A False Gospel, Says Piper…Amen, Says I

The Jockey

The Gospel in a Nutshell

During Kids Rock last night (that’s our Wednesday night children’s time – I hate the word ‘program’), I was teaching on the righteousness of God, and what it means to be righteous before God. It was a great opportunity to work back through the gospel yet again with these young minds, ages 3 through 12. In the process of explaining to them what the gospel is in light of the only way we can be in right standing before God (Him declaring us righteous), I thought of John Newton’s line in the movie about William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace. In one scene, Newton is talking with Wilberforce and makes the following observation, “One thing I know more and more each day…I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior“.

Wow! What a great and simple description of the gospel (though obviously not a thorough one). And I used it last night, drawing a distinction between ourselves and our Saviour, between our righteousness and the righteousness that is required to be in a condition that is acceptable to a holy and just God.

I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.

How true.

The Northampton Press

I would like to bring your attention to the upcoming release of two new titles from the publishing wing of Don Kistler Ministries, which is called The Northampton Press. Some of you may still not be aware that Dr. Kistler is no longer associated with Soli Deo Gloria Books, but has started a new publishing venture. The following is the description from their site which describes Northampton’s focus:

The Northampton Press is committed to reprinting some of the finest Christian literature ever published, with a focus on the 17th and 18th century English and American Puritans. There are literally thousands of books from that period that were not reprinted after their initial publication, titles that honor Christ, exalt God, and call believers to live lives that are worthy of Him and pleasing to Him.

The logo for The Northampton Press is an artist’s rendering of the church at Northampton, MA during the time Solomon Stoddard and Jonathan Edwards ministered there.

We are hoping to produce 6-10 new titles each year. Please check back from time to time for announcements of new titles.

Here are the two new titles coming out this week (click on the images to find out more):

Heaven Taken by Storm – Thomas Watson

Sermons on Important Doctrines – John Colquhoun

Limited-Time Two-Book Special if purchased together

Check them out.

John Piper vs. Mark Driscoll

There was a Q&A late last night after Piper gave his third message at the Resurgence Conference in Seattle (I really hope they make that Q&A session available, because it is worth your time). They had collected text-messaged questions all during Piper’s last session, and then he, Matt Chandler and Mark Driscoll sat up on stage and responded to the questions as they appeared on the wide-screen TV beside them. About four or five in, one question popped up concerning contextualization and being relevant in preaching. Chandler responded first, and then Piper unashamedly made a distinction between himself and Mark Driscoll on this issue. He began by acknowledging that Driscoll would disagree with him on this point (the necessity to be culturally relevant), and then he said that if he did all the things Mark does to stay culturally relevant, he [Piper] would die spiritually. He said that he would literally die inside (or something to that effect). He admitted that he doesn’t know how Mark does it (being up on all the worldly stuff – television shows, secular books, etc.), and also said that if he himself did what Mark does, he wouldn’t have any time for his Bible.

The final point he made about being relevant was that the only thing that IS relevant is Scripture. He held up his Bible and said to the audience, “Stay as close to this as you can, because it is the only thing that is relevant!”

Amen Pastor Piper!

TRIVIA: How long has Piper lived without a television? He commented that he has not had a TV since he was 17!

PIPER’S MESSAGES

Abraham Piper has posted Pastor Piper’s messages from the conference on the DG Blog. I was able to watch the last two live through the video feed from the conference, and they are worth your time. Here are all three (Piper’s notes for each message are also there in case you are not able to listen to the audio):

Reasons to Trust the Bible

How Pastoring Shapes Preaching

Distinguishing the True Gospel

Let’s Work Like Arminians and Sleep Like Calvinists

I have been watching some of the sessions being streamed live from the Resurgence Conference out in Seattle the last two days, and the title above is a statement that was made by Matt Chandler, the preaching pastor at The Village Church in Dallas, TX. He had some great comments, including the title of this post.

Here are some other remarks made by him:

“You think you are a cool pastor now because you drink beer and cuss. You are not.”

“If you want to draw a crowd, you are going to sell out [the gospel]. Preach faithfully and well and let God grow the church.”

“We need to use less combative language.”

“We must reaffirm our faith in the sufficiency of Scripture.”

“We must take progressive sanctification very, very seriously. Church discipline is a must.”

“I have often wondered if God has removed some of his common grace from this country.”

“We must strive to reveal to our hearers Christ in the text.” – He talked a lot about the importance of showing how Christ is in every text of Scripture.

NOTEWORTHY: In his address to the potential church planters there, Driscoll, in telling the audience to make sure of their calling into ministry, said that he himself was spoken to directly by God! He said, “God spoke audibly to me.” I thought that was interesting. That’s quite an honor to have been talked to directly by God and called into ministry that way. It puts him right up there with the likes of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Ezekiel, and Paul. It makes me a little envious, to be honest. All I have is the Scriptures.

Upward Turns Inward

This was our third year participating in an Upward basketball program at one of the local churches in the area. I have commented before on the gospel-less “testimonies” which take place during halftime, and now I would like to describe to you what took place last night at the Upward Celebration.

The entertainment for this year’s event was actually pretty good. Usually there will be a juggler or comedy or magic act prior to the giving out of the momentos for the year (duffel bag, basketball, picture frame, etc.), and the thanks to the coaches and directors for a great season. Last night we were treated to a young man who painted images of Christ on extremely large canvases while music was playing. He is very talented, to be sure, though what came out of his mouth was totally void of the gospel.

The real upsetting thing occurred right at the end of the evening when a woman got up and sang the song, “I believe I Can Fly“. My youngest son recognized it right away as the theme song from Space Jam with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes cartoon characters (yes, I’m a Looney Tunes fanatic). This was perhaps the first time I really listened to the lyrics, maybe because it was being sung within the walls of a church to hundreds of impressionable kids. I was simply shocked at its message, and even more shocked that undershepherds of Christ’s Bride would allow such a song to be sung on their watch. Here are the main verses of the song:

I used to think that I could not go on
And life was nothing but an awful song
But now I know the meaning of true love
I’m leaning on the everlasting arms

So good so far, right? Let’s move on to the chorus…

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly

Still nothing really alarming yet, but wait, it gets better…

See I was on the verge of breaking down
Sometimes silence can seem so loud
There are miracles in life I must achieve
But first I know it starts inside of me, oh

If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

Hey, cuz I believe in me, oh

If I can see it, then I can be it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

I put in bold the lines that really grabbed my attention as this young lady was singing last night. Pam told me this morning as I was showing her the lyrics that she didn’t think it was supposed to be a song to be sung in church. Exactly! Sadly, though, I fear the message conveyed in it is actually what a great majority of the church believes about their own salvation and the gospel in general. Yes, they must assent to it, but it is something they can do on their own for, as the song says, “first I know it starts inside of me“, and, “if I see it, I can do it, if I believe it, there’s nothing to it“. The whole thing almost has a word-of-faith feel to it.

The night was concluded with a prayer from the pastor of this local church who, in praying to God, acknowledged to Him that we all start off with a clean canvas!

Feel free to share your thoughts.

A Seeker-Sensitive Tribute

(HT: CRN)

When in Rome…

There is an English idiom which goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” This phrase simply means that, when you are in or visiting a certain place, you should do and act as the people do who are from that place. If you are in Atlanta, then you should walk and talk like Atlantans. When you are in Toronto, you should act like a Torontian (is that the right way to say it?). And when you are in Rome, you should act as the people do in Rome.

There is a conference beginning today out in Seattle, called The National Resurgence Conference: Text and Context, which is being hosted by Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church. If you are familiar at all with the debate surrounding Driscoll, you will understand what I mean when I say that Mark’s motto for preaching and teaching is, “When in Seattle, do as the Seattleans do.” This has been the focus of his method for preaching, and it is why he is so controversial, and it is the defense cry of his supporters. They repeatedly say that the way Mark talks in Seattle is fine (and necessary to relate), but would not be fine elsewhere because the audience (demographics, social class, etc) would not be the same. Basically, when in Rome…

Now, here is what I am waiting to see once the conference starts, and you tell me if this is not consistent with the whole philosophy of ministry being put forth by Driscoll and his supporters. The cast of speakers at this conference includes John Piper and C.J. Mahaney, two of our national heroes of the faith (if I can call them that) who have publicly embraced Driscoll and his methods. If Driscoll’s philosophy is correct as far as the way he addresses his audience in Seattle, then I would expect Piper, Mahaney and the other speakers to talk like he talks while in Seattle for the Resurgence Conference. And I will be very confused if they do not. Furthermore, if they do not talk like Mark talks while they are in Seattle (but instead deliver their messages as they normally do), and Mark is effective there because of his culturally relevant contextualization, then I would expect the audience there to be cold and unresponsive toward Piper, Mahaney and the other speakers, and I would expect their messages to pretty much fall on deaf ears.

Granted, there will be a mixture of culture there, since this is a conference, but I suspect the great majority of those present will be Driscoll supporters/wannabe types who either live in the area (and will be watching from all the overflow sites where the conference will be simulcast) or are looking to plant a church through the Acts 29 Network, and model what Driscoll has done at Mars Hill.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what all the speakers do (as well as to see if Mark changes his own delivery), seeing as they are in Rome, so to speak. And when in Rome…

Red Letter Christians

Many Bibles have two colors of text: red for the words of Christ in the New Testament, and black for everything else. I remember a guy at a former church telling me that he started with the words of Jesus (the red letters), and then interpreted everything else through them, as if they carried more weight in Scripture than the others. Do they? Should we place more weight onto Christ’s words than the rest of the Bible? Tony Campolo thinks we should. Tim Challies, in reviewing Campolo’s new book, Red Letter Christians, says,

The focus on the red letters means that they [Campolo, Brian McLaren, others] will seek to look to the red letters as their guide to understanding the black. They will look first to Jesus before Paul or any other biblical author. This leads to a concern with social justice. Campolo says that poverty is a major concern to Red Letter Christians and he makes [that] clear throughout the book. From reading this book I’d actually conclude that it is the predominant concern.

Another predominate concern for Campolo seems to be virtually anything except  the truth that can be found in the black AND red letters of our Bibles. Instead, he has focused his efforts on a social gospel, pushing for reform through political means on a variety of issues. Here is what I posted over at Challies in reply to his review of the book:

The focus on the red letters means that they will seek to look to the red letters as their guide to understanding the black. They will look first to Jesus before Paul or any other biblical author.

If what Tim says here is true (and I trust it is), then looking to the red letters FIRST is, in fact, placing more importance on them than on the black letters.

This is more than just a re-emphasis.

According to Campolo, he emphasizes “red letters because [he] believe[s] you can only properly understand the rest of the Bible when you read it from Christ’s perspective.”

That is using the ‘red’ letters as a primer (a decoder), so to speak. It is taking everything else and interpreting it through the words of Christ. It is making the red letters more important than the black letters.

Finally, this “We Red-Letter Christians” chant is nothing more than a social gospel, attempting to effect change (such as help for the poor) through political means rather than through the church. What really bothers me is how flippantly they brush aside the most crucial “social” issue of our time – ABORTION. The church is turning a blind eye to the slaughter of over 115,000 babies today alone (almost 7 million so far this year), and these guys want to start a new christo-politco movement to push their agenda?

Now, if they were putting out all this rhetoric on how they plan to fight the murder of the helpless in this land, I might give them another look. Instead, they want to beat their chests about things like malnutrition, foreclosures, and environmentalism.

Instead of starting up yet another social gospel organization under the name of Christ, why not just join forces with Warren and his PEACE plan? Really, what’s the difference? Better yet, how about taking all that energy and cry out to God that his church would once again be the pillar and support of the truth, starting with themselves?!?!

Am I off base? Let me know where and how.