On June 26, 2015, in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states. In the hours that have passed, Christians have been praying and wondering aloud what comes next and how we should respond. To aid our collective understanding of the Supreme Court’s decision, I’ve listed dozens of resources under the following headings:
The Decision: What Did the Court Decide?
On the Pastoral Front: What do we say to our church?
On the Cultural Front: What do we say to our neighbor?
On the Legal Front: What about religious liberty?
I am so thankful for the men and women who have been reporting and commenting on these issues. May their wise words aid you—as they have me—to think and pray and act with grace and courage for truth in these days. Still before reading any of these posts, let me encourage you to watch this two minute exhortation from Russell Moore, president of the ERLC.
After last week’s primetime interview with Bruce Jenner, it is hard to ignore the normalization of transgenderism in our culture. With an ever-increasing advocacy of “erotic liberty,” Christians need to understand what transgenderism is and how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings hope to the trans community, even as the gospel brings pardon and purity to all of us.
To help you think about these matters, I’ve found and listed below a dozen helpful articles on transgenderism. Some of them introduce the subject and provide the medical details, others engage culture and provide insight on how to apply the gospel to this growing area of discipleship. I pray they may help you think biblically about this issue and even more to develop a loving burden for transgender people.
“Why It’s Best to Avoid to Avoid the Word Transgendered” by Katy Steinmetz (TIME) — Admittedly, this article plays into the hands of those who work so hard to control our speech and thus the way we think about subjects related to the transgender community. Nonetheless, it is helpful to beware of how the language is at work around us.
“The Not-So-Unified Narrative of the LGBT” by Evan Lenow (CBMW) – In this JBMW essay, Evan Lenow, professor of ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, shows how the social and political aims of Lesbians and Gays conflict with those Bisexuals and Transgender persons. At its heart the sexual liberation movement is not a unified movement.
In creation, God put beauty and design into the largest galaxy and the tiniest cell. Accordingly, we have, for centuries, used different instruments to behold the glory of God in creation: the microscope enables us to see God’s miniscule handiwork; the telescope opens our eyes to heavenly vistas. From both ends of the spectrum, we benefit from considering God’s micro-creation and macro-creation.
Something similar takes place in the Bible. When we read Scripture, we can find gospel truth in a word (propitiation), a phrase (‘it is finished’), a verse (John 3:16), a story (Job’s suffering and restoration), or a series of songs (the Psalter). Indeed, from every angle, we behold God’s wisdom and goodness in his word. Yet, unless we are intentional, it is easy to focus on the smaller parts of the Bible and to miss the larger ones.
There are many reasons for that—lack of time, lack of understanding (what is Revelation about?), lack of interest (why do I need to read the minor prophets?). In our fast-paced world, it is easy to overlook the Bible’s big picture, and often pastors have not helped their people “put the Bible together.” Still, I am convinced that if we are to have minds renewed by the Scriptures, we must not simply have a collection of unrelated memory verses free-floating in our heads; we must also understand the larger framework(s) of the Bible. For that reason, I want to suggest five reasons why I preach larger sections of Scripture. Continue reading →
For Your Edification: Here are few things for you to read over, watch, pray, and think about this weekend.
God’s Creation Is Wonder-Full. This week researchers discovered a cave in China with its own weather system. Appropriately, The Weather Channel reports on this 12-acre cave that dwarfs our own Mammoth Cave. The name of the cave is called Er Wang Dong, and ‘impressive’ does not fully capture the beauty and grandeur of this cave. Check it out and give God praise for the world he has made: “For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy” (Ps 92:4).
Be True To God. A few months ago, Trevin Wax questioned a view commonly held by many in our culture—the idea that above all we must be true to ourselves. Pointing to the way that corporations market this view, Wax writes,
Disney movies (and most of the rip-offs) tell our kids again and again that the most important lesson in life is to discover yourself, be true to whatever it is you discover, and then follow your heart wherever it leads.
Now, I’m not a Disney hater, and I enjoy watching good movies with my kids and passing on these memorable stories. Still, there are two assumptions behind the Disney formula that we ought to be aware of: (1) You are what you feel; (2) Embrace what you feel no matter what others say.
Trevin’s insights are well-made and deserve consideration. From the couch to the counseling room, Christians are led astray by ‘following their hearts.’ We need to reconsider this counsel and be true to God.
Football, Football, Football. Owen Strachan touched off a firestorm, when he wrote in Christianity Today a piece about “our shaken faith in football.” David Prince and Jimmy Scroggins shot back—first on Twitter and then in a full article at the ERLC Blog—arguing that the NFL data is incompatible with the sport millions of young people play. Prince and Scroggins point to other statistics related to the dangers of endurance running and cheerleading, to make the point that we should not be overly sensitive to safety. Ironically, a point that Owen affirms whole-heartedly—see his new book The Risky Gospel.
In the end, I think both arguments have merit, and of course, I am torn because I know each of these men and consider them friends. Personally, my mind is not made up, either way. I didn’t play high school football because I valued my body for other things. Yet, I am not ready to ban the sport, and if my son wanted to play I would support it. Still of all the comments that have ensued, I found Jason Allen’s article the most insightful, especially as it relates to football and gender roles: Three Reasons Why My Sons Are Not Playing Football (This Year).
Heaven, A World of Love . In September, I spent the month preaching on 1 Corinthians 13. As I preached, I picked at Jonathan Edwards book on 1 Corinthians 13, Charity and Its Fruits.His final chapter speaks on the permanence of love in heaven. He rightly suggests that heaven is a world of love. Here is a sample:
Heaven is a part of creation that God has built for this end, to be the place of His glorious presence, and it is His abode forever; and here will He dwell, and gloriously manifest Himself to all eternity. And this renders heaven a world of love; for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. And therefore the glorious presence of God in heaven, fills heaven with love, as the sun, placed in the midst of the visible heavens in a clear day, fills the world with light. The apostle tells us that “God is love”; and therefore, seeing He is an infinite being, it follows that He is an infinite fountain of love. Seeing He is an all-sufficient being, it follows that He is a full and over-flowing, and inexhaustible fountain of love. And in that He is an unchangeable and eternal being, He is an unchangeable and eternal fountain of love.
Kingdom, Culture, and Mission. Finally, if you haven’t heard Dr. Russell Moore’s inauguration address from his installation as the new President of the ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberties Committee), you should.
It has been four days since the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This landmark decision will have implications for decades to come, and consequently, there has been no end to the legal analysis, cultural commentary, and prophetic predictions since Wednesday’s decision. This dialogue is exhausting, but also necessary.
Christians (pastors and parishioners) need to be informed and equipped to handle this judicial decision and the implication it will have on state laws and America’s public perception of those defending traditional marriage. One of the most alarming aspects of the court’s decision was Justice Kennedy’s language that essentially described opponents of same sex marriage as “enemies of the human race” (language used by Justice Scalia in his dissenting remarks).
Due to the centrality of marriage for gospel witness, not to mention societal stability, this fight for marriage is going to continue for sometime. It should.
In this heated conversation, its worth asking, “Who is a helpful voice? A voice advocating biblical wisdom, not just partisan politics?” Since, not every voice is equally helpful, it might be helpful to know the names of a few defenders of traditional marriage that you can continue to listen to. Maybe you already have your luminaries, but if not, let me commend a few to you. Continue reading →
Freeman helpfully retells Patrick’s conversion story, one of a mocking young hedonist to a repentant evangelist. The story sounds remarkably similar to that of Augustine—and, in the most significant of ways, both mirror the first-century conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Freeman helpfully reconstructs the context of local religion as a “business relationship” in which sacrifice to pagan gods was seen as a transaction for the material prosperity of the worshippers. Against this, Patrick’s conversion to Christianity was noticed quickly, when his prayers of devotion—then almost always articulated out loud—were overheard by his neighbors.
The rest of the narrative demonstrates the ways in which Patrick carried the Christian mission into the frontiers of the British Isles—confronting a hostile culture and institutionalized heresy along the way. With this the case, the life of Patrick is a testimony to Great Commission fervor, not to the Irish nationalism most often associated with the saint. As a matter of fact, Freeman points out that Patrick’s love for the Irish was an act of obedience to Jesus’ command to love enemies and to pray for persecutors.
Likewise, Kevin DeYoung, also from the archives (ca. 2011), provides a brief missionary biography of Patrick. He says,
Here’s what most scholars agree on: Patrick–whose adult life falls in the fifth century–was actually British, not Irish. He was born into a Christian family with priests and deacons for relatives, but by his own admission, he was not a good Christian growing up. As a teenager he was carried by Irish raiders into slavery in Ireland. His faith deepened during this six year ordeal. Upon escaping Ireland he went back home to Britain. While with his family he received a dream in which God called him to go back to Ireland to convert the Irish pagans to Christianity.
In his Confessio Patrick writes movingly about his burden to evangelize the Irish. He explicitly links his vocation to the commands of Scripture. Biblical allusions like “the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth” and “I have put you as a light among the nations” and “I shall make you fishers of men” flow from his pen. Seeing his life’s work through the lens of Matthew 28 and Acts 1, Patrick prayed that God would “never allow me to be separated from His people whom He has won in the end of the earth.” For Patrick, the ends of the earth was Ireland.
According to one historian (again I am citing DeYoung’s research) “[Patrick] was the first person in Christian history to take the scriptural injunctions literally” (Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, 86) meaning that he was the first person to take the Great Commission as a command. Rightly, Patrick read Matthew 28:19 as a calling for him, and so he left home to take the gospel to pagans of Ireland.
This literal and personal reading of disciple-making needs to be reissued today, because some still think Jesus’ words are for someone else. Tragically, they relegate Jesus’ missionary imperative to a bygone era or for some special class of people. Yet, as Patrick’s life and labors show, when men take seriously the call to be a disciple-making disciple, God will bring great blessings. Fifteen centuries later we have much to learn from Patrick.
I encourage you to read the rest of Moore’s blogpost (What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick) and DeYoung’s foray into history (Who was Saint Patrick?). Together these two brief posts will help you determine fact from fiction. They will give you many reasons to thank God for the missions-minded Brit who brought the light of the gospel to the whole nation of Ireland.
May Patrick’s brave example spur us on to share the gospel with our own pagan nation and hostile neighbors.
John Bright, a noted Old Testament scholar who influenced the likes of Graeme Goldsworthy, concludes his massive book, The History of Israel, with these insights about the history of Israel:
The history of Israel would continue in the history of the Jewish people, a people claimed by the God of Israel to live under his law to the last generation of mankind. To the Jew, therefore, Old Testament theology finds its fruition in the Talmud. The hope of the Old Testament is to him a thing yet unfulfilled, indefinitely deferred, to be eagerly awated by some, given up by others (for Jews are probably no more of one mind where eschatology is concerned than are Christians), secularized and attenuated by others. Thus the Jewish answer to the question: Whither Israel’s history? It is a legitimate answer and, from a historical point of view, a correct one–for Israel’s history does continue in Judaism.
But there is another answer, the one the Christian gives, and must give. It is likewise historically legitimate, for Christianity did spring from the loins of Judaism. That answer is that the destination of Old Testament history and theology is Christ and his gospel. It declares that Christ is the awaited and decisive intrusion of God’s redemptive power into human history and the turning point of the ages, and that in him there is given both the righteousness that fulfils the law and the sufficient fulfillment of Israel’s hope in all its variegated forms. It affirms, in short, that he is the theological terminus of the history of Israel. It is on this question, fundamentally, that the Christian and its Jewish friend divide. . . . History really allows no third answer: Israel’s history leads straight on to the Talmud—or the gospel. It has in fact led in no other direction (John Bright, The History of Israel, 2nd Ed., 467)
Whether one is inclined to affirm Covenant Theology or some form of Dispensationalism, three things stand out in this quote and are worth noting about the relationship between Israel and the Church.
Russell Moore, dean of Southern Seminary, provides an encouraging and evangelistic reminder that the most energetic saints may not even be saved today. He writes,
The next Jonathan Edwards might be the man driving in front of you with the Darwin Fish bumper decal. The next Charles Wesley might be a misogynist, profanity-spewing hip-hop artist right now. The next Billy Graham might be passed out drunk in a fraternity house right now. The next Charles Spurgeon might be making posters for a Gay Pride March right now. The next Mother Teresa might be managing an abortion clinic right now.
Moore’s essay points to the larger state of things in Christianity, and the way we can easily get discouraged when we evaluate “how things are going.” His response is salutary. When we feel discouraged our nation, our city, or our college, we should remember what Carl F. H. Henry said to him when he asked the late evangelical leader if he had hope for the future. Henry replied, ““Why, you speak as though Christianity were genetic,” he said. “Of course, there is hope for the next generation of evangelicals. But the leaders of the next generation might not be coming from the current evangelical establishment. They are probably still pagans.”
The same is true for local churches and their pastors. While we may often think that we need to find the next nursery director, Sunday School superintendent, or missions director from within the pews, it is just as likely that this Sunday they will be shuffling home after waking up in a Hooter’s parking lot.
This is a great reminder to begin the year. God is at work all around us, and that we ought to trust less in the men we know, and more in the God who knows all. God makes leaders, and we ought to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send many into his harvest field.
Whatever your thoughts about Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington, Russell Moore’s analysis, God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck, is worth reading. Especially, if your Christianity and political interests intersect (which they should — the question is “How should they intersect?”), Moore’s commentary is salient reminder that the advance of the gospel and the advance of conservative politics are not one and the same. While promoting an active role in politics, Moore distinguishes between populist “God and country” rhetoric and the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and dead.
On the topic, Moore writes,
We used to sing that old gospel song, “I will cling to an old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.” The scandalous scene at the Lincoln Memorial indicates that many of us want to exchange it in too soon. To Jesus, Satan offered power and glory. To us, all he needs offer is celebrity and attention.
Mormonism and Mammonism are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They offer another Lord Jesus than the One offered in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, and another way to approach him. An embrace of these tragic new vehicles for the old Gnostic heresy is unloving to our Mormon friends and secularist neighbors, and to the rest of the watching world. Any “revival” that is possible without the Lord Jesus Christ is a “revival” of a different kind of spirit than the Spirit of Christ (1 Jn. 4:1-3).
Because the gospel is about a kingdom, the gospel is political. And politics do matter. Paul urges us to pray for leaders and the peace of our nations, but because the gospel is empowered by a heavenly Spirit and is establishing a subversive kingdom, it is not advanced through national organizations and political machinations. The church is the wisdom of God for growing his kingdom and for bringing genuine peace into the world.
While Christians should engage politics, and take a stand as individual (and organized) citizens, we must not confuse the call of disciple-making (Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8) with that of conservative politics. Moore’s article shows evangelical Christians should confront the world with a nuanced understanding of the Bible, and not just slogans passed down by winsome leaders. We must renew our minds and examine our hearts, even as we vote our conscience.
What comes to mind when you think of St. Patrick’s Day?
Leprechauns. Ireland. A pot of gold. Wearing green or drinking green beer. If that is it, your understanding of this celebrated day is divorced from history and the real Patrick of Ireland.
Any evangelical seeking to kindle a love for missions among the people of God will benefit from this volume’s demonstration that the Great Commission did not lie dormant between the apostle Paul and William Carey. Patrick’s love and zeal for the Irish may also inspire American evangelicals to repent of our hopelessness for the conversion of, say, the radical Islamic world—which is, after all, no more “hopeless” than the Irish barbarians of Patrick’s era.
I encourage you to read the rest of Moore’s blogpost, What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick, and to give thanks for this obedient servant of Christ. May his brave example spur us on to share the gospel with our own pagan nation and hostile neighbors.
On June 26, 2015, in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states. In the hours that have passed, Christians have been praying and wondering aloud what comes next and how we should respond. To aid our collective understanding of the Supreme Court’s decision, I’ve listed dozens of resources under the following headings:
Via Emmaus 