Leithart on Faith & Reason

"We have...a conflict of various faith-reasons...."

For centuries, Christians have posed the dilemma of Christian theology as a problem of faith v. reason. That's a non-starter, a concession of defeat, for it assumes that there can be such a thing as a faith-free rationality. But there cannot be.

What we have is not a conflict of faith and reason, but a conflict of various faith-reasons or reason-faiths.

HT: Leithart

Luther on the Bible

The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.

Luther on Bible Study

I study my Bible as I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest might fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig. Then I look under every leaf.

Spurgeon on Rewards

"I do want to get a heavy crown in heaven--not to wear, but to have all the more costly gift to give to Christ. And you ought to desire the same, that you may have all the more honours, and so have the more to cast at his feet."

"Particular Election"
The New Park Street Pulpit, No. 123 Vol. III

C.S. Lewis on his conversion...

"I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around: He was the hunter (or so it seemed to me) and I was the deer. He stalked me like a redskin, took unerring aim, and fired. And I am very thankful that this is how the first (conscious) meeting occurred. It forearms one against subsequent fears that the whole thing was only wish fulfillment. Something one didn't wish for can hardly be that."

Spurgeon on Election

"I know nothing, nothing again, that is more humbling for us than this doctrine of election. I have sometimes fallen postrate before it, when endeavoring to understand it. I have stretched my wings, and eagle-like, I have soared towards the sun. Steady has been my eye, and true my wing, for a season; but, when I came near it, and the one thought possessed me,--"God hath chosen you from the beginning unto salvation," I was lost in its lustre, I was staggered with the mighty thought; and from the dizzy elevation down came my soul, postrate and broken, saying, "Lord, I am nothing, I am less than nothing. Why me? Why me?"

A.A. Hodge on Interpretations & Creeds

“…the Scriptures are from God, the understanding of them belongs to the part of men. Men must interpret to the best of their ability each particular part of Scripture separately, and then combine all that the Scriptures teach upon every subject into a consistent whole, and then adjust their teachings upon different subjects in mutual consistency as parts of a harmonious system. Every student of the Bible must do this, and all make it obvious that they do it by the terms they use in their prayers and religious discourse, whether they admit deny the propriety of human creeds and confessions. If they refuse the assistance afforded by the statements of doctrine slowly elaborated and defined by the Church, they must make out their own creed by their own unaided wisdom. The real question is not, as often pretended, between the word of God and the creed of man, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God’s people, and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the repudiator of creeds.”

A. A. Hodge, A Commentary on The Confession of Faith, 1926, p. 19-20.

Newbigin's Wager

“I am - in Pascal’s famous phrase - wagering my life that Jesus is the ultimate authority. My answer is a confession: I believe. It is a personal commitment to a faith that cannot be demonstrated on grounds established from the point of view of another commitment….The Christian commitment is distinguished in that it is a commitment to a belief about the whole of human experience in its entirety – namely, the belief that this meaning is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified, risen, and destined to reign over all things.”

Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 15.

Packer on "Being an Effective Witness"

“You are not usually justified in choosing the subject of conversation with another till you have already begun to give yourself to him in friendship and established a relationship with him in which he feels that you respect him, and are interested in him, and are treating him as a human being, and not just some kind of ‘case’. with some people, you may establish such a relationship in five minutes, whereas with others it might take months. But the principle remains the same. The right to talk intimately to another person about the Lord Jesus Christ has to be earned, and you earn it by convincing him that you are his friend, and really care about him. And therefore the indiscriminate buttonholing, the intrusive barging in to the privacy of other people’s souls, the thick-skinned insistence on expounding the things of God to reluctant strangers who are longing to get away—these modes of behaviour, in which strong and loquacious personalities have sometimes indulged in the name of personal evangelism, should be written off as a travesty of personal evangelism. Impersonal evangelism would be a better name for them! In fact, rudeness of this sort dishonours God; moreover, it creates resentment, and prejudices people against the Christ whose professed followers act so objectionably. The truth is that real personal evangelism is very costly, just because it demands of us a really personal relationship with the other man. We have to give ourselves in honest friendship to people, if ever our relationship with them is to reach the point which we are justified in choosing to talk to them about Christ, and can speak to them about their own spiritual needs without being either discourteous or offensive. If you wish to do personal evangelism, then—and I hope you do; you ought to—pray for the gift of friendship. A genuine friendliness is in any case a prime mark of the man who is learning to love his neighbor as himself.”

J. I . Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God, pp. 81-82.

Calvin's Prayer on Going to School

O Lord, you are the fountain of all wisdom and learning. Out of Your special goodness to me, You have granted that the years of my youth should be instructed in an education that can assist me to be honest and to live a life dedicated to You. I pray that You would also grant that my mind might be enlightened and energized, which sometimes is slow and lazy, so that I might be able to acquire more knowledge. Also, strengthen my memory so that I can remember what I have learned. And move my heart so that I may be willing and even eager to profit from what I have studied, or else the opportunity that You have given me to educate my mind will be lost through my sluggishness. I pray that You will be pleased to have Your Spirit work within me, the Spirit of understanding, so that my studies will be successful and that my teacher will not have wasted his or her time in teaching me.

In whatever I study, help me to keep this in mind: that I am to know You in Christ Jesus Your Son. May everything that I learn assist me to live a life that is pleasing to You. I pray that you will teach me to be humble, so that I will prove myself to be teachable and obedient to you first, and then to others that You may place in authority over me. Finally, in all that I do in school, let my goal be this: that I may be glorify You in all that I do, and in doing so, qualify myself to be a servant that You can use in whatever You will have me do when I grow up.

Amen.

John Stott on Church Community

The world’s third challenge, then, concerns the quality of the church’s fellowship. We proclaim that God is love, and that Jesus Christ offers true community. We insist that the church is part of the Gospel. God’s purpose, we say, is not merely to save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate their loneliness, but to build a church, to create a new society, even a new humanity, in which racial, national, social, sexual barriers have been abolished. Moreover, this new community of Jesus dares to present itself as the true alternative society, which eclipses the values and standards of the world.

It is a high-sounding claim. But the tragedy is that the church has consistently failed to live up to its own ideals. Its theological understanding of its calling may be impeccable. But, comparatively speaking, there is little acceptance, little caring and little supportive love among us. People searching for community ought to be pouring into our churches, especially if they offer a small-group experience. Instead, the church is usually the one place they do not even bother to check out, so sure are they that they will not find love there.

The Contemporary Christian, p. 235

49 Imperatives

Douglas Groothuis lists his 49 imperatives:

1. Get serious—about God, your soul, your neighbor, your culture, and the world (missions) Avoid trivia. Time is short. See Matthew 6:33.

2. Exegete your soul; exegete the Word; exegete the world. Never stop. Never slacken.

3. Beware of worldliness in all is forms. See Luke 16:15; 1 John 2:15-17; Romans 12:1-2. Worldliness makes godliness seem strange and vice seem normal and appropriate (David Wells). Worldliness may produce great gains for merely human religion, but not for biblical ministry.

4. Don’t let the measure of your ministry extend past the measure of your character. That is, never sacrifice godliness for “effectiveness” or “relevance.”

5. Do not fear misery if it leads to sanctity. See Matthew 5:4; James 4:1-10.

6. Learn to lament—over oneself, over others, over one’s culture, and over the church. Do so with emotional honesty and with biblical hope, based on objective truth revealed in Scripture. See Psalm 88; Ecclesiastes 7:1-5; Romans 8:18-26.

7. In your lamentation, be open to repentance (Matthew 4:17). Do not fear teaching and preaching about repentance. All the prophets preached it, including Jesus. Repentance is “the first word of the gospel.” Without repentance, there is no gospel and no Christian existence. Without it, there is no hope for the church or the culture.

8. Remember that you are always a solider in a spiritual war (Acts 13:1-12; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Peter 5:8-9). Demons are real; they don’t like you; you must resist them and their leader and submit to God alone (James 4). On this, see Mark Bubeck, Overcoming the Adversary (Moody); Gary Kinnaman, Overcoming The Dominion of Darkness.

9. The biblical concept of truth is that a true statement corresponds with or matches objective reality. While human knowing is corrupted by sin, knowledge of the things that matters most—divine and human—is possible, desirable, and pertinent.

10. Philosophy is not the enemy of Christianity. To the contrary, the Kingdom of God needs women and men who are philosophically trained and passionate about God and God’s Kingdom. See Acts 17:16-34.

11. Anti-intellectualism is a cruel pox on the face of evangelicalism. It must be removed through teaching, preaching, praying, writing, and living in a way that the truth is rationally and passionately presented.

12. Apologetics is vital to the life of the church and the work of the Kingdom. Never lose your concern for this area of Christian learning. See Isaiah 1:18; Jude 3; Acts 17:16-34; 1 Peter 3:15-17; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.

13. Postmodernism as a philosophy has nothing good to offer the church. Anything true it may affirm can be found in other more intellectually respectable philosophical systems. See Douglas Groothuis, Truth Decay (IVP, 2000).

14. Postmodernity, as a set of cultural conditions, needs to be taken very seriously with respect to Christian living and mission. Understand its defining features. Do not be bewitched by its allure. Critically use it to advance objective truth for a lost world. For example, consider writing a blog that advances Christian truth in a thoughtful and shrewd manner. See Matthew 10:16.

15. Expose the fact/value dichotomy wherever it corrupts thought—in the culture, the church, and your own soul. Christianity is true, rational, knowable, and pertinent. It must not be banished to a subjective netherworld of personal faith, spirituality, and values that “work for me.”

16. Develop a deeply biblical worldview and teach this to others. See Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 12:1-2. The categories of creation, fall, and redemption are felicitous in this regard. See Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Crossway, 2004).

17. The Intelligent Design movement is thrusting a wedge between empirical science and philosophical materialism such that the evidence for design in nature may emerge apart from dogmatic and a priori restrictions. Learn about, teach about, and support this movement. See William Dembski, The Design Revolution (IVP, 2004).

18. Understand and reflect upon the inherent weaknesses of American evangelicalism: its populism, its celebrity orientation, its fear of tradition, creeds, and confessions, its anti-intellectualism, its too often mindless embrace of technology and popular culture.

19. Understand and reflect upon the inherent strengths of American evangelicalism: its emphasis on conversion, its desire to win as many to Christ as possible, its entrepreneurialism, and its respect for the Bible.

20. Learn from the historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms of the Protestant Tradition. These can be found in The Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible.

21. Learn how God is using people from other cultures (both within your nation and beyond it) to advance his Kingdom. This helps one evaluate one’s own life, culture, and ministry. I have received invaluable insights from my African friends in this regard. See Phillip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, revised ed. (Oxford, 2007 ); The New Face of Christianity (Oxford, 2006)

22. The Ten Commandments summarize God’s law for believer and unbeliever. They are pertinent for all of life. Study them, teach them, and preach them in connection with “the whole counsel of God,” particularly the Sermon on the Mount.

23. Guard your heart carefully with respect to all sin, particularly sins related to money, sex, and power—the three that bring down the Christian leaders most often.

24. Make room for sabbatarian (Sunday) rest in your life. Otherwise, you will run on fumes and eventually burn out, taking yourself and likely many others down with you.

25. A well-integrated biblical system of ethics involves deontology, virtue, and consequences, as seen in the ethics of Jesus. See Douglas Groothuis, On Jesus (Wadsworth, 2003). This is in an indispensable part of a Christian worldview.

26. Christian leaders should research and develop cogent perspectives on pressing social issues such as abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, reproductive technologies, sexual ethics, war and peace, capital punishment, materialism, and the gender debates. This requires a sound knowledge of both facts and principles.

27. God evaluates us and our culture by how we have treated the last, the least, and the lost. See Matthew 25:31-46. This especially concerns the unborn, the infirm, the poor, the homeless, and the aged. They must be supported and protected through law, politics, the church, and culture at large.

28. The murder of Terri Schiavo in 2005 was a momentous event in American culture and ethics. Remember it; lament it; oppose the mentality that generated it.

29. The gender debate is critical in the church. Develop a biblical and logical view on the matter. Try to be civil with those with whom you disagree. See 1 Corinthians 13.

30. If you think that God equally gifts women in leadership, but does not let them exorcise these gifts equally with men in the home and the church, then let that haunt you.

31. The pivotal traditionalist construct, “Equal in being; unequal in role,” is logically contradictory. Therefore, no theology of gender may be built on this faulty foundation. See Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Good News for Women (Baker, 1997) and her chapter in Discovering Biblical Equality (IVP, 2004).

32. “Create silence."—Soren Kierkegaard. Do not try to out-shout or out-entertain the world. Create truth zones, places where knowledge of God and the soul become possible.
33. Turn off as many televisions as possible. TV-B-Gone is helpful in this regard.

34. Dethrone the television from its centrality in the home. Put it in a less conspicuous place or banish it entirely.

35. Try to adjust your sensorium to receiving, treasuring, and presenting the truths that matter most. This means paying careful attention to one’s use of electronic media.

36. Periodically fast from food and entertainment in order to sharpen your spiritual discernment and to engage in constructive spiritual warfare.

37. Jazz is a wonderful art form, despite its lack of popularity today. There are spiritual and moral lessons to be learned from the history and practice of jazz, despite the carnality of many of its luminaries.

38. John Coltrane was the greatest saxophonist of all time. Sonny Rollins is a close second.

39. Kenny G is a crock. His success is evidence of a fallen world.

40. Preaching is “truth through personality”—Phillip Brooks—as is all of ministry.

41. If you preach, get serious about it. “Study until you are full. Think until you are clear. Pray until you are hot.”—Unknown African American preacher.

42. When you preach, do not let the sensibilities of postmodernity set the tone for your preaching. That is, resist the image-orientation; resist entertainment; resist silliness; resist the simplistic. See John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching.

43. When you preach, do not be tied to the clock. Preach the text as the Holy Spirit leads.

44. When you preach, emphasis the truth of Scripture for the glory of God. Don’t waste words. Keep your ego out of it. Use humor carefully and sparingly. See A.W. Tozer’s classic essay, “The Use and Abuse of Humor.”

45. When you preach, preach before “the audit of Eternity” (Kierkegaard), “the audience of One” (Os Guinness).

46. Make reading a high priority in your life and ministry. Recommend good books to people whenever possible—and from the pulpit (in your message and in the sermon notes). If you don’t read, you should not lead.

47. Beware of trendy books, Christian bestsellers, and “methodologies” that reek of social science efficiency. See Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil (Baker, 1993) and Prophetic Untimeliness (Baker, 2003).

48. Read classics and contemporary authors who are serious, rich, and deep. Consider these classical authors: Augustine, Athanasius, Calvin, Luther, Jonathon Edwards, the Puritans as a whole, Pascal, Kierkegaard (but not his religious epistemology). Great Christian writers of the 20th century include: G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Carl F. H. Henry, Walter Martin, and Francis Schaeffer. Several contemporary writers of note are: Os Guinness (read all of his books), Eugene Peterson, James Sire, David Wells, D.A. Carson, and John Piper (but not his views on gender).

49. Don’t use contextualization as a pretext for materialism.

Bible Material for Children

Bible Material for Children

Media Fast

Doug Groothuis

I routinely require my students to engage in some kind of "media fast," in which they abstain from an electronic medium for at least one week. During this time they are required to reflection several portions of Scripture--the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, the fruit of the Spirit, etc.--in light of their experiences. In the six or so years I have been assigning this fast, the results have been nothing less than profound for the vast majority of the students. Having withdrawn from the world of TV, radio, computers, they find more silence, time for reflection and prayer, and more opportunities to engage family and friends thoughtfully. They become more peaceful and contemplative-and begin to notice how media-saturated most of our culture has become. So, we need some asceticism. Any area of culture that decreases godliness and enhances worldliness must come under the loving discipline of Jesus Christ--for his glory, for our good, and for the good of those we serve. Christians need to withdraw from aspects of our technological culture (which Postman calls a "Technopoly"-a culture dominated by technology) in order to gain perspective on ourselves, God, and our culture.

HT: Between Two Worlds