This brief book is a collection of meditations on the theology of the gospel. The process of writing and editing this collection has been an exercise in preaching to myself. Many times I’ve stopped to beg God for eyes to see and savour these realities.

Publishing this book is not about money. It is about sending out one more beam of gospel light into a dark world. My prayer is that this beam will shine brightest in the hearts of bible-believing Christians. It is toward this audience that this beam is directed.

From the back cover

Now available in two formats!

Trade paperback (CreateSpace, Amazon)
Kindle eBook (Amazon Kindle Store)

I originally intended to offer it as an eBook on Google Play, but have decided to offer the eBook exclusively through the Kindle Store at least for now.

The struggling, faltering believer hardly dares to hope for a similar approval from God, and yet Romans 8:38-39 is direct: I am sure that… [nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. In other words, when we stand in Christ, we stand beneath the glowing approval of God when he utters the words “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

The very next words in Mark’s gospel are calculated to detonate at the heart of our legalistic, self-righteous, if-things-are-going-well-I-must-have-God’s-approval mentality. “The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.”

God showers loving approval on his son, then immediately drives him into the wilderness for a time of hunger, loneliness, and temptation.

If you are in the wilderness of testing, do not automatically assume that you got there by your works as if God was getting back at you for some sin or weakness or failure. If you are in Christ, it is his works in which you stand and they are all righteous works. You stand approved by God in Christ! And you have the privilege to share with Christ in his sufferings. And it is in this very assurance of God’s approval that we are best prepared to overcome the temptation in the wilderness.

Grace to you.

96 pages.

 ★★★★½ 

Carson addresses a topic which has been so poorly handled so many times that many would find it difficult to imagine it as a “difficult doctrine.” Before we will see God’s love as a difficult doctrine, we’ll need to ask questions like these:

• Does God love people who will go to hell?
• If so, how can they go to hell?
• If God loves people who will go to hell the same way he loves me, how can his love for me be seen as special and comforting?

Once we try to answer these questions with the bumper sticker theology of “Smile, God loves you,” we begin to see this doctrine as a difficult doctrine indeed.

Carson’s handling of this topic is precise, direct, scholarly, and warm-hearted. First, he describes five senses in which Scripture speaks of God’s love. Next, he addresses the definition of love as rooted in the character of God himself. The final two chapters address God’s love in relation first to his sovereignty, and then in relation to his wrath.

The ups

First, Carson is gifted as a thinker, theologian, and writer. You’d be hard pressed to find a more gifted scholar in Christianity in our day. The warmth of his love for God is therefore powerful and penetrating. I find reading him beneficial regardless of the topic simply as instruction in clear thinking, precise theology, calculated writing, and simple devotion to God.

Second, I was helped by Carson’s handling of this very difficult subject. He does not shy away from the fact that God cannot possibly love the unbeliever in the same way he loves his own and still be God. Yet, he is unashamed to proclaim God’s love to all people. This precision, yet balance, is much needed in our theological landscape in Australia.

Third, his typology of God’s love in chapter one is highly beneficial to biblical interpretation, especially in evangelistic contexts. Understanding that God speaks of love in different ways in different contexts, as we ourselves do in modern English, is crucial to exegetical/expositional precision. Carson is obdurate in his insistence on contextual interpretation.

The downs

I struggled to come to terms with Carson’s fifth category in chapter one. He argues “God’s love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way—conditional, that is, on obedience” (p. 21). Considering the broadly supported error of sanctification by works, rather than by grace, in our day, I would have found a much more substantial explanation of this point very helpful.

Conclusion

This is a fairly brief book, but not a shallow or insignificant one. In one sense I’d encourage every believer to read it. In another sense, until one has reached a point in the development of their theology where the questions in the introduction are pressing, the value of this book will probably be felt to a limited degree.

Grace to you.

I’ve known that this was something I wanted to do for several years now, but I was caught up on the issue of self-publishing. I was determined not to self-publish because I felt that it was a second-rate way to get second-rate material to press. And there is some truth in that. But God has been showing me that my reticence to self-publish is more about my pride than about his glory.

Here’s how I see it. God has given me an ability to write and a passion to communicate truth. Yes, it would be nice to publish through an established press and move thousands of copies. But unless God miraculously opens a door to publish through one of the established Christian publishers, I could go a lifetime and never go to print. And I don’t think that’s wise stewardship of my gifts and desires. So instead, I’ve chosen to take advantage of the recent advances in the publishing industry (print-on-demand, eBooks, etc.) to do something now.

I remember years ago reading that Jim Berg made a point of not publishing until after age forty. This, and a hundred other arguments, gives me pause. But I feel like the prophet Jeremiah when he says “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot”! I’m not sure that’s a good reason to move forward, but for better or for worse, God helping me, I’m doing this.

You’ll be seeing more about the upcoming book here in the coming weeks and months (consider yourself warned!). At this stage it looks like the book will be available in trade paperback through Amazon.com, for Kindle eReader through the Amazon Kindle Store, and for other eReaders through Google Play.

This first project is brief and is adapted from material I’ve written here at InFocus. It addresses the topic about which I’m most passionate: The gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ll tell you more later, but for now the cover art should give a feel for the project. I pray that God will be glorified in this.

Grace to you.

319 pages plus appendices.

 ★½☆☆☆ 

I picked up this book because I love the idea of being deliberate. Anything that can help me to live my life more deliberately is a worthwhile investment of time. Additionally, I’d read another one of Warren’s books and found it to be insightful in many areas.

I was profoundly disappointed.

Warren structures the book into forty chapters to fit the forty days of purpose campaign that was popular back when the book was released. The forty chapters are broken into six sections. A section of introduction is followed by sections covering Warren’s five purposes of life: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and mission (p. 310).

The ups

First, this book is a presentation of basic Christianity that is designed for a post-Christian world. Some authors write as if we in the modern Western world live in a Christian society, but Warren understands that we can’t assume that. While the book seems to have been designed for the churched Christian, it is definitely written for the biblically/theologically illiterate.

Second, Warren is clearly gifted in organising ideas and presenting them.

The downs

First, I found the book shallow, trite, and simplistic. Its cliché-to-page ratio must hold some sort of record. Seriously, this book makes clichés look original.

Second, this book is far less than Warren is capable of. In it, Warren is careless with words, sloppy with theology, and cute with Christianity. After trudging through 300+ pages of this stuff, I’ve earned the right to wail on it. This book is clearly the product of a lot of thought, but not careful, precise, expositional thought. The content of the book hardly merits its existence, let alone its length.

Third, Warren’s approach to God’s word is despicable. He repeatedly uses phrases like “the Bible says” and then gives a quotation. But references are almost always relegated to an endnote (not even a footnote) and the text is taken from any one of fifteen translations, only a few of which are credible-for-teaching, formal translations of God’s word. It’s not unusual to have two or more translations quoted in a given page. The net effect is that even if you are highly familiar with the text, you’re unlikely to be able to discern the context from the quotation given, and barring looking at the back of the book for the reference several hundred times, you are left with a disconnected string of words with little to no context which you must simply take the author’s word for being what God says (and don’t expect much explanation of the text itself). The result is that Warren’s assertions are cut off from Scripture authority. Warren is obviously accustomed to this criticism as he includes an apology for this practice as an appendix. The apology is embarrassing. As is the practice. More than that, it’s shameful.

Fourth, The Purpose Driven Life comes across as the big book of things to do. It’s a sort of Christianity that is unfortunate and burdensome on its fundamentalist home turf, and is no less so in this Evangelical reincarnation.

Conclusion

I have to think that this book was successful more because it was written than because of what it says. It’s a sort of theological Sunday School, but not in a good way.

I had hoped to glean some substantive thoughts on deliberate living from a gifted man I knew I didn’t see eye to eye with. And I did glean some helpful thoughts. But perhaps the most beneficial result of my taking the time to read this book is that you won’t.

Grace to you.

The comment seems absurd to those who live within the orb of Christianity, but are there grounds to question the historical existence of Jesus the Christ?

The question really entails two questions. The first question has to do with whether this character named Jesus did indeed live two thousand years ago. If he did, the second question has to do with whether the nature of this historical figure indeed matched the description passed down to us in the Christian Scriptures.

Both of these questions are important. The first question asks whether secular history attests to the historicity of Jesus the Christ. The second question asks whether Jesus has been reshaped beyond recognition over the centuries by legend and myth.

I will attempt to address the first question in this post and the second in a later post.

Does secular history attest to the existence of Jesus the Christ?

While it is intellectually absurd to ignore the historical significance of the Christian Scriptures altogether, let us set them aside for now and look to the other written records which enlighten our knowledge of historical figures.

It is, of course, unnecessary to consider works that predate Jesus Christ’s life. With the death of Jesus Christ c. AD 30, we’ve only to wait a few years until AD 37 when one Titus Flavius Josephus is born in the very city where Jesus died. This is significant because Jesus was a young man when he died, rose, and ascended (approximately 33 years old). Josephus would have grown up in a Jerusalem where the contemporaries of Jesus Christ were middled aged!

It is not until c. AD 97 that Josephus publishes his Antiquities of the Jews in which he makes two direct references to Jesus Christ. The first is rather comprehensive:

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. Antiquities 3:3

While questions have been raised about Josephus’ authorship of this passage, scholars generally agree that if it was altered, the nucleus of the statement still comes to us directly from the pen of Josephus.

An undisputed reference is made later in the same work (9:1):

Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

While Josephus makes reference to John the Baptist (15:2), we move on to AD 116 to find our next significant historical reference to Jesus Christ. Publius Cornelius Tacitus was born in AD 56, approximately 26 years after the death of Jesus Christ. Tacitus was a Roman senator who refers to Jesus Christ in the surviving portions of his Annals (15:44).

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration [the burning of Rome] was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.

The key significance of these two sources is that while both of them are chronologically very close to the original historical figure, neither is Christian. Neither has any reason to favour Christians—indeed, it is apparent that Tacitus had little but contempt for the Christians. Other sources give more indirect evidence to the existence of Jesus Christ. For instance, Pliny the Younger (AD 61 – c. AD 112) who tortured and executed many Christians described them to the Roman emporer, Trajan:

They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of a meal–but ordinary and innocent food. (Epistulae X.96)

This is just one of many testimonies to the early, widespread acknowledgement of the historical Jesus Christ. For those familiar with Western history, it is patently inconceivable that the origin and explosive growth of Christianity was not based on the historical figure, Jesus Christ.

If one admits Christian authors as testament to the existence of Jesus Christ—indeed one must (the vast majority of scholarship in the last twenty centuries comes from Christianity)—the references multiply. In the first century alone, authors that refer to Jesus Christ as a historical figure include Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, Barnabas, Papias, etc. In the second century, we find Mathetes, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tatian, Theophilus, etc.

Conclusion

It is an intellectual impossibility to reasonably dismiss the historical figure, Jesus Christ, as an invention. Indeed, it is impossible to explain Western society as we know it sans the existence and personality of Jesus the Christ. We could more readily dismiss the existence of Julius Caesar—indeed the Roman Empire as a whole.

Whatever we do with this historical figure, we cannot rub him out of history like so much chalk on pavement. His mark on our world is embedded far more deeply than the pavement itself. To rub it out, we must first rub out historical credence, scholarly integrity, reasonable credulity, and indeed rationality itself.

I urge you to take the person and work of Jesus Christ seriously, for if he did live, and die, and rise, then you will stand before him some day to account for your response to him.

The grace of Jesus Christ to you,

Something must change with how we do Independent Baptist Missions.  The current process is a colossal failure…

We must be good stewards in the area of missions.  Currently, we are not.

The process of deputation is simply too long and too costly.  I have heard some say that deputation doesn’t need to be changed because it was the time when God taught them so much and grew their faith.  I don’t doubt that at all.  But let’s not put God in a box and say that He can’t teach people and grow their faith in a more effective and beneficial deputation process.  It’s like a  member in a church standing up and giving a testimony as to how God has taught them about finances and grown their faith through their bankruptcy, and then the church designing a program to usher people through bankruptcy.  After all, God uses that to strengthen people’s faith and teach them about finances.  Just because God uses something that does not mean that it is the most beneficial, logical, and prudent process to reach the goal.

We cannot wait for the problem to get worse; change needs to be made now.

I agree. Jeremy goes on to list three suggestions toward addressing the problem:

1. Missionaries should not be invited to a church unless the church intends to support the missionary.
2. Support levels should be raised.
3. Pastors need to use their relationship networks to get meetings for missionaries.

I want to expand on some of his thoughts with the Australian context in mind.

First, the mentality in Australia is that every church has every missionary visit. Church members even talk about missionaries as “our missionaries” even though they do not send them steady support. I submit that they have no right to do this. With ownership comes obligation, not the least of which is financial.

Second, support levels need to rise dramatically. In Australia, some churches support their missionaries for $50 a month. That is appalling. Let me estimate the costs to the missionary of receiving support:

• Time/equipment to write a monthly update (four hours at $60 p/h, plus $100 monthly accrual toward equipment divided by an average of fifty supporting churches equals $6.80 per month.)
• One reporting visit per four years (I’ll calculate based on a one week visit at the normal annual salary assuming the transport costs are covered by a love offering. A $60,000 p/a salary divided by 52 weeks equals $1,153.80. Divide this by four years [48 months] and you get $24.00 per month.)

Based on these (admittedly rough… very rough!) figures, it costs the missionary $30.80 per month to be supported by your church at $50 a month. That’s assuming they don’t have to pay any tax on it either in Australia or in the country in which they are ministering.

By the way, if you are a “prayer supporter” and you receive updates and regular visits from the missionary, this is how much you are costing your missionary for your prayers per month.

Third, I feel that the new base level giving should be $200. In other words, right now in Australia, I think most churches would be embarrassed to give less than $50. I think churches should be embarrassed to give less than $200. Here’s why. Fifty dollars was the base level fifteen years ago. And while the base level hasn’t moved, inflation has. Fifteen years ago, $50 was worth only $34 in today’s money. In other words, because of inflation, it costs $73.50 in 2012 to buy what the $50 bought in 1997. So unless you’ve increased your support by $23.50 in that time, you’ve actually cut your support in terms of buying power for your missionary. This is to say nothing of fluctuating exchange rates.

So even if we were not going to make any changes to how we support missions, our base giving should still be closer to $100 a month. But assuming that the current system is problematic, I think the normal support should be closer to $300 and base support should be closer to $200. I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect established ministries to support missionaries for $400 or more. This would cut deputation and furlough lengths dramatically and allow for stronger relationships between missionaries and their supporters.

Fourth, I think churches should consider indexing their support to the annual inflation rate. In other words, if we support our missionary at $200 per month and annual inflation is 2.6% this year, then we would automatically increase our support by 2.6% to $205.20 so that the buying power doesn’t change. Note that this needs to be automatic. Votes to increase support are complex and somehow don’t tend to make it to the top of the priority list. Ideally, it would be an automatic, annual event.

Fifth, I think our approach to furlough needs to change. A missionary pastor should never, ever, ever be asked to leave his church for long periods of time. Certainly arguments can be made about whether missionaries should pastor in the first place. But if a missionary is pastoring on the field, it is wrong to rip him out of his church for long periods leaving a young flock in the hands of a “substitute” pastor or without any pastor. There are a lot of ways to avoid these absences. I believe we need to utilise them.

Sixth, I think we need to expand our paradigm to include a broader range of mission models. When someone feels called of God to minister in some way to people in a certain place, spending years on the road asking for money should be the last resort, not the standard practice. Paul’s only recorded supporting church was a church that Paul planted! Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission had over a thousand missionaries in China, but missionaries were not allowed to ask for support. Those who volunteer for mission work should be directed to consider a tent-making model, a vocational model, or an informal (“faith”) model and only encouraged to seek formal support as a last resort depending on the nature of the work they propose to do.

How could Jeremy’s or my suggestions be improved? What ideas can you add?

Grace to you.

Cutting edge is good?

My approach to reading is based on the premise that newer does not equal better. In fact, I assume the opposite. I assume that of the thousands of books that are published in 2012, hundreds at best will be worth investing my time in reading.

I do not say that because I think the books aren’t valuable and full of knowledge worth having. I say that because of the following scary reality: Outside of my academic studies, I read 20 books in 2011.

A life is made up of only so many books

Twenty books is probably more than I’ve read in the average year previously. But taking that as an average, assuming a 70 year lifetime, and assuming the health to read until the day I die, I will read 800 more books in my life. Max. And only 400 of them will be before I’m 50.

That reality sobers me. There will probably be 400 books published this month alone. Yet I can think of dozens of books written before 1800 that I really should make the effort to read before I die.

So I feel that of the thousands of books that will be published in 2012, only a very few of them should be priority reading for me. I would much rather read the stand-out books from 2011 or 2000 or 1990 this year than to try to ride the wave of the cutting edge. After all, it will be difficult during 2012 to tell which 2012 books are really worth reading. But I suspect in 2022, it will be a lot clearer.

Reading representatively

So my approach to reading tends to be more representative. I want to read key books that represent key streams of thought. There is the odd topic that I want to read in depth. Very rarely I will be able to read almost exhaustively on a topic. But my goal is to read broadly and representatively.

Why read broadly? Well, there are many reasons. But one reason is that I don’t consider myself to really understand a view deeply until I’ve read proponents of that view. It’s no use reading Cessationists defending Cessationism and then seeking to address the major Continuationist lines of thinking in our day. One must actually read his opponents before he can credibly argue against them. This requires reading all sorts of books by all sorts of people.

So why review?

Why should I review a book that’s been out for twenty or thirty years? Well, since the blog phenomenon is a recent development, I suppose many older books would have a fairly limited store of online reviews. So my reviews are designed to help others judge which books might be beneficial to them.

Additionally, I will try to make it a habit to review books whether or not I appreciate them. My goal in this is not to be unnecessarily negative, but rather to provide a counterpoint to the mainstream thinking.

Grace to you.

142 pages.

 ★★★☆☆ 

While it is not explicitly stated, the intended audience of this book is the unsaved or those struggling in their faith. First published in 1958, this is a relatively brief apology for the Christian faith aimed at the average person.

Stott sets out the Christian faith starting with the person of Jesus Christ. He then moves to man’s sin which is followed by a section on Christ’s work at the cross, and finishes by addressing man’s response.

The ups

First, Stott presents an introduction to the Christian faith that is grounded in solid theology. While the book serves a similar function as C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Stott’s work focuses on history and theology in contradistinction to Lewis’ emphasis on philosophy and reason—and would probably for that reason be helpful to different kinds of people.

Second, the apologetic is built on the dilemma of Jesus Christ himself. In other words, the historical person, Jesus Christ, is presented as a reality which cannot be ignored by fair minded people. While Stott gives lip-service to a classical apologetic, in practice, this book follows a more presuppositional approach.

Third, the book is presented with a winsome kindliness which makes it ideal for those wrestling with their faith.

The downs

First, there are several points of concern in the area of theology. At several points, Stott seems to allude to a non-literal view of hell. Additionally, it is clear at several points that Stott does not hold to believer’s baptism. Finally, Stott’s approach to the atonement raises questions—questions which the book does not answer.

Second, chapter ten single-handedly took a full star off this review. The language of conversion is deeply reminiscent of Finneyistic decisionalism. This is topped off with a drawn out use of an interpretation of Revelation 3 (“I stand at the door and knock”) which is highly suspect.

Third, in chapter three, the presentation of Christ’s love blurs the line between love and codependence at the very least. “This utter disregard of self… is what the Bible calls love.” While his general point is on track, there would be benefit in a more precise enunciation of the point.

Conclusion

This book is a worthwhile read for the the apologist and will be helpful for a certain kind of unbeliever. It is also the sort of material which could be used to help young people who have grown up in the context of Christianity to ground themselves in the Christian faith personally.

Grace to you.

For some that might mean perpetual darkness. Or perpetual cold and snow. Or perpetual heat. In the Far North, it means perpetual rain.

Of course up here we don’t flood. Or where we do, it’s little surprise and about as much drama. Not all of Australia is so blessed.

“That time of year” is often associated with discouragement. Incidence of depression increases during the long night at the poles, during the snow season in many parts of the world, and in the rainy season in the tropics. Many of our emotional metaphors reflect this reality: A dark mood, feeling blue, cold hearted, night of the soul, a clouded face, etc.

But you know what they say—and nowhere is it more true than in the land of droughts and floods: When it rains, it pours. And I don’t think that’s an accident.

In micro, today it took nothing more than an uncooperative piece of electronic equipment to bring me from self-sufficient calm to rather helpless frustration. For a few moments, I had to face the reality that my solemn command was entirely ineffectual in bringing about the desired electronic phenomenon. My take-on-the-world machismo lay in undignified ruins as I sprawled on the ground next to it surrounded by screwdrivers and other such implements in perfect defeat.

I feel a little like that tonight as I listen to the relentless rain outside my window. It never feels good to be there. I’d much rather feel that I can take on the world, that I am in charge of my world, that I’ve got it covered. But I can’t. And I’m not. And I don’t.

Why does it pour when it rains? Perhaps it’s because we can handle a little rain. And perhaps God never intended to give us something we could handle.

Apart from me you can do nothing.  —John 15:5

Grace to you.