You are here: Home / Archives for 2007

Archives for 2007

by on 10.17.07

on yankee politics

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Dr. Bob Taylor of BJU regarding his endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday. You can find a transcript of the interview here.

Some find Christian involvement in political debate unseemly, I do not [see discussion here]. One does have to be careful about when and how to be involved, however. As a pastor of a church, my mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, not to be a political activist. As such, I don’t tend to express political views too much, although I think our people have an idea of where I stand.

Individuals like Dr. Jones and Dr. Taylor are not pastors and are in somewhat different roles. They have to make their own judgements regarding what they say and do politically. Personally, I am not at the point where I could support a Romney and I am not as averse to a Giulianni as they appear to be. It does seem to me that the GOP side of the race has no entirely satisfying candidate this time around, but there are several who have sufficient acceptability that I could support them if nominated.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Politics
by on 10.16.07

Church Matters: 9Marks Blog

Church Matters: 9Marks Blog: “Shepherding a church’s culture”

I regularly read the 9Marks Blog, while disagreeing with the rampant Calvinism, I find a good deal of wisdom in posts addressing church function. The string of posts that begin with this one involve the subject of those people who show up in church with a strong “conviction” about how church should be practiced – one that is at variance in one way or another with the practice of the local church.

  • For example, we are talking about someone showing up who insists that all Christian parents must homeschool their children, and looks down on those who do not.
  • Or someone insists that their children will sit with them in every service, regardless of the graded Sunday School (or similar programs) that may be going on at the same time.

What to do with such?

Well, the various writers on the 9Marks blog offer some good suggestions.

The only thing that I would add is that the pastor must be jealous of the unity of the local church while allowing individuals to hold their own views on some issues. If folks join the church and exhibit an agenda, the agenda needs to be confronted and ended. If folks join in and quietly practice their convictions while allowing others liberty in these matters, then give them the right hand of fellowship and pray that the Lord might keep them from becoming a problem.

I do think that those who exhibit strong convictions in unclear areas are susceptible to pride and to the cultic influences of some teachers. [Bill Gothard, Vision Forum, et al notably come to mind.]

For convenience, here is a list of the posts at 9Marks so far:

The first one …
the second one
the third, fourth, fifth, and last (to date)

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Pastoral Theology
by on 10.15.07

on the 10.14.07 sermons

Our morning message saw us take a significant leap forward in the exposition of Romans. In message number 4, we rushed into the second verse of the 1st chapter! It was a daring gambit, but seemed to be succesful!

Seriously, Lloyd-Jones outdoes me. He had five messages on the first verse, I only had three. If you have the opportunity, I would recommend reading his fifth message on “The Gospel of God”. The message is worth the price of the book by itself. I was sorely tempted to make the same phrase my text this morning, but I determined to soldier on.

Our message today was entitled The Promised Gospel. The interesting thing about our verse is that Paul seems to pause before giving us the content of the gospel (the person and work of Christ, vv. 3-4ff.) to instead make a comment about the ancient character of the gospel. We might think the words about the promise coming through the prophets in holy writings is something of a throw-away, a ‘by the way’ type of statement. After all, the gospel is the central thing, and Christ and his work are the heart and soul of the gospel. But the reference to the prophets and the promise is a characteristic of apostolic preaching, especially Paul’s preaching. He mentions it at least three times in Romans itself, in the second verse, in 3.21, and in the second last verse (16.26). His comment is no incidental comment. He is establishing a notion that the gospel is the heart and soul of the ancient plan of God, even, I think, pointing back to that earliest hint of a promise found in Gen 3.15. It is important to realize that God’s promises are ancient, plentiful, and now fulfilled – note past tense of ‘promised’. It is important to realize that the Lord used the prophets to propagate the promise of the gospel. It is important especially to realize that God ‘put it in writing’, moving his prophets to record things they didn’t fully understand, carrying them along by the Spirit as a disabled ship is carried about by the wind. And it is important to realize that this good news is more than simply a word, but it is a real thing that can belong to us. “Gospel” is no academic exercise, it is the long-standing promise of God, fulfilled in Christ, and made available to any who would believe.

Our afternoon message continued the series on the Church with It’s a Temple. Some of my ideas for this message came from a post by an on-line friend, Ryan Martin. My focus was different from his, as Ryan was talking about what the church does and I am focusing on what the church is. Nevertheless, his post stimulated my thinking in this regard. Our understanding of the temple metaphor for the church must be informed by the OT temple and its meaning. As I understand the passages (and the OT), I think the primary meaning of the temple is holiness, and this holiness is meant to be reflected in the NT metaphor of a local church as a temple of the living God, a place that must be kept holy by those living stones who inhabit it. [I do see this metaphor very directly referring to the local church, not the universal church. It is not that it is impossible to refer the metaphor to the universal, but that is not what the NT does.] Under this proposition: “You are the temple of God; you are called to holiness.” I developed these points:

I. The holy temple is under God’s protection (1 Cor 3.16-17)
II. The holy temple is called to identify exclusively with God’s holiness and cleanse its premises (2 Cor 6.16)
III. The holy temple is the ground of holy living (Eph 2.19-22)
IV. The holy temple is intended to offer up spiritual sacrifices (1 Pt 2.5, 9-15)

~~~

All in all, it was a good day, although our crowd was definitely down after our big high last week on Thanksgiving Sunday. Still, the gospel was preached and we saw some young disciples show up who haven’t been to church in a while. It was good to minister to them. Faithfulness and consistency take time to develop.

By the way, I thought of something in connection with the metaphor of the church as a temple in light of a discussion about mundane things like announcements and potlucks being part of worship services or not. The discussion occurred over at Chris Anderson’s place, I hope I am not simply an agitator over there.

Here is the thought: the OT worship in the temple included many different kinds of sacrifices. I am impressed with the fact that one of the most common sacrifices was the peace offering, at which the worshipper sat at table before the Lord, in fellowship with him at a ‘holy barbecue’, if you will permit the expression. I suggest that our fellowship meals as a gathered church are as holy to the Lord as the songs, prayers, offerings, and preaching that occupy the bulk of our services. And I further submit that to announce the occasion of such acts of the lively stones in the worship services of the living God are no matter to be dismissed.

But yes, we can make our announcements and our fellowships an extremely trivial and earthly thing. Let us labour to not make it so.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Sermon Summaries
by on 10.14.07

on the possiblity of being overly Christo-centric

From Lloyd-Jones:

“Salvation is the work of the three Persons in the blessed Holy Trinity. It is primarily that of the Father — the gospel of God concerning His Son. The Father first! It is the Father’s plan; it is the Father’s purpose; it is the Father who initiates it; it is the Father who gave the first promise concerning it to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and, oh! we must be clear about this. We must not go on to consider what the Son has done, what the Holy Spirit has done and still does, until we are absolutely clear about the primacy of the Father, and the origin of it all in the Father Himself. …

“I could go on quoting Paul at great length, but there is always this emphasis on God the Father. And yet this is forgotten by so many; they are Christo-centric, if I may say so, and they forget the Father Himself from whom it all comes. You will find in their prayers; they always pray to the Lord Jesus, not to the Father. They are entirely centred on the Son. But this, my friends, is wrong if you make Him [Jesus] the centre, because He is not the centre. The centre is the Father. You remember how the Apostle Peter puts that; he says, ‘Christ suffered for our sins’. For what reason? Well, ‘to bring us to God, to the Father’ [1 Pt 3.18]. The whole purpose of the work of the son is to bring us to God the Father. Take His definition of eternal life: ‘This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent’. Always that order; He never varies it. He had come to glorify the Father. He knew that everything starts with the Father and comes from the Father, so that the author of salvation is God the eternal Father.” [D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Gospel of God, p. 62-64.]

Is that a little jarring? It is a bold statement, but it seems to me that L-J is right.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Pastoral Theology, Quotables
by on 10.13.07

on gorebal warming

A leading meteorologist tells it like it is:

Gore gets a cold shoulder – Environment – smh.com.au: “‘It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong,’ he said. ‘But they also know that they’d never get any grants if they spoke out. I don’t care about grants.'”

Politics, cash, and ideology = global warming hysteria (but mostly ca$h).

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Politics
by on 10.12.07

on the decline of religion in the True North

From an article on the funeral home business in Montreal comes this notice:

The Chronicle West End Edition > Regional news > The business of dying: “You have to understand that people are going to the church less and less. People are using funeral complexes for receptions and a number of other services to pay respect to the deceased, instead of going to the church”

The challenge remains. In our community, Christ, his gospel, and his church are largely ignored. One imagines that pure hatred would be better than bored indifference.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Canada
by on 10.12.07

on the chasm between evangelicalism and fundamentalism

In their own words…

UN Leader Woos Evangelicals | Liveblog | Christianity Today: “In a sense, last night’s banquet and today’s issue-oriented discussions are really less about evangelicals fighting disease and poverty and more about evangelicals working in partnerships–partnerships between Western evangelicals and those in the developing world and partnerships with non-evangelicals,

We cautiously engaged those of other shades of Christian faith and even other religions in the mid-90s when we threw tremendous weight behind the effort to pass the International Religious Freedom Act and the creation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. We then enlarged the circle of cooperation to work on legislation to fight sex trafficking and, later, human-rights abuses in North Korea. The circle has expanded yet again as many evangelical leaders are partnering on issues of climate change.

Partnerships give evangelicals a sense of participation and empowerment. It gives us the chance to take on really big issues. That’s a strange feeling for a movement whose consciousness is rooted in old-style fundamentalism. Fundamentalism was about being the few and the proud–I mean, the pure. The evangelicalism that emerged in the 1940s hoped for a new engagement with society while maintaining doctrinal and ethical integrity. Its leaders, like first CT editor Carl F. H. Henry and first CT board chair Harold John Ockenga preached a strong social justice message. But the old fundamentalist consciousness still lurks, and these partnerships stretch the evangelical sense of identity.”

This attitude is not all that dissimilar to that promoted by at least some of the so-called ‘conservative evangelicals. I recall Ben Wright posting a telling comment by Al Mohler about fundamentalism where he said something like “Fundamentalism is marginalized and has no influence.” [I am paraphrasing, it was from Mohler’s radio show and it was some time ago.] For many conservative evangelicals, I believe the reason they cannot admit the fundamental error of evangelicalism is that they cannot give up their addiction to “influence”. Whether they actually have any influence or not is another question.

Zechariah 4:6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Fundamentalism, Separation
by on 10.10.07

on so much for my quote game

Last week, I posted a list of quotations in hopes of getting some unbiased responses from some whom I know to be readers of John Piper. I wanted to get a comparison of Piper’s teaching with the quotes offered. My reason was that I see some strong similarities between some of these quotes and Piper’s approach. I wondered if someone else who is more familiar with Piper could tell me if I were right or wrong. Alas, no one chose to enlighten me — perhaps they thought I was baiting them, perhaps they weren’t interested, perhaps my estimation of my readership is greatly exaggerated (and I think that I have only a few readers!). In any case, a couple of people have asked who the quotes were from, so I will offer the answers here.

All of the quotes come second hand via a book by Elmer Towns, Understanding the Deeper Life. Towns is trying to systematize various types of teaching regarding Christian Experience. In the section from which I am getting these quotes, Towns is discussing what he calls the ‘deeper life experience’. He sub-categorizes this view as ‘Christological deeper-life’, ‘Holy Spirit deeper-life’, and ‘soteriological deeper-life’. He offers two quotations illustrating each sub-category:

Christological deeper-life

QUOTE ONE

On the contrary, the life that God has given us is the life of His son. All whom He has called He has also justified, and all whom He has justified He counts as already glorified. God never begins anything that He does not bring to an end. The world may start that which it cannot finish, but God says: “He that hath begun a good work in you, will keep on perfecting it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1.6, Gk.). Here are all three of the great doctrines of God’s work within us. He which hath begun a good work in you — that is justification — will keep on perfecting it — that is sanctification — until the day of Jesus Christ — that is glorification. There is no change in God, and there will be no change in His work in us.

This one is Donald Grey Barnhouse, Life by the Son: Practical Lessons in Experimental Holiness (Philadelphia: Revelation Publications American Bible Conference Association, 1939), 33. quoted in Towns, p. 23.

QUOTE TWO

The apostle Paul gives us his own definition of the Christian life in Galatians 2:20. It is no longer “I, but Christ.” Here he is not stating something special or peculiar — a high level of Christianity. He is, we believe, presenting God’s normal role for a Christian, which can be summarized in the words: l live no longer, but Christ lives His life in me.God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to every human need — His Son, Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us He works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness: He lives instead of us for our deliverance. … It will help us greatly, and save us from much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one way and one way only, namely, by showing us more of His son.

This one is Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life (Fort Washington, Penn.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1973), 9. quoted in Towns, p. 23.

Holy Spirit deeper-life

QUOTE THREE

I want here boldly to assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that received at conversion, and I might also say, far beyond that enjoyed by the rank and file of orthodox believers today. It is important that we get this straight, for until doubts are removed faith is impossible, God will not surprise a doubting heart with an effusion of the Holy Spirit, nor will He fill anyone who has doctrinal questions about the possibility of being filled.

This one is from A. W. Tozer, The Divine Conquest (Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, 1950) 121, 122. quoted in Towns, p. 24.

QUOTE FOUR

The fullness of power is the heritage of every Christian! It may be an unclaimed heritage, but the power of God which enables a Christian to witness for Christ and win souls is the right of every Christian. Not to be filled with the Holy Spirit, not to be endued with power from on high, is to miss the highest good, and fail to claim the Highest blessing, offered to every child of God. … That the power of Pentecost is for every Christian is made clear; first, by the promises which are to all alike; second, by the New Testament examples; third, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every Christian makes the enduement for service logical for every Christian; fourth, by the fact that the soulwinning task demands supernatural power; and, fifth, because the Word of God clearly commands Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

This one is from John R. Rice, The Power of Pentecost or the Fullness of the Spirit (Murfreesboro, Tenn.: Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1976), 277, 278. quoted in Towns, pp. 24-25.

Soteriological deeper-life

QUOTE FIVE

‘I have been crucified with Christ,’ says Paul. What does this mean? In principle, it means that my right to myself is annihilated, as His concern and love for others is expressed through me. Identification, that’s the first thing. Not simply to die to myself, but to live in Him. Bless your hearts, evangelism isn’t a ‘project’, it’s a way of life! ‘Feed My sheep. Identify yourself with My interests in other people,’ says Jesus. Oh, to be so satisfied, identified with Jesus that my life is spoiled for everything but His will! Am I more concerned with my right to live, than with my daily dying to Him? Which are you more concerned about? Paul says, ‘I die daily’ — do you? Do I? Is that my major passion?

This one is from Alan Redpath, “The Price of Christian Service,” The People and the King, ed. David Porter (Kent, England: STL Books, 1980), 154. quoted in Towns, p. 25.

QUOTE SIX

It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment in my life when I do decide that just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world, so sin must die out in me, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be earnestly convinced, and religiously convinced, but what we need to do is come to the decision which Paul forces here. … I cannot reckon myself “dead indeed unto sin” unless I have been through this radical issue of will before God. Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until all that is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood?

This one is from D. W. Lambert, Oswald Chambers An Unbribed Soul (London: Marshall, Morgan Ea Scott, 1972), 62. quoted in Towns, p. 26.

Now, I don’t have an axe to grind against the deeper-Christian life movement (although I do tend to mock its extremes). There are some flaws to Keswick thinking, but some valuable teaching is produced by the Keswick movement in some of its forms, especially the more early forms. Many good men were involved in its initial efforts and their lives and work are nothing to sneer at.

My interest in the comparison with Piper is my thesis that Piper is promoting a neo-Keswickian experience oriented theology in his whole ‘Desiring God’ mantra. It seems to me that many who follow Piper are quite critical of Keswickian teaching, but at the same time are pursuing almost the same experience orientation they decry in others [albeit with somewhat different terminology]. I suppose I might be forced to read more Piper myself (Lord, would you require so much??) in order to prove or disprove my thesis.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Quotables
by on 10.10.07

on Thanksgiving Sunday

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Usually, as in all ways we differ from Americans, many Canadians are quite smug about it. According to us, we celebrated Thanksgiving first. So there. Most Americans I know look on this insecurity with bemusement.

Anyway, since Thanksgiving fell on Oct 8, the earliest it can occur in Canada, we made our Sunday a special Thanksgiving Sunday. We usually hold a special service and Thanksgiving banquet in our hall on the actual day. This year a number of people are away, including my wife who is caring for her failing mother in Tennessee. So the week before, we decided to make our regular Sunday meal our Thanksgiving dinner. Our ladies did a tremendous job decorating the fellowship room and preparing the meal. And… our folks invited a number of others to the services. We ended up with 66, which was especially tremendous since I was thinking we would be way down with the number of folks who were away.

Our first service continued our Romans series, finally completing verse 1 with the message The Called Apostle. The proposition of the message was this: “The Word of God stands or falls on the integrity of its human authors.” We began the message talking about the importance of credentials and showing how Paul was laying out his credentials in verse 1. We noted a bit more about the designation ‘slave of Christ Jesus’, noting that the slavery to Christ is a voluntary slavery, an entire selling of the soul to Christ. The term is not used of Christians in general in the NT, but of men who are given over to the service of Christ in the gospel. The bulk of the message dealt with the credential ‘a called apostle’ [literal rendering]. The term apostle was invested with special meaning by the Lord himself, the word does mean ‘sent one’ but in Greek usage doesn’t have the high, ambassadorial connotation that the New Testament gives it. The Lord himself used it to distinguish a select group out of his disciples [and a man named Saul, an apostle born ‘out of due season’.] The function of these men is to lay the groundwork for the Christian church, to provide the foundation. The whole credibility of the Christian church rests on their integrity and mission. This leads us to the third credential ‘separated unto the gospel’ or ‘horizoned’ or ‘marked out’ – the word has to do with someone who is especially set apart, marked out like a towering monument on the horizon, like a mountain, for a particular cause, in this case, the gospel.

In all of this, we see a man volunteering himself as the slave of Christ. This man finds himself called an apostle, and marked out for a task. These last two are the works of God in his life. I concluded this way:

It is remarkable – the God of Heaven put His word in the hands of men.

Now …

God’s word is in your hands.

What kind of credibility do you offer its message in the places where you live?

~~~

For our afternoon service, we did something different. As our Thanksgiving Sunday fell on the first Sunday of the month, making it a Communion Sunday, I decided to create a reading interspersed with various hymns to prepare our hearts for communion. We had our deacons and one of the deacon’s wives doing most of the reading. I read the ‘narrator’ bits. The selections moved from some of the birth passages to the betrayal and denial, the trial, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. The hymns were selected from our Majesty Hymnal. The whole reading and singing took us about 45 minutes to complete. The whole service was quite moving as simply the words of Scripture put before us once again the redemptive work of Christ. So that you can see the way the service went, here is a link to Thanksgiving: A Communion Reading.

May the Lord bless you in your work, wherever you might be. At our Thanksgiving, our hearts are quite full of the grace of God.

May those unsaved folks who visited our services this weekend be moved by the power of the Word of God to trust Christ for their own salvation.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Filed Under: Uncategorized
by on 10.8.07

on admitting it – no one cares about my quote game

… at least that’s the way it appears.

I suspect that my wide readership is perhaps not the best sample to select from. Many of the few who read this blog may not read Piper at all, and have no comment. Those who do read Piper may think that I am baiting them, or else they just aren’t that interested. For my take, I think that some of the quotes I offer reflect my understanding of Piper’s views (to some extent), but I really would like for someone who does read Piper to see if my less thorough knowledge is actually mistaken or not.

If anyone who fits the category would care to comment, I’d be grateful.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
« Previous Page
Next Page »