The effects of the Fall...

Tonight I was reading the first 3 stories from The Big Picture Story Bible, by David Helm to Sarah and Hannah. We have recommended this story bible before as a great resource for family worship because it so beautifully connects all the stories of the Bible together as God's one big story of redemption. There are probably too many pictures and not enough words for Christopher at this point (though he still enjoys it), but it is at just the right level for the girls to understand. We have read it to them over and over again and they are getting the themes of redemptive history written on their hearts, which is such a joy to see as a parent.

The first story is titled "The Very Good Beginning", which talks about how God created all thing, created people in His own image and established His good rule over His people. The second story is called, "The Very Sad Day", which talks about when sin entered the world and changed everything. As I was reading about Adam and Eve's choice to believe the lies of Satan and mistrust the goodness of God and how sad they were after sin had entered into their hearts, I noticed that Sarah was wiping tears away from her eyes. I stopped reading and asked her why she was sad and she said, "Because it was such a sad day for Adam and Eve...and could you please turn the page?" It really tugged at my heartstrings to see how deeply affected she was and I was eager to get to the good news on the next page as well, where God promises that He will one day send Someone to crush Satan's head and rescue His people from sin. Sarah closed her eyes and said, "Please God, could you send Jesus to crush Satan's head again?" I assured her that Jesus already crushed the power of Satan when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, and that one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes (there's a great picture of this in the last story titled, "The Very Good Ending", which I showed Sarah) and we will never again experience sin, sadness, pain, suffering or death in the new heavens and new earth.

Thank you Lord for breaking through my 4 year old's little heart tonight with the hard truths of the Fall and the deep assurances of the Gospel. And thank you for reminding me of those truths through her eyes. May we both continue to recognize our desperate need of salvation and cling to Jesus our Rescuer.

Being moved by the Gospel...again. (posted by Mindy)

Anyone who is close to me will tell you that I am not one who is easily moved to tears. I used to view this as a strength, but now see it as kind of an emotional weakness that is simply a result of a hardened heart and therefore an inability to truly empathize. I cannot tell you how many times I've thought to myself, "I should be crying in this situation..." whether it be in a moment of comforting someone else in his/her pain or simply confronting my own sinfulness. Now, I'm not saying that I wish I were one of those people who could cry at the drop of a hat. That's just not how the Lord wired me and it would be completely inauthentic of me to do so. But I do want to grow in the area of empathy as well as grieving over things that are truly painful. I think my tendency is to avoid dwelling on pain and sadness at all costs. I'll keep myself 'busy' and ignore problems as if they don't exist or quickly move to look on the bright side. I have a really hard time identifying with people who struggle with depression because I just don't ever go there. Again, I don't want to become melancholy or morbidly introspective but, rather, mature in having the right emotions in the appropriate situations.

All of that rambling is to say that I am caught off guard every time (however infrequent) I am moved to tears. The other night, John, the kids and I were having family worship and I was responsible for reading the Bible story to the kids. We read from a few different 'choice' story Bibles and that night we were at the story of the crucifixion as told in The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

Right in the middle of reading about the soldiers and crowds mocking Jesus and how He willingly endured it all, my eyes began to well-up with tears. The story is retold so beautifully that I'm going to share portions of it here:

"You say you've come to rescue us!" people shouted. "But you can't even rescue yourself!"
But they were wrong. Jesus could have rescued Himself. A legion of angels would have flown to His side - if He'd called.
"If you were really the Son of God, you could just climb down off that cross!" they said.
And of course they were right. Jesus could have just climbed down. Actually, He could have just said a word and made it all stop...
But Jesus stayed.
You see, they didn't understand. It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there. It was love.
"Papa? Jesus cried, frantically searching the sky. "Papa? Where are you? Don't leave me!"
And for the first time - and the last - when He spoke, nothing happened. Just a horrible, endless silence. God didn't answer. He turned away from His Boy.
Tears rolled down Jesus' face. The face of the One who would wipe away every tear from every eye...
The full force of the storm of God's fierce anger at sin was coming down. On His own Son. Instead of His people. It was the only way God could destroy sin, and not destroy His children whose hearts were filled with sin.

I think it's sadly common for our hearts to grow cold and hardened to gospel story after years of living the Christian life. This could be a result of many different reasons (i.e. lack of time in the Word, prayer or simply meditating on God's grace in salvation; forgetting how sinful we are and therefore our desperate need for salvation; Bible study becoming purely an academic exercise; lack of true fellowship in the Body of Christ/the Church; etc.) So I was deeply thankful that a fresh and simple retelling of the gospel by a children's story Bible would move me. In reading it aloud, I was forced to listen in a new way to what my sin deserved and yet how much I am loved by God in the Cross of Christ.

For those of you who attend Trinity, this and other story Bibles are available for purchase in our church's bookstore. For those of you who don't, you can order The Jesus Storybook Bible (and other great books) from the Westminster Bookstore by clicking here. I hope that you find it profitable for your children as well as renewing the joy of your salvation.

Atlas Shrugged 50 Years Later

Here is an interesting post by John Piper today...

Atlas Shrugged Fifty Years Later

October 10, 2007 | By: John Piper

Today, October 10, 2007, is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. As I write this on October 9, 2007, the book is ranked 237 at Amazon. That is phenomenal for a 1,200-page novel that contains philosophical speeches, one of which stretches to 90 uninterrupted pages. The book has sold over six million copies. In one survey from 16 years ago, Atlas Shrugged was ranked second only to the Bible as the book that influenced people most.

My Ayn Rand craze was in the late seventies when I was a professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel College. I read most of what she wrote both fiction and non-fiction. I was attracted and repulsed. I admired and cried. I was blown away with powerful statements of what I believed, and angered that she shut herself up in what Jonathan Edwards called the infinite provincialism of atheism. Her brand of hedonism was so close to my Christian Hedonism and yet so far—like a satellite that comes close to the gravitational pull of truth and then flings off into the darkness of outer space...

Read more

Pro-life Democrats

Here is a new book by the director of an association of Pro-Life Democrats.

A diverse reading list

The C. S. Lewis Institute in suburban Washington D.C. offers a very helpful, wonderfully diverse reading list here. These books will ground you not only theologically, but also in cultural engagement with your world.

ESV Literary Study Bible

Leland Ryken and his son Phil (of Tenth Pres fame) are editing the forthcoming ESV Literary Study Bible. I love the idea and it already sounds like a winner! If it is anything like Ryken & Ryken's Handbook to the Bible, then it will definitely find a place into my library. Here is a blurb from the esv blog:

The ESV Literary Study Bible approaches the Bible as literature and shows how the application of literary tools of analysis helps tremendously in reading and understanding the Bible. Readers are introduced to the literary features of each book of the Bible and to each section within each book. http://www.esv.org/blog/2007/04/literary.study.bible.coming

Using the "Jesus Storybook Bible" in family worship

For quite awhile now Mindy and I have been happily using David Helm's The Big Picture Story Bible. We've read it cover to cover with Christopher and Sarah so many times we can't count and we have loved it. (When Christopher was younger, we read the same story every night for a week, which really helped him stay engaged. As he grew older, we began to pick up the pace.) It is sensitive to the heart of biblical theology, avoids moralisms, contains beautiful artwork, and is simple enough for a 2 year old. But we've exhausted it.

We recently received in the mail a new one and have been using it for about a week now and we can highly recommend it now to you. It is Sally Lloyd-Jones' The Jesus Storybook Bible. The reading grade level of the text is a nice middle ground between Helm's book and Catherine Vos' fine Child's Story Bible. Like Helm, the theology is rich. For example, in describing Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, Lloyd-Jones does a masterful job connecting Jesus as the Second Adam to the first Adam, contrasting Adam's disobedience to Jesus's obedience and the desert to the garden. The emphasis throughout is on God's sovereign plan of salvation through Christ and she does a terrific job tying every story to that central theme. And like Helm's Big Picture Story Bible, the artwork is superb, perhaps even a little better. If you have kids, Mindy and I highly recommend it for your evening times of family worship! (It is also a great, easy introduction to Christianity for any new believer or curious unbeliever.)

My leisure reading these days...

I'm reading "Leadership on the Line" by two JFK School of Govt profs at Harvard. It's been recommended to me by a reliable source as one of the top books on leadership written, with a very practical twist. Perhaps I'll share my thoughts on it at some point.

Dr. Herman Ridderbos (1909-2007)

Ridderbos was a true great in our own time. He ranks up there among the top 3 or 4 most influential authors in my own life. His book "Paul: An Outline of His Theology" is a powerhouse. He took Gerhaard Vos' redemptive-historical approach to the Scriptures and caused his readers to marvel at the richness of the Scriptures anew.

Sean Lucas writes:

Rev. Dr. Herman Ridderbos, one of the foremost developers of the redemptive-historical approach to Biblical theology, a hallmark of Westminster Theological Seminary, died 8 March, having celebrated his 98th birthday on 13 March. Among his more widely distributed writings were “Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures,” “Paul and Jesus,” and “Paul: An Outline of His Theology.” Reportedly Ned Stonehouse once said this of Ridderbos: “Wherever the Dutch language is read Professor Herman Ridderbos is recognized as an outstanding New Testament scholar and theologian . . .”

The God Delusion Reviewed

Alvin Plantiga is a very well respected Christian philosopher at Notre Dame. He is the author of the excellent book "Warrented Christian Theism". In the most recent issue of Books & Culture, Plantiga reviews Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion". Find his review here.

Bruce Metzger 1914-2007

Bruce Metzger, authority on biblical manuscripts, dies at 93

February 14, 2007, 2:04 PM EST

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Bruce Manning Metzger, professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary and an authority on Greek manuscripts of the Bible, has died at age 93.

Metzger, who was born in Middletown, Pa., died Tuesday of natural causes, according to The Mather-Hodge Funeral Home Princeton.

At the time of his death, he was the George L. Collord Professor Emeritus of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The son of Maurice and Anna Metzger, he earned a bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College in 1935, a bachelor of theology degree from Princeton Seminary in 1938 and a doctorate in classics from Princeton University in 1942. He became an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church in 1939.

Metzger began his teaching career at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1938, where he stayed in the New Testament department for 46 years. During his time at the seminary, Metzger developed 25 courses on the English and Greek texts of books in the New Testament.

He was also involved with committees in the production of three new editions of the Scriptures: the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (1966), the Reader's Digest condensed Bible (1982) and the New Revised Standard Version (1990).

In 1986, Metzger was elected to the American Philosophical Society in the class devoted to the Humanities and in 1994 he was awarded the F.C. Burkitt Medal by the British Academy for his contributions to biblical studies.

Metzger is survived by his wife of 62 years, Isobel Mackay Metzger, two sons and a sister. A memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 20, in Princeton.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--obit-metzger0214feb14,0,2607775.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey%29.

John Piper pays tribute to him here.

Richard Muller's "Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics"

The second edition of Muller's four volume "Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics" is gaining much praise within the reformed community. Originally published in 1987, this (apprently) ground-breaking study explains and defends post-Calvinian Reformed orthodoxy, which is often referred to as "reformed scholasticism", which is not usually a very complimentary term. Muller's work shows us how much we really don't understand this era of theological reflection (ca. 1520-1725). Muller very effectively debunks many myths concering reformed scholasticism. Muller's work makes it much easier to see why Charles Hodge and Old Princeton routinely required Francis Turretin and other such reformed scholastics. (I found the discussion of theological method in volume 1 alone very interesting.) My interest in the theology of this era was piqued a few years ago when I read in George Marsden's biogrpahy a comment that Jonathan Edwards made concerning Peter van Mastricht. Edwards praised van Mastricht as one of the very best theologians, even superior to Turretin. He would have his students read van Mastricht above all others. I immediately began to search for volumes by him, but found that he originally wrote in Latin, and then it was translated into Dutch, but that there has been no English translation of his works to date. The only work of van Mastricht to be translated into English that I could find is "A Treatise on Regeneration" published by Soli Deo Gloria. So be aware of Muller's work. There are entire vistas of sweeping theological thought that are barred to us simply because we know English, but not Latin or Dutch. If you have any interest in reading Muller (and I would recommend reading Herman Bavinck or John Owen first), then a good place to start is this overview of his four volume work:

http://spurgeon.wordpress.com/2007/02/13/richard-muller-post-reformation-reformed-dogmatics-john-w-tweeddale-0801026180/

9Marks: Elders in the Church

The Feb 2007 issue of the 9Marks newsletter address the issue of elders in the church.

PDF file: http://filemanager.silaspartners.com/dox/9marks/9news/feb079news.pdf

Web site: http://www.9marks.org

Here is Jonathan Leeman's summary of this month's issue:

This issue of 9News and the next are devoted to the topic of elders. This month, we asked a number of thoughtful pastors like John MacArthur, Alexander Strauch, Tom Schreiner, Sinclair Ferguson, and others what lessons they had learned in selecting men as elders. Mark Dever and Paul Alexander offer their collective thoughts on finding the right men. Justin Taylor and Matt Schmucker reflect—exegetically and practically—on whether unbelief in an elder’s children disqualifies him. And Burk Parsons and Benjamin Merkle discuss, respectively, nominating and ordaining elders.

Watch for these articles in the March issue on training and working as an elder:

• Four Lessons in Shepherding, by Paul Alexander
• How Ligon Trains His Men
• Bill Mounce and Seminary Smarties
• Thabiti Anyabwile on the Ninth Mark of Healthy Church
• Disagreements and Differences Among Elders, by Matt Schmucker
• What the Capitol Hill Baptist Church Elders Who Aren’t Mark Dever Say Is Essential for Eldering!

Resources for your quiet time - part 1

Spiritual growth is impossible apart from the reading of Scripture (combined with Spirit-enabled faith & obedience) and the practice of prayer. As central as these twin disciplines of prayer & Scripture are to our spiritual life, most Christ-followers are frustrated by hit-and-miss approaches to both. Some respond to this by giving up altogether. Others turn to devotional literature (Max Lucado, Oswald Chambers, or Charles Spurgeon) as a replacement for (rather than as a supplement to) God's appointed means of grace. Others continue on diligently and faithfully with prayer & Scripture, but find it unsatisfying, routine and even boring.

One typical problem with Scripture reading is that a thorough reading of the whole counsel of God is found to be too difficult, so many resort to turning randomly to various passages for a quiet time. The problem with this is two-fold: first, they often turn to the same limited set of Scriptures over and over and thereby, second, fail to grasp God's entire message to His people.

Typical problems in prayer include both too much structure and too little structure. Those who have too much structure in the prayer (only praying pre-written prayers) tend to not engage their own hearts honestly before the Lord, but fall into rote or impersonal forms of praying. Those who have too little structure in their prayers tend to fall into another kind of rote prayer, only praying what comes to their minds at the time. By nature, our minds gravitate back to the same themes over and over again. Structure in prayer has the benefit of forcing us into areas of prayer where we might not venture on our own. The right balance of form and freedom in prayer can be both empowering and liberating.

I want to share with you some resources that have helped me maintain that balance of form and freedom, and have also given me much fodder my thinking and praying.

1. A Bible reading plan. Mindy and I are currently reading the Bible together using Robert Murray M'Cheyne's famous plan. A Scottish Presbyterian minister, he died at the age of only 29, but many come to faith in Christ through his powerful preaching ministry. With the M'Cheyne plan, you read through the OT once and the NT and Psalms twice in a year. It comes out to about four chapters a day, two in the morning and two in the evening. If this will be your first time to read through the Bible cover to cover, it is probably a good idea to use a good study Bible, so that you can keep the big picture in mind. If you are brand new to reading the Bible, you might find it helpful even to read Catherine Vos' Child's Story Bible - a wonderful overview of the whole Scriptures that is for older children and is chock full of great Christ-centered theology. A simply Bible reading plan is to read 1 chapter in both the OT and NT each day, plus one psalm. You can also obtain a one-year Bible with your readings laid out for you in a simple, straightforward way. Even an audio Bible on audio CD or MP3 is much better than nothing at all. Discipleship Journal also has a good Bible reading plan, as well as our church.

2. Valley of Vision. Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers is one book that every Christian should have in his/her library. A longtime friend of mine is now President of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. But when he was pastoring a large church in the metro D.C. area, he came to see me when I was a student at WTS. I took him to the campus bookstore and told him he needed to get this. He bought it and immediately fell in love with it. He told his congregation that every one of them needed to buy it and use it, no questions asked. His church bookstore subsequently sold about 800 copies. And he was right on target. In fact my friend went on to write his own book on prayer, Interludes, which is quite good and worth every penny. In Valley of Vision, you will find written prayers that are intensely personal, make much of sin and even more of Christ and His grace. These prayers will help sensitize you to the exceeding sinfulness of sin. They will also help stir your affections for God. Most often, I read one or two lines of a prayer, put the book down, and express those thoughts to the Lord in my own words. If you only have one devotional resource, make it this one!

3. The Trinity Hymnal. Most people think of their hymnal as something that belongs in the pew at church. But I believe that every household should have a good hymnal. Even if you are not musical, the words of the hymns are richly suggestive for your prayer life. The Trinity Hymnal has a very large section of hymns based on the Psalms. At TPC, we have been learning hymn no. 620, "O Lord, I Love You, My Shield, My Tower." The text is written by my late friend/acquaintance Ed Clowney and is based on Psalm 18. The music was adapted from a Saint-Saens symphony by Larry Rolf. It is a song beautiful in both text and music. There are many such hidden treasures in the Trinity Hymnal.

At the bottom of every page you will find some notations. In the lower right hand corner, you will find the name of the melody, such as Saint-Saens, Leominster, Jerusalem (Parry), or St. Anne. St. Anne is the melody for "O God, Our Help in Ages Past". In the back of the hymnal on page 893 you will find a list of hymns that use that particular melody. For example, no. 713, "Great King of Nations, Hear Our Prayer" also uses St. Anne. You will also find in the lower right hand corner the meter of the song. Some are common meter (C.M.), a few are short meter (S.M.), and many are long meter (L.M.). Others follow a more unique meter such as 7.6.7.6.. If you look on page 897 at the Meters Index, you will find a list of all the songs that can be used to sing that text. So if you find a hymn that you like, but are not familiar with the melody, then turn to the meter index and you may find another melody that you do know and that will fit the text. For example, hymn no. 134 is "God Will Take Care of You." I like the text, but I'm not familiar with the music. But if I look in the meter index, I find that C.M. ref. can also be song to "Shout On", which is the music for no. 281, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives - Glory, Hallelujah!" Since I do know that melody, I can then sing that melody to the text of "God Will Take Care of You." None of this is really necessary at all to use the hymnal for your own devotions, but I find that most people do not know how to fully utilize their hymnals. At a minimum, I think every pastor should be familiar with these resources. Of course, on the bottom left of every page, you will find the author of the text of the hymn.

Use the Trinity Hymnal in your devotions and in your family worship. Right now our children are learning "Praise to the Lord, The Almighty." It will continue to be our opening song for family worship each night for about another week, or until the kids really know it by heart. This equips them to participate fully in our worship at a younger age, as well as to know the rich theology expresses in these hymns.

Ok, we're going to take the kids to the park to play now. I'll post part 2 sometime soon.

A New, Extensive "ESV Study Bible" Coming Sept. 2008

Dr. Wayne Grudem has been appointed the General Editor for the new "ESV Study Bible", scheduled for publication in September, 2008. It will involve over 1,000,000 words of comments on the text of the Bible, written by over 70 specialist authors. Editing and supplementing those contributions will occupy his full time during the sabbatical.

Want to share the gospel message? Try "Two Ways to Live"

"Two ways to live" is my favorite tract-like approach to sharing the gospel. Notice that it basically follows the course of redemptive history, rather than being a topical approach to the gospel. I think that this tract helps paves the way to a basic grasp of the flow of the Bible. Remember also, the gospel you convert them with is the gospel you convert them to. Convert them with a gospel of theotainment and they will be dependent on a theotainment ministry. But convert them with the gospel of grace through repentance/faith and they will be converted to biblical Christianity.

Here is the online version of Two Ways to Live: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/

D. A. Carson on the Preacher's Task of Understanding Culture

Here is an interesting link from Don Carson on how preachers can go about better understanding culture. It's actually an except from one of his books, "When God's Voice is Heard".

http://unashamedworkman.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/preaching-that-understands-the-world/

Why I prefer the ESV translation of the Bible

One of the near tragedies of contemporary Christianity is that we don't have a universally agreed upon translation of the Bible. For all its faults, the King James version once united the English-speaking Christian world with a common translation for all to memorize and quote together. The NIV has been the nearest thing for American evangelical Christians to a universal translation. But many have resisted it for years, choosing the NASB or the NKJV.

I prefer the ESV over the NIV because the original, precise ideas of the Biblical authors is much more transparent to the English reader. For example, one of the great words of the NT is "flesh" (Greek: sarx). When you read the book of Romans and Paul uses the word "sarx", the ESV will always translate it "flesh". So you can string together Paul's theology of the flesh as you read Romans for yourself. But if you have an NIV, you cannot tell when Paul is using the word "sarx". Sometimes it is translated "flesh", but at other times it is "sinful nature" or "man" or "what the nature desires" or "sinful man" or "the sinful mind". And those examples are strictly from Romans 8! Reading Romans 8 in the NIV, you could not know that Paul was developing a theology of the "flesh" by simply reading your Bible. So I find that the NIV does not sufficiently make the author's language accessible to the modern reader and is therefore not an ideal translation for serious Bible reading, preaching or studying. It is a very good translation for general Bible reading, but not careful study.

I love the New American Standard Bible (NAS). I grew up on it and most of my memory work has been done in it. The ESV is slightly superior to the NAS, in my estimation, because of literary excellence. The ESV pays more careful attention to structure and flow of the English language. The NAS accurately conveys the structure of the original language, but does not show concern for excellence in English literary form. So the NAS is a very "choppy" read, whereas the ESV flows with more beauty and simple elegance. There are however places where I do think the NAS captures the translation with more precision than the ESV. I noted this just this past Sunday as I preached on Romans 8:28. On the balance, I think ESV is more suitable for general use in preaching, reading, studying and memorizing than the NAS.

The ESV is superior to the New King James version simply because the NKJ is based on older manuscripts and is thus filled with translations that we know are incorrect. The NKJ translation team was aware of this and decided to put the more accurate renderings in the translation footnotes, but this is too cumbersome to use.

The ESV has quickly ascended into a place of prominence in Reformed churches in the US and the UK. Even some (self-described) Arminian megachurches, such as Prestonwood Baptist Church, have adopted it. So I am cautiously optimistic about the prospects of the ESV. I think it is worth entire congregations adopting and using together in unison as they learn God's Word. Will it one day overtake the NIV? That, I don't know. But I do think it is the best out there. If you want to get one for yourself, go here.

al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11

If you're interested in understanding the history and ideology of al-Qaeda, look no further than "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright. Larry is a freelance writer, lives in Austin, and has five solid years of research behind this book. It is written as a series of biographical vignettes, which makes for interesting reading (at least to me). Dan Rather (a source I don't quote often) said on the Chris Matthews Show that this book demonstrates that if you really want to understand the world you live in, you can't just watch television. You must read books. I liked that.