Month: July 2013

Hospitality Evangelism

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In the days before television dinners and Twitter mobile, people entertained themselves by talking to other people–in person and for hours at a time.  For children born in the twenty-first century, this may sound strange, even torturous, but it really happened.  And as I recall, it was something that all who experienced it . . . enjoyed.

As a boy, I remember going to my grandma’s house and hearing countless episodes of how she learned to drive a buggy, parallel park, and reside in a collegiate boarding house for women. As strange as those things were to me, they were also deeply interesting. As we drank cheap ‘pop’—it was in Michigan—and ate cookies and ice cream, my family gave full attention to my octogenarian grandmother whose hospitality displaced my adolescent need for ‘cool.’ Continue reading →

Hyper-Calvinism is Not Calvinism

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Hyper-Calvinism is not the same as an excited Calvinist. Too often these two things are confused and it takes a bit of time to explain the difference.

On that note, Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church (Cape Coral, FL) , has written a helpful piece on the difference between soteriological Calvinism (i.e., Calvinism as it relates to the doctrine of salvation) and hyper-Calvinism. He makes the clarification based on the recent and lamentable confusion by President of Louisiana College, Joe Aguillard, at the Southern Baptist Convention in Houston (see the video here).

Ascol makes the interesting and important point that hyper-Calvinists and Arminians are closer in theology than they might perceive themselves to be. He describes how Arminians and hyper-Calvinists both demand that man’s responsibility is coextensive with his ability.  In other words, if a man can’t than he doesn’t have to.  To this error in judgment, Ascol observes, Continue reading →

The Image of God (Genesis 1:26)

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Genesis 1:26 

“The divine Son is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Man was created in a way that reflects the imaging relation among the persons of the Trinity. The redemption of man from the fall and sin includes re-creation (2 Cor. 5:17), his being “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,” in the image of Christ (Eph. 4:24).” (“History of Salvation in the Old Testament: Preparing the Way for Christ” in ESV Study Bible’s,  p. 2635).

In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth, and on the earth he placed a man and a woman to reflect his glory and rule his creation (Gen 1:26-28). Genesis 1:26-27 recounts the words of the triune God, “Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

In his Theological Anthropology, Marc Cortez supplies a helpful survey of the ways Christians have understood the Imago Dei.  He summarizes the positions and asserts that some have argued that there is something material in man that makes him unique (i.e., his reason, mental capacity, etc.); others have suggested a functional view, that man made in God’s image is intended to rule over creation. This has strong exegetical support in Genesis 1:26-31 and Psalm 8. Still others make a case for a relational aspect of God’s image. Just as God exists as the three-in-one God, so mankind is male and female, and when man and woman unite in marriage, the two become one. The relationship is complementary, and in the mysterious union and diversity between the sexes is there a material glimpse of the one God who exists in three persons. Continue reading →

Keep Christ at the Center: A Review Essay on Darrell Bock’s Book, ‘Recovering the Real Lost Gospel’

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Darrell L. Bock. Recovering the Real Lost Gospel: Reclaiming The Gospel as Good News. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010, pp. 146.

Darrell Bock’s book Recovering the Real Lost Gospel advertises itself as a “biblical theology of the gospel” (2).  Beginning with God’s promise to Abraham, he traces the good news of God from its seed form in “gospel preached beforehand to Abraham” (Gal 3:8) to the fullness of the gospel, the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels, Acts, and the rest of the New Testament.

In his engaging book, it is clear that Bock is seeking to correct the notion that Jesus’ death and resurrection is coterminous with the gospel. Accordingly, he describes Paul’s use of the term “cross” in 1 Corinthians 1-2 as a synecdoche “for all that Jesus’ work brings” (3).  And what does Jesus’ work bring? The Spirit and the gift of a personal, loving relationship with the triune God.  So far, so good: The gospel is a message of the cross and it is also a message of life in the Spirit.

Yet, not everything about Bock’s book is quite so good. In my estimation, he shifts the focus from Christ to the Christian, from the objective work of the cross to the subjective work of the Spirit. You can read the rest of my review here: Keep Christ at the Center (CredoMag Blog).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Gospel Preached Beforehand

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Yesterday I preached a pair of messages on the “gospel preached beforehand.”  In Galatians 3:8, Paul writes, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

I have thought much about what the contents of that ‘gospel message’ would have been, and yesterday I sought to explain from Genesis 12, 15, 17, and 22, how the Lord proclaimed the good news to the patriarch Abraham.  In short order, I argued that the content of the gospel can be witnessed in God’s promise of grace (Gen 12), justification by faith that results in a covenant relationship (Gen 15), circumcised citizenship in the kingdom of God (Gen 17), and the necessity of the Lord’s sacrifice, substitution, and resurrection (Gen 22).

Only when all of these elements are included do you have the full gospel message. Maybe I saw too much Christ in the Old Testament, maybe not enough. Tell me what you think.

Here is the sermon audio. The first message begins in Luke 24 and turns to look at Genesis 12, 15, and 17; the second message covers Genesis 22 with an introductory excursus asking this question: ‘Since we have the full gospel (Heb 1:1-4), why should we spend much time on the gospel preached beforehand?”

Soli Deo Gloria, dss