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Portland area conference on reformed theology (Feb 25-26)

February 7, 2011 in Uncategorized with 5 Comments

The Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology will be held in the Portland area this year (Feb. 25-26). The conference will focus on the renewed emphasis on a theology of adoption, with the theme “Children of God: Adopted into the Father’s Love.”

Speakers include Dr. Steve Lawson, Dr. Joel Beeke, Rev. Al Martin, and Rev. Richard Phillips. The conference is being held at the Estacada Christian Church on February 25 and 26 with the conference concluding with the Lord’s Day worship on February 27. If you would like more information or would like to register log on to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals website: www.alliancenet.org and register.

As the website explains:

Reformed Christians are thoroughly conversant with the language of justification and sanctification, but adoption seems to have fallen out of our vocabulary. This would be a shocking situation to Christians of prior generations. A lack of awareness of our adoption in Christ only paralyzes a Christian’s experience of divine grace. As Paul saw it, our adoption is integral to the good news of the gospel: “You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal. 4:7)!
It is a Christian’s adoption in Christ that holds together the categories of justification and sanctification. All who believe are made sons of God and partakers of the divine nature. No wonder John exclaimed: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn. 3:1). Adoption is what a Christian is saved to through faith in Christ, a personal, family bond of love, life, blessing, and calling. As children of God we have family privileges and family obligations: to know and embrace these is to enter into the fullness of vital Christian living. Indeed, so central is the idea of adoption to God’s saving plan that the final glorification of the entire cosmos is bound up with our entering into the family inheritance: “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). Given the awesome biblical teaching on adoption, we are not wrong in stating that at the very heart of Christianity is the gathering of the children of God into the Father’s love though the saving achievement of God’s Son. What great truths for us to know and embrace!
We will study the distinctive approaches of Paul and John in teaching divine sonship and plumb its significance for living as believers in Christ. How does our adoption change our attitude towards history and towards the Church? What does the Bible teach me to expect of God as my Father if I am now His beloved child? In our seminars, we will expand the focus to consider the place of children in the Church, the place of God as Father in our preaching of the gospel, and biblical distinctives on gender in the life of the Church. May God bless us as we gather before the Scriptures to study the biblical doctrine of adoption, all to the glory of our elder Brother, God’s true Son, Jesus Christ.

Free audiobook – Adopted for Life

February 1, 2011 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

This month’s free audiobook from ChristianAudio.com is Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches. According to Fred Sanders this is “the most important book” in the recent revival of evangelical interest in adoption.  So, if you’re into audiobooks, this one should be worth checking out.

A prayer for Sunday from Charles Haddon Spurgeon

January 30, 2011 in Prayers, Uncategorized with 2 Comments

Since tomorrow is the anniversary of Charles H. Spurgeon’s death, our Sunday prayer for this week will come from him.

….There was a time when we feared You, O God, with the fear of bondage. Now we reverence, but we love as much as we reverence. The thought of Your Omnipresence was once horrible to us. We said: “Where shall we flee from His presence?” and it seemed to make hell itself more dreadful because we heard a voice, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there:” But now, O Lord, we desire to find You. Our longing is to feel Your presence, and it is the heaven of heavens when You are there. The sick bed is soft when You are there. The furnace of affliction grows cool when You are there, and the house of prayer when You are present is none other than the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven.

Come near, our Father, come very near to Your children. Some of us are very weak in body and faint in heart. Soon, O God, lay Your right hand on us and say to us, “Fear not.” Perhaps, some of us are alike, and the world is attracting us. Come near to kill the influence of the world with Your superior power.

Even to worship may not seem easy to some. The dragon seems to pursue them, and floods out of his mouth wash away their devotion. Give to them great wings as of an eagle, that each one may fly away in the place prepared for him and rest in the presence of God today.

Our Father, come and rest Your children now. Take the helmet from our brow, remove from us the weight of our heavy armor for awhile, and may we just have peace, perfect peace, and be at rest. Oh! help us, we pray You, now….

11 Trends for Churches in 2011

January 29, 2011 in Uncategorized with 16 Comments

According to Will Mancini, we can expect smaller churches to thrive in 2011, especially those who tap into social media and online technologies. Here’s his list of 11 trends for 2011 and the years to come. Visit his post for more explanation and discussion of each one.

  1. Increasing diversity of opinion about what good vision and strategy look like.
  2. Articulating the biggest picture will be the leader’s greatest asset.
  3. Social media will open new possibilities for more churches.
  4. Visioning and spiritual formation will emerge more visibly as disciplines.
  5. Small will continue to be the new big.
  6. Networks will become the new denominations.
  7. Leaders will pay more attention to shorter time horizons.
  8. The intersection of personal and organizational vision will be magnified.
  9. Visioning will involve making meaning rather than predicting the future.
  10. External focus and biblical justice will stay prominent.
  11. Churches will consult for vision clarity rather than for capital campaigns.

One interesting quote from the article:

Every church leader is saturated with countless best practices, bombarded with more communication, and ministering to people struggling with increasingly complex lives. This gives us a hyper-need for clarity. Communicating Jesus-centered meaning in life has never had more competition. The best leaders won’t take the most basic assumptions for granted.

HT Out of Ur

The Journal of Universal Rejection

January 26, 2011 in Humor, Uncategorized with 3 Comments

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Finally, an academic journal you can submit articles to and not have to wonder what their response will be. According to the website,

The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected.

And, if that’s not good enough, here are some of the other benefits the journal offers aspiring authors:

  • You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding the eventual fate of your submission. You know with 100% certainty that it will not be accepted for publication.
  • There are no page-fees.
  • You may claim to have submitted to the most prestigious journal (judged by acceptance rate).
  • The JofUR is one-of-a-kind. Merely submitting work to it may be considered a badge of honor.
  • You retain complete rights to your work, and are free to resubmit to other journals even before our review process is complete.
  • Decisions are often (though not always) rendered within hours of submission.

Or, if you’re not interested in submitting an article and just want to read it, here’s the subscription information:

An individual subscription may be secured for £120 per year (four issues). Institutional and library subscriptions are also available; prices will be provided upon enquiry. It is unknown whether the subscription will be delivered in print or as electronic content, because no one has yet ordered one.

HT Neatorama

Are men inherently better leaders?

January 25, 2011 in Uncategorized with 81 Comments

Many people are going to read the title to this post and dismiss the question as absurd. Of course not. But, I often encounter people who assume that the answer to this question must be “yes” based on their conviction that God has ordained men to be leaders in the church. I’d like to address this latter group.

The question, then, is this: If you are a complementarian – i.e. if you believe that God has ordained men to particular leadership roles in the church – do you need to believe that men are inherently better leaders?

Let me make this easy….no.

The logic that seems to convince complementarians otherwise runs (loosely)  like this:

  1. Being a leader entails having certain qualities/attributes.
  2. God ordained men to be leaders in the church.
  3. God wouldn’t ordain men to be leaders unless he had given them the requisite qualities/attributes.
  4. Therefore, men have the requisite qualities/attributes for being leaders in the church.
  5. God wouldn’t limit these leadership roles to men unless they possessed the necessary qualities/attributes of leadership in unique ways.
  6. Therefore, men inherently possess at least some of the necessary qualities/attributes in a way or to a degree that women do not.
  7. And, therefore, men are inherently better leaders (at least in the church).

This argument, though, has a number of key problems, and several of them arise with the very first statement: “Being a leader entails having certain qualities/attributes.” Right away you’re faced with a number of challenging difficulties:

  • There is no agreed upon set of qualities/attributes necessary for being a leader. Just read the literature. Everyone who studies the question seems to have their own definition of what it means to be a leader.
  • There is no research to support the conclusion that men disproportionately manifest the qualities of being an effective leader (whatever those are). Here you realize that even if you manage to identify the qualities necessary for being a leader, you simply have no evidence for concluding that men possess these qualities any more than women do.
  • Even if you could find research to support the conclusion that men exhibit some leadership quality disproportionately more than women, you would still need to determine why that is the case. For example, let’s say that a study concluded that men are more decisive in decision-making than women. (I’m not aware of any such study, but let’s pretend.) That still would not prove your case because it’s entirely possible that the difference comes from societal expectations of how boys and girls should behave, how they should be raised, the kinds of decisions they should be involved in, etc. So, even a statistical variance would be a far cry from proving your case.
  • Descriptions of “leadership” are often driven more by culture than theology. If we change the picture and focus on the qualities that Jesus exhibited during his earthy ministry – for example, compassion, patient suffering, gratitude, humility, gentleness, nurturing, etc. – would we still be trying to argue that men exhibit these qualities disproportionately more than women? Good luck with that.

I could probably add other arguments, but these seem sufficient to establish that the first step in this argument faces some significant difficulties.

Skipping past the second assertion since I’m only focusing on people who believe this to be true, there are also significant problems with the third assertion: “God wouldn’t ordain men to be leaders unless he had given them the requisite qualities/attributes.”

Really? What would lead us to believe that this is necessarily the case? Throughout the Bible God apparently delights in calling people into positions of leadership who seem obviously unqualified for the position: Moses, David, Saul, etc. These were deeply flawed individuals who often serve as better examples of how to sin effectively than how to lead appropriately. Indeed, God’s grace is often displayed better by accomplishing his plans and purposes through the outcast, the lowly, and the ungifted. Viewed from this perspective, then, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the complementarian to assume that men may actually be less gifted in leadership than women, but that God has called them into leadership anyway and that he will graciously empower them for and support them in this calling? Why presume that people must be gifted before God calls them to a particular task? Did the donkey have the gift of speech before God called it to speak to Balaam? (Yes, I did just compare Christian men to a talking donkey.)

And, once you’ve called into question the first and third assertions, the argument really has nowhere to go. (You could also pick on the fifth assertion if you really felt the need to destroy this argument a bit more.)

Now again, none of this has anything to do with whether it is correct to believe that God has ordained men to specific leadership roles in the church. That is a completely separate issue. I just want to point out that there is no necessary connection between complementarianism and the belief that men inherently possess some quality or qualities that make them better leaders. Leadership is a function, not an attribute. The real question is not whether you have the essential/inherent qualities necessary for being a good leader, as though God depended on our capacities and abilities to accomplish his purposes. The real question is whether God in his grace has called you to be a leader in his church and how you will do so as faithfully as possible with everything that he has given you.

A Symphony of Science: Auto-tuning the Big Bang

January 21, 2011 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

The Symphony of Science is a video project that re-mixes clips from world-famous scientists and puts them to music. The latest installment focuses on the origin of the universe (e.g. Big Bang theory, formation of galaxies, matter/anti-matter, etc.), featuring Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Tara Shears, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

It’s well done and would be a great introduction to a discussion on the topic.

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Flotsam and jetsam (1/19)

January 19, 2011 in Misc, Uncategorized with 2 Comments

I’ve noticed in the last few years a real bandwagon of anti-leadership sentiment in some circles. I think it started as a push-back to the “CEO” model/mentality in some, and as such, I’m sympathetic. But from there, it has progressed to where we now have many arguing that any concept of leadership in the church should be avoided.

I’ve noticed that people who do not read the original languages of the Bible sometimes think of those languages as somehow magical, as the key that can open any mystery and answer any question about the Bible. While reading the original languages is tremendously important and helpful and useful, such a reading by itself does not always magically result in clear and simple answers to controversial religious questions. There are limitations inherent in an appeal to an original language for determining the meaning of a text.

As the article indicates, countless PhD students spend years dedicated towards research that will perhaps never posit an actual job in their field. Supply is greater than demand as the article suggets. The future seems depressingly bleak then for doctoral students: They are treated as indentured servants by their superiors. They spend meaningful years that could have been put towards savings, retirement, and even more important—nurturing families.

  • Roger Olson and Michael Horton have had an interesting exchange on the nature of Arminianism (read the comments). In the process, Olson made a very good comment about fairly representing other perspectives:

I urge you, and all non-Arminians who describe our theology, to describe it as we describe it and then go on to explain why you disagree….Fairness is the issue here.

The message of the Bible in one sentence

January 12, 2011 in Uncategorized with 16 Comments

Dane Ortlund recently 25 pastors and scholars to summarize the core message of the Bible in one sentence. Talk about a daunting task! The responses he received are fascinating. I’d be very interested in knowing who you think did the best job. So, head over there and check out the post. But make sure you come back and let us know what you thought.

Dane did a great job with the post, but I think he should have made it a contest and handed out awards for the answers. Since he didn’t, I’ll do it for him.

  • Greg Beale (winner of the longest answer award): 

The OT storyline appears best to be summarized as: the historical story of God who progressively reestablishes his new creational kingdom out of chaos over a sinful people by his word and Spirit through promise, covenant, and redemption, resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to extend that new creation rule and resulting in judgment for the unfaithful (defeat and exile), all of which issues into his glory; the NT storyline can be summarized as: Jesus’ life of covenantal obedience, trials, judgmental death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit has launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-and-not-yet promised new creation reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to extend this new creation rule and resulting in judgment for the unfaithful, unto God’s glory.

The message of the Bible in one sentence is that genuine truth, unlike every human philosophy, is far too luxuriant, too enthralling, too personal, too all-encompassing, too sovereign, and too life-changing to be reducible to one sentence (or, as Einstein once put it, the challenge is to ‘make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler’).

  • Andreas Kostenberger (winner of the “I’ll quote Jesus because no one can argue with him” award):

‘God so loved the world that the gave his one and only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).

  • Ray Ortlund (winner of both the touchy/feely and pink fuzzy awards):

The Lover of our souls won’t let the romance die, but is rekindling it forever.

  • Mark Seifrid (winner of the “no one knows what I’m talking about” award):

Verbum caro factum est.

  • Doug Wilson (winner of “the most creatively worded answer” award):

Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City

Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City

A prayer for Sunday from John Wesley

January 9, 2011 in Prayers, Uncategorized with 3 Comments

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt;
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low by thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

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