A Pornography Sea Change

I’ve spent the last year working on a book to help men struggle against the temptations of pornography and other sexual sins. After a full year, I feel like I’m climbing a huge mountain yet still only nearing the first basecamp. There’s such a long way to go.

There are many reasons why I’ve made this a priority for research and writing, but for starters let me mention this: the issues in culture and in our churches related to pornography abuse are only going to increase as technology becomes more advanced and pornography becomes more abundant. In fact, pornography has driven much of the technological advancements we now enjoy in hundreds of other, nobler applications.

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We are experiencing a sea change. Think about this with me. The Playboys of old were largely inaccessible to young men, save when some kid nabbed a few of them from his father or uncle’s secret stash. Those who were old enough to purchase pornography for themselves could only do so by pushing through the stigma associated with buying a magazine wrapped in plastic behind the counter. Maybe not a big hurdle, but it was something.

Not to mention this too—even once obtained, these images were still shots, motionless images. Videos, of course, existed, but again with the accessibility issues. Cable television companies offered upgrades for channels so homes could get stations such as Cinemax, which my friends called Skinemax, but apart from the occasionally free promotional weekend or a visit to someone’s house that had it, again it was mostly inaccessible.

And let’s talk about the videos themselves. Often, so I’m told, there were attempts at plot and characterization and story. Cheesy as the porn movies might have been, they were more than just bodies slapping together.

Now, however, via smartphones and nearly ubiquitous Wi-Fi and high-speed Internet, all manner of pornographic images are available to me in seconds—millions and millions of photos: affordable, accessible, and anonymous. If I get bored with one picture or website, I go to another. And another. Miss January, Miss February, and Miss March separated, not by 31 days, but by the millisecond it takes to swipe my thumb right. Then, if I want, I can switch porn genres. And even if I don’t want to, the Internet-linking techniques and pop-up windows will push me to do so, and do so with increasing explicitness.

This inexhaustible supply goes for videos too, except they are not the same movies as before. Instead, like heroin that has been boiled down to an exponentially more concentrated form, the videos that are now streamed over high-speed Internet have been cropped to include only their most explicit content. Clip, after clip, after clip, after clip of nothing but bodies slapping together.

Affordable, accessible, anonymous, abundant, and addictive.

See what I mean. The world has not yet begun to see the effects of this sea change. 

[Picture by Dennis Cortés / Unsplash]

Be Careful with This Stuff: Foreword to More People to Love

Just before Christmas our book More People to Love was released. If you didn’t get a chance to pick it up, you can get it for free by subscribing to this blog (see sidebar). And if you want a paper copy, the book is only $7.99 on Amazon.

Below is the foreword to our book by author and syndicated radio host, Brant Hansen.

*     *     *

A note before you start reading this book: Be careful with this stuff.

If you take Jason and Benjamin seriously, you might wind up doing something dangerous, which is to say, actually follow through on it. You might even pick up and move. Now, for some people, moving into a troubled city is no big deal. But to me, it was an ironic twist of the highest order.

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I used to hate cities. Not moderately dislike; hate. No lie: I learned how to play guitar so I could play John Cougar Mellencamp songs. The first song I learned was—of course—“Small Town.” (For those younger than 40, this is a song about, you know, small towns, and how awesome they are.)

At the University of Illinois most of my friends were from Chicago. I was from a town called “Assumption” (population: 1,000). We argued endlessly about the relative merits of urban versus rural lifestyles.

Growing up in country churches, I’d sing along with songs about heaven. And they all evoked the countryside. “I want a mansion, just over the hilltop . . .” and “Just give me a little cabin, in the corner of Gloryland . . .”

Of course Heaven would be rural. It’s obvious. And Hell? Well, I’m just saying, it’s overcrowded. Probably has a subway. So draw your own conclusions.

I even used to dislike (again, I’m not making this up) Sesame Street because it was too urban. It scared me. Trashcans and brick buildings and apartments and everybody packed in there. Sure, I liked Grover—who doesn’t?—but the city thing was freaky.

 . . . and then it happened; I moved to the city. The ideas in this book, the ideas in the Bible . . . well, they’re dangerous, and they changed things for me. They changed everything.

It’s taken a long time to absorb, but I’ve learned that, apparently, God loves people more than cornstalks. I’ve also learned God wants to conform my heart to his. Sometimes, this means re-thinking, which happens to be what “repentance” means.

So, very long story short, here we are—my family and I living in the inner city. And, to add irony, on our street they could film Sesame Street. I frequently joke about hiding in our trashcan in front of our old brick building and doing some grouchy freelance puppetry.

I still love small towns and yearn for the familiar, but God has changed my heart on this one. As Jason and Benjamin point out in this book, heaven is going to be a city. The old hymns steered me wrong on this one.

Nature is beautiful, but is it possible that, to God, cities have a beauty of an even higher order? I’ve looked over the Rift Valley, and I’ve marveled at Yosemite and, like you, have seen the night sky.

Breathtaking.

But I also remember looking out over San Francisco in the evening and thinking, “You know what? There’s nothing else like this.”

God also created us to create. He loves us. To think we can also make something beautiful because we’re stamped with his image, and put so many people, who are so loved, in one place—there’s something breathtaking about that, too.

My wife and I have a totally different life together now. Our neighborhood is everything I was scared of growing up. We can’t set foot out the door without interacting with someone interesting, whether it’s a friendly old neighbor lady or a not-friendly old neighbor lady; a drunk person at 9 a.m. or the local drug dealer; the wonderful family crammed into an old place across the street with their five sweet little boys or . . . well . . . that young man who attacked my wife with a hammer in broad daylight on a Monday morning. Like I said, there’s always someone interesting just outside our door.

And when that hammer was thrown at my wife, she was just walking the dogs. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt. Still, the guy just came up the street and threw a hammer. Then he ran up to her, put her in a headlock, and eventually threw her on the street. This was everything we’d feared, whether we’d said it aloud or not.

Could we even stay here?

My wife now says in some ways it was a blessing. We’re more connected to our neighbors than ever, and they know who we are. They also got to see my wife’s desire to forgive her attacker, even as we let the justice system do its necessary thing. We pray for the guy.

And we pray for our neighbors. Addicts, wiccans, weirdoes, whatever. Hey, we’re weird too, and we’re not here to change you. We can’t do that. We’re actually for you. Truth is, we don’t totally know what we’re doing. But wow, is this interesting!

There’s a man who sits on our sidewalk every day, all day and drinks beer. He’s old and full of stories. He told us, “You know what? You guys are the best thing to happen to this neighborhood in years.”

Whether that’s true or not, whether it was the beer talking or not, I was glad to hear it. Another neighbor sat on our stoop and asked my wife, “So, I’ve wondered something: Why do you guys love people here so much?”

I don’t tell you this to tell you we’re awesome. I tell you this because we’re not. You can do this, too. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m an introvert and socially awkward and very selfish and I don’t naturally like people at all . . . but my heart is changing.

God loves people—needy, broken people—and now . . . well, here they are, right outside our window.

I’m convinced he not only loves them, he likes them, too. Imagine that.

Me? I’m getting there.

Here’s to getting there together!

Brant Hansen, Syndicated Christian radio host and author of Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better

[Photo by Abigail Keenan / Unsplash]

THE IMPERFECT PASTOR by Zack Eswine (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Zack Eswine, The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015. 272 pp.

The title of Zack Eswine’s book, The Imperfect Pastor, reminds me of a line from the movie A Few Good Men. During the iconic courtroom scene, Jack Nicholson’s character speaks about “danger.” To this, Tom Cruise’s character asks, “Grave danger?” Nicholson responds, “Is there another kind?”

The Imperfect Pastor, huh? I stare at this title and like Nicholson’s character ask, Is there another kind?

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There is, of course, just one perfect pastor, but you’re not it, and neither am I. Nevertheless, too often this doesn’t stop us from shepherding with the illusion that we are perfect, and when we do, we wear a harsh yoke and pull a heavy load, one never meant for our feeble shoulders. Balsa wood, no matter the color we paint it, will never be tempered steel.

Eswine is a pastor at Riverside Church in St. Louis, the author of several books, and a part-time faculty member at Covenant Theological Seminary.

Early in the book, he tells a story about meeting with a young pastor for lunch. The eager-beaver declared to Eswine his desire to “go all out for the ministry.” After some pauses, Eswine responded, “If the ministry is what we go all out for . . . then how we define ‘the ministry’ seems important, you know?” (p. 23).

In this conversation, we see the heart of the book: a book about definitions. And definitions are important, aren’t they? We evangelicals opposed the redefinition of marriage, and rightly so, but I wonder how many of us are as concerned about the redefinition of ministry. The Imperfect Pastor critiques the view that prizes all things “fast and famous” (a phrase used frequently), while offering a better, more biblical way to do ministry. “Christian life and ministry,” Eswine writes, “are an apprenticeship with Jesus toward recovering our humanity and, through his Spirit, helping our neighbors do the same” (p. 35).

Eswine uses the whole book to flesh out that definition, and as he does, I found it very convicting. I could list dozens of sections from the book that poked my pride and revealed my sinful misconceptions about ministry. Take this one for example: “To the important pastor doing large and famous things speedily, the brokenness of people actually feels like an intrusion keeping us from getting our important work for God done” (p. 28). Ouch. Someone hand me the sackcloth.

For Eswine, his own ministry and marriage have not been without a few bumps, some of them quite significant. As he talks about these struggles in the book, we believe him when he writes, “I know firsthand the beauty and arson of ministerial desires” (p. 19). In this way, we might say the book has translucence; he doesn’t hide his faults from readers. And speaking of readers, though geared towards pastors, any thoughtful Christian engaged in ministry shouldn’t feel left out.

After that young pastor had told Eswine he wanted “to go all out for ministry,” Eswine attempted to say a few things to expand his definition of ministry. To this, the young man responded, “I don’t know where to start with all that” (p. 25).

Where to start, huh? Perhaps you feel this way too. If so, reading The Imperfect Pastor would be a perfect place. In the years to come, I know I will certainly return to the book to throw off the yoke of perfection and find joy in my dependence upon Jesus, the only perfect pastor and the only one with shoulders of steel and a gospel of grace.

[Picture by Sam Carter / Unsplash]

This Changed My Attitude towards the Bible

Those words—“[this] changed my attitude towards the Bible”—are from pastor and author Timothy Keller in his most recent book Hidden Christmas. The event he’s speaking about was a time of observing one Bible verse for an extended period of time.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of observing the Bible carefully before we come to conclusions about what a passage means and before we figure out how we are supposed to obey a passage. In short, we must observe a passage carefully before we interpret and apply it.

Talking about this importance, Keller writes:

[In the Bible, what] looks like a simple statement, when pondered, can be discovered to have multiple dimensions of meaning and endless personal applications—far more than could ever be discovered with a cursory glance.

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At [a formative] Christian conference [for me] . . . there was a session on how to read the Bible. The speaker, Barbara Boyd, said to us, “Sit down for thirty minutes and write down at least thirty things you can learn from Mark 1:17,” which reads, “’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’” Then she instructed us, “Don’t think after 10 minutes and four or five things written down that you’ve figured it out. Take the whole thirty minutes and try to get to thirty things observed.” So we sat silently and did as told. And indeed, after about ten minutes I was pretty sure that I’d seen everything there was to see in these fifteen words. I put my pen down and wanted to spend the rest of the time daydreaming but everybody else looked like they were still working, so I picked up the pen and started pondering some more. Then I began to notice new things. If I imagined what the sentence would mean without one of its words, it was easier to assess what unique meaning it brought to the sentence. That gave me ability to get another two or three insights around each term. Then I tried to paraphrase the whole verse, putting it into my own words. That showed me more levels of meaning and implication that I had missed.

At the end of the thirty minutes, the teacher asked us to circle on our papers the best insight or the most life changing thing we had gotten out of the text. Then she said, “Okay, how many of you found this most incredible, life-changing thing in the first five minutes?” Nobody raised their hand. “Ten minutes?” Nobody raised their hand. “Fifteen minutes?” A few hands. “Twenty minutes?” A few more. “Twenty-five minutes?” Even more. That session changed my attitude toward the Bible and, indeed, my life.

Timothy Keller, Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ (New York, NY: Viking, 2016), 105–106 (emphasis original).

[Picture by Freddy Marschall / Unsplash]

THE WHOLE MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE IN 16 WORDS by Chris Bruno (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Chris Bruno, The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017. 160 pp.

Today, my favorite publisher (Crossway) released a new book. It’s The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words by Chris Bruno. He serves as the Director of Advancement at Trinity Christian School in Kailua, Hawaii. He is also the author of a book with a similar name.

The goal of Bruno’s book is to take some of the most important concepts of the Bible (to be exact, 16 of them), and then trace how these ideas are developed from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible. This process of tracing themes is called “biblical theology.” Biblical theology is related to but different from “systematic theology.” Bruno explains it like this: 

The task of systematic theology is to gather everything the Bible says about a particular topic into one place. The goal of biblical theology is to trace the progressive development of a theme or cluster of themes in the Bible. (12)

Two weeks ago, I posted my review of Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel by Ray Ortlund. That book is an attempt to do biblical theology on the topic of marriage. Bruno’s task—and it’s a tall order—does this for 16 different themes, and all in one book!

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I found the chapters on “The End,” “Temple, and “Land” to be particularly insightful. Perhaps, though, as you glance at the table of contents, it’s possible you might have selected a few different words.

Nevertheless, I feel about this selection the same way I feel about “chronological Bibles.” I love the idea of a chronological Bible, that is, a Bible arranged in the order of when events occurred. However, I would never want to be the one who decided what order to place some of the books. Sure, to a pastor who is familiar with things, a few choices are obvious. The book of Exodus comes before Ezra, and both of these come before Ephesians. But where do you place Joel within the Old Testament? And how do you arrange the gospel passages, especially when they are of parallel accounts? Not easy decisions.

And now, coming back to which 16 words to choose, I love that this book exists, but I’m also glad I did not have to choose which words to use! But Chris did a really good job of it.

This is a perfect book for those who are first beginning to grapple with theology and the overarching story of the Bible. As well, it would be helpful to those who have been around the Bible for a long time but perhaps have been overwhelmed by all the individual parts and thus have not grasped the coherence of the whole.

Without being simplistic, the book is very accessible. When Bruno uses words like “eschatology” (the study of the end times) and “ex nihilo” (creation made “out of nothing”) and concepts such as “already-and-not-yet,” he makes sure they are always well-defined. He also uses many helpful illustrations to dive into the topics. And for the most part, the book is not specific to any one theological viewpoint. Rather, to use the words of C.S. Lewis, the book is “mere Christianity,” or “mere biblical theology,” in the best sense of the phrases.

Again, The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words releases today. Love for you to pick it up here.

A Few Favorite Quotes

“The return of Christ and the new creation is obviously a big part of what we mean by eschatology. But I have something bigger in mind. When I talk about eschatology, it starts with God keeping his promises, forgiving sin, sending his Spirit, and reigning as King.” (19)

“As we take the gospel to the ends of the earth, we are actually doing what Adam and Eve failed to do—expand the boundaries of God’s temple so that it fills the earth. As the church is built, God’s presence fills the earth.” (68)

“But I think the community of the Trinity also helps us understand what it means to be made in God’s image. At the very least, we have to say that God has existed in an eternal community; when God says in Genesis 2 that man should not be alone, his desire is for his people to experience something like the community of the Trinity.” (81)

“At the cross, God doesn’t only judge sin. He doesn’t only save his people. Instead, at the cross, God judges sin in order to save his people. His justice is the instrument that he uses to display his mercy!” (105)

[Picture by Ben White / Unsplash]

How to Study the Bible

Today I’m continuing the blog series I started a few weeks ago. It’s a primer on how to study a Bible passage, as well as how to teach that passage in a way that is clear and compelling. I’m calling the series “Backstage Pass” because I’ll be taking you “backstage of the pulpit” to see what goes into the writing of a sermon.

As I previously said, I realize not everyone will become a vocational teacher of the Bible. Nevertheless, all Christians will spend their life studying the Bible; it’s what we do.

But how do we go about studying the book that God wrote?

O – I – A

I suppose many methods can be employed to study the Bible. I’ll admit that upfront. Yet not all methods are equally helpful. There are some ways to go about Bible study that go with the grain of the passage; they glide. They do not feel forced and manipulated because the interpreter cooperates with the text.

However, there are some ways of studying the Bible that are not at all helpful. In fact, we could say they don’t necessarily force a square peg into a round hole, but rather they batter it in with a sledgehammer. In short, they do violence to the Bible.  

Several years ago, a co-worker taught me a helpful acronym. He used it to explain (in broad terms) an effective process for studying the Bible. I’m not sure where my friend first learned the acronym. (A quick internet search shows that others are using the acronym too.)

The letters are O – I – A. I use this process each week when I prepare sermons. As I’ve written before, that’s a process stretched over twenty hours. But it certainly doesn’t have to take that long. Not that I do this overtly each morning, but when I read my Bible devotionally every day, the process lasts a little over 20 minutes.

The “O” stands for observation.
Observation is the first step to understanding a passage. To observe a passage well, you need to spend time looking at it—a lot of time!

For me, this most especially happens during the translation stage of sermon preparation. But you do not need to know how to read the original languages to accurately observe a passage. Observation can be done very effectively using only English Bibles, especially if you compare several good translations. When I’m in the observation phase, I write down as many things about the passage as I can, as well as noting what questions I have about the passage. If I’m able to answer my own questions through more observation, great. If not, I revisit them later. Sometimes I eventually learn the answers to my questions and other times I don’t.

If you get stuck in your observations and need some questions to get you going deeper, consider asking a few of these questions of the passage:

1. What is this passage saying about the character of God?
2. What is this passage saying about the grace of God?
3. What is this passage saying about the way people are saved?
4. What is this passage saying generally about people?
5. More specifically, what is this passage saying about Christians?
6. More specifically, what is this passage saying about non-Christians?

The “I” stands for interpretation.
Once you have spent sufficient time observing the passage, the next step is to determine what the passage means. This is interpretation, the necessary outworking of careful observation.

To assist in the interpretation stage, it’s helpful to consult other Christians who have also observed the passage, especially those who have studied the passage in depth. Think about it like this. If you come up with an interpretation for a passage that, after 2,000 years of church history, has never before existed, then you’re probably wrong. That’s why during the interpretation phase I typically consult several Bible commentaries on the passage. Three very helpful commentary series for pastors and non-pastors are: The Bible Speaks Today (Intervarsity Press), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Zondervan), and God’s Word for You (The Good Book Company). Also, the English Standard Version Study Bible is a tool I regularly use.

I know some people tend to pooh-pooh Bible commentaries (yes, a very technical term). They do this, I think, because they believe using commentaries is unspiritual. An interpreter, they say, should go to the source—God, not man. I agree that we should not prioritize commentaries to the exclusion of listening to God. Indeed, the best, highest, and most authoritative source to help us understand what one passage means is to use other Bible passages to shed light on it. Let Scripture interpret Scripture, the saying goes.

But I don’t think consulting commentaries is necessarily unspiritual. I think quite the opposite is true actually. If it’s true that God has given the church “pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:10–11)—which he has—then it is our spiritual duty to be learners. Before we teach, we listen to learn. Again, we are not the first people in church history to study any one passage.

The final letter, “A,” stands for application.
Once you have observed the passage and rightly interpreted it (i.e., you know what it means), now you have to apply the passage to your life, and possibly the lives of others.

During the application phase you should be asking questions like, “Based on what this says, what am I now supposed to do?” and “How should I be different because of this passage?” and “How am I meant to feel in light of the truth in this passage (hopeful, encouraged, sobered, repentant, etc.)?”

You should notice something about the way I worded these questions. They all have some variation of the phrase “based on what this passage means . . .” That’s intentional. The point of biblical application is that it flows naturally from what the passage means (i.e, it’s proper interpretation). Perhaps this is obvious to you, but I mention it because it’s not obvious to many people, and even when it is, it’s quickly forgotten.

Crafting applications that arise out of the main thrust of a passage is one of the most challenging aspects of studying the Bible. Too often applications come either from a minor or peripheral aspect of the passage. But even this is better than applications that have no basis in the text, which is sadly all too common.

If you get stuck on finding the proper applications, you can go back to some of the questions I listed above related to observation. For applications, you can rephrase them “Based on what this passage says about the character of God, I/we must do what?” This tends to jog some good ideas.  

Don’t Skip Steps

When studying and teaching the Bible, it’s crucial to not skip any one of these steps. Consider an analogy from health care. If you are sick, then you surely want a doctor to spend time observing you before she interprets your particular issues and prescribes a solution. You don’t diagnose cancer and prescribe a treatment plan after a 3-minute exam.

Additionally, another error could arise by overemphasis in the opposite direction. You don’t want your doctor to spend hours and hours (which means dollars and dollars) observing you but never come to an application.

The same is true when working with a biblical text. We must observe it, interpret it, and then apply it.

One final comment before leaving this subject until the next post in this series. In a sense, this three-step process is not only linear. It’s circular. In other words, we keep going through iterations until, in the case of health care, the health challenge is resolved, or in the case of a sermon, the passage is taught.

So, if you don’t have a “teaching assignment” already on the calendar. Just pick a short passage to try. And let the observation begin . . .

[Photo by John Towner / Unsplash]

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MARRIAGE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL by Ray Ortlund (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Ray Ortlund, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016. 128 pp.

Besides following my wife on Facebook, of all the people I follow on social media—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and, yes, even LinkedIn—my favorite person to follow on social media is Ray Ortlund on Instagram. Ortlund is the pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and the author of several books, including The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ and Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology. He has also written commentaries on the Old Testament books of Proverbs and Isaiah, as well as contributing to the ESV Study Bible.

But why is this guy, this Ortlund fella, my favorite person to follow on social media?

Well, I just like him. I really do. Perhaps because, according to Instagram, it seems . . .

He’s part goofball (here, here, here).
He’s part hunter-warrior (here, here, here).
He’s part pastor-author-scholar (here, here, here).
He’s part passionate pet owner of a black lab (here, here, here).
He’s part lover-of-his grandkids (here, here, here).
He’s part cultural- and spiritual-agitator, often posting on racial injustice (here, here, here).

Nevertheless, if Ortlund is these in part, it would seem he’s also completely in love with his wife. He’s always posting pictures of her on Instagram with captions that sing her praises (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and many more). It’s because of this love for his bride that, when I saw Ortlund had written a book about marriage, I was immediately ready to hit “Buy Now.” Unfortunately, it just took me a few months to hit “Read Now” and post my review.

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Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel is part of a series by Crossway called “Short Studies in Biblical Theology.” Biblical theology is the attempt to track the development of a theme in the same way the Bible develops the theme—from the beginning of the story to the end. Hence, Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel has a progression from Genesis; to the books of law, wisdom, and prophets; to the New Testament; and then finally to the present day. And throughout the book, Ortlund writes with a sympathetic, yet firm awareness that the biblical view of marriage is not highly esteemed by all—sometimes by those in the church who find the biblical view of marriage too passionate, and sometimes by outsiders who find it too restrictive.

A major focus of his book is not, as you might have expected, the human romance between bride and groom, which is the chief subject of so many Christian books on marriage. Rather, Ortlund’s focus is on the divine romance between The Bride and The Groom, that is, the passionate love of Jesus Christ that compels him to woo and rescue the church. Ortlund writes,

I want to lead you on a brief journey of discovery from the beginning of the Bible to its end, because the Bible is a love story. It is not a hodgepodge of religious thoughts. The Bible unfolds as a complex but coherent narrative of God gathering a bride for his Son—and he found her on the wrong side of town, too. What a story! (13)

As I read Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, I found myself longing to be able to articulate the biblical view of marriage the way Ortlund does. It’s one of those books, that if I had let myself, I might have underlined more sentences than I didn’t. In my opinion, his writing achieved an ideal I strive for in my own writing, namely, “accessible yet riveting scholarship.” I’m not sure how often—if ever—I live up to that ideal, but it was wonderful to read an author who truly does. 

But not only, or even mainly, do I long to articulate the biblical view of marriage as well as Ortlund does. More than this, the book made me long to live the biblical view of marriage. I want to live the beauty and passion and commitment and long-suffering and intimacy of biblical marriage. I want this for my own marriage and the marriages of those in my church.

The Gospel Coalition, as they sometimes do for new books, published a post of their favorite 20 quotes from the book (here). I won’t repeat this feat, but here are just four of my favorites to whet your appetite.

“It is not as though marriage is just one theme among others in the Bible. Instead, marriage is the wraparound concept for the entire Bible, within which the other themes find their places.” (16)

“The head-with-helper dance of complementarity sprang from deep within the intuitions of God himself. We men and women today do not automatically know the steps to this dance. We must learn. But if we will receive it by faith, trusting in the goodness and wisdom of God, we can then explore its potentialities for joyful human magnificence.” (23)

“The key to a lasting romance is not endless sex but believing hearts.” (54)

“So [Jesus] not only believed Genesis 2:24 to be valid and relevant, but he publically taught it to be so—and not because he was a man of his times, echoing what everyone believed back then. What got Jesus into trouble was that he was not a man of his times.” (80)

If you are looking for a short, but stout book about marriage, I couldn’t recommend this book more highly. And if you’re looking for someone new to follow on Instagram, ditto.

[Picture by Anne Edgar / Unsplash]

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth?

In last week’s post I explained a few reasons why I believe the best diet of preaching consists of “expository sermons.” In expository sermons, the point of the Bible passage is the point of the sermon. This type of preaching is over and against “topical sermons.” In topical sermons, the theme of the sermon is what drives the passage (or passages) used.

I won’t repeat the reasons for why I believe expository sermons are best, but I thought it might be helpful to illustrate what the preparation for a topical sermon might look like, at least a very particular kind of topical sermon. The type of sermon I have in mind is an “application-heavy topical sermon,” especially one done within the context of the “attractional church.”

Say what? Application-heavy? Attractional church?

It would take a while to unpack these terms in detail, but in short, when I say “application-heavy,” I have in mind sermons that focus primarily on what we are supposed to do. So, for example, sermons titled “4 Steps to Living without Anger” or “3 Ways to Thrive during Trials.”

And when I say “attractional church,” I have in mind churches who view the Sunday worship service primarily as a way to reach the un-churched (or de-churched) within their communities, especially by providing a highly polished worship service that is presumably attractive to outsiders.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to reach outsiders. Moreover, there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to teach the Bible in such a way that you give clarity regarding how to live. But think about something with me for a moment. Think about what happens to someone’s view of the Bible and Christianity and the gospel when he or she listens to this type of application-heavy preaching for a decade or so? If you spend years listening to preaching that is primarily designed to tell you what to do, how might this shape (warp?!) your understanding of the Bible and Christianity?

In his book The Prodigal Church, author Jared C. Wilson argues that application-heavy topical sermons become the “new legalism.” The old legalism was one of don’ts, while the new is one of dos. Both of these, however, “are just flip sides of the same legal coin” (84). Without a strong gospel focus, neither avoidance of sin nor pursuit of obedience will please God (Hebrews 11:6).

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The remedy, Wilson argues, is Christ-centered expository sermons, that is, sermons that see every passage of the Bible as pointing to our need for the Savior and how we have that Savior in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

It sounds strange to say it, but this type of sermon—a Christ-centered expository sermon—was the type of sermon Jesus preached in Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus. So Luke tells us, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (v. 27).

And what was the audience’s response to this Christ-centered expository sermon? “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” (v. 32).

In my own experience as a pastor, after listening to a decade of these kinds of Christ-centered sermons, I can personally attest that people do change, and they generally change for the better. This has happened to me, and I’ve seen it happen to others. When we deepen our faith in the gospel week after week, we are only then able to live or apply the Bible appropriately. Remember, according to Hebrews 11 it’s “by faith . . . by faith . . . by faith . . . by faith . . . by faith . . .” that great deeds are done.  

Most of my ministry experience has not been in the attractional church where topical sermons reign. There was, however, a brief stint in college where this was the case as I helped in a local youth group that was part of an attractional church.

Nevertheless, because my experience with the attractional church is limited, I thought I would end this post by letting Jared Wilson himself share how he learned to preach application-heavy topical sermons in the attractional church. He has since left this way of preaching behind, but his recounting of his early days in ministry is a telling one and one that illustrates perfectly what I hope myself and others will avoid as we prepare sermons. Wilson writes,

“Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

“Ever heard the Bible explained that way? It’s a handy mnemonic device that certainly has some truth to it. But does it get at the heart of what the Bible really is?

“While being trained in the ministry, I learned how to craft sermons from listening to a lot of messages from our youth ministry, and from asking some pastors to help me. The gist of the enterprise was this: I needed to come up with a spiritual topic or “felt need” to address, something practical that my audience would be interested in or otherwise just needed to know. After identifying the topic, I needed to draft three or four sermon points, and these needed to be points of application, things my audience could actually do. The emphasis was constantly on practical application, not merely on intellectual information. The sermon needed some handles.

“When my practical steps were listed, I needed to find biblical support for them. Anything that could not be supported with Scripture had to be rewritten or abandoned altogether. Every sermon had to be, in the parlance of the times, “Bible-based.” (It is not uncommon now even to see on the websites of some attractional churches that their messages are “Bible-based” or that they offer “truth based on the Bible.”) So then began the work of digging through the concordance to find Bible verses that might match and support each point.

“It was typically a good idea to find a verse that used the wording similar to the message point, and if you found something close, you could always tweak the message point to match the language of the verse or, alternatively, look at the verse in other Bible versions to see if the wording in one of those versions better matched the wording of the message point. . . . In the end, it was common to see a sermon that contained references from multiple Bible versions—the result of searching for just the right wording.

“It took me years to unlearn this approach to preaching. But in the end I began to discover that the approach was very much upside down. I had learned to preach by making the Bible’s words serve what I wanted to say rather than by making my words serve what the Bible says. To teach and preach in this way is implicitly to say that the Bible can’t be trusted to set the agenda, and that my ideas are better than the Bible at driving changing in my audience. . .

“I’ve also come to see the Bible in a different way. I’ve always believed it was God’s Word, of course, and that makes it living and active (Heb. 4:12) and perfectly capable of making us complete Christians (2 Tim. 3:16–17). But I had been treating it more as a reference book than as a story, and more as a manual of good advice than as an announcement of good news. (Jared C. Wilson, The Prodigal Church, 71–72)

[Picture by Jazmin Quaynor / Unsplash]

OTHER BLOG POSTS ABOUT PREACHING

Why Expository Sermons?

A few weeks ago, I was invited to take my children to a college basketball game. And here’s the really cool part: we were even invited to the locker room to hear the pre-game speech. Last summer, I officiated the wedding of one of the assistant coaches.

During the pre-game speech, I couldn’t believe all the basketball jargon used. If the other team shifted to a “full-court press,” Coach wanted his team to run “Milwaukee,” and if they got around it, then they should, of course, do what?

The team shouted, “Trapeze.”

I didn’t know what he meant by either “Milwaukee” or “Trapeze.” Nor did my kids. But he knew what he meant and so did his team.

I suspect, however, if we had visited a basketball practice during the fall as the players were learning, that the coach explained all this in more detail. This would have been necessary for the freshmen, as well as a helpful refresher for the upperclassmen. On our own, no one knows what obscure jargon means, much less how to apply it. All of us need a coach to bring us along as we learn something new.

Today I’m continuing a blog series I started a few weeks ago. It’s a bit of a primer on how to study a Bible passage, as well as how to teach that passage in a way that is clear and compelling. I’m calling the series “Backstage Pass” because I’ll be taking you “backstage of the pulpit” to see what goes into the writing of a sermon.

As I mentioned the other week, I realize not everyone will become a vocational teacher of the Bible. In fact, few will. Moreover, James told the early church “not many of you should be teachers” (3:1a). Nevertheless, all Christians will spend their life studying the Bible; it’s what we do. So, we might as well spend some time talking about how to do it well.

What Is an Expository Sermon?

At our church, we have two teaching pastors, Jason Abbott and me. As teaching pastors, we have the primary responsibility to lead the preaching and teaching ministry of our church. For us, this often looks like rotating each Sunday who is preaching. When we first explain this to people, many find it a foreign concept. Indeed, having two teaching pastors is a rare church model, but I could name several other churches that do this effectively. And over the last three years, our congregants have seemed to enjoy it.

Jason and I typically preach what are called “expository sermons.” Perhaps some of you have heard this term before. For others, it’s as foreign to you as “trapeze” was to me.

Let me explain what expository means. To borrow a definition from Mark Dever, “In expository sermons, the main point of the Scripture passage is the main point of the sermon.” Simple enough, right? What the passage says (in the main), the sermon should also say. Jason and I typically preach expository sermons through one book of the Bible at a time. When we finish one book, we typically move on to another, while rotating between Old and New Testament books.

The other common type of preaching is a “topical sermon.” In a topical sermon, the particular topic in view is what drives the Bible passage (or passages) covered. An example of a topical sermon might be a sermon on godly families or the deity of Christ or how to solve conflict as a Christian.

Why We Preach Expository Sermons?

I wouldn’t say there is anything inherently wrong with a topical sermon. Again, we preach them from time to time. But I do think a regular diet of expositional preaching is the better choice. Here are two reasons why.

First, most Christians read their Bibles this way, that is, we read one book at a time, and when we finish one book, we go to another. I don’t know any Christian who reads topically, at least as a rule. Thus expository preaching—when done well—models for Christians how to effectively read the Bible. I’m convinced this, by the way, meets a great need in the church. Good preaching doesn't just feed; it teaches how to fish.

Second, we don’t want to skip parts or themes of the Bible. This is a temptation inherent to topical preaching. It’s so easy to avoid topics when you are the one choosing what topics to preach. When this happens, it’s not necessarily sinister. In fact, it almost never is. But apart from some outside influence to keep us balanced, we would all tend to favor our strengths and avoid our weaknesses. It’s human nature. And so, without a commitment to expository preaching (an “outside influence,” if you will), I fear I would avoid things with which I need to deal. Having to preach the next passage simply because it’s the next passage—whether I want to or not—tends to make me, as a preacher, and the congregation as listeners, well rounded. As Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16, God inspired all of the Bible, and it’s all profitable to us. (For a longer explanation of why I preach this way, see a post I wrote called, “Spring Loaded Camming Devices and The Expository Sermon.”)

How Long Does It Take You to Prepare?

It takes me around 16–20 hours to write most sermons. This includes the time to study, write, and practice delivering the message. A breakdown of this time looks roughly like this:

   2   hours to translate the passage
   2   hours to record notes and questions from my translation
   4   hours to study commentaries
   2   hours to listen to several sermons on the passage
   2   hours to fill out my sermon “pre-qualification list” (I’ll explain this in later posts)
   4   hours to write the sermon
   1   hour to edit the sermon
+ 1   hour to practice delivering the sermon
= 18 hours           

Here are a few other things worth mentioning about the process. Most of the time, because Jason and I work in a co-pastor model that shares the weekly preaching responsibilities, about 25% of my sermon preparation occurs two weeks before I preach, while the remaining 75% occurs the week in which I preach. We typically plan the preaching calendar (both speaker and passage) about 9 months in advance. Also, we do a sermon debrief every Monday morning at 9 am. At those meetings, we talk about what worked well the previous Sunday, what we need to improve upon, and we pray and plan for the upcoming sermon.

As you prepare your own lessons about the Bible, I don’t expect you’ll do everything we do. You don’t have to know what trapeze means to enjoy a game of pick-up basketball. Moreover, churches free up pastors to do gospel teaching full time, and this allows us to really commit to the craft. Nevertheless, hopefully this post gives you a sense of what many pastors do those other 39 hours in a week!

In the next “Backstage Pass” post, I’ll dispense with this background information and get on with sharing the tools I’ve been promising. 

To read the first post in the series, click here. [Picture by Roshan Yadama / Creative Commons]

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Power, Money, and Sex Won’t Satisfy

Power, Money, and Sex Won’t Satisfy
Guest Post by Cody Swartz

The legendary athlete Deion Sanders wrote a book titled, Power, Money, and Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life. The book chronicles Deion’s upbringing from a record-breaking high school athlete in Florida to a two-sport professional star and the first man ever to play in both the World Series and the Super Bowl. Despite his success and fame, Deion talked openly about his insecurities and his never-ending hunger and thirst for happiness, especially from power, money, and sex. 

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Contrary to what Deion may think, he’s not alone in this struggle, as countless Christians and non-Christians have fought through the same issues. We’ve all grasped for identity through materialistic items that only lead to long-term pain. My own personal trials and tribulations have included battles with self-worth, body image, lust, anxiety, and worldly pleasures. At times, I’ve masqueraded as a righteous and godly man while battling inner demons that offer instant gratification but damage my relationship with Jesus Christ. These struggles aren’t new to our generation; finding joy in what pleases the eye has been around since the Garden of Eden.

Even having grown up in a church-going family with two loving parents, I have a tendency to read the Bible and assume the men and women in God’s Word had it “all figured out.” They didn’t have the problems that we have today. They sat around praising Jesus and singing hymns and washing each other’s feet all day, right?

Well, not really. David was an insecure backstabber who compromised a life-long friendship with Uriah to steal Bathsheba, his best friend’s wife – and then arrange for the death of Uriah. We all know about Samson’s struggles with women. Or consider Peter. In the final days that he spent with Jesus before Christ’s death, Peter denied knowing Him not once, not twice, but three times. And Moses killed a man – a crime that would get you 25 to life in today’s society.

Do you remember the story in the Bible of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish? In John 6:22–59, we read about what happened right after that story. Now, the people who flocked to Jesus weren’t murderers or adulterers, at least not that we know of. They were merely hungry – although you could throw other words in there as well: needy, ungrateful, clingy, and possibly unbelieving.

Here’s what happened. After feeding the 5,000 people – Jesus, a likely introvert before the word was readily used to describe people – got into his boat and crossed to the other side of the lake. The people found Him and they immediately made their earthly desires known: give us more food. Jesus was merely a means of satisfying their hunger. They were consumers. The Son of Man was right in front of them, but they didn’t want Him; they wanted Him to snap his fingers and prepare another buffet. And what happened 2,000 years ago, too often, still happens today.

When it’s exam day for that certification we’ve spent three months studying for, it’s God’s time to shine. “Let me pass, Lord, and I’ll let you know what I need next.” When we’re sick, we pray that He will heal us. When we’re depressed, when we’re trying to make ends meet financially, or when we’re afraid of the unknown, we tend to rely on God more than when everything is blissful in our lives. It’s go time for God.

Look at the way Jesus responded to the people in John 6. He said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry” (v. 35). You’ll see the word “bread” 15 times in this passage, and its double meaning explains the difference between how we as humans think and how our Heavenly Father thinks. The people were clamoring for their earthly bread while Jesus was insisting they stop focusing on their earthly hunger and instead rely on Him.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. (John 6:53, 56)

Jesus was telling his people to commit to Him in all that they do. He doesn’t want halfhearted lukewarm Christianity in which people rely on God only when they have a problem. Instead, He’s offering Himself to us, and He wants us to be satisfied in Him – all of the time. This is the beauty of salvation through grace. It can’t be earned. It can’t be bought. It’s a free gift God gives us.

I ask you, what is your earthly bread that keeps you from seeking Jesus with all your heart? Is it your own hobbies and selfish desires? Is it the desire to be liked by others? Is it your ambition to climb the corporate ladder? Is it an addiction you’ve secretly battled for ages?

Jesus wants you to replace this food by turning to Him to be satisfied. Acquiring your worldly treasure won’t satisfy you. It may give you temporary satisfaction, but until you turn to Jesus and make Him the focal point of your life, you will be empty on the inside. You’ll be hungry, just like the people in John 6.

*     *     *

CODY SWARTZ is a member of Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, PA.

 [Picture by Artur Rutkowski / Unsplash]

The Girl Who Kneaded Bread

The Girl Who Kneaded Bread
Guest Post by Erin Bruker

What would it have been like to hear Jesus preach? A fictional account of a girl who heard Jesus and how he satisfies our needs.

*      *      *

Like most women in Capernaum, it seems like I’m always kneading bread. Or mixing the dough . . . or waiting for it to rise . . . or shaping the loaves . . . It never goes away. That’s why I was excited when my father stepped into the kitchen and asked me, “Want to go along to market?”

I glanced at my mother with a pleading look.

“Did you finish your chores?” she asked.

“I just have to finish kneading this loaf,” I answered.

She gave a slight nod of approval and a smile spread across my face.

As father and I neared the market, we met a friend of his who was headed for the synagogue to hear the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth and invited us to come along, adding “Did you hear? He claims to be the son of God.” Apparently Jesus had fed 5,000 people in Galilee the day before with two fish and five loaves.

Father looked at me with a face full of intrigue. “Let’s go along; the market can wait.”

People packed the synagogue, so we stood in the back. Everyone was anxious to hear Jesus; they coaxed him to stand up front and give a speech. Jesus was just a carpenter but spoke with authority. And he was mesmerizing, though he used many analogies which I did not understand: “my Father gives you the true bread from heaven”; “the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”; “I am the bread of life” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”; “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”; “for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink”; “he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” What did he mean by these?

When he finished, people slowly went back to their business. On our way home from the market, father and I talked. “How could Jesus claim to be God?”

“He certainly had power from somewhere to do miracles,” I answered. “What do you think he meant when he said ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’? Or that he had the ‘bread of life’?”

“I don’t know,” my father answered, “but we aren’t about to become cannibals!”

“And he said doing this was supposed to make us live forever? I’m not sure,” I added.

We concluded Jesus was crazy.

The next morning I was in the kitchen kneading bread (again). The chore never stopped. I thought about what Jesus said. “Boy,” I thought, “it’d be nice to have some of his bread of life and no longer have to knead!”

There had been some people in the synagogue who did not think Jesus was crazy. I heard one man tell a friend, “Jesus healed my daughter right before my eyes! He is God as he claims—there is no other way my daughter would be alive today.”

I decided I needed to talk to my father.

I found him carving wood on our porch. “Maybe Jesus did have a point yesterday when he said he was the bread of life,” I began. “He spoke with much more knowledge than the other rabbis. If he is God, then he actually would know what someone has to do to get to heaven.”

“I have been thinking about it too,” my father replied. “If he is the bread of life, then we need him to get to heaven. We certainly don’t deserve to enter heaven on our own with all the wrongs we have done.”

I agreed. “It seems the bread he’s offering is a gift, the gift of himself. Wow—what a gift! Now, we get to follow God’s commands out of love instead of guilt. Though I cannot live up to God’s standard, Jesus has given me hope. I feel like I have been freed from a big burden!”

“I feel the same way,” he smiled. “I am so glad you came along with me yesterday.”

I returned to the kitchen with a happy heart, knowing that I had found the bread of life.

*     *     *

ERIN BRUKER belongs to Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, PA.

[Picture by Gaelle Marcel / Unsplash]

Do you really need to know how to teach the Bible?

Today I’m starting a new blog series. It’s something of a primer on how to study a Bible passage, as well as how to then teach that passage in a way that is clear and compelling.

I’m calling the series “Backstage Pass” because I’ll be taking you “backstage of the pulpit” to see what goes into writing a sermon. Pretty exciting, huh?

I know, it’s not near as cool as meeting Bono before a U2 concert or going to the locker room before a Philadelphia Eagles football game. Still, every few weeks or so during this winter I’ll do my best to share something helpful about how I go about studying a passage of the Bible and how I craft a message around that passage.

Let me also mention what the series won’t be. This will not be a series about how to study all the different kinds of passages in the Bible. This means I won’t cover the issues involved with interpreting a proverb versus a prophecy, and a pastoral epistle versus an apocalyptic vision. I’m leaving aside these genre- and Testament-specific questions. If you’d like to study these types of questions, check out How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart.

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Instead, what I’m going to focus on in this series are the general tools for studying any one passage and how to teach that same passage.

But before I begin this series, though, let’s tackle the obvious question. Do you really need to know how to teach the Bible?

Well, yes and no. I realize that not everyone will become a vocational teacher of the Bible. In fact, few people do. Moreover, James told the early church “not many of you should be teachers” (3:1a).

However, all Christians will spend their life studying the Bible; it’s what we do. So we might as well spend some time talking about how to do it well.

Additionally, many Christians will occasionally find themselves in a situation where they have to understand one specific passage and say something helpful about it. In short, they have to teach the Bible. Perhaps this teaching will occur at a friend’s wedding, an adult Sunday school class, or a children’s devotional before a sporting event. Or maybe you’ll have to teach when a Jehovah’s Witness comes to your door to talk about John 1:1 or when your child asks you at the dinner table, “What does it mean that ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23)?”

You can, of course, make something up on the spot, but what if you need to study more? What will you do? That’s what this series will be about.

And even if any of those teaching situations never happens—which I find unlikely in the course of thirty or forty years of following Jesus—still, we are to be those who teach and preach to ourselves. What we learn in the Bible, we need to apply to our own lives.

For all these reasons, I thought it might be helpful to share some of the strategies that I use so that you can use them too.

Though I won’t post about this every week so as to not burn you out on the topic, stay tuned for several more posts in the next few months.

[Picture by Todd Poirier / Unsplash]

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Reading List 2016

For the last four years, I’ve had two primary reading goals. First, read the Bible each year. Second, read at least 52 books, or about 1 per week. I’ve never made this second goal, but I continue to post my results at the end of the year to keep me motivated to try. (If you like, you can see the lists from 2014 and 2015.)

And last year, I fell short on both accounts. Bummer.

This year, however, I made it, and in the process, I read 86 books! I’m pretty happy about this because I only read 34 in 2013; 50 in 2014; and 51 in 2015. For any fellow nerds out there, this year’s total page count was 19,525, which corresponds to an average of 368 pages per week and 227 pages per book.

A few things to note. First, my total number was so high, partly because many of the books were short (26 of them were under 150 pages), and partly because I did a ton of research for a book I’m writing. It’s a book to help pastors in the job search process (another 26 books fell into this category).

Second, I read more novels than ever before (21), as well as a few memoirs. I think I’ll try to keep this up; I’m enjoying it. Several were audio books, which I listened to while exercising.

Finally, my two favorite books were The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine and the novel All the Light We Cannot See. I absolutely loved both.

Oh, one more thing. I read the book I co-authored (More People to Love) about 10 times, but I’m not counting that one! Nor am I counting The Cat and the Hat or Pinkalicious, which I read to my kids at least a dozen times! ;-)

Again, this post is largely for personal accountability, but if you’d like to see the books I read, below I sorted them into four categories.

In the comments, feel free to let me know if you read any of these, and if so, if you had any favorites.

*     *     *

Miscellaneous Christian Non-fiction

1. Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity by Tim Challies (120 pages)
2. Rules for Reformers by Douglas Wilson (288 pages)
3. Unbreakable: What the Son of God Said About the Word of God by Andrew Wilson (80 pages)
4. Sexual Detox: A Guide for Guys Who Are Sick of Porn by Tim Challies (108 pages)
5. Who Am I?: Identity in Christ by Jeff Bridges (108 pages)
6. Contend: Defending the Faith in a Fallen World by Aaron Armstrong (110 pages)
7. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller (256 pages)
8. Montgomery: A White Preacher’s Memoir by Robert S. Graetz (132 pages)
9. The Bible by God (2000 pages)
10. How to Walk into Church by Tony Payne (64 pages)
11. Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward by Nabeel Qureshi (176 pages)
12. Your Best Life Now: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential by Joel Osteen (310 pages)
13. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan (220 pages)
14. Resisting Gossip: Winning the War of the Wagging Tongue by Matthew C. Mitchell (192 pages)
15. Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Bowler (352 pages)
16. The Mingling of Souls: God’s Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption by Matt Chandler and Jared C. Wilson (224 pages)
17. Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better by Brant Hansen (214 pages)
18. Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Robert D. Jones (224 pages)
19. Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem by Gary Chapman (208 pages)
20. Rooted: Theology for Growing Christians by J. A. Medders and Brandon D. Smith (148 pages)
21. Why Pastors Quit: Examining Why Pastors Quit and What We Can Do About It by Bo Lane (110 pages)
22. A Christ-Centered Wedding: Rejoicing in the Gospel on Your Big Day by Catherine Parks, Linda Strode (256 pages)
23. Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew G. I. Hart (198 pages)
24. Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace by Heath Lambert (176 pages)
25. How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World by Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson (208 pages)
26. Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire Beneath Sexual Struggle by Michael John Cusick (224 pages)
27. Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn, Fred Stoeker, and Mike Yorkey (336 pages)
28. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp (240 pages)
29. Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is): Sexual Purity in a Lust-Saturated World by Joshua Harris (192 pages)
30. Gospel Deeps: Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus by Jared C. Wilson (208 pages)
31. Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ by Timothy Keller (160 pages)
32. Thank You for the Book of Mormon: A Christians Friend’s Response by Carl L George (128 pages)
33. The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus by Zack Eswine (272 pages)

Miscellaneous Non-fiction

1. The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness by Jeff Olson (280 pages)
2. The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac (176 pages)
3. Writing a Winning Non-fiction Book Proposal by Michael Hyatt (32 pages)
4. Hiroshima by John Hersey (160 pages)
5. Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction by Stephen J. Pyne (336 pages)
6. Book Launch Blueprint by Tim Grahl (70 pages)
7. Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About The Business of Life by James Kerr (224 pages)

Novels

1. The Owlings: A Worldview Novella (Book I) by D.A. DeWitt (98 pages)
2. My Antonia by Willa Cather (200 pages)
3. The Owlings: A Worldview Novella (Book II) by D.A. DeWitt (142 pages)
4. Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, I of III) by C.S. Lewis (160 pages)
5. Perelandra (Space Trilogy, II of III) by C.S. Lewis (190 pages)
6. That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, III of III) by C.S. Lewis (384 pages)
7. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (160 pages)
8. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor (276 pages)
9. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee (336 pages)
10. No Masters, Please by Fred Burton (295 pages; yet unpublished novel)
11. Animal Farm by George Orwell (56 pages)
12. 1984 by George Orwell (284 pages)
13. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (288 pages)
14. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis (256 pages)
15. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (531 pages)
16. Tales of the Kingdom by David and Karen Mains (94 pages)
17. Go Set a Watchman: A Novel by Harper Lee (288 pages)
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (251 pages)
19. Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson (247 pages)
20. Home: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson (366 pages)
21. Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson (272 pages)

Books about the Job Search Process

1. How to Stay Christian in Seminary by David Mathis and Jonathan Parnell (80 pages)
2. A Change of Pastors ... and How it Affects Change in the Congregation by Loren B. Mead (112 pages)
3. The Minister’s Salary: And Other Challenges in Ministry Finance by Art Rainer (130 pages)
4. How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team- Even If You Don’t Have a Recruiting Department by Eric Herrenkohl (240 pages)
5. The New Pastor’s Handbook: Help and Encouragement for the First Years of Ministry by Jason Helopoulos (208 pages)
6. The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search: The Proven Program Used by the World’s Leading Career Services Company by Orville Pierson (288 pages)
7. From M.Div. to Rev.: Making an Effective Transition from Seminary to Pastoral Ministry by J. E. Eubanks (232 pages)
8. Next: Pastoral Succession That Works by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird (224 pages)
9. Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook by William Vanderbloemen (192 pages)
10. Knock ‘em Dead 2015: The Ultimate Job Search Guide by Martin Yate (384 pages)
11. The Elephant in the Boardroom: Speaking the Unspoken about Pastoral Transitions by Carolyn Weese and J. Russell Crabtree (240 pages)
12. The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster by Steve Dalton (240 pages)
13. How to Search for a Pastor in Todays Church by Scott K. Delashaw (112 pages)
14. Help We Just Lost Our Pastor! A Step By Step Guide for Pastoral Transitions by Ken Moberg (114 pages)
15. What Is Your Church’s Personality?: Discovering and Developing the Ministry Style of Your Church by Philip D. Douglass (320 pages)
16. When the Word Leads Your Pastoral Search: Biblical Principles and Practices to Guide Your Search by Chris Brauns (192 pages)
17. The First 100 Days: A Pastor’s Guide by T. Scott Daniels (176 pages)
18. Side-stepping Landmines: Five Principles for Pastor Search Teams by Joel Rainey (50 pages)
19. Resume 101: A Student and Recent-Grad Guide to Crafting Resumes and Cover Letters that Land Jobs by Quentin J. Schultze (144 pages)
20. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton (200 pages)
21. College Grad Job Hunter: Insider Techniques and Tactics for Finding A Top-Paying Entry-level Job by Brian D. Krueger (352 pages)
22. Pastor Search Committee Handbook, Revised by Robert L. Sheffield (96 pages)
23. Before You Move: A Guide to Making Transitions in Ministry by John R. Cionca (314 pages)
24. Confirming the Pastoral Call: A Guide to Matching Candidates and Congregations by Joseph L. Umidi (160 pages)
25. The Pastor’s Start-Up Manual: Beginning a New Pastorate by Robert H. Jr. Ramey (140 pages)
26. The Alban Guide to Managing the Pastoral Search Process by John Vonhof (123 pages)

Cinderella: A Common Girl with Uncommon Forgiveness

For Christmas, a good friend gave our family the 2015 Disney movie Cinderella. Have you seen it? I hadn’t, but our family watched it the night we were given it, and it was wonderful.

The movie has essentially the same plot as the animated version from 1950, only this time with actors and more content to the story (for example, her original name was just Ella). I appreciated Cinderella’s extraordinary “courage and kindness,” the watchwords she lives by after her mother passes away. And after Cinderella’s father dies (more tragedy!), these ideals are certainly tested. Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters treat her not as a sister but a slave. She lives in a dark, drafty attic with only mice for friends. However, what impressed me more than her courage and kindness, was her capacity to forgive her captors.

In every good story, the climax brings resolution to not only one conflict, but the many conflicts in the story. Donald Miller talks about conflict within stories in three broad categories:

internal conflicts (e.g., does the hero have what “it” takes?),
external conflicts (e.g., will the people be saved from danger?), and
philosophical conflicts (e.g., will evil triumph over good?).

We can debate the central conflict of Cinderella, but it would seem to me, it’s this: Will all the cruelty and all the tragedies make Cinderella, in the end, bitter or beautiful?

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I’m sure you know the answer, but you should watch it anyway. At our family breakfast table the next morning, my wife and I had an excellent discussion with our children about the movie, and in particular, Cinderella’s ability to forgive, which is what kept her from becoming bitter.

Talking about all of this, I’m reminded of something Gavin Ortlund wrote about movies and the good news story of Jesus. Movies dramatize the human longing for the Christian gospel. That statement, of course, needs some qualification. Here’s what Ortlund means and doesn’t mean:

When I say movies are searching for the gospel, I don’t mean the content of the gospel, but more the shape of the gospel. Movies tap into our deepest emotions because they draw on truths and realities that only make sense in light of the gospel, and the questions they ask are only resolved in the gospel.

In other words, movies (and stories in general), don’t explicitly teach that God is on a rescue mission to redeem his creation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That’s gospel-explicit content. But movies do, he writes, often feature themes of “good versus evil,” “happy endings,” and “suffering and sacrificial love,” which are themes that have the shape of the gospel.

The movie Cinderella is no exception. Whether you have young children or not, I’d encourage you to watch the movie. If you do see it, below are some questions (and a few brief comments) to help guide your discussion at the breakfast table the next morning.

*     *     *

Discussion Questions:

1. What made you laugh? It’s not a comedy, but it is funny. Don’t skip this one if you have kiddos.

2. What two words did Cinderella’s mother tell her to live by, and how did Cinderella live these out? Oops, I already gave the answer (“courage and kindness”). Still, it’s worth discussing the second half of this question.  

3. What makes someone beautiful, and what makes someone ugly? And where does beauty matter most, on the inside or outside? This is an important theme in the movie, and for that matter, the Bible. “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).

4. How did the fairy godmother look when she first appeared to Cinderella? How did Cinderella treat her? How would you have treated her? Matthew 25:40, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

5. Lady Tremaine, the stepmother, also had many difficult things happen to her. What were some of them? Does this give you sympathy for her? How did Cinderella and her stepmother react differently to grief? Though both were given lemons, the difference between the two is the difference between a sip of lemonade and a giant mouthful of sour candy.

6. When Kit and Cinderella first meet in the woods, Kit asks Cinderella if she is treated well. How does she answer this question? Why is this an interesting and beautiful answer? She answers, “As best as they can (as best as they are able).”

7. How do you choose whom you will marry? I’m not entirely sure which direction to take this question, though it seems to be central to the movie. The clear answer is that “marrying for advantage” is wrong and “marrying for love” is right. But why? Talk about that.

8. At the very end, why do The Grand Duke, the stepmother, and the stepsisters leave the kingdom? Are they banished or do they choose to leave? Was reconciliation not possible? The narrator says, “Forgiven or not, Cinderella’s stepmother and her daughters would soon leave with the Grand Duke, and never set foot in the kingdom again.” In other words, their exile was self-inflicted.

9. What are some of the difficult things that happened to Cinderella? There were many, many things.

10. What is the most difficult thing that happens to Cinderella? Walking out the door of her father’s house for the last time, with Kit, her soon-to-be husband, on her arm, Cinderella paused. She turned. She looked up at her stepmother. And she said, “I forgive you.” That’s the most difficult thing in the movie, in my opinion. And where does this strength come from? The shape of the gospel. 

Five Favorites from 2016

In December, it’s nice to spend some time looking back over the year. This week, I thought I’d share five of my favorite (and most popular) blog posts from 2016. I hope that’s not too narcissistic. There have been some new subscribers recently, and I thought it might help them become more familiar with the things I write.

If you had another favorite (not one of these five), I’d love to hear it! Let me know in the comments below.

*     *     *

1. The Problem with the Pinterest Dream Wedding
Posted at Desiring God on June 6, 2016

Dear engaged Christian couple,

I’m honored that you would ask me to officiate your wedding and walk you through pre-marital counseling. It’s been a joy to see your faith in Christ, your service together in the church, and your love for each other grow.

During our counseling meetings, we’ll talk through things like the lifelong commitment of marriage, becoming a new family, having and raising children, budgeting and finances, and sexual intimacy. These tend to be the sensitive areas that have the potential to bring great joy, but also, at times, great pain in the years to come.

But I’m writing today about your wedding — about the day, the service, and the celebration after.

There seems to be a subtle, but growing, pressure on couples to make their wedding day better than others, a kind of competition to have the Pinterest dream wedding. No one says it outright (it would sound ridiculous). But it happens, and it seems to me like it happens a lot . . . [Continue Reading]

2. Can You Really Become Unoffendable?
(A Book Review of Unoffendable by Brant Hansen’s)
Posted at The Gospel Coalition, June 29, 2016

WARNING: You might not want to read Brant Hansen’s Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better because, as you read it, you’ll have more opportunities to practice being unoffended. 

At least that’s what happened to me several times. As a teaching pastor in a local church, there always seems to be a cluster of people who run a low-grade fever of disappointment with me. Recently, the fever spiked. And despite my “warning” above, I was thankful to have Unoffendable coach me along the way.

But this isn’t just my life, is it? Likely you’ve also found ways to offend others. It’s not hard to do; it’s natural for us as sinners. Moreover, our world—sometimes even Christian subculture—trains us not to have a chip on our shoulder but a lumberyard. We see this when the predictable cultural “buttons” are pushed concerning issues like abortion and marriage, and now bathrooms, but also in less expected ways. Consider John Piper’s article last winter on guns and self-defense. The volley of response articles revealed his article didn’t simply touch a nerve; it grabbed one with tweezers and yanked. . . . [Continue Reading]

3. YOUR BEST LIFE NOW by Joel Osteen (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
Posted at FAN AND FLAME, July 19, 2016

Joel Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Baptist Church in Huston, Texas. He’s been the pastor there since 1999. Osteen is extremely popular. His sermons are broadcast all over the world. He even has his own Sirius radio station that plays 48 sermons a day (Channel 128, if you’re interested). And he has almost 4.5 million followers on Twitter. I’m one of them.

Yet for all this popularity, lots of people don’t like him. Some of those who don’t like him do so because he smiles a lot and has a huge church (I mean, huuge!). I think these are poor reasons to not like the guy. I’ll point out some better ones in a minute. But before I do, I’ll say that in Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, I actually appreciate several things. For one, I appreciate Joel’s repeated expressions of affection for his father, the late John Osteen to whom the book is dedicated. At one point, I even teared up as Joel recounted the last time he saw his father alive (pp. 247-8). I also appreciated Osteen’s belief in the supernatural; our culture is losing this. “We serve a supernatural God,” he writes. “He is not limited to the laws of nature. He can do what human beings cannot do” (p. 127). I suppose I agree.

However, all of us know people who speak well of their father. And all of us know people who believe in the supernatural. Neither of these—alone—makes a person a Christian. And this gets at my real frustration with the book: Your Best Life Now, though it fashions itself as a Christian book, is not. . . . [Continue Reading]

4. Consumer v. Covenant Relationships
Posted at FAN AND FLAME, July 19, 2016

Each time I share a message in a wedding, it’s a little different. That’s because every couple is different. Below is the most recent message I shared at a friend’s wedding. In it, I talk about the difference between “consumer” and “covenant” relationships. I find this distinction to be a helpful way to explain the greater meaning of marriage. . . . [Continue Reading]

5. Darkness Is My Only Food
Posted at FAN AND FLAME, February 23, 2016

I’m at a theology conference. It’s dinner time and a wonderful looking spread has been provided in the foyer of the mega-church hosting the conference. Just one thing left to do. I look for someone who seems to be in charge. I find a man and woman sitting at a desk. I ask if there is someone here from the catering company because I just need to ask a quick question.

He responds, “They already left. Can I help?”

“Maybe,” I say. “I just need to know about some of the ingredients. I have a few food allergies.”

“Oh, what are you allergic to?” he asks.

I lowered my head and began to walk away. “Thanks,” I mumbled, “I’ll just call the caterer myself.”

Tonight, I’m not in the mood to answer this question because sometimes—as my family jokes—it’s easier to talk about what I am not allergic to than what I am allergic to. . . . [Continue Reading]

[Top photo by Ben White / Unsplash]

When Sin is Serious, Salvation is Joyous

Last Sunday, Christians around the world began celebrating the season of Advent. The word “advent” is from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming.” Thus, the Advent season is a time to reflect upon the coming of Jesus, especially his coming to earth in the first Christmas story. It is a preparatory season, a time to prepare our hearts and minds to behold the beauty of Jesus.

Sometimes, however, the celebration in our hearts is only hum-drum. Our hearts do not explode with fireworks at the joy of the incarnation. Instead, they flicker by the light, as it were, of a single votive candle somewhere off in the distance.

Likely there are many reasons for this, but perhaps one reason is we do not see sin as serious, and thus our salvation is not as joyous as it could be, even should be.

Home by Marilynne Robinson

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I’ve been reading through a series of novels by Marilynne Robinson. She is a gifted author, and for many years has played various roles at the renowned creative writing program at the University of Iowa (currently Professor Emeritus). The series includes Gilead (2004), which won a Pulitzer Prize, Home (2008), and Lila (2014). Each novel tells a version of the same story through the eyes of a different character. The stories center around two pastors and their families in the small town of Gilead, Iowa in the middle of the twentieth century.

The second book, Home, tells the story from the perspective of Glory, the daughter of the Presbyterian minister Robert Boughton.

I’m mentioning all of this because of a fascinating description by Glory about the spiritual complacency of her town and her father’s preaching about sin. She says,

Complacency was consistent with the customs and manners of Presbyterian Gilead and was therefore assumed to be justified in every case. . . . Even her father’s sermons treated salvation as a thing for which they could be grateful as a body. . . . He did mention sin, but it was rarefied in his understanding of it, a matter of acts and omissions so common­place that no one could be wholly innocent of them or especially alarmed by them, either — the uncharitable thought, the neglected courtesy. . . (p. 111)

Taken in the context of the novel, it’s not entirely clear whether we should view Glory’s description of her father’s preaching as wholly reliable. Glory, while respectful of her father and her father’s faith, does not seem to have embraced Christianity herself. Regardless, the essence of what Glory says is that in the estimation of the town (and perhaps her father), sin isn’t so bad, and therefore complacency over sin is justified.

But is this really good preaching?

The reviewer of Home in the New York Times, A. O. Scott, seems to appreciate this charitable and tolerant approach toward sin. Scott writes,

There is real kindness and generosity in the town, and its theological disposition is accordingly tolerant and charitable. Reverend Boughton embodies this forgiving, welcoming spirit.

In the above quote, I’m not sure whether Scott has in mind the old meaning of tolerance, which indeed is a virtue, or the new meaning of tolerance, which is not. (“Old tolerance” means, though you do not agree with another person, you still believe he or she has the right to believe it, and therefore you tolerate the person and the view. “New tolerance” means all points of view, regardless of their merit, are equally laudable.)

Still, going back to the description by Glory, notice the specific wording she uses to describe her father’s preaching about sin. She says, according to her father, sins were mere “acts and omissions so common­place that no one could be wholly innocent of them or especially alarmed by them.”

What kind of sins might have been discussed in these sermons? Apparently, nothing too disturbing. Using the terminology of our own day, apparently he was preaching about the sins of failing to call your mother on her birthday; the sins of not returning emails fast enough; the sins of thinking mean thoughts about a homeless man and the misspelling on his cardboard sign; and the sins of not helping the neighbor kid with her fundraiser. Sins like this.

It would seem that Reverend Boughton preached about transgressions so innocent and un-alarming as to hardly require a savior at all. We’ve all made mistakes, dropped the ball, and fallen short of the glory of the good Samaritan. These kinds of sins happen to the best of us, and we’re sorry about it, but we’re certainly not alarmed.

What does the Bible say about sin and salvation?

Don’t misunderstand me, though. My negative comments about Reverend Boughton’s preaching are not reflective of my view of the whole novel and the series, which I’m rather enjoying. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive because it’s my profession that’s being discussed.

And please do not think that I am advocating the hellfire preaching of yesteryear. My point is simply that Boughton’s light-on-sin-preaching, wherever it does exist, is a shame. It’s a shame not because it’s wimpy preaching (“real men preach about sin”). Rather, this type of preaching is unbecoming to ministers because it’s not faithful to the Bible, which is the only true measure of preaching, not my personal preferences. And in the Bible, sin is certainly an ugly, fearsome, insidious thing which wars against the Creator and the ultimate flourishing of humanity.

Consider what Jesus says in Mark 7:21–23,

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

And look at this list of sins from Romans 1:29–31,

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

In short, sin is alarming.

And if sin against a holy God is serious, then we should despair. Except, of course, Christians shouldn’t despair. We don’t despair because there is a Savior who drank the cup of God’s wrath, and therefore, there’s nothing left for Christians to drink (Mark 14:36; Romans 3:25–26).

It’s this good news that causes the Apostle Paul to burst into song in 1 Corinthians 15:55. Because of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Paul writes,

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

On this point—in the Bible sin is serious and therefore salvation is joyous—I could go on and on, but just consider the way this two-pronged theme so frequently occurs in our beloved Christmas hymns. Take, for example, the familiar lines in O Holy Night. Yes, of course, “long lay the world in sin and error pining.” But this is not the whole story. The verse continues, “[when the Savior appears] the weary world rejoices.”

Conclusion

It’s the times when I have seen my sin as deeply offensive to God—not as minor mistakes or foibles or idiosyncrasies of my personality—that the good-news story of Jesus has actually been to me good news, not a cliché.

But this kind of self-reflection requires courage. As pastor and author Timothy Keller writes in his recent book Hidden Christmas,

Are you willing to say, “I am a moral failure. I don’t love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. I don’t love my neighbor as myself. And, therefore, I am guilty, and I need forgiveness and pardon . . .”?

It takes enormous courage to admit these things, because it means throwing your old self-image out and getting a new one through Jesus Christ.

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And yet that is the foundation for all the other things that Jesus can bring into your life—all the comfort, all the hope, all the joyful humility, and everything else. (60–61)

Let me return to where I began. This Christmas, my hope and prayer is that our hearts will explode with praise over the salvation that comes through Jesus. If this is to happen, first we need to reckon seriously with the darkness within us. If we do this, then we’ll appreciate that from outside of us “a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:16).

[Picture by Alessandro Viaro / Unsplash]

Visions of God – A Hymn I Wrote

John Calvin famously wrote, “Man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1.2).

In other words, there is a feedback loop at work: We can’t (truly) know ourselves until we know God.

In the Bible, when men and women come face to face with God—that is, when the volume of this feedback loop is turned up loud—the response is always the same, and it’s always twofold: a heightened sense of one’s own sinfulness and a heightened sense of the holiness of God.

Several years ago, I wrote a hymn about this experience of coming face to face with God. It’s called “Visions of God.” I included the lyrics and the audio below. I hope you enjoy it.

I based the hymn on the passages where Job, Isaiah, and Peter have dramatic encounters with God (Job 42:1–9, Isaiah 6:1–7, Luke 5:1–11). While these encounters (and the others like them in the Bible) have always been interesting to me, I found it difficult to capture their experiences in a song. People often complain about the music in church, but I don’t think most of them realize how difficult it is to write a good song until they have tried it themselves. This humbling experience is a lesson I’ve had the privilege of learning several times.

I didn’t set the hymn to music. That would have been far more than humbling; it would have been impossible! I’m very thankful that one of my brothers (Brian) is very gifted musically and was able to do this. Brian’s wife (Molly), who is also very gifted, was gracious enough to help him. Though the audio recording below is only a rough demo, I think it turned out very well.

The only other comment that I would like to make on the hymn is that I know it is not the whole story. I realize there is much more to Job, Isaiah, and Peter’s encounter with God than what was felt on the front side of their experience. That is to say, there is more to their experience (and our experience for that matter) than an overwhelming sense of our smallness and sinfulness.  

If I had written another hymn, I would have attempted a sequel to “Visions of God.” In it I would have attempted to write about the great mercy of God in forgiving Job’s self-righteousness and God’s blessing the latter part of his life more than the first; the mercy of the atoning coal that touched Isaiah’s lips and his commissioning as a missionary; and the mercy of the instructions to Peter, “Do not be afraid” and his new employment as a “fisher of men.”

Maybe someday I will write that hymn.

*     *     *

Visions of God

Verse 1
I knew by the hearing of the ear
But thunder, storm, and lightning roared
Now in dust and ashes I repent in holy fear
For my eyes have seen, seen the sovereign Lord

Chorus
To know me as I am
And see You as you are
Sovereign and Wise
Holy and True (x 2)

Verse 2

Woe is me, I am undone
I am a man with lips unclean
Now all my former ways I shun
For my eyes have seen, they have seen the King

Chorus

Verse 3
Faced with the greatness of the haul
I know I am a man with sin
Now to the Saviors knees I fall
For my eyes have seen, the Fisher of Men

Chorus

[Picture by Sam Ferrara / Unsplash]

Riddle My Fiddle – My First Book

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On December 6, the book I co-authored, More People to Love, is being released. Can’t wait to share it with you. The popular Christian radio host, Brant Hansen, wrote the foreword. The book will be for sale at Amazon.com for $7.99.

Last week, I received this recommendation from my former boss and pastor, Greg Lavine:

More People to Love paints a vision – to move us from where we are to a place more situated to live out the gospel. It compels us to leave behind comfort and convenience to love people, all kinds of people, specifically people who look different from us.

– Greg Lavine
Senior Pastor, New Life Bible Fellowship, Tucson, Arizona

This is all pretty exciting to me.

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My First book. Click to Enlarge.

My mother, however, informed me More People to Love won’t be my first book. Then, she texted me a picture of a book I wrote when I was eight years old! You can see the picture below.

The whole book is hilarious. At one point, I wrote that I wanted to be an engineer when I grow up, or maybe an astronomer. One of those turned out to be true, at least for six years.

But my favorite entry in the book is a poem I wrote. It makes (almost) no sense. If you care to, you can read it below.

I do, however, love the phrase “riddle my fiddle” that I used near the end of the poem. In fact, I’ve now been saying “riddle my fiddle” around the house for the last two weeks. By the way, it’s more fun to say it if you slap your knee at the same time. You’re welcome to use this phrase, too. Seriously, no copyright infringement. You have my permission.

When you go down to the wood, you’re sure to find a big surprise,
For Grammy Nelly has forgot her tell, and Nelly the Elephant quit the Circus too.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall watching Leads United [a British soccer team] score a goal, and Humpty was delighted. Riddle my fiddle!
The cat jumped over the moon. And the Cow watched me riddle my fiddle.

I know what you’re thinking. I was a child prodigy. Thanks.

[Picture by Jared Erondu / Unsplash]

How to Survive the Apocalypse

No, I'm not actually talking about today’s elections. I’m sure some of you feel like that, though. Instead, I’m talking about a book review I wrote that was published today. The full title of the of the book is How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World.

Here’s a portion of my review . . . 

*     *     *

Two buckets, each holding 120 pre-packaged meals. That’s what I recently loaded into our minivan as we left to return from vacation. “Just add water,” my friend said. “They’ll last ya 25 years without going bad.”

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He was trying to get me ready for what he believed just might be America’s impending dystopian future—whether caused by massive civil unrest, an electromagnetic pulse bomb . . . or something worse, something otherworldly. Truly: My friend is actually, actively preparing for the end of the world.

Professors Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson wrote their book to do the same: to prepare us for the apocalypse. Their approach, however, is less Swiss Army Knife and more Encyclopedia Britannica.

Drawing heavily—very heavily—from Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, they show that apocalyptic art not only portends the future but also, perhaps mainly, reveals who we are now.

The first several chapters provide philosophical and historical background. Then they move to cultural reflection. We learn about ourselves from shows like “Battlestar Galactica,” which is where the word cylon in the subtitle comes from. We learn from the antihero main characters in television shows like “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men” and “House of Cards.” And we learn what living among the undead teaches about us in “The Walking Dead” and the movie World War Z.

In the final chapter, the authors offer lessons from the prophet Daniel, not chiefly from his spectacular visions of the future but from his faithful courage and strategic compromises while living in Babylon.

Here are two considerations readers might find helpful . . . 

To read the rest of the review, go to EFCA NOW (the blog of the Evangelical Free Church of America).

[Picture by Frantzou Fleurine / Unsplash]

40 Strategies to Struggle Against Porn

A few years ago, if a man had asked me, “What does it look like to struggle against pornography?” I’m not sure I would have had an answer, not one I could articulate anyway.

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For the last few months, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing about the topic of pornography. I’m not ready to post any of the findings yet, but I thought I’d show you where the “table of contents” is headed. Look for more on this topic from me in 2017.

*     *     *

Introduction

Part I: Foundations

1. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ye must be born-again.
2. Get your worldview right. [Sex is not god or gross. Sex is a good gift from a good God.]
3. Acknowledge the beauty of the lordship of Christ in all of life.
4. Believe sexual sin is wrong and cultivate a hatred of it.
5. Fight for superior joys.
6. Recognize the grave danger.
7. Run like the wind.
8. Pray.
9. Make it personal: the women are real image bearers.
10. Remember that your holiness (and sin) affects the whole body.
11. Through confession and repentance, expose sin to the light.

Part II: Cross-Training

12. Cultivate humility.
13. Replace harmful thoughts with healthy ones.
14. Memorize Scripture strategically.
15. Maintain a strong devotional life.
16. Don’t avoid conflict; engage it.
17. Run from, and become indifferent to, flattery.
18. Be intoxicated with your wife.
19. Avoid “dude-talk.”
20. Fill your life with things you love.
21. Cultivate the fear of the Lord.

Part III: The Nitty-Gritty

22. Stop masturbating.
23. Don’t be alone with sexual temptation.
24. Have an accountability partner.
25. Only have computers (including tablets and smartphones) in public areas.
26. Install accountability software on all devices.
27. Always be reading a book about the topic.
28. Cut off all access to sexually stimulating media.
29. Know your situational and emotional triggers; take precautions accordingly.
30. Use visual “smelling salts” to resist sexual sin.
31. Share the existence of the struggle with your spouse.
32. Go to bed when your wife goes to bed.
33. Communicate your sexual needs to your spouse.
34. Treat the sexual needs of your spouse as more important than your own.
35. As needed, seek professional help.

Part IV: A Bright Future

36. Become a passionate teacher and a spiritual father.
37. Maintain gospel-identity.
38. Understand the Lord’s discipline as his training of the sons he dearly loves.
39. Cling to Christian hope.
40. Whatever you do, don’t stop serving Jesus.

Conclusion

[Picture by Gilles Lambert / Unsplash]