There is a term that is widely bandied about by many teachers these days: ‘servant-leadership’. I understand what people are trying to say with this term and I agree with it to a point. But I think the term misses the Lord’s teaching. See Lk 22.25-27 and Jn 13.12-17. Jesus totally de-emphasizes the leadership bit. He puts all the weight on ‘serve’. Is it possible that we make a subtle error by including the concept of ‘leadership’ in the mix?

Here is the emphasis in the Bible: “serve” and “among you” – not ‘servant-leadership’ but ‘servant-fellowship’. Proposition: The local church as the body of Christ lives by the bonds by which it is connected through the indwelling and interacting Spirit of Jesus Christ.

How is that lived out in a local church? Well, we love one another and serve one another. I spoke of several ways we do this. I mentioned ‘The Baptist sacrament: fried chicken (or is it coffee?)’ – in other words, taking meals together. I mentioned specific things we have done in our church: a barn raising for one of our members, a current ministry some of our folks have of bringing others with them to church (the Duncan bus, from a town 45 minutes north of the church building), or seniors shopping days where some of our folks are serving our older saints who no longer drive, or meal ministries to those who are sick and unable to feed their families, or even cutting the lawn and building maintenance. All of this is done by people who love one another and who are responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to serve one another.

The body also functions in serving one another by excising cancerous cells. This can involve surgery, chemo, or radiation. It can be painful, but it is necessary. These are means by which we serve one another.

The whole challenge to our church body is to be a body. Some sort of hang around on the periphery, holding to themselves and refusing to wholeheartedly join in. They are missing the point and need to get hold of the concept of ‘body’ and ‘servant-fellowship’.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

PS… I have been laying linoleum today in my bathroom renovation project. In the process I have been filling up my mind with posts I want to put out on the blog… Three more to go, but they will have to wait till tomorrow.

I have mentioned my method several times on the blog, most recently in the last post. I know that some don’t like this approach, but it is the way that I have found to be most satisfying and I have found it to be productive with our people.

What I mean by the term “glacial” is that we progress through the Scriptures S-L-O-W-L-Y. The Word of God is rich, full of meaning and profitable in all. I don’t do this all the time, but in my major book studies, this is the method I have adopted.

Lloyd-Jones, the subject of our last post, was the king of glacial exposition. I meant to mention this in the last post, but sent it out too quick. As I read his sermons on Romans, I see him working an idea over, producing the fruit of his meditation on the word or phrase he is dealing with. To me, good exposition does that. One of my men asked me some years ago how much time goes into preparing a sermon. Of course, the answer is ‘that depends’, but I really am most satisfied with my messages when I have spent a good many hours on them. That would involve research: re-translation [in the NT], word studies, many commentaries carefully picked through, then several hours ‘writing’.

The writing process begins with a selection of the portion I want to preach, then an attempt to develop a central proposition for the sermon. The proposition is critical for the message, but sometimes it eludes me until after I have developed the outline a bit. Sometimes the proposition comes quickly, sometimes it is an agony of re-reading my material, thinking over the point, muttering to myself about what I am trying to say, scratching out a ‘preliminary’ outline on the back of an envelope (or other piece of paper at hand), scratching out the outline and trying again. Sometimes I find that I have to start developing the points in order to get a clear idea of what I am trying to say.

I like to write out a good deal of what I intend to say, though it is in outline format, rather than manuscript. I write fairly detailed notes in case I want to come back to the passage at some point and preach the message again (or use the message to create a new message).

I see the fruit of this in Lloyd-Jones work. He has mulled the text over and has a lot to say about it. He has read a good deal of the literature. His sermons are full of expositional comments that reveal he has an excellent working knowledge of the text. Then having mulled it all over, he delivers it to his people with incisive application calling men to respond to the meaning of the Word he is giving them.

As a result of this kind of work, books like Lloyd-Jones sermons are well worth reading for devotional purposes, whether or not you are a preacher preparing sermons. [And whether or not you agree with his theology! (I do not, at least, not all of it.)]

In any case, if you take time with the Word and let it burn into your soul as a preacher, you should have a lot to say about whatever passage the Lord lays on your heart.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I am working away on Romans in preparation for a new expository series starting next Sunday and ending ??? when? who knows? I have been serious about studying Romans the last few weeks, after a summer of sort of ‘casual’ study [i.e., not much]. I am getting fired up. I plan to preach on the first word of the book next Sunday: “Paul”. You’ll have to wait for me to post a summary to see where I am going with this.

Well, one of the things I am doing in preparation is reading Lloyd-Jones. I have always liked his books but it wasn’t until recently that I really understood that they are sermons. I mean, I guess I knew that, but I just realized that I was reading his books as books when I should have been reading them as sermons. They are much more alive when you read them that way.

A few months ago, Dr. Minnick wrote a column in Frontline on recommended books for Romans. For me, this was timely [and expensive!] One of his recommendations is the collection of Lloyd-Jones sermons on Romans. This set is fourteen volumes of sermons, one per chapter up to chapter 14. L-J’s pastoral career at Westminster Chapel ended in the middle of Rm 14.17. [For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.] He preached on ‘the kingdom is … peace’, but didn’t preach on ‘joy in the Holy Ghost’. The next Monday, I think it was, he was diagnosed with cancer which led to lengthy treatment and his retirement from the pastoral ministry. He said later that the reason the Lord hadn’t let him finish the verse was that he wasn’t spiritually ready to preach it yet. The whole series begain Oct 7, 1955 with the last message in the spring of 1968.

I haven’t purchased the whole set of fourteen. It’s a little much to buy them all at one whack. But given that I prefer the glacial method of exposition, I think I can afford to purchase the set piecemeal. So far I have chapter 1 and chapter 2.

All of that leads me to this, and this one is for you, Chris Anderson! I am in L-J’s sermon #3 (still in verse 1), where the Doctor is expounding on the phrase “a servant of Jesus Christ”. Among other things, he has this to say:

It does not matter what Paul is writing about; sometimes he has to write a letter because people have sent him questions, or because there have been difficulties. It does not matter at all what the occasion is; he cannot begin writing without at once introducing us to Jesus Christ. To Paul, He was the beginning and the end, the all-in-all. He had nothing apart from Him. I would maintain, therefore, that a very good way in which we can test our own profession of the Christian faith is just to apply this test to ourselves. Is Jesus Christ in the forefront? Is He in the centre? You will find that in this introduction the Apostle mentions Him at least five times. I had occasion to note recently that in the first fourteen verses of the Epistle to the Ephesians he mentions Him fifteen times. He cannot get away from Him, as it were; he must keep on mentioning the Name. He uses the terms ‘Jesus Christ’, ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’, ‘Christ Jesus our Lord’, and so on. Watch him in his epistles, he is always using the Name, and it evidently gives him great pleasure to do so. And the question, I repeat, is, ‘Is this true of us? Is Jesus Christ in the forefront of our minds, and our hearts, and our conversation?’ I mean — and here I am talking to Christian people, to believers — when we talk to one another, are we always talking about some experience or some blessing we have had, or are we talking about the Lord Jesus Christ? I have no hesitation in asserting that as we grow in grace, we talk much less about ourselves and our experiences, and much more about Him.

Now that is good. I expect it is a little convicting as well. I realize that we must talk ‘small talk’ in our conversations, it’s just a part of life. But I wonder how much we talk of Christ? And I wonder what that says about our level of spiritual maturity?

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

An article explains some of the reality of Christian publishing:

What’s Not Coming to a Bookstore Near You | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction: “Taylor explains the process. An agent approaches the publisher with a can’t-miss book proposal by a big-name Christian author. The publisher likes the idea. The agent lets the publisher know that other houses want the book. This project demands a serious advance. Perhaps against better judgment, the publisher bites.

‘So we get the deal,’ Taylor writes. ‘We pay the advance. The manuscript comes in. We begin to wonder why we paid so much for this average manuscript. We edit it and market it and sell it and process the returns. And at the end of the day we take a huge write-off. If we’re lucky, the book earns a net contribution to overheads. But in most of these scenarios, the book generates a loss even apart from overheads. Competition (and perhaps some greed) has nearly killed us.'”

Articles like this remind me that most of those spouting off about ‘why don’t fundamentalists write more books’ are totally clueless about how business works. The publishing business is affected by economics like any other business: risk and reward, supply and demand.

It is foolish to imagine that serious books by fundamentalists will gain much headway in the publishing world. A few excellent ones may emerge from time to time (like Jim Berg’s Changed into His Image) but by and large, the Christian publishing world is dominated by market demands and is run by evangelicals who have no time for the fundamentalist agenda.

Those who spout off as if fundamentalism has failed because we don’t produce enough books are simply ignorant of reality.

In order for fundamentalism to have a wider voice, fundamentalism needs to be wider. That means faithful preaching and teaching in local churches, evangelism and discipleship, building a larger and more faithful constituency. It means hard work. It means to get our eyes off worldly success as enjoyed by evangelicals and a willingness to serve in obscurity until the King comes, if necessary.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3