What is the danger of altar calls?

Paul Alexander writes:

1. The altar call confuses “coming forward” with coming to Christ. In order to be saved, people must repent of their sins and believe in Christ, which has nothing to do with walking down an aisle.
2. The altar call may deceive people about their spiritual state. The altar call encourages people to think that they have been saved because they’ve come forward and prayed a prayer. But this isn’t necessarily true:the outward response of coming down to the front is no guarantee of genuine faith and repentance. So, the altar call may lead people who haven’t repented of their sins and trusted in Christ to think they’re Christians.
3. The altar call may encourage people to base their assurance of salvation on their decision—a one-time event in the past—rather than on Christ’s work for us and in us.
4. The altar call confuses “coming forward” with baptism. According to the New Testament, baptism is the way Christians are to publicly profess their faith in Christ (Acts 2:41). The altar call threatens to replace God’s way for Christians to profess their faith.

(This material has been adapted from Paul Alexander’s article “Altar Call Evangelism”)

True and Better

(HT: Timmy Brister)

Why Do We Need So Many Books on the Gospel?

By Dane Ortlund:

After all, after 2,000 years, don’t we know by now what the gospel is? Haven’t we “been-there-done-that”? Why do we need one book after another on the same old topic?

1. Because the gospel is “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3). In describing his ministry—a ministry that communicated “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27)—Paul described it as testifying “to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
2. Because you’re going to roll out of bed tomorrow a functional Pharisee. The instincts beneath your instincts, the impulses way down deep inside you, are law, not gospel. A good night’s sleep, not a heretical sermon, is all it takes to forget the gospel of grace.
3. Because the gospel is disputed and debated today. What is the gospel? What are the implications of the gospel? What is the relationship between the gospel and the kingdom of God? How does the gospel relate to growth in godliness? What is the connection between the gospel and community? These questions need answers from different people, with different voices and different backgrounds, who love the same gospel.
4. Because the church is always one generation away from losing the gospel. Every generation must rediscover the glories of free grace for itself.
5. Because for every book exulting in or explaining or defending the gospel, a hundred more roll off the press which, wittingly or unwittingly, distract us from that which is of first importance.
6. Because the gospel is the central message of the entire Bible. Jesus said that even Moses was writing, ultimately, about him (John 5:46). The last verse of the Bible sums up the core message of the Bible: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen” (Rev. 22:21).

The gospel is the scandalous news that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our disobedience cannot dent God’s approval of us and our obedience cannot help God’s approval of us, as we look in trusting faith to Christ. And the priority of this gospel, the functional need of the gospel, the contesting of the gospel, the retaining of the gospel, the constant sidelining of the gospel, and the unified biblical testimony to the gospel all unite to say—yes, we need more books on this gospel.

Dane Ortlund is senior editor in the Bible Division at Crossway and blogs at Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology.

Smuggling Character Into Grace

“The glory of the gospel is that God has declared Christians to be rightly related to him in spite of their sin. But our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle character into his work of grace. How easily we fall into the trap of assuming that we remain justified only so long as there are grounds in our character for our justification. But Paul’s teaching is that nothing we do ever contributes to our justification. So powerful was his emphasis on this that men accused him of teaching that it did not matter how they lived if God justified them. If God justifies us as we are, what is the point of holiness? There is still a sense in which this is a test of whether we offer the world the grace of God in the gospel. Does it make men say: ‘You are offering grace that is so free it doesn’t make any difference how you live’? This was precisely the objection the Pharisees had to Jesus’ teaching!” – Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction, pages 82-83

(HT: Josh Harris)

Why Doctrine Matters

By Jonathan Parnell:

One step before the details of what you believe is the question of why it matters. Simply put, what you believe matters because it’s what tells you how to live—and something is always telling everyone. Kevin Vanhoozer explains:

One’s life is moving in one direction or another, taking one kind of shape or another. As Pascal remarked: “Our nature consists in movement. Absolute rest is death.” To the extent that we are always following some direction or other, our very lives are “indoctrinated.” The only question is whether the doctrine that informs one’s life is governed by the Christian gospel or by some other story, some other script (The Drama of Doctrine, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005], 105).

In particular for the Christian, doctrine is not mere guidance, but perpetual conformity. Vanhoozer again:

The purpose of doctrine is to conform us to the truth, and we conform to the truth by bearing true witness to what God has done and is doing in Christ through the Spirit. We bear true witness by speaking, and embodying, the truth in love. To embody the truth of the gospel is to live in such a way that one’s word and deeds are testimonies to the love and knowledge of God that were made manifest “in Christ” (397).

Are Evangelicals Doctrinally Weak?

In the book God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards, Piper writes about the present state of evangelicalism:

I resonate with the lament of Os Guinness and David Wells that evangelicalism today is basking briefly in the sunlight of hollow success. Evangelical industries of television and radio and publishing and music recordings, as well as hundreds of growing mega-churches and some highly visible public figures and political movements, give outward impressions of vitality and strength. But both Wells and Guinness, in their own ways, have called attention to the hollowing out of evangelicalism from within.

In other words, the strong timber of the tree of evangelicalism has historically been the great doctrines of the Bible—God’s glorious perfections, man’s fallen nature, the wonders of redemptive history, the magnificent work of redemption in Christ, the saving and sanctifying work of grace in the soul, the great mission of the church in conflict with the world and the flesh and the devil, and the greatness of our hope of everlasting joy at God’s right hand. These things once defined us and were the strong fiber and timber beneath the fragile leaves and fruit of our religious experiences. But this is the case less and less. And that is why the waving leaves of success and the sweet fruit of prosperity are not as auspicious to David Wells and Os Guinness as they are to many. It is a hollow triumph, and the tree is getting weaker and weaker while the branches are waving in the sun.

John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 67-68.

Read the book free online or purchase at the Desiring God store.

(HT: Desiring God blog)

The Gospel Anchor to the Church’s Identity

By Jonathan Parnell:

In A Light to the Nations, Michael Goheen explains the need to understand the nature of the Church (ecclesiology) in order to recover her missional role.

He writes:

Ecclesiology is about understanding our identity, who we are, and why God has chosen us—whose we are. If we do not develop our self-understanding in terms of the role that we have been called to play in the biblical drama, we will find ourselves shaped by the idolatrous story in the dominant culture (5).

The foundation to the Church’s identity is the victorious work of Jesus Christ. He has intruded a fallen world with the dominion of a new age, died for our sins, conquered death by his resurrection, and acsended to reign as King over all. This is good news and Jesus has commissioned the Church to be its herald.

Goheen gives five starting points in the gospel that lead us to discover what the Church is supposed to be (18-21).

First, “the gospel demands of its hearers that it be accepted as the real story of our world, the one event in history on which all the rest turns.”

Second, the central theme of this story is “God’s purpose and activity to renew the entire creation and the whole of human life.”

Third, the central theme in the message of good news is the coming of the kingdom of God who through Jesus triumphs over sin, death, and evil.

Fourth, God works out his redemptive purposes by “choosing a people to make known to all where history is leading.”

Fifth, “the gospel reveals that this community chosen and sent by Jesus is both the beginning of something new and the continuation of something much older.”

Let God be God – Erasing Hell by Francis Chan

I Want to Be “Left Behind”

Benjamin L. Merkle, “Who Will Be Left Behind? Rethinking the Meaning of Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-35,” WTJ 72 (2010): 169-79.

Here’s his thesis, in essence: “Although many assume that those taken in Matt 24:40-41and Luke 17:34-35 are taken to be with Jesus and those left behind are left for judgment, this inter­pretation should be rejected.”

His conclusion summarizes his arguments:

Throughout the context of these passages Jesus uses judgment language reminiscent of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of its inhabitants. Those who were taken away were the ones judged by God whereas those left behind were the remnant who received grace.

Furthermore, the teaching of Jesus confirms this thesis. In the Parable of the Weeds the Son of Man sends his angels to gather out the children of the devil and throw them in the fiery furnace whereas the wheat is left behind (Matt 13:36-43).

The context of Matt 24 and Luke 17 also suggests Jesus is intentionally using judgment and remnant language. Such language naturally brings up images of the former destruction of Jerusalem where the enemy came and “took away” (i.e., killed) those in the city.

Finally, the parallel with Noah and the flood in the preceding verses strongly confirms our thesis. Just as in the days of Noah the people were taken away by the great flood, so those who are not prepared will be taken away when the Son of Man returns.

You can read his arguments in more detail here.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

John Piper on the ‘emerging church’

Twelve Reasons Why Membership Matters

By Jonathan Leeman

(The following is excerpted from Jonathan Leeman’s forthcoming book Why Church Membership? from Crossway, 2012).

1) It’s biblical. Jesus established the local church and all the apostles did their ministry through it. The Christian life in the New Testament is church life. Christians today should expect and desire the same.

2) The church is its members. To be “a church” in the New Testament is to be one of its members (read through Acts). And you want to be part of the church because that’s who Jesus came to rescue and reconcile to himself.

3) It’s a pre-requisite for the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is a meal for the gathered church, that is, for members (see 1 Cor. 11:20, 33). And you want to take the Lord’s Supper. It’s the team “jersey” which makes the church team visible to the nations.

4) It’s how to officially represent Jesus. Membership is the church’s affirmation that you are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom and therefore a card-carrying Jesus Representative before the nations. And you want to be an official Jesus Representative. Closely related to this…

5) It’s how to declare one’s highest allegiance. Your membership on the team, which becomes visible when you wear the “jersey,” is a public testimony that your highest allegiance belongs to Jesus. Trials and persecution may come, but your only words are, “I am with Jesus.”

6) It’s how to embody and experience biblical images. It’s within the accountability structures of the local church that Christians live out or embody what it means to be the “body of Christ,” the “temple of the Spirit,” the “family of God,” and so on for all the biblical metaphors (see 1 Cor. 12). And you want to experience the interconnectivity of his body, the spiritual fullness of his temple, and the safety and intimacy and shared identity of his family.

7) It’s how to serve other Christians. Membership helps you to know which Christians on Planet Earth you are specifically responsible to love, serve, warn, and encourage. It enables you to fulfill your biblical responsibilities to Christ’s body (for example, see Eph. 4:11-16; 25-32).

8) It’s how to follow Christian leaders. Membership helps you to know which Christian leaders on Planet Earth you are called to obey and follow. Again, it allows you to fulfill your biblical responsibility to them (see Heb. 13:7; 17).

9) It helps Christian leaders lead. Membership lets Christian leaders know which Christians on Planet Earth they will “give an account” for (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2).

10) It enables church discipline. It gives you the biblically prescribed place to participate in the work of church discipline responsibly, wisely, and lovingly (1 Cor. 5).

11) It gives structure to the Christian life. It places an individual Christian’s claim to “obey” and “follow” Jesus into a real-life setting where authority is actually exercised over us (see John 14:15; 1 John 2:19; 4:20-21).

12) It builds a witness and invites the nations. Membership puts the alternative rule of Christ on display for the watching universe (see Matt. 5:13; John 13:34-35; Eph. 3:10; 1 Peter 2:9-12). The very boundaries which are drawn around the membership of a church yields a society of people which invites the nations to something better.

Jonathan Leeman is the author of The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing Church Membership and Discipline (Crossway, 2010) and is the editorial director for 9Marks.

What Is the Book of Daniel Centrally About?

The central truth which Daniel taught Nebuchadnezzar in chapters 2 and 4, and of which he reminded Belshazzar in chapter 5 (vv. 18-23), and which Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged in chapter 4 (vv. 34-37), and which Darius confessed in chapter 6 (vv. 25-27), and which was the basis of Daniel’s prayers in chapters 2 and 9, and of his confidence in defying authority in chapters 1 and 6, and of his friends’ confidence in defying authority in chapter 3, and which formed the staple substance of all the disclosures which God made to Daniel in chapters 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, and 11-12, is the truth that ‘the most High rules in the kingdom of men’ (4:25; cf. 5:21).

He knows, and foreknows, all things, and His foreknowledge is foreordination; He, therefore, will have the last word, both in world history and in the destiny of every man; His kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart Him.

–J. I. Packer, Knowing God (IVP 1973), 25

(HT: Dane Ortlund)

Round-table discussion with Sproul and Ferguson, et al

Watch as R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Teaching Fellows Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, and R.C. Sproul Jr. engage in this round-table discussion (May 19, 2011) covering topics such as dispensationalism, regeneration, election, evangelism, and Harold Camping. Very highly recommended.

(HT: Reformation Theology)

When Does God Become 100% For Us?

John Piper writes:

What the Bible teaches is that God becomes 100% irrevocably for us at the moment of justification, that is, the moment when we see Christ as a beautiful Savior and receive him as our substitute punishment and our substitute perfection. All of God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve, was poured out on Jesus. All of God’s demands for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ. The moment we see (by grace!) this Treasure and receive him in this way his death counts as our death and his condemnation as our condemnation and his righteousness as our righteousness, and God becomes 100% irrevocably for us forever in that instant.

Read the entire article or listen to a devotional on the same topic that Pastor John gave to the pastoral staff at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

My Emma

The Woman Who Fears the Lord – Proverbs 31:10-31

An excellent wife who can find?

She is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

and he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good, and not harm,

all the days of her life.

She seeks wool and flax,

and works with willing hands.

She is like the ships of the merchant;

she brings her food from afar.

She rises while it is yet night

and provides food for her household

and portions for her maidens.

She considers a field and buys it;

with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.

She dresses herself with strength

and makes her arms strong.

She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.

Her lamp does not go out at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff,

and her hands hold the spindle.

She opens her hand to the poor

and reaches out her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid of snow for her household,

for all her household are clothed in scarlet.

She makes bed coverings for herself;

her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known in the gates

when he sits among the elders of the land.

She makes linen garments and sells them;

she delivers sashes to the merchant.

Strength and dignity are her clothing,

and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

“Many women have done excellently,

but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands,

and let her works praise her in the gates.

Quote of the Week

‎”I don’t practice spiritual disciplines to get God to love me, but to hear him say it.”

- Jimmy Davis

Judgement Day Today? – The Pastoral Challenge and Opportunity When the Rapture Doesn’t Happen

Some wise words from Eric Landry:

We must be very careful about how we respond. Will we join our friends at the “Rapture Parties” that are planned for pubs and living rooms around the nation? Will we laugh at those who have spent the last several months of their lives dedicated to a true but untimely belief? What will we say on Saturday night or Sunday morning?

History teaches us that previous generations caught up in eschatological fervor often fell away from Christ when their deeply held beliefs about the end of the world didn’t pan out. While Camping must answer for his false teaching at the end of the age, Reformational Christians are facing a pastoral problem come Sunday morning: how can we apply the salve of the Gospel to the wounded sheep who will be wandering aimlessly, having discovered that what they thought was true (so true they were willing to upend their lives over it) was not? If this isn’t true, they might reason, then what other deeply held beliefs and convictions and doctrines and hopes might not be true?

It’s at this point that we need to be ready to provide a reasonable defense of our reasonable faith. Christianity is not founded upon some complex Bible code that needs years of analysis to reveal its secret. Christianity is about a man who claimed to be God, who died in full public view as a criminal, and was inexplicably raised from the dead three days later appearing to a multitude of witnesses. When his followers, who witnessed his resurrection, began speaking of it publicly, they connected the prophecies of the Old Testament to the life and death and resurrection of this man who claimed the power to forgive sins. This is the heart of the Christian faith, the message that deserves to be featured on billboards, sides of buses, and pamphlets all over the world.  It is also the message that needs to be reinvested into the hearts and lives of those who found hope and meaning in Harold Camping’s latest bad idea.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

His Soul-Transforming Love

On one of his seven trips from Britain to America, George Whitefield was battling depression and feelings of failure and was stabilized finally only with meditation on God’s love in Jesus Christ.

Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, but a consideration of the freeness, eternity and unchangeableness of God’s love to me.

I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by . . . Jesus Christ. The riches of His free grace cause me daily to triumph over all the temptations of the wicked one. . . .

May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. Nothing like that, to support us under present and all the various future trials. . . . But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands.

–quoted in Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great EVangelist of the 18th Century Revival (2 vols; Banner of Truth, 1970, 1980), 1:407

(HT: Dane Ortlund)

Biblical Church Leadership

(HT: Timmy Brister)

Ordinary Churches

The following was written by D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge in the form of a fictional letter to a young pastor published in the book Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life, pages 226–227:

Feed people the Word of God, pray for them, love them, convey the reality of God’s presence to them by word and deed.

What is important at the end of the day is the church–ordinary churches trying to live faithfully in a rapidly changing society. Ordinary churches pastored by ordinary people like you and me, knowing that we cannot do everything, but trying to do what we can and seeking God’s face for His presence and blessing so that His dear Son might be honored and His people strengthened.

(HT: Tony Reinke)