Recommendation and Review: Making Senses Out of Scripture by Mark P. Shea

1687lg.jpgA large part of my ministry is involved in teaching Bible survey to high school students. Last year, I expanded that ministry to teaching an adult Bible survey course. Along the way, I’ve been on the lookout for resources that accomplish some of the important tasks involved in teaching an overview and basic understanding of the Bible. In the past, I’ve recommended books like the Ryken Bible Handbook as helpful to anyone wanting a basic Bible textbook. I’ve also endorsed the ESV Literary Study Bible, which contributes much of the same material in a no-headings Biblical text format.

I’ve been on the lookout for a book that embodies my own approach to the Bible as a whole, resolves some of the important misconceptions and problems people bring to the Bible and, most importantly, containing a basic, readable, thematic overview of the Bible in approximately a hundred pages. Many of you will be surprised to hear that I’ve found an excellent book covering those areas and others in Mark Shea’s Making Senses Out of Scripture.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: Making Senses Out of Scripture by Mark P. Shea”

The Temptation to Quit

drinkbox.jpgUPDATE: I’ve written several things convincing myself to stay. Here’s one of my favorites: Thomas Merton and the Greener Grass That Wasn’t.

UPDATE II: Here’s another one: When Loving You is Killing Me.

I suppose every person in ministry is strongly tempted to quit from time to time. Not quit as in “send out a resume, start looking for a job” quit, but “walk out today” quit.

I’ve got a pastor friend who fought with his church for most of two decades about fundamental decisions about the church’s future. No one paid much attention, and one Sunday he preached what was on his heart (as we say in Southern Baptist land), closed his Bible and walked out the center aisle, out the front door, never to come back to that pulpit. He never regretted it, and he was satisfied he’d done the right thing.

I tend to believe he did, but most of the time I’ve entertained that same fantasy, I can’t say it would have been the right thing to do. I’ve known several ministers who quit on the spot (or close enough to it that it felt the same.) I can’t say they were doing the right thing.Continue reading “The Temptation to Quit”

Stranger than Fiction: Lessons From The “Case” Against Tim Challies

superstock_1749-118.jpgPlease have a seat, class. Today’s lecture isn’t on the printed syllabus.

Every so often, something reeeeeeeeally interesting happens in the comments of the Reformed (truly or otherwise) blogosphere, and such an episode occurred at Justin Taylor’s blog over the past couple of days.

To make an inexplicable story more simple, several commenters wanted to know where one Tim Challies- a lowly Canadian layman, web designer and blogger- got the (and here I choose my word carefully) “authority” to write a book on spiritual discernment.

Chew on that one a while, astute observers of Calvinism. Where did that ordinary Christian writer get the “authority” to talk to us like he’s up there with the Macarthurs and the Pipers?Continue reading “Stranger than Fiction: Lessons From The “Case” Against Tim Challies”

Tune In January 17th: Tim Challies Blog Tour Stops Here For Gossip, Brawling and Real Questions

tim-challies.jpgI’m honored to be one of the stops on the “Tim Challies Blog Tour” promoting his new book, The Discipline of Discernment. I’ll be asking the questions and he’ll be answering me in Canadian, but I’ll get a translator.

Tim and I probably don’t see eye to eye on a lot of subjects, but I’m happy to help him promote his book, which I want to recommend to IM readers as a well-written, thorough look at a very controversial topic in evangelicalism, and especially in the blogosphere. Tim told me he expected no softballs here in the Internet Monk compound, and I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Since Tim and I are opposite numbers in much of Reformed blogosphere, I expect this to be an interesting post.

So check out the book and be back here on the 17th for all the fireworks as we finally learn things such as what rotten names Tim’s wife calls him when she’s mad and what the heck is so great about Tim Horton’s?

A Lectionary F.A.Q.

ist2_57158_lectionary.jpgUPDATE: Josh S does some “lectionary criticism” at his blog. Just so you know it’s not a flawless medium. Even with the flaws, I recommend using it. I also recommend “filling in the gaps” whenever possible.

Sam is a worship leader at a local Southern Baptist church, and he called me tonight to talk about the lectionary. He’s just discovered it, and his questions reminded me that some of you reading this web site have no idea what a lectionary is or how it can be used.

So here’s an F.A.Q. on the lectionary, aimed at beginners, but hopefully helpful to all of you on the post-evangelical(*) journey. (I’ll be generously borrowing from other sources in some of my answers.)Continue reading “A Lectionary F.A.Q.”

Riffs: 01:02:08: Rocks Crying Out

joel-and-victoria.jpgUPDATE: There are many Joel Osteen posts at IM. Here’s one of the latest. Links will take you to others.

Commenters whose comment amounts to “Jesus wouldn’t be blogging” should not be surprised that I do not post your comment. I don’t want to draw you into this abyss of sin.

Slate Magazine’s Chris Lehmann tears into Osteen with all the truthfulness and disgust that thousands of evangelical pastors and teachers can’t seem to find.

This is a must read. Since Christian leaders can’t seem to speak out against an outright denial of the Gospel, rocks are going to have to speak up.Continue reading “Riffs: 01:02:08: Rocks Crying Out”

Proverbs For Christianity’s Angry Young (and Old) Men

grouppc.jpg***Big Time Humor Alert*** Today, the Internet Monk Web Site ™ brings a special gift of proverbial, anecdotal and Zen-like wisdom as a gift for those angry young (and not so young) men who are burning down churches to make room for coffee shops.

Put on some punk rock, light the incense sticks and turn down the lights so I can see that Che poster in black light. Thank you.

(If you can’t remember these bits of wisdom, they will be available in my new book, Wisdom for Angry Guys Who Are Really Angry, coming to a bookstore near you.)

Lo, the Proverbs appeareth. (How can these things be, since I have not known a man? Seriously.)

He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it. (Wait. How did that get in here?)

George Barna will surely refute- with unassailable statistical evidence- any book with his name on it within ten years of its publication.Continue reading “Proverbs For Christianity’s Angry Young (and Old) Men”

Riffs: 01:01:08: Losing the Treasure of a Christ-Centered Assurance of Salvation

i-beli8.jpgUPDATE: John H has a helpful Lutheran response.

UPDATE II: A Lutheran view of Assurance.

UPDATE III: Mark Shea comments on assurance in Calvinism and Catholicism. I think Mark’s experience with Calvinism is not very nuanced, but it’s on target. (Buy the Rosenbladt presentation.)

Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

A. That I belong–body and soul, in life and in death–not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q. 2. How many things must you know that you may live and die in the blessedness of this comfort?

A. Three. First, the greatness of my sin and wretchedness. Second, how I am freed from all my sins and their wretched consequences. Third, what gratitude I owe to God for such redemption.

-The Heidelberg Catechism

Eric Thoennes from Talbot is writing at CT answering the question how do you know you are a Christian if you can’t remember when you made your “decision.” I appreciate his desire to address an important question.

It’s the ever-present evangelical struggle with assurance. With our differing view of sacramental effacacy, most evangelicals get tossed back to their experience of conversion, hence the stereotypical “testimony of getting saved,” an evangelical sacrament if there ever was one. Many of us abandoned that approach long ago in our own rejection of the errors of revivalism and good riddance. But what does that leave us with? Thoennes says the answer is sanctification, i.e. “growth” in being like Jesus and in the fruit of the Spirit.Continue reading “Riffs: 01:01:08: Losing the Treasure of a Christ-Centered Assurance of Salvation”