Archives for 2013

Barry York writes:

We have been promoting happily David Murray’s book, Jesus on Every Page, as it is such a clear presentation of how we can see Jesus throughout all of Old Testament literature as the Lord said we could (Luke 22:44; John 5:39). Could it also be true that we can find “the church on every page” in the Old Testament, or at least the church on almost every page?

I believe so. [KEEP READING]

One of my seminary classmates, Glenn Davies, writes:

In recent days a number of strange claims have been made about slavery and shellfish in the Bible.

The line normally goes something like this: although the Bible prohibits God’s people from eating shellfish and also endorses slavery, we can disregard these ethical instructions because we have come of age and can see things differently — indeed, more clearly — with our advanced knowledge and superior wisdom concerning what is right and wrong. Therefore, when it comes to novel concepts such as redefining marriage to include two persons of the same sex, we can simply abandon the teaching of the Bible, and in particular, even the teaching of Jesus, on the grounds that the Bible has been superseded by the moral insights of the twenty-first century.

This confused way of handling the Bible springs from an ignorance of the Bible’s own narrative. [KEEP READING]

If you get heartburn over the mention of the word “liturgy,” you may find some proverbial antacid in the thoughtful conversation on this episode of The Mortification of Spin. In fact, Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt remind us that our churches are all liturgical in one way or another — the question is whether we are basing the order and structure of our worship on Scripture or whether we’re simply, shall we say, flying by the seat of our pants. Can the seat of our pants sufficiently guide us in corporate worship that is Christ-centred? If you’ve never opened The Book of Common Prayer, buckle up and listen in…you’re bound to learn quite a bit from this helpful podcast.

The False Spirituality of Mysticism

“Mysticism: The belief that direct knowledge of God can be attained through your subjective experiences of God or something godlike. Mysticism, then, is nothing more than worship of your emotions.”(1)

“Mysticism has found many ready listeners in American culture because American culture is a melting pot of trying to feel good. Humans have always made feeling good a high priority, but in our age we have made it an art form. Both Christians and non-Christians alike spend most of their waking day trying to feel good. When we feel bad (which happens a lot), we begin casting around the market for something new to consume in order to try and feel better. Once we find an answer, we remain as diligent in trying to make the feeling better last as long as possible. This is our way of life. It is our economy, our national pastime, and our greatest export. We believe, teach, and confess that the key to happiness is managing discomfort by increasing good feelings instead, and we are so successful at it that we’ve also come to assume God approaches religion the very same way. Why wouldn’t God want me to be happy? Why wouldn’t God want to meet my needs, take away my cares and worries, and lift me up? Why wouldn’t a truly good God want me to find Him by learning to feel the goodness of His presence? It only makes perfect, heartfelt sense.

“For this reason, all over America, every week, a vast number of the most well-meaning of us congregate in special houses that we have built for the sole purpose of trying to feel God together. By combining applied motivational speeches and creative musical arrangement with the latest and best gimmicks of technology, we listen to the promise that we can and will feel good by finding God (and find God by feeling good). We consume these carefully manufactured divine experiences like any other product, expecting them to be over on the hour so that we still have plenty of time to trot back to our lives of buying, selling, and trying to feel even more good in all the ways we possibly can. Fresh off the assembly line, we don’t mind applying whatever bits of personal skill development the preacher told us was this week’s key to directly enhancing our experience of God. None of us feel manipulated. We would be angry if you told us we were just consumers being sold a fast-food religion. ”Mysticism” is just a big word without any meaning to us. But every week we buy it anyway. We go to our churches in search of a better feeling, and when we find it, we believe we have found the real presence of God.”(2)

“Mysticism’s lie: You can find God in your heart.” [KEEP READING]

Jesse Johnson writes:

The NIV Bible is no more. Alas.

The version that many grew up reading has finally ridden off into the sunset, never to return. Zondervan has phased it out, buried it, and replaced it with something else.

Many people denied that a significant change had taken place, and tried to act like the Bible being sold now as the NIV is indeed the NIV they grew up with. That myth was sustainable for a while, but eventually it just didn’t work. This year many Christian schools finally dropped the NIV, and replaced it with something else. Even AWANA was forced to make the change.

[KEEP READING]