Go Tebow!

As a fan of the Georgia Bulldogs (Dawgs), it is difficult to like anything associated with the Florida Gators. There is one exception. That exception is Tim Tebow.

Tonight is the first round of the NFL draft. I'm rooting for Tebow to be selected high. The reason is simple: I like Tim Tebow (even though he played college for the evil empire).

I like Tebow for a couple of reasons. First, he is not ashamed of his Christian faith. Tebow is a follower of Christ and tells people about it. He also lives it out. He does not subscribe to the ridiculous, modern idea that "faith should be private."

Second, Tebow is a genuinely likable person. I have read several articles by different sports writers that tell of the writers' first meetings with Tebow. They almost all said that they expected to dislike him at least to a degree because of his strong beliefs. However, they all (and I mean all) said that they really liked him. He is just a very nice person.

It will be interesting to see which team selects him in the draft and how high he is taken. Some teams are scared off by his beliefs, while others want him mainly to help with ticket sales (see the Jacksonville Jaguars).

No matter where he goes, Tebow is in the spotlight. This is because he believes something that goes against the grain, but at the same time he is nicer than almost everybody else.

To read a secularist's take on Tebow, click here. The writer of this article clearly does not understand Christianity. He describes Tebow like this, "Tim Tebow is a good man. A selfless man. A man whose life is filled with stories of a goodness so rare and pure in an athlete it is hard to imagine that he could be for real."

In hearing Tebow talk, he knows that he is not good, but his Savior (Jesus Christ) is. The writer of this article doesn't understand this. Maybe that is why so many people dislike Tebow in spite of what a nice guy he is. They think Tebow thinks that he is better than they are. They couldn't be farther from the truth.

I hope Tebow gets drafted high and goes on to a long and good career in the NFL. This is my hope because I know he will not be shy about what he believes. While sharing his faith, he will also be very nice about it.

We need more people in the church like Tebow who will both claim Christ and live for Christ.

"The Atonement"

I would rather read about the atoning work of Christ on the cross than about any other doctrine of the faith.

I realize this is a subjective statement, but it is true nonetheless. Because of this, I enjoyed reading Leon Morris' classic entitled The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance.

This book is straightforward and to the point. The book is composed of eight chapters, each of which deals with a specific aspect of the atonement. The topics he covers are: covenant, sacrifice, the Day of Atonement, the Passover, redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, and justification.

I appreciate this text for two reasons. First, Morris spends a good deal of time looking in the Old Testament to show how Jesus has fulfilled what was prophesied there. Second, Morris sticks to the literal interpretation of the biblical text. In doing this, he shows how liberal theology fails to read the bible for what it says.

If you like to read about the atonement, you'll enjoy this one.

God's Universe Through the Hubble

Take a look at 20 years of photos through the Hubble Telescope. How appropriate for Earth Day. Below are a few of my favorites.

Earth Day - What Do We Do With It?

Earth Day 2010 is tomorrow. How should we, as followers of Jesus Christ, respond to this?

First, let me mention what we should not do. We should avoid simply falling into line with either of the two major political parties on this issue. On the one hand, let's not follow the Democratic Party in worshiping the earth. On the other hand, let's not follow the Republican Party in acting like the earth is ours to destroy.

As in all areas of life, let's make biblically informed decisions.

On the issue of the environment in particular, Genesis 1:1 should settle things for us. We are told, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." We learn a couple of important things here. First, God exists. Second, He made everything and therefore owns everything.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we must recognize that we are stewards of God's creation. We don't really own anything. As Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, "to tend and keep it," we should do the same. God has created us to glorify Him in all of life. As we do this, we will consume some of His creation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, we should be responsible as we do so.

The problem with the politics of this situation is that neither side takes a biblical view of creation. The liberals care about the environment, but they have turned nature into a god to be worshiped. They fulfill Romans 1:25, which tells us that they, "worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator."

The conservatives may (or may not) worship the God of the bible, but they do not act like they care about His creation at all. Instead of working with the liberals to find ways to conserve God's creation, they act like they would prefer it be destroyed.

As Christians, we should care about nature. It is God's and points to God. When we see a beautiful flower, a magnificent sunset, or a mighty wave crashing on a beach, these all give us a small glimpse of the glory of the Lord. Because of this, we need to be good stewards of His creation.

As we do so, let us remember that we care for nature not as an end in itself. We do not worship the created order, but instead look to the One who made all of it. Let us glory in the Maker of all things.

Below are three photos from God's creation. They are part of some sort of auction related to Earth Day. I liked these three the best. To see the rest, click here. To see some excellent photos of the sun, click here.

So I Talked to Mark Dever About the Church...

(I promise that this is not some sort of name-dropping post.)

I have been thinking a lot lately about the practice of the early church. It is fascinating that there is almost no disagreement among scholars or anyone else about what the early church looked like.

The argument, instead, is over whether or not the structure and practice of the early church is prescriptive or descriptive. In other words, do we in the church now have to follow the example we see in the early church, or is what we see in the bible simply telling us what happened?

I've been pondering this prescriptive/descriptive issue for a while now.

While at the T4G Conference, I thought to myself that it would be nice to talk about this with Mark Dever since he has written so much about the church. Well, I got my chance.

Here's how it happened: my friend Micah Thornton was standing in line to get into one of the conference sessions. Meanwhile, I was wandering around looking at different promotional booths. When I returned to find Micah, he showed me that he had been handed two tickets to some sort of gathering later that night. We didn't know what it was all about, but because the tickets said "T4G Latenight," we figured we would go. When we got there, we found out that this meeting was for a randomly selected 200 people to attend to get to hear from the main T4G speakers in a much more intimate setting. As I looked around, I realized that the focus was young men. I was just about the oldest man in the room. Oh well, I enjoyed it anyway.

After hearing from Dever, Mohler, Duncan, and Mahaney, we were given the opportunity to talk with any of these four men individually (as long as we could wait in line for a few minutes). Micah turned to me and said that I should go talk with Mark Dever. I didn't really feel like it at the time, but also figured that I might never get the chance again.

After waiting in line for only about five minutes, I spoke with Dr. Dever. He was very friendly, engaging, and knowledgeable. I did not want to take too much time since there was a long line behind me. Therefore, I decided to jump right into my question. I asked him this, "Do you know of any book that has been written about the practice of the early church and whether it should be prescriptive or descriptive for us today?" I may not have used those exact words, but that was the gist of the question.

I appreciate Dr. Dever's answer, although I'll admit that it surprised me. He said, "Do you want an infuriating answer? I haven't found it."

I have read 6 or 7 of Mark Dever's books, and I know that he is extremely well read. Therefore, if he hasn't found a book that addresses this issue, then that at least tells me that very few people have written about it.

Dr. Dever went on to encourage me to continue reading the New Testament and looking for the broad picture of the church there. I appreciate this suggestion, but it is already something I'm doing.

I write this post simply to illustrate that more study needs to be done in this area. More books need to be written. If there are good books out there dealing with this topic, then we should be talking more about them.

This issue (what is prescriptive and what is descriptive for the church) is critical for the life and health of the church. We in the modern West, with our love of freedom, seem to randomly pick and choose what early church practices we want to say are prescriptive and what we want to say are descriptive. Sadly, we all have a tendency to call things prescriptive that we are already doing anyway, while at the same time calling other things descriptive that we would rather not do.

There must be a better way to determine what is prescriptive and what is descriptive.

Have you read a good book on this topic? If so, what is it?

God Must Love Small Churches...

While at T4G, one of the speakers quoted someone (I can't remember who) in saying, "God must love small churches since He made so many of them."

This statement was a good reminder for all of us. The lure of numerical church growth can be a pride-induced, dangerous one indeed. In our society, where bigger is almost always seen as better, it is easy to fall pray to the idea that larger churches are automatically better churches.

The real danger is that in order to become bigger churches, many end up compromising biblical truth - even the gospel itself. When the largest church in the USA is led by Joel Osteen, it is obvious that church growth for the sake of growth is a very significant problem.

It is interesting that the churches we see in the N.T. seem to have generally been small churches. Although it is difficult to know how large the church in Jerusalem was, we do see that they usually met in homes. Then as we read the epistles, all we see is meetings in homes. Therefore, there must be something positive about churches remaining relatively small in number.

The primary positive aspects to small church life seems to be community and accountability. You can only really know a small number of people and share life together. There is no way to do this with 500 people. In fact, it's difficult to do it with even 100. I suppose this is why people who attend large churches usually seem more excited about their "small groups" than they are about the church as a whole. In reality, it is the small group that is really their church.

Instead of encouraging large churches, let's encourage the growth of many smaller churches in order that we might follow the biblical model and be able to live in community with one another.

Comment Confusion

Something weird is going on with Blogger.

In particular, comment moderation seems to have something randomly wrong with it. On more than one occasion, I have published someone's comment, only to have it never appear on the blog post. I actually very much enjoy comments (even if I don't agree with them).

So, if you have commented here but your comment has not appeared, please blame Blogger. Then try commenting again. Thanks.

"Wreckreational Dating"

I've come up with a new term to describe what I see so often in our society: wreckreational dating.

Especially among teenagers, but also among many 20-30 somethings, dating continues to have disastrous effects. Again and again, we see boys/men and girls/women (for the most part anymore) coming together to date for what is supposed to be recreational pleasure. Some may have marriage in mind, but many do not. The goal for most is simply this - fun.

Instead of fun, what dating ends up doing is providing divorce practice. The reason for this is that most people who date for pleasure end up breaking up. This causes, at least for one party, torn feelings of sadness and despair. It also gets people used to breaking off male-female relationships.

This says nothing of the temptations that dating people face. If they are human, those who are dating will be physically attracted to each other. However, there is nothing that they can do with these feelings (that is, if they want to honor God). Paul tells us that it is better to marry than to burn, but for people who are dating for pleasure, they have nothing to do but become increasingly frustrated.

Because of these problems, I'm convinced that "recreational dating" does not, in fact, exist. A much better term that describes the reality of what we see in the dating scene is "wreckreational dating." The reason for the spelling should be clear. Modern dating usually leads not to marriage, but rather to a train wreck of destroyed emotions.

Is there a better alternative? Yes. That alternative is courtship. While the main purpose of dating is temporary pleasure, the main purpose of courtship is marriage. Courtship is a man and a woman spending time together with a specific goal: to see if marriage is appropriate between them. The key is that they are moving toward marriage. Pleasure is secondary. The specifics of different courtships may vary, but the goal is the same.

Courtship has several benefits. It saves emotional heartache, reduces sexual frustration, and does not provide any divorce practice.

I highly encourage courtship while at the same time strongly discourage wreckreational dating.

(Click here to read more that I've pondered about this topic.)

Our Mission Together (Yours, Mine, and Ours)

Discerning Reader

As usual, I am probably late to the game. In other words, I'm writing (again) about something that is probably not news.

Anyway, I just came across a book-review website that I like a great deal. It is called Discerning Reader. The site is easy to navigate, full of reviews on important Christianity-related works, and generally fair.

Tim Challies, master blogger, is one of the contributors.

I do not agree with everything the reviewers say (who ever agrees with anybody about everything?). Despite this, I enjoy looking through this site. Take a look.

Video of Dr. Mohler's Library

This is not "news," but I still find it fascinating. Dr. Mohler's library is impressive. Where does he find the time to read all these books?

Al Mohler - Study Tour from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

The Biggest Problem at T4G

As I have already mentioned, I had a great experience at the Together for the Gospel 2010 Conference in Louisville. Almost every aspect was terrific.

I did mention that the crowding was a bit of a problem, but even that is a stretch. Although there were 7000 people, almost everyone acted graciously toward one another.

So, what was really the biggest problem? That's easy: There was no stated biblical definition of what the church is and how it should function.

This may not seem like a big problem since the focus of the conference was the gospel and not the church. However, we must keep in mind that it is the church where the gospel is manifested in this world. The world does not see or hear the gospel apart from the church.

In the opening address of the conference, Mark Dever asked an important question (you can watch him by clicking here). He asked how the church we are a part of displays the gospel (that is a paraphrase). In other words, how do people see the gospel in the life of the church?

It must be clear to all of us that if the vehicle of gospel proclamation is the church, then we must understand both what the church is and what is does. We can only do this by looking to scripture.

At the conference, however, the church was more assumed than anything else. The speakers, of course, mentioned that the church is people. The church is followers of Jesus Christ. The problem was that after that, when they spoke of the church, they seemed to rely more on tradition than bible. The church they spoke of is the traditional, institutional church that we see today in the modern West.

This is a significant problem. During a conference that spends a great deal of time looking to scripture to define the gospel, it seems that the speakers would also look to scripture to define church belief and practice. This did not happen.

Why is this? I believe the problem is that so many current church practices, especially the ones that seem "to work," are almost never questioned. They just happen and keep happening.

Where do we live out the biblical gospel? In the church.

How does the world hear and see the biblical gospel? Through the church.

Since this is the case, if we want to live out the gospel and proclaim it according to scriptural standards, then we must let the bible inform all our church belief and practice.

This conference, as great as it was, was also a good reminder to me of the importance of not assuming anything by tradition. We must be biblical in all things.

Random Thoughts From T4G

The best part of T4G 2010: the fellowship with Christian brothers (there were Christian sisters there, too)

The worst part of T4G 2010: this is a stretch, but it was a bit crowded (7000 people)

The video from T4G: click here and watch, in particular, Piper and MacArthur

The best unexpected blessing of T4G: a new hardcover ESV Study Bible that I gave to my son Bobby. I knew we were going to get a lot of books, but this was one was unexpected.

The funniest part of T4G: Driving in circles around downtown Louisville, KY. On Wednesday, we were trying to find a place to eat lunch. We drove around for about 15 minutes trying to get the GPS to work. It didn't. Then we found a random Arby's close by but kept taking wrong turns. After (no joke) over 20 minutes of circling, we realized we were very close to the hotel parking lot. We simply parked where we started, and then walked to the Arby's. Although it wasn't too funny at the time, it is humorous now.

The best quote from T4G: by Thabiti Anyabwile, "The church should be multi-ethnic, but the church should not be multi-cultural. All human cultures are of themselves apostate." This is not word-for-word, but it is very close.

The time I felt most out-of-place at T4G: Micah Thornton and I were blessed to attend a special function at 10:00 PM on Wednesday. The four T4G founders spoke to a group of about 200 of us about ministry (Micah had been handed a ticket earlier in the evening, and requested another for me). As the meeting began, I realized that I was probably the oldest person there. Almost everyone else was 25 or under. It became clear that this was intended to be a time for Dever, Mohler, Duncan, and Mahaney to talk to young men. Oh well, it was fun anyway.

The best music at T4G: all of it. Bob Kauflin of Sovereign Grace Music led great times of singing God-glorifying songs.

The best coffee at T4G: Starbucks. I think the local bars took a big financial hit this week, but the Starbucks broke the bank.

The best reminder of the world's need for the gospel at T4G: Micah and I took a cab ride to a restaurant one night. The cabbie was nice, but he needs Christ. But for the grace of God, there go I...

The best history discussion at T4G: Ligon Duncan spent about 45 minutes showing that the early church fathers did believe the gospel of grace. This was encouraging because there are many people who say that this is not the case.

The best aspect of T4G: unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ. People from various denominations came together to rejoice in the good news of the grace of God in Christ.

Church Names and Division

My friend Alan Knox wrote a blog post today about church names. I appreciate the link Alan gave to a list of silly new church names (my personal favorite is number 53).

I have been thinking about church names myself of late.

I've been wondering if church names contribute to the division we see today within the church (I'm referring to division between local bodies as opposed to division within one particular body).

We hear it all the time: "I attend ____ church." "Well, I go to _____ assembly." "We are part of ______ fellowship." "Our family gets together at _____ church of the _____."

I understand that we probably need some way to tell people who we gather with and where this occurs. However, in general it seems that we could just tell others that we are part of "the church." When we claim to be part of "the church," we are saying that we are followers of Christ. Also, when we say this, we are showing that we see ourselves as part of the broader church as opposed to just our local body. It could be a bit confusing at times, but I think in the long run it would be beneficial to the church as a whole.

It is interesting that house churches tend to have no specific names. House church folks usually just say that they gather together at a house. When asked further, they tell where it is and who is part of it. They almost never have a name that shows their separation from other believers.

I have to believe that the church as a whole would be better served if we just abandoned our names that show division. Why can't we all just be "The Church of Jesus Christ"? That sounds nice to me. If people seem confused about where we meet, then we can simply tell them.

Let's do all we can to foster unity of Christ's body. Jettisoning specific names might be a good place to begin.

Great News!

God has been gracious to us yet again. My wife does not have Thyroid cancer!

Back Home from T4G

I'm back home after a great T4G Conference. I feel both elated and exhausted. Over the next week I'll be blogging about different things that happened this week. For now, I'll leave you with a couple of photos of the books I gained this week. I only bought two of these. The rest came with the conference. Sweet.

Headed to T4G 2010

I'll be spending most of this week in Louisville, KY attending the Together for the Gospel 2010 Conference.

I'm looking forward to this conference for two reasons. First, several of my favorite authors and speakers will be present. In particular, I'm happy to hear Al Mohler, John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul.

Second, the fellowship will be great. I'm attending along with three men from Ferguson Avenue Baptist Church here in Savannah. Also, my friend Micah Thornton will be with us. Since we will be on the road for a total of over 20 hours, we'll have a lot of time for good discussion.

An added bonus - lots of great books!

I've decided to not take my computer. I don't want the hassle or the danger of having it stolen. Therefore, I doubt that I'll be blogging before next Saturday.

Have a great week!

Dependent Interdependence

I like this picture because it shows how we should function with each other within the church. As we all use our spiritual gifts to build up the body, we need to depend upon each other. This can be difficult for us in our ultra-independent society. However, we must remember that the bible is not a Western book, and our God is not a Western God.

The bible's description of the church is full of "one anothers" and "each others" because God's intent is for the people of the church to be interdependent - all upon one another.

As we are interdependent within the body, we must also be totally dependent: upon the Holy Spirit. In fact, the above picture could be improved if the word "Holy Spirit" was placed in the middle. That would show that those who depend upon one another ultimately depend on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to function how God wants us to as His church.

How can we do this? How can we be dependently interdependent? I think the key is to put our pride to the side and be willing to be served by others and learn from others. As we do this, we will be built up and others will enjoy serving. At the same time, we should serve and teach one another. It "cuts both ways."

One of the reasons the traditional church of the West simply does not work is that we are too independent. We do not rely enough on the Holy Spirit or on our brothers and sisters. Let us strive to be dependent people.

Some Important Things to Remember About Church

1. The bible is pretty important.



2. We must teach the whole counsel of God.



3. We don't have everything figured out in the good ole USA.



4. The world is opposed to Christ. Regardless, we should be zealous for Him.



5. Since the church is made up of people, there will be some problems.

Do You Ever Feel This Way About Church?

Most of us love the church. We love the community of followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We desire that the church glorify God in all it does.

However, many of us also struggle with how the church should function. Include me in this. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am going through a time of transition in how I think about the church. You may be in this situation as well.

Although this is uncomfortable (what change isn't?), I believe it is also healthy. The reason is that I desire that what I think about the church and how I act as part of the church come more in line with scriptural teachings.

One problem we face in this country is that so few people actually give thought to what the church ought to be and ought to do. Many people never question the way the church operates, but instead simply "go to church" and do what they have been told to do.

I suggest that we have a holy discontentment with the church. I'm not suggesting that we become a source of complaining or division. I am suggesting that we work to bring our own lives and the life of our church more in line with scripture.

This can be a difficult task. I've read stories of people trying to do this, but being told to basically "knock it off" by their pastors or others in leadership positions. Despite this, I encourage you to ask questions and keep asking them. Pursue holiness and stir up one another to love and good works.

In light of our indwelling sin, I highly doubt that any of us will ever think about or act like the church in a perfect manner. Because of this, there is always room for improvement (biblical fidelity). Let's strive for it.