Category: Christian Worldview

What are the basics for the gospel?

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For those in protestant circles, many have had the opportunity to share their testimony before they were baptized. When you think about it and, if you’ve ever heard one given, it often starts with the person and how they came to faith. But that isn’t the whole story, whether they realize it or not.

In this message to a Children’s Desiring God conference, John Piper explains that it goes much further than an individual’s own life if you want to explain how they were saved. It’s obvious, really, if you believe what the Bible says. Since no one saves himself, you can’t tell your story without going back to the Person who saved you, namely Jesus Christ. And, if you do that, it effects what kind of person you will be and how you live your faith.

About that anger: You’re not that cool

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angryJonathan Dodson at Boundless has a good article on anger. And, if you’re sitting there thinking, “Well, that’s nice, but it’s not me,” then you are totally mistaken. Why? Because anger is something we are deal with every day in our lives. Consider what Dodson writes:

You don’t have to be an “angry person” to have a problem with anger. There’s an anger of the garden variety that’s often expressed through complaining, grumpiness, a cutting remark, sulking self-pity, and turbulent frustration.

Take commonplace complaints about the weather. Complaints about the excessive heat or cold can either be a form of small talk or a form of unbelief in God’s good providence. We don’t typically think of complaining as anger, but when framed with the providence of God we are pressed to consider our motives.

Subtle complaining characterizes our culture. According to one statistic, most people in America are exposed to some 3,000 advertisements a day, most of which appeal to a lifestyle grounded in self-comfort. It comes as no surprise, then, that when our comfort is overturned … we complain. If someone cuts us off in traffic, we curse under our breath and complain for the next five miles. If a fast-food attendant is slow in taking our order, they are subjected to our cutting remarks. If work or school becomes demanding, we wallow in self-pity, a weak form of anger.

Under the surface of all the “happy shiny people” called Christians lurks an enemy of our soul — sinful anger.

So, we are all there. What do we need to do? We need to consider our hearts and what God’s word says about what anger means. We need to see anger is not just a problem for ourselves, but is a problem with God. It exalts ourself and belittles God. I like how Dodson describes it:

When I grow angry I find myself losing belief. I lose faith in God’s goodness amid my circumstances. I lose belief in his promises, that “he works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

This unbelief arises from sinful discontent with God’s wise providence, a failure to trust in His perfect will to do me good, whether through bad weather or good, emotional intimacy or none, apology or no apology. From emotional outbursts to weather complaints, anger arises from a failure to believe the truth, and belief that God owes me something: better weather or better marital intimacy or whatever.

Belief in this false promise is unbelief in God’s promises.

Being angry is not something we should settle for or condone in our lives. We need to examine the ugliness that it is and then reach out to God — in repentance and trust.

To spank or not to spank?

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You should, and it’s biblical. That it, if you believe verses like Prov. 13:24, which says: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” And, if Jesus believed the Bible, then I think we can to.

Still squeamish about? Then maybe you should check out this post by John Piper, pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

A study in God’s sovereignty: The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper

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Click on the image to here samples

T Bone Burnett, before he made a name for himself producing great albums like the soundtrack for “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and the recently multi-awarded “Raising Sand,” was producing great, if underappreciated, CDs of his own.

Recently, a friend pointed me to the online music site lala.com, where I discovered a lot of older stuff I had in my collection but had worn out. Among those finds was Burnett’s The Talking Animals, which was released in 1988. While not among his strongest efforts, it’s still very good overall. One of the songs that stands out is the baroquely titled “The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper.” This song, which is really Burnett narrating with a musical background, tells a fascinating story with a fascinating twist at the end. It is that twist that points to God’s sovereignty in our lives and our utterly foolishness in trying to deny it. I won’t spoil it for you here, but you can click on the accompanying image to hear a sample of the song.

Using your time well

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From C.J. Mahaney’s interview with John Piper:

What single bit of counsel has made the most significant difference in your effective use of time?

A great tree will fall with many small chops. Pray for daily grace to keep chopping.

What does physical attraction have to do with marriage?

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Well, if you’re trying to think biblically about your marriage, it shouldn’t be a focus. That is how John Piper explained it recently:

The word “biblical” in this question is perhaps intended to take me to a text. And of course the text that comes to mind is, when it speaks to beauty, 1 Peter 3:3: “Don’t let your beauty be the outward beauty of the wearing of gold, and the braiding of hair, and the wearing of clothes.”

It doesn’t say “fine clothes.” It’s just “clothes,” so you know it’s not an absolute, as though not wearing clothes is good thing. It means the jewelry, the hair, and the clothes are not the focus. And our culture needs to hear that unbelievably. Marriages need to hear it, men need to hear it. That’s not the main focus of beauty. The focus should be the inner spirit.

So women should ask, “What kind of spirit should I cultivate for my man?” as well as, “How should I eat and dress and exercise for my man?” And the man should do the same: “What kind of inner spirit makes her flourish?” because there is a kind of spirit in a man that kills a woman or frightens or bores her.

And a man shouldn’t mainly be pumping iron. Because, frankly, most women could care very little about what their husbands look like, unless they’re just making fools of themselves. They want a spirit, a strength, a humility, a nobility. They want someone to pick them up and sweep them away.

In their worst moments women don’t look at pornography, usually. Mostly they read novels about exciting romances, because their husbands are so boring!

And so it cuts both ways. I think we husbands should labor not so much with the outward man, and the women shouldn’t labor so much with the outward woman. Rather, we should all cultivate the kind of beauty that we all deeply long for in relationships.

A marriage is a relationship. When you’re old, gray, wrinkled, overweight (or underweight), squinty, bent over, and hobbling along, maybe you’ll be holding hands at 85 because of the inner beauty.

Why was George Whitefield so passionate in his preaching?

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The annual Bethlehem Conference for Pastors is going on this week and there are loads of great messages from speakers and resources available, even for those not attending. A highlight every year, in my opinion, is the biographical message that John Piper gives about a hero from the faith. This year’s message is on George Whitefield, who preached to thousands in the 18th century as part of a great spiritual revival in England and our country.

Whitefield, who was known for his great energy and display of style during his sermons, has come under criticism in some circles. However, Piper explains that Whitefield was not about show but rather about believing what is real.

Do you have a church or a club?

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What is The Recession For?

God sends recessions to his people to pull up the roots of our joy from the pleasures of the world and sink those roots into the pleasures of the glory of his grace. Here’s he clearest recessionary text about this in the Bible—2 Corinthians 8:1-2. It describes the roots of the joy of the Macedonian believers in their “recession.”

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.


Movie thoughts: Can Narnia be fixed?

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It took a month, but the Narnia movies will continue under a new distributor.:

Twentieth Century Fox has agreed to co-finance the third movie in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, pending approval of the final script and shooting budget. If all goes as planned, Fox and Walden Media, which controls the movie rights to C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s books, hope to be begin production on “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by late summer so it will be ready for holiday 2010 release.

First, however, Fox and Walden have to hire a screenwriter to do another pass on the script that was last rewritten by Richard LaGravenese, whose credits include “Freedom Writers” and “The Horse Whisperer.” The movie companies are looking to make the film for about $140 million. Michael Apted, who made “Amazing Grace” and the 1999 Bond flick “The World Is Not Enough,” is on board to direct.

Producer/author Mark Joseph has some ideas about how the series can be fixed. One of those is finding a new director since he is not thrilled about the choice of Apted to replace Andrew Adamson:

Some saw hope when a new director signed on to direct the third installment, but this choice only compounded the problem. As head of the Directors Guild, he had proudly led the charge in crushing traditionalist groups who had invented devices that allowed desperate red-state films fans to clean up their favorite movies, then cemented his status as being out of touch with the types of fans who made up Narnia’s base when he seemed to brag to reporters about gutting the biopic of the devoutly religious British lawmaker William Wilberforce of its religion:

“Then this script arrived, which was pretty much a straight biopic of Wilberforce – which probably veered more into his Christian side than it did the political side,” he had said. “So I thought if I could persuade them to put the politics right more in the front of it – to make that the engine of the story, and certainly deal with his belief system and his religion and all that – then this might be something that would really be good for me to do it. So I did manage to persuade that, on all sorts of levels because I said it makes the character more interesting, because his political skills and political achievements are enormous, and we would move away from the idea of kind of making him an artifact, a kind of saint-like figure; it would give him real personality, real dimension.”

Joseph goes on to say that Apted’s reluctance to embrace the Christianity of the Narnia stories would make him a poor choice and lists  10 ways that the Narnia films can be saved. As I mentioned in a comment thread, you would enjoy the movies, but I am so thankful for the books. You would do well for your children and yourself to read them. They are a treasure.