church

Justin Holcomb reflecting on Acts 2:1-13:

Since the time of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9), the nations of the earth were divided by language, unable to come together as a result of their rebellion against God. In the Old Testament we learn that God singled out the Jewish nation to deliver his blessing to the world, and therefore the good news of God’s grace was originally communicated only in the Hebrew language. With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, however, the curse of Babel begins to unravel. No longer is the gospel confined to Hebrew; it is available directly to all nations and all languages. A new age has begun! One day Christ’s reign will be fully realized, and the effects of sin will fall away completely.

The story in Acts is also our story, because we are participating in God’s story. The descent of the Spirit on these apostles is really the birth story of all who are in Christ. If this had never happened, if God had not looked on Christ’s work on the cross and said “It is good,” raised him from the dead, and set him at his right side to pour out his Spirit on his people, then we would still be dead in our sins. We would still be without the spiritual life of the new birth, lost and without hope.¹

Happy Day of Pentecost!

Footnotes

1. From The ESV Daily Devotional New Testament, whose notes and reflections were adapted from The Gospel Transformation Bible. Justin Holcomb is the contributor for the Gospel Transformation Bible’s notes on the book of Acts, so I have attributed the quote to him here. ↩

Derek Rishmawy:

There is something broken about us.

What’s more, much that falls in this overall category of “sinful” behavior, thoughts, etc. which we speak of in euphemism, does have a non-culpable, psychological and medical component which should be dealt with as such. This should impact the way we pastor, counsel, and evaluate others in the Church. Some do struggle against heavier burdens. Telling someone to repent themselves out of a behavior linked to a chemical imbalance or childhood trauma is a recipe for pastoral malpractice. These things do need treatment, healing (human and divine).

But these euphemisms have their limits and so cannot replace or dominate our vocabulary for sin. This is so for at least a couple of reasons.

Not only “broken,” but also “bent.”

Jen Pollock Michel interviews Andy Crouch on his new book, The Tech-Wise Family:

[Andy:] Whenever you raise a criticism about technology, people will commonly say, “Well, technology can be used for good or for bad.” But I think more interesting questions are, “What is technology good for?” and “What is technology bad for?” Technology is good for lots of things. But what it is not good for—and perhaps what it is actively bad for—is the formation of persons. And where are people formed most intensively? For all of us, that is in the context of family. That’s where the dangers and limitations of technology become most evident. I’m much less concerned about how we use technology when we’re waiting in a line at the airport, even though I don’t deny that there is something formative (and de-formative) about needing my screen to distract me when I feel the least soupçon of boredom. But that is not as critical as [the family context].

26 From Attalia Paul and Barnabas sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. 27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.

Then…

In Acts 14, the first-century urban church planters, Paul and Barnabas, gather together members from a partnering congregation to celebrate the accomplished work of new churches planted and new believers baptized. The preceding verses tell more of the story: despite the cost of much time, effort, resources, prayer, and profound hardship, local churches were successfully established in cities throughout the region. New Christians were born and new leaders were appointed.

Now…

With present trends like unprecedented urban population growth, rapid globalization, and ever-shifting cultural values, the complexity of ministry and church planting in today’s world can seem daunting. For this reason, stories like this one Acts 14 are crucial because they serve as reminders that establishing new churches has always been deeply challenging, and it is always accomplished only by God’s grace. In particular, these verses display a beautiful purpose, an astonishing potential, and the sustaining power for church planting:

• Purpose of church planting: “opening a door of faith” (verse 27) and
• Potential of church planting: “completed work” (verse 26).
• Power for church planting: “the grace of God” (verse 26).

A few weeks ago, I was reminded again of this purpose, potential, and power while I visiting a church that my wife and I helped to plant in the Mexico City Valley. I was there to celebrate the church’s was tenth anniversary, and I found myself emotionally overcome — not with the magnitude of the task at hand, but with the magnitude of the work completed: more than 250 gathered together, a dozen home groups, a local eldership and pastorate, and local resources providing for the church’s numerous ministries. I was, like Paul and Barnabas before me, able to participate not only in the labor of church planting, but in the celebration of the completed work of a church being established by the grace of God.

Then and Now…

It’s startling how little has changed since the first century: we’re still traveling, training, preaching, confronting obstacles, allocating resources, and appointing local leaders (Acts 14:23) for churches in population centers where people might otherwise never encounter a compelling case for Christianity. Like the churches planted in Acts, God is actively working to bring his work to beautiful completion in Cape Town, Harlem, Lagos, Paris, and too many other places to list.¹

And like the partner church in Antioch, established churches today play a critical part in God’s work of grace through their giving, fasting, and praying (Acts 14:23) for the sake of new churches and leaders. All of this — the planters and the supporters, by God’s gracious action — are helping to write a “book of Acts” for the 21st century.

Footnotes

1. Why these particular cities? The organization I work for is helping to plant churches in these cities in 2017, so they are places that I’ve been thinking about lately. ↩

Aanna Greer on talking to your kids about sexuality:

The truth is that your kids will sin and eventually they will sin sexually. No amount of preparation or good parenting will prevent this. Make sure that you yourself have a biblical perspective on sin and grace and that you teach this to your children. Sin is wrong, but God’s grace is big. Don’t let them ever believe the lie that they must be perfect in order to be loved and accepted by God or by you. As a parent, you should expect them to sin. It is not your children’s good behavior, but the power of the cross that saves them.

Watch on Vimeo

Excellent presentation of the biblical perspective of marriage from Kings Church.

John Stott addressing All Souls Church in 2006:

This is very interesting that none of the four evangelists said that Jesus “died.” Nowhere in the gospels is it stated that “he died.” They seem to deliberately avoid the verb, because they don’t want to give the impression that in the end death claimed him, and that he had to yield to its authority. No, no. Death did not claim him as its victim; instead he seized it as its Victor.

C.S. Lewis:

Then we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, “The importance of the Resurrection is that is gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.” On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ’s case we were privileged to see it happening. This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door, which had always been locked, had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe. Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into “ghost” and “corpse.” A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?¹

Footnotes

1. From the essay, “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?” In Undeceptions, 1950. ↩

Isaiah 25:7-8:

7  And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8  He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

John Wesley, in his sermon Salvation by Faith on Ephesians 2:8 (italics mine):

[T]hat faith which the Apostles themselves had while our Lord was on earth… acknowledges the necessity and merit of his death, and the power of his resurrection. It acknowledges his death as the only sufficient means of redeeming man from death eternal, and his resurrection as the restoration of us all to life and immortality; inasmuch as he “was delivered for our sins, and rose again for our justification.” Christian faith is then, not only an assent to the whole gospel of Christ, but also a full reliance on the blood of Christ; a trust in the merits of his life, death, and resurrection; a recumbency upon him as our atonement and our life, as given for us, and living in us; and, in consequence hereof, a closing with him, and cleaving to him, as our “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” or, in one word, our salvation.¹

Footnotes

1. (2011-09-01). The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization (p. 473). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ↩

John Stott in The Cross of Christ:

…[T]here is of course a great danger of presumption. This is partly because what actually happened when ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ’ is a mystery whose depths we shall spend eternity plumbing; and partly because it would be most unseemly to feign a cool detachment as we contemplate Christ’s cross. For willy-nilly we are involved. Our sins put him there. So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness. We can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit. And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts his word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by his love and brimful of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in his service.¹

Footnotes

1. Stott, John (2012-12-28). The Cross of Christ (p. 12). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. ↩

Excerpt from Gregory of Nazianzus at Think Theology:

He was tempted as Man, but he conquered as God. He hungered, but he fed thousands. He thirsted, but he cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” He was wearied, but he is the Rest of them that are weary and heavy laden. He was heavy with sleep, but he walked lightly over the sea; he rebuked the winds, and he made Peter light as he began to sink.

Reminds me of Augustine’s Confessions:

Do greater things contain more of thee, and smaller things less? Or, is it not rather that thou art wholly present everywhere, yet in such a way that nothing contains thee wholly? . . . What, therefore, is my God? . . . most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present . . . unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new . . . always working, ever at rest . . . seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion . . . Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee?¹

Footnotes

1. (2011-09-01). The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization (p. 105). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ↩

John Perkins:

There is no alternative to these times. They develop our character and mold our calling. We have to go through a sifting process whereby God alone is the object of our desires, passions, and motives to serve. This process culminates in the refiner’s fire, where all the impurities are painfully burned from the metal until eventually there is the prize of pure, undefiled gold. I say these words not as one who has acquired this undefiled status but as one who is still being tried by the fire.

We do, of course, have One who has gone before. Jesus was despised and rejected. He did not manage his aloneness as super-God. No, he asked the disciples three times to stay awake with him as he pled for mercy. He screamed out in agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(Matt. 27:46), while the crowds looked on in shame and mocked this pitiful, naked criminal who went about claiming to be God. Three times he asked his friend Peter, “Do you really love me?”(John 21:15–17). Denied that love at his most vulnerable hour, Jesus pursued their friendship even after his resurrection.¹

Footnotes

1. Perkins, John (1993-07-01). Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development (pp. 175-176). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ↩

Ben Sasse speaking about “what Washington has to do with Jerusalem:”

Increasingly, we live in an age when people want to project great meaning on politics. This won’t work. We live in a time when people want the dividing line — the Manichaean line between good and evil — to run between political parties. It’s not going to fulfill them. It’s not going to satisfy them. We live in an age that yearns for a city that has foundations; that’s normal, that’s natural…

Update: During the interview portion, Sasse is asked what’s been surprising as a senator. His response: “I’ve realized that if you say, ‘Washington shouldn’t be your god,’ that some people respond that they want to kill you. That’s a surprise.”

CS Lewis:

If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy that excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question.¹

Footnotes

1. CS Lewis, Miracles, pp. 1-2 ↩