The Relevance of the Past for a Great Commission Resurgence

FIRST-PERSON: The relevance of the past for a Great Commission resurgence
By Malcolm Yarnell
Jun 4, 2009

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--At the beginning of the 20th century, Southern Baptists numbered 1.6 million people. And now, at the beginning of the 21st century, Southern Baptists number over 16 million people.

The story of Southern Baptists in the 20th century is the growth story of a communion of free churches who focused upon telling lost people the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, in recent years, our baptisms have slowed and our growth has been tempered. Why has this happened? And does our past hold any lessons for our future? How may we truly reclaim the growth habits of our forefathers and the resurgence in our hearts of Christ's Great Commission?

As the editor of the Southwestern Journal of Theology, I have been reading through our earliest issues. In the midst of that, I repeatedly encountered denominational leaders issuing powerful affirmations of the fundamentals of the Christian faith alongside equally powerful affirmations of the fundamentals of Baptist identity. They understood the fundamentals of the Christian faith to focus on Christ, Scripture, the cross, divine grace and personal discipleship. They understood the fundamentals of Baptist identity to focus on the Lordship of Christ and His will for His churches. These leaders, from many places and walks within the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, simultaneously shared a passion for the Gospel along with a passion for obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ, especially His Great Commission.

In the midst of this reading, I also discovered a general foreboding about the future of Christianity, alongside a sense of profound excitement, especially regarding the future of Southern Baptists. As we know from our current vantage point, Southern Baptists entered their period of greatest growth in the middle decades of the 20th century. Our amazing growth was truly the work of God in the midst of our churches. And the mid-century growth was laid upon the foundational work He performed with our forefathers in the early part of the century. What characterized the foundational work of those early 20th-century forefathers? And what may we learn from them about how to prepare for an advance in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ?

DARK DAYS IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION

To answer these questions properly, some historical matters in the early 20th century must be addressed. During this period, the United States entered and emerged from its first engagement in world war. At that time, Americans were at war with German imperialism, just as now, we are in the midst of a war against Islamic terrorism. Also, in the religious realm, things were similar to today. There had been a powerful call by evangelical missionaries for a common missionary endeavor both in the United States and throughout the world. Internationally, these efforts were centered in the famous meetings in Edinburgh in 1910, which culminated in the World Council of Churches.

In the United States, the drive for ecumenism was led by John R. Mott, a young evangelical who succeeded the great revivalist D.L. Moody at the YMCA. Mott's efforts gained steam and became known as the "Union Movement," because it called for lowering denominational barriers between evangelical Christians in the name of "efficiency" and "unity" in Christ. From within the Southern Baptist Convention, L.R. Scarborough, president of Southwestern Seminary, led the effort to denounce unionism in its various forms. Even as he defended a biblically based spiritual unity, Scarborough and other Southern Baptists excoriated cross-denominational ecclesiastical unity for impinging upon the prerogatives of Christ over His churches.

Thus, many saw ecumenism as dangerous to spiritual Christianity, while others were interested in forming coalitions with other Christians for the greater cause of the Gospel. Things looked fairly bleak in the late 1910s as evangelical Christians divided into camps. In particular, it seemed as if Southern Baptists might dissipate their strength in a fight over evangelical cooperation. J.B. Gambrell, pastor and seminary leader, spoke soberly of the deep challenges leading into the 1919 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta, saying:

"The great war forced on Southern Baptists grave issues. They were precipitated on us in such a way that each man had to decide on his own course without any wide council. Unusual efforts were made by outside forces to capture and take over the leadership of the Southern Convention in the interest of plans destructive of the faith of the Gospel. The Convention in its Atlanta meeting was at the parting of ways. There was much heart-searching, and much prayer. Personally, I do not doubt that God, the Holy Spirit, dealt with the hearts of His people all over the South and prepared them aforetime for what happened in Atlanta. The Convention was the greatest ever assembled on this Continent, 4,200 messengers plus. It was widely representative. All the estates of Israel were there."

In spite of the troubles, perhaps God was not done with Southern Baptists. With the heaviness of his previous comments in mind and the largest-ever convention gathering before him, Gambrell believed that God still desired to move mightily in the midst of His churches. Reflecting later about what had happened at the 1919 meeting, Gambrell concluded, "The Spirit of grace and power was on the assembly." And looking back from here, we perceive that Gambrell may have actually understated the wide-ranging impact of God's grace and power in this convention.

THREE FUNDAMENTAL PLANKS IN THE DENOMINATION'S GROWTH

And what did the Spirit of God lead the messengers of the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention to do during their 1919 meeting? Out of a dark period arose something profoundly God-honoring and world-moving from within the Southern Baptist Convention. Alongside their defense of Christian truth and their defense of Baptist identity, our forefathers were interested in reaching the world for Christ. And God honored Southern Baptists as they followed a three-fold pursuit.

The efforts of our early 20th-century forefathers manifested themselves in three significant planks in our denomination's foundation: a compelling goal, a defined identity and a common program. First, their compelling goal was the fulfillment of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. Second, their defined identity was evangelical Christianity of a firmly Baptist type. Third, their program was to further the Great Commission efforts of the local churches in ways respectful of the local church's authority.

In the case of the first plank, Southern Baptists had long received the Great Commission as their own, as sermons delivered in the churches and the writings in those early issues attest. Indeed, the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 has historically been the loudest refrain of the Baptists in general and of Southern Baptists in particular. The Great Commission was their compelling goal, just as it is ours.

DEFINING BAPTIST IDENTITY

But there were two additional acts representing the two other planks that Southern Baptists needed to form the basis for their future growth: a defined identity and a common program. According to Gambrell, "The Convention rose to its greatest height, and did two vastly significant things. It disposed of all questions of alliances with other orders holding different standards of faith and practice, by passing, with amazing spirit and unanimity, a carefully considered report, which defined the Baptist position so clearly, that all the world may understand. And the convention put on a program so large, so noble and so commanding as to challenge Southern Baptists as they have never been challenged before in their history."

In the case of a defined identity, the convention appointed a committee to write a Fraternal Address, which was soon followed by the first version of The Baptist Faith and Message. To drive home the point that Southern Baptists would maintain their Baptist identity, Gambrell, the president of the convention during that important year, listened patiently to the address of J.C. White. White had come from the evangelical Inter-Church Movement and was granted a place in the SBC program. After White spoke, Gambrell publicly grasped him by the hand at the podium and declared, "Baptists do not have popes. They never put anybody where they can't put him down ... and another thing: Baptists never ride a horse without a bridle."

"Baptists," according to the bold Gambrell, "do not have popes." This fierce defense of Christ's direct prerogative over His people has been echoed through the years, not only in the Southern Baptist Convention, but in the local associations and state conventions that preceded the national denomination by decades and centuries. Most importantly, that sense of singular devotion to Jesus Christ has its basis in the New Testament pattern of the local church, which is the only institution created by Jesus Christ to fulfill the Great Commission.

A COMMON PROGRAM RESPECTFUL OF THE LOCAL CHURCH

In the case of a common program, these earlier Southern Baptists believed that the local churches may and must support one another in their mutual efforts. The mutual cooperation of free New Testament churches for the purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ was the genius behind the programmatic efforts of the Southern Baptist Convention. And this third plank of Southern Baptist success, a common program, was dependent upon respect for the local church for its success. New Testament churches are autonomous under Christ and their independence was zealously guarded.

But Southern Baptists in these years also sought ways for the free churches to move forward together for the Gospel. They began by improving the church-supporting structure of the convention they had received. They recognized the need to help their two great foundational mission boards (Home and Foreign), as well as their growing number of seminaries and the Baptist Sunday School Board through improved means. In 1917, they created the Executive Committee as a better means to coordinate their broadening administrative needs. And in 1919, they wholeheartedly adopted the 75 Million Campaign as a better means to fund their common efforts to preach the Gospel and plant Baptist churches worldwide. The end result was the Cooperative Program and the basic structure of the national denomination as we see it, today.

HOPE FOR A NEW HIGH

And what was the result of this compelling goal of the Great Commission, the defined identity of Baptist Christianity, and this common program respectful of the local churches? Gambrell's own words resonate with our hope for a renewed sense of commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over His churches, a commitment that is expressed as the churches fulfill the Great Commission given to us by Jesus Christ:

"Thus the healing tides of Southern Baptist life met and Jordan overflowed its banks. As never before in all their long history, Southern Baptists are together after Paul's ideal of efficiency -- 'in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel.' At Atlanta a new era opened and we are in that day now. What Isaiah cried out for and some in our day have longed for came to pass. Southern Baptists awoke. They broke forth on the right hand and on the left hand. They are putting on their strength. They are enlarging the place of their habitation, and there is a new high note of courage and joy sounded out from every hilltop...."

Oh, Lord, send us a three-planked revival, again! Restore to our hearts an overwhelming to desire to fulfill Your Great Commission as defined by Your Word. Restore to our voices an evangelical identity of a distinctively Baptist type as gleaned from the New Testament. And restore to our ways remembrance that Your local churches are your ordained means and therefore our ordained program.
--30--
Malcolm Yarnell is associate professor of systematic theology and director of the Center for Theological Research at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

© Copyright 2009 Baptist Press

Original copy of this story can be found at http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=30620

Christ My Pleasure

Lord God, pity me: my infancy was stupid,
my boyhood vain, my adolescence unclean.
But now, Lord Jesus, my heart has been set on fire with holy love,
and my disposition has been changed,
so that my soul has no wish to touch those bitter things
which once were meat and drink to me.


Such are my affections now that it is nothing but sin I hate, none but God I fear to offend, nothing but God in which I rejoice. My only grief is for sin, my only love is God, my only hope is in him. Nothing saddens me except wrong, nothing pleases me except Christ.

Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love (1343), ch. 12

The Pride of Scholars

Before, I supposed myself profound through Aristotelian dogmas and argumentation with men of limitless shallowness, when You touched me at my core with Your heavenly truth, dazzling me with Your scripture, scattering the clouds of my error, showing me how I was croaking with the frogs and the toads in the swamp.

Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh (Mid-14th Century)

The recurrent temptation of those who have been blessed with the life of the mind, the contemplative life, is to find sufficiency in one's own mind. The above quote from Richard Fitzralph, a medieval theologian who exercised great influence upon John Wyclif, the so-called "morningstar of the Reformation," is only one such remonstration against such an attitude. As an historian at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary relays, the temptation to professorial elitisim was alive and well in the early 20th century.

Because scholarly pride continues to waylay the unwary academic in the early 21st century, I encourage my brothers and sisters in the academy to avoid such hubris as if it were a deadly virus. Some of my colleagues have wondered why I am so harshly critical of useless speculation in biblical and theological studies. The reason I despise scholarly pride is that it blinds us to our radical need for God and His grace towards us, both before and after justification. Academic arrogance also leads those who look to our words as authoritative down unbiblical paths. In other words, for me, scholarship or the scholar's attitude toward his or her work is fundamentally a spiritual issue.

After all, let us not forget that the first sin had to do with the tree of knowledge.

Another New Appointment

Thanks to the folks at B&H Academic Publishing in Nashville, Tennessee, for their recent appointment of this professor of theology as "Associate General Editor" for the "Studies in Baptist Life and Thought" series.

Alongside the appointment to a Fellowship at the "Centre for Baptist History and Heritage" at Oxford University, I am deeply honored.

The Relevance of a Change to Biblical Methodology

Yesterday, we learned that the baptism numbers reported by the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention suffered another slight decline from 2007 to 2008 (3,743 fewer baptisms during the year or minus 1.08% to a total of 342,198). Total membership, too, suffered another even slighter decline (down 38,482 or minus 0.24% to a total of 16,228,438).

In comparison with the alarm being raised by these numbers, the use above of the words “slight” and “slighter” may seem something of a misnomer. However, an accurate description of the situation as “slight” should not be seen as an excuse, for the numbers indicate that at a number of local churches there really is a problem. Any decline in baptism or membership is a sign that we are not what we ought to be as instruments of God for converting the world. As a result of these declines, one leading denominational figure asked a pertinent question indeed, “What is the needed change and do you have hope that change is coming?”

“Change,” of course, can be understood, from a value perspective, in different ways. Change could be a transition for the better, that is, towards God’s will—the New Testament refers to this positively as “repentance toward God” (Acts 20:21). Or, “change” could be a transition to the worse, that is, away from God’s will—in the Old Testament, God refers to this negatively as when people “turn from following me” (1 Kings 9:6). A third alternative is to utilize the language of “change” as a mere mantra to cover some hidden agenda. For instance, many Americans, jaded by long experience, are apt to consider a politician’s call for change as deceptive and self-serving. When other Christians use the concept of “change,” we should assume the best, that they mean neither a turn from following God nor a hidden agenda.

With that positive call for “change” or “repentance” in mind, what would be a positive change on our part that may prompt God to bless the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention in manifestly great ways once again? By the way, let us assume that every one of those 342,198 baptisms in 2008 represent real blessings from God upon those born-again persons primarily, and secondarily upon their churches, their families, and their friends. When but one sinner repents and believes, the angels in heaven throw a party because they recognize God has glorified Himself in another life (Luke 15:7, 10).

With such appropriate celebrations in mind, still we should ask, “How might we see even more believers arise?” Our desire should be for even more souls to repent and believe in the divine-human person of the Lord Jesus and in His substitutionary work upon the cross and His resurrection. The focus in recent decades in our convention has been upon a pragmatic solution to such problems. There is some truth in pragmatism, but pragmatism must always be firmly grounded in Scripture to be truly effective. So then, what new method should we adopt to see a revival of God’s blessing upon Southern Baptists? What biblical method might there be to foster true revival in our churches?

The Biblical Method for Revival

Well, Scripture provides some answers that are quite clear. For instance, let us examine the tried and true locus classicus for every self-respecting church revival in which I ever participated: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Now, some crack Bible scholar might object that this passage is technically for Israel and not the church, which is certainly true in the literal sense. However, a similar restriction in application would deny Christianity use of the Old Testament as its own Scripture. Recognizing the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, I would argue that the church is certainly able to see itself in this promise. Moreover, the New Testament also promises Christians that God intends to bless the humble (James 4:10), those who pray (Luke 21:36), who seek His presence (Acts 3:19), and who turn away from sin (Acts 2:38).

Scripture, then, seems to affirm at least this fourfold methodology for bringing about revival: self-humbling, prayer, seeking God’s face, and turning away from sin. Now, I can offer you no social survey to verify that this method actually works to the satisfaction of men. Yet this method is advocated within the Word of God itself, so the believer may take it on faith that this is a divinely ordained method to seeing God bless our churches mightily once again. Let us consider the method in its four parts.

1. Self-humiliation

Self-humbling implies that the minister and the people of our churches must evaluate themselves honestly. Exactly who are we? Are we the giants about which we read in Scripture? Where is the Moses who can lead his people into what human logic would necessarily consider a dead-end wilderness, but faith sees beyond into the promised land? Where is the David who has encountered God in the difficulty of his own failures and yet trusts that God redeems those who will cry out in true repentance (Psalm 51)? Where is the follower of Jesus who understands that glory comes through self-renunciation on behalf of the other, and who is therefore more than ready to bear the cross? After all, the cross is the Christ ordained methodology of true revival, and such true revival focuses on the soul and takes its eyes off of the world (Mark 8:34-37). Revival begins with biblical evaluation and humility.

2. Prayer

Prayer teaches us that the minister and the people of our churches must not look to their own power to bring revival. “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” is the method that the Lord gave to the people of Israel. And he gave it to them at their weakest point after returning from the Exile to the promised land (Zechariah 4:6). In a true revival, the leaders and the people of God will start their work in weakness, yet faith, and they will finish their work with shouts that it was grace from the beginning and grace to the very end that brought about the great work.

There is no room for human glory in a true revival; indeed, from a human perspective, true revival occurs in “the day of small things” (Zechariah 4:10). As the remnant that returned from exile discovered, it was only in their weakness that they were able to complete a great work of God. This is why they could finish the capstone work with shouts of “Grace, grace to it” (Zechariah 4:7). Ultimately, it is not a humanly devised method that wins men to God; it is divine grace working through a willing though weak people that wins men and women and children to faith. Our access to God’s sovereign grace on behalf of others begins and ends with humble prayer.

3. Seek God’s Face

Exactly what does it mean to seek God’s face? The answer lies in the biblical references to God’s face. “The face of God” is another way of speaking of the powerful disposition of God toward a creature. When Jacob saw God “face to face,” he walked away a changed man and considered himself blessed, in spite of the crippling blow he received from God (Genesis 32:30). True spiritual blessing is accompanied by a palpable change, sometimes even physical, always profoundly spiritual, in a person. Perhaps the memory of Jacob’s crippling blessing prompted Moses to turn away from God’s face at first (Exodus 3:6). People typically want God’s blessing; we just don’t want the temporarily painful and truly humbling transformation that comes with it. For one cannot have God’s presence without having His discerning holiness, too.

Solomon in his wisdom understood, moreover, that the face of God must be visible if salvation is to be possessed (2 Chronicles 6:42). When we want God to bless other men, men who in turn wish a blessing from God, then we must seek His face. If we will seek God’s face and if they will turn to God, He is faithful to bring a blessing (1 Kings 13:6). Perhaps what is holding back revival today is that many of us Christians refuse to surrender to God’s method because we don’t really want to see His face. For God’s face profoundly changes us, since we cannot see Him without seeing who we really are.

Today, standing under a tree, I myself saw the face of God in a fellow Christian, who reflected back to me the difficulty of my calling with regard to the deep things of God. The encounter changed me profoundly in ways that blessed me even as I felt the man within me crippled (again) by the reminder of both my task and my weakness. I thank God for letting me see His face in my friend. I pray that we Southern Baptists will follow His method and embrace the change He demands within our own souls, change that we may fear, change that we may not understand before it happens, but change that will benefit and cripple both us and the people whom God seeks to be His own.

4. Repentance from Wickedness

Positive change is not only about turning towards God through faith in the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. Positive change is also about turning away from cultural wickedness. Moreover, true repentance is impossible unless God gives it (John 16:8-10), even as true repentance must likewise be the personal exercise of the human being (Matthew 4:16, Acts 17:30).

Why is it important to repent from wickedness? First, those who do not truly repent of sin have cast a shadow of doubt upon their salvation. Second, those who do not repent of wickedness stifle the working of the Spirit of God in their lives. Third, those who continue to live in sin even while they claim the gospel of Jesus Christ bring disrepute to the church and cast aspersions upon their Lord’s character.

On the one hand, faith without repentance is the experiential basis of the ethical heresy of antinomianism. On the other hand, faith with repentance is the definition of true Christian conversion. I am reminded of Jesus’ haunting words, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). One cannot claim Jesus is Lord but then ignore His Lordship. Jesus is Lord of our lives and Lord of our churches. To deny Him sovereignty over one’s own life is to deny He is Lord. To deny Him sovereignty over His churches is to deny He is Lord. The fourth part of the biblical method of revival is repentance from wickedness, whether that sin is personal or congregational.

Conclusion

The question of my first friend, the denominational leader, is a good one. “What is the needed change and do you have hope that change is coming?” On the basis of Scripture, I would argue that the needed change for Southern Baptists is self-humiliation, prayer, seeking God’s face, and repenting of wickedness. This comes home to me personally now. I see the need for change in me and in my church. I also have hope that God can sovereignly use me, in spite of me. Why?

First, I have been humbled by God’s sovereign and very personal movement. Second, I have seen God’s face in a friend and was reminded of my difficult task. Third, I ask you to join me in prayer. For fourth, this weekend, I join my three sons and some twenty students alongside a seminary president as we go into the highways and byways of the Cross Timbers Association in west Texas. We go there to call men to repent of their wickedness and believe in the free gospel of Jesus Christ, a free gospel that can change anyone because it has changed me. Pray that men, women, and children will repent and believe and be baptized into the churches, including some churches that have not seen any baptisms this last year.

Southwestern Seminary Does Not Affirm Ecumenical "Tomfoolery"

The Union Movement does not go out with the idea of allegiance to doctrine and loyalty to the teachings of Jesus Christ. It goes on a spiritual camouflage of these doctrines. It asks the people to lay down their convictions of the truth. They propose for [...] all to lay down their former convictions and go into a church of scrambled religion. The church they would organize would sprinkle, pour and immerse. You would not have to claim any experience of grace to become a member. If you were opposed to baptism in any form or mode you could get in. You would neither have to have religious conviction nor moral character to be a member. You would have no distinctive doctrine to bind you. You would have to be led solely by a desire to get together in some form of worship so that you would save money in church buildings and local expenses, and be more efficient, as they think. All this sort of molly-coddle talk is tomfoolery. It is against the strength of character produced by conviction and allegiance to the truth of God. I am for Unionism as far as men can unite on a conviction and a loyalty to the Word of God and Jesus Christ. I am not for a patched up, convictionless Unionism. Unless there is unity in faith, doctrine and practice there can be no union and successful effort following. Christ laid down a program for uniting all people. It was that they should all repent of their sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and by open and public confession of their faith in Him, by a baptism which was an immersion in water, and by a union with His regularly constituted church, followed by a life of loyalty to Him and His truth as laid down in the New Testament, and of heartful and spiritual service for the winning of the world to the Savior and the building up of His glorious kingdom. Any union of religion based on any other program is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and cannot hold and will not hold together. If men cannot agree on the doctrines of the Word of God they should not unite in a church through which they propose to worship and serve God. But they can and should co-operate as far as their convictions of the truth will allow them, for the general good and uplift of humanity.

L.R. Scarborough, Editor-in-Chief, or C.B. Williams, Managing Editor, The Southwestern Journal of Theology, 3.1 (1919): 5-6

Rebuke One Who Has Understanding and He Will Discern Knowledge

For over a year now, I have been deeply concerned about some of the teaching that is being propagated by the leader of a Seattle church and of the Acts 29 movement, Mark Driscoll. Although previously expressing misgivings about the man's flippancy in an interview with New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in March 2008, I have since remained relatively silent. However, one of his more recent missives, released in November 2008, was absolutely horrifying to my wife and me. And now, at this time, because Mark Driscoll continues to gain recognition, and in order to support publicly the sober response of another minister, I have chosen to speak again to the matter.

One man's ministry that has repeatedly inspired many ministers to be more biblical and thus more like our Lord Jesus Christ, in word and in deed, over the years, is Dr. John MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur recently concluded a short series in Pulpit Magazine on proper and improper exegesis of the Song of Solomon and on the need for purity in the pulpit. His four-part series is a restrained approach to a recent rash of improper but otherwise unchallenged conduct by Mark Driscoll. MacArthur has shown incredible foresight even as other ministers, who continue to support Mark Driscoll, have apparently been rather reluctant to register rebuke.

The doctrinal moral of this sad tale is that any time that a preacher attempts to appropriate worldly methods to aid in the propagation of the gospel, he has already fundamentally compromised the gospel. The recent movement towards claiming that, "As long as our doctrine is correct, we can agree to use various methods," certainly carries some truth, but such a position is not to be taken naively. Methodology, too, is restrained by the commands of Christ, both positively with regard to the church's actions (preaching the Word, celebrating the ordinances, worshiping in spirit and in truth, etc.) and negatively with regard to personal and communal doctrinal and moral integrity. The issue in the present case is moral integrity: there simply is no way that the sacred and the profane, or Christianity and Hedonism, may be blended, even for altruistic "missional" reasons. In the very act of combining the holy--that which has been separated unto God--with the unholy, the result is assured to be profane (1 Cor. 5:6, 10:21).

Earlier this evening, as I spoke tenderly but firmly to my oldest son about how to treat a young lady properly when on a date, I prayed for him to have wisdom in such situations and he bowed his head in agreement. And later, as I tucked my two precious daughters into bed, moved in the depths of my heart by concern for them in a sinful world, I prayed for the Lord to give these girls godly husbands, who would treat them with a holy respect, in word and in deed, and they smiled in agreement. And tonight, as I conclude this post, I pray that the ministers of our nation, young and old, will see their task not to engage their cultures with reckless abandon but to carry their Christ-given crosses with bold holiness. Oh, Lord, hear this prayer! And, oh, reader, consider the wisdom of Proverbs 19:25!

Thank you, Dr. MacArthur, for your bold and needed stance in reminding us of these truths. May others see the wisdom in your words. (Note: If you are not a mature believer, please do not read the posts linked here. Although Dr. MacArthur handles the issues circumspectly, they are nevertheless for the mature.)

Dr. John MacArthur, "The Rape of Solomon's Song" (part 1)
"The Rape of Solomon's Song" (part 2)
"The Rape of Solomon's Song" (part 3)
"The Rape of Solomon's Song" (conclusion)

Centre for Baptist History and Heritage

Robert Ellis, the Principal of Regent's Park College at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues were kind enough to offer me a Fellowship of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage. This is quite an honor and comes with a three-year appointment as a "Visiting Fellow."


The only disappointment is that Dr. John H.Y. Briggs, Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, and author of a number of excellent studies, will be retiring in the near future. He is a class scholar and his contributions will be sorely missed.

Take note also of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Regent's Park College. A few years ago, when I was a PhD student, they were kind enough to offer me a stipendiary Fellowship in that Centre. It was a blessing for a student supporting a growing family in a foreign land.

"Rediscovering Jesus is Lord"

John Mann, pastor of LaJunta Baptist Church, Spring, Texas, asked permission to post the audio file of the sermon I preached there on Sunday, 5 April 2009. It was a pleasure to fellowship in the Word with this leading young pastor and his wonderful church. Following is the outline of the sermon:

Introduction - Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered
Text - Romans 10:1-4

Verse 1 - The Apostle's Desire
Verse 2 - Israel's Zealous Ignorance
Verse 3 - Locating False Righteousness
Verse 4 - Christ is the Goal

Conclusion - Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, on hupotasso, "submit":

Appropriation by faith of God's righteousness involves not only the discarding of all dependence upon self and self-effort for salvation, but also the heart's submission or capitulation to Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

Supernatural Word vs. Natural Words

Supernatural good is not a kind of supplement to natural good, as some Aristotelians would like to convince us for our greater comfort. It would be pleasant if it were so, but it is not. In every poignant problem of human existence, there is a choice only between evil and supernatural good. If words pertaining to the lower level of values--democracy, rights, person--are placed on the tongue of those who live in affliction, it would be a gift likely to lead them to no good and would inevitably cause them a great deal of harm. These ideas have no place in heaven. They are suspended in mid-air, and for that very reason they can have no influence on earth. Only the sunlight falling constantly from the sky can furnish a tree with the energy necessary to thrust its powerful roots deeply into the ground. Only the things that come from heaven are capable of making a real imprint on earth. If we wish efficaciously to fortify the afflicted, we must put on their lips only the words whose proper dwelling place is heaven...

Simone Weil, "Beyond Personalism" (London, 1942)

The voice said, "Cry out!"
And he said, "What shall I cry?"
"All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever."

Isaiah 40:6-8 (NKJV)