You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2007.
I have good news! Right now the New Attitude sermons are completely free to download! In the years past, there was a small fee to hear all the goodness that takes place at the NA conferences, but no more! I don’t know if the sermons are only free for a certain time period or if they will remain free till Jesus comes back, but I highly recommend downloading your own copies right now, right HERE! (I think you’ll need to go through the normal check out process but you will not be charged). I bet your as happy as the guy in the photo now! I knew you would be!
And remember: freely as you have been given, freely give!
Today the 2007 NA (New Attitude) conference is finishing up. NA is headed up by Josh Harris and many from SovereignGrace ministries. Over the years the conference has called young people to humbly be committed to the unchanging truths of the Bible. This year the focus of the conference was Discernment because as Josh Harris says, “ You can only love the truth if you can distinguish it from error.” Every year is always better than the last so I would encourage every generation to read or listen to the messages from the conference.
As of this minute the messages are not available online but when they will be you can get them right HERE at the Sovereign Grace Store.
Right now you can check out the live blogging that was done over the weekend by clicking right HERE.
Or if you would like to hear John Piper’s 2 messages that he preached at the conference you can click HERE for the first one titled “Discern what pleases God–Himself” or click right HERE to listen to his second message titled, “Discern what please God–Personal Obedience”
For those of you who receive Pastor Rob’s emails you know that he will be wrapping up his series on biographical snapshots of individuals in the Bible. To help prepare our hearts he asked us to meditate on Proverbs 4:20-27. These verses just happen! to be the exact verses I’m teaching to my Pathfinders kids tonight. To get my head thinking about these verses I was reading Mathew Henry’s Commentary on this section of scripture. I thought that you also might be encouraged by it so HERE it is. You’ll need to scroll down a ways to get to verses 20-27 (or you could just read about the whole chapter!).
Well, have a blessed weekend. Perhaps we’ll see you on Sunday! Remember Sunday School classes start at 9:30–come be attentive to the word of God!
P.S. The “be attentive” comes from the 20th verse in Provers 20–”My son, be attentive to my words…”
Listening to the sermons on Piligrim’s Progress has reminded me what an amazing book it is. Truth just smacks you right in the face from every corner. The only way a man can write a book that is so saturated in the Word is that he is himself a man who is saturated in the Word. C.H. Spurgeon said of Buyan, “‘Why, this man is a living Bible!‘ Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is FULL of the Word of God.“
To learn more about he man behind the book you can listen or read John Piper’s Biography on him by clicking right HERE. Enjoy!
Did you hear it yesterday? The Extra Credit sermons on KNISfor the next two weeks will be on Piligrim’s Progress. Last week, we looked at the importance of reading good books in the Christian’s life. One book that every Christian (this is not an exaggeration!) should read is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (There’s one copy left at the book store! Let me know if you want me to order you one). If you want to catch the sermon series on KNIS you can listen online or from your radio at 5pm and 10pm. Here is a schedule of what “places” will be discussed and when:
The Pilgrim’s Progress
by DEREK THOMAS, Minister
First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS
| 05/21 | City of Destruction |
| 05/22 | The Wicket Gate: The Burden of Sin |
| 05/23 | The House of Interpreter |
| 05/24 | The Cross and the Sepulcher |
| 05/25 | The Hill Difficulty/The Palace Beautiful |
| 05/28 | The Valley of Humiliation/The Valley of the Shadow of Death |
| 05/29 | Vanity Fair/The Castle of Giant Despair |
| 05/30 | The Delectable Mountains |
| 05/31 | Crossing the River |
| 06/01 | Grave Talk |
When Paul wrote to Timothy in 2Tim. 4:13 he asked Timothy to remember to bring “the books, especially the parchments.” Check out C.H. Spurgeon’s response to this verse:
“He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He has had wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up in the third heaven, and had heard things unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He has written a major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every Christian, ‘Give thyself to reading.’ The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves he has no brains of his own.”
Wow! As we come to the close of another week I would like to continue to encourage you to pick up a good book. I realize time, work, kids, and thousands of other responsibilities are screaming for our attention but try to make up a reading plan that works for you (and your family). Get creative! Read on your lunch break, read to your spouse, read to your kids, read at the gym, read while walking (its possible, just probably not best on a busy street), even if you can only fit in 1 or 2 pages a day–do it!
Yesterday we looked at some questions we can ask to help determine if the books that we are reading are profitable or destructive. One of the questions that Richard Baxter proposed was, “Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life?” The reality is that outside of the Bible no author has all his theological “ducks in a row” and no one is perfectly imitating Christ. So how can we truly be discerning readers, recognizing that every author, outside scripture, has various weaknesses, blindspots, and can be flat out wrong sometimes? The kids over at the NA Blog posted an article in March titled “Recommending Books without ruining Souls.” I highly recommend that you include this article as part of your rigorous training!
A few weeks ago there was some discussion about a book we recommended. The book was by an author we love and respect but someone pointed out that he holds a position we don’t think is scriptural. Can we still recommend the book if we don’t believe everything the author believes?
Of course, this is a bigger issue than just one book or one author. How much and what kind of error can a book contain before we just can’t recommend it to anyone anymore? What does practicing a humble orthodoxy like look here?
In short: How can we recommend books to our friends without turning them into heretics and ruining their souls?
We spent some time talking about it and asked a very smart theologically minded friend of ours (most of this is stolen shamelessly from him). Scripture says to, “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim 4:16 NIV). Here are a few ways to watch your doctrine closely in this area…
You’re not going to find a list of “good” and “bad” authors here. Instead we’ve come up with a few principles we believe are helpful when dealing with these issues.
First, you can commend different books to different people for different reasons. This seems pretty obvious when we’re not talking theology. Homer is read for his literary merits and historical significance, but not as a guide to ethics.
Sometimes certain books cannot be recommended to certain people at all, because they presently lack the discernment to benefit from it, though later in life they might profitably read it. Hemingway may have a lot to offer but we should take his books out of the hands of our chronically depressed friends.
The same principle applies to the theology we read. No non-biblical writer is infallible. We’ll often need to temper our recommendations to the person we’re talking to. For young Christians and people still growing in discernment, we have to be extra cautious in what we recommend.
But the reality is that it’s difficult to read very much Christian literature without coming across some degree of error, and in these cases, readers should be warned. There are no “safe” authors or preachers, outside of Scripture, whom we may read or recommend uncritically. On the other hand, there are a great many authors who are mostly wrong but who we can still learn from, if we read them critically.
When we recommend books we try to make the necessary qualifications and warn people about potential weaknesses. Why? Because when a person reads a book about God, the health of their soul is at stake. Loving our brothers and sisters in Christ means we caution them about errors they may encounter in books we recommend.
But we can recommend one book wholeheartedly while not agreeing with everything an author believes. For example, my church’s pastoral team has benefited recently from reading Mark Dever’s book “The Deliberate Church.” Even though some of what Dever talks about applies only to Baptists, they have benefited from many other things he had to say because his counsel was rooted in scripture.
So how does humble orthodoxy fit into this? Well orthodoxy looks like holding onto truth even when it’s not “hip” or “relevant.” We have to take a hard look at the content of what we read and determine whether it lines up with scripture. We want to be like the Jews in Berea that scripture says, “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11 NIV). We’re going to talk about discernment at Na 2007, and the reality is that it’s tough.
Hebrews 5:14 says, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:14 ESV) Discernment takes work. It takes constant practice. It’s hard. But it’s necessary every time we open a book.
At the same time humble orthodoxy looks like holding onto truth, not loosely, but humbly. We hold on humbly because we are all sinners and only God’s word is infallible.
Humble orthodoxy also looks like avoiding disagreements for the sake of disagreeing. In 1 Timothy Paul criticizes those who “devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith” (1:4). Pointing out an author’s flaws should be done clearly, but done humbly because on our best days we are all sinners with flawed understandings of theology. And we are just as fallible as any author. It is only by God’s grace that we are able to be discerning in the doctrine we hold.
Last, keep the main thing the main thing. Keep the author’s treatment of the gospel at the forefront of your mind. If an author has the gospel right then we have a brother in Christ. We love the example of C.J. Mahaney, Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, and Mark Dever with their work on Together for the Gospel. Four men holding diverse views about the secondary truths of scripture can all partner together on the essentials. They can still hold to what they believe scripture says—and disagree at times about what scripture says—but be postured to humbly learn from each other. That, I think, is humble orthodoxy.
For more on deciding “what truths are worth dying for” check out the posts Mark Lauterbach wrote last year on the subject here.
In (the best) movie (of all time) “You’ve got mail” Greg Kinnear’s character, Frank, writes to save the Shop Around the Corner that “you are what you read.” It is true that the books you spend your time with say a lot about the person you are, what you value, and what you will be like in a few years. In Romans 12, Paul encourages the church at Rome to not be conformed to the thinking of their time but to instead to be transformed by the renewl of their minds. So how can we make sure that we are guarding our minds against being conformed to the thinking of this world? How can we discern if what we are reading is helping us grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord? The puritan, Richard Baxter offers these questions to help you discern if what you are reading is profitable or costing you your soul.
Richard Baxter’s Advice on Reading
While reading ask oneself:
1. Could I spend this time no better?
2. Are there better books that would edify me more?
3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life?
4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God, kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come?
Credit: Blimpa
Have you ever thought of reading as a form of rigorous training? Paul told Timothy that he should be trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine (1Tim4:6) and then he adds that bodily training is of some value but godliness is of value in every way. One way that we can train ourselves in those words of faith and good doctrine is by reading good books. This week we will be looking at what others have said about the importance of reading in the life of the Christian. The first article we’ll look at was written by John Piper and is titled, ”A Compelling Reason for Rigorous Training of the Mind-Thoughts on the Significance of Reading.” Click on the title to enjoy!
As Mother’s Day approaches, it is a good time to think about God’s good design of motherhood. The Bible is clear that we are to highly praise and honor mothers who demonstrate to us God’s love and kindness and who with great confidence fear the Lord. Last year, Noel Piper reflected on how her own mother’s example taught her how to love her children (Titus 2). So as a special Mother’s Day treat, perhaps you moms can take some time to listen to the “sermon” and be encouraged, strengthened, and instructed. And for the husbands and sons, perhaps you can burn a copy of the sermon for your wife or mother and provide her with some time to sit under this teaching.
Click HERE to listen online or download.
