Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Pontiff in Winter
Sunday, May 25, 2008
A Distant Grief
A Distant Grief
By F. Kefa Sempangi
(His dates: ?- , Copyright 1979, Publisher: G/L Publications; Regal Books Division)
(No notation) = Direct Quote, [P] = Paraphrase/Summary, and [Magee] = Magee Observations
[Magee] Introduction
Visited
Contents
Forward
Preface
1. The Fugitive Woman
2. Stitching: Save a Child
3. Are You Being Broken?
4. Take Us Too!
5. Jolly Joe is Here!
6. Thunder in the Fire
7. You Are Burning Us
8. I Need a Vono Bed
9. Give Us the Gun!
10. Human Sorrow, a Distant Grief?
11. We Are Going to Kill You
12. I Hear Their Screams
13. Return to
14. We No Longer Follow Kefa
15. Standing in the Holy of Holies
16. Only Four Days Ago
17. Our First Tomorrow
Editor’s Postscript
Teaching Notes
Forward
Richard Halverson
Preface
Author
1. The Fugitive Woman
1962 –
1962-1971 President Milton Obote
Amin “the champion of liberty”
“Welcome home to the freedom country!”
[P] The author began teaching art history at Makerere and met an impoverished woman with three children he had seen in fund-raising posters. People had given, but she received nothing. At first he was angry, but later convicted.
2. Stitching: Save a Child
[P] Dutch foundation provided help for the foundation of a children’s home in
For every child we were able to accept, twenty were turned away.
Penina (author’s wife): “The humble poor know a deep secret. They give from themselves, not from their surplus. They give from the abundance of their hearts.”
There is a giving to serve others and there is a giving to serve oneself. There is a giving to promote and a giving to dominate. But without love there is only paternalism and self-importance. There is only the giving of surplus, not the giving of special treasures.
3. Are You Being Broken?
1877 – Alexander Mackay – Scottish Presbyterian missionary and trained engineer
October 9, 1885, the first blood of Christian martyrs was shed in
Every time I met Mondo he would greet me with the threefold challenge:
“Are you repenting?
“Are you walking in the light?
“Are you being broken?”
Together we determined to make Christ the beginning and the end of all our expectations.
“Brothers and sisters, I fear there is too much brokenness here. We are walking too much in the light. We must remember that the devil will not stand for this.” He was silent for a moment. Then he trembled, and he spoke these words, “It is a frightening thing to be a child of God.”
4. Take Us Too!
Okelo was the first of many children to come to the Kijomanyi Home as a result of brutal killings by Amin’s soldiers.
I became convinced that the regime of Idi Amin was not merely tyrannical but demonic.
God taught me my own expendability.
5. Jolly Joe is Here!
[P] The story of Joe Kiwanuka’s conversion
6. Thunder in the Fire
[P] Battle with false gods
7. You Are Burning Us
[P] More battle with false gods
8. I Need a Vono Bed
A religion is true if it works, if it meets all the needs of the people.
9. Give Us the Gun!
[P] The story of a gentle elder who learned to trust God through the horror of an attack by some of Amin’s Nubian assasins
10. Human Sorrow, a Distant Grief?
There is a boundary beyond which human beings cannot comprehend evil in the world. There is a boundary beyond which everything is a senseless chasm. It is here in the nightmare of utter chaos that human feeling dies. It is here where death and terror seem to have full dominion, that even the deepest of human sorrows becomes a distant grief.
11. We Are Going to Kill You
We have not come for a church service. We have come to hear the Word of God! Go rest yourself and come back to preach again!
I do not need to plead my own cause. I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden in Christ. It is your lives which are in danger, you are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you have killed me, He will spare you from eternal destruction.
In that moment, with death so near, it was not my sermon that gave me courage, or an idea from Scripture. It was Jesus Christ, the living Lord.
12. I Hear Their Screams
Every night I go to bed and I see the faces of the people I have killed – (converted Nubian assassin)
13. Return to
[P] Studies in
14. We No Longer Follow Kefa
[P] In hiding in
15. Standing in the Holy of Holies
[P] Escape from
16. Only Four Days Ago
[P] Back in
17. Our First Tomorrow
[P] Life at
Editor’s Postscript
[P] At the writing of this book Amin was still in power, and the foundation started from their apartment in
[Magee] Closing Thoughts:
1. There is an ugly power to evil that is so very shocking and jarring. Why would human beings do the things that they did in
2. It is within such a setting that the power of redemption is also seen.
3. The Lord is not far away from us in our suffering.
4. This world cannot be the end of our story.
5. Our life is not just a forum for Christian debate in a self-justifying insistence to be right. Our pursuit of doctrine needs to be about God and about others, and not about us. I am struck by something I thought about when I was in
6. There is a detachment in the life of prayer in our world of comfort that is its own demonic problem.
7. The confrontation of the cross in the Christian life under oppression – Demonic brutality and Christ-like grace.
Friday, April 25, 2008
The Micah Mandate
The Micah Mandate
By George Grant
(His dates: 1954- , Copyright 1995, 1995, Publisher: Cumberland House)
(No notation) = Direct Quote, [P] = Paraphrase, and [Magee] = Magee Observations
[Magee] Introduction
I am not a Theonomist or a fan of the reconstruction of American government according to Old Testament Law
Contents
Introduction: A Fractured World
Part One – An Imbalancing Act
1. From Pillar to Post
2. In, Out, or Of
Part Two – Justice: To Do Right
3. Legal Entanglements
4. Good News vs. Nice News
Part Three – Mercy: To Do Good
5. Living as if People Mattered
6. Oddities and Rarities
Part Four – Humility: To Do Well
7. Our Codependent Love
8. Just Do It
Part Five – The Right Balance
9. Having It All
10. Where the Action Is
Teaching Notes
Introduction: A Fractured World
Divided
[P] We need to be heavenly minded so that we will do earthly good.
The best that I can offer you is the tried and true, the old and familiar, the well-trod sod.
Part One – An Imbalancing Act
1. From Pillar to Post
FINDING BALANCE
Biblical balance… entails far more than a happy medium between virtue and vice… A well-rounded, wholehearted fully integrated life… It is the singular fruit of incarnational faith.
A SHORTHAND STATEMENT
Micah 6:8 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
A snapshot of Biblical balance
A COVENANT LAWSUIT
[P] Context of verse
JUSTICE
Justice and righteousness
MERCY
Mercy and authority
HUMILITY
The proper attitude toward the person of God Himself
TIPPING THE BALANCE
Thomas Chatterton
WE LIKE HE
2. In, Out, or Of
A good theology will invariably produce a good garden
WORLDLINESS
A worldview is simply a way of viewing the world.
A vision of life and faith that integrates justice, mercy, and humility before God will cover the whole spectrum of heaven and earth
BACK TO THE GARDEN
The spiritual revealed and made manifest in the physical
THE GREAT COMMISSION
A full-scale assault on the evil and privation of the dominions of darkness
BOTH/AND – NOT EITHER/OR
A BALANCED WORLDVIEW
Patrick Henry
MICAH’S WORLDVIEW
Part Two – Justice: To Do Right
3. Legal Entanglements
FAITH, HOPE, AND POLITICS
Smothering influence of partisan ideology everywhere
LEGALISM
Legalism abolishes the significance of the cross.
LAWLESSNESS
Like legalism, lawless disobedience is heresy.
THE PURPOSE OF THE WORD
There must be a basis for truth and justice… The Bible is that standard.
1. Reveals the moral standards of God’s sovereign rule.
2. Convicts us of sin and leads us to Christ
3. Testimony to the nations
4. Blueprint for living
[Magee] This seems more to be a discussion of the purpose of the Law, rather than a purpose of the Word, which may be revealing.
MANIPULATING GOD
[P] The pagan way of viewing God
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians
BETWIXT AND BETWEEN
Whitefield
TAKING THE OFFENSIVE
4. Good News vs. Nice News
TAKING OFFENSE
People can’t be ambivalent about Biblical justice.
PLURALISM
Now the assumed basis of American culture and life.
HELL ON EARTH
Rampant immorality has begun to significantly erode the stability of our cultural foundations.
LEGISLATING MORALITY
That’s what legislation is.
Good and bad matter.
HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE
Edwards – Sinners in the hands…
TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND THE
Provokes us to an unflinching demonstration of justice – in both word and deed
Part Three – Mercy: To Do Good
5. Living as if People Mattered
SERVICE
Biblical service is a priestly function of mercy
DOING UNTO OTHERS
God cares for the needy. And His people are to do likewise.
Mercy goes far beyond mere politeness.
The balanced Christian life necessarily includes merciful service.
GOOD DEEDS
Titus 2:11-14 11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
TO THE UTTERMOST
Most of the church’s greatest heroes are those who willingly gave the best of their lives to the less fortunate. Service was their hallmark. Mercy was their emblem.
Acts 6:7 And the word of God continued to increase…
A LIFE OF SERVICE
GOOD SERVICE
Where there is mercy there is hope.
Jonathon Edwards: “That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference. God in His Word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, fervent in spirit, and our hearts vigorously engaged in mercies.”
6. Oddities and Rarities
WINNERS AND LOSERS
There was a time when martyrdom was among the church’s highest callings and greatest honors… But no longer.
E. M. Bounds
PEER PRESSURE
The worldliness of the modern church
COMPROMISE
Daniel was a man of principle…. Daniel understood the nature of his opposition. Compromise would have been fruitless.
Joseph
David
Early Christians
STEADFASTNESS
The enemies of the gospel often mistake this single-minded dedication to the work at hand as a kind of prideful know-it-all aloofness. That many Christians today make the same mistake is a telling commentary on the modern evangelical mindset.
WORK
1. All honorable work is holy.
2. God calls each person to his or her gifts.
3. Work is intended for the benefit of the community.
4. The high ideals of the work ethic can only be attained through Christ’s restoration.
BEYOND THE WICKET GATE
Bunyan
DONE WITH
In the center of
The Lord Magistrate of
A world and life view rooted in the grace of the sovereign God and the uncompromised maturity of diligence in daily work.
Part Four – Humility: To Do Well
7. Our Codependent Love
Cotton Mather
KNOWING GOD
If we fail to come to a full and accurate knowledge of God… then we are not only like to miss God’s purpose and will for our lives, we are likely to make a mess of the world around us as well.
THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S
Nebuchadnezzar
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
Nebuchadnezzar learned his lesson and changed his heart and his life. What about us?
FEAR OF GOD
Richard Baxter: “The proper knowledge and fear of God leads us but to two postures of the spiritual service of worship: corporately in yielding of our praise in the church, and individually in the yielding of our time in the world.”
The balanced Christian life always maintains this two-fold expression of holy knowledge and fear: putting a high priority on the centrality of the church and sanctifying whatever time God grants us.
THE CHURCH
1. The church renews the minds of fallen men through the teaching and preaching of the Bible.
2. The church readjusts men to genuine life through sacramental worship.
3. The church reforms the lifestyles of men through discipleship.
TIME
Our time is not our own.
[Magee] Important idea here of ordering our lives according to the patterns of the New Testament. This point is obscured by the author since He accepts the church seasons as normative without any persuasive biblical basis. I think that the answer from the Scriptures would be a full understanding of the week and the day that would form the appropriate rhythm for the Christian life.
Diligence
Patience
INFORMED BALANCE
C.S. Lewis: “It was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
While all the world runs from dependency and co-dependency, the knowledge of God beckons us to humbly welcome them both – the former as we fearfully acknowledge God’s sovereign rule and reign in the world and the latter as we yield to the gracious provisions of the church in space and time. Living the balanced Christian life demands both.
8. Just Do It
THE DISCIPLINE OF FASTING
[Magee] We used to fast until the dinner meal once per week in the years of the life of the church. I am not sure what happened to that practice. Perhaps next year as we start our walk through the Bible and our once a month gatherings we can resume the practice on a monthly basis.
THE DISCIPLINE OF PRAYER
Athanasius prayed five hours each day. Augustine once set aside eighteen months to do nothing but pray.
1. Not a means of self-promotion
2. Habitual
3. Hedged by God’s will
THE NEHEMIAH MODEL
HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE?
They fasted and prayed.
RIGHT WHERE HE WANTS US
Dependent
Part Five – The Right Balance
9. Having It All
The Micah Mandate is peculiarly the domain of the ordinary.
PRIESTLY SERVICE
Salt of the earth
PATRON SAINT
James Alexander Bryan (Brother Bryan)
10. Where the Action Is
The cure is simply the church adhering to its essential calling. It is found when the elect of God yield to their divine mandate in every aspect and in every detail of their lives.
A CULTURE WAR MAELSTROM
Augustine
TINY PUSHES
Titus 3:8-9 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
[Magee] Closing Thoughts:
1. The premise of this book is excellent (a look at Micah 6:8 as a snapshot of a biblical way of life). I am very distracted by the exegetical leaps that the author takes to move us in the direction of reconstructionism. I do not believe that the Great Commission sends us off to remake the civil magistrate according to Christian principles.
2. I do think we should give some hard thought to how we are living out these three ideas together: justice, mercy, and humility.
3. The three are interesting… Why are they given together? Justice and mercy make sense. One without the other will be an excess for a creature. To do both is quite a trick. We could easily begin to think too highly of ourselves for achieving such a great goal. Humility is the constant reminder of who we are, and requires us to define justice and mercy from the Word of God, in the presence of God, and by the power of the Spirit of God.
4. Our best bet to live according to Micah 6:8 is to have communion with God in a life of word-sacrament-prayer by the power of the Holy Spirit. A life of that kind of humility before God will surely be expressed in righteousness and mercy.
5. Another way of looking at the life for us is 2 John – with truth, love, and obedience.
6. Stay in the Bible all the time, and you will address all issues that should be addressed.
7. We need to be zealous for good works. Titus 2:11-14
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The Myth of the Just Price
The Myth of the Just Price
By Laurence M. Vance
(His dates: ?-?, http://www.mises.org/story/2918, Posted on 3/31/2008)
(No notation) = Direct Quote, [P] = Paraphrase, and [Magee] = Magee Observations
[Magee] Introduction
Recommended by Phillip Bresson
An enjoyable read, if you can maintain your cool, and keep a heavenly perspective… :-)
Contents
1. The Biblical Concept of Justness
2. The Just Price
3. Interventionism
4. The Biblical Case for Laissez-faire
5. Conclusion
Teaching Notes
Introduction
The concept of the just price is the basis of a great deal of erroneous economic thought that permeates our supposedly free market, capitalistic society.
Disguised with a euphemism – Medicare is not called socialized medicine…
Not only is any price agreed upon between a willing buyer and a willing seller the just price, that alone is what makes it the just price.
The Bible is our final authority in all matters.
1. The Biblical Concept of Justness
The expression just price is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures.
There is generally no mention of what the items were sold for.
The absence of fraud would be essential for the price of any commodity to be said to be just. But one will search the Scriptures in vain for any other concept of what constitutes a just price.
2. The Just Price
Thomas Aquinas. Born about 1225.
Discusses the concept of the just price in the section in his "Treatise on Prudence and Justice" called "Of Cheating, Which Is Committed in Buying and Selling."
Equated the just price, … with the common market price established by the "common estimation" of buyers and sellers.
Rothbard: "Unfortunately, in discussing the just price,
Aristotle… equal value in a commercial exchange… revived and employed "as a philosophical justification for the medieval doctrine of the just price." (
Two minority viewpoints
1. Just price was only that beyond labor and expenses that enabled the seller to maintain his social status
2. Just price was the cost of production plus compensation for labor and risk incurred. àMarx
Aquinas:… a number of principles:
* The merchant performs a valuable service
* The merchant can conduct business without sinning
* Buying and selling are to the advantage of both parties
* Misrepresenting the condition of goods in a sale is fraud
* Price is influenced by changes in supply and demand
* Price can vary according to location
* Price can vary according to time
* Price is a function of utility
* The just price is an estimate, and cannot be fixed with mathematical precision
* The just price is the current market price
* Price should represent the true value of goods
It is this last concept that sends Aquinas off course.
3. Interventionism
Mises: "a method for the transformation of capitalism into socialism by a series of successive steps." Here are some examples.
THE MINIMUM WAGE
Minimum-wage laws violate freedom of contract.
SUGAR PRICE SUPPORTS
Since 1894…
The gang of thieves in Congress who accept $2 to $3 million in bribes each congressional election from their sugar daddies in the sugar industry are costing American consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year through higher prices on not just sugar, but anything made with sugar.
PRICE GOUGING
[Magee] – The kind of rhetoric we are regularly exposed to on oil prices makes me ill. If we would just let gas prices be what they should be and stop manipulating them, that would create proper incentives for the development of energy alternatives, and would help us enormously in terms of our foreign policy.
DUMPING
Antidumping laws are not designed to protect the public, they are designed to product domestic producers from foreign competition.
USURY
All of the fifty states regulate interest rates in the twenty-first century.
[Magee] some verses here…
ESV Exodus 22:25 "If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
ESV Deuteronomy 23:19 "You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.
ESV Nehemiah 5:7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, "You are exacting interest, each from his brother." And I held a great assembly against them
ESV Psalm 15:1-5 Who shall dwell on your holy hill?... who does not put out his money at interest
ESV Proverbs 28:8 Whoever multiplies his wealth by interest and profit gathers it for him who is generous to the poor.
ESV Matthew 25:27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.
ESV Luke 19:23 Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?']
[Magee] This is not easy to sort out. The last two citations are positive. The others are negative. There may be a difference between profiting from personal loans to someone in trouble, vs. business loans for capital. In any case, I don’t precisely know why this is condemned. It clearly has nothing to do with the specific rate. The condemnation, such as it exists, is for any lending at interest.
THE STATE
I have maintained that, in the absence of fraud — not in the absence of ignorance, laziness, greed, or stupidity — not only is any price agreed upon between a willing buyer and a willing seller the just price, that alone is what makes it the just price. A just price for an item does not exist independently of a transaction between buyer and seller. It is both impossible and immoral for any governmental body to institute, regulate, control, or recommend what is a just price. It is impossible because the state is not omniscient; it is immoral because the state has no authority to intervene in the market.
I will even grant that it might be immoral under certain circumstances to charge a particular price. But that doesn't mean that it should be illegal. Vices are not crimes. Saying that the just price is a moral imperative is one thing, but making it a legal device is something else that opens up the deadly can of worms of government intervention that can never be closed. The separation of market and state is just as important as separation of church and state.
4. The Biblical Case for Laissez-faire
[P] Same economic philosophy for Marx, Keynes, and many Christians!
Christian statists … can neither establish nor confirm their position from the New Testament without reading their conception of social justice back into the Bible, applying to the government admonitions given to individuals, and opaquely misreading the Scriptures through interventionist glasses.
WEALTH
But it is not riches per se that are disparaged in the Bible. Rather, it is trusting in riches, boasting in riches, coveting riches, or obtaining riches unlawfully.
The New Testament admonishes the rich, not to become poor, but to "be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate."
[Magee] communicate=share with others in need
There is no imperative or implication in the New Testament for the state or any individual to seek the redistribution of wealth.
POVERTY
The idea that individuals, let alone the state, should seek to eradicate poverty is never advanced in the Old or New Testaments.
THE MERCHANT
The Bible nowhere condemns mercantile activity as an action or a profession.
ESV Matthew 20:13 But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'
EMPLOYMENT
ESV Ephesians 4:28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
UNEMPLOYMENT
(Acts 2) This is charity, not communism, and as such was purely voluntary.
ESV Acts 5:4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God."
5. Conclusion
Laissez-faire is natural, moral, and biblical.
Both parties are better off after an exchange than they were before the exchange.
There is no such thing as market failure.
The only problem with the free market in the
[Magee] Closing Thoughts:
1. I agree entirely both economically and morally.
2. This kind of stuff (foolish government intervention) is infuriating.
3. We have to be careful not to let such things distract us with anger – Part of living in a particular place and time is facing the economic/moral idiocy of that place and time.
4. Nonetheless, in our role as teachers, we do not want give in to any of this for a minute. To do so would be dishonest.
5. I don’t have a good answer to the biblical prohibitions of lending at interest. It does not appear to have anything to do with the specific rate charged. I think that it had something to do with the oppression of the poor by the powerful, and particularly something to do with duties of charity within the covenant community. A proper application in the New Testament era might be that within the church we should be giving to the poor rather than lending to them at interest.
6. This temptation to unhealthy anger on these topics is serious. Nothing we think about the foolishness of the state role in the economy can be allowed to overturn Romans 13. We cannot get caught up in nasty dialogue that encourages everyone to be enemies of the state. That would be against God’s Word. I don’t agree with what they are doing, and I will use my freedom and my vote accordingly, but I will show respect to governing authorities, even if things get much worse than they are today.
7. We are looking forward to a life beyond scarcity. In the new heavens and the new earth things will be quite different.
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Work of the Pastor
The Work of the Pastor
By William Still
(His dates: ?-?, Addresses first given: 1964-1966, This book first published: 1984)
Rutherford House, 2001
Introduction (Magee)
Recommended by Scott Meadows
Read an article by the same – Word-based ministry
“The bulk of pastoral work is through the ministry of the Word. Only the residue of problems and difficulties remain to be dealt with thereafter.”
Contents
1. Feed My Sheep
2. The Pastor Outside the Pulpit
3. Complete and Contemporary
4. Commissioned by God
5. Walking the Tightrope
1. Feed My Sheep
THE PASTOR
Shepherd
Under-shepherd
The value of the sheep
Ultimate aim – sacrifice on God’s altar
THE PASTOR AS EVANGELIST
2 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Teaching and preaching
Evangelism that brings the whole counsel of God
TEACHER AND PREACHER
Teaching preaching and powerful prayer
ESV 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
Why do smart people insist that they can’t bring their unconverted friends to this kind of ministry?
FEED THE SHEEP!
The importance of teaching the nucleus of people that you have
You will not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness.
THE WORD OF GOD
Pastor, you need to be fed yourself.
Godly character – word needs to become flesh in you
A POOR DIET
Tell them to eat. Eat it whole. Stop playing with your food.
SPIRIT-INSPIRED
Holy Spirit as the One Teacher
We need the Spirit in our assemblies
Does the Word of God work for you? If not, what can you do for someone else?
BE SURE OF YOUR CALLING
Greatest difficulties may come from evangelistically-minded within church
PREACH THE WHOLE WORD
Preaches through books
Daily Bible reading notes written since 1947
SIDE EFFECTS!
On to other congregations
Fruitfulness into the world
THE BASICS OF EFFECTIVE MINISTRY
1. Pastor must really know Christ.
2. Pastor must know that God has called him to be an evangelist, pastor, and teacher of the Word.
3. Pastor needs to find his place of calling.
4. Begin to minister to the people at once.
ESV Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
PRAYER
Set a time and announce that you will be glad to join with any that come.
EARLY FRUITS
Quiet persistence
Believing people will start to give more
This becomes a witness to the nominal
A nucleus will appear
The church will take form
Do not be afraid of upset. God is at work and is answering prayers.
FAILURE TO FEED THE FLOCK
Greatest failure is a failure to feed the flock the Word of God
DYING TO SERVE
Die every time you bring forth God’s living Word to the people.
Conflict! Cost! Crucifixion!
Our sufficiency is of God.
2. The Pastor Outside the Pulpit
START WITH THE WORD
All that many spiritually sick people need is a good, balanced diet and a disciplined spiritual routine.
PROBLEM PEOPLE
There are unfortunately those who want to attach themselves to the pastor for some reason, though they do not want the Word itself.
Healthy feeders need the pastor less and less.
You can only help people on the level that they want help.
Jesus allowed people to walk away.
Give people the help that they ask for, if you can, and let them go.
You cannot spend all your time with people who do not want the Word.
KNOW OUR LIMITATIONS
Some meddling ministers want to sort everyone out.
God is not so optimistic.
There are some who will die as mixed-up personalities, and they may be true believers.
Most people crack up because they try to do what God never intended them to do.
Ambition drives them on.
I am far more ready now to give up with difficult people than I used to be.
THE CONSULTANT PASTOR
If you are not interested in the problems of sincere ongoing Christians you ought not to be in the work of ministry at all.
Let the Word solve or settle all.
LISTENING
Let them talk. Don’t turn it into another sermon.
Ask all the questions first before giving an answer.
COMMON SENSE
So much of God’s will is just Christian common sense.
BUILDING A FELLOWSHIP
Learn how to live and worship together.
VISITING
Social visiting has to give way to the ministry of the Word, and to people in real need.
Don’t try to do too much or too little.
Count on the presence of the Holy Spirit in every visit.
Be what you are in Christ, no more, no less.
Christ has given you love for your people, you don’t have to show it off.
Take in the situation and don’t force yourself, your readings, your prayers on people.
ARTIFICIAL STRATEGEMS
Prayer, example, and precept in that order are the means of bringing up children and young folk in the faith.
Reality above all things
Tell them they have to come to church if they are serious, and that they to use their critical faculties, and ask if God is really here with these people, what is He saying, is He really speaking with me too…
The pastor is not a spiritual doctor. The Holy Spirit is the doctor.
3. Complete and Contemporary
1. Word of God is eternal and abides forever
2. Word of God is ever contemporary
MORE THAN ‘GOSPEL’
The whole Bible
We are not only forgiven. We are His.
Your people need the whole Bible. Be convinced of that.
THE WHOLE WORD
Get right to it and keep going – teaching and preaching through the Bible several times over the course of a ministry
Not a history lesson
[Magee – more and more convinced that my expositions should let the text unfold as it unfolds in all simplicity. This is faster to do and better for everyone than being too clever.]
You do have to let the New Testament help us to understand the Old.
1 Peter 1:10-12 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
PREACHING TODAY’S WORD
Ever new – must be taught that way
Up to date
NOT SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Not here to Christianize the state
Our expectation is tribulation, our hope is toleration, not Christianization of the state
Submit to whatever system we happen to be under, not sponsor it or oppose it
Don’t be side-tracked – be the church
Gathering a hidden kingdom in an alien world – always missionary
The world is for the church, not the church for the world
NOT SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Don’t be a dealer in antiques
The letter kills
Beware of preoccupation with your own sin
Don’t be a humbug
NOT EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Class-meeting complex
NOT NINETEENTH CENTURY
Sabbath day above all else
Some in the evangelistic camp are not saved at all
Do they love American-style hymns or God?
I have found to my bitter cost, that if you take these (hymns) away (with their repetitive choruses which are to be sung with glazed eyes, moronic expression, and slightly swaying movement like primitive tribes people), they hate you like the devil… It is their god… must be smashed.
TWENTIETH CENTURY FROTH AND RIGIDITY
Just forgiveness and justification – hardly knew that there was a life of sanctification in the soul of the believer which needed to be nurtured by the Word
COMPLETE AND CONTEMPORARY
1. The whole Word
2. Saturated in the living, up to date, grace of God by His Spirit
For the servant of God:
1. Live in instant, tensile experience of the death/resurrection of Christ, and
2. Be dead to all but the mighty purpose of God.
4. Commissioned by God
A SHIFT IN EMPHASIS
Need to consider sanctification
Not only a matter of the truth – but the working balance of the truth
Focus since mid 19th century has been bringing people to Christ and very little on building them up in Christ
OBSESSION WITH EVANGELISM
Evangelical church – a huge nursery
The danger: the who school of Christ will be come one vast kindergarten with overflowing classrooms
A MORE FRUITFUL WAY
Feed the lambs
If we do not feed them with the Word, there will be no harvest of Christian usefulness
All who respond to the Word will offer themselves to God.
Preach the word – 1. Some will grow and move forward, 2. Others will shrink back
FATTENING THE SHEEP
Fatten the sheep for the kill – sacrifice
Too many ministers find other things to do
REFUSING TO BE DEFLECTED
The ethical issue – You are paid to minister the Word to the flock – not all else
We must not leave the Word of God to serve tables – deacons
THE CHURCH AS A FAMILY
One of the most injurious practices – affinity groups
THE WORLD IS OUR PARISH
Not by the minister going everywhere, but by God thrusting out well fed Christians
THE CALL
Be absolutely sure that God has you there
Don’t be a minister if you can help it
THE
If you are called of God, you are not your own, and you are certainly not your wife’s, nor your children’s, nor even your congregation’s.
Keep close to God.
DYING TO LIVE
Dead to sin (obvious) but also to self in all its various and subtle aspects
PRAYER
We must challenge our people to pray for the ministry.
5. Walking the Tightrope
FINDING THE BALANCE
In the world of real people, not of books, yet all that is worth saying to them is in books
Incarnational – One Person – Christ
Don’t cut ourselves off from others are thinking, saying, doing
Some knowledge of the pathway of sin in our time and place
NO FEAR OF GOD
Church is fairly and squarely to blame.
Look at men of courage and the word from the Bible, Noah, Samuel, Paul…
They knew God and His Word, and they knew by the Spirit of God what the Word was for that hour.
KNOWING YOUR BIBLE
How well do you know the sweep of the story of the Bible?
THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD
The importance of the Church – building up redeemed humanity for eternity
Might be a small congregation – don’t underestimate the world-wide impact
A GLORIOUS PROSPECT
God’s program for His kingdom vs. our misconception of that program
God pins His hope upon the remnant in every age who live in Messianic hope and power.
Lots of great saints are massing in heaven even now, and they will break out and vindicate the martyrs, and overrun and overflow the whole creation.
No point being saved to starve.
THE MIRACLE OF GRACE
Walking the tightrope of the Spirit of God
LOSING YOUR BALANCE
Academic, activist experiential,…
We are looking for truth that becomes known in character
KEEPING YOUR BALANCE
1. Know Christ
2 Peter 1:19 19 And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,
2. Be sure of your call
3. Wait for His will
4. Die to yourself
The Word will never come through someone living. You have to die to self.
5. Don’t go it alone
SUMMARY
Ever a remnant
Closing Thoughts (Magee):
1. A book to be read and considered by ministers
2. Above all a call to faithful ministry of the Word
3. Tota Scriptura
4. Bible notes for his congregation for so many years
5. Plenty of opposition
6. Death to self is the only way to go.
7. It has taken me 14 years or do to figure out what my ministry is about.
Friday, March 28, 2008
A Better Way
By Michael Horton
(His dates: ?-living, This book first published: 2002)
Baker Books, 2003
Introduction (Magee)
A way of life for us at EPC
Contents
Introduction – A Glorious Theater
1. Setting the Stage
Part 1 – Faith Comes by Hearing – The Ministry of the Word
2. A Dramatic Script
3. Casting New Characters
4. How Preaching Works
5. Discovering the Plot
Part 2 – Signs and Seals of the Covenant – The Ministry of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
6. Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
7. A Table in the Wilderness
Part 3 – Our Reasonable Service – Getting Involved in the Drama
8. Tasting the Powers of the Age to Come
9. What Should Our Service Look Like?
10. Is Style Neutral?
11. Taking a Break from the Buzz
12. Reaching the Lost Without Losing the Reached
Introduction – A Glorious Theater
Sayers – It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness
A better way than vagueness
Sermon as lecture – Worship as lecture +
Big self-help places
Few want to ask: What is worship anyway?
Rich Hurst: In 1970 there were 10 megachurches, today there are over 400
And yet overall church attendance is off 35%
Drama – One of the richest ways of reading the Bible
The drama of the redemptive message
The drama of the redemptive gathering
Acts 2:37-39
The drama of the Reformation – the change to a God-centered worship
Scottish minister PT Forsyth – Our safety is in the deep
1. Setting the Stage
The Covenant Renewal Ceremony
Genesis 15
What can it mean that our worship is a covenant renewal ceremony?
God’s Work and Our Response
Parties to the Covenant of Grace
Are we more fascinated by our response than God’s work?
Hebrews 10:19-25
More than Music
Praise
Is there more to music than we realize? Music and dogma… Music and self…
Our Jealous God
Book focuses on ordinary means by which God saves and keeps us – two: word and sacrament
Everything else is for our growth
Part 1 – Faith Comes by Hearing – The Ministry of the Word
2. A Dramatic Script
Life without a plot – a postmodern problem
God brings us into the story – through the faith that comes by hearing
The Logic of Grace: Way of Salvation and Way of Saving
Way of Salvation – Romans 1-8
Way of Saving – Romans 10
Our thirst for what we can see now (idolatry) – and faith, hope , and love
The minister’s talk or God’s talk through the minister that produces new people
God Has Already Made the Message Relevant
The weak things of God despised – the powerful things of the world sought after
Moving away from the Bible…
Moving away from the sacraments…
[Magee – Moving away from corporate prayer…]
3. Casting New Characters
Nowhere Man – Beatles
Recreating the world moment by moment and thereby losing all standards
The Scripted Self
Problem with living like the star of my own made-for-TV movie
Two grand narratives: 1. In Adam, 2. In Christ
1 Peter 1:17-19 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Be careful not to reduce the drama to our own individual salvation.
The goal is not to have God and the church fit into our existing plot, but to get a new plot from God – God’s plot.
The Gospel According to Whom?
Wit, wisdom, autobiography…
“Practical” sermons that ignore the real drama in the text
He comes to dash our silly hopes and to expose our felt needs as trivial, in order to give us new ones that are far greater, and then to satisfy those beyond our wildest dreams.
4. How Preaching Works
Consider our theology of how salvation works and the import of this to our understanding of how preaching works..
One View “Excitements Sufficient to Induce Repentance”
First Great Awakening – Whitefield, Edwards – God blessing His means
Second Great Awakening – Finney “A revival is not a miracle.” – Man using means that make sense and therefore produce a desired effect.
Why is Preaching Effective?
The promise of God
The Spirit of God
The message of God
2 Corinthians 4:7 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
Hebrews 4:12-13 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Word and Spirit
Ezekiel 37:1-6 – Prophesy to the bones
John 6:63 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Matthew 12:39 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Genuinely Practical Preaching
Justification and Sanctification by faith
Faith has content
Sanctification by law ineffective
Indicative-Imperative
Christian thinking and Christian living (Eph 1-3, 4-6)
Romans 1-11, 12-16
Romans 12:1-2 ESV Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
[Magee – I think that I have spent two much time preaching to the skeptic or the seeker. I think expounding on the privileges of the recipient of grace will be more effective not only for believers, but also for skeptics and seekers. I should take seriously the composition of the assembly as a believing gathering of saints, with just a few others that consciously see themselves as outside of Christ.]
Avoiding Bad “Law” Preaching
Problem is really a bad understanding of the gospel that we are promoting
God the Preacher
Habakkuk 2:20 - 3:1 20 But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."
5. Discovering the Plot
Luke 24:27 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
The Scarlet Thread
Redemptive-historical method – All Scripture is about Christ
John 5:38-40 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
1 Peter 1:10-12 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
The Central Character
How the New Testament Preaches the Old
Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15
1 Corinthians 10:4
Acts throughout
The need for Systematic Theology to govern our interpretations of specific texts
[Magee – The danger of preaching your systematic theology rather than the text]
Redemptive Historical Interpretation
What is John 4:21-23 actually about?
Moralizing
Allegorizing – too subjective
Psychologizing
Pet issues
God’s point in God’s story
Suggestions for Christ-Centered
1. OT and NT
2. Consider stage of redemptive history in the passage
3. How do I find myself in Christ in this passage?
4. Read and hear the Bible with the church throughout history.
5. Read and hear prayerfully.
Part 2 – Signs and Seals of the Covenant – The Ministry of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
6. Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
Historical importance of Word and sacrament
Pietism
American Revivalism
What do the Scriptures teach?
Baptism and the Bible
The Old Testament not only promised the Covenant of Grace – signs and seals
Circumcision
Sign: Somewhere between a symbol and the thing signified
Seal: Confidence, Relationship, Consecration
Genesis 15, 17, 22.
Malachi 3:1-3, John 1:17, 1:24-27, 29, 33
John 3
Acts 2
Titus 3:5-7
Galatians 3:27
Hebrews 10:29 – do not count the blood of the covenant a common thing
Practical Questions
Not all
In defense of infant baptism
8 points
Water Is (or Should Be) Thicker than Blood
Are you baptized? Not – are you from my heritage group?
7. A Table in the Wilderness
Psalm 78:19 19 They spoke against God, saying, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
Institution of Passover
Redemption from
Institution of the Lord’s Supper
The Cross
Fervent Desire of Christ
The Nature of the Supper
Various Views
The Role of the Holy Spirit
The Benefits of the Supper
1 Corinthians 10-11
Taking Advantage of God’s Provision
John 6
Psalm 34:8 taste and see
Part 3 – Our Reasonable Service – Getting Involved in the Drama
8. Tasting the Powers of the Age to Come
Hebrews 6 “enlightened”=baptism, “tasted the heavenly gift”=Lord’s Supper
Eschatology – the powers of the age to come… For what can I hope?
Two Ages
This age and the age to come
Before the ages (pre-history)
Between the exodus and the Promised Land – Already and not yet
Contrasting Eschatologies and Their Implications for Worship:
The Church and the Believer in the
Over-realized Eschatology (
Under-realized Eschatology (URE) – pre (expecting for the tribulation)
Word and Sacrament (WS)
Evangelism and Church Growth
URE: Pessimistic
The Christian Life
URE: Antinomianism
Weekly Worship
URE: Forgetting about mediation between God and man
WS: He is not here. He is risen!
The Age of the Spirit
The Spirit descended at Pentecost to unite a new humanity around the common fact of redemption, uniting Jew and Gentile in Christ
Walk/live in the Spirit – not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh
[Magee: Eph 5 – filled with Spirit: worship, thanks, submission]
Tasting eternity by faith in worship
9. What Should Our Service Look Like?
Old Testament versus New Testament Worship
The torn curtain in the
Hebrews 12:18-24
Not all discontinuity
[Magee: See Old, Worship – OT, Inter-Test Synagogue, NT,…]
The Elements
The Invocation – Call to Worship from the Scriptures
God’s Greeting (The Votum) – declaring God’s goodwill to the assembly
The
The Confession and Absolution – public declaration that God has forgiven our sins
The Pastoral Prayer
The Preached Word
The Ministry of the Lord Supper
Thanksgiving and Offerings
The Benediction
Concluding Thoughts
Don’t presume that a biblically-based liturgy will be impossible to institute
Acts 2:41-42, 47
10. Is Style Neutral?
People of the book not people of the image
Style Matters
Gravitas – weightiness
Explicit rejection and trivialization
Style and the Character of God
Weighty God – weighty forms of worship
The Role of Tradition
Problem of ignoring tradition and embracing the culture (without recognizing it)
What about the Setting?
The pulpit, the table, and the font
Architectural prominence to Word and Sacrament
Theatre and entertainment message
Does the furniture and its placement indicate that this is God’s stage and not ours?
Music Matters
Traditional versus contemporary labels are not adequate
Organ only? Old hymns that are folksy?
Music and the Logic of Marketing
Age segmentation
Ken Meyers – Popular culture, because of its commercial sensibilities maintains a preference for the upbeat, the informal, the new and interesting.
MTV way of conveying an idea – thin plot – enticing images – Can this work for the Christian faith – plot intensive – image prohibitive
Not age of music but durability should be the issue – Can anyone imagine a given form being around 500 years later? If not, why would we use it?
Triumph of me-centered therapeutic forms.
High culture, folk, and pop
Delayed gratification of form (in literature and music) and emotional depth
Colossians 3:16 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
So Where Now?
No short cut to serious reflection, study, and prayer
Pep talk or sermon – Which is right for a covenant renewal meeting?
Pop jingle or received musical excellence – Which is right for a covenant renewal meeting
11. Taking a Break from the Buzz
No time for Sabbath? We keep on trying the latest spiritual diet plan.
The true, good, beautiful, versus The useful, preferred, stimulating
What’s All the Buzz About?
Not this theology versus that theology, but “Who needs any theology?”
A responsibility to viewers to do the relevant – how does this work in the church?
Reel Time
Stepping into the time that God has set aside for our fellowship with Him
Rest for the Weary
The Sabbath and the Week
Hebrews 4:1-10
Each Lord’s Day is a little Easter
The Very Good Day and the anticipated Very Best Day of Consummation Rest
Structuring Our Sabbath, or Being Structured by It
Because we are weak
Every day is the Lord’s day à No day is the Lord’s day
We Have Time
Heaven: a busy place – just no sin
Start with Sunday in the battle for time
“Home Schooling”: Recovering the Disciplined Art of Catechism
A “big picture” grasp of the whole Bible
Catechesis – an ancient method of learning
12. Reaching the Lost Without Losing the Reached
The problem of unchurching the churched rather than reaching the unchurched
Seekers or Tourists
See
Belief without the commitment of relationship
When Relevance Becomes Irrelevant
Christ and Him crucified versus humanity and it improved
Start preaching to the baptized
Is what the preacher has to say more important and more interesting than what God has to say?
Adam Raccoon at
Practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture in preaching
Fatalism or Reformation?
Give in to functional illiteracy or challenge cultural accomadation
Back to stained glass windows – just with technology
Is the audience sovereign?
“The data says” versus “Thus says the Lord”
And Now for Something Completely Different
Cutting-edge liturgies? – the unchurched can find better entertainment elsewhere
The centrality of the truth of redemption
The integration of the generations around classic Christian truths and forms
God’s kingdom does not fall and rise according to the demographics of a given generation.
A Few Ideas
1. Daily instruction of the youth
2. Word-centered innovation (example of question and answer box used by Rick Phillips – answering one question before every evening service)
3. Distinguish between covenant renewal ceremony and outreach
4. Radio
5. New attitudes toward the believing community – not beasts of burden for outreach, but precious treasure that God has entrusted to the church’s care
Reaching the Reached
No pain no gain
The importance of elders and deacons for the renewal of the church
The Theology of the Cross
Mark 10:35-45
Cross now, but glory later that comes from the cross
Some insist on glory now, and bring a different theology into the church
Exodus 15:1-2 ESV Exodus 15:1 Then Moses and the people of
Closing Thoughts (Magee):
1. Worship is a way of life to be lived
2. Far from minimizing the covenant renewal meeting, this is a fount of blessing flowing from Christ
3. Word, Sacrament, and Corporate Prayer
4. Let’s not be ignorant about consumer-oriented popular culture and the forms it produces, largely unsuitable for serving a weighty eternal God. Not everything we sing needs to be 500 years old, but it should be the sort of thing that people might sing for the next 500 years.
5. What is so bad with letting the worship and ministry of the church be driven by Christ speaking through the Scriptures.
6. Let’s remember that we are speaking to the baptized.
7. May we see God build us up in faith, hope, and love, as we truly seek to follow Him.
