Commentary

This current crisis should also remind Christians that we are not called to be mere economic actors, but stewards. Everything we are, everything we do, and everything we own truly belongs to God and is to be at the disposal of Kingdom purposes. This world is not our home and our treasure is not found here. We are to do all, invest all, own all, purchase all to the glory of God.

Al Mohler has an excellent commentary on the current state of affairs. It's definitely worth reading. Read the article here.

Don't be Ignorant

I know that we are in college, but we need to keep abreast of what is going on in the economy. Even though the situation is grave, as believers, we should put our trust in God, not our economy. See this as a call to pray to our heavenly Father for the stability of our economy.

Dave Harvey at CCF

Dave Harvey is speaking at CCF this Thursday. Be inviting people out.

The Gospel Primer

When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don't want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.

- Milton Vincent

"4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2:4-11

Suffering

The problem of evil and suffering is a question for many. The Bible touches on this issue in multiple passages. We may not know the exact reason why God allows suffering and evil but there is one thing we can be sure of, God absolutely cares!!! He cares so much that he came down in the likeness of man and suffered to the point of death. Not till you get to the cross of Jesus Christ will you know how far God was willing to go to show us this. Christ on the cross assured us that God cared so much that he was willing to come down and suffer in our place. The issue of suffering and evil is a difficult question, but you can rest assured that God does not ignore suffering. Why did God allow evil and suffering? The answer can't be that he does not care. He came, he walked with us, he suffered, and he was abandoned. Just look at the cross, God cares.

Q&A with Shai Linne

Check out Lyrical Theology, where Shai Linne is going to answer questions on his blog. So far, there are no questions in his comments section. I thought some of you may have some questions for him--so head on over to his blog.

The Gospel Primer

God's gifts are all of grace, and there is nothing we can do to earn them. However, the wise believer will make sure he is positioning himself in the spot where God's gracious gifts are located. And the Scripture teaches that all such gifts are located inside the gospel. Hence, the Bible tells Christians to be continuously established and steadfast in the gospel and to refuse to be moved from there (Colossians 1:23).

- Milton Vincent

Obedience

Jesus is emphatic that obedience to Him will flow out of our love for Him. What this does not mean is that we must obey Jesus so that He will love us. Rather, He has loved us by grace apart from anything we have done and as a result we trust Him, which is the essence of faith. It is because Jesus is perfectly good and loves us that we should logically obey Him if we claim to love Him, as evidence of our trust in Him. If we really believe that Jesus is wiser than us, holier than us, kinder than us, more loving than us, and is for us, then it is foolish to disobey Him.

Mark Driscoll writes more about obedience here.

Driscoll

The Ultimate Amnesia

There was one thing that was running around in my mind recently. It started as a nagging thought, but slowly turned itself into a convicting question.

Why is the most important thing in my life the same thing I so often forget?

I’m not referring to my cell phone charger. (Although yes I do forget it often.)

I’m talking about the Gospel – the simple fact that Christ died for my sins – and that such a death should transform my everyday life. That it should bring me joy in knowing God and in being set free from my slavery to sin. That I, as a child of God, am no longer seen as an object of wrath, but an object of love. And that he corrects me because he loves me.

I don’t usually see it in that light. There are many days where I kind of look up into the ceiling and say “Oh yeah, Jesus died for my sins.” Then I go back to doing whatever I want to do, paying attention only to the Things of Nathan. Nathan’s agenda. Nathan’s time. Nathan’s reputation. Nathan’s needs.

Milton Vincent, in his introduction to the book “The Gospel Primer”, writes,

God did not give us His gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness.

If such truth is so important, why don’t I remember it? Why don’t I dwell on it?
Since this question has come up in my mind (and that only through the grace of God), I’ve become more aware of several means of grace that can help me to grow in just remembering.

1. Memorizing scripture (especially passages that give an overview of Gospel truth)
2. A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent – Short book. FULL of the good stuff ☺
3. Asking somebody to preach the Gospel to me

Guys, it’s so easy for us to throw around the words Gospel-centered and grace and cross and all those other phrases we can just pull out. But it’s seriously life-changing stuff! We need to keep discovering the many implications of the Gospel. And there are many.

Never forget it.

Why?

Because it is the most important thing.

________________________________________________________________

Many thanks to Nathan Lee for this post!

College Age Retreat

Announcements

Come out to this. It's open to all College Students. Bring your own food and hang out.

Image from: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/199/488778276_30f61a838e.jpg?v=0

Bible Memorization - Ephesians

If you are interested, some of us will be working on memorizing the following verses. You are welcome to join in.

Some tips.

1. Memorize a verse a day. No more, no less. Begin here.
2. Repeat the verse(s) you memorize the following day as you memorize a new verse.
3. Be loud. Don't just read. Read it ten times aloud, then recite it aloud10 times.
4. Thank God that you have his word to memorize. It's an amazing gift.

If you have any other suggestions feel free to comment. I'm sure there are many other good strategies.

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

This is the word of the LORD.

Defeater Beliefs

Our purpose with these defeaters or doubts is not to ‘answer’ them or ‘refute’ them but to deconstruct them. That is, to “show that they are not as solid or as natural as they first appear” (Kevin Vanhoozer). It is important to show that all doubts and objections to Christianity are really alternate beliefs and faith-acts about the world. (If you say, “I just can’t believe that there is only one true religion”—that is a faith-act. You can’t prove that.) And when you see your doubts are really beliefs, and when you require the same amount of evidence for them that you are asking of Christian beliefs, then it becomes evident that many of them are very weak and largely adopted because of cultural pressure.

Recently, I’ve been listening to several messages by Tim Keller on evangelism, and this morning, read an article called Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs: Leading the Secular to Christ. Tim Keller explains a defeater belief as the following: “Belief-A that, if true, means Belief-B can’t be true.” As an example, a defeater belief may go something like this: because Christianity is exclusive, it cannot be true. When many defeater beliefs are widely held, there is a “cultural implausibility-structure.”

Tim Keller argues that in order to overcome this implausibility structure, we must start with a compelling and appealing presentation of the gospel. But, additionally, we must deconstruct their faulty worldview. Having done so, we must return to the gospel and clearly show a need for the truth.

What I appreciate about Tim Keller is his awareness of cultural thought. Like Paul in Acts 17, we need to be aware of culture and offer them hope where their worldview fails. For example, our culture has a concern for unity in diversity—emphasis is placed upon acceptance. “Contemporary people ask: How can we get past exclusion and exclusivism? How can we live at peace in a pluralistic world? How can we share power rather than using power to dominate one another? How can we embrace the ‘Other’—the person of a sharply different viewpoint and culture?” What we, as Christians, must do, is respond with grace, but truth. Tim Keller does it this way. “Jonathan Edwards (again, a man ahead of his time) recognized that if your highest love and greatest is your nation, your family, your career, even your religious performance, then you will disdain other nations, families, classes of people, and other religions. If anything but God is our “highest good” (i.e. if we make anything an idol) then we have to demonize or at least exclude some part of creation. But if God is our ultimate good, then we are free to develop deep love for (what Edwards calls) “Being in general.”

Keller does an excellent job of explaining this in much greater detail here. Additionally, here are three sermons that communicate Keller’s heart in evangelism.