[BBC List] for those of you who missed it

[Mike Abendroth]

>From Challies’ blog

 


First General Session - John MacArthur


01.03.06

I would not have expected John MacArthur to begin the conference with a
comedic monologue, yet that is what he did. He made jokes about the length
of his tenure at Grace and even his age. He asked for how many people this
was their first Shepherd’s Conference. When at least half the men in
attendance stood up, he asked, “So whose conference have you been at?” He
remarked, though, that looking at the number of men in attendance, he has
never been more ready to depart this world knowing that the church is in
good hands. He thanked us for attending and turned the stage over to the
Master’s Seminary Choir, which, when accompanied by the orchestra, led us in
several songs.

And then John MacArthur stepped to the pulpit for the first session: a
session dealing with some of the challenges to the contemporary church.

There is a landscape of pseudo-churches and the word “church” is terribly
overused. It is easy to call a body a church but more difficult to be one.
He mentions George Barna who calls for the demise of the church. MacArthur
feels that it is time for us to defend the church and who gets to use the
word.

He says that the most common call or letter that comes into Grace to You is
“I can’t find a church.” People can find a place called a church but have a
hard time finding a real church - a biblical church. To discover what the
church is, we need to go back to Scripture and, in particular, Matthew 16.
In the text, where that statement is given by Jesus, all the foundational
aspects of the church are given. Everything else about the church in the New
Testament builds upon this verse: “I will build my church.” This is the
first mention of the word “church.” It contains the necessary marks of the
true church, either explicitly or implicitly. This has the doctrinal
foundations for a biblical ecclesiology.

1.	A true church is known by a great confession. The great confession
in this passage is Simon Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God.” Thus the first absolute is a biblical Christology: a biblical view of
Jesus Christ. There must be an understanding of the truth of Jesus Christ.
It is not built on a wrong or inadequate view of Jesus Christ. Without
Christ there is no gospel, no salvation. The church is an assembly of people
who make the great and common confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God. To say Christ is at the center of a church is simply to say that this
is a church. To confess Christ is the heart and soul of the church. “I
simply cannot understand people for whom Christ is not the main subject of
their preaching.”
2.	That great confession is built on a great communication. God
communicated the truth of this confession to Peter. Peter was able to make
this confession on behalf of the apostles on the basis of God’s revelation.
It did not come from a human source but from God Himself. There is no human
source for this saving confession. You cannot know the saving confession
without the Divine revelation. It was objective, divine, external
revelation. All we know of Christ must come through us by God. “The revealed
Word is everything. Absolutely everything.” The foundation of the church is
the Word of God because faith comes by hearing that Word. “How can church be
church if it is not relentlessly Christ-centered and Bible-saturated?” The
church is a gathering of people who are brought together on the foundation
of God’s Word. A major attack on the church today is by people within the
visible church who attack the certitude of Scripture. “God has spoken
plainly; they don’t like what it says.” Jesus never allowed people to feel
that the Old Testament was anything less than clear. What was in the
Scripture, people were responsible to know and understand.

 

3.	The church is marked by a great contrast. Jesus warns the disciples
to “tell no one that He was the Christ.” Why would He do this? He perceived
that the people were going to make Him king. The people had a warped view of
the Messiah and His kingdom, so they were not in a position to deal with the
truth of this profession. They were looking for an earthly ruler and Jesus
wanted nothing to do with that. His kingdom has no connection to any earthly
kingdom. The church has no role in rearranging sinners into more acceptable
lifestyles. Our mandate is to proclaim the Word of God. We are to penetrate
our culture with the gospel, not to change the culture into a Christian one.
“The biggest mission field in America is professed Christianity.”

 

4.	The church is marked by a great conquest. It is at the cross that
all the issues of sin, righteousness, judgment and imputation are made
clear. The cross my be exalted in everything. The cross must prevail in
conquest.

 

5.	The church is marked by a great conflict. Peter took Jesus aside and
began to rebuke Him. Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get behind me Satan!”
The church is engaged in a relentless war for truth. You either set your
mind on God’s interests or you capitulate and set your mind on man’s
interest. Many who profess to be Christians, even today, are siding with
Satan. Many who think they are aiding the gospel are actually in the way.
They are hindering the work of God.

 

6.	The true church understands the great contradiction: “Whoever wishes
to gain his life must lose it.” Of all of the invitation statements Jesus
could have said, he says this one. The great contradiction is that going
after Jesus will cost a person everything. Church is not about making people
feel good about themselves. It is made up of people who want to escape
themselves and bring an end to themselves. This clashes so blatantly with
what so many churches are offering today (see MacArthur’s book Hard to
Believe for more on this subject).

 

7.	The church anticipates and understand the great consumation. The
church needs to recover an eschatology that looks forward primarily to
glorification. The church desperately needs to look forward to this great
consumation. “The great wonder of wonders in heaven is that I’ll be there.”

How do you recognize a real church? You’ll find a person whose proclamation
is Christ, the cross and resurrection, humility and submission and obedience
to God as sinners desperately in need of grace, and who are living in
anticipation in the fulness of grace when they see the Savior face-to-face.
No wonder that such churches are hard to find.

And with that, we were sent on our way for lunch!


 


 


Seminar 1 - Phil Johnson - Is The Reformation Over?


 

It has become quickly apparent that this conference exists not merely to
equip pastors, but also to serve and honor them (and perhaps even spoil them
a little). At the close of the earlier session one of the organizers
announced that there was an area for “shoe-shining and everything else a
pastor needs.” I don’t know too many pastors that need to have their shoes
shined (or who need to travel to Los Angeles to have them shined, at any
rate), but there are obviously plenty of them who will take up the offer if
presented with it. So it seems that this is an opportunity for Grace church
to honor pastors who give so much of themselves for the sake of the gospel. 

We are about to begin the first round of seminars. I have chosen to listen
to Phil Johnson expose the “damning doctrines of Roman Catholicism” in a
seminar entitled “Rome is Burning.” From what I know of Phil, he won’t pull
any punches, but will continually turn back to Scripture to show where
Catholicism has abandoned the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Phil decided to retitle this seminar, “Is the Reformation Over?” It has now
been more than a decade since the release of the Evangelicals and Catholics
together statement of unity. This began a long campaign of trying to bring
unity to Protestants and Catholics and has been signed by multitudes of
prominent Evangelicals and Catholics.

The ecumenical juggernaut has continued to roll on. John Armstrong, for
example, was first against this statement but has since become one of the
most outspoken activists for ETC. Timothy George, at first withheld his
signature, but since became an activist for ecumenicism. Ecumenicism
continues to gain ground. Those who object are seen as being uncharitable
reactionists.

Mark Noll has written a book which asks, “Is The Reformation Over?” and the
title of that book is what Phil borrowed for this seminar. Interestingly,
Noll is now leaving Wheaton College and moving to Notre Dame. One of the
reasons for leaving is to prove his commitment to Protestant-Catholic
dialogue. He feels that Protestants need to embrace the fact that the Roman
Catholic Church has changed, especially since Vatican II. The Reformation
has succeeded and thus, is over. But, Phil believes, what has really changed
is not Catholicism but Protestantism. Protestants have largely abandoned
their own doctrinal heritage. They have replaced it with a brand of
quasi-Evangelicalism that is no longer opposed to or offensive to Rome.

This seminar will examine various arguments for Catholic-Evangelical
ecumenism.

What is so appealing about ecumenical relationships with Rome? They come in
five categories: practical, political, historical, biblical, theological.

1.	Practical: there is no longer any substantive difference between
Roman Catholics and Protestants. It is easy to find Catholics who now act in
ways identical to Protestants, whether seeking the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
leading Alpha classes, and so on. And this is, in many ways, true. Post
Vatican II Catholicism has a greater emphasis on the role of the layperson.
This looks like a Catholic understanding of the Protestant concept of the
priesthood of all believers. In short, if Roman Catholics and Protestants
look alike, worship alike and have similar emphases, they ought to be
together. This is a very pragmatic argument, but one that is effective
because so many Protestants have long since sold out to pragmatism. 
2.	Historical: the dispute over justification by faith has not been
settled in five hundred years and will probably never be. No person, group
or council has been able to resolve this dispute. If Protestant scholars
keep entering this debate, perhaps it proves that this is a false argument
and one that will never be solved. Another historical argument is based
around the traditional Protestant understanding that the Catholic church is
not a true church. The question then is, where was the true church before
the Protestant churches? This question has led many Protestants to cross the
Tiber. Catholics can point to an apostolic pedigree whereas Protestants
cannot. Noll’s book is heavily slanted towards a Catholic bias and
understanding of church history. 
3.	Political: abortion has long been an important issue on both the
Protestant and Catholic radar. We share many political and social and moral
concerns. While Protestants and Catholics argue about theology, society is
falling apart. Should we not lay aside our disagreements, people say, and
focus on issues that are of greater importance to our lives? This was one of
the original purposes of ETC. Another major political argument is based on a
heightened awareness of the threat of Islamic terrorism. Catholics and
Protestants should stop trying to evangelize each other when the threat of
Islamic facism is hanging over the world? Should we not evangelize others? 
4.	Doctrinal: in the big scheme of things there seems to be much on
which Catholics and Protestants can agree. We both affirm many of the same
creeds and confessions. We admire and are indebted to many of the same
Church Fathers. We reject many of the same heresies and heretics. 
5.	Biblical: most of these are based on the Bible’s continual
injunctions to seek peace among all men and to seek Christian unity. And
unity is important, even to the point of being the very measure of the
strength and growth of our faith. But on what basis?

This is an imposing array of arguments. Within the spirit of the age in
which we live, we can see why the desire for unity has found such strong
support.

So, what then, is the problem with seeking a tie between Evangelicalism and
Catholicism?

There is one argument that trumps all of these and puts them down in one
fell swoop: the doctrinal disagreement between Rome and Evangelicalism is
not small and profound: first, we disagree on the very heart of the gospel
and how to answer the question, “what must I do to be saved?”. Second, we
disagree on who has the authority to settle that argument. Two things must
be affirmed among Evangelicals: The gospel and the authority of God’s Word.

A thumbnail sketch of Evangelicalism and what makes it what it is:

Evangelicalism used to be defined by a clear, specific theological stance.
It used to mean that a person had a faith built on two pillars: the
authority of Scripture and the doctrine of justification by faith alone in
Christ alone. The Five Solas were a guide to the major doctrines of the
Protestant Reformation. Two of them in particular stand out as the key
issues over which the bulk of the debate took place: sola scriptura, the
formal principle of the Reformation, and sola fide, the material principle
of the Reformation. Note that these are the distinctive doctrines of
Evangelicalism. All Evangelicals, until recently, affirmed these doctrines.
Only in recent years has the expression Evangelical been broadened to
include people who deny these pillars.

Sola scriptura affirms the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. No higher
court of appeal exists or is needed beyond Scripture. Neither is anything to
be added to Scripture. All differences between Protestantism and Catholicism
stem from the difference in this point of doctrine.

Sola fide (faith alone) summarized the main doctrinal point that was at
stake between Protestantism and Catholicism. It is a dispute about the most
basic issue of the gospel. It summarizes the Protestant understanding that
it is by faith alone that we are saved. It is an alien righteousness (not
our own, but Christ’s) that is reckoned to our account. Those who have this
righteousness need no other to stand before God here and now. It is not a
process but is an instant decree. It grants us a perfect standing with God
the moment we believe. Scripture affirms this repeatedly. Sola fide points
us only and entirely to Christ for our salvation.

Roman Catholicism and Protestantism preach different gospels. This is the
heart of the disagreement between Evangelicals and Rome. That Rome preaches
a false gospel has been the position of every major Reformer since the
Reformation. A defective view of justification is what drives much of the
Catholic practice and theology that is foreign to Protestantism: from the
veneration of Mary to the mass and from prayer to saints to auricular
confession. Catholicism insists that justification is a process requiring
not just faith but also obedience. The bottom line is that we are saved by
faith plus nothing! These are two different gospels.

Our difference is so profound that both sides have traditionally agreed that
only one can be right and one of us must be anathema - damnably wrong. Until
we can agree on the substance of the gospel, this breach cannot be healed
and should not be glossed over.

All of this has changed in recent years. An Evangelical is no longer a
person defined by theology but by experience or church membership.
“Evangelical” has been stripped of doctrinal content. Mainstream
Evangelicals have been assaulted by movements that seem to be motivated by
removing the doctrinal distinctives: The lack of theology in the Church
Growth Movement, the anti-intellectualism of the Charismatic movement; the
neo-ecumenism in Promise Keepers and other movements, the new understanding
of justification in the New Perspective on Paul, the denial of propositional
truth in the Emerging Church, and so on. These have all worked to the
detriment of Evangelicalism. So now, Evangelicalism which was once a
movement defined by doctrine, understands doctrine to be divisive and of
secondary importance. The obvious casualty in all of this is the gospel.
Catholics and Protestants have long agreed that the heart of the debate is
the gospel, but now people would have us believe otherwise.

If we agree with ecumenism, we have set aside the gospel. It is positively
sinful and grossly disobedient to seek the type of unity that many have
sought between Catholicism and Protestantism. The only real hope for our
lost and dying culture is the very gospel message they seek to relegate to
secondary importance.

None of the leading Reformers discounted the importance of Christian unity.
Because the Catholic Church abandoned the gospel of faith alone, the
Reformers were driven to the conclusion that the Church was apostate and the
Gospel was the issue.

While many changes have taken place within the Catholic Church since Vatican
II, these changes are merely cosmetic. The Church has not made any
significant changes in doctrine for the very reason that Catholic doctrine
is unchangeable, irreformable. The new Catholic Catechism affirms all of the
doctrines of the Council of Trent. Rome has not changed or Reformed
doctrinally. She still rejects the gospel of justification by faith alone
through Christ alone.

Scripture is clear on the obligation of those within the church who offer a
different gospel. We are to reject them and the message they teach. This
teaches us what type of unity we are to seek: a unity built on sound
doctrine! Scripture’s exhortation for unity is a unity built only upon the
foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Is the Reformation over? Perhaps it is, but this points not to changes in
doctrine within the Roman Catholic Church, but to a weakening of doctrine
within Evangelicalism. 

Phil concluded in prayer that pastors would continue to stand for the truth.


 


 


Second General Session - John MacArthur


01.03.06


Story Tools


I have not visited very many churches that are as large and important as
Grace Community Church, but I have been inside a few. I was not prepared for
the “plainness” of Grace. The church is, to be honest, quite unremarkable
but for its size. The inside is not at all exciting - the walls and ceilings
are plain. The walls are unadorned and the entire focus of the church is a
rather simple pulpit The campus is large, but plain. I guess this shows that
the church does do what MacArthur claims: it focuses on the gospel while
worrying far less about what people may want from a church. It gives people
little more than what they need.

I asked Phil Johnson and one of the long-time elders at Grace Community
Church about this over dinner tonight and they told me that this was a
deliberate decision. It is interesting to note that this church was built at
around the same time as Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral. The difference between
the buildings is striking. So is the difference in the focuses of their
ministries.

This evening’s session began with a time of singing. I was struck by the
difference in singing between this conference and the Desiring God
conference. Last year, when I blogged the Desiring God conference I remarked
on the large number of hands that were raised during the times of worship
through song. Tonight the singing was loud and powerful, but there were far
fewer hands in the air. I would conservatively estimate the number of hands
in the air at 1. Maybe 2. At times I am struck by the diversity within the
body of Christ. At times that are more spiritually significant, I am struck
by the sweetness of this diversity. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

Tonight’s session will once again feature John MacArthur.

Scripture is very clear that God has no joy in the death of the wicked. He
takes no pleasure in their destruction, for as we read in Scripture, Jesus
wept over Jerusalem - sincere weeping. God finds His joy not in the
destruction of the wicked but in the recovery of sinners. We don’t talk much
about the joy of God. We preach a lot of things about the nature of God, but
one thing that gets left out is the joy of God. Do we think of God as
joyful? God experiences unending, consumate joy, every moment. What gives
him this joy? Deuteronomy 30 points to the obedience of His people.

God rejoices as a groom rejoices over his bride - the supreme human
expression of joy. God finds His joy in the salvation of sinners. Do we
think of God as shouting with joy? But He does, for He finds His joy in the
recovery of lost sinners. Jonathan Edwards said that God supremely values
His own joy and finds His highest joy in the recovery of the lost. And thus
the end of all we do ought to be the joy of God.

Luke 15 looks at this in an incomparable way in the parables of the lost
sheep and the parable of the lost coin. Jesus challenges the pharisees to
ask who would be so superficial that he would rejoice over the finding of a
lost coin, yet not rejoice at the salvation of a sinner? Who would be that
selfish? That ungodly?

And then we turn to the story of the prodigal son. This parable is premised
on a society that was dominated by the concepts of shame and honor. People
and families sought to gain honor while avoiding shame. The listener fully
understood the shame of this story. Everything that everybody does in this
parable is shameful and unacceptable. It is counter to all conventional
thinking. It is shocking, outrageous, unbelievable, unthinkable. Some of it
is perceived to be shameful when it is not, and some of it is truly, deeply
shameful.

A shameful request: It begins in verse eleven with the story of a father who
had two sons. The one son requested his inheritance. It was a shameful
request that would have raised the eyebrows of the pharisees. It is selfish,
hateful and disrespectful. He is, in reality, saying to his father “I wish
you were dead.” The father was standing in the way of how his son wanted to
live. The son wants his one-third of the estate and feels it is rightfully
his. He wants it not so he can build and develop a business or to manage the
money himself, but rather for his own selfish purposes - for his own freedom
and independence. The pharisees would expect the father to beat him, punish
him, and perhaps reduce the amount of his inheritance. He would do this
because of the shame it would bring the family to have a son make such an
outrageous request.

A shameful response: The father divided his wealth between them. No father
would do this because it would bring further shame to the family. Instead of
reacting in an honorable way, the father gives in to his son’s request.
Giving his son that much freedom would heap shame upon a middle-eastern
nobleman. It was a very dishonorable act.

A shameful rebellion: The son gathered everything together, selling all he
had and turning it into cash. He would have sold it cheap with the
understanding that a person could not claim the wealth until the father was
dead. Who would do something so dishonorable? What older son would stand by
and let this happen? What father would allow this to happen? And all of this
so the son could go on a journey into a foreign, unclean land and squander
this estate in loose living. And again, the pharisees would have asked, “who
would do this?” It would have been inconceivable to them. The level of shame
and stupidity displayed by the characters in this story was extreme.

But as we know, the son became destitute. Loose living and a famine robbed
him of all he had. He squandered all that he had been given. The son was
sent into the fields to feed swine. He could go no lower. He is not herding
pigs, but is a pig. He is a sinner in the most extreme form of rebellion.

In this story we see sin. Sin is a desire that God was dead and to want
nothing to do with Him. It is to take all we have been given and squander
it. It is to waste life in selfish indulgence while shunning all that is
good and right. “This is the freedom of the will and it is a horrible
bondage.” The picture is flagrantly extreme.

A shameful repentance: The son came to his senses and we see that the
beginning of repentance is an accurate assessment of one’s condition. He
realized that his father’s hired hands had far more than he did and received
more than enough. His father was kind, merciful, loving and generous. He has
faith in his father’s heart and willingness to take him back. He realizes
the height of his sin (as high as heaven) but will confess his sin to his
father and beg to be anything to his father. He will make no demands, no
excuses, but will throw himself on the mercy of his father.

What could the son expect from his return? The villagers would have a
responsibility to heap scorn upon him. This was part of the culture and he
would have known this. He would expect that his father would send a message,
not even willing to see him, and tell him to sit in the town and soak up his
shame for a week or two. He would then grant an audience of great
indifference and may lay out a long, harsh program of restitution that may
just lead to a cold reconciliation after sufficient time had passed.

A shameful reconcilation: This is most shameful of all. His father had
compassion, ran to him and kissed him. The pharisees would have rolled their
eyes and mocked, thinking that there was just no helping this father. The
father must have been looking for his son, for he saw him a long way off.
Without having his honor restored, he runs to his son and plays the fool. He
felt compassion like some type of wimp. He ran to him, sprinted to him,
something old noblemen do not do, for it is neither dignified nor proper. It
was shameful for a man to expose his legs and he would have had to do this
to sprint. He acted indecent and shameful, disdaining cultural convention.
He hugged his son, the vile, filthy, pig-stinking rebel, kissing him over
and over.

Where is the same for this kid? Where is the price he has to pay? He should
have been shamed. Should have been beaten. Should have had to wait. The
pharisees could not comprehend the actions of the father because they could
not understand grace. They had no category for grace.

The son got it. He understood grace. He said to his father that he was no
longer worthy to be called his son. He left out the part about being treated
as one of his father’s hired men, for he understood that he had received
reconciliation with his father’s hugs and kisses. He received the mark of
full acceptance and reconciliation. This picture was outrageous to the
pharisees. A dignified, honorable person embracing a filthy sinner: this
picture was incomprehensible to them.

It is God who seeks the sinner and initiates. He finds the sinner before the
sinner could ever find Him. It is God’s love for the penitent that is
lavish, loving, gracious and apart from any work. God finds His joy in the
salvation of one lost sinner. He runs and He embraces and He restores the
penitent sinner.

We are not used to seeing God in that picture. We are not used to seeing God
so eager, so anxious. We’re not used to seeing Him with His robe pulled up,
running through town, taking mockery for something so dishonoring and
shameful. We’re not used to seeing God unrestrained and over-the-top happy
and joyous.

A shameful rejoicing: As if this isn’t bad enough, they now have a party. He
calls for the best robe - his own robe - and puts it upon the son. He treats
his son like royalty, sharing in his father’s dignity. He puts a ring upon
his hand - a ring used to symbolize full authority to act for him. He puts
shoes on him to symbolize leadership for slaves and hired people did not
wear shoes. He calls for the fatted calf, the prime meal to be saved for the
greatest occasion. All this because he has received his son back, safe and
sound. This is heaven’s joy.

The party is in honor not of the son, but in honor of the forgiving father.
We will be at this party in heaven and will celebrate God’s love forever.
This father continues to be ludicrous in his conduct in the eyes of the
pharisees.

A shameful reaction: The older son is in the field, not involved in the
family’s greatest party. This probably indicates that he had no relationship
with his father. Should he not have been at the party? Should he not have
been consulted? He had no interest in his father’s joy. This is the first
person in this story that the pharisees can understand. The son was angry,
and to the pharisees this was the first honorable reaction. They can
understand the older brother because they were the older brother. They were
very bit as lost as the brother.

A shameful lie: The son complains about all that he has done for his father
and notes that his father has never given him anything. He is discourteous
and shows his lack of respect for his father. He has no joy in his father’s
joy and has no relationship with him. This is a terrible, slanderous attack
on his father’s graciousness. Rather than reprimanding him, the father
answers gently. He affirms that all he has has always been his son’s. The
older son is as extreme a sinner as his brother, but in a different way.

God is gracious. He rejoices because one sinner repents. Heaven is not
holding off the party and the celebration is going on right now. “There is a
party going on in heaven all the time.” The joy in the middle of the party
is the joy of God Himself.

And here is the obvious application: are you seeking to bring the lost to
Christ for the joy of the father?

And then the story ends without a proper ending. What is the son’s reaction?
Did the older son repent? Did he find reconciliation? The real ending was
that the son beat his father to death in front of everyone there. It would
be only a few months before these pharisees killed the Son of God, thinking
that they were protecting righteousness and honor and the Law. As he crushes
the father, he screams, “You are evil, you are evil, you are evil.”

The final, ironic twist is that the father, who should have beaten the son,
is beaten by the son.

As the evening ended, MacArthur led us in singing “Grace, Grace, God’s
Grace.”


 


General Session 3 - Mark Dever


02.03.06

Perhaps one of the most amusing aspect of this conference is the regular
“pastor rushes.” Every time a session begins, a crowd gathers around each of
the ten or twelve doors to the worship center. At the moment the doors open,
a crowd of pastors rush to the front, seeking to nab the premier spots. They
will, quite literally, sprint to the front, sometimes even pushing and
shoving a little bit to get there. It makes for sick comedy and generates a
lot of comments and giggles from bystanders. Tomorrow I may try to snap a
picture of this in action!

This morning we will be treated to a session led by Mark Dever of Capitol
Hill Baptist Church who will speak on unbelief.

He began by reflecting for a short time on the message John MacArthur
brought us last night. He asked, if this message we bring is so wonderful,
why would anyone ever not believe it? Why didn’t the younger brother, the
older brother and the pharisees we learned about last night believe? Why
don’t our friends and relatives believe? This is a question that haunts
believers and unbelievers alike and was the topic of Jesus in John 12,
beginning at verse 37 and continuing to the end of the chapter.

The Unbelievers

Though Jesus had done so many miraculous signs, the people still did not
believe in Him. This passage concludes the series of signs that define the
first part of the gospel. The tragic story of the first 12 chapters is
summarized in the first verses: “His own did not receive Him.” This was the
grim reality that the recipients of this letter would have labored under.

Why did so many reject Jesus? Those who minister today labor in their
churches as they do because of their answer to that question. Will they
believe if we change our music? Will they believe if we lower the lights?

The nature of unbelief: John, following in the footsteps of Jesus, turns to
the Scripture to answer this question. He turns to a quotation from Isaiah
53 and by examining this passage we can understand what John sought to call
to mind. The people’s rejection of the Messiah was part of the Messiah’s
substitutionary atonement for us. Isaiah shows us a comprehensive unbelief.
Belief, and therefore unbelief, never involve the mind alone. 

The core of unbelief: The core of unbelief is a lack of acceptance of Jesus’
words. Rejecting His words is rejecting Him - His person. This is a pattern
we see throughout Scripture. God’s word in the Garden of Eden was clear, but
Adam and Eve rejected this word and thus, they rejected God. In Adam we have
all sinned and have all rejected the word. The Bible continues with the
story of what it means like to reject God. Central to Jesus’ message is that
He has not rejected God and is in intimate communion with Him. This has
great ramifications for anyone who would seek to love or worship a Jesus who
is different than what we read in Scripture. This is a live issue in the
church today where the substitutionary atonement is under constant attack.
It may involve the academic hubris of recasting the words of Christ or
involve subverting the rest of the New Testament in an apparent effort to
make the rest of the Bible better “fit” Jesus’ words. If we are would
believe, we cannot change or disbelieve the words of Christ.

Reasons for unbelief: Verse forty says that they would not believe “so they
would turn and be healed.” The purpose is that they will not turn and be
healed. It is not that these people are unwilling to turn, but are unable to
turn. It is impossible for them to turn as they did not have the power.
These people we love and pray for and preach to - they do not have the power
to turn. Now, of course, formally they do have some power, but not the power
as in the virtue, strength or disposition. They have no such power to
believe.

At the end of his life Moses summoned the people and reminded them of all
they had seen God do. But to that day the Lord had not given them the
ability to see, hear and understand. The same is true with Isaiah and thus
with John. God had not given a mind to understand, eyes to see or ears to
hear. Did God to this merely by not extending grace? And certainly there is
a self-hardening aspect of sin and thus we are all culpable for our own
unbelief. But do note that God is also said to be active in causing
hardening in unbelief as a just punishment for those who have deliberately
chosen to be what they are. It is a judicial hardening.

Pastor Dever shared that he has taught this today to protect pastors from
those within the Christian world who seek to sell a product or program in
order to prey upon the conscience of the pastor. There are so many who seek
to tell us that the reason people do not believe is that we have not bought
into their program or product. 

In Isaiah 6 God tells the prophet to preach to the people and Isaiah asks
how long. How long are we to bring this message? In Romans 11 Paul answers
“until the fullness of the Gentiles is complete.”

There are five applications to this:

God’s activity is never pitted against human responsibility: “You do not
have to cut out Romans 9 to have Romans 10.” The doctrines of election or
reprobation, like in Paul’s ministry, ought to bring greater emphasis to
evangelism. We are to preach to everyone, not attempting to discern who is
elect and who is not. We bring the message in faithfulness and let God do
His work. God loves us and wants us to be in on this. He is glorified by our
recounting of the gospel. He uses us because He loves us.

God’s sovereignty is also a ground of hope: Our only hope is that God is
sovereign. A pastor will not keep preaching without an understanding of
God’s sovereignty. The problems of another person may look insurmountable,
but do you not remember what you were like before you were saved? We must
never look down on another person and assume that he will never be saved.
The only reason anyone is ever saved is because of God’s sovereignty.

Unbelief is somehow part of God’s larger plan of redemption: “I don’t really
know much more about it than that.”

Note the hardening effect of the Word: In the ministries of Moses and
Isaiah, the ministries of people in church history and especially the
ministry of Jesus we see that the preaching of the word has a hardening
effect. Sometimes we see people becoming harder through our ministries
because we are doing something right.

Be willing to serve even when a ministry seems unfruitful: God, in His
sovereignty, calls us to be faithful ministers and see no results. Jesus
preached to Judas all the time, even though He knew what was in Judas.
Somehow the glorious grace of God was displayed and portrayed when the Lord
preached to Judas.

There will be times, of course, where a pastor has done a poor job and has
not been faithful. But there are times where a pastor has been faithful. In
these times we are following in the feet of Jesus who was rejected. Pastors
are not called to generate results, but to be faithful.

It is clear that the general hardening of people did not preclude the
salvation of all people. 

Real belief:

Real belief centers on Jesus: This was true even for Isaiah. He saw Jesus’
glory and spoke of Him. Christ is known by the prophets through the Holy
Spirit. Again, hearing Jesus is hearing God. Seeing Jesus is seeing God.
Faith in Jesus involves the mind, the ears, the eyes and is an
acknowledgment that we are seeing God.

Believing in Jesus brings benefits: Believing in Jesus leads to, and
actually is, eternal life.

Three Applications:

*	The objective component: You need to have a clarity on the gospel
which is composed of particular words. Holy, perfect, image, unwilling,
choice. But God, who would have been just to consign us to hell, has run out
to us by taking on flesh and becoming incarnate. We are called to repent and
trust and so be saved. A pastor must continually drill his congregation on
the gospel! If our members do not know the gospel, there is great
responsibility for this upon the pastor. 
*	The subjective component: The subjective component is the fulness of
belief. There must be a subjective appropriation of the gospel. There must
be more than mere mental assent.
*	Real faith is tied to the word: We cannot separate truth from the
word of God.

Any real faith must be built upon the real word and must be centered on
Jesus.


 


General Session 4 - John MacArthur (Q & A)


02.03.06

The sense of anticipation in and around this building has built to a
crescendo. No, it has nothing to do with the speaker who will next take the
pulpit, nor with the topic he will address. It has to do with books. The
patio outside the worship center is filled with tens of thousands of books
and everyone knows that in just another hour, the doors will fling open and
all of the pastors will be invited to take one of each of these books. The
number I hear most often is “28,” as in, “everyone will get 28 books.” And
what do pastors like more than books? Not much, in my experience. I am
guessing that the stampede to get to those books will by far exceed the
stampede to sit near the front of the worship center during the sessions.
>From my seat I can see a large stack of copies of C.J. Mahaney’s book
Humility. Wouldn’t it be ironic to see pastors pushing and shoving to get
ahold of a copy?

Well, that’s not likely to happen. But in just another hour or so, everyone
walking around this campus will do so with a large stack of books. In fact,
many people have brought an extra bag just to haul away their newly acquired
treasure.

Having looked around a little bit (while actually seeking a Dr. Pepper -
thanks for nothing, Paul) I can see that I already own several of the books.
I may take them up on the option of having the books sent to me for the cost
of shipping.

And now John MacArthur has opened the microphones for the annual question
and answer session.

“Children of disobedience or children of the devil.” What do you call them
and are they destined for hell and does God love them?

This can be answered by showing that the love of God for the unregenerate is
displayed in non-salvific ways through common grace. MacArthur has written a
book on this (The Love of God). Unbelievers are given many blessings of
God’s grace and this is expressive of a loving God. God also expresses his
love towards sinners in a measure of his own sympathy and compassion in that
He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Also, the love of God is
shown in a universal expression of truth so that all men, elect or not, are
able to know of the truth of God through creation. It is also shown in the
Great Commission, which tells us that we are to take the message of the good
news to all men. God has love and kindness towards humanity, not only the
elect. The elect are loved by God in a special way. To say that God loves
the world is a true statement and to say that God loves the elect is a more
refined statement.

You referred to John Calvin and his three-fold definition of a church. We
planted a church three years ago because there was not a single church that
did that. Another conservative church in the area has accepted a person into
membership that we have disciplined. What should the nature of our
relationship be with them?

Grace understands this because they are a church that faithfully exercises
church discipline. What has happened through all these years, is that when a
person will not repent, is that a person who has been disciplined runs to
another church. Grace immediately notifies the staff of another church and
lays out the situation and the reason that the person was put out of the
church. It is becoming more and more difficult to make people in another
church care about this, and so it poses a difficult question.

Do we now engage in community enterprises with this church? That is a
difficult question to answer because it seems that there ought to be
consequences for the unfaithfulness of the church, and yet we are not
responsible for being the punitive hand of God. It seems wrong to punish the
entirely body of that church for something they may not be aware of. And so
a church will have to exercise some degree of wisdom.

Romans 1:19-21 - a question about elect sinners.

Unfortunately I could not hear the question, so while I heard the answer, it
did not make a great deal of sense to me.

It is a question about people who come “close” to salvation - Hebrews 6 and
how it relates to sovereignty and election and human responsibility.

MacArthur affirmed the importance of knowing to whom something is written,
whether we are discussing the Bible or even a book of human authorship (he
mentioned The Purpose Driven Life in particular). Hebrews 6 speaks about
people who were exposed to Christ in the apostolic era. These people saw
Jesus, heard His word, sampled the word of God, sampled the power of the
Spirit of God - they had all the revelation that was available, and still
fell away. If your decision after a full disclosure is to turn away, then
nothing else can be said.

So how does this incomplete faith fit into the sovereignty of God? Did God
try to save them and fail? No. Did someone come to a full understanding and
then, of their own power, reject God? No. It is just that there are some who
will never hear the word of God and be damned and there are some who will
receive a full disclosure and be damned.

If you can reduce God and all the elements of the gospel to categories which
can be fully understood, you have just denied them. There are just no
categories for some of these things - they have no rational, human
explanation. If you spend all your time trying to rationalize these things,
you will inevitably corrupt them. You will have pulled Him down from His
transcendence. So just enjoy the fact that you don’t know anything. That is
comforting, because if you did, you would be God.

A question asked by the pastor of an Iranian Baptist Church in Dallas. When
do we get our glorified bodies? Is that when we leave the earth or only
after the rapture?

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. To be with Christ
is immediate when we leave this world. MacArthur believes that the
resurrection has not yet happened, but is tied to the arrival of Jesus
Christ. The dead in Christ rise first and then the ones who are alive and
remain are caught up with the Lord. Romans 8 says that we are still waiting
for the redemption of the body and so we long for the redemption of our
bodies. We will be embodied in an everlasting body.

After bringing greetings to “Johnny Mac,” (a term which MacArthur does not
object to) a pastor asked about the propriety of naming names when it comes
to heresy. When a person reads a passage from a “bad” book from the pulpit,
should he publically mention a person’s name?

When a book or ministry is public, it is exposed to necessary and public
criticism. MacArthur invites criticism of his words. Once we put something
out there it is subject to assessment and evaluation to guard both the truth
and the people of the truth.

A question about inerrancy and the fact that inerrancy is applicable only to
the original autographs.

MacArthur affirms the classic doctrine of inerrancy that Scripture was
inerrant in its original autograph. So it is not currently, in every case,
inerrant. But, the good news is, that the discrepancies and differences are
minute. God has preserved His Scripture and this is a work of the Spirit.
The great watershed event on this was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
which proved the accuracy of Scriptures hundreds of years old. The hand of
God is obvious in the preservation of the Bible, not just in the message of
Scripture but in the very words.

A question in regards to church leadership and a person who disagrees with
the pastor in the area of falling away from salvation.

MacArthur believes that the best teachers are those who are most teachable.
He would urge caution towards those who feel they already know a great deal
and are unwilling to be taught. He also is nervous about people who seek to
lead without seeking to serve. In Grace, those who are in leadership have
served their way to that position.

At this point I stopped being able to hear and pay attention as many of the
attendees began to file out (which I suppose is a cost of sitting near the
doors). I’m guessing that some people are making a break for the book table
and lunch lineup!

I believe I am now heading for Tommy’s to eat one of those world famous
chili burgers. It could be a long, heart-burning afternoon.


 


 


Seminar 3 - Phil Johnson - The Fad Driven Church


02.03.06

This seminar deals with the tendency of so many churches today to be driven
by fads and pre-packaged programs to influence the agenda of the church.
Phil will attempt to show why this is a really bad strategy.

There are many pastors and leaders who feel that, to be convincing to their
audience, they need to keep abreast of what happens to be the latest craze.
There are many web sites that package sermons around whatever is popular in
our culture. Christianity Today maintains one of these sites where you can
buy dozens of Bible studies that will help you understand the plots and
themes in popular movies, including ones that are patently unbiblical and
blasphemous. Fads like this are accepted almost without question. Many
pastors have bought the lie that not adapting church to popular culture will
make a church irrelevant. This is the very thing Paul warned Timothy (2
Timothy 4:3-4). This is what apostasy looks like and it is being actively
peddled by supposed Evangelicals.

“Much or most of the contemporary church is already utterly apostate by any
biblical standard.” By Phil’s assessment, the Evangelical movement is not
really Evangelical at all anymore. Many fundamental doctrines have been
attacked by Evangelical authors and leaders who are still considered
Evangelical. “Billy Graham, for example, has repeatedly made statements that
undermine the clarity of the gospel and question the exclusivity of Christ.”
Billy Graham has been making statements like this for almost thirty years
and is doing so in increasing frequency and increasingly blatantly. The
evangelical movement has been on a long slide so that today even a man like
T.D. Jakes, who denies the doctrine of the Trinity, can be considered one of
the most influential Christians in America. While he may be influential, he
is not an Evangelical, for by the definition of the word, one cannot be both
Evangelical and anti-Trinitarian.

Christianity Today is now fifty years old. It was supposed to be a voice for
Evangelicals that affirmed Evangelical theology. CT has become a forum for
nearly every major theological aberration. The main contribution to the
Evangelical movement has been to move the borders of the movement
continually outward. Historic Evangelicalism no longer really exists in
America as a cohesive, Evangelical movement. If you are consistently and
faithfully Evangelical, you are now outside the mainstream of the movement
that has co-opted that name. The visible church of Christ is in more serious
need of revival and Reformation than the Church of Rome was when Martin
Luther nailed his Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church.

As Christians we can affirm that, despite this, God’s purposes are being
fulfilled. While what is happening today is as disturbing as was the
situation in Martin Luther’s day, we simply are not getting as agitated
about it. We have people worse than Tetzel on the airwaves every day,
peddling miracles for money. We are heading towards a biblical ignorance
that is as serious and widespread as during the medieval times. Evangelical
seminaries are downplaying doctrine and biblical studies in favor of
business, branding and management courses. Men like Barna are telling us
that it is the audience rather than the message that is sovereign and this
philosophy has influenced untold numbers of authors and pastors since then
who have adapted their message to the desires of the listener.

Evangelicalism was once almost unknown, but recently has ballooned in
numbers, influence and visibility so much so that even Time Magazine has
given a cover to this movement. But the list of pastors who make their list
shows that Evangelicalism is in big trouble, for even thirty years ago not
one of these people would have been considered Evangelical.

So what changed?

The word “Evangelical” has lost its historic meaning and now means nothing.
It has systematically rendered itself useless for the advance of Evangelical
truth. Time showed that Evangelicalism is having its greatest influence not
in theology or culture but in politics. It is now little more than a
political lobby and its representatives represent a wide variety of
theological beliefs that deny non-negotiable biblical truths. None of the
people on the list would agree on any distinctive points of doctrine - not
even the simple points of the gospel message. But what they would agree on
would be that they’d like to see Evangelicalism become as broad as possible.
There is another common trait shared by the people on Time’s list: they are
the fad-makers. Among these are Rick Warren, Tim Lahaye, J.I. Packer,
Richard Neuhaus, and so on.

What is it that makes these trends and programs “fads?” None of them have
anything to do with the theological distinctives of Evangelicalism. All of
these fads have this in common: Not one program existed thirty-five years
ago or would even have been dreamed of. None is likely to last another
generation.

Why is it that Evangelicals are so susceptible to these fads? What is it
that makes pastors and leaders just wait to catch on to the next big thing?
(Phil gave us an aside in which he showed that publishing has become “big
business” and this has helped the slide away from hard, Evangelical truths).
Phil noted that the latest, greatest fad always manages to draw more people
than the previous fad and this shows the power and lure of the fad
mentality. It doesn’t matter how big or unbiblical or irrational it is -
people will line up to be part of it.

Promise Keepers was a recent fad that swept Evangelicalism. That was
followed by What Would Jesus Do and Jabez and Left Behind. Publishers were
suddenly raking in billions of dollars from these fads. The fads were
suddenly bigger but cheaper than ever and were having ever-shorter shelf
lives. The Passion of the Christ made a huge splash but petered out before
the DVD even hit the shelves. The Purpose Driven Life is the latest and
greatest and has become one of the best-selling books of all time. Beyond
the success of the book are shelves full of associated merchandise. Every
publisher in the world will spend the next five years trying to replicate
this and this will guarantee many new fads.

Phil turned to The Purpose Driven Life and asked if there is anything in it
to make it deserving of being the best-selling Evangelical book of all time.
The truth is, there really isn’t. The extraordinary success of the book owes
primarily to clever marketing. It hit the shelves at the very moment that
the Evangelical culture was right for fads and stampedes. And this is the
current atmosphere of Evangelicalism. The next big fad is already here: it
is the Emerging church.

What is scary is that professing Christians are becoming less and less
discerning and less concerned with the danger of jumping on the next
bandwagon. “We have to rescue Evangelicalism from the Evangelical movement.”
A new generation of pastors needs to rise up who will preach the gospel and
say “no” to these fads that continue to come along, for Scripture is better
than any fad. Preaching the gospel is better than any method the marketers
have ever invented.

Phil turned to Hebrews 4:12 and reminded us of the power of Scripture. It is
a rich text full of meaning and significance. Three main qualities of the
Word of God as highlighted in this text:

The Word of God is powerful and alive: That speaks of life, vitality,
energy. It has the power to impart life to those who are spiritually dead.
It has power that is unique to the Scripture. Nothing can take the place of
the Bible for it imparts life to the spiritually dead. We don’t have to make
the Bible come alive, for it is, by its very nature, both alive and
relevant!

The Word of God is penetrating: This is portrayed vividly by the author of
Hebrews. The Word of God is like a pointed, two-edged sword that cuts no
matter which way you swing it or thrust it. In the hands of an amateur it
will still work. There is nothing so hard that it cannot penetrate. No human
interest or worldly technique is more effective than the Word of God to
penetrate the human heart.

The Word of God is precise: The sword pierces with surgical precision. It
cuts with painstaking accuracy and cuts what otherwise cannot be divided.

We ought to make better use of the Word of God in our ministry and we must
ignore all of these Evangelical fads that come and go. We are called to do
this as leaders and pastors. Only the Word of God has the power, penetration
and precision necessary to change lives.


 


 


Session 5 - Steve Lawson


 

There is a little newsletter given out here at the conference called (not
too originally) The Conference Chronicle. This morning it listed some “food
facts.” Apparently thus far the conference attendees have gone through 835
gallons of coffee (0 of which can be attributed to me), 6,580 donuts (1 2 of
which were consumed by yours truly), 10,000 hard boiled eggs and 750 pounds
of potatoes, which were used in a potato salad they will be serving at lunch
today. That’s a lot of food. Of course it is raining today so the “weather
permitting” lunch they offer at this conference may not be permitted.

This morning’s session features Steve Lawson, who began with an emotional
expression of gratitude towards the Shepherd’s Conference and all that it
means to the pastors who attend. “For me, this is the one time in the year
when everything seems right.” Dr. Lawson has been attending this conference
each year for the past twenty three years and believes it to be a
life-changing time.

His text for this morning will be Nehemiah 8: 1-12. Every great season of
Reformation in the history of the church and every hour of spiritual
awakening has been a time that ushered in a time of biblical preaching. The
only true Reformation is that which emanates from the Word of God. This was
certainly the case in the Reformation which saw the recovery of biblical,
expository preaching. This was the case in the Puritan era which saw the
restoration of biblical preaching in England and Scotland. This was the case
with the Great Awakening and the preaching of Whitefield and Edwards. Every
great revival and true awakening has been ushered in by a recovery of
biblical preaching. Every true progress in church history is conditioned by
a new and deep study of the Scriptures. And this is what is so desperately
needed today: a recovery not only of preaching, but of biblical, expository
preaching. 

These verses from Nehemiah provide a case for biblical preaching.

Call for biblical preaching: This passage begins where every great movement
must: with a cry for biblical preaching. A huge crowd gathered as one,
intent on one purpose - to make their plea to cry out to the leaders to
bring to them the Word of God. This cry is coming from the pew, from the
people, from the crowd. They are crying out to bring the book. They had been
in captivity for seventy years and were thirsty for the reading and
exposition of the Word.

Ezra was the man chosen to do this. God had been preparing him for fourteen
years (see Ezra 7:10). Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of God. He
was a man of the book who dug out the riches and truths of the Scriptures.
This is where any meaningful ministry begins - digging out a text alone with
the Word of God. This revival began with Ezra alone with God standing before
a scroll. When God calls you to be a pastor, He gives you an insatiable
appetite to dig into a text. God will make you a student of the Word. The
pastor must be a walking Bible. “We have nothing to say apart from the
living Word of God.”

Ezra not only studied it, but lived it - practiced it. He became a living
epistle. Ezra was building the Word of God into his life with strenuous,
active, aggressive effort. He was an incarnation of the book he was
studying.

Ezra also taught it. He instructed others in this Word. There was an edge in
his ministry where he did more than only lay out information. He stood
between the ancient world and the people of his day and allowed the Word of
God to flow through him. He brought forth no new truth, but was merely an
echo of the Word of God.

And so we see that the revival in Nehemiah was truly begun fourteen years
earlier as Ezra learned, studied, applied and taught the Word so that he was
a walking Bible. It was this man that they called for. He had long been made
for this hour. Ezra was prepared for the cry of the people.

The people in your congregation who know God and love God are crying out to
the pastor, “Bring the book! Bring it to me!” Pastors all over this country,
rather than hearing the cry of their people, are bringing things other than
the Bible. They head out to interview unbelievers and bring what they want!
(At this point many of the pastors in the crowd were getting awfully
excited, crying out with “Amen!” and “Whoooo!”).

Characteristics of biblical preaching: Ezra gave the people a particular
type of preaching - the old kind of preaching. 

Here are five non-negotiables - five indispensable characteristics of
biblical preaching:

1.	A biblical reading: A reading of the Word of God. Ezra read from the
Law, beginning his exposition of the Word of God with a reading of the Word.
He simply read the book, knowing that the Bible is living and active and
sharper than a two-edged sword. This word “read” means “to cry out.” He
called aloud, roared, proclaimed the Word. This is how a pastor begins the
exposition of the Word of God in which the pastor makes a statement that
everything that is said will originate from this text of Scripture. “I will
be the mouthpiece of this passage of Scripture to this congregation.” 
2.	A lengthy treatment: Ezra read from early morning until mid-day. All
the people, despite the length, were attentive to the Word of God. “This was
not a sermonette for Christianettes.” This was an adult standing in the
pulpit, preaching the Word of God using adult language. Through this passage
we see that there is to be a full treatment of the Word of God. There needs
to be a full disclosure of the truth of the passage and a connectedness fo
their lives.
3.	An authoritative posture: Ezra stood at a wooden podium. There is an
authoritative posture - he is not sitting on a stool sharing. He is not
walking around gabbing. He is standing at a pulpit because the Word of God
is on the pulpit. Ezra mounted the platform in order to be seen and to be
heard. You cannot get the Bible open soon enough when you walk to the
pulpit. That Ezra stood above the people was intentional for there was a
transcendence about this. It showed the superiority of the Word of God and
the position of the people.
4.	A God-exalting thrust: Ezra blessed the Lord and there was an
unveiling of the Word of God. We are to be exaltational expositors. Ezra
blessed the Lord and the people cried out “Amen!” bowing low before God.
Expositional preaching should be elevating God and lowering man. The more
you lower God and raise man, you are trivializing the grace of God. But when
God is put in His rightful place, you are magnifying the grace of God.
5.	An precise explanation: Until you have given the true meaning of the
text, you have not given the text. Christianity is concerned primarily with
the mind, not with feelings or relationships, as important as those may be.
It is all about truth - God’s objective revelation interpreted rationally. A
pastor explains the text and gives the author’s intent for that text. He
explains the text, exhorts with it, and moves on to the next text.

Consequences of biblical preaching: What is the effect of this type of
preaching? It may take many years. Some preachers are never privileged to
see this, but God requires faithfulness to this preaching.

Repentance: All the people were weeping when they heard the Words of the
Law. The Word of God is a mirror that allows ourselves to see who we are as
we are. We see ourselves as God sees us. The preaching of the Word removes
self-deception so that we see our sin and our need for grace. As they came
under this revelation, the people began to weep and mourn as sorrow and
brokenness began to come. This always accompanies genuine revival. 

Rejoicing: The people celebrated and rejoiced. Ezra told them not to mourn
any longer, but to go forth rejoicing. There had been enough weeping over
their sin, and a supernatural joy began to flood their souls because their
hearts had been cleansed by the preaching of the Word of God. 

The passage concludes in verse 12 with telling the reader that the people
understood the words which had been made known to them. This is the goal,
the apex, of expositional preaching. Ezra had opened the Word of God and
made it known to them.

If you are a pastor you absolutely must listen to this message. Never mind
the books and brunches and friends and fellowship. It is this type of
message that pastors come here, to the Shepherd’s Conference, to hear. May
God use this message, and others like it, to build the church for His glory.


 


 


General Session 5 - Albert Mohler


02.03.06

That’s it! From now on I’m deciding where we eat for dinner. We ended up
going to a great little deli that was supposed to be nearby. It was not
exactly nearby and after eating what was admittedly a nice meal, we raced
back across town, or attempted to race, through L.A. traffic. We made it
with about a minute to spare. I’m sure Dr. Mohler would not have begun his
speech tonight without me present, so it’s a good thing we made it when we
did! After all, what’s a conference without liveblogging?

Today has been a long and somewhat frazzled day. I’ve been on the go, it
seems, since first thing this morning. I think that tomorrow I will try to
spend a little bit more time by myself during the breaks in the action here,
reflecting on what is happening and how I can attempt to let others
understand the atmosphere of this conference. To this point, though, the
feedback on my efforts here have been encouraging to myself and, I trust, to
the conference organizers. Still, if I were to slow down a little bit during
those breaks I think there is far more I could do.

Quite a few people asked me whether I had access to John MacArthur’s speech
last night since I seemed to have typed quite a large quantity of that
particular sermon. C.J. Mahaney told me today that he, Al Mohler and Mark
Dever were hanging out last night, reading the summary, and wondering the
same thing. I did not have prior access to it. And, as you may know,
MacArthur does not create a prior transcript of his sermons, or not one that
would be legible to anyone but himself! I just typed a lot and typed
quickly. I found the sermon incredibly engaging and desired to capture as
much of it as I could. I honestly believe that at some point in the future,
when people gather a compilation of John MacArthur’s greatest sermons, that
one may well be included.

Turning to an unrelated item, I will have a few photographs to share tonight
or tomorrow. They should be good for a laugh.

And now, without any further ado, we move on to Albert Mohler’s speech for
this evening. This will mark the first time I have sat under Dr. Mohler’s
teaching and I am looking forward to it. The session begins with John
MacArthur and Mark Dever taking a moment to honor (and roast) Dr. Mohler in
gratitude of his contribution to the church. 

And with a hug for Mark, he took the stage, exclaiming “One ought not to
have that done before one preaches.”

He invited us to look around and to enjoy seeing the site of thousands of
men whose are tasking with caring for the church of God. He invited the
pastors to enjoy being cared for. “Have you ever been cared for better
anywhere in your life than here?,” he asked. People come here expecting to
be fed by the Word of God and as they do so, Grace Community Church takes
great care of them.

Right here, taking place, in these days and these hours, is one of the most
important events that can take place. It is a deeply subversive activity. If
the world really understood what we are plotting, they would hit us with
everything they have. Our ambition is total world domination. Not
militarily, but evangelistically for the cause of the glory of Christ. And
yet we need to admit that there are some within the institutional church
that are equally uncomfortable with this. We are talking about things that
they have not thought about for a long time. The plan for the recovery of
the church of God has only one plan: the preaching of the Word of God. We
are living in an age when the ministry is so often seen as a profession, but
then we show up with mere words. A message. A sermon. Some would prefer that
we showed up with something more impressive or showed up more directly. That
is why our culture is drawn to the therapeutic - it is indirect and
subjective. Here is Dr. Mohler’s counselling method: What is your problem?
What would God have you to do about it? Why are we having this conversation?

Have you ever considered that pastors answer to a job description that has
not changed in two thousand years? If you want a preacher, you want one who
is doing it just as it was done two millennia ago. Paul had a rather
restrictive understanding of the ministry. His task was simply the preaching
of the Word.

Dr. Mohler’s text for tonight will be Colossians 1:24 and following where
Paul gives the eternal, unchanging job description for the preacher. This
book was written in a situation similar to what we find in the church today.
Paul was a minister of the of the Word and a servant of the gospel. Yet
preachers and pastors today so often do not see themselves as servants of
the Word.

There are six facets to how Paul describes the ministry in these verses.

A ministry of suffering: We live in an age that largely sets itself to avoid
all suffering. If it cannot be avoided with anesthetize it. We see pain and
suffering as things that are artificial and must be overcome. That Paul
rejoiced in his sufferings is incomprehensible to us, but it is real. He
takes personal ownership of his sufferings because he takes joy in them as
it allows him to share in Christ’s sufferings. Ministers are called to
suffer, but this is set against the backdrop of being joint heirs with
Christ, and these sufferings are nothing compared to the glories that will
be revealed. A pastor should, then, bear the marks of suffering with joy.

A stewardship of mysteries: We are stewards of the mysteries of God. That is
the ministry to which we have been called: as servants of Christ and
stewards of the mysteries of God. What are these mysteries? They are strange
because they are not secret, but open. They are mysterious only to those who
will not see. We have the honor of preaching the message that was hidden but
now is revealed. It is a public secret. Christianity is not a mystery cult
and our job is not to set a boundary over who may know this mysterious
truth. Rather, our task is to make this mystery widely known - to fulfill
the preaching of the Word of God. The task of the preacher is not to
strategize, thinking that we can target only those who we feel will believe.
We are to preach publically and openly.

A destiny of glory: There is an end. Our preaching has a purpose. Our
horizon is eternity. We should never meet together as Gentile believers
without realizing how counter-intuitive it is that God would include us as
He has in the display of His glory. Yet we should see that this is the
fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. In the background is the contrast
between the glory of men and the glory of God. And somehow He increases His
glory by including the Gentiles in the number of the elect.

A proclamation of wisdom: The only wisdom that matters is the wisdom of God,
the wisdom of the gospel. It is two-step: warning and teaching. A task of
the preacher is to warn and admonish - hardly popular tasks in our day. Yet
these are tasks that are necessary. We cannot avoid dealing with
propositional truth. “Truth is more than propositional, but never less than
propositional.” We are to warn and teach everyone. We have only one tool in
our executive toolbox: preaching - expositional, expository, biblical
preaching.

A presentation to maturity: Paul’s goal is to present every believer mature
in Christ. Pastors need to have some plan to make this happen and there is
only one plan: the preaching of the Word of God. This is about as
revolutionary an assignment as we can imagine. The cause of immaturity in
the church is a lack of this type of preaching.

A struggle with energy: No one said this would be easy, but Paul says, “I
toil, struggling with all His energy.” While we may tire or run out of
steam, Christ never will. All the hours of struggle, study, preparation and
preaching are toil. Yet the pastor toils with Christ’s own energy as He
powerfully works within the preacher of the Word. Some have come to this
conference concerned that they are not up to this task. Dr. Mohler affirms
that no one is up to this task. It is Christ’s strength in and through us,
for the sake of the church, that propels the pastor.

Failure at the task of preaching is too terrible to contemplate. But do we
know how serious this is? Surely God could have found a better way to bring
forth the Word of God! But no, for God has made the pastor a steward of
mysteries and these mysteries must be proclaimed to the church and to the
world for the glory of God.

As we close tonight, I would like to ask if you would pray for my family. My
wife tells me that my children are struggling a little bit with my absence,
and they are being fussy and weepy. They are unaccustomed to having me away
for days at a time. If you would hold them up in prayer, asking that God
would comfort them, I would appreciate it. And even more so, Aileen would
appreciate it. 


Session 7 - R.C. Sproul


03.03.06

This has been an encouraging week. It has been a powerful week. I have
learned a lot this week, but perhaps more about service than anything else.
I have seen young men, so often the type of people who are proud, joyfully
traveling with older men in order to serve them. I have seen a whole church
commit itself to the service of thousands of people who are strangers to
them. I have met leaders within the North American church who shown not a
shred of pride, but have asked me, “How can I serve you?” I have been shown
such love and have seen countless examples of God’s love in action. I have
seen men who have become the message they study and preach. I have been
honored to stand in the presence of so many humble, godly pastors, teachers
and leaders, some who preach in the largest churches in the land and others
who serve in tiny congregations you and I may never hear of. I have come to
a deeper understanding of and love for this body of Christ.

This evening we have the great privilege of listening to the teaching
ministry of R.C. Sproul. R.C. has long been a stalwart of the Evangelical
church - one who is widely respected for his dedication to the cause of
Christ. John MacArthur says, truly, “he is a hero to all of us.” His
contribution to the defense of the gospel and the spread of the truths of
the gospel of grace are almost unparalleled in our day. I look forward to
learning what God will have to say to us tonight through the preaching of
the Word.

As his text Dr. Sproul read Romans 1:18-25. This afternoon Dr. MacArthur
asked the panel during the question and answer session what is the most
serious challenge facing the church. They all answered and then Al Mohler
stated correctly that all of the other men’s concerns had a deeper problem:
the nature of truth. Many people are wondering whether there even is truth
and whether it is worth searching for. This situation was, of course,
predicted by Francis Schaeffer who wrote about “true truth.”

Historically there have been times when people have questioned the very
concept of truth. Prior to the Reformation, people waited for truth to be
decreed to them by Rome. This was destroyed in the Reformation. In the
seventeenth century, Descartes began searching for a foundational premise
for truth - some truth that would be so foundational that do doubt it would
be to affirm it. Descartes came up with “I think, therefore I am.” 

This evening Dr. Sproul will get back to foundational truth. He will take us
to one of the most foundational truths taught by the Scriptures, one that is
so important we ignore it to our everlasting peril and the peril of the
sheep pastors are called to serve.

Verse seventeen is almost universally regarded to be the thematic verse of
the entire epistle. Paul spends the rest of the letter expounding and
explaining this righteousness of God. He speaks about a revelation of the
righteousness of God - the righteousness that He makes available to us by
faith. Paul instantly departs from this positive note and, in verse
eighteen, speaks about another revelation and this is the one we will look
at tonight. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” The wrath of God is spectacularly
unpopular and pastors seem to seek to shield their people from having to
contemplate such a negative, pessimistic idea as the wrath of God. 

At the time of the Great Awakening the theologians and pastors developed a
theology of wrath so that the preaching of this period was defined by
speaking of the depravity of man and the wrath of God against man. The
nineteenth century gave us liberalism which denied the depravity of man and
thus the wrath of God. The twentieth century turned against the optimism of
this and again took seriously the wrath of God, but said that this was
merely an expression of the demonic within the being of God - the “shadow
side” of God.

Paul is talking about a disclosure that comes from God and it is the
disclosure of wrath. We should notice here the word Paul uses for wrath.
This word, when transliterated into English, becomes “orgy.” The connection
to wrath is the emphasis on unbridled passion. What God is saying here is
that His wrath is not a mere disturbance, not a slight displeasure, but an
absolute fury. God is livid. He is, in a supernatural way, irate about
something. When the Scripture tells us God is this angry about something, we
need to listen up and learn what it is that can possibly provoke this
loving, longsuffering deity to such anger.

We do not need to speculate because God gives us the answer. God’s wrath is
revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. God’s anger is
not irrational. He is not manifesting His rage in an unjust manner. This is
righteous indignation because the object of His anger and wrath is
ungodliness and unrighteousness. In our culture, the prevailing suggestion
towards God is that if He is really loving and good there can be no room for
wrath. “But if God is really righteous and sin is really sin, God cannot not
be angry.” A judge who is not angry at evil is not good. God’s wrath is not
arbitrary or whimsical or irrational. 

Paul mentions two things: ungodliness and unrighteousness. We could believe
that Paul is speaking of two distinct sins, but this is not the case. It is
almost universally agreed that Paul is expressing a single sin that is, by
its wickedness, is both unrighteous and ungodly. It is both a blasphemous
and unethical response. So what sin is it that is both ungodly and
unrighteous that has so provoked God’s anger?

Paul says, “...who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” There is the sin
- the universal sin. The sin that every human being in the world commits.
The force of the verb translated “suppress” is that there is a truth God
reveals to the whole world and that this truth is willfully suppressed and
pushed down by all human beings. All human beings will not have God in their
thinking. It is like a giant spring or coil. It takes all of my effort to
push down, but I am determined to push it down and I have to work to keep it
down, because if I take the pressure off, it will spring right back at me,
right in my face. God hates it when people suppress truth!

The most fundamental basis of human guilt for which the gospel is the only
remedy is the universal sin of fallen humanity of suppressing the truth of
God.

“For what may be known of God is manifest in them.” When God speaks of the
revelation of Himself to every human being, He is not talking about a vague,
dim, obscure, hidden, cloudy idea. What God is saying to us is that His
revelation of Himself is clear, manifest. So clear, so manifest you can’t
possibly miss it. This text is the death blow to all agnosticism. Paul is
saying that this revelation is clear, so we cannot blame God for not making
Himself more clear. No one will be able to say on the last day that “the
student didn’t learn because the teacher didn’t teach.”

“Since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly
seen.” There are no contradictions in the Bible, but there are paradoxes. In
this verse we see that God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen. How is
this possible? That clear, manifest revelation makes itself know through the
things that are made. I can’t see God, but I see the works of His hands, for
the heavens declare His glory and the firmament shows forth His excellence.
His invisible attributes are clearly known and revealed through the visible.

Every person on the planet knows that God exists, that He is eternal, that
He is immutable, that He is self-existent, and that He is holy. This leaves
people without excuse. What does Paul have in mind? What excuse does he
anticipate? What excuse does every sinner harbor in his heart that he will
use on the day of judgment? “If only I had known...” “I had no way of
knowing...” Every unrepentant sinner is depending on using the excuse of
ignorance to get them by. But Paul says that the clarity of God’s
self-disclosure to every human being, leaves every human being without
excuse.

Now we are getting to this foundational premise. “Because although they knew
God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful...” When we
contemplate the sinfulness of our humanity and ask what it is about our
corruption that is so hateful to God, the foundational sin of the human
race, is the sin of idolatry. It is there in the beginning. It is in the
hearts of all those who stem from Adam’s sinful race. It is not that God is
mad that they shut out this revelation of God, or that they shut out the
light. The sin is that the light got through so that despite knowing God,
they refused to acknowledge God. The fundamental sin is the refusal to
acknowledge what we know to be true. It’s not that we don’t know God - it’s
that we don’t honor Him as God! We honor Him, not as God, but in the way we
want to honor Him. We honor Him as a bird, a totem pole, a golden calf, or
some other idol.

“Their foolish hearts were darkened...” Do you ever wonder why it is that
many of history’s titanic intellects managed to come to radically different
conclusions? The answer is simple: If you begin your system of thought by
refusing to acknowledge what you know to be true - if you start with a lie -
the more brilliant and consistent you are in following that premise, the
further from truth you will go.

“Professing to be wise, they became foolish...” It is the fool that says in
his heart “there is no God.” In biblical categories, foolishness is not a
question of intelligence but of one of a mind that is darkened and that
embraces a lie. He claims wisdom despite being foolish. What can be more
foolish than to have a clear manifestation of God and exchange that truth
for a lie?

The essence of idolatry is found in this concept of an exchange, a swap, a
trade - trading one thing for another. You’re trading the glory of the
unchanging, holy, omnipotent God for the glory of a bird or a totem pole. No
wonder the prophets made fun of the pagans of their day! This is what we do,
though perhaps in a more sophisticated way. We use our minds to cut away
God’s righteousness, holiness, sovereignty, and wrath, and we give people
what they want to hear.

“Our propensity for idolatry is the most foundational, basic sin of the
human heart. It is not instantly cured by conversion. There is nobody who
has a perfectly biblical understanding of God, and to whatever degree we
have discounted the biblical God, we have replaced God with a creation of
our own imagination.” If you are in ministry and are not proclaiming the
whole counsel of God, and are thus hiding the truths of God, you are
exposing yourself to the fury of God.

“What our churches need more than anything else is worship. Worship where
the hearts and souls of the people are lifted in a spirit of reverence and
awe as they contemplate all that God is. Nothing less will do.”

Amen.

 


Session 8 - Al Mohler


04.03.06

This is my final day at the conference. The conference proper will end at
lunchtime today, though attendees are encouraged to remain until after a
communion service tomorrow afternoon. However, I will be spending the day in
and around Los Angeles before heading to the airport to catch the redeye
flight home so that I can celebrate my son’s sixth birthday with him
tomorrow.

I made my way into the worship center a little bit early today and took a
couple of photographs of the daily “pastor rush,” something that has become
legend around this conference. I managed to get a couple of blurry but
humorous photographs which I will post at some point.

Al Mohler will once again be teaching this morning under the banner of The
Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

He began with an interesting quote which prec“Preparing to hear and preach
the Word of God should have an amazing way of clearing the mind.” 

Christianity, we are told, must change or die according to Bishop Spong (and
so many others). He wrote a book and suggested a twelve-point reformation of
Christianity. He said that the twelve points were based on:

Theism is dead. Since it is dead, Jesus cannot be God. Creation and the Fall
are myths that are now outdated. The virgin birth is out because it is tied
to Christ’s deity which is also out. The miracles are out because we no
longer believe in the possibility that the supernatural can intrude. The
cross must be dispensed with as the center of Christianity because the cross
is a barbarian idea. There is no visible resurrection of the dead for
Christ. The ascension cannot be translated into our age. There is no
eternal, objective standard written in Scripture to judge our ethical
behavior. Prayer is out because of the death of theism. The church must
abandon guilt and any warning of fear of hell. We must embrace and celebrate
all forms of human diversity, including, of course, sexual orientation.

The last couple of hundreds of years have seen heresy after heresy arrive
and, in some way, be worked into some manner of what calls itself
Christianity. There is a certain fatigue that comes to those who have to
respond to form after form of these new heresies. It is a perpetual
challenge to deal with all of this. We need some advice from someone who
knows a whole lot more about this than we do.

2 Timothy 1:8-14. We need this word. We need this advice and need to hear
Paul speak to Timothy as the Holy Spirit spoke through Paul.

A ministry of no shame: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor
of me his prisoner.” Paul was constantly in trouble with the Roman Empire
and was in a position of maximum shame, yet wrote these words to Timothy. As
long as the minister is faithful, shame is impossible. Paul carried the
scars of his suffering as badges of honor. In Hebrews we learn that Christ
is not ashamed to call as brothers those who suffer for Him. There is no
shame between the Redeemer and the redeemed. Yet one of the reasons that
people are always trying to change Christianity is premised on a belief that
we should be ashamed of Christ and ashamed of biblical truth. You can be
harassed and hurt and slandered, but you cannot be ashamed.

A ministry of no confusion: We see this in verses 9 to 11. “If you want to
stay out of trouble, preach in generalities.” If you stay on the near side
of saying so close to something, people will never get close to being
offended. Paul wanted Timothy to be clear about the gospel - to understand
the clarify of the gospel. As believers we must be firm on both affirmations
and denials. When Paul reasoned with the Athenians on Mars Hill, Paul both
affirms and denies. He speaks not in generalities, but in specifics.

There are a few things we must see. First, the divine initiative. This is
God’s act, for He saves. We need to point this out! It is God who does this.
It is Christ who is seeking and saving the lost. Second, divine purpose.
God’s purpose is grace. He created the world and now saves us to display His
grace in the drama of redemption. Third, the divine timetable. This took
place in eternity. We need to discover God’s purpose in ages past, not only
in the present lest we lose the scope of God’s work. Fourth, a divine
appointment. Paul was appointed for this purpose. 

A ministry of no fear: We see this in verses 11 and 12. There is suffering
in being in the ministry, at least in part, because of the scorn of the
world but also in the hurt of seeing people reject the gospel. We are kept
by the power of God and place our trust in Him. 

A ministry of no compromise: Verses 13 and 14. There are two imperatives:
follow and guard. The priority here is to guard this pattern - there is a
pattern of sound words. Timothy’s assignment is not to be creative. On the
contrary, Paul told Timothy to follow the pattern of sound words he had
heard from him! Paul simply told Timothy to preach what Paul had preached,
and say what Paul had said. We have an old story to tell and it is not ours
to change or modify. It is ours to guard. It calls for tenacity and wisdom
and activity. All of this implies that the faith is something that is and
will be and always has been. We contend for the same faith that was held by
all of the great men of church history.

Where do we find this pattern of sound words? Look how Paul talks to Timothy
about this pattern of sound words. 1 Timothy 1:15 - “The saying is
trustworthy...” Paul is telling Timothy that is the type of wording he
should use. This pattern continues throughout these two epistles. There is a
right way to describe the work and person of Christ. We need to learn how to
say it right! We learn this pattern through the words of Scripture, but also
through creeds and confessions and preaching and hymns. The difference
between orthodoxy and heresy is often so slight that we need to be sure we
know the right words. “Getting it close isn’t good enough.” “Theological
liberals are never out to destroy the church, but to save Christianity from
itself.”

The Emerging Church

A motivation: The motivation is to adapt Christianity to this age in a way
that is relevant and missional. Their critique of modern Evangelicalism is
almost entirely correct. The problem is what is behind that critique, which
is, in the case of some but not all, the propositional character of
revelation. Many leaders deny that this pattern of sound words is what is to
be the sum and substance of our message. In many ways the Emerging Church
embraces postmodernism and moral relativism.

Unfortunately at this point Dr. Mohler pretty well ran out of time so was
not able to cover this topic in more detail. He went through this
information very, very quickly. The obvious point of his examination of the
Emergent Church was that it does not follow the biblical pattern of sound
words. 


Session 9 - Ligon Duncan


04.03.06

This is the final session of the 2006 Shepherd’s Conference. J. Ligon
Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi and
chairman of The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, will bring us the
final address. It is interesting to see that this place has cleared out
quite a bit already as clearly many of the pastors have needed to leave
early to return for Sunday worship services in their home churches. Chris
Taylor, a pastor with whom I enjoyed some wonderful fellowship this week, is
one of them. Doug McHone has also already headed home.

I am still not entirely sure what I will do this afternoon. I will head out
immediately afterwards to visit a nearby nonprofit organization, but
following that I have absolutely no plans. I’m sure I will have a great
afternoon and evening before my flight departs at a (revised) time of 11:30
PM.

Duncan’s session will deal with gender. MacArthur suggested, when
introducing the speaker, that few Evangelicals are aware of the importance
of this issue. I would even suggest that few are even remotely aware that
there is an issue! Dr. Duncan is an authority in the area of biblical
manhood and womanhood and I look forward to hearing the message he will
bring to us today.

Today’s message will show that biblical manhood and womanhood is absolutely
essential to discipleship within the local church. You cannot make a
Christian disciple without addressing the issues of biblical manhood and
womanhood. 

Duncan will make five arguments for why this is the case - five reasons why
biblical manhood and womanhood is crucial for discipleship. This will be
based on Genesis 1 and Ephesians 5. The fundamental justification for the
importance of speaking of this topic is more than just that it is part of
the whole counsel of God.

Genesis 1:26-31 tells us of the creation of man. In the creation, man and
woman, made in the image of God, entailed them being a walking, talking,
breathing witness of God. Biblical manhood and womanhood is essential to
them fulfilling their responsibility to be fruitful and multiply and fill
the earth. They are reflecting God’s truth. Their roles are essential to
imaging and representing God in the world. At the outset of creation manhood
and womanhood matters for man to image God in the world - to point to a
reality of God. Gender, then, is part of the very reason we were created.

In Genesis 2 we see God saying “it is not good for man to be alone...” The
Divine definition of being between one man and woman is rooted in these
words, “for this reason.” What reason? Because the Lord God fashioned a rib
out of the man, brought her to the man, and said “here is Eve.” Here is the
helper that answers the need of fellowship. Marriage is created in the
marriage order and.

Ephesians 5 is a well-known passage on this topic. It is an extraordinary
passage in many ways. Men often miss the reason they are to love their
wives. The job of a husband is to be an instrument in the hands of the Holy
Spirit for her sanctification. We are to help prepare our wives to face the
Lord. We are to live dying for our wives daily for their sanctification.
When you live this out in marriage, you are a living, breathing, walking,
talking illustration of union with Christ. You are the picture of the kind
of relationship that Christ has with His church and that His church has with
Christ. Biblical manhood and womanhood is not just a subcategory of all we
do as disciples. Rather, it is an essential of our bearing witness of the
sovereign God in this world and our witness of Christ’s redeeming work in
the world. It cannot be avoided, ignored or de-emphasized, but needs to be
taught, celebrated, expressed, gloried in, advanced, an apologetic must be
provided for it, it must be inculcated in the discipleship of the church.
Why? There are several reasons:

Our culture is now completely egalitarian and this poses a particular
challenge to the church. Christians can no longer be assumed to be
instinctively complementarian. On the other hand, we look out at the culture
and see even the sons of this age wiser than the next. Another conflicting
indicator we get is the infringement of egalitarianism into Evangelicalism.
The lines are becoming increasingly blurred so that we now have people
claiming to be complementarian egalitarians.

Why is it important to address biblical manhood and womanhood?

Because men and women are different and these differences need to be
recognized and taken into account in the course of Christian discipleship:
It is glorious to celebrate the differences between men and women. When we
say that the roles of men and women are interchangeable, we suppress the
truth. The differences between men and women are part of what makes us image
bearers of God and should not be apologized for!

If we celebrate biblical manhood and womanhood in the local church, our
attitude ought to be vive la difference!”. God made us this way and it is
better than any other way. But it is so radical that it needs to be
deliberately and specifically inculcated.

Because the Bible teaches so much about biblical manhood and womanhood:
People sometimes argue that this is not worth discussing as there are really
only six or seven dividing verses. But this issue goes far deeper, as it is
rooted in creation and redemption as an essential part of what God is doing
in us to display His glory. We can never ignore biblical teaching. A church
that wants to be biblical, wants to make sure that women embrace the
teaching of Scripture with joy and energy, and that the men will take up
their responsibilities with joy and energy.

Because when biblical manhood or womanhood is ignored or not practiced, it
results in disasters for marriages and families: More marriages dissolve
between the husband and the wife did not embrace biblical teaching on
manhood or womanhood than those that dissolve because of adultery.
Unbiblical understanding of manhood and womanhood can only lead to chaos and
disaster. 

Because the issue of manhood and womanhood is at the very heart of the
cultural transition we find ourselves in right now: The gender issues are
not simply the tip of the iceberg in the cultural mega-shift we are seeing
now. This pagan worldview wants to erase the creator-creature distinction.
All our problems, they say, can be traced to monotheism. If God created male
and female distinct, and in their living together in the roles He prepared
for them, they were to image Him as the creator of all creation, and in our
marriages we are to image this relationship between God and His people, what
better strategy can there be than to erase the male-female relationship as a
step to erasing the creator-creation relationship. This is a war plan for
Satan to destroy Christianity.

Because it is one of the, if not the way that biblical authority is being
undermined in our times: If you can get women’s ordination, room for
homosexuality, women as pastors in the churches and no male headship in the
home out of the Bible, you can get anything out of the Bible. If you can get
Paul’s statement “I do not permit a woman to teach” to say “I do permit a
woman to teach” you can make people believe anything. In this case there is
nothing you cannot get out of the Bible or read into the Bible. We also
undermine authority when we believe something from the Bible but refuse to
teach it.

No matter how unpopular, it is the job of the pastor to teach what the Bible
says to the eternal glory of God.

 

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 


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