Our Attitude Toward the Bible

"There is a great and painful contrast between [the] rapt extolling of the Bible as our true light and chief means of grace [that characterized evangelical Christians in the past] and the casual,...patronizing, superior attitude towards the Bible which is all too common today.

"Whereas the Reformers revered it, awestruck at the mystery of its divinity, hearing Christ and meeting God in their reading of it, we rather set ourselves above it, acting as if we already knew its contents inside out, and were indeed in a position to fault it as being neither wholly safe nor wholly sound as a guide to the ways of God.

"Both the spirit and the sentiment of the clergyman who once in a national synod spoke of the Old Testament as containing 'spiritual junk' are unhappily typical of our age. Naturally, coming to Scripture in this frame of mind, we fail to gain a proper understanding of what it is all about.

"One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is this, that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and censorious."

-- J.I. Packer, "God Has Spoken" p.41 (IVP 1979)

Justification by Grace Alone through Faith Alone

“We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice on our behalf.

"By his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God.

"Inasmuch as Christ was given by the Father for us, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in place of our own, freely and not for anything in us, this justification is solely of free grace, in order that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

"We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from this free justification.”

- The Gospel Coalition, “Confessional Statement”, Article 8
posted at "Of First Importance"

The Saving Work of Christ: Making All Things New

Here is a compelling song and video (emailed to me by a friend) entitled "New Again" by Sara Evans and Brad Paisley. It includes graphic scenes from the movie, "The Passion of the Christ."

Isaiah 53:
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

"An Evangelical Manifesto"

This morning a document was released at the National Press Club entitled An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment, spearheaded by Os Guinness and signed by over 80 evangelical leaders.

Justin Taylor provides a helpful intro and summary.

Inspired, Infallible Scripture

"That we have an inspired Bible and a verbally inspired one, we have the witness of God Himself; and that this means that every statement of whatever kind in the whole compass of Scripture, from the first word of Genesis to the last of Revelation, is infallibly true and of absolute authority to bind head, heart, and life, rests on no lower authority.

"The heart of God's people has in all ages responded to the fact with glad reverence. The hope of the world rests on it. It is the rock on which the confidence of our late age in the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and the surety of our salvation is built.

"May the man who through indifference, carelessness, conceit, or wickedness would deny this truth of God and teach men so--no, not perish--but be converted from the error of his way and, like a second Paul, be set by God's power and call to defend that which he would have destroyed."

--B. B. Warfield
This is an extract from an article that appeared in the Truth 9 (1883) and can be found in A. A. Hodge & B. B. Warfield, Inspiration (Wipf and Stock Publishers).
HT: Against Heresies

9Marks: Living as a Church

The latest 9Marks eJournal contains a series of Sunday School lessons on what it means to live together as a church.

Justin Taylor provides a helpful summary of this excellent material.

The Beauty of Christ vs. the Vanity of Idols

Here's a moving hymn by Ora Rowan (1834-1879) about the beauty of Christ vs the vanity of idols.

"Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him?"

Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him;
Joyful choose the better part.

Idols oft they win thee, charm thee
Lovely things of time and sense;
Gilded thus does sin disarm thee,
Honeyed lest thou turn thee hence.

What has stripped the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty
But the sight of peerless worth ...

...Not the crushing of those idols
With its bitter void and smart [pain] ,
But the beaming of His beauty
The unveiling of His heart.

Who extinguishes their taper [candle]
Till they hail the rising sun?
Who discards the garb of winter
Till the summer hath begun?

‘Tis the look that melted Peter,
‘Tis the face that Stephen saw;
‘Tis the heart that wept with Mary
Can alone from idols draw.

Draw and win and fill completely,
Till the cup o'erflow the brim;
What have we to do with idols
Who have companied with Him?

Chorus:
Captivated by His beauty
Worthy tribute haste to bring;
Let His peerless worth constrain thee,
Crown Him now unrivaled King!

HT: Lydia Brownback, Matthew Jacobs, Jerry; Justin Taylor

"A Deeper Relevance"

"Why many evangelicals are attracted to that strange thing called liturgy" -- a thought-provoking article from Mark Galli (Christianity Today Online)

Gospel-centered Sanctification

Here is a very helpful online article by Jerry Bridges on how our pursuit of holiness must always be grounded in the joy and assurance of the Gospel.

The idea in this article is dealt with even more comprehensively in Bridges' book, "The Discipline of Grace."

Children of the Living God

“No short-cut that tries to bypass the patient unfolding of the true character of God, and our relationship to him as his children, can ever succeed in providing long-term spiritual therapy.

"But the knowledge that the Father has bestowed his love on us, so that we are called children of God - and in fact are his children (1 John 3:1-2), will, over time, prove to be the solvent in which our fears, mistrust, and suspicion of God - as well as our sense of distance from him - will eventually dissolve.”

- Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 14.

HT: Of First Importance

Living the Paradox

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

-- from "The Valley of Vision" (A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions), edited by Arthur Bennett (Banner of Truth)

HT: Tullian Tchividjian

"Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers"

Justin Taylor has a helpful post about a set of "short, simple, attractive volumes that teach God-centered theology to little kids."

Statement of Principle for Music in the Church (pt.2)

The following are excerpts from the guidelines for church music that were printed as part of the preface of a church hymnal in 1959. (This is the second part of a previous post.)

PRINCIPLE: The music of the Church should be appropriate for worship.

1. In spirit, form and content the music of the church should be a positive expression of Scripturally religious thought and feeling. It should serve the ministry of the Word.
2. The music of the church should be beautiful.... It should satisfy the aesthetic laws of balance, unity, harmony, design, rhythm, restraint, and fitness [appropriateness] which are the conditions of all art.

IMPLICATIONS: (#1-5 were included in part 1).

6. The music of the church should be...free from association with the currently secular or with anything that does violence to our [Biblical] conception of worship.
7. The music of the church should not be borrowed from that of the dance nor from concert or other music which suggests places and occasions other than the church and the worship service.
....

As you read such principles, do you react by comparing them to your own preferences, or do you ask, "Are these principles and ideas based on Scripture?" The Bible is to be our guide in everything -- certainly including how we should think about worship and music in the church.

"What Can Miserable Christians Sing?"

“A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?”

-- Carl Trueman, "The Wages of Spin"

HT: Bob Kauflin at worshipmatters.com

Gospel-centered 'contemporary Christian' song

Sovereign Grace ministries is offering a free download of the song "I Have a Shelter" by Steve and Vicki Cook and Bob Kauflin (from the album, "Come, Weary Saints).

Here are the lyrics:

I have a shelter in the storm
When troubles pour upon me
Though fears are rising like a flood
My soul can rest securely
O Jesus, I will hide in You
My place of peace and solace
No trial is deeper than Your love
That comforts all my sorrows

I have a shelter in the storm
When all my sins accuse me
Though justice charges me with guilt
Your grace will not refuse me
O Jesus, I will hide in You
Who bore my condemnation
I find my refuge in Your wounds
For there I find salvation

I have a shelter in the storm
When constant winds would break me
For in my weakness, I have learned
Your strength will not forsake me
O Jesus, I will hide in You
The One who bears my burdens
With faithful hands that cannot fail
You’ll bring me home to heaven

© 2008 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music (ASCAP)/Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP) (Admin. By Integrity’s Hosanna! Music) Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)(Admin. By Integrity’s Praise! Music)

HT: Justin Taylor -- Between Two Worlds