"Jesus Is Here"

From Justin Taylor...

A video chapter from the Jesus Storybook Bible, read by David Suchet.

Free from self....Jesus is all

"Let us look at our lives in the light of this experience [in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10] and see whether we gladly glory in weakness, whether we take pleasure, as Paul did, in injuries, in necessities, in distresses. Yes, let us ask whether we have learned to regard a reproof, just or unjust, a reproach from friend or enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty into which others bring us, as above all an opportunity of proving how Jesus is all to us, how our own pleasure or honor are nothing, and how humiliation is in very truth what we take pleasure in. It is indeed blessed, the deep happiness of heaven, to be so free from self that whatever is said of us or done to us is lost and swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all.”

-- Andrew Murray, Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, page 83.
HT: Ray Ortlund

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

(The antidote to idolatry...)

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!
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-Miss Ora Rowan (1834-1879)

The 'Algorithm' of the Gospel

“He that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, be his sins never so many. But he that does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ must be damned, be his sins never so few.”

- Thomas Brooks


If that sounds right to you, then I think you've understood the true gospel and the only way of salvation. If it sounds wrong, I am afraid you probably haven't.... (cp. Rom. 5:20-21).

The Father and his wayward children

Do you believe, truly believe, that if you had been the prodigal, that the Father would have come running down the lane to welcome you?

(Luke 15:11-24)

The Gift and Duty of Thanksgiving

Mark Galli's essay on "The Impossibility of Thanksgiving"

"The Manhattan Declaration"

The Manhattan Declaration
A Call of Christian Conscience

from their introductory page:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

You can read and download the declaration, and view the list of religious leaders who have signed it (and add your own signature) at their website.

"Fill Your Affections with the Cross of Christ"

“When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin lose their attraction and disappear. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.”

- John Owen, quoted by C. J. Mahaney in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2008), 34.
"Of First Importance"

The Stone Will Be Rolled Back for Each of Us

"He came back.

"After that brutal Friday, and that long, quiet Saturday, he came back. And that one intake of breath in the tomb changes everything. It changes the very reason I drew breath today and the way I move about in this world because I believe he’s coming back again. The world has gone on for more than two millennia since Jesus’ feet tread the earth he made. What would they have said back then if someone had told them that some two thousand years later we’d still be waiting? They would’ve thought back to that long Saturday and said, ‘Two thousand years will seem like a breath to you when you finally lay your crown at his feet. We don’t even remember what we were doing on that Saturday, but let me tell you about Sunday morning. Now that was something.’

"These many years of waiting will only be a sentence in the story. This long day will come to an end, and I believe it will end in glory, when we will shine like suns and stride the green hills with those we love and the One who loves. We will look with our new eyes and speak with our new tongues and turn to each other and say, ‘Do you remember the waiting? The long years, the bitter pain, the gnawing doubt, the relentless ache?’ And like Mary at the tomb, we will say: ‘I remember only the light, and the voice calling my name, and the overwhelming joy that the waiting was finally over.’"

The stone will be rolled away for each of us. May we wait with faithful hearts."

—Andrew Peterson CD liner notes for Resurrection Letters Volume II (Centricity Music: 2008)

Some Things I Think Evangelicals Can Learn from Catholicism

What's printed below is the gist of the lesson I taught today, as part of the series, "Always Being Reformed by the Word of God"

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…” 2 Tim.3:16

Christians and churches should always want to please the Lord in all things by discerning what is best which includes examining everything, holding on to the good, avoiding all that’s bad (Col. 1:10; Phil.1:10; 1 Thess.5:21;-22). In order for that to be true, we must continually allow the Word of God in Scripture to ‘reform’ our beliefs, values and practices – not only as individual Christians, but as a church together. (1 Tim.3:14-15; cp. Matt. 28:18-20).

The Protestant Reformation was triggered as Martin Luther and others began to examine beliefs and practices of the (Catholic) Church in light of the teaching of God’s Word, centered in the true Gospel. That led them to reject some beliefs and practices, to revise others, and to add others.

As Protestant, evangelical Christians, we believe the Roman Catholic Church is fundamentally and seriously mistaken about key doctrines such as justification by grace alone through faith alone, and the unique authority of Scripture. But because the Catholic Church has been influenced by Scripture, there are still things we can learn from the Catholic (and ‘high church’) stream of Christianity. To say it another way, we as evangelicals need to be continuously opened to being ‘reformed’ by the Word of God as well, including in the areas described below.

What we can learn from Catholics (and other ‘high church’ traditions):

-- reverence, sense of transcendence – Heb. 12:28-29; John 4:23-24; 2 Cor. 7:1.
*When was the last time you experienced a sense of ‘awe’ and deep reverence in relating to God? What were the causes for this? How can things like music and even architecture play a role in this?

-- respect for the Church universal, its nature, ‘authority’, and it’s place in salvation as the ordained by God for proclaiming his message and carrying out his work (Matt.16:16-19 ; Acts 2:41; Eph. 3:10-11; 4:4-6, 11-16).
*In the New Testament, it’s unimaginable that a professing Christian would not be baptized, and not be joined to the church. Why do you think baptism and church membership are considered ‘optional’ by so many professing evangelical Christians today?
*When are ‘parachurch ministries’ (e.g. a youth ministry like ‘Youth for Christ’) helpful, and when are they unhelpful?

-- the importance of ‘catechizing’
Catholic (and Lutheran and Presbyterian) churches have traditionally taken the task of ‘catechizing’ very seriously, as a means for teaching and passing on the Christian faith to new believers. Why should ‘catechizing’ be especially important to evangelical Christians and churches? (Deut.6:4-9; Matt.28:18-19; Col.1:28; 2 Tim.4:2-4)

-- The use of ‘imprimatur’ (a bishop’s granting permission to publish approved books for ‘the faithful’ to read) -- cp. Jas.3:1ff.; Tit.1:9; 2 Pet.3:16ff.)

-- benevolent service to ‘parish’ and a commitment to ‘social justice’ in the right sense (for example, in opposing abortion and in defending traditional marriage) – Matt.5:16; 1 Tim. 6:18; 1 Pet.2:11-17)

For further study: “Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic” by Chris Castaldo

“Nothing in My Hand I Bring: Understanding the Differences Between Roman Catholic and Protestant Beliefs” by Ray Galea (you can read the first chapter online at http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/Samples/nimh/nimh_sample.pdf)

Chris Castaldo's book, "Holy Ground"

I am very glad to recommend Chris Castaldo’s book, “Holy Ground – Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic,” by participating in his blog tour. Chris serves as Pastor of Outreach and Church Planting at College Church in Wheaton, IL.

One of the things I most appreciate about the book was learning from Castaldo that the factors and influences leading people to journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism are much more varied and complex than matters of belief and doctrine alone.

Still, the questions that lingered in my mind did in fact relate to doctrine and theology. What follows are Chris’s illuminating, thought-provoking answers to those questions.

1. How do people like Francis Beckwith, who seem to affirm the compatibility of at least the core of Protestant/evangelical belief with Catholic teaching, view matters like Catholic beliefs regarding Mary (immaculate conception, assumption into heaven, etc.)?

When Frank Beckwith was asked this basic question at Wheaton College’s Penner Forum in September (which I moderated), he expressed his commitment to Marian doctrines as part of the Great Tradition. In Frank’s words (elsewhere on the topic), “Like marriage to one’s spouse, when one enters into communion with the Catholic Church, he is responsible to embrace all of its teaching (no exceptions). Just as when I married my wife, I married a whole rather than a collection of parts (e.g., I can’t say, ‘You know, I’d like to marry her, but that third knuckle on her right hand is odd’), I can’t be a ‘Catholic’ and pick and choose based on differing levels of plausibility of different parts of the Catechism isolated from the whole.”

In Holy Ground I posit a historical example of the “evangelical Catholic” in the person of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini. In the year 1511, Contarini experienced a moment of illumination that was likened to Luther’s epiphany, where he was fully convinced that salvation could not be won by any human act but was God’s free gift; and, as in Luther’s case, this conviction was accompanied by a perception that the monastery could not, for himself, procure an eternal blessedness. Like Luther, Contarini found in the contemplation of Christ’s sacrifice the solvent of his fears and the resolution of his anxious striving for perfection. This fresh discovery of Jesus’ passion forged an affinity with Luther’s doctrine of faith alone and motivated Contarini to proclaim the sufficiency of the cross among Catholics. However, years later when it was time for Contarini to choose a side at the Colloquy of Regensburg between the papacy and Scripture alone, he chose the pontiff. At the end of the day his religious identity was Catholic, not Protestant.

This is the light in which I see people like Frank Beckwith. They argue for some evangelical Protestant tenets; yet, they do so as Catholics who consciously weave Catholic threads into their theological fabric, threads which from my perspective don’t fit, but somehow they put it together. Sitting down with Catholic friends to discuss these differences in a clear, objective way is important, but it’s of equal importance that we do so with genuine courtesy and respect (1 Pet 3:15-16).

One practical implication from this observation is the importance of understanding religious identity—our own and the person’s with whom we speak. Theological discussion is most fruitful when we understand where our conversation partner orients himself in the doctrinal/ecclesial universe, since such positioning naturally influences how we read texts, use language, relate to tradition, and a host of other such commitments. If we want to listen, learn, debate, persuade, grow, and glorify God in our interaction, (and not simply talk past one another) we must be attentive to such realities.

2. In light of the Decrees of Trent, wouldn’t we still have to say that official Catholic doctrine on the matter of justification rises to the level of error so serious that it amounts to ‘another gospel’ – thus warranting an apostolic anathema (Gal.1:6-9)?

The most helpful book I’ve read on this topic has been Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment by Anthony Lane, Professor of Historical Theology at London School of Theology. Tony Lane is a fine scholar (it’s a T&T Clark book, so if you buy it, do so when you still have a sizable chunk in your book budget). Here are a couple of Professor Lane’s conclusions, which I agree with and have found helpful.

Is the positive exposition of the Tridentine decree compatible with a Protestant understanding?

“No. When the difference in terminology is taken into account and when allowance is made for complementary formulations the gap turns out to be considerably narrower than is often popularly supposed, but a gap there remains.”

Do the Tridentine canons condemn the Protestant doctrine or only parodies of it?

“Many of the canons do not directly touch a balanced Protestant understanding, but a number clearly do. The verdict of The Condemnations of the Reformation Era (a joint ecumenical commission which met in the early 80’s) is as much a statement about the intentions of the churches today as a statement about the intentions of Trent and the Lutheran confessions.”
According to Lane’s conclusion, disagreement between the Catholic and Protestant understanding of justification remains, although it may not be as profound as we tend to think.

Still, giving the binding nature of Trent’s decrees, evangelical Protestants remain in the crosshairs of the Catholic Church’s anathematizing canons. To the extent that Catholics operate according to this Tridentine framework (i.e., defining their position over and against justification by faith alone), they appear to be skating on the same thin ice as Paul’s Galatian interlocutors and in imminent danger of falling into the frigid water of “another gospel.”

Yet, we must realize that many Catholics, including Pope Benedict himself, don’t understand justification in this Tridentine light. For instance, in the Pope’s sermon on justification in Saint Peter’s Square on November 19, 2008 he said, “Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: ‘faith alone’ is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity in love.” A week later on November 26 in the Paul VI Audience Hall the pontiff continued this emphasis, “Following Saint Paul, we have seen that man is unable to ‘justify’ himself with his own actions, but can only truly become ‘just’ before God because God confers his ‘justice’ upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, Saint Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us ‘just.’”

Lest you think the Pope’s statements were an out of turn, momentary flash in the pan, you can also read them in his recent book Saint Paul (Pope Benedict XVI. Saint Paul. [San Francisco: Ignatius Press], 82-85). This same note is hit by many Catholic theologians, particularly those like Beckwith who identify as evangelical Catholic.

Of more immediate concern to me is the penetration of the biblical gospel—the message of divine grace accessed through faith alone—into the hearts of Catholic people who haven’t a clue why Jesus died, much less how salvation is appropriated. Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft describes this problem:

“There are still many who do not know the data, the gospel. Most of my Catholic students at Boston College have never heard it. They do not even know how to get to heaven. When I ask them what they would say to God if they died tonight and God asked them why he should take them into heaven, nine out of ten do not even mention Jesus Christ. Most of them say they have been good or kind or sincere or did their best. So I seriously doubt God will undo the Reformation until he sees to it that Luther’s reminder of Paul’s gospel has been heard throughout the church” (Peter Kreeft. “Ecumenical Jihad.” Reclaiming The Great Tradition. Ed. James S. Cutsinger. [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997]. 27).

This is the concern of Holy Ground—that the grace of God in salvation remains central. When talking with Catholics, there are myriads of potential rabbit trails. We may enter into a conversation to talk about how Jesus provides life with meaning and suddenly find ourselves enmeshed in a debate about the apocrypha or Humanae Vitae. Sometimes it’s right to broach these subjects, but too often we do so at the expense of the gospel. This is tragic. What does it profit a person if he explicates a host of theological conundrums without focusing attention upon the death and resurrection of Jesus? In all of our discussion with Catholics we must consider, celebrate, and bear witness to the splendor and majesty of our Savior, the one who died, rose, and now lives.
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In my mind, Chris’s careful, comprehensive replies raise additional questions (e.g., if Trent’s Decrees are “binding” how does that fit with the assertion that “many Catholics, including Pope Benedict himself, don’t understand justification in this Tridentine light”?) – but those questions notwithstanding for now I again want to highly recommend this irenic, empathetic book. It is one of those rare resources that not only would benefit interested evangelicals, but could be confidently shared with Catholic friends as well.

Be Careful How You Pray

Kevin DeYoung has a thought-provoking post about keeping God and his will for us first when it comes to our priorities, longings and prayers.

Martin Luther on Prayer

"We must be careful not to break the habit of true prayer and imagine other works to be necessary which, after all, are nothing of the kind. Thus at the end we become lax and lazy, cool and listless toward prayer. The devil who besets us is not lazy or careless, and our flesh is too ready and eager to sin and is disinclined to the spirit of prayer."

-- Martin Luther, “A Simple Way to Pray, 1535,” in Luther’s Works (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann; 55 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1958–86), 43:194; D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe) (127 vols.; Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–1993), 38:359.30–35.

Michael Wittmer on the Subordination of the Son

Mike Wittmer's post is intellecutally challenging, but he raises important questions for those who object to a linkage between complementarianism (in the roles of men and women) and the Son's subordination to the Father.

Law and Gospel

"The law cannot create faith because it tells us what is to be done. It can only announce to those who transgress it what they have not done; consequently, it brings despair in its wake.

"The promise [of the gospel], by contrast, tells us what has been done by someone else. That is why it brings life.

"Once the law's just sentence has been satisfied in Christ, it is no longer our executioner, but instead plots the course for our gospel-driven life...."

-- Michael Horton, "The Gospel-Driven Life" p. 139 (Baker Books 2009)