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Sam and Soph

Dever on relevancy and faithfulness

We've been discussing relevance and culture and the mission of the church in the thread below. I read an article by Mark Dever today that was most helpful. (h/t Craig).

Here's a bit to get you thinking.

"On the other hand, I am concerned about those who, in the name of evangelism, alter everything in their churches’ services to make the non-Christian feel more at home, all the while, ironically, assuming that everybody sufficiently understands the gospel. In other words, they don’t preach the whole counsel of God, and they do not speak week after week about God’s holy character, his holy wrath, his love made all the more astounding in light of his holiness, and his remarkable act of substitution on the cross. Like I already said, read their books and attend their conferences and you learn that they apparently think that knowing how to "be relevant" is the church’s major challenge. Holding onto the gospel, it would seem, is comparatively easy.

Consider what might actually be happening to the gospel message when all our effort goes into changing the "presentation" until we successfully yield a response from carnal man. Might we
not actually be at risk of changing the message itself?"

Mark Dever

Read more here.

10 points for anyone who knows me well enough to get the joke with the picture

Two Firsts!

I've never played Tennis before. (gasp!) I've never been the sporty type, although I've played a lot of tabletennis. I'm having my first hit this afternoon with a guy from our Bible Study who's gone Tennis Crazy in the last few weeks, and wants a hitting partner. Should be fun!

After that another mate is coming over for some coffee roasting and Bible reading. Despite being a professional barista in my life before full time ministry, I've never actually roasted coffee before. Will let you know how it goes!

My space...

...is so cluttered and jumbled (click here). I just don't get what the attraction is...?

Driscoll on the Emerging Church

I've been trying to find something to help me understand the 'emerging church' in a simple way for quite some time now. This video helped me to at least start getting my head around this complicated concept.
A major problem seems to be the terminology - emerging has three differnt strands, and then there is 'emergent' which sounds the same but seems to be the one to be wary of. As Driscoll says: "They tend to be more liberal on such things as substitutionary atonement, authority of scripture, exclusivity of Christ, and original sin...". The other branches seem to be more interested in rethinking the practices of church meetings and evangelism to reach a younger, non-churched generation of society. Thoughts?

P.S this is our 100th post! Hooray!

New stuff from Sovereign Grace

I've loved learning some Sovereign Grace songs at church this year. They've just released a new album called Valley of Vision which looks promising. The CD is founded upon the prayers of Puritans like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, and Isaac Watts among others. Origianlly published in a book of the same name, now Sovereign Grace have put these prayers to music, and they sound great. I really like 'Let your Kingdom Come'. I hope we pick up some of these for church soon.

Desiring God

Last night at Bible study, we did a one off study on John Piper. In our group planning at the start of the year, our group decided that they would like to learn about some theologians in the weeks between our regular studies. So, having finished Ephesians and having had a social last week, we took to John Piper last night.
We listened to this sermon as a group and then discussed the ideas that it raised. Basically the sermon is the grounds for the first chapter of the book Desiring God.

One verse that Piper refers to in the sermon really resonated with me . Piper had set forth the problem of our sin before God. How can we possibly have confidence that God will forgive us? Is it that God has a duty to forgive us? Is he bound by some heavenly set of rules that force him to be merciful?
Answer: Jeremiah 9:24, "'I am the Lord who performs mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things I delight' says the Lord."

God delights in showing us mercy. He loves to do it. He is not, in Piper terms, a 'gloomy God'. He loves to show mercy. He loves to forgive. It brings God joy to be merciful. Thanks be to God that he loves to be merciful!

Blogger Beta

Google is taking over the world.

Blogger Beta has been released. You can tour the features here.
It looks cool, and Google own it.