Text-Context: Jim Gilmore - Ways to Study the World/Culture

I appreciated Jim Gilmore's talks at this conference. Jim is an insightful forward-thinking businessman and has a deep care for the church of Jesus Christ. He is the co-author of The Experience Economy which worldwide has hundreds of thousands in print and recently co-wrote Authenticity: What Consumer's Really Want. Jim was deeply thankful to be apart of the conference even though he wasn't sure he belonged at a pastor's conference. All in all, I think he served pastor's well. In his second lecture he discussed 10 points on ways to study the world and culture around us, here are the 10:

1. Study the Past. In doing so it will make you clearer about the past, the present and the future.
2. Think laterally. What is this? Well, Wikipedia puts it this way in contrast with critical thinking:

"Lateral thinking is more concerned with the movement value of statements and ideas. A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas. It can also be put as, critical thinking is like a post-mortem while lateral thinking is like diagnosis."

3. Observe behavior. Both your own and others. Truly looking, seeing is a skill
4. Wield a thesaurus. Know the dominant words in culture and seek out other words. Be a word-smith.
5. Channel surf. Don't just watch one show, intentionally surf through channels to take in all that is happening on TV.
6. Walk the mall. This in my view is the least enjoyable of the 10.
7. Frequent magazine racks.
8. Watch for the new "ing". "Ing" is an experiencing word. Notice all the "ing" words in culture and advertisements.
9. Talk to your children. Why do they like what they like on the internet, TV, the mall, the toys, whatever it might be?
10. Track the hype. Don't just buy into the hype but do track it. See what the media says is hot and think through why it is.

Readers, do you have any others?

I encourage you to take a look at Mr. Gilmore's ideas further at Strategic Horizons his and co-author Joe Pine's organization. They may not endorse it, but here is a summary of the experience economy from Wikipedia.

Sinclair Ferguson - Emotional Jesus

"'Jesus wept'...Those tears reveal an earthquake of emotions in Jesus's heart. 'He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled' (Jn. 11:33 NIV) is a correct but scarcely adequate translation of words that express the deep inner disturbance and anger of our Lord in the face of Satan's reign in sin and death.

Jesus's sinlessness should not be equated with emotionlessness. The opposite is nearer the truth. His holy humanity experienced heights and depths of emotion unknown by sinful humanity. Seeing human need with perfect clarity, Jesus felt it with unparalleled intensity. Our senses, by comparison our numbered. Thus, the crisis of the death of Lazarus--whom Jesus loved--became the occasion for a yet fuller revelation of the sensitivity of our Lord's holy humanity (Heb. 2:10-11, 14-18, 4:14-16)." (p. 70)

Ferguson, Sinclair. In Christ Alone.

Text-Context: Matt Chandler - Where's the Angst?

I have listened to a decent amount of preaching in my life, but rarely am truly moved. This does not necessarily mean that all the preaching I've heard is bad preaching, for I am a bad guy and often hard-hearted. This also is due to the fact that when you grow up in church all your life you get preached at plenty.

However, I must say that rarely, at least with the above qualifications in mind, do I hear men plead for the hearts to be radically devoted to Jesus and to long for the Savior like Matt Chandler does. His call for men to have intense angst and radical pursuit of the living God blesses my soul. No, this does not mean that I have it, it means so desperately that I need it.

To groan for God. To long to be close to Him. To love Jesus. To truly be dependent on the Holy Spirit not in word and clever prayers but in the desire, the heart's cry inside.

I've only listened briefly to Matt's call to church planters to long for Jesus, but I know that this call is rare and this call is deeply prophetic in the profoundest sense. Not that what Matt is saying is new, but that what Matt is saying is old and very needed in the hearts and souls of the men and women of our generation.

Where's the longing for God in our generation? This call is to you, which means most profoundly that it is to me.

"As the deer pants for the flowing streams,
So pants my soul for you O God." Ps. 42:1

Text-Context: Mark Driscoll's Tearful Introduction of John Piper

One thing I was struck by at the Text/Context conference was Mark Driscoll's tearful introduction of John Piper. (No, I'm not there I'm viewing the live feed.) I have listened to Pastor Driscoll preach from Mars Hill and various conferences around the globe and never heard him or seen him begin to cry. Now this may seem like a weird thing to blog about or even mention, but I found it very moving, in fact I felt much the same way. Mark recovered well, something I would not have been able to do if I was given the same task.

I can't imagine introducing Pastor Piper, as there are few who have influenced me more in my life. I think, Mark felt the same way. He was overwhelmed with joy and with thankfulness to God for Pastor John and he become visibly overcome with emotion. It seemed that Mark was particularly effected by how God has used Piper to shape his own life and how Piper has shaped many around him and was quickened to call other men to learn from Piper.

Why blog this? Well, because I think we as younger men whether pastors or just Christians need to show honor to older men who have been faithful men. We need to honor our fathers who have gone before us, be they earthly fathers, spiritual fathers, or both. May this characterize the young pastors of today to show honor, respect, and thankfulness to those who have taught and lived faithfully and pointed to Jesus in word and deed.

The Reason for God - Moral Obligation

One thing about Pastor Keller's book that I really enjoyed was his quotations from an array of different thinkers whether scientists, atheists, Christians outside his own denomination, literary authors, etc. One particular quote that struck me was from Raimond Gaita, an atheist thinker, who states:

"Only someone who is religious can speak seriously of the sacred...We may say that all human beings are inestimably precious, that they are ends in themselves, that they are owed unconditional respect, that they posess inalienable dignity. In my judgment these are ways of trying to say what we feel a need to say when we are estranged from the conceptual resources [i.e. God] we need to say it...Not one of [these statements about human beings] has the power of the religious way of speaking...that we are sacred because God loves us, his children" (p. 154)

One thing I have been struck by when reading atheistic thinkers is there use of descriptive words like sacred and wonder and awe and beauty and good and evil. They sound religious, at times, when speaking of nature or the human being or the rights of the destitute. In many ways they want to have there cake and eat it to. They want to use moral language in religious categories, yet deny God. They seem to want the morality and dignity of God in this world but not the accountability and responsibility before the God of this world. This issue of moral obligation for the atheist is a big problem if one remains an atheist. A strict evolutionism and bare scientificism does not ever answer the greatest problems of the world or provide the greatest remedies, but the strict evolutionist and scientist, usually, desires at least in some aspects things like human rights and morality but evolutionary and scientific categories alone cannot give this. It is the desire they have to give it, indeed almost an inner compulsion that leads Keller to say the following of another atheistic thinker, "despite the fact that we can't justify or ground human rights in a world without God, we still know they exist...Without God he can't justify moral obligation, and yet he can't not know it exists" (p. 154-155).

The Bondage of Guidance

Mark Dever hit the nail on the head in this short article. There is no doubt that I have been in the past severely bound to what he describes as the bondage of guidance. I have several thoughts on this particular issue and maybe in the future will share it more fully. For now, please read Dever; to some it will resonate for some it may not, for me it did:

"This will be brief. The way many Christians practice seeking God's will before they make a decision amounts to spiritual and emotional bondage. Christ has died to give us liberty and freedom (Rom. 6; Gal. 5; I Peter 2). We can only know the truth about God's will by what His Spirit reveals to us. He has revealed God's mind authoritatively in His Word. We should give ourselves to study what He has revealed. Personal reading, meditation, sermons, friends and books are all available to us to help us to better understand God's revealed will...

Most decisions I've made in my Christian life, I've made with no such sense of subjective leading. Maybe some would show that to be a mark of my spiritual immaturity. I understand this to be the way a redeemed child of God normally lives in this fallen world before the fullness of the Kingdom comes, Christ returns, and immediate, constant, unbroken fellowship with God is re-established.

A subjective sense of leading--when we've asked for it (as in James 1:5 we ask for wisdom) and when God freely gives it--is wonderful. Such subjective sense of leading, however, are too often in contemporary evangelical piety, binding our brothers and sisters in Christ, paralyzing them from enjoying the good choices that God may provide, and causing them to wait wrongly before acting.

Beware of the bondage of 'guidance.'"

(HT: JT)

Access to God as Close as Jesus

The astounding truth of Christianity culminated in the work of Jesus secures this unbelievable reality for all who trust Jesus:

"The access to God which believers have through Christ is no less close than that which Christ himself has attained..." (p. 517-518, NIGTC, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Paul Ellingworth)

If your a believer in the person and work of Jesus Christ, your access to God is as close as Jesus' access to God. That is extraordinary.

See Hebrews 10.

The Reason for God - Thinking of Self Less

I will begin doing a series of posts on Tim Keller's new book, The Reason for God, that I finished yesterday. Hopefully this will encourage you to read the book and encourage you to trust and believe in God. Whether a Christian or not everyone doubts, Keller encourages us to doubt our doubts and to trust God who reveals Himself in Jesus. He encourages his readers to not focus on having huge faith, but instead reminds us that, "Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch" (p. 234). The Triune, transcendent and personal, God of the universe is a strong branch.

Here is Keller on self and Gospel:

"When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards--in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships--I felt confident but not humble...When I was not living up to standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don't need to notice myself--how I'm doing, how I'm being regarded--so often." (p. 180-181, The Reason for God)

The Reason for God: The Website

I've mentioned the book, which is finally out and being shipped to me as we speak, here is the website.

Here is Keller's Newsweek profile.

(HT:SM)

Happy Valentines Day

This is a very good Valentine's day verse, and one that is striking in the way in which it is said:

"Be very careful, therefore, to love the LORD your God." Joshua 23:11

Be careful to love God.

Our Tiny Temptations

"[Jesus] tasted our temptations with a sensitivity none of us has known precisely because He resisted them. Whatever your experience of temptation or suffering, Christ's was deeper because His humanity was sinless." (p. 27-28, In Christ Alone)

This is a great reminder from Sinclair Ferguson. Jesus temptations were so great not because He gave in, but precisely because he resisted. It is amazing how we self-deceive ourselves into thinking that because our temptations are so strong we give in to sin, yet the strongest temptations are the one's not given into. Our temptations are tiny in comparison to the temptation that the perfect Son of God faced.

May we follow Jesus' in resisting great temptation--not giving into tiny temptations. And when we sin, may we trust Him as a faithful High Priest who never sinned and died in our place for our sins.

"Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." Hebrews 2:17-18

A Call to Courage

If you are a man, you need to listen to this.

Tim Keller's A Reason for God Sermons

I am awaiting Tim Keller's new apologetic A Reason for God from Amazon, but I learned today that I can listen to sermons he delivered at his church in regards to that topic. The sermons are thematic: Exclusivity, Suffering, Absolutism, Injustice, Hell, Doubt, Literalism. Go listen!

(HT: JT)

The Pastor as Father and Son

Another Desiring God conference began yesterday, which means new audio of DA Carson, John Piper and others are up. DG is lightning fast at getting audio of there conferences out, and it is a great benefit to all those who cannot attend. This year's subject is the Pastor as Father and Son, and I believe it will be memorable as DA Carson recently wrote a book on his late dad and John Piper is doing his annual biography on his father who recently died. Abraham Piper is blogging and actively updating as summaries, audio, video and interviews come up.

Check it out yo!

Brothers, Draw the Lines!

Pay Attention to Jesus

As I continue in Hebrews, I'm constantly reminded to listen to the voice of God in His Son Jesus. Hebrews 1 tells me God spoke in Jesus, and then barrages me with the deity of Jesus, the substitution of Jesus for sinners, the superiority of Jesus, and the exaltation and victory of Jesus. Hebrews 2, just in case I wasn't listening, tells me to "pay close attention" to what I've heard and not to "drift" from it. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the Gospel is easy to drift from and is to be actively paid attention to not just assumed. How easy it is to assume the Gospel, and in so doing one begins to move away from it, because we drift when we don't pay attention. In chapter 3 I'm told to "consider Jesus" and again the writer constantly points me back to Jesus: to think about Him, to listen to Him, to believe Him, and to see Him.

If we are God's House we must hold fast to him. If we are "sharer's in Christ" we will "hold our original confidence firm to the end." To the end, in this Christian life, it is Jesus, not just at the beginning!

So look at Jesus today. Pay attention to Him. Consider His nature and His accomplishments. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.