Pastor’s Ponderings

Well here are two more books for the year that some may find interesting.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.   This is not a book I would have chosen to pick up and read for myself.  It was an interesting story however.  This is one of the books my daughter is reading for her Generation Joshua book club and deals with a Priest who is sent to New Mexico in the early 1800’s.  It shows the hardness of that time in the unsettled west and how this man tried to minister to a wide area and a diverse group of people.  For me not coming from a Catholic perspective the word death in the title was also a play on words.  While sincere and truly wanting to minister to others the works based faith of the religion didn’t provide a lot of inward change.  None of us seeks to earn salvation by what we do, and we do praise God for the grace of Jesus Christ.

The Resolution for Men by Stephen and Alex Kendrick with Randy Alcorn.   This was a great book and a great follow-up to the movie Courageous.  Men who want to be continually inspired to be the husbands and fathers God has called them to be should read it.  We read it with our Malachi men’s group on Saturdays and are nearing the end. (I read ahead before leaving on vacation)  In late March or in April we are planning on having a Resolution Ceremony where men can commit to living out the ideals in the resolution in their homes and sign a copy to hang on their wall.  If any men of the Church are interested in being a part of the ceremony please contact me and we’ll get you on the list.

So two readings of death and life.  What have you been reading?

Here are two great resources that are 1/2 hour each.  I encourage you to listen to them.  What a great way to spend an hour.

First is a radio broadcast by David Barton with Wallbuilders.  In his Thursday broadcast on Conservativism vs Libertarianism he hits the nail on the head in regards to limited government and why it should be limited Biblically.  Sounds a lot like a sermon I heard Thomas preach on Sunday.  While a popular preacher gave me some good reasons why people ought to support a Libertarian candidate, Barton brings things back to the Bible and history and shows why we need to study the Word and our foundations so we know what is truth.  Let us not be swayed by smooth sounding words but let us study to show ourselves approved unto God.  You’ll have to scroll down to Thursday, February 02, 2012
Revolution: Conservatism vs. Libertarianism.  Enjoy!

Second is a radio program by Kevin Swanson with Generations with Vision.  We are looking forward to seeing Kevin in March at the Family Economics conference in Chicago and he is the keynote speaker at the 2012 Homeschoolers of Wyoming Convention in Casper in May.  Kevin’s program last Friday on Eating Pork, Head Coverings, Tattoos, Drinking Blood, and Body Mutilation showed how Christians today are indulging in pagan practices and think that they have license to do so.  If Christians will not stand as in the world but not of the world then we have no hope of revival in America.  Until we stand on the Sufficiency of Scripture in all areas of life, society will continue to be flushed down the toilet.

Enjoy these two radio programs with two godly men who are trying to point our culture back to the Word of God. 

Wow!  I read this by R.C. Sproul Jr. today and it really hit me between the eyes.  The best line is near the end when he speaks of being thrown to the beasts.  How willing are we to stand up for what we believe?

The Kingdom Notes: Be Reasonable
by RC Sproul Jr.

In the great war launched in Genesis 3 between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent there are two other great battles. On one side of the battlefield stands the enemy. The seed of the serpent hate God, would kill Him if they could. They hate His people, and all that they stand for. But they have a battle waging inside themselves because, for all their sin, all their fallenness and depravity they still bear the remains of the image of God. Their great dilemma is that because they are made in God’s image they want to live in a world that makes sense, that is understandable, and coherent. Because, however, the objective reality is that they are under God’s wrath, they must construct a world with no God, or at least, no judgment. It is impossible, irrational.

The other great battle is the mirror of this one. We are the seed of the woman, reborn, remade, reflecting the image of the Son, the express image of His glory. But we still sin. We have an old man with which to do battle. We want to serve God, to manifest His reign, to become like Jesus. But, we also want to be loved, to be respected, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, to be normal. Which weakness the devil is rather adept at exploiting.

Consider, as an example, politics. Because Jesus is our King, because He has set us free, we don’t, generally speaking, want bloated government. Because we aspire to honesty, we want a government of law, that will stay within its Constitutional bounds. Because we honor our fathers in the faith who labored through such issues with great care, we understand that just war is defensive war. Trouble is, the broader culture has veered so far from these basic ideals that to espouse them is not to be considered wrong, but to be considered unsophisticated, ignorant, crazy, unreasonable.

And so we retreat. We back down. We begin to scout out a new line of defense. We move leftward. Oh we’re careful to steer clear of the convictions of the seed of the serpent. We don’t go over to the dark side. We just get close enough that they won’t laugh at us. We do all that we can to maintain loyalty to Christ, while looking sane to the world. And we fail.

Entitlement programs, all of them, even the ones we like, are unconstitutional, unbiblical and indefensible. We cannot defend stealing from our neighbors and burdening our children with crushing debt for these programs, while politely arguing that we shouldn’t for those programs. Preventative assassinations, bombings and wars are also unconstitutional, unbiblical and indefensible. We cannot defend spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives for this strategic objective, but object to doing the same for that strategic objective. Abortions, all of them, even the ones that hide our shame, keep the numbers down among the underprivileged, or take down the human result of rape or incest are unconstitutional, unbiblical and indefensible. We cannot support candidates or legislation that seek to slow, limit, regulate murder.

My point, ultimately, isn’t about politics, but about our unbelief, our fear. We are willing to confess Christ before men, as long as the Christ we confess is palatable, normal, reasonable. We are willing to be Abraham’s kin, as long as we can pitch our tents close to Sodom. I fear, however, that while we think we are Lots, the truth is we are Lost.

We live in a post-Christian west. It will become Christian again not when we can gently reason the world back home, but when we are again willing to be fed to the beasts in their stadia. Our faith is eminently rational. It is not in the least reasonable.

Here are a couple more books that I have read this year.

The Puzzle of Ancient Man, Evidence of Advanced Technology in Past Civilizations by Donald E. Chittick, Ph.D.  We bought this book for Christmas as a school resource.  Teresa has read it, then I read it and now Teddy is reading it.  I couldn’t put it down.  The evidence for advanced technology in ancient cultures was fascinating to me.  I realize how far indoctrinated I am in evolutionary thinking when I read something like this.  We are the idiots and those who went before us were far more advanced in many ways.  We tend to think we are so advanced and have so much technology and yet we can’t even do some of the same things structurally today that ancient builders did.  You’ll never think the same about the pyramids again.  When we see evidence for primitive cultures in the past is it because those cultures abandoned God.  And yet despite the evidence from archaeology and Scripture I still buy into the evolutionary lies.  Highly recommended!

Between Two Worlds, The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century by John R.W. Stott.   I made Thomas read this for his internship in January so I joined him.  I last read this book in 1993 while in Bible college.  18 1/2 years later I think I enjoyed the book more.  After years of experience there are areas I disagree with Stott on but for the most part I appreciated the reminders of the great call of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Many of the pages this time through are dog-eared to go back and read some of the great words of wisdom from this great preacher.

Here is one example from the book, “It is already quite evident that, although good behavior is an inevitable consequence of the good news, it is not ‘automatic’ in the sense that it does not need to be taught.  The apostles who proclaimed the gospel gave clear and concrete ethical instruction as well.  The law and the gospel were thus related in their teaching.  If the law is a ’schoolmaster’ to bring us to Christ, placing us under such discipline and condemnation as to make Christ our only hope of salvation, Christ now sends us back to the law to tell us how to live.  Even the purpose of his death for our sins was not only that we might be forgiven but that, having been forgiven, “the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”  (Rom. 8:3, 4)  There are many pastors today who, for fear of being branded as ‘legalists’, give their congregation no ethical teaching.  How far we have strayed from the apostles!  ‘Legalism’ is the misguided attempt to earn our salvation by obedience to the law.  ‘Pharisaism’ is a preoccupation with the externals and the minutiae of religious duty.  To teach the standards of moral conduct which adorn the gospel is neither legalism nor pharisaism but plain apostolic Christianity.”

Good stuff.  As always post a comment below to what you’ve been reading.  It gives me some good thoughts on additions to my reading list and can encourage others.

God uses a variety of sources, authors and differing media to speak to me and to help me grow in my Christian walk.  Of course nothing beats being in the Word and that ought to be our primary and most read source of material, but there are good teachers, preachers, authors, etc. that can challenge and help us to see things from a different perspective.

Training Hearts, Teaching Minds by Starr Meade.   I was giving this book last July and our family started using it.  It is a catechism that is based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  Sometimes those in our movement of Churches shy away from the word Catechism because we have been by nature anti-creedal.  So why would I use a book that is based on some Calvinistic catechism when I am not Calvinistic?  Well for the most part the material is Biblically sound.  There are some issues that have come up as we have been going through this that I have questioned that have led us to get more into the Word and study issues such as Predestination and Original Sin.  I also realize that I learned most of my non-Calvinistic teaching from non-Calvinists rather than from those who espouse Calvin’s doctrine.  So I bought a video that teaches about Calvinism and learned in the first session that when I speak about “free-will” and a Calvinist speaks against “free-will” we aren’t even talking about the same thing.  In fact in this movie a well known Calvinist and I think about “free-will” the same way.  Go figure?  Lesson learned is don’t shy away from material that may not fit your thoughts or Theology, there is always room for growth even if we don’t agree on every issue at the end of the day.  A great resource for families to spend a few minutes a day learning doctrine.

What is a Balanced Preacher?  Take a few minutes and read this article by Bojadar Marinov with American Vision.  This is a great article that explains part of the problem with Christianity in America today.  We have failed to look to Scripture for all areas of life and we get comfortable compartmentalizing our faith.  I praise God for our congregation who allows me to preach and teach on a variety of subjects from politics, economics, government, etc. because the Bible speaks to all of these areas.  May we strive to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and look at every area of life from a Biblical perspective.

Have to, Get to, Want to by Voddie Baucham.  This is a message that Voddie delivered at his Church in Texas on January 1st.  It is an hour long but it is well worth your time.  I really enjoyed what Voddie had to say about Church membership and what constitutes a Church.  He is a passionate speaker focused on the Word of God.

And one other resource you’ll have to wait until next week to access.  I was looking int he January 29th Christian Standard and ran across an article entitled, “Our Elders May Function Differently Than Yours.”  It was very insightful and timely as we look at changing our By-Laws at CCR.  Some of you get the Christian Standard each week so look for this article at the end of the publication.  Others go to this site after Sunday and look for the article by the title listed above — Christian Standard.

Well that’s all for now.  Some things to read, study and listen to.  Leave a comment below and list some resources you are using to grow in your faith and maybe others can benefit from what has blessed you.

Here are some thoughts on a few more books I have read this year.  I am being pushed a little because of my children and activities they are involved in but that is a good thing.  It gets me reading more rather than less.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.   My oldest daughter is doing the Generation Joshua book club again this year.  This year’s focus is worldview which makes for good discussions.  Here is this year’s list for Gen J. book club.  There have been some good reads and books I have never read or probably wouldn’t read on my own.  While I probably should have read Treasure Island before I hadn’t and I enjoyed it.  I knew the story line from movies etc, but most of the time the book is always better.  Questions such as how far will a person go for greed?  Or how do we base our morals? give some weight to the discussion.  Anyone else sometime feel like the U.S. Taxcode amounts to piracy?

The Christian Minister, A Practical Approach to the Preaching Ministry by Sam E. Stone.   I first read this book back in Bible College in the Spring of 1994.  Now I am reading it again 18 years later.  Years down the road there are areas I agree and areas I disagree with Stone but overall invaluable advice to ministers starting out.  Which is why I had Thomas read it for his internship with the Church.  And I thought I’d read it along with him.  Sam Stone is one of those highly recognized and respected names in the Restoration Movement for good reason.

By the way just a plug for getting good used books.  Try Meadowlark Books in Riverton before Amazon.com.  They often can beat Amazon price on used titles and get them within a few days.  A great reason to shop local on used books.  And no I didn’t get any payment for that advertisement.

List comments below on what you’ve been reading and why you liked it or didn’t like it.

Unfortunately we live in a Joel Osteen world.  And unfortunately we like to only hear messages that make us feel good.  Most every day that I open the Word of God it smacks me in the face and calls me to look my sin in the eye and repent.  And it makes me realize how great is the grace of God and how desperately I need His grace.  I need to repent and grow and mature because without Christ I am nothing.

Yesterday Scott Brown posted a list of what he called, A Preacher’s Responsibility.  See if it made you as uncomfortable as it did me.  As Christians we are soft.  We like things light and fluffy.  The reason I enjoy listening to preachers such a Voddie Baucham or Paul Washer and others is that they challenge me to grow in my faith.  They smack me upside the head with the Word of God.  If you are like me when you read Scott Brown’s list you may be ok for the first 8 or 9 things he mentions but then it starts to get a little uncomfortable.  Or maybe it’s just time for the Church in America today to move beyond the milk of the Word and on to maturity.

As Christians we have a choice.  We can live in a Joel Osteen world and only sing, “Jesus loves me this I know” over and over again.  Or we can listen to the words of Amazing Grace that describe God’s salvation for a “wretch like me.”  I resolve in 2012 to look my sin in the eye and confront it and listen to those preachers who don’t sugar coat the life we Christians should strive to live.

Reading was one area last year I didn’t do enough of.  Reading feeds my soul.  Reading inspires me and encourages me and challenges me.  Last year I dropped the ball.  A new year with fresh starts is always a great time to re-look at areas that need attention.  This year I am off to a better start.

First, if you don’t have a plan to read through the Bible this year it’s not too late to start.  You need to read the Word of God, first and most often.  Other books by various authors can have some value but we are not neglect the Word.  For most Christians reading through the entire Bible once in a year should be a minimum.  For an average person it is around 20 minutes a day.  For those with reading troubles the Bible on CD is a good alternative.

Second for me is to have a good source of news materials.  Since we don’t have broadcast TV in the home I have to get news elsewhere.  I do look at a few news sites online but try to limit access to them so I am not consumed by it.  My favorite source for news is World Magazine.  I try to read that faithfully.  Not that I always agree with everything printed but at least they provide news from around the world from a biblical worldview.

Third good books.  I will try and post a few comments here on the things I am reading.  Not that you have to have my reading list at all but perhaps some of items I read will encourage you to read books with similar topics or the same books.  I will try and put a link to the book where it can be purchased and a few thoughts good or bad.  Please feel free to leave a comment on some good books you have been reading.

So far for 2012 I have three books read.

Be Fruitful and Multiply by Nancy Campbell.  The subtitle of this book is, “What the Bible Says about having children.”  You can read the reviews at Amazon by following the link.  I think it is interesting that people who didn’t like the book thought she took Scripture out of context.  I found one passage from Romans that I didn’t think applied the way she stated but everything else was straight forward from the Word of God.  People may disagree with her conclusions but I don’t think they can use God’s Word and disagree with her.  My wife and I read this together last year all except the last four chapters because it contains so much Scripture it takes and hour and a half to look them all up for each chapter.  A challenging read and one I wish more Christians would examine in light of God’s Word.  It is easy to have opinions, much harder to quote book chapter and verse to back them up and Nancy Campbell does it well.

The Second Mayflower by Kevin Swanson.  The subtitle of this book is, “How Christian Ethics Can Restore Our Freedom”  Wow a lot of great ideas from Kevin.  A challenging book that most Christians would probably view as too radical.  But some very good thoughts.  Well worth the read was the platform for a principled political party in Appendix C.  I didn’t agree with everything in Mr. Swanson’s platform but most of it by far and far better than the major political parties of our day.

Suicide of a Superpower by Patrick J. Buchanan.  The subtitle of this book is, “Will America Survive to 2025?”  At the rate we are going I think we all know the answer to that question, “NO!” but Buchanan nails every major issue that we are facing in America today beginning with a loss of our Biblical foundation.  Buchanan is the man I would want by my side if I were ever President.  The problem is I’m not sure whether I would want him as the Chairman of the Department of Defense or as my Chief of Staff after reading this book.  Most of it is depressing if you want to remain in a bubble and think everything is rainbows and unicorns but very powerful assessment of where we are today and what our issues are.  The last chapter gave some great hope as well.  There is one section in the last chapter that is so goo I have to quote it here.

“Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton disbelieved in “one-man, one-vote” democracy.  We worship it.  They believed in a Creator.  We have exiled him from our schools and replaced him with evolution.  They believed all men had God-given and inalienable right to life.  With Roe v. Wade we canceled that right for the unborn, fifty million of whom have since perished.  For 250 years after the settlers came to Jamestown, our fathers sought to build a Protestant and British country.  From the Irish immigration of the 1840s to the first Irish Catholic president in 1960, the United States sought to maintain its character and identity as a Christian and European nation.  To assert that as an ideal today would constitute a hate crime.”

Well that’s what I’ve been reading so far in 2012.  Post some of your recent reads in the comments below.

Here is Article 1 from A Biblical Confession for Uniting Church and Family from the National Center for Family Integrated Churches.  

Article I — Scripture is Sufficient

We affirm that our all-wise God has revealed Himself and His will in a completed revelation—the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments—which is fully adequate in both content and clarity for “everything pertaining to life (salvation) and godliness (sanctification)” including the ordering of the church and the family (Gal. 1:8-9; 1 Cor. 11:1-12, 14:34; Eph. 5:22-6:4;  2 Pet. 1:3-4; 1 Tim 3:15; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).

We deny that God’s people should treat His Word as inadequate for church and family life by supplementing His completed revelation with principles from humanistic psychology, corporate business models, and modern marketing techniques.

I really like the last two lines here because I see how often the Church tries to incorporate worldly practices that don’t really help.  Most Church by-laws are written like corporate business models.  I would love to see some that are short and simple and have a lot of verses in them.  We in the body of Christ today are in love with modern marketing techniques.  Most books today for Christian audiences are not written about Theology or how to study the Bible better but how to be new and inventive with worship and how to fill seats in an auditorium.  Someone needs to write the book for Christians entitled, “Repent and Follow God”.  

As I looked up the Scriptures here I realize that all Christians may not agree with how to apply them.  But Scripture ought to be the starting point for a believer.  If Scripture is not sufficient as that starting point then nothing else matters.  We can debate women’s roles, etc. in the body but let’s start with the Word and go from there.  While my library may be full of books my favorite and most read one ought to be the Bible.  

Wednesday nights at our house we try and do something a little extra for family worship time.  The rest of the week we try and read a section of Scripture in the mornings and work through some Bible Doctrine in the evenings.  Last night we listened to a message by Doug Phillips on the Sufficiency of Scripture that really encouraged and also discouraged me.  Doug says this is the defining battle for the American Church in the 21st Century.  I agree with him.  I am encouraged that men like Doug are not afraid to give a battle cry if you will and call the Church to her standard of the Word.  Discouraged that many Christians will dismiss the message.

I used to think that Doug was a little legalistic.  But the more I listen to him and the more I am in the Word I think those thoughts were more me than him.  If I am not willing to measure everything in my life by the Word of God then shame on me.  It is my lack of commitment to my Lord and Savior not the men who challenge me to dig deeper into the Word that is the issue.  Many times in my life I have had to change a position that I thought was truth because the Word of God would not allow me to hold a position that didn’t measure up any longer.  Some of mine are Baptism, Bible Prophesy, Birth Control, Age Segregation, Fatherhood (and all that entails).  Where has God challenged you in His Word?

While Christians may debate on issues of Theology if we do not agree on the same starting point (The Word of God) then the conversation is over long before it begins.  The Bible speaks to every area of life not just some.  There is no distinction between the sacred and the secular.  This is our Father’s world.  Jesus said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me……”  That means everything.

Listen to this message by Doug Phillips and post a comment on whether or not you think this is the defining issue of the Church for the 21st Century.  It will be the best hour of your day:  The Defining Battles in the War Against the Sufficiency of Scripture.     By the way there are 34 more messages in this series.