Against abortion: the best explanation I heard so far

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

Questions to Ask before You Preach

An excellent list of questions that will help shape one's preaching. Be sure to read it through (it's not long), and even write them down somewhere so you can refer to them next time you prepare a sermon.

(HT: JT)

Impacting the society and culture

I was reading this old post over at "Between Two Worlds" by Justin Taylor where he posted some responses of the Gospel Coalition council members to the question, "What Is the Most Crying Need of the Church in America Today?"

All of the answers had their merits I suppose and what am I to make any significant comments about them, but one response that really gripped me and gave me a great insight was Tim Keller's.

Tim Keller:
I’m throwing in with Jim Boice on this one (cf. his Two Cities: Two Loves.)

The evangelical church must stay true to its biblical foundations, and it must maintain and enhance the effectiveness of its expository preaching, the holiness of its members, the ‘thickness’ of its counter-cultural community, the fervor of its evangelism. But if it doesn’t learn how to do this in our biggest cities then we don’t have much hope for our culture.

If our cities are largely pagan while our countryside is largely Christian, then our society and culture will continue to slide into paganism. And that is exactly what is happening. Christians strengthen somewhat away from the cities and they have made some political gains, but that is not effecting cultural products much. It is because in the center cities (NYC, Boston, LA, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC) the percentages of people living and working there who are Christians are minuscule.

Jim Boice proposed that evangelical Christians need to live in the major cities at a higher percentage than the population at large (See Two Cities, p.163ff.) Currently 50% of the U.S. population live in urban areas (and 25% lives in just the 10 largest urban areas.) Boice proposes that evangelicals should be living in cities in at least the same percentages or more. As confirmation of Boice’s belief consider how much impact both the Jewish and the gay communities have had on our culture. Why? Though neither is more than 3-4% of the total population, they each comprise over 20% of the population of Manhattan (and in other center cities. )

So we have two problems. First, evangelicals (especially Anglos) in general are quite negative about U.S. cities and city living. Second, you can’t ‘do church’ in exactly the same way in a city as you do it elsewhere, not if you want to actually convert hard-core secular people to Christianity. There are churches that set up in cities without adapting to their environment. Ironically, they can grow rather well anyway in cities by just gathering in the young already-evangelicals who are temporarily living in the city after college. But that is not the way to make the cities heavily Christian—which is the crying need today.

I agree with what he said here and I think it applies not only to America but also Australia and many other Westernised countries.

Tim Keller is the pastor at the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He recently authored an excellent book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

Check yourself, do you really believe in the true Gospel?

Justin Taylor posted a list of "counterfeit gospels".
I couldn't risk those of you who do not like clicking on a link to see the list, so I reproduce the whole thing here. (Hope it's ok with you Justin.)

Jonathan Leeman posts on a schema of seven counterfeit gospels, as cited in How People Change by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp.

1. Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

2. Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

3. Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

4. Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

5. Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

6. Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs."

7. Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

I must say that I am guilty of at least 5 of them at various times. O, repent my soul!
How great is the grace of God that He would love me and keep me as I continuously falter and stumble around as if God has not shown me the way. May Him be known and exalted more and more whatever happens to, in, and through my life.

Hurting because you cannot love

I've been learning experientially in recent years, that not being able to love a person hurts more than not being loved by the person.
Of course, when you do not have such desire to love the person, and you are not loving that person, then it's a different story. But when you do have a desire to love someone (and I use the term "love" in a cherishing, both mind-and-emotion-engaged, and seeking actively the well-being-of-the-other-person way, rather than simply that warm, fuzzy-feeling tug-towards-a-person way, hence a desire to love someone, not just a desire for someone), and you cannot love him/her to the extent of your desire, you feel the deepest pain. The reasons for not being able to love someone as much, or as deeply as you want to may vary.
For example, instead of the sense of despair over his own impending death, a father who is suffering from a terminal illness may feel more hurt because he cannot provide a safe and comfortable home for his family, and from knowing that he won't "be there" for his wife and kids when they need or want a husband and a father. Or a mother whose son is rejecting to receive his mother's care and runs away from home would feel hurt, which comes more from knowing that she will not be able to provide good care for her son (that is to love her son) than from the sense of rejection (ie. the sense of not being loved by the son). In a romantic relationship as well, this kind of hurt can and does exist, although it would be often over-shadowed by other more passionate and violent emotions.
All in all, this type of hurt, I believe, is one of the most profound kinds of human suffering because it stems from failing to fulfill one's deepest desire, and particularly for Christians who are spiritually awakened and being molded by God.

With this kind of thoughts starting to take root in my mind, which sprang up from my observation of people and also from my own experience, I wondered if there were any biblical bases for what I was learning through it, that our deepest desire is not always what it seems on the outside, namely, wanting to be loved, but, in fact, wanting to love. If it wasn't inline with the Bible, I wanted stop thinking in this way so that this idea would not take root in my mind, but I wasn't sure where to begin, and my mind was too distracted with other things to actually do some research of my own.

Yesterday, however, Justin Taylor's blog post (an excerpt from the book, "Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest" by Ed Welch) shed some light on it.
From the post (which is the excerpt from the book mentioned above):

Which do we really need—to give love or to receive it? We resist the question because we want to say both.

Yet Scripture seems to favor the imbalance. Not that we aspire to have our friend or spouse love us less, but that “in humility [we] consider others better than [our]selves” (Phil. 3:4). When the kingdom of God is ruling our hearts, we aspire more to serve than to be served, honor more than to be honored, and love more than be loved. This doesn’t mean that we don’t care about being loved; it simply means that we always want to outdo others in love.

Do we run the risk of a lopsided relationship? Absolutely. That is the relationship we have with God—he always loves first and most. . . . Throughout Scripture God is the one who loves more than he is loved. He always makes the first move. He advertises his extravagant affection for us even when we are indifferent or opposed to him.

When Jesus Christ, God incarnate, walked the earth, the pattern continued. Through his life Jesus was rejected by his people and misunderstood by his disciples. At the most difficult point of his life, he was betrayed, denied, and abandoned. But through it all his love was unwavering. In this, he established the pattern for true humanness. This is the way we were intended to be.

This is life in the kingdom. It wants love, but it wants even more to love others deeply. Its treasure is to grow in the fruits of the Spirit, foremost of which is to love others.

Longing to be able to love someone and feeling hurt because you cannot do so does not mean you are a better attuned to God's character, of course. It is to take up the challenge of the Biblical description of love and facing our daily lives with God's love that shows our character. However, embracing the fact that loving (as in giving love) is our greater need than being loved (ie. receiving love), and knowing that there is a hope who are in Christ that, one day, we will be able to love God and one another to the full capacity as designed by God, we can take comfort and draw strength when we are hurting and distraught for not being able to love someone.

By the way, the book, "Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest" sounds like a sound and helpful book, and it's on my Shelfari wishlist. ;-) If you want to get it for yourself, you can get it from here or here.

My Man, Luther, you are da man!

Read this radical example about love and marriage demonstrated by this couple.



To get you interested, here are a couple of lines from Luther expressing his "love" for Katherine.

"If I can manage it, before I die I will still marry my Katie to spite the devil."
"I feel neither passionate love nor burning for my spouse, but I cherish her."

It turns out, though, Katherine was a perfectly suitable helper indicated by this incident.

Both of them took God seriously; and both knew how to correct the other when one of them was ignoring God and taking life too seriously. One day Luther was depressed and despairing. So Katie decided to put on a black dress for the day. Luther asked, "Are you going to a funeral?" "No," she responded, "but since you act as though God is dead, I wanted to join you in the mourning!" Exactly what Luther needed to hear.

Hope that got you interested in the article enough. Go and read the whole thing and think about it.

Thank you for the article Mr. Taylor! :-)

Jesus, the greatest thinker...?

I follow Justin Taylor's blog. While I don't feel I understand everything on his blog, I thank him for I have benefited much from his posts. (Mr. Taylor, if you ever come to visit here on my blog, I just wanted to say, THANK YOU!)

Just today, I saw a post on his blog about a book review done by Doug Groothuis of Denver Seminary. I never heard of the Denver Seminary, nor the professor who reviewed it. I also have no idea about the book nor its author. I am not going to talk about them. What captured my interest was the phrase quoted on Justin Taylor's post. Professor Groothuis said:

Despite the strong points of The Philosophy of Jesus, we still await the definitive treatment of the philosophy of Jesus, the greatest thinker who ever lived.

Now, I am going to have to be careful here. I have no intention to dishonour my Lord by misrepresenting Him, nor do I wish to cause anyone to stumble. But I had to raise this one question. Was Jesus the greatest thinker who ever lived?

I would never hesitate to call Jesus, the greatest man who ever lived, for He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of the all creation. He is greater than the first Adam, He is greater than Angels, He is greater than prophets, He is greater than kings, He is the One and Only Son of God. So it kinda goes against my grain when I raise that question, "was Jesus the greatest thinker who ever lived?"

Imagine for a moment that somebody claimed Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived. I don't think we need to go around arguing whether that statement is true or not. I think we simply don't have substantial evidence to say that Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived. The Bible does not say anything about Jesus' running ability. Sure, he walked on water, so I think we can assume that, if He wanted to, He could have run faster than any human beings as well. (Perhaps He could've broken the world record while running on water!) But breaking world records was not His mission, and such specific event isn't recorded in the Bible. So I think it's quite pointless to claim such a thing as "Jesus was the fastest sprinter who ever lived", but even more so, it would be a misleading claim by distraction from what Jesus was about.

Now, back on to the original statement: Jesus, the greatest thinker who ever lived. Can we say that Jesus was the greatest thinker? On what basis would we be able to say that? What do we exactly mean when we say Jesus is the greatest thinker? On what evidence can we say Jesus was the greater thinker than other secular thinkers, such as Socrates or Plato? If we did have evidence, How would we measure that? It might be the case that I am just not quite knowledgeable in the field of philosophy that I am unable to answer all these questions and wondering about with that statement. Yes, if you asked me, I am afraid that I am not entirely sure how to answer my own question. All I could say at the moment (going by my gut-feeling as a Christian) is that, Jesus IS the greatest thinker who ever lived on the basis that Jesus knew and understood the ultimate reality, that is God, better than anyone who ever lived and who will ever live. But if you are applying the critical thinking, metal capacity to draw out logical conclusions, and so on, as the measuring stick, I don't know if I can say Jesus was the greatest thinker (philosopher) who ever lived.

I am open to biblical instructions here, so please lead me to light.