Shepherding Souls to have All Wisdom

"When Paul instructs Timothy in Colossians 1:28-29 on the job description of a pastor, he makes an important qualifying comment that we often overlook. He says that—as you are admonishing and teaching every man to be mature in Christ—you must achieve this in the sphere of “all wisdom.” Plainly stated, wisdom is the wise application of truth in a variety of circumstances. And any time wisdom is brought up in Scripture, God is assuming we imbed the concept of fearing God in that statement (Prov 1:7). Any true wisdom we have flows out of a God-fearing heart (Jer 32:40). You might ask, why is biblical wisdom so closely connected with fearing God? Because wisdom is not merely an intellectual category, but more importantly, it takes shape in the moral realm. Someone can be very smart, but exceedingly unwise.

To walk in the fear of the Lord means that at every moment of the day you are considering what your God would want you do and then obeying Him rather than your flesh (Rom 6:16). And the only way we know the mind of God, and what we are to obey, is through his Word (Ps 119:9-11). Therefore a wise God-fearing man slows down as he considers every word he speaks and action he takes by saying, “What would my God want me to say or do right now based on what His Word says?” Therefore, to shepherd souls to become mature in Christ “with all wisdom” requires nuanced discussion on the implications of truth for a variety of scenarios. People need us to help them consider their various circumstances, motives, tendencies, past experiences, and current spiritual state (whether mature or immature, weak, faint hearted or unruly). They need help considering what it would look like to most fear God in every decision (Prov 14:16). Then, through careful shepherding, we must show them how to apply the truth with “all wisdom” based on the providential variables.

In our “Gospel-centered” language today, sometimes we’re afraid to just consider moral and ethical principles of wisdom. We’re so fearful of creating moralists that we forget that the Bible wants our people in moral conformity to His will (Luke 17:10).

It's Not About Kaepernick

"To mark the 30th anniversary of its groundbreaking 'Just Do It' ad campaign, the Nike corporation recently announced a new campaign featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, unarguably one of the most polarizing figures in America today, with the slogan: "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."

At first glance, the exhortation by the Oregon-based corporate behemoth seems rather harmless and innocuous. In fact, give it a quick perusal while you're busy making dinner, paying bills online, or toying around with your favorite smartphone app and the entreaty comes across as downright positive, affirming, and motivating. After all, we all believe in something, don't we? Who of us wants to be viewed as merely coasting through life with no sense of conviction or creed to help us navigate a world that all too often proves itself to be morally and ethically rudderless?

Notwithstanding the aesthetic significance of this advertising shibboleth as a successful marketing ploy or motivational axiom, what I find most concerning is the fundamental question the statement inherently begets. That is, should believing in "something," regardless of its veracity or legitimacy, be considered a virtue in and of itself (as Nike® seems to think)?

In Scripture, the word 'believe' first appears in Gen. 45:26. It is the Hebrew verb 'aman and denotes having a firm and settled assurance in that which has been established as objectively true. During His first trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus declared, "I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice (Jn. 18:37)", to which Pilate retorted, "What is truth (Jn. 18:38)?"

Social Justice Causes and Gospel-Centered Ministry

Photo Credit: Right Now Media

This week I have been posting some of the most helpful articles that I have come across related to the recent craze within the evangelical church that is all things SOCIAL JUSTICE.  Pastor Phil Johnson's post is well worth our prayerful consideration.  "When the morning worship service ended last Sunday, a woman whom I had never met before made a beeline for me and stood between me and the aisle. I was trapped in a row of seats. She said she was a guest from out of town, but she seemed to recognize me, and she said she wanted to help me understand the “social justice” issue.

“Despite what you think,” she said, “it is a gospel issue.” “Injustice is everywhere in the world. I am fighting it full time. Right now I have several lawsuits pending against injustice in the health-care industry. Don’t tell me that’s not gospel work. You’re not being a faithful witness unless you’re fighting for social justice. It’s built right into the gospel message: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

I tried to sound as agreeable as possible under the circumstances: “That’s surely one of the most important tenets of God’s moral law, and it does distill the idea of human justice into a single commandment,” I said. “But be careful how you state it. That’s not the gospel. That’s the Second Great Commandment.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “I meant to say the gospel is ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’”

“Well, that’s the First Great Commandment,” I said. “That’s still law, not gospel.”

“What do you mean?” she said. “I can show you those verses in the Bible.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know,” I said. “It’s Matthew 22:37-40. But that’s a summary of the law. It’s not the gospel.”

The Long Struggle to Preserve the Gospel (Part 1)

"From the earliest days of the apostolic era, faithful Christians have been called upon to contend earnestly for the truth of the gospel. The hardest battles have taken place within the visible church, among those who claim fidelity to Christ. That’s because the greatest threats to gospel truth have not come from atheists and other overt adversaries, but always from influential voices that arise within the church who speak twisted things (Acts 20:30). The evidence that this was happening in the very earliest era of the New Testament church is seen not only in Paul’s parting words to the Ephesian elders, but also in his admonitions to Timothy and Titus, and in Christ’s letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3.

When I was studying doctrine and apologetics in seminary, I thought I was equipping myself to defend biblical truth against an onslaught of attacks from the world. I envisioned answering atheism and confronting threats to the gospel that would arise out of secular culture, the entertainment industry, the academic world, and other places outside the church.

Sometime after I entered full-time ministry, it dawned on me (to my profound shock) that the greatest threats to biblical truth typically arise from within the fellowship of professing believers—and it is a relentless parade of attacks. Looking back through church history, I realized that’s how it has always been. There has never been a time when false doctrines, harmful methodologies, unwholesome practices, bizarre beliefs, poisonous ideologies, and false teachers weren’t troubling the church of God—often with seriously divisive and otherwise spiritually destructive results.

In retrospect, it should not have been a surprise to me that the worst troubles come from within. I was born into a pastor’s home. My father was the son of a pastor. Both were part of the historic denominational landscape of planet church. They were in the American Baptist Church (ABC) denomination.

By the time I was a teenager, my grandfather was in heaven, having served as a pastor until the day he saw the face of Christ. My dad left the faltering, compromising ABC to plant an independent church in a building sold by a failing Lutheran congregation.

My father took his stand in the liberal-fundamentalist conflict. The issue then was the inspiration and authority of Scripture. My dad was bold and relentless, always with grace, to defend the Bible as inspired by God in total. He was cut off from lifelong friends who stayed in the ABC, but he was never divided in his loyalty to the true doctrine of Scripture. He encouraged me as a teenager, as a college student, and as a seminary student to learn and acquire all the doctrinal and evidentiary proofs necessary to defend the Word of God against the modernist and liberal attacks.

Social (In)justice and the Gospel

John MacArthur has heard enough.  The Gospel Coalition's regular promotion of social justice and various expressions of critical race theory under the banner of Gospel-centered church ministry demanded a thoughtful response.  Over the past many Sundays at Grace Community Church and via the Grace to You blog Pastor John highlights what many lesser known pastors and bloggers have been saying for years. "Scripture says earthly governments are ordained by God to administer justice, and believers are to be subject to their authority. The civil magistrate is “a minister of God to you for good . . . an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:1–4). But it is also true that no government in the history of the world has managed to be consistently just. In fact, when Paul wrote that command, the Roman Emperor was Nero, one of the most grossly unjust, unprincipled, cruel-hearted men ever to wield power on the world stage.

As believers, “we know . . . that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), so worldly power structures are—and always have been—systemically unjust to one degree or another.

Even the United States, though founded on the precept that all members of the human race “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” incongruously maintained a system of forced slavery that withheld the full benefits of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from multitudes. Many generations of people from African ethnicities were thus legally (but immorally) relegated to subhuman status. According to the 1860 census, there were about four million in the generation of slaves who were being held in servitude when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Civil War and the abolishment of slavery did not automatically end the injustice. A hundred years passed before the federal government banned segregation in public places and began in earnest to pass legislation safeguarding the civil rights of all people equally. Until then, freed slaves and their descendants in Southern states were literally relegated by law to the back of the bus and frequently treated with scorn or incivility because of the color of their skin.

I got a small taste of what it felt like to be bullied and discriminated against in the American South in the 1960s. I spent a lot of time traveling through rural Mississippi with my good friend John Perkins, a well-known black evangelical leader, preaching the gospel in segregated black high schools. During one of those trips, as we drove down a dirt road, a local sheriff—an openly bigoted character straight out of In the Heat of the Night—took me into custody, held me in his jail, and accused me of disturbing the peace. He also confiscated (and kept) all my money. He ultimately released me without filing charges. I suppose he considered the money he took from me an adequate fine for doing something he disapproved of.

 Revelation 20:4-6, Isaiah 1-66

Future Things: The Way Things Ought to Be

INTRO:  “The Way Things Ought to Be” -VS- the way things often are.

What about the Future Kingdom of Christ so energizes, strengthens, encourages, and mobilizes true believers?

The prophesied future is intended to impact the here and now!  

5 characteristics define the future Millennial Kingdom

As we take a jet tour overview of Isaiah keep track whenever you hear about:

1) Liberty and Justice for All

2) Peace in the Middle East (and beyond)

3) “Universal Healthcare”

4) “Eden-like” Conditions

5) Salvation Near and Far!

For Further Reflection/Application:  We must be doers of the Word and not merely hearers

What aspects of the “curse” have impacted your personal life the most?  List 2-3 things.

When life is too good why is it so tempting/easy to lose sight of “the age to come?” 

God commands believers to live each day in light of eternity (Col. 3:1-4)

How does God use trials in our life to make us more faithful believers? 

Note Romans 5:1-5; James 1:2-4; 2 Cor. 4:16-18

How does biblical prophecy help us get through the darkest valleys of life? 

Related Praise Songs:  Theology fuels Doxology!  We dig deeply in order that we may go high!

Joy to the World-

Crown Him With Many Crowns!

The Hallelujah Chorus-

Jesus Shall Reign- Keith and Kristyn Getty

A Biblical Critique of the "Attractional Church" Model (and a Proposed Solution)

Photo Credit: churchleaders.com

"So Ed Young is at it again. Last week he announced a forthcoming sermon series titled 'Wrastlin’ and did so through a video that is nothing short of absurd. “Over four weeks this September, Ed Young and Fellowship Church welcome four legendary guests from the world of professional wrestling – Ric Flair, The Undertaker, The Million Dollar Man, and Sting!” You can probably guess the premise of the series: “The Bible often compares the Christian life to that of a warrior, a wrestler. Wrestling is a metaphor commonly used in the Christian life and one that will remind us that no matter what, God is ready and able to step in between the ropes and help us overcome any challenge we face!”

This series may represent “peak attractional,” which is to say, it may mark the moment the attractional church model finally hit rock bottom (though you could probably make the case Young already achieved that the day he got into bed with his wife on the church roof). I’m almost afraid to ask: Can the model possibly become more of a parody of itself?

The attractional church is, according to Jared Wilson, a “ministry paradigm that has embraced consumerism, pragmatism, and moralism as its operational values.” It assumes that the greatest and highest purpose of the church service is to evangelize unbelievers rather than to encourage and disciple believers. It assumes we are responsible to do whatever it takes to get people through the doors of the church. It assumes that we shouldn’t do or say anything within a service that may make unbelievers uncomfortable. It assumes that growing numbers are a necessary indication of God’s favor.

The attractional church model has been tried and found exceptionally successfully in its ability to draw massive crowds (though it seems these crowds are less likely to be comprised of unchurched people with genuine spiritual questions than churched people who come from smaller, less attractive congregations). The attractional church model has been tried and found exceptionally wanting in its ability to draw people into a living relationship with the Lord that results in their spiritual maturation and reproduction. Yet it lives on in a thousand megachurches and a million smaller imitators.