On Inerrancy

On 100 Years of Church Changes: 1910 v. 2010

1910 (Christians in North America)	2010 (Christians in North America)
62% Protestant	25% Protestant (60% drop)
22% Catholic	35% Catholic (60% rise)
10% Independent Christians	31% Independent (210% rise)
4% Anglican	1% Anglican (75% drop)
1% Orthodox	3% Orthodox (200% rise)
1% Marginal (Mormons, etc.)	5% Marginals (400% rise) (Mormons, etc.)

Source

Steve Job’s Gospel

As remarkable as Steve Jobs is in countless ways—as a designer, an innovator, a (ruthless and demanding) leader—his most singular quality has been his ability to articulate a perfectly secular form of hope. Nothing exemplifies that ability more than Apple’s early logo, which slapped a rainbow on the very archetype of human fallenness and failure—the bitten fruit—and made it a sign of promise and progress.

Steve Jobs was the evangelist of this particular kind of progress—and he was the perfect evangelist because he had no competing source of hope. In his celebrated Stanford commencement address (which is itself an elegant, excellent model of the genre), he spoke frankly about his initial cancer diagnosis in 2003. It’s worth pondering what Jobs did, and didn’t, say:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” 

This is the gospel of a secular age. It has the great virtue of being based only on what we can all perceive—it requires neither revelation nor dogma. And it promises nothing it cannot deliver—since all that is promised is the opportunity to live your own unique life, a hope that is manifestly realizable since it is offered by one who has so spectacularly succeeded by following his own “inner voice, heart and intuition.”

Source: Andy Crouch, The Gospel of Steve Jobs, Christianity Today Magazine [online]

Billy Graham on Regrets

If you could, would you go back and do anything differently?

Yes, of course.

I’d spend more time at home with my family, and I’d study more and preach less. I wouldn’t have taken so many speaking engagements, including some of the things I did over the years that I probably didn’t really need to do—weddings and funerals and building dedications, things like that. Whenever I counsel someone who feels called to be an evangelist, I always urge them to guard their time and not feel like they have to do everything.

I also would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.

Source: Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Q & A: Billy Graham on Aging, Regrets, and Evangelicals, Christianity Today Magazine [online version].

On Husbands

[Note: the context for these thoughts were set in my post On Adam]

What should a Christian husband look like? Should he be domineering? Should he be a doormat? Is there another option?

There are several passages in the Bible that talk about the husband being the head of the wife.  For example, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:3…

“But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

He also says in Ephesians 5:22-33

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

These passages are not speaking of a selfish or controlling headship, but rather one of willingness to assume responsibility and one of self-sacrifice, like Christ’s headship over the His people. Here’s the point: the husband is to be the head of his wife (i.e., a prophet, priest, and king) by putting his wife in the crosshairs of the Gospel of grace and the repentance and forgiveness that flows from it.

Here are some specific thoughts on how the husband is prophet, priest, and king to his wife.

1. The husband as prophet: If a prophet speaks God’s words, the husband as prophet is to speak God’s words to his wife. Specifically, he speaks the words of the Gospel of grace and forgiveness into her life.
2. The husband as priest: If a priest is one who serves God, especially by interceding on another’s behalf, the husband as priest is to pray for his wife.
3. The husband as king: If a king is to rule/lead and provide a defense, the husband is to rule by setting an example of the Gospel by demonstrating grace, repentance, and forgiveness to his wife.

Here is a final thought by Tim Keller:

“The key to a marriage is simply reenacting the gospel to each other. You can talk about communication skills or other stuff, and they’re all good, but basically knowing how to forgive and knowing how to repent… If you both can forgive and repent, it doesn’t matter how different you are, you’ll be okay. Two Christians who are married [can make it], no matter how incompatible… if you can repent and forgive” (Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition National Conference, 2009).

 

On Our Main Problem

“The main problem in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not ‘used’ the gospel in and on all parts of our life.”

— Timothy Keller
“The Centrality of the Gospel”

 

Swagger Wagon

Being the proud owner of a Toyota Sienna, I know all about the swagger wagon effect.  There has been many times Chrissie and I have broken out in this song. See below.

On Another Tragic Loss

A portion of a woman’s letter to her newborn 3 lb. daughter named Audrey.

Your sisters were a little nervous when they came, but as they looked you over, God showed them who you were. The peace that had filled the room for the entire day rested on them, and they began to laugh and to talk to you as they would any other new baby. They each held you carefully, and kissed your sweet, clean skin. While they were all gathered around me on the bed, your nurse Candace came to listen to your heart. I asked her to be sensitive because of the girls, and after listening for a few minutes, she told me quietly that you were gone. The girls never knew that they had been present for that moment, and I thank God that He took you that way. There was never anything but peace. We sang over you as God welcomed you into heaven.

Jesus, you have brought us the rain and we praise You for it. We lift up the God that made us strong enough to love our little girl the way she deserved to be loved.  And we trust that You will continue to use her as a vessel of your goodness, of your faithfulness. Lord, you have shown me that when this life is empty, you will fill.  You have walked with us in a way we could never have imagined. What seemed like a cross to bear has now taken the shape of a great blessing which we are honored to have been a part of. Thank you, Lord. You are the light of our lives, now and forever.

To read the full letter, click HERE.

On Missional Schools

WORLD Magazine’s Anthony Bradley on the importance of planting Christians schools along with planting churches.

Outside of a church, there is no better way, institutionally speaking, to demonstrate love for our neighbors than to provide education that surpasses failing public schools in quality and virtue, especially in inner cities. Planting churches simply is not enough to affect social change. By not having “salt and light” Christian schools (Matthew 5:13-16) we are squandering an opportunity to do much good for our society. It is strategic to note that whoever teaches the nation’s children shapes the future of the culture.

Source: Anthony Bradley, A Missional Approach to Education, WORLD Magazine, 1/19/11.

This Is Just Sickening

DA: Pa. abortion doc killed 7 babies with scissors

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A doctor who provided abortions for minorities, immigrants and poor women in a “house of horrors” clinic has been charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell’s employees also were charged.

Gosnell “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” Williams said.

Patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, where Gosnell performed dozens of abortions a day, prosecutors said. He mostly worked overnight hours after his untrained staff administered drugs to induce labor during the day, they said.

Early last year, authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic and stumbled on what Williams called a “house of horrors.”

Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses “were scattered throughout the building,” Williams said. “There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose.”

Click HERE to keep reading if you can stomach it.

Source: Associated Press, DA: Pa. abortion doc killed 7 babies with scissors, 1/19/31.